Robert D. Stephens is a Principal at RMA Architects, Mumbai. His passions include the art of building and constructing beauty through visual, literary, and cinematic imagery. In 2013 he co-produced a feature film with India's first You Tube star, Wilbur Sargunaraj, entitled "Simple Superstar".
The most unique feature of the photos is that they come with an index of the pollution levels in the city on the day that each picture was shot.
For this particular photo taken on June 2015 below were the details of the pollution level:
SO2 - 13 ug / m3
NO2 - 19 ug / m3
RSPM - 31 ug / m3
"Old Madras! What a multitude of associations are called up by the simple words; what curious pictures of the past flash before oureyes. Those who are old themselves will recall the days of their youth; the good old times of Elliot, of Munro, or of Lushington, when Hotels and Clubs were not, but when boundless hospitality, aristocratic exclusiveness, choice scandal, and occasional duels were the order of the day. But our present object would rather be to recall Madras in an age long antecedent to these comparatively tranquil times. We would endeavour to picture Madras as it was some two centuries ago; when Members of Council rode about in bullock bandies, and the guards of the President were armed with bows and arrows, swords and shields; when gentlemen wore large hose, ???peasecod bellied??? doublets, preposterous breeches, and hats with conical crowns and bunches offeathers; when the ladies, very few in number, wore long waisted stomachers and powerfully starched ruffs; when the Fort was nothing more than a fortified Factory, in which the Factors and Merchants bought and sold, gave their orders, and made theirpayments, just like any merchant firms of modern date; when all took their meals together, attended daily prayers, and lived like a little brotherhood, who were all kept under by a strict discipline, and who, but for the attractions of burnt wine, punch, native beauty, and occasional quarrels, may be said to have lived as sober and God fearing lives in this Presidency, as were led by their brethren in Leadenhall Street or Cheapside."
Madras in the Olden Time
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J.T. Wheeler.br.1861
About Madras Transit
After the mesmerising aerial photos of Mumbai in "Mumbai Articles", Robert D Stephens turns his bird's eye view on Chennai in his latest collection "Madras Transit".
Click links below to see his other collections:
Mumbai Articles Mumbai NorthThis urban metropolis has had many admirers-from Lady Callcott, an English travel writer who spent considerable time in India, ("I do not know anything more striking than the first approach to Madras..."), to the Indian writer and cartographer, S Muthiah, famous for his political and historical writings on the "city that is still open to the skies, a city that in some ways seems a rural town that has just kept spreading."
Stephen's homage to Chennai, one of the top 52 must-see places to feature in The New York Times, includes 24 aerial photographs in colour. From the geometric street grids of Anna Nagar, to the banks of the Adyar River and beyond, each image is accompanied by a record of air pollution levels on the corresponding day, as measured by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.
Our one-of-a-kind collection is a compelling invite to wander the streets of a city rapidly shrinking under the onslaught of globalisation.