I am often told that I am impatient, never quite rooted in the present, always looking forward to the next thing and constantly forgetting to enjoy the moment. This is true. So when G and I decided to head down to Lodhi Garden one Sunday evening in May for some tree watching, I decided to be good.
We pulled out our copy of ‘Buildings, Trees and Birds of Lodhi Garden’, a publication by INTACH, designed by the talented Oroon Das. The set of 3 booklets comes with a map designed by Lucy Peck, which was invaluable in identifying trees that caught our fancy. We did however have a hard time identifying some trees based solely on the written descriptions, and the 9 included illustrations seemed purely ornamental to the layout of the booklet, hardly helping with the 114 listed trees. Even a tiny sketch of the leaf or a prominent feature of the tree would have made our job much easier, giving us time to discover more trees.
Slow as it was, the process eventually worked and we found and identified a number of fascinating flora, and I even managed to take a few pictures of details I found interesting, like the illusion of ripples created by the leaves of the Neem tree. I was struck by the negative spaces I noticed in a cluster of leaves of the ‘Satpatia’ tree, which got me noticing these details more closely ever since and even led to a few abstract sketches and form explorations.
It felt good to revisit basic photography exercises from Design school and to rediscover textures, composition and a few things hidden in plain sight.
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