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 May 2015 below were the details of the pollution level:
SO2 - 17 ug / m3
NO2 - 35 ug / m3
RSPM - 74 ug / m3
"Sewage is of high economic value as it contains substances which go to enrich the soil. At present for want of sufficient land nearly four-fifths of the City sewage is being wasted by being let out into the sea. The Corporation may have to go about 4 or 5 miles to the north of the City to obtain sufficient land to deal with the whole of the City sewage, and the income derived from such a farm will not be sufficient to meet even the interest charges on the capital cost of land and works required to convey the sewage to that distance.
A less costly scheme to deal with the sewage in a more profitable way is being worked out. This is the 'Activated Sludge' process. The basic idea is to imitate the processes of nature and to separate the foul sewage into fairly clear water and sludge by using air and various bacterial forms.
The clear water is let out into any water course without causing any offence or used for irrigating gardens. The sludge is dewatered and sold as manure to agriculturalists."
The Official Handbook of the Corporation of Madras
Page 109-110
Ed. F.E. James
1933
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.