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 - 15 ug / m3
NO2 - 17 ug / m3
RSPM - 49 ug / m3
"Perchance however our readers would like to step out of the Fort, and see a little of the country around. They must not go far, forthe Company's dominion only extends about a mile inland, and no man is allowed to go more than three miles from the Fort without permission of the Governor. Possibly however they may merely wish to go and peep into the gardens, where Writers and Factors occasionally assembled to drink down the sun, and sing such jolly ballads as "Ho Cavaliers," "Brandy nosed Noll," "Cheery ripe," or "Chevy Chase" according to the humour of the times. But even then we should advise them not to go too far. What they are likely to see will not do them much good. They had better stay with us, and look out upon the country around from the old ramparts of Fort St. George.
Fort St. George and White town were thus synonymous terms. In Europe the quarter was known as Fort St. George; but in India it was called White town, from its being occupied by Europeans.....To the north of White town was the much larger quarter which was occupied by the Natives, and which for the sake of distinction was called Black town. Here the houses and population had rapidly increased in numbers; and the streets bore a very different appearance from the collection of bamboo huts which rose up during the earlier days of the colony.
Such then were the White town and Black town of Madraspatanam in the reign of merry king Charles.... The times were rough, and the distance from Europe, and the absence of such female society as would have polished manners, rendered the little settlement rather tumultuous. Drunkenness, dueling, gaming, and licentiousness were all too common......"
Madras in the Olden Time
Page 56-60
J.T. Wheeler
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.