The Art of Kolam

If you're ever in Chennai during early January, you owe it to yourself to take a few hours and see the kolam before it's completed and judged as the process is interesting. As you can see, the powder must be well controlled by the fingers, if too much spills out it's nearly impossible to erase it w/o impacting the surrounding designs.

Scene from of the annual kolam competition in Mylapore (Chennai), India.

What's Kolam you ask? Most often done throughout southern India each morning by women (most of the time), Kolam is essentially chalk or rice powder that is geometrically laid out according to a pattern and then the lines are filled in by skilled fingers. Often the powdered material is colored and by 9am most have been trampled.

The best to to see them in a neighborhood setting is about 6:15am as they're being created. Kolam is done to usher in prosperity to the home.

The judging is completed by late morning and the winners are selected. Once night fall arrives, the winners have oil lamps lit on top of their creations. This post will make at least one person home-sick.

I used an improvised boom pole to get my camera about 12' of the ground which isn't easy to do in a crowd and of course, you can't just fly a drone over a crowd. The pole was actually a telescoping monopod upon which I rigged some paracord to help control the angle. It was not a comfortable setup as I rested the pole upon my chest and used a remote to trigger the camera each time.

#photography #travel #art #india #kolam