Lookbook for unexplored streets of India

People are done looking at the Taj Mahal from straight angle. They still want to see the Taj Mahal but, if you just give a new perspective to the picture, people adore it and that generates a lot of engagement on the pictures,” says Mumbai based Rufus Reynolds, who along with Dikshit Mundra runs a travel photography page ‘streets.of.India’ on the social media portal Instagram.

In the constant yearning to explore the never talked of, never heard of, hidden streets in India, Reynolds and Mundra started their page to invite aspiring photographers and travellers to share their travel photographs.

“I have seen that many people seldom express proactively or come out in the open to discuss about their aspiration to travel. They always seek a companion and their decisions are based on that. So through these activities, we try to motivate and inspire people to just come out of their shell and travel alone and express,” explains Reynolds, who is also a social media executive in an MNC.

They call their page as “people oriented” where photographers and travellers share their photographs using the hashtag #_soi. In the past one year, four lakh photographs have been shared on the hashtag.

According to Reynolds, “it is the streets and highways that take you to your
destination.”

“A monument is on some street. A tourist place is on some street. And so is daily life. To explore you have to hit the streets and that’s why we call our page Streets of India,” he tells Metrolife.

On being asked on what basis they select the photographs, he says, “Of the 29 states and seven union territories in our country, our aim is to cover those places which have never been featured before.”

Along with featuring travel photography, Reynolds and Mundra also organise photo walks, photo trips, bike rides and college fests, inviting aspiring photographers and travellers to share ideas related to photography and their travel experiences.

Started on January 21, 2015, the page has garnered as many as 1,76,000 followers with its 953 posts showing some of the most vibrant and colourful parts of India. Streets of India is also on Facebook, but is comparatively less active than its Instagram page.

“Over the years, we realised that Facebook is saturated and is more of a place where people share their problems more than their life experiences. On Instagram, we have only pictures and their captions doing the talking. Moreover, since our page is about photography and travelling, we chose on sticking to the latter.”