📷 Granite and Water — Hampi, Karnataka · 11 Jun 2026
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Granite and Water
Hampi, Karnataka · landscape
A granite outcrop rises across a slow stretch of water, a fallen log in the foreground. The Hampi landscape, doing what Hampi does — geology arranged for the eye.
Hampi is famous for its temples, but the landscape underneath the temples is the actual miracle. The Tungabhadra river curves through a plain of granite outcrops that have been weathering for two billion years. The boulders stack themselves into arrangements that look almost deliberate, like a sculptor's storage yard. Whole hillsides are made of rocks the size of houses, balanced impossibly on one another.
This bend in the river had a long fallen tree on the bank, bleached white by sun and salt. The granite hill across the water rose in soft stacked layers. I shot in monochrome because the textures wanted to be the subject — the grass, the bark, the rock — and the colour version felt busy by comparison. The whole frame ended up looking like something out of a much older country, which is right. Hampi is one of the older countries.