Sandy Chandler has been busy the past few months. No, make that real busy.
She participated in my Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo~Expedition & Workshop™ in October, and having produced a highly commendable black & white audio-slideshow (at top) during the workshop, also returned home with a trove of images and audio tracks recorded live during the two weeks in Kolkata.
Back home, she produced a more light hearted view of the festival which views it from what she calls "Another Side of Durga Puja", and features its mixture of spirituality and commerce.
As she describes it, "the annual Durga Puja festival in Kolkata celebrates Durga, archetype of Great Goddess Mahadevi of the Hindu Pantheon. The festival sees huge, elaborately crafted sculptures installed in homes and public spaces all over the city. At the end of the festival, the idols are paraded through the streets accompanied by music and dancing and then immersed into the Ganges river."
Sandy is currently working towards her MA in Art & Religion at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology (Graduate Theology Union) in Berkeley, and these slideshows are part of her projects for this degree.
Others would be resting on their laurels, but she also self-published an 80 pages book titled Durga Puja which can be bought from Blurb.
Sandy Chandler is an award-winning and passionate travel photographer. Her photography captures the souls and spirit of the land, its culture and people. Her previous photography books are Carnevale: The Fantasy of Venice and Calling the Soul:The Spirit of Bali Cremations.
