One of India’s architectural marvels is the city of Jaipur. It is home to some of the country’s most beautiful royal palaces and ornate structures built hundreds of years ago that continue to enthrall visitors today.
Jaipur is surrounded by the city wall and several forts, which mainly were erected in the 1700s on the orders of Rajput king Sawai Raja Jai Singh II. However, due to the usage of gridiron city design, it was deemed ahead of its time when it was built as a commercial center in the state of Rajasthan.
The city of Jaipur is renowned as the “Pink City” because of its lovely dusty pink color, which has distinguished it since 1876 when it was painted pink to welcome Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert.
The “Pink City” is how Jaipur is known. Victor Cheng is responsible for this image.
Photographers Victor Cheng and Samantha Wong from Hong Kong were drawn to Rajasthan’s capital by its architectural grandeur.
The couple, who have a combined 130,000 Instagram followers, said the photographs they snapped in Jaipur generated a phenomenal response online, substituting century-old royal palaces and medieval forts for towering towers.
“The response [to our Jaipur images] has been incredible, almost insane,” Cheng added. “Many of our fans had never seen this side of India before, so we’re glad we were able to present it to them.”
The ‘Pink City’
The pastel pink color of the city’s buildings is one of the city’s most attractive features for photographers.
“When you arrive, the first gates you see are pink,” Wong explained. “When you’re done, everything around you is varied hues of pink, from bright pinks to reddish browns.”
The famous Hawa Mahal, a pink palace that received hundreds of comments within days of being shared on social media, was especially popular.
The structure, which was an extension of the City Palace, included windows that permitted royal women to see street activity without appearing in public. One of Cheng’s most striking photographs depicts the building’s straight facade and hundreds of windows.
“It wasn’t easy to get a good picture of it. We had to wait nearly an hour for the crowds to disperse so we could grab the beautiful photo across the street at a coffee shop with a rooftop, “Cheng stated.
Cheng was also driven to take a different approach to edit than he would with photographs of other cities because of the building’s bright color.
“Because the pink was so vibrant and saturated in actuality, I toned down my regular editing approach,” he explained. “I wanted the images to capture the color and tone of what I was experiencing in person.”
Complex symmetry
The city’s foundational structures were designed in the Rajasthani architectural style, which combines the intricate construction skills of Hindu Rajput architecture with the remarkable symmetry of Mughal design.
“A lot of the structures were meant to be quite symmetrical, which works out nicely from a photographer’s perspective,” Cheng added.
Rajasthani architecture, which mixes Rajput and Mughal design principles, is used to construct buildings in Jaipur. Victor Cheng is responsible for this image.
Cheng stated he didn’t have to put much effort into creating or staging his photographs because elaborate symmetrical structures surrounded him.
“It didn’t take much effort because all I had to do was stand in the middle, and my camera would record everything properly. We were able to catch the right photo because of the structures and colors.”
