"The Jantar Mantar is a whole collection of instruments built on the same principle: astronomy. There’s one in Jaipur, one in Delhi, and one in Varanasi. There are five total—the other two are in Ujjain and Mathura. The one in Varanasi is in bad shape and very difficult to photograph. So I didn’t do it. The other two are nearly destroyed.
I have only one color photograph of the Jantar Mantar—the one in Delhi—which I shot because it looks so special and everybody who sees it thinks it’s a painting. It’s a deep red. The one in Jaipur is sort of a yellow ochre color. In Delhi, all the marble has been taken away; what’s left is concrete that’s repainted every few years. It’s rather decrepit. Just by looking at these photographs, you know what you’re looking at."
These photographs will be published in the book Jantar Mantar (Nazraeli Press), coming out this fall.