Taljai Hill
Forest inside the city — trails, tall trees and birds, and light that comes through in shafts rather than sheets.
- The first two hours after sunrise, while the light is still coming in low through the trees.
- Above Sahakar Nagar, with entrances from several sides. Easy to reach and there is room to leave a vehicle at the entrance.
- 1 walk
Taljai is a wooded hill on the Sahakar Nagar side, and it is the closest thing Pune has to photographing in a forest without leaving the city. The trees are tall enough to break the light up, so mornings here give you shafts and patches rather than open sun.
It is the best of our regular locations for birds, and the quietest. Early is essential — for the light, for the birds, and because it fills up with walkers by eight.
The trails are wide and easy. This is a walk where the photographs come from paying attention to small things: bark, undergrowth, a bird that stays put for four seconds.
Something with reach helps here more than anywhere else we go.
What there is to photograph
- Shafts of light through the canopy
- Birds, for anyone carrying a longer lens
- Trails and the people walking them
- Bark, undergrowth and detail at close range
- Mist between the trees after rain
No photographs from Taljai yet. They appear here as members file them.
- Is Taljai good for bird photography?
- It is the best of the places we walk regularly. Go in the first two hours after sunrise, before the walkers arrive, and bring the longest lens you own.