Jul – 2025: The Sri Mahankaleshwara Temple Bonalu Festival Photowalk Part 2, Witnessing Faith Through Every Frame
One Bonalu Photowalk was never going to be enough. Every temple celebrates the festival in its own unique way, carrying different traditions, rituals, and emotions. After experiencing Golconda Fort, our next chapter took us to the vibrant celebrations at Sri Mahankaleshwara Temple, where another unforgettable day of photography was waiting for us.
Bonalu is celebrated across Hyderabad for nearly a month, with different temples hosting the festivities on different weekends. Even after our first Bonalu Photowalk, many of our passionate photographers continued exploring the festival in different parts of the city on their own. As the celebrations moved from June into July, we felt there was one more chapter left to document together. This time, our destination was the famous Sri Mahankaleshwara Temple, where one of the final and grandest Bonalu celebrations takes place every year.
The area around the temple transforms into a living celebration of Hyderabad’s culture. Streets fill with beautifully decorated Bonams, colorful processions, traditional dhol players, decorated vehicles, artists in spiritual attire, folk performances, and thousands of devotees. For photographers, every street becomes a new frame, every procession tells a different story, and every corner offers another unforgettable moment waiting to be documented.
Before finalizing the meetup, the three of us, I, Mr. Sai Thejeshwar Rao, and Mr. Cherry Mokka, visited the temple and met the temple trustees and organizers. To our surprise, they already knew about ShutterSociety.HYD and appreciated the work our community had been doing across Hyderabad. They warmly welcomed our photographers and happily gave us permission to document the celebrations. That encouragement made us even more excited to organize Part 2 of our Bonalu journey.
Like Part 1, this was planned as a full day photowalk. From the morning temple rituals to the evening processions, we wanted our members to experience every important part of the festival.
As everyone gathered at the meeting point, we welcomed both familiar and new faces before beginning with a short morning briefing. Soon after, the temple trustees generously offered us delicious temple prasadam for breakfast, making us feel like guests rather than visitors.
Respect opens doors that permission alone never can.
We had intentionally started the meetup at 10:00 in the morning because we hoped to document artists while they prepared their traditional makeup and costumes. However, we soon discovered that most of them were getting ready at different locations instead of inside the temple premises.
When we shared this with the organizers, they immediately helped us. They requested a few artists to come to the temple and complete their preparations there so our photographers could document the entire process.
Watching the makeup, costumes, expressions, and final transformation became a beautiful storytelling experience before the main celebrations had even begun.
Before the afternoon processions started, we spent a wonderful few hours together inside the temple premises. Small groups naturally formed as photographers shared their experiences with one another. Mobile photographers exchanged camera settings and editing tips, while camera users discussed lenses, compositions, and festival photography techniques. It never felt like a formal workshop. It simply felt like photographers learning from photographers.
During one of these conversations, several members asked me about my recent Bonalu voice over reel, which had gone viral around the same time. The reel had been widely appreciated and shared by local leaders, temple trusts, and many people across Hyderabad for showcasing the spirit and cultural significance of Bonalu.
Since many members were curious about the project, I shared the complete story behind it, how I approached the documentary style, and my overall experience of creating it. It became another wonderful learning session, filled with questions, ideas, and open conversations.
If you would like to watch that Bonalu documentary reel, you can find it here.
A photograph captures a moment, but a story preserves its meaning.
As the afternoon arrived, the atmosphere changed completely. The sound of dhols grew louder, the temple became more vibrant, and the long awaited processions finally began.
From that moment onwards, everyone was constantly moving. Sometimes we walked with the procession, sometimes we ran ahead to find a better angle, and sometimes we simply waited patiently for the perfect moment.
Every photographer had their own way of telling the story. Some focused on portraits filled with emotion, others captured wide scenes of the celebrations, while many concentrated on the beautiful details that often go unnoticed.
A great festival photograph preserves not only a moment, but an entire tradition.
As the procession slowly moved through the streets, every few minutes there was something new to photograph. Beautifully decorated Bonams, energetic Pothuraju performances, traditional dhol players, folk artists, decorated trucks carrying temples and deities, and devotees chanting with deep faith transformed the entire route into a moving celebration. Every street looked different, giving photographers endless opportunities to capture unique frames.
What made this photowalk even more special was the freedom to photograph from different perspectives. Some members focused on powerful close-up portraits, while others captured wide scenes showing the scale of the celebrations. Many waited patiently for the perfect expressions, while a few experimented with slow shutter photography to capture the movement of dancers and processions.
There must come culture into the blood. — Swami Vivekananda
By the end of the evening, every photographer had documented the same festival, yet each returned home with a completely different story to tell.
By evening, the celebrations had become even more energetic. Just like our previous Bonalu meetup, many of our members did much more than photograph the festival. Cameras rested for a while as laughter, dancing, and conversations became part of the experience. We celebrated Bonalu alongside the local community, making memories that no photograph alone could ever fully describe.
After the evening celebrations, many of us had a light dinner together. But like every ShutterSociety.HYD meetup, the journey did not end there.
The best journeys are the ones where everyone reaches the destination together.
A smaller group decided to continue following the Bonalu procession all the way towards Charminar. The streets became more crowded with every step. At times, simply holding our cameras safely was a bigger challenge than taking photographs.
Yet throughout the walk, our members stayed together, looked after one another, and made sure nobody was left behind. In such heavy crowds, protecting each other became just as important as protecting our cameras.
By the time we finally concluded the meetup, nearly eleven hours had passed. We had spent the entire day walking, photographing, documenting traditions, celebrating with local communities, sharing meals, learning together, dancing, laughing, and supporting one another through every part of the journey.
Looking back, that was the true success of our Bonalu Part 2 Photowalk. We did not just document one of Hyderabad’s greatest festivals. We experienced it together as one photography family.
Thank you to every member who joined us on this unforgettable eleven hour journey. Your patience, respect for the traditions, passion for photography, and care for one another made this meetup another beautiful chapter in the story of ShutterSociety.HYD.
