Agra: Taj Mahal Tour with Professional Photographer & Guide

Two people, two jobs

A guide explains the building. A photographer knows that the famous bench sits in shadow until twenty past seven and that the best frame on the west side is through the mosque's second arch.

Sending both is a small idea that makes a large difference to what you take home — mostly because you stop being the person holding the camera, which is why most people's Taj photographs are of the Taj and not of themselves at it.

The photography

The standard set, done properly: the Diana bench on the central axis with the dome centred; the reflection in the long water channel; silhouettes against the morning light; the forced-perspective shots where you appear to hold or pinch the dome; and framing through the red sandstone arches of the gateway, where the warm stone sets off the white marble.

Edited images are delivered after the shoot. If you want something specific, say so — it is one photographer and you.

The guide

Shah Jahan began the Taj in 1632, the year after Mumtaz Mahal died bearing their fourteenth child. Twenty-two years, twenty thousand workers, marble hauled 300 km from Makrana.

The things you would otherwise walk past: the calligraphy cut in increasing sizes so it reads uniformly from the ground; the pietra dura, up to sixty stones in one inlaid flower; the four minarets, tilted fractionally outward so that an earthquake would drop them clear of the tomb; and the single deliberate asymmetry — Shah Jahan's own cenotaph, added off-axis by Aurangzeb.

Three options

Photographer with guide; private car, driver and guide; or everything with car, guide, photographer and entry tickets.

Practical

The Taj is closed on Fridays. Sunrise is both the best light and the smallest crowd.

No tripods and no drones inside — security is absolute, so everything is shot handheld.

Wear a colour. Red, yellow and deep blue photograph far better against white marble than white or beige.