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We do not have a lot of sea stacks – large rock towers – along the Goan coastline. The ones shown in the pictures are on the coast of a popular tourist belt in North Goa. The presence of shacks constructed on the edge of the hill really blemishes the natural beauty of this scene. Beyond this hill is a small beach and a sweet water lake. Back in the day, I remember it being very different to what it is now. More constructions, guest houses and shops have risen here as a result of gaining popularity from the few travellers that hiked to the lake over the years. The cemented path to the small beach and lake resembles an ugly maze through what feels like a construction site with the occasional views of the ocean through the gaps in the concrete walls. Clear indications of poor planning, lack of vision and greed. These are pictures of what is used to look like in 2010, and now it’s much more worse. You can see pipes along the wall possibly for releasing dirty water from these shacks onto the beach side ? I’m not sure..

The ideal way would have been to preserve the natural path to the lake devoid of all these constructions. And why make it so accessible to tourists who don’t really understand hiking culture? The shacks and rooms along the path have only been increasing over the years and are now moving up the hill. On the top of the plateau, paragliding companies have already started building their roads. It won’t be long before the whole hill is covered with constructions. Not to mention the garbage collected here and the stench of sewage water that greets you as one approaches the hill. The sweet water lake itself smells of sewage water now.

Beyond the lake is a hiking path through a forest and upto the hill plateau which leads to another adjoining beach. Along the forest pathway are small water holes with ‘multani mitti’ or fullers earth – a type of clay that is good for cleansing and revitalizing the skin. Hikers normally sit in the water holes and apply the clay to their skin. The last time I took this walk with a small group of friends, there were a couple of ‘non-local’ boys (looked like junkies) trying to fleece money by charging the hikers who wished to bath in these small natural water holes. Our group ignored them. At the end of the forest path upto the top of the plateau is an old banyan tree which was never popular as a hippie stop in my younger days. Now hippies from Russia and India gather here to live some sort of stereotypical hippy lifestyle under an Indian banyan tree.

This scene would be differently planned had it been in the hills of the North East with a natural hiking path and no constructions.
For all the experience with tourism (thrown at our doorsteps in the 70’s) there is a lack of vision in preserving the natural beauty of such areas.

Back to the photography, these sea stacks and the rocks around them are beautiful, they are the only reason I choose to photograph in this area. But the beach has now become more crowded and less comfortable to work on making quiet imagery. The rocky area has selfie-seeking dare-devils climbing to the top oblivious to the dangers.

I always shoot closer to these formations trying to get more intimate frames.

On the rare occasions when the beach is not too crowded, I’d walk down to get a wider view of the scene. The sun sets behind these stacks almost all the time, but the ugly shacks always force my composition to avoid the hill completely. Last September, I tried to get a symmetry from the cloud formations in this scene and it’s reflection on the wet sand. I avoided a long exposure for this or else the waves would have covered the reflections. Here are the RAW file images (no edits):

Here’s one during the evening blue hour after sunset.

Not too satisfied by the results but unsatisfying results are a good reason to revisit a place. With the ugly changes in the scenery and rapid development, I’m not sure when though.