Kolkata · Durga Puja 2026
Photography etiquette
A short list, and following it will get you better photographs as well as fewer arguments.
Written for Durga Puja 2026 · Last updated 14 August 2026
People
Ask before a close portrait. A gesture at the camera and a raised eyebrow is enough and works in any language. Almost everyone agrees, and the picture improves because they are now looking at you rather than past you.
Children: ask the parent, every time, without exception.
Do not photograph people eating bhog, and do not photograph people at prayer from the front. Both are things you would not want done to you.
Rites
Aarati, pushpanjali, Sandhi Puja, baran, sindoor khela and immersion are all moments where a camera is intrusive if it is in the middle of them and fine if it is at the edge. Stand back and use a longer lens rather than walking in.
Never step between a worshipper and the idol. Never climb on a structure for an angle.
Private and commissioned spaces
Bonedi bari pujas are private houses. Ask at the door, and if the answer is no, it is no.
Some committees restrict photography of their installation, particularly where an artist has commissioned rights. Look for the sign, ask the volunteer, and comply — this is somebody's work.
Flash, tripods and drones
No flash at the idol, ever. Tripods are impractical and usually prohibited inside pandals. Drones are restricted over the city during the festival and flying one over a crowd is both illegal and appalling.
If a volunteer asks you to move or to stop, do it immediately and without argument. They are managing thousands of people an hour, for free, and they are right.
Publishing what you shot
Credit the puja by name. The pandal is a commissioned work with an artist behind it, and naming the committee and, where it is on the board, the designer costs nothing and matters to the people who made it.
Be careful with recognisable faces in anything that will be used commercially, and be more careful again with children. A photograph somebody agreed to at a pandal is not a photograph they agreed to see in an advertisement.
The general principle
You are a guest at somebody's festival. Nearly every restriction in this guide reduces to that, and applying it will handle the cases nobody wrote down.
The exchange is the point: ask, be told yes, take the picture, show them the back of the camera. It takes fifteen seconds and it is the difference between photographing Kolkata and photographing at it.
The 8 pujas on this guide
The pujas the dataset records as bonedi bari — private courtyards, where asking first matters more than anywhere else in the festival.
Every one of these has a confirmed position, so the Route Planner can order them and draw the walk between them.
- Baghbazar Haldar Bari er PujoBaghbazar
- Hathkhola Dutta Barir Durga PujoPathuriaghata–Jorabagan / Bonedi
- Khelat Ghose er Durga PujoPathuriaghata–Jorabagan / Bonedi
- RAMDULAL NIBAS er Durga PujoPathuriaghata–Jorabagan / Bonedi
- Rani Rashmoni er Durga PujoPathuriaghata–Jorabagan / Bonedi
- Roychoudhury Barir Durga PujoPathuriaghata–Jorabagan / Bonedi
- Sovabazar RajbariSovabazar–Beniatola
- Srimani Barir Durga PujoPathuriaghata–Jorabagan / Bonedi
Read next
Photographing the idol
A brightly lit figure in a dark frame, with a rite happening in front of it. The technical problem and the etiquette problem are the same problem.
Bonedi bari pujas: the family pujas of old Kolkata
Household pujas in the courtyards of old Kolkata families — older than the public pandal by more than a century, and a completely different experience.
Photographing pandals
The pandals are architecture, they are lit for the eye rather than the sensor, and there are four thousand people in front of them. Here is how to work with that.
Written by Pujo Kolkata. Pandal listings come from the PujoKolkata master dataset, with coordinates from the IndianOil–Kolkata Police Puja Guide and from community-curated puja maps of the city. Nothing here publishes a 2026 theme, a timing or a crowd level for any puja, because none has been announced. Browse every pandal.