Raghuvamsh Chavali was born in Hyderabad, India, and now calls Canada – or more specifically Guelph in Ontario – his home. He describes his adopted city as “a peaceful and friendly place, with a mix of heritage buildings and modern life”. It also proved an ideal backdrop for his extended photographic series Wings Over Concrete, which explores the presence and movement of birds in urban environments.
Before he took this image, one cloudy afternoon in downtown Guelph, Chavali had been tracking this particular flock of pigeons for several weeks. “I was in search of the natural patterns of birds, and I’d seen this flock flying in circles around the buildings near a train station at the same time each day. They moved in a tight, repeated loop, and on this day the light was soft and just right to capture their movement clearly,” he says. He utilised his phone camera’s slo-mo mode “to create a visual that almost feels like it was drawn with light. Their flight formed a fluid, layered pattern, like an S-shaped ribbon floating in space.”
Chavali immediately knew he’d captured something special, converting the photo to black and white to remove distractions and emphasise texture. He notes a “kind of visual poetry and a reminder that wonder can be found in quiet, overlooked places. These birds have adapted to concrete spaces we have built over their habitats, yet they continue to move through the city with elegance and ease.”