Chhath Puja 2026 photos: how to collect them from the ghat

Chhath Puja, which many people also search for as chaat puja, runs from Friday, 13 November to Monday, 16 November in 2026, and the best way to keep the photos is to create one shared album before the first day and ask every family member to add their pictures from their own phone. That way the sunset at the ghat, the thekua being made at home and the whole family standing together all end up in one place, not scattered across a dozen phones and chats.

The four days follow a fixed order. Nahay Khay is on Friday, 13 November, Kharna on Saturday the 14th, Sandhya Arghya, the main evening offering to the setting sun, on Sunday the 15th, and Usha Arghya to the rising sun on Monday the 16th, after which the fast is broken. Exact sunset and sunrise times depend on your city. For example, one calendar lists sunset in Patna at about 5:02 PM on the 15th and sunrise at about 6:06 AM on the 16th, while Delhi is around 5:27 PM and 6:44 AM. Check the timings for your own ghat or pond closer to the day.

Why Chhath photos are hard to gather

Chhath is a festival where families come together, often from different cities. Someone has travelled from Delhi, Bengaluru or Mumbai to the family home in Bihar, Jharkhand or eastern Uttar Pradesh, and cousins who rarely meet are suddenly at the same ghat. Everyone takes photos, usually on their own phone, and each person captures something different. One person has the daura filled with fruits on the way to the river, another has the vratin standing in the water, and a child has filmed the diyas floating at dusk.

The trouble is that these moments happen at awkward times. Sandhya Arghya is at sunset and Usha Arghya at sunrise, so the light is low and the crowd is large. People are moving, carrying baskets, helping elders down the steps. Nobody wants to stop and send photos, and afterwards the chats are full of festival wishes while the best pictures remain on the phone that took them.

Keep the photos in full quality

The usual habit is to share photos in the family WhatsApp group. It is fast and everyone is already there, but WhatsApp compresses photos sent the normal way, so a sharp picture of the arghya at golden hour can arrive soft and grainy. Photos also pile up between greetings and forwards, so finding the one from Kharna evening means scrolling for ages.

A Google Photos shared album is a reasonable choice if most of your relatives already use Google Photos, and Google says anyone who has the shared link can view the album and add to it. A Google Drive folder works if one person is happy to upload everything and organise it. For a family where some people are comfortable with apps and others are not, a simpler setup helps, because the hardest part is getting everyone to actually contribute.

Setting up one album for all four days

Rollout is built for this. It is a free app on Android and iPhone for collecting event photos. The organiser creates an event and shares one QR code or link, and guests scan it, install the app and join. Every photo from every guest's phone lands in one shared album, live, in full quality, with no WhatsApp compression. Because the same album can hold all four days, you can use one link for Nahay Khay, Kharna, Sandhya Arghya and Usha Arghya.

A good time to set this up is a few days before 13 November. Ask the person who is usually in charge of family arrangements, perhaps an elder sibling or a cousin who is comfortable with phones, to create the event and send the link in the family group. Ask people to install the app at home, on Nahay Khay or Kharna, when everyone is together and there is no rush. Doing this at the ghat, with a crowd and a basket in your hands, is much harder.

Free events last 30 days, so an album created just before Chhath will cover the festival and the weeks afterwards. It is still wise to ask people to download the photos they want to keep. If you are organising for a very large gathering, such as a community or society celebration, bigger paid events exist.

Including relatives who could not travel

Many families have someone who could not come home this year, whether a grandparent in another city, a brother working abroad or a married sister at her in laws. Because the album fills up live, they can follow the festival as it happens and see the pictures the same evening, instead of waiting for someone to forward them. It is a small way to include people who are missing the celebration.

If you hire a photographer for a family portrait or a community event, organisers can also upload from a computer, including photographer photos. So the professional pictures can sit next to the phone photos in the same album.

Finding yourself, and some courtesy at the ghat

After the festival, an album may have hundreds of pictures. Rollout has face search, where each person takes a selfie and sees just the photos they are in. That helps a busy mother who was in front of the camera very little because she was managing everything, or a cousin who wants only his own pictures from the ghat. It saves everyone from scrolling through every photo.

A few simple courtesies are worth remembering too. Chhath is a deeply devotional festival, and the vratins are fasting, often without water for a long stretch after Kharna. Ask before taking close up photos of someone in the water, avoid crowding the steps, and keep your phone safe around the river or pond. Many of the loveliest pictures are of the preparations, the offerings and the families, so you do not need to stand close to the main ritual to capture the feeling.

A small plan for Chhath 2026

Create the album a few days before 13 November, share the link and ask relatives to join early. Encourage everyone to add photos each evening, so the album does not become a last minute task. Remind people on the last day to download the pictures they want to keep, and say thank you in the family group once the album is complete. After all the preparation that goes into these four days, a single shared album is a simple way to keep the memories together for the years ahead.