There was a time when I thought a landscape image was anything that someone shot on their vacation and posted it on the internet for their friends and relatives to see… been there; hiked that mountain; crossed those plains etc etc… But the fact is, its very difficult to shoot a ‘gripping’ landscape image… Something people will stop over and take time to watch, from those thousands of images that sites like flickr has. Thats an art that somehow always eluded me. Well nevertheless, this is my corner for expressing myself and heres my share to the galaxy of landscapes 
. Perhaps I should be calling it my travelogue than a landscape post – just to blunt the edge of the criticism that’d come my way 
Goa. This place doesnt need any introduction. Its I guess the best destination when it comes to the sun, the sand and the sea in mainland India. I visited Goa in early 2008. Calangute was where we had booked a hotel; me and my brother. The beach was just 5 minutes walk away. Calangute falls in north Goa, about an hours and 15 minutes drive from Dabolim airport. Its a small town on the two sides of the main road with nice restaurants lining the sides and a super market store. This one street has almost the entire town around it. Our plan was to travel up north covering, Baga, Anjuna, Vagator, Morjim and Ashwem beaches.
This scene is from Ashwem beach where they have giant kites, that look like parachutes. Heres one…
Kite flying on Ashwem beach
Welcome back … Wishing you a very happy Diwali…
I have been thinking of doing this article for a long time; finally I have the images to show some experiments with different lighting techniques.
I have a basic lighting gear – prolinchrome 23 (its basically elinchrome marketed with a different name) studio strobe, a 22″ softbox, 5′ octa and a small 22″ reflective umbrella and my 580EXII. The only problem with the strobe being its power setting – it has only a full and half switch. So mostly I have to damp it down by almost 2-4 stops using a white bed-sheet. The bed-sheet fortunately happens to be very close to day-light balanced – it gives a very slight blue cast but thats not an issue at all.
This series of pictures are all with just 1 light setup – either the strobe or the flash off camera. Will leave the 2 and multi light setups for another article.
Heres the first image. The idea was to get the key light to mimic window light on a cloudy day. The key light would be strong enough to take it to the extent of making a high-key, but just under it.
Blue Iris
For those who dont know what the Lamborghini Reventon is – its the most expensive sports car ever built; each costing 1 million Euros + tax. Only 20 were to be produced. I have the honor of being one of the proud owners – no kidding! Well with a slight difference – its a 1/43 scale model of the car that looks more like a fighter jet. No surprises, as the exteriors of the Reventon are inspired by modern fighter aircrafts. Check out this interesting commercial where they raced the Reventon against a Tornado of the Italian Air Force.
Ok, so much in praise of the Reventon and its exclusivity. Its here on my photography blog, so you know what I am coming to – obviously, I photographed the car. The objective of the project was to produce 3-4 images that would be worthy of an ad-campaign. The challenge here was the size of the car. Its really tiny and being a race car, its belly almost touches the ground.
I had a few concepts in mind. I started off with the simplest one – showing the car’s impressive bonnet and the front air inlets with a nice soft light over the bonnet and wind shield with a hard falloff on the front lower elements. This was pretty easy to do. I placed the car over a black base (a cardboard box pasted with a black cardboard sheet). The camera was on a tripod as this had to be a long exposure shot. The lens axis was aligned to just under the car’s windshield. The whole setup was in a room in the evening so with all lights turned off, it was pitch dark. The lighting was unconventional – I used a single small bright led light, straight from the top of the car (perpendicular to camera axis). I used RS80N3 cable to activate the shutter while hand-holding the led light over the car. The glowing lights were added in post processing. The exposure: 4 sec at f11 ISO 200 with EF 85mm f1.8 lens and Canon 7D.
Reventon in spot light
When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. ~Nora Ephron
A wedding is a very special event not only for the couple to be, but for the two families, relatives and friends. And if its an Indian wedding, well, its an event like no other . The wedding rituals in India are just as diverse as its rich and vibrant culture. Capturing it all in camera is fun and challenge at the same time.
Here is Ashwini and Shantanu’s wedding from the eyes of a wedding photographer. I had just upgraded to Canon 7D and couldnt wait to use it. With the superb EF 85 f1.8 and the super-wide EF-S 10-22, I believed I was covered for all situations. The wedding was to take place in a wedding hall with a huge open lawn attached to it for the evening’s reception. I had not planned on using any flashes (though I had a 580 EXII) and I fully depended on the fast 85mm for almost all my pictures except the group shots. Wedding halls are well lit not only by the electrical lighting (mostly fluorescent) inside but also by video lights. The video lights combined with the fluorescent lighting gives strange color casts on skin. Something to watch out for and knowing which one is the dominant lighting and adjusting the white balance accordingly.
Posted here are a few ‘spreads’ out of the album. Do check out Xlens Imaging for more…
Front (inside cover and page 1)
A couple of months back I joined the facebook group Lighting Essentials Workshops for Photographers . It was a facebook search that lead me to them.
They are very good to say the least. Their articles are posted generally once a week and are very informative for anyone who wishes to be serious with photography. They have quite a bit there – lighting setup diagrams, shooting techniques, business discussions, other photographer’s interviews and even some plain fun articles. All in all a great place to check out.
Heres their website: Lighting Essentials.
Highly Recommended.
~Niraj
Very happy to see the counter touch 1014 this morning. Its exactly 3 months today and its going really good. I will definitely work to make this a lot more interesting with more variety. I would love to know what you liked and especially what you didnt to further improve what I do.
Thanx to all you folks for taking the time to visit. And yes, please do keep coming back…
~Niraj
Spend a few hours doing some table top stuff. The first subjects were a crystal vase and a small glass. Both being highly reflective. The important thing was to avoid any of their surfaces from reflecting any objects (including the light source) and giving away the shoot.
I got a large white mounting paper sheet for the ‘white seamless’ background and added another one at the base. The table was of rubber-wood which has a natural yellowish brown texture. Added 2 black sheets on either sides for negative fill (I could have added white sheets as well but after exprement, that wasnt working to my taste).
Canon 7D. EF 85 1.8 at f2.5, 1/125
I was at Lalbag last Sunday morning. The sole purpose was to shoot enough pics with the EFS 10-22 to demonstrate its field of view. All this for folks interested in buying my lens and had asked me for some pictures. Since I had few pics with it, I decided more were needed…
The weather was utterly overcast with just occasional streaks of light trickling through the thick cloud cover. I had to spend time waiting to get even the bare minimum light.
Took a path over the rock and got a ‘wide’ perspective of the temple atop it.
Temple
I have always been fascinated by paintings. While sifting thru the pictures of some of my contacts on flickr, I came across some who paint on photos. Photo-painting is what I am talking about.
There is a distinction between a picture and a painting and all these years I honored that. But then art is all about experimenting with new ideas. So I gave it a try.
Frankly I was quite amazed at what can be done. Its intricate work – unlike post-processing a picture. And it takes a lot of time. When I say ‘lot’ I mean ‘lot’. With a mouse its all the more difficult and hand-numbing. I wish I had a pen-tablet. But then these arent bad for a first.
This is a vertical handheld panorama from atop the rock at Ramanagram (Ramghad of Sholey)
Ramanagram panorama
ALU Family day was held on 29th May at Manipal County resort off Hosur road.. These are a few random pics from the event. Well this is about portraiture and not about the event as such. I spent most of that day helping Ganesh set up the photo exhibition and there was very little time for photography. Had borrowed the EF 70-200 f2.8 from Sudhir Shivram for the excellent range it provided. And not to mention it lived up to its reputation.
Most folks had got their families along and kids were having a great time.
Catch me if u can!
I visited Tadoba tiger reserve, this February. I have visited Tadoba so many times before that I lost the count. Its less than 200Km from Nagpur where I grew up. What was ‘first’ about this visit was that I spotted not one but four tigers.
My uncle is a conservator of forests posted at Tadoba and is pretty much the boss around here . So the accommodation and open jeep safari was taken care of. We (my cousins, uncle and me) stayed at the Tadoba guest house, nestled halfway around the dense jungles overlooking the breathtaking Tadoba lake.
Tadoba Lake
Up there!
Welcome back,
I sat down with some of the pics that I had posted here before and experimented with a different workflow/processing. A bit of Rarindra Prakasa effect.
Daddy and his buddy
