Much has been said about jewelry in an Indian wedding… but all those words fall short in describing their beauty and their place in our rituals. So I thought I dedicate one exclusively to jewelry and et’al. I am no expert on jewelry but I sure appreciate their beauty and they are my fav when it comes to photography. Modern jewelry is sleek and minimalistic, in contrast to the elaborate and ‘heavy’ appearance of the traditional jewelry. A lot of weddings still stick to the traditional way but receptions are places where you would find a tinge of modernity.
I tried giving a post processing treatment, inline with the type of jewelry I photographed. So most of it is that good old ‘timeless classic’ feel.
Bangles, I feel is one of the simplest yet stunning combination of glass and colors that man has invented. And they obviously enjoy a unique place in all our weddings; most of the times preceding any other ‘metallic’ jewelry. Here is a collection of bangles in all colors, envying the rainbow.
Rainbow Bangles
What a busy half year it has been for me..! No time to write. I covered weddings and receptions, that were both challenge and fun at the same time. For someone into people and portrait photography, there is probably no better occasion than a wedding. You have people dressed to their best. the Bride and Groom are decked up to perfection and the rituals, customs and culture add spice to the recipe. The challenge is – there is no margin for screw-up; no one out there is going to enact all that a second time just because you werent ready, or your camera didnt work, or you were talking on phone, or simply because u were in a bad mood…
Rather than getting into specifics of events; something that has been discussed a lot elsewhere, here are some of the images that I loved the most. The moments these images depict make them special to the people that they were made for.
The Beginning
My efforts are always focused around making an impact..! and it starts with shooting an image, followed by the post-processing. After having seen thousands of photos from a hell lot wedding photographers, only some make an impression.. the reason is they infused their images with something unique. This is just such an attempt.. There is always a room for improvement and I will keep improving with each pass 
It has been ages (3 months) I wrote on my blog and I am beginning to feel sick…
Things have piled up and there is a considerable backlog of shoots and pictures to clear… So here we go…
Last December I did a few shoots at Lalbagh along with Pradeep. The idea was to get a mix of everything – candids, street shots, landscapes and portraits. Lalbagh is probably the only place that offers all these.
I reached there at 6:45 am and Pradeep joined me 10 minutes later. We walked straight into the huge open lawn near the main gate parking as this was the place that held a lot of promise. The early morning winter cold, mist and trickling sunlight make an excellent combination. Add a human form to it and now we are talking… Heres my shot of Pradeep taking a shot.
a photographer's photograph
This is with the EF 85mm.
A wedding shoot in God’s Own Country – Kerala was a truly ‘divine’ experience .
I had been talking to the bride to be, Brinda over phone and e-mails for almost 3 weeks and I got to meet her on the morning of reception in Kumarakom. Over breakfast, I was introduced to her family and Kumaran, her groom who had flown down from US just a couple of days earlier. Since none of the sides had a home in Kumarakom, they were all put up in 3 different resorts. These are truly wonderful people and personally took care to see that I am comfortable. Thanks a lot folks for that..
My arrangements were made at the Tharavadu Heritage Homes , a rustic but cozy place with a clear view of Sri Kumaramangala Temple, just across a backwater canal. The temple was the venue for the wedding the following morning.
I started with exploring Tharavadu and the surrounding townscape looking for suitable environment and lighting for the next morning. Lovely little town with lots of opportunities for even a casual street photographer too. A high bridge went over the backwater canal and gave a breathtaking view of the temple and the easy-going village life. Here is one my my most fav pics.
Sri Kumaramangala Temple
When it comes to using flash – I generally bounce it off walls, ceilings and any other surface I can get hold of in the vicinity. Well I dont curse myself for that since I mostly shoot indoors with a flash. The light is beautifully directional but with the side-effect of acquiring the color cast of the surface it bounced off of. But what if I didnt have anything to bounce the light off; what if I shot exclusively outdoors…!
I use the Canon 580EXII. In the E-TTL II mode, it defaults to the fill-flash mode. While shooting, the camera first meters ambient light on half-press of the shutter button and then on full press, a low power pre-flash is fired from the flash gun. The reflected light is also metered by the same metering system as used for ambient. An algorithm then calculates the correct flash exposure after comparing the ambient and the flash exposure from – as per the white paper for the 1D MKII – the central 17 metering zones. Areas with large difference between ambient and pre-flash readings are excluded or given a lesser weightage as they are assumed to be a highly reflective object like mirror, glass panes etc.
Unlike E-TTL, E-TTL II can also use distance information provided by compatible lenses (most canon lenses do this). Also, E-TTL II is not completely focus point linked. So regardless of what metering method is selected for ambient metering, the camera uses either evaluative or average (based on selection) to meter the pre-flash exposure.
There are two algorithms that can be used – evaluative and average. The Evaluative takes into account the inputs from the entire frame for calculating the exposure, whereas the average gives more weight to the zones around the focus point. How the E-TTL II algorithm exactly works has not been revealed by canon. Its left to the user to try out these methods to know what best suits their taste.
I visited Cauvery fishing camp for a couple of days – a team outing. The weather was awesome. Gently overcast with the sun occasionally peeping out from behind the clouds. The light was great for portraiture, all day (barring the short but heavy spell of rain early one evening). This gave me a good overall exposure on the subject but the light still appeared a bit flat and boring for my taste. So I had to make my ‘models’ pose in a way and in locations where there was a gradient of light and then use the flash to fill in the shadows.
Heres the first one where I positioned Pradeep under this huge tree a couple of hops inside the river. The metering was for the background, which was giving me a pretty high exposure. But there was very little light under the tree. I didnt have a ND filter and so had to compromise a little with the background. I overexposed it by 2/3rd of a stop to get more leverage on the foreground subject.
In the shade
Used 580EXII with the white-card and tuned the exposure to -1 on E-TTL. The flash did a great job and I got a nice even exposure with the main light still being directional.
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)
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
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!
Up there!
Am back again.
Had been to Bannerghatta park last december with my mother and son Pranav. This was his first visit to a zoo. He was as excited as ever. The park is fairly large and we expected to see his favorite critters – elephants were on the top of his must-see list.
(these wonderful textures are by: Texture 1 and Texture 2).
Am here...!
