Chitradurga Trip

DOWNLOAD THE e-STORY VERSION AT END OF THIS STORY

It had been sometime, since i was thinking of going out but work at office and something or the other at home kept me tied over the weekends. My teammate, Gopinath hails from a sleepy town "Chitradurga" and he has talked about his place a number of times. Seeing some photos from another fellow friend, kept acting as fuel to fire and on a proposal to visit Chitradurga, i could not turn down.

Reaching Chitradurga: Chitradurga lies in Karnataka approx 200 Kms from Bangalore. it lies on the Bangalore-Pune National Highway and not to mention, the roads are beautiful. There are few trains available from Bangalore and the buses are numerous to reach in. I read at Chitradurga that there is a bus every 15 mins to Bangalore. Amazingly good connectivity!

Places to See: Chitradurga, as the name says is famous for its Huge Fort and numerous temples situated in its vicinities. it also is an excellent place for mountaineering some peaks in the fort. Other attractions include Chandravalli Caves, Vanivilas Dam(lies in town "Hiyur").

We boarded the 00:30  bus from majestic and the conductor told me it would be around 5 as the bus reaches Chitradurga. This was an AC bus and amazingly fast. Th driver drove it in every way he could and we felt fortunate to get down all well. he reached CHitradurga at 4 itself :0)

We took rest at gopis place and a yummy breakfast was on the cards. We waiting and the food was every bit worth the wait. Soon it was time to leave and we were already yearning to go out. First target was Chitradurga fort, which is the most famous of the destinations.

The auto rickshaw took us there in a jiffy and the first impressions, were that the fort appeared to be huge. We bought tickets and saw some more crowd around this place. The good part is the fort has been maintained well and it has all those small typical 'incredible India' stones placed everywhere with the details of the places written on them. it was so useful. those stones even give you directions to different areas in the fort. All in all a great trip in this sleepy small town. Leaving you with a set of photos. Do share how did you like those.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Do Download the e-story format of this blog here. Please share your comments if you like this!

Chitra Sante Exhibit-31st Jan, 2010

We are going to Chitra Sante on 31st Jan, 2010 after a great experience last year. Do visit us at our stall there!

KR Flower Market- A Morning

 A Man Looks on, as i took this shot. This was a hotel just next to the mosque...The morning Scene gave a very natural look on this man of someone who just woke up and the glimpse of the mosque made it quite appealing to my eyes. That's the motivation to click this shot.(KR Market, Bangalore)

India is a country of different faiths and religions. Temples, mosques and churches are nothing but epitome of faith and emotions. Different religious places are named on various saints and different offerings are offered to each one of them. One of the mosques at KR Market where people tie Locks to the mosque gate as an offering for fulfilling their desire and they come an open them up as their wish gets fulfilled. (KR Market, Bangalore)

Street photography is not only enticing that you click real life, but also because you get to meet so many different characters on the street, you get near the way they live their life and how they conduct their business. Most of the people work in hardship but still continue to enjoy and spread smiles. Its only business which counts in the markets rather than origin or caste or religion!(KR Market, Bangalore)

It was interesting chatting with these two old men. they both are care takers of this mosque in the KR market and were just chatting around early morning when i reached. The flower seller was unpacking her recently arrived flowers from Tamilnadu and it was great talking to them. They asked me what these photos were for!! and i smile, clicked and sat with them and continued talking!!(KR Market, Bangalore)

When people smile and keep talking it doesn't mean they are always happy and having fun. Life in india has made us all tough and apart from day to day hardships, we have learn to smile in every up and Down. As this guy finished talking to me, i was wondering how come people are so happy with so little!! As i kept looking at him, there was a moment when this shot came up and later i could feel and see the intensity of his face and the hardships of life.(KR Market, Bangalore)

A book store housing variety of magazines on sale!! (KR Market, Bangalore)

Flowers travel in from different parts and all converge to this market early morning. A young boy waits for their helpers to arrive to get delivery of flowers.(KR Market, Bangalore)

Wow, Fresh, color and huge!! But How much do we sell it for!!(KR Market, Bangalore)

Interiors of the KR market which not only houses flower shops dealing in tons and tons of fragrance and color, but there are stores for buying everything to anything related to Puja and all of these work in wholesales as well! (KR Market, Bangalore)

 

Interiors of the KR market give you a sense of extremely serious business and the volume side of this flower story. A shopkeeper waits for business to start, early morning (KR Market, Bangalore)

 

Business is good and there is enough for everyone. In the center of the market, is a huge hall where all the flower sellers settle down. There is a huge mount on the their top with a building with 4-5 floors and this huge tennis court spaced porch makes it a very dramatic location. An experience in itself to be around!(KR Market, Bangalore)

Saree making Division

 

I wrote about a stroll around avenue road sometime back. People loved those visuals and even the blog was chosen as one for the "Blog of the Month" by Chromebug. Thx again to all!

 So while i wrote the previous piece, i thought that i would put a small feature about the saree weaving division. Here is that piece for your feast.

                   It was 8:30 am and a fellow friend tempted that we catch dosas for breakfast at a very traditional place nearby. We were moving around the small and mazy streets around Avenue street. and looked hungry  On one of the wrong turns we took, we came across a noisy house, with lot of churning and buzzing of some sort of heavy machinery. It was bound to catch our attention and the board on the top converged our thoughts as well. It read the name of the owner and their sari weaving division. No we looked more interested with the cameras and the dosas could take the back seat for a while!!

 

As we entered inside, this was a completely different world.This doesnt appear to be a huge room for the kind of machinery installed here. Few people manning those machines dressed in their most comfortable attire. appeared to be busy with their work and felt quite comfortable with the presence of photographers. yes, the sound of the shutter was miniscule in front of this guzzling and churning of machines and we were almost non-existent for them in any manner.

 

There were few interesting things to note.First it was the amount of sound coming out of these machines and above all, more surprising as to how these people get accostomed to it., working there whole day.I am sure working in such environment must be taking toll on their hearing abilities. I realized this point only when i came out of this place. I was numb for few minutes and then some white noise followed or a while. Also interesting was to note, the aged machinery being used but artists using their experience to actually get work done. Machines are built to be reducing man effort, but after a certain point, but i have always noticed man trying to reduce machine's effort. These guys working in extremely small space and kept a good close watch on every single thread coming into the weaver.

I was astonished with the skill of these people working here, how undisturbed they were with huge noise and how they made these machines to work. But the actual awekening was when i noticed one of the machine where the weaveing had been on for sometime and i could see the border of the saree readied. It was time to get down to talking to them. I learnt that every saree takes approximately 3-3.5 hours to complete. These guys keep a very close vigil on these threads going in and if the patterns are coming up properly. Also i learnt that the secret to these designs being woven so perfectly goes to their craftsmanship with using  the patterns. The patterns are built using huge semi-metallic stencils. The threads are fed into this weaver via these Stencils.

I continued talking to them and enjoyed these minutes spent at this place. Its so interesting to notice that when people in the corporate life often do complain about the environment in which they work and how these variables might impact their performance.

 But looking at people around us, working in all kinds of environments, it feels that if you are really dedicated, then its your craftsmanship,skill which matters. Finally i bid adieu to these friends of mine. I exchanged smiles with all of them and left.

 

I was soon joined by my gang. We continued the search and finally could find out the dosa centre. The dosas were yummy but this experience of saree weaving really got weaved and embroided into my mind.

Stroll around Avenue Street

Avenue Street is a tremendously famous tract in the center of the city. As you head towards the kempgowda bus stand, you need to keep watching for the "State bank of Mysore" branch on the main road, which is hard to miss by any chance, and there you are, the Avenue Junction. Avenue Street is not only one among the busiest business places in the garden city, but it does take you closer to authentic Karnataka environs.

The first thing which is bound to catch your interest, a huge "Coffee Board" Coffee van which lands at the avenue street junction and sells coffee and tea in cups of hundreds. Suresh checked with them and they seem to sell over 400 cups in the morning 3 hours.!! Cool, rite! It’s even more fascinating seeing the amount of people who throng this place, early morning. Friends, businessmen, shopkeepers or labours, all jam at this place for a quick cup of tea and session of chat early morning and may be a quick glimpse at the crisp newspaper which seems to selling around like hot cakes.  After you spend a little more time, you start noticing the book shops all around this corner. Avenue Street is one of the most important destinations for people looking for second hand books. This place is one of the oldest markets and of course its get extremely crowded as the business commences.

The other important factor which adds to the popularity of this road is its sheer location. Avenue road connects the City Market (aka KR market) to the Kempgowda Road. There are Silver jewellers and brass utensils all along the street, which are among the other most shopped items at this Place.

As we started moving around the place, we could notice all the colours coming together quite early in the morning. There were few small markets around the temple of Avenue road which were quick in setting up flowers, there were kumkum stall which was already getting down to making those huge mounts of kumkum of various colours, ‘beedas’ giving that red colour to the flower seller’s mouth, ‘rajni Saar’s’ colourful sticker taking a bath at the back of an auto, the garbage vans here and there collecting tons of garbage from each corner, small flag shaped, local political party flyers garlanded throughout the street, as if being proud of all the mess, were adding to the mood of this place, as we got busy with our chores.

Avenue street is also known as the photographer’s paradise for the amount of variety and subjects which you could click here, but early mornings, today, I was just about happy and not overwhelmed by what I got there. Reading and hearing so much about this place, I was expecting quite a lot which somehow was not met. Though it wasn’t a feeble experience as well and we had our own share of meeting with new characters and getting a little closer to their lives and touching it somehow. While I enjoyed meeting my other co-photographer friends, I also took a while out to walk down some points less frequented by others. I also spent a while taking to an amma on the street, who was just too old to move her stuff around and was taking help of her son to setup their canopy. She loved the idea of this tall fellow with a camera and a smile and happily posed. While looking her shot at the LCD, she smile and a sense of satisfaction and unsaid thanks came out. That’s the feeling really, which keeps me going down the streets and clicking people.

I continued further exploring this street and another thing which I could notice was, that avenue street also has the most inquisitive set of people. Almost every single person wanted to know if we guys we were doing this as a part of some training. Some mistook us for press photographers and wanted to get into the frame. For few we were intruders early morning and few found a political edge when I overheard someone saying that these guys are going to show the negative side of Bangalore city. Well, society is made up of different kinds of elements and you got to accept it as it as.

We were in for another great location for photography, hidden across a stretch through few streets and some couple of shots away. This was a Sari making unit which we shot heart out which I shall be writing about separately. We continued under the guard of Suresh gounder who vouched for an awesome place for breakfast which was quite nearby. We spent time searching through the streets and could finally find “Chikkana Tiffin Centre” and bet you, this is an authentic, proper Karnataka food which was one of the most delicious serving I tasted since some long time. The location of this eatery could be fishy, but even after you find it, you need to still be prepared to jostle through a huge crowd for this amazing food. Highly recommended even if you have to spend more than half-n-hour like us searching for this place.

                 Well, this was another location covered in the beautiful city of Bangalore. Hope you have your own experiences about this place as well. Waiting to hear from you guys, your experiences of this place and any comments on what you saw via my write-up and shots.

Street Photography:3 key points to sail with

I have been an avid street photographer and have seen lot of people taking interest in this genre of photography. When we see the photos from the street, we always tend to enjoy the story a face or a moment tells but people have shivers down their spine when the idea of actually getting down to the street and clicking strikes them.
Some find it terrifying to go out and click on the street and some find it amusing to move among people. Some spend their time mingling with inhabitants there and some get embarrassed by the attention they get out of clicking photos. Here is a small article which I thought of putting up to help people understand more about street photography and its elements and how to go about it.

Secret of being able to click people:
Situation 1: One morning you go out in the market with your wife for buying vegetables. You notice that there is a photographer moving around taking shots. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind? After a minute, noticing him and thinking about his activities, you move to a flower shop, where your wife is trying to pick some flowers for Puja at home. The photographer now comes here and clicks a shot of this lady (your wife in this context) checking out fresh flowers and quickly moves on. How are you feeling now? Anxious!! Perturbed!!
Situation 2: One Morning you go out in the market with your wife for buying vegetables. You notice that there is a photographer moving around. He is taking shot of a vegetable seller. After click he goes to the subject. Both look at his camera LCD and come up with a smile. After a minute, noticing him and thinking about his activities, you move to a flower shop, where your wife is trying to pick some flowers for Puja at home. The photographer now comes here and stands around the shop. He looks at you, smiles as if saying “hey there! Ask me if you are curious”. You pop up a question “Are you from press??” or “Why are you taking those shots??” and he happily replies back “that I am a hobby photographer, work with Target  and click photos around streets”. You feel satisfied talking to him and he takes a shot of your wife checking out fresh flowers. He then shows you the picture on his LCD. The picture is of a hand feeling the freshness of the flowers and you are impressed by his perspective. How are you feeling now? Motivated to click such a shot in the market! Read On.

Here are some aspects of shooting at the streets which I wanted to line down:

1. Getting ready to shoot:• Lesser baggage: While you plan to go out and shoot, plan your baggage accordingly. Carrying too much of gear might not be a good idea because you might want to keep your attention on capturing life in your shots rather than worry too much about the focal lengths. The best could be to carry a nice walk around lens which can work/act as a basic wide angle and extend up to a basic telephoto lens.
• Including longer lens?? Well there are different theories around this question. Lot of people say that longer lens would help you capture shots from distance and hence you would have candid shots without letting people know that someone is clicking them. The other school of thoughts says that get closer and into the frame to capture the soul in your shot. This is all quite subjective. I suggest a middle path, Initially if you are beginning into this genre, carrying a longer lens would help you curb your anxiety and avoid any attention and as you spend more time and gain experience, you can move with a wide angle lens and get into the mid of the action.
• Casual dressing: Dressing might not appear to be an important variable but then it attracts attention as well. Carrying lot of stuff and dressed like a tourist might makes you feel Odd one out in a busy market and attract lot of attention. Dressing a little casually and carrying your stuff in a casual manner would make others feel that you are one of those regular visitors to the market and might feel more comfortable to all around. In some situations, the opposite might work for you. Did I say “there are no rules here!!!”.
2. Moving around in the market:

• Observe: While moving around in a market place or a street, look for activities happening around. Every place is characteristic in its own manner. Try finding moments, Listen to various sounds at that place, notice hustle bustle in the market and how people are busy with their chores. Try to capture those moments. An early morning visit to a market might see people setting up their shops, cleaning around, making small rangoli, or a group of friends hanging around cup of tea near the old tea stall, fresh colorful vegetables with dew like water on them, a call centre cab stopping on the way for the employees to gulp down tea before they hit home are all moments and convey different emotions. You can also use different styles and shots to convey the mood and the time of the day as well. Fresh flowers, clean markets and hopes in the eyes are all conveyors of a morning. Look for usual places with unusual perspective and new dimensions.

3. Living in there:

• Become part of the scene: The best part of being a street photographer is that you get to be the part of the frame. You can mingle with people and be at the thick of things which would not only give you a lot to ponder about but also lot of different perspectives.
• Try and get involved: Most of the times I have gone out shooting on the streets, I have noticed that some of my friends would move around, click a shot and try to move out. This leaves the people around stunned, anxious and sometimes angry. The best method is to get involved with people, share a smile and not run with a photo. You never know, a smile or a small talk might give you lot of great shots.
• Neither appear conspicuous, nor suspicious: Also people, who tend to sneak a shot and move on, might appear suspicious. Be very aware about such activities. It’s very easy for people to suspect you and catch hold of you. So mixing up with people not only yields better shots but gets you into lesser trouble too.
• Bring home a story and not a photo:

Street photography is a genre of dealing with people. When someone lets you click their photo or you take without them noticing, you stand a chance to bring their story home. Try and talk to people rather than only clicking them. This way, you would know a lot about the place and their lives. In my interactions at markets, I have learnt a lot from real life examples of those people which is quite inspiring. So, not only click people but try to bring home a story about them.
• Respect privacy: While on streets, there might be lot of situations where people feel intruded, don’t want to be photographed. That is absolutely fine. We should respect privacy of others and move on by sharing a smile with them.
• Gauge the situation yourself: This could be quite important since many a times you might land in a situation which could be sensitive. You should gauge the situation yourself before clicking or taking an action. A sudden fight breaking out on the street or someone suddenly meeting an accident might tempt you to click them but could land you into a sensitive spot. With time and experience at the street, you would develop the eye to gauge the situation by yourself.
• Understand Law of Land: There are lots of places where you might not be allowed to take photos so it’s imperative that you abide by the laws of land. Ex: Shooting at the railway station, bridges, bus stand are all against the law since they could compromise the security, so avoid shooting at such places.

Some basics terms-Photography

Hello All,
I was thinking of starting the ball rolling somewhere and finally choose to start talking about some of the basics terminologies of photography. Here are some of the terms which could be handy while some of you try to grab the basics of the camera. Hope you have a good start on learning.

An example of using different apertures to control depth of field. See a bigger version here


Aperture: An aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels to the sensor of your camera. This is the opening which sets up how the light travels down and the appearance on the image plan looks like. The Aperture values which show up on your camera are also referred to as F-stops. The more the aperture value, the smaller the hole size, and the more the depth of field.
For example:
F1.8 would mean a larger hole which would give you sharpness around the focus area and rest blurred.
F5.6 would mean a smaller hole and sharpness around the focus and it’s near by areas increasing the depth of field.

Shutter speed: Shutter speed also known as exposure means the time for which the shutter is open to create the image on the sensor. Often the shutter speed which is displayed on your camera means that portion of
a second. For ex: if you go out in the light and the shutter speed of the camera shows 800, then it means the camera would expose for 1/800sec to create the image.

ISO: ISO in layman terms means the sensitivity of your camera sensor towards light. The higher the ISO value, the higher sensitivity is induced towards light. ISO is used in the cameras to increase the exposure during low light conditions.

White Balance: White balancing is a variable to control the casting of different colour tones in photos. where our eyes see and adjust automatically, cameras have a variable called White balance which helps you to control any undue casting which might come into your picture. For example: your camera is set to Tungsten white balance and you go out in the morning and click a picture of the lake. It would lend a bluish tone to the photography and you would immediately say that it’s not how it looked like there. You can play with the white balance to get the desired appearance and remove the bluish tone from the image.

Composition: Composing a photo or a composition means how to you place the subjects in the image which you plan to click. Most often we view through a viewfinder or a LCD to click a shot. The act of setting up an image is known as composing an image.

Metering Modes: Metering basically means how a camera determines the exposure of a particular shot. Our eyes are again excellently designed to understand different lightening but the camera sensor works on algorithms to find out the best exposure. In most of the cameras metering modes like evaluative, or matrix mode, partial, center weighted and spot metering modes are available. I shall discuss the usage of metering modes in a different article moving forward.

Focus Lock: Most of the cameras are designed to lock focus on the subject as we half-press the shutter button. Basically we are telling the camera to set focus on the subject. Cameras even provide you options to lock and then track the subject as they move around.

Exposure Lock: Cameras not only can lock the focus but also do lock exposure reading. This helps you to get the desired exposure and focus and then re-composition of your image.

Do share your thoughts or any other terms which you feel could be the part of this Thread. You are also open to pose questions which i shall try to answer or at-least refer to some website.

Glimpse of Ganeshas getting ready

I was dying to shoot through the whole week and kept a close watch on the any events lining up in my club and friends circle but not much action seemed to come through.
Where on one hand I wanted to stay a little wary about crowded places due to Flu being spreading in the city now, I wanted to still click some shots on the eve of 15th august.

I contacted few friends but most of them seemed busy this weekend or were out of town. Somehow I had made up my mind to go out and click.
15th aug, I got up and it was still drizzling. I was a little delayed in starting up since i preferred to enjoy the morning cup of tea from my balcony enjoying the rain. Soon i got ready and packed my gear.
As I moved out of my place, it struck me that I could try Bengali association before going to pottery town. I was alone so little skeptical about if they would let me in. On the front of the Bengali association, there were some preparations beginning for the 15th Aug celebrations and I smiling asked that fellow if I could take some photos inside where the artists would be working. He in turn smiled and said "go ahead, jus let arun know". I went inside and asked for arun. Arun dada, a senior artist, in his matured way told me that we don’t let people take photos apart from press, though, you can take some. He also told me not to take photos of some of their processes which I was happy to agree to. Inside, there is a huge compound where it felt like being amid army of gods. Hundreds of ganeshas, durga and bal hanumans rested around and kept an eye on my activities :)


I started taking shots and also could discuss with the artists about how much time would each one of them would take. I would cautiously move around, so that I don’t disturb them or don’t break anything.


The amount of concentration their work requires is enormous though it might look too colorful to an outsider. I spent some 20 mins and then took leave off arun dada. The time was now 8:30. The rain had stopped but it was still overcast. I decided to move towards Pottery town from here.

The sky opened up by the time I reached there. The place looked revamped this day. Huge stalls with life-sized ganeshas could be seen around the pottery town and most of their usual pots and lanterns were given backseats, since this is ganapathi time. I choose a shop and clicked ready ganapathis there. He told me that they finished making those some days back but in the ground near the school, some more might be coming up. By now, I was feeling quite happy to have some shots done, but was looking to catch shots of artists working. I got my opportunity soon.

Near one of the tents in the school grounds, artists were working on putting up finishing touches to the ganapathis and I could shoot those scenes. It was inspiring to see them work so hard and yet be so creative.

I finally could quench my thirst for shooting and returned back home by 10 am. Do tell me how you liked the pictures and talk about your experiences if you were shooting or seeing some of these works going on in and around the city.

Regards,
Saurabh

Softbox setup and getting some cool studio type shots

Liked the shot!!! Since some time I was thinking about making some set up for myself to click some studio type shots. It looks fantastic when we see those crisp shots in white or black backgrounds in infinite mode and the product seated in between. Frankly, but just looking at those shots we don’t come to know what it takes to get those outcomes. I am not a professional and hence have limited knowledge which I gained from reading online and experimenting. So here are the things which i would plan to showcase: 1. Setup of creating a cheap softbox. 2. Using the softbox. 3. What other options I have seen. Creating a soft box setup: Now frankly I am very cost conscious fellow. Until and unless I see a reason or a measurable outcome, I don’t like to spend money, especially on photography stuff. Rather i would buy some stocks :). May be that’s the sole reason I haven't got my hands on a DSLR yet. Here are the items you would need to get started: 1. Carton box- After the Friday office, I went to the kiryana store round the corner and asked him the typical carton boxes which are lying with them in plenty. Asked him if he expected something for it but costed nothing since our regular groceries come from there only. Cost=0 Rs. 2. Scissors, Paper Cutter, Selo Tape - Available at home, so Cost=0 Rs. 3. Trace paper or Butter paper Sheets-2 Sheets from the stationary store @ 4Rs each. Cost=8 Rs. 4. White Chart-1 sheet @7 Rs each. Cost=7 Rs. So, all set with the initial items to begin with at the cost of 15 Rs. Pretty cheap rite. Here is how the carton looks like: Listing some steps which followed next: 1. I removed the top closing ends. 2. Now to the other three sides, Side 1, Side 2, and top side 3, I started cutting huge windows out to leave frames from the sides. I have depicted them with white line in the below diagram. That’s what you need to remove. 3. After you carefully remove those out, the box would now look like a frame ready with you for your studio setup. 4. The empty frames now need to be covered with butter paper so that you can diffuse soft light through that to your subject. Remember, the three sides, side 1, side 2 and top side 3 are the ones which would have the butter paper stuck to. This is how it would look like after sticking the butter paper. 6. Voila we are almost done…I cut the white paper sheet per the size of box and covered back side 4 with it and also spread it across the Bottom side 5 to give us a nice clear white background. And this is how it would look now. So, this is the point where the soft box studio setup is ready to be used for our purpose. Now towards our second step, Using the soft box. I don't have any external flashes to fire from any direction, so i planned to use my night lamps shades from the bedside for this purpose. Here are the items which i use for the next steps: 1, My tripod- You bet tripod is lot useful for things to hold other than the camera. 2, A lamp shade or simple bulb holder. 3, 100 Watts bulb. It suited my requirement. you can tweak that per your requirement. 4, Camera. My reliable Sony H50. 5, A subject to shoot. :) I mounted the lamp shade using my tripod and now the light was coming from the top of the subject. Here is how it looks with the subject "Ganesha" enjoying all the limelight. Here is a closer look at the setup. And just to give you an idea of how the tripod was used and how the light was hanging around :) And finally here is the outcome of the setup you just saw. I was pretty happy with this cheap and fast setup. I think a flash would be much more helpful which is something I feel could be among other options. Of course, I used a small thermocol piece (lying useless in the TV carton) to reflect light in some shots even better. I hope you find this tutorial useful and please do leave your comments If there are any more options by which things can be improved.