Waterscape Throughout the Day

I don't have the knack of painting. To be more precise, I can't draw even a pencil. My parents, however, tried to discover this talent in me and put me in a painting class when I was in the second standard in school. After a few weeks of straight lines and never ending circles, I was asked to draw a river and a home beside it. The next few weeks were all about river, lotus in a pond, frog, fish, sunrise over the ocean and so on. Believe me or not, I was tired of water more than the school. Luckily the painting school shut down, as did my kindergarten school and even the hospital where I was born. Please don't panic; No other institution got shut down with my footsteps in it. But this water thing never let me go. My father wanted me to learn swimming and I was damn scared of it. Although I learned it lately, I'm still scared of water. But amazingly, the beauty of water (of course from the land or a boat), always attracted me.



The above photograph was taken near the Farakka D in West Bengal in April 2010. I was on a trip with Sudipto to the Santhal Pargana in Jharkhand on the occasion of birthday celebration of Sido Murmu, the historical icon of Santhal revolution. We stayed at his relative's house in Farakka before we started the actual journey. At dawn we woke up and walked a bit to reach the river bank. It was still dark but the fishermen were too busy, some even returning with their catch. A clear sky let us watch the sunrise with its divine freshness. It was the first time that I took a silhouette in the morning and that to with bloody red water as the background.



This one is a recent picture of the Nainitaal lake a couple of hours after the sunrise. Aquatic blue has always been a desire to capture for me. But this one is different. The water was green actually. I was amazed to see the reflection of the clear blue sky in the dark green water. Around 15 minutes later, there was nothing blue. I had to wait till the next morning to get some more snaps like it.



As we grow up, certain questions arise in our minds. I would have never understood how the fairy tale authors even think of the magic pools where the princess would take a dip to turn golden. It was a lazy afternoon when I took my camera and sat on the bank of Hooghly river at Baghbazar, in Kolkata. The Sun set completely almost 10 minutes after this photograph was taken. This is one of the examples, how a low exposure can make magic.



Clouds have always been the subject of photography. Howard Hughes discovered during the making of 'Hell's Angels' that the cloud as a background shows the fighter planes as hanging still. Why yes, Clouds make beautiful wallpapers but they become even gorgeous with supporting factors such as water as is in this picture. This picture was taken on a summer evening near Outram Ghat in Kolkata. The sun had just disappeared in the horizon but the light was still available. May I call it Dusk?



This sweetheart of a picture is again of the Nainitaal lake last December around 20 minutes after the Sun set. Imagine the same picture with a plane ground in place of the lake water. Had it been so wonderful? and it was highly romantic a view. I really was missing someone while looking at the view. Alas I don't know and I never knew, who I was thinking about.