Vermillion Face

Once again I got bowled by faces. Faces of women painted with Vermillion. The faces that define the phrase 'Bold and Beautiful'.
The date was October 24, 2012, merely a week ago from today. It was the occasion of Vijaya Dashami, the last day of Durga puja. The day on which myth says that a beautiful Parvati, whose beauty was even irresistible to Shiva fought and defeated the Evil Mahishasur. I wonder what made her victorious- Courage, Beauty or both? Because I see both in their faces.
No more words this time...just Faces.

Eyes 'n' God

Oh please, I didn't mean the fictitious Isengard. Its just that I visited Kumortuli - the clay idol maker's locality of Kolkata again today. I've been there many a times but not at a time so close to Durga puja. The clay job is mostly done. Most of the artists have started colouring the idols. And this is the first time I saw the eyes being painted. Although its customary to draw the eyes on Mahalaya which is 2 weeks ahead from now but customer's need can't be overlooked in the era of commercialism.

Well, the photographs below are not just about eyes. My fascination of faces sometimes overpower me. Eyes do portray the expression and are generally the most noticeable part of the face. But its amazing how the artists put expression without even a completely drawn eye. The non-colored, being-colored and colored eyes seemed to me like desire, effort and success.

It is obvious that kind eyes attract more attention than fierce and angry ones.

 Kindness alone can't make a complete mother. sometimes the kids need a little angry eyes too.

The loving eyes of a proud mother is a payback for every struggle.

Don't ever tell a girl that your mother is the most beautiful woman on this earth.

Mother is not just kind. She taught you to be kind as well.

The photographs below were taken at the same spot. I never knew how magnificent it could be to see an idol come to life.

Life on its way.

Face to face with Desire.

Eyes 'n' God

Buttery-Flying Angels

It was a misty morning of 2009 winter. I left early in the morning with my camera a Canon Powershot SX 10IS and boarded an EMU train from Sealdah. The destination was Chintamoni Kar Bird Sanctuary, popularly known as 'Kayal er Bagan' near Narendrapur. after a highly complicated journey of around 2 hours I reached the place. Well, en route to the place I came to know that there is a much easier route which would have taken me a bit more than an hour.

Kayaler Bagan is a 17 acre small forest beside a canal near Narendrapur in South 24 Parganas of West bengal in India. Although, the name suggests it is a bird sanctuary, I found lots of other things too. I spotted a couple of mongoose and a big enough monitor lizard. Actually I came face to face with the later and realised how frightened we both were. I've also heard that there are snakes too. But the most beautiful things that I saw and photographed were numerous butterflies, bees, wasps and other insects. For now, I present a few of the Buttery Flying Angels.

Drop 'n' Pop

Oh Please!!! Don't expect a story every time. I just clicked them thinking only about the exposure. Well, if you insist, I took them from our 1st floor balcony. The bricks are of the newly made wall of the construction site just beside our home.

The Raindrops...They just dropped and Popped.

Camera: Canon EOS 500D
Shutter speed: 1/125sec
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 100

Crab Grab

I went to Puri (Odisha, India) after almost 15 years. I guess I can ignore an one hour visit to the city around 8 years back. As always Puri beach has its own charm. One can spend a whole day or rather days sitting on the beach and just keep looking at the waves. I did the same. Everyday, I'd find a non crowded spot along the beach and sit there for hours. Sometimes seeing the waves, sometimes clicking them. One day I realized that something moved on the sand just a couple of feet away from my legs. I kept looking until I found that it was a crab and then I found several crab holes around me and actually several crabs were peeping from their doors. In the following days I found out that crabs are overwhelmingly present throughout the entire beach of Puri. But they don't emerge at crowded places during the day unless They are hungry and unless they see food.

On my last day at he beach, I suddenly found an inch long bug which overturned while landing, struggling to get straight. The camera was on and the exposure was set since I was already clicking crabs a few minutes ago. I aimed the camera and WHOA!!! A fierce crab emerged from its hole just a few inches away from it. CLICK..went my first grab of the event that was quite presumable.

Within a second there was another hunter very close.

However, It may be a common understanding among the crab community that one of them left the scene a moment later. The other one didn't loose a moment and grabbed the live bug with a swift move.

But who gives up a life without a struggle. It was an amazing thing to see how the bug snapped out of the crab's claws. And really the crab waited for the next few seconds, stunned, before it jumped again.

Unfortunately, the bug still remained overturned and could not fly away. The hunter took its time to plan the next attack.

The next part was swift enough. The crab attacked again.

The Bug still tried its best to fight for its life.

But the claws of the crab were big and mighty enough to capture its prey. and then I realized that every movement of the crab was directed towards it's kitchen.

It took the crab less than a couple of seconds to capture the bug and enter the hole.

Now, don't ask me how crabs cook bug.
Thanks to the continuous shutter mode and abundant light that I could capture the whole thing in my camera.
All the photos were taken with Canon EOS 500D using a 75-300 telephoto zoom lens.
Exposure settings: 100 ISO, f/5.6, 1/500sec at 300mm focal length.

Venus Transit over the Sun

I had planned to photograph the last 'Venus transit over the Sun' of my life time. Well, an extended sleep and a cloudy sky prevented the most of it. However, I managed to cover the last 2 hours of the spectacle. The first image was taken at 8am IST. After that each photograph was clicked at an average gap of 15 minutes.

At first I thought a very low exposure would neutralize the high amount of Sunlight. but the plan actually failed. An X-ray plate came in handy. I cut a round piece of it from the exposed darker region and put it between the lens and the UV filter.

That's Cloudy

As she stepped into the house, gone were suffering and agony. She washed away the dirt off my porch and bathed me with her love. Yes, the Clouds. That's what I'm talking about. Have you ever seen clouds portraying your mood? I have.....


The Cloud of Liberty


The Cloud of Vengeance


The Cloud of Resurrection


The Cloud of Experience

Lum-PEN

In a sense, I'm a Lumpen - often displaced people who have been cut off from the socioeconomic class with which they would ordinarily be identified. Photography, indeed is an expensive passion in terms of both time and money. But sometimes, sudden spontaneous thoughts bloom into soothing compositions. Lets get back in time from modern pens to the ancient ones.

Ball point pen

This photograph was taken at a village primary school which I visited with my friend Subhamay Mitra, who is a teacher in that school. The irony of the experience is that I was sitting inside the a terribly small room called the staff room and this student was attending his class just outside at the verandah. But still, this composition seemed to me, the best photographic presentation of Education.

Fountain pen

This one is one of the most common compositions on time and memory. Tried this for the first time. I was amazed with the performance of my new 75-300 mm lens. Such a shallow depth of field. The nib of the pen and the year 2012 on the diary page were barely a couple of inch apart.

Feather tip pen

I've no idea whether this is a good composition or not. I don't even want to induce a story to this one, although I have one in my mind. I just loved the colour.