Lord of the War

These are changed times. There are changed people. They use changed technology. Clothes that we wear, food that we crave for, phones that we dwell in, everything is changed. Even I'm changed. I had to change to sustain in this war torn world. Well, the methods of war are changed but not the intentions. This was is happening not only across political borders but within our cities, within our homes, within our relations. Yes we are at war even with ourselves not knowing that every war is fought by soldiers in the fields while a demonic few keep smiling behind their backs.

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.

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.

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.

Experi-Mental

It was a sudden thing though not accidental. I was trying to capture a profile of my buddy Pranoy Bhattacharya. He suddenly aimed his camera at me. Through my viewfinder I found myself reflected on the front of his lens. Couldn't spare a moment. You can see Pranoy's eyes at the top of the frame. Call it a self portrait or not, it was a first time experience for me.

Pan-Fried

Since the very first photographic outings, I've been seeing people trying to take pan shots with still camera. Often a good snap by those and some at exhibitions would fascinate me. But honestly, I never thought of experimenting with film rolls at that time. Now that I'm using digital cameras, its easier to do such experiments. I did some with moving vehicle lights at night. The daylight panning idea surfaced as I was travelling from Kharagpur to Kolkata with my friend Subhamay Mitra in his newly bought car.

It was a coincidence that the wind was blowing in the same direction of their movement. Seemed to me as if the greens were moving by the wind current created by the rider.


This is a strange sample where some static subjects seem to be moving but other static subjects are still. Also, the actually moving subject, the rider, seems to be frozen in the frame.


In last 3 pictures above, I've moved the camera from inside the moving car. This last image came out as the best resultant of the trip though.

Well, Experimenting was okay, but please do not ask me about what I derived from it. I'm really confused with the weird acts of relative velocity. But I think this could have helped Einstein a lot.

Sub-m-Urged

Ideas are often submerged among other ideas and come forth only when urged. I must have thought something while taking these but somehow it never came forward for so long. Well, the idea of another blog post was submerged just like these boats were.

Pan-Stallion

This is an amazing thing that I've been doing photography for around 7 years and this is the first time that I've done Panning. For those who have no idea about what Panning means in still photography - It is a shot taken by moving the camera at slow shutter speed with respect to a moving object. The background naturally gets shaken.

Although it is not a perfect shot considering composition and exposure but I'm loving it. Have to try some more.

Call 'em Colored

All of a sudden, after long time, I got some enthusiasm to publish my photographs again. This (not 'these') photograph was taken last December at Bhimtaal near Nainitaal.

The second photo is a desaturated version of the first one. A prank came to my mind. There used to be a lot of racist people in this world few decades ago who'd call others 'Black'. There number has decreased a lot over time but those who still exist, have devised a better name 'Colored'. In any case, Black or colored, a photograph needs at least one of them to be a photograph.

Now please tell me which one of these looks better. I need to learn a lot....

Light-errr

Drawing with the help of Light is called Photography. and I love Photography. But doing the same thing every day and every time sometimes gets on my nerves. So I thought of capturing light with the help of darkness. No big talks today. Just a few photographs. well, just for your information, I used two cell phone flash lights to create the formations.


Puzzled Power


Smile-O-Smiley


Brightness of Love

To colour or not to colour....

Got hold of my camera after around 3 months except for capturing friends and family. Anirban Mukherjee, my school buddy has the claim to credit this time. He was too eager to test his skills and new camera at Kumortuli, Kolkata. A new thing happened this time. Well, this is not new, it used to happen when I didn't have a digital camera. Took just a few photographs as if I had limited gates in my film roll.

Upon seeing the photographs, I realized that I've mostly captured photographs with a co existence of monochrome and colours. Honestly, this idea of grouping never came to me before I started creating this blog post.

The building blocks of clay Idol. Hay is used to make the basic structure of all those clay idols we see. This beautiful colour is eventually covered with black mud and then again colour is used to make those beautiful idols we see. Isn't it kind of resurrection?

Does chilli taste hot in the ears too? Mahishasur doesn't seem very happy with a chilli pierced through his ears to make a hole for ornamentation.

Peace in war zone. Actually something else came to my mind on seeing this scene. Can the cats distinguish between human beings and fierce human figures? Leave apart the human figures. How could he sleep so peacefully in front of such a big cat?

Red & White. No really, I don't have any intention to promote any brand here. actually, it seemed to me as if the provider of success and the well renowned savior are sitting in front of a court house. Redemption guaranteed.

Colours of muse. What else could I say?