My first wordpress plugin is WP Clickbank Ad Display. This plugin creates a widget space for displaying clickbank keyword specific text advertisements.

Here are a few links related to this plugin:

• The Official WordPress Download Location
• Support Forum

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Some of the photos might not look so clear. It was due to the low light condition. I had to push the ISO to 1600 and yet could not get adequate shutter speed in some cases.

So here goes the photos. Please leave your remarks in the comments section if you like the photos

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Now you might be thinking why it is so important to choose the web host so wisely. this is because it is the host who will have impact on all the aspects of your website. Before going into details, let us get a brief description of what are different types of hosting options available for us.

Type of Hosting Options

• Free Web Hosting

Yes, there are some service providers who provide you an option for free web hosting. As you know that there is nothing free in this world, they definitely have some drawbacks. But these are definitely good starting options and very good for non-commercial low traffic sites.

Free Web Hosting Pros:

1. Free and hence you don’t need to worry about money.
2. Good for starting point, small websites, family site etc.
3. Easy to use.

Cons:

1. Often, they does not allow your own domain like www.yourdomain.com…..rather you may need to choose domains like www.yourname.serviceprovider.com
2. The service provider may place advertisements on your website.
3. There are all types of restrictions for bandwidth, space and all other parameters.
4. You can not configure your website as you like.

Best Suited for: Very small websites, family websites, static websites.

Some good example of free web service providers are: www.sites.google.com, www.webs.com, www.000webhost.com, etc.

• Shared Web Hosting

This is the most common type of web hosting where one server is shared by several websites. For this, the website owners need to pay affordable sum to the host and the host makes sure that the server runs fine with all the websites in it. This is the cheapest solution for paid web hosting. In this case, the website owners have flexibility of choosing their own domain name, but the system properties are not changed as per each website owner’s request or requirement since the same server with same operating system houses several websites. Each website owner has different control panels to control their part of the server, but no common property can be changed with that. Many a people opt for this shared web hosting since this is a very basic step in website hosting and quite affordable by all.

Shared Web Hosting Pros:

1. Quite affordable.
2. Basic configuration possible for websites.
3. Own domain name possible.

Cons:

1. You can not configure your website as you like.
2. Several websites sharing same sever may cause performance issues.
3. If any one of the website is flagged as spammer or bad site, then all the websites sharing the same server gets the same status as they all share the same ip address.

Best Suited for: Small or medium sized websites requiring a monthly bandwidth of a few GBs

Almost all the web hosts support shared hosting option.

• Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

This is a type of hosting when multiple virtual software partitions are created on single server so that each partition can act as a standalone server. In this case, all the partitions or the virtual servers can be configured independently and changing one VPS’ property does not impact the other VPSes residing on the same server. Here the main flexibility the website owner gets is that VPS can be fully customized to cater the need.

VPS Web Hosting Pros:

1. Can be fully configured.
2. Performance parameters are generally a bit better than shared hosting.

Cons:

1. Relatively costlier than shared hosting.

Best Suited for: Medium sized or large websites requiring a monthly bandwidth in the order of 100 GBs.

• Dedicated Web Hosting

As the name suggests, a dedicated server is allocated for the website owner and the owner configures the server and utilizes all the resources of the server for his websites(s). In general, the server management responsibility also comes under the website owners head and hence it requires more technical responsibilities than the previously mentioned plans.

Dedicated Web Hosting Pros:

1. One dedicated server for the website(s).
2. Fully configurable.
3. All the CPU, bandwidth and other server resources are allocated to the same account.
4. Highest performance parameters.
5. More secure.

Cons:

1. Very costly option.
2. Needs more technical knowledge to maintain the server.

Best Suited for: Very large websites with monthly bandwidth more than several hundred GBs.

• Managed Web Hosting

In this type of hosting, the dedicated server is also supported and maintained by the hosting company against higher cost.All other parameters of dedicated hosting is valid here.

Managed Web Hosting Pros:

1. All the positives of dedicated hosting applies here.
2. Maintenance is easier as it is taken care of hosting company personnel.

Cons:

1. More costlier than dedicated hosting option.

Best Suited for: Very large websites with monthly bandwidth more than several hundred GBs.

• Server Co-Location

In this case, you just want your server(s) to be located at your hosts server location so that they are offered the similar power options, connectivity setting, cooling options as other servers. Not all hosts offer this option, but a few really offer such solution. The servers are remotely managed by the owner.

• Reseller Web Hosting

This type of web hosting is not for hosting own websites, rather you buy hosting space and bandwidth from one host and re-sell them to other website owners. So with this good knowledge in web hosting, we can move on to choose good web host in my next post. By the time, do let me know if you liked my post. Want to read more on this topic:

• Concept of Shared Web Hosting
• Free Or Paid Webhosting: Make Your Selection
• Types Of Servers And Hosting Plans

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So what is it basically? How do the photos look with this effect?

See the image below to get the feel:

Concentration

What are the Pre-requisite for this kind of shots?

You need the following:

• Any camera with manual zoom ring – so that you can change the focal length manually at any point of time. So a prime lens or fixed focal length lens won’t be an option for this shot.
• The lighting condition should not be too bright. You need relatively slow (not too slow) shutter speed for this type of shots.

How do we shoot it?

The method is very simple:

• Keep your shutter speed lower – if possible near to 1/60 or 1/30.
• While pressing the shutter release button rotate your zoom ring (focal length changing ring) simultaneously from wide-angle to tele-angle i.e. from lower focal length to higher focal length.
• You are done – try a few times and you will get your desired result. Looks cool, ain’t it?
• One suggestion is that you should try to keep some object (preferably the main subject of your frmae) near the center of the frame so that it remains clear  and gives the motion feel to the viewers.

Is there any post processing steps required?

For this effect to look good, no processing is required as such. Just try out more shots and you will see the results improving. But there are options in Photoshop or other photo editing softwares to add this effect if you have not tried zoom burst during taking the photograph.

So try out this technique and share your photos and other resources regarding this in comments section. I would love to learn more of it.

Where do I find more resources on this topic?

• Burst Zoom Photography
• DSLR Tricks – Zoom burst
• Backpacker Photo School: Zoom Burst Photography

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Choosing a Good Domain Name:

• Take the keywords you would like to use in your domain name. It can contain a few words, but remember that it should be so that user can remember the name.
• Use some online tool to get similar domain names. There are several online tools available: http://www.nameboy.com/ or http://www.shoutdomains.com/. Or else you can directly use the registrars tool to find your domain name like: Hostcolor.
• Keep your domain names as short as possible. It should not be more than 10-15 characters.
• The domain should tell the user the purpose or the content of the website.
• If possible, you should include key words into the domain name to get more traffic.
• Try not to use hyphens or any thing similar other than alphanumeric characters.
• Choosing extension (.com or .net or .org etc) can be another difficult task. The thumb rule is that if your audience is supposed to in and around some specific geographic boundary, you may like to choose location wise extension like .co.uk or .co.in or similar. IF you have any specific need to .net or .org extensions, you should go for that. Otherwise, it’s better to stick to the generic .com sites.

Choosing a Domain Registrar:

• This is not a very complicated step. Just stick to the registrar who offers best deal for your. Search for domain registrars and you will get many. The popular registrars like godaddy or hostgator etc are worth a try. I would like to recommend my domain registrar Hostcolor, who offers competitive pricing for all kinds of domain names.

Having said all these, I would really like to help you with choosing a better domain name for your site. Please feel free to post your queries as comments.

Want to read more on these? Try out these articles:

• What to Do When Choosing a Domain Name
• Tips on Choosing a Good Domain Name
• 7 Elements Of A Successful Website

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In this post I’ll elaborate the steps to take to create one’s own photography site or photo blog.

Before that, let’s look at the benefit of creating a completely new photography website:

• There is no copyright issue or copyright sharing when you host your own images on your shared or own server. Yes, whenever you post your image on some photo-sharing site (like Flickr) or some social networking website (like Facebook or Orkut), you accept their terms and conditions (which we never read carefully). By accepting those TOC, you generally grant them the permission to use your photographs on their own to certain extents.
• You can customize everything in your site as per your needs and maintain a look and feel that’s important to you.
• It looks more professional to have your own site and you can easily share your works with any body through your website.
• It’s fun to create and maintain your own site and it’s never too late to learn and start something new.

Now as you know the reason why you should start creating your own photography site or photo blog, let us discuss the basic difference between a normal photography site and a photo blog:

• A Photography site is where you share your photographs through different sections of the websites separated by different pages. You can create different pages for different galleries and other sections for your work.
• A Photo blog is like a normal blog where contents are stored in the form of posts with the images

You can also have a combination of both as per your needs.

So here are the basic steps you need to take to create the site:

1. Domain: There are several domain registrars available and you can find their search options to get a good domain for your site like biswajitdey.com and you need to pay a nominal charge (normally annual) for this depending on the type of extension of your domain (whether it’s .com or .net or .org etc).
2. Host: Next is the time for choosing your host who will provide the server space to store all your images and other files. This step need a careful consideration as once you are attached to one host, it’s a pain to change it. And hosts server quality and their customer service quality is one of the most important factor for your website to be a successful one.
3. CMS or Scripts or Tools for website: None really creates a website by writing html or any other code today. It becomes very painful for a regularly updated dynamic website if it is hand written code. There are several open source free CMS scripts available today and there are some paid scripts also, which gives several options with customization of your site. Depending on your need, you need to choose one from them.
4. Create the Site: And the final step is to spend some quality time to get your site up and running with all the resources you chose in the above steps.

Hope these steps are helpful to you. I’ll elaborate each and every points mentioned above in my upcoming posts.

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Antoroi is a remote village and is the native place of our cook. It’s in the border of Orissa and West Bengal and you won’t find any traces of this place anywhere is internet or google maps . I must say here that I love rural area. A few days off to such places is really a bliss and a very good way of getting refreshed and refueled for our regular life.

Anyways, I started out on a Friday evening and had a 4 hour train journey to reach Jaleswar train station at about 2′o clock in the night. Our cook’s younger son (Jeetu) was on his way to the station to pick me up. When the train left the station, the darkness and loneliness of the place was back at its place immediately. Only a few people got down the train and we headed to the main exit of the station. To my surprise, a few tea stalls were open then and I had a few cups of tea waiting there for his arrival. The place was unknown, so was their language. Yes, yet after living here in Bhubaneswar for around four years, I haven’t yet learned oriya language except for some basic phrases.

My wait was over when he came after around half an hour and we started our journey to his home at around 2:30 int he night. He hired an auto-rickshaw to get me back home. It was so dark and his home seemed to be so distant in that night. Although the night seemed a lot more darker than usual and the visibility was too low in the dark, I could feel the freshness of the rural area. Almost an hour of travelling got us to their home.

It was almost dawn and I did not want to sleep since one of the main reason I got there was to shoot the beauty and the life there in that village. As the morning light was about to come up, I did want to waste the scope of good photographs just by sleeping. We spent the time by watching TV and left out to the village after some time.

It was the time in the village when they start planting paddy in their agricultural field. The village is highly populated with several tribal families, mostly Santals. In this time of the year, they come to work in their fields with all the family members. They all work together hard so that they can get the food supply for rest of the year with this. A few families those who can afford hire contracted labourers to work on their fields.

We roamed around the paddy fields, we went here and there in the village and I shot several photographs. Jeetu was guiding me throughout the village. And when the sun was rising above and it became to hot to roam around, we returned home, had breakfast and slept all day!

From photography perspective, I got some good shots in the morning. But my another intention was to shoot star trails for the first time. And I recently bought my tripod and a remote shutter release for this purpose only. In the afternoon, we went out and identified a spot where I would be trying my new venture in the night time. After dinner we went there and tried several times to achieve good star trails, but failed miserably. I had it in my mind to shoot trails as a single long exposure shot, not by multiple small exposures (I did not have a remote shutter release cable for that). And a big lesson learnt that shooting star trails is not an easy job.The reasons are:

• It is very difficult to focus and frame properly in the dark.
• The dew will condense on the lens and make everything blur if not taken care of.
• The high noise (even with long exposure noise reduction on) will be there and it requires post processing.
• It’s very difficult to avoid any unwanted light source even in case of this remote village.
• And finally it’s difficult to spend time in absolute dark and idling around when the shot is in progress.

Anyway, I tried to shoot star train in the next evening also but could not manage again for the same reasons. But I am not regretting as I am satisfied with the few shots I got to display here and the overall short trip as it was totally refreshing and different.

I spent the whole weekend there. I visited their local market, I also visited a few neighbouring villages. I was overwhelmed by the hospitality offered to me by the people there.

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Have you been there, done that? Well, here’s what probably went wrong. You were shooting in semi-darkness and the camera only captured as much light as you allowed it. The next time around, all you have to do is widen the aperture!

Comparison of Aperture

What is an aperture, you ask?

Well, an aperture is the opening in the lens through which light enters the camera and falls on the film or sensor. Controlling the size of the aperture will therefore control the amount of light entering the camera. The equation of how the aperture is related to the amount of light is pretty simple. The illustration below demonstrates it.

How do I control the aperture?

You can change the aperture by changing the f-stop or f-number on your lens rim or simply from the buttons in your camera.

f-stop? f-number? What on earth are these ‘f’ words anyways?

‘f-stop’ or ‘f-number’ are technical terms by which the aperture is referred to in photography. ‘f-stop’ determines the ratio of the lens focal length to the diameter of the aperture.

Lower f-stop Effect

For those of you who are not too kicked about doing the math, all you’ve got to do is remember that:

• Increasing the ‘f-number’ will cause the aperture to decrease.

• Decreasing the ‘f-number’ will cause the aperture to increase.

Your camera or lens comes pre-calibrated with specific values of ‘f-number’ that are available for you to choose from. These values generally are: 1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0, 11, 16, 22, 32, 45, 64 etc.

Why these strange numbers?

The reason is simple: to double your capacity at every step.

Higher f-stop Effect

As you ascend from one ‘f-stop’ value to the next, the amount of light entering the lens is halved. Similarly, if you descend from one ‘f-stop’ value to the one below it, the light is doubled.

Here’s an example to make things simpler. If you change the ‘f-number’ from 5.6 to 8.0, the light entering your camera will be halved. And if you change the ‘f-number’ from 8.0 to 4.0, the amount of light entering your camera will increase four-fold.

Is that all the ‘f-number’ does?

Not exactly. Altering the ‘f-number’ does have another impact on the end-photograph. It impacts your photograph’s ‘depth of field’ or ‘depth of focus’.

Before you shoot me your next question, let me tell you that we will be discussing ‘depth of field’ in another post.

Read More about this topic here and here.

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The exposure is so potent that it can change the whole essence of the photograph. Proper use reveals even the most intricate details of the subject. Whereas improper use can darken or brighten the subject to an extent that makes it difficult to fathom the inter-relation among the elements of the photograph.

Belling the exposure cat

So, if exposure is so crucial to a photograph, it is definitely essential to know how it can be controlled. Exposure can be controlled mainly by four factors:

1. Aperture Setting
2. Shutter Speed Setting
3. ISO Setting
4. Exposure Compensation (ev)

Controllers of Exposure

Damage control for wrong exposure

You may not always get the exposure code cracked correctly. And if you are down this path, you will discover the following:

An over-exposed image:

Here, the amount of light used to create the photograph is more than what was required for it. This kind of image will contain blown-out areas or the highlighted portions which have lost the details that it was actually meant to contain.

Under-exposed image:

Here, the amount of light used to create the photograph is less than what was required for it. This kind of image will contain dark or black sections which have lost the details it was actually meant to contain.

However, there is hope still. This silver lining comes in the wake of photo editing softwares. Once taken, the photograph can be subjected to some manipulation before printing. This helps restore the details to some extent. The best option however, is to control the exposure during a take.

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www.souvikbasu.in

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I along with Dipankar decided to took this opportunity now as it’s only two more months to go for the grand festival of Durga Puja. On last Saturday, we made the first attempt and went to the place in early morning straight from Howrah Station (after the overnight travel from Bhubaneswar to Howrah). But the weather was not not in our favour – it started to rain even before we reached the place and continued. We waited for around an hour and when we saw that there is no sign of the rain to stop, we decided to drop off the plan for the day.

And we visited the place again on the next day. This time we were lucky to get sunny sky. We started off quickly and explored all the gullies in there. Although it was not the first time for us, the place looks similarly attractive and active all the time. The activity of the clay-idol makers, their intricate arts, their patience for creating minute details, their hardship and lifestyle in those small shacks and finally their completed creations are all so interesting that everyone will get amazed. Finally we got some decent shots and ended the day with these photos:

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This is the most basic among the so-called ‘Photographic rules’ and hence is always spoken of first. This rule originated way back when painters realized the psychology behind it, after which the photographers also started to apply this rule successfully to their creations.

What is this rule all about?

It is really very simple to understand it. If the photographic frame can be divided into nine equal sections by two equidistant horizontal and two equidistant vertical lines, then the four intersecting points thus created are called ‘Golden Points’ or simply ‘Power Points’ or ‘Nodal Points’. Whenever a photo is taken, the photographer must pay special attention to place the main subject at any of these four Golden Points or along these horizontal or vertical lines.

The rule is named so because of the fact that the frame of the photo is divided into three vertical sections by the three horizontal lines and into three horizontal sections by the two vertical lines.

Why at 1/3rd? Why not at the middle?

This is one of the obvious questions that strikes at one’s mind when one hears about this rule for the first time. Actually the photo becomes more balanced one and easy-to-eyes if the main subjects are placed like this rule. The human psychology tells that when we look at a photograph, our eyes first view these Golden Points and then follows these horizontal and vertical lines. See the examples:

Representative, Ribdhi

Yet Another Sunset, Chandrabhaga Beach

Morning News

What will help me taking a snap using this rule?

In most of the digital cameras, there is an option to make grids appear on the view finder or the LCD screen. These grids generally have these horizontal and vertical lines to assist in following the rule of third during taking a snap.

In case of a film camera, there may be grids already available in the viewfinder. But if the grids are not available, then the only option left is to assume the grid lines on the view finder. Imaging these lines on the view finder may seem to be difficult at first. But small practice will make it simpler soon.

Can I apply this rule during post processing?

Yes, definitely! Even if one forgets about the rule of third, one can still try to apply it during post processing. Cropping the photograph properly during printing or during photo-editing will help you place your main subject at the golden points or along those horizontal and vertical lines.

Which point or line to choose?

This question is what is of most importance when you try to apply this rule in your actual photographic works. The point or the line you chose to place your subject on really matters and can dramatically change the meaning or emphasis of your subject.

For a single subject-photo, it is a bit easier to determine which point or line to choose for composition. You choose the left-aligned vertical line or the golden points at the left. The reason behind this is related to the way we read any text. In most of the cases, we read from left to right manner. For this reason, our eyes first fall on the left hand side of the photograph and then traverse through the right side of the frame. Similarly, in those cases, where people read from right to left, the right aligned vertical line or the golden points at the right of the frame becomes your default choice.

For photos with multiple subject or elements, the emphasis on each subject can be changed by placing them at different golden points or along different lines. Subjects in the foreground should be placed at the bottom-right golden point to match the strength of the foreground subject as the bottom-right golden point imparts the strongest emphasis on the subject and the foreground subject generally requires the strongest attention. In the same line, the background subject should be at the upper-left golden point to give it less emphasis. One point of caution here is that the wrong placement of subject element in the frame according to the strength of the golden points may confuse the viewers’ eyes and mind as they may not be able to justify the strength and emphasis to be given to different subject elements.

Want to know more?

Here are some links to other sites on the same topic:

• Some good examples
• Logic behind the rule
• Detailed Discussion

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Khandagiri is tourist spot in Bhubaneswar, where you will find some very old caves and sculptures and a few temples. On the way to the caves, they organize their annual fair. They place gets real crowded at that time since people from different regions of this state come to be a part of the festival. And just beside the fair ground, they organize their annual international dance festival.

We had faced several problems on the days – yes we visited twice that place on one weekend. First of all, we had trouble with our helmets - lesson learnt: always carry a lock and chain to lock your helmets with your bike; you cannot carry you r helmets if you intend to do photography. Second problem was to get some good photos within that crowd. As the time passed one, the crowd became denser making it more difficult for us to frame and shoot good compositions – lesson learnt: have to get early to the event zone and get to know the situation before it’s too late to figure out. And finally I had a tough time shooting the dance program. It was way to hard to shoot those moving dancers in that constantly varying and low light. It takes a test of your patience, your mastery and the performance of your gear in such stage performances – lesson learnt: photographing stage performances is not at all an easy task.

Anyways, we had spent a lot of time there and got a very high shutter count, but ultimately got to display only a few clicks and here are they:

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This Post is divided into three pieces:

1. Part I: Images from Puri – the Land of Lord Jagannath
2. Part II: On the Way to Sun Temple from the Land of Lord Jagannath
3. Part III: Konark and Chandrabhaga Beach

After we reached Konark, we visited the Sun Temple, which is a key landmark in this state. Although the place carries a historic monument (or temple as you may call it), I could not manage to get good clicks here.

After the short visit to the temple premises, we moved to the nearby beach, locally known as Chandrabhaga beach. We spend quite some time there. It is comparatively less crowded and had couple of fisherman’s cottages. They lived there with their families in those ragged cottages and they had their boats on the shore, which they use for fishing to earn their daily bread. Their children never goes to school and you cannot even call it as their village since it had no market, doctor’s facility or any kind of options required for daily living. I could manage to get a couple of shots of that place.

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This Post is divided into three pieces:

1. Part I: Images from Puri – the Land of Lord Jagannath
2. Part II: On the Way to Sun Temple from the Land of Lord Jagannath
3. Part III: Konark and Chandrabhaga Beach

As our escapade in Puri came to an end, we headed towards Konark following the marine drive (yes, it is known a Puri-Konark marine drive). We were totally enjoying the beauty of the way and it’s surroundings and after some times, we noticed a place which caught the attention of all of us.

It was a place where people were working on stone sculptures. There were several workers (I would rather call them artists), making curves on the stone pieces to create extremely stunning art-pieces. We got down from our bikes and approached towards the art workshop.

We talked to the person in charge and came to know that they create all sorts of stone sculptures and ship them to different cites in India as well as abroad. We spent some time there and watched them working with utmost attention and devotion. We also did not miss the chance to capture their work and get some of the masterpieces for ourselves.

Although the photographs in this post are not so photographically rich in content, I tried some tricks like panning, zoom burst and also played with the monochrome and hue-saturation effects.

And the photos go here:

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This Post is divided into three pieces:

1. Part I: Images from Puri – the Land of Lord Jagannath
2. Part II: On the Way to Sun Temple from the Land of Lord Jagannath
3. Part III: Konark and Chandrabhaga Beach

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If you thought that your love for photography qualifies your photographs as ‘awesome’, think again. There is a lot that goes into a picture that does not involve your finger and the shutter release button. Here are a few aspects that you need to be mindful of before pressing down.

As pointed out, photography is not just about pointing your camera and taking the shot. Oftentimes, you just take a photograph without much consideration to it and you move on to your next target. But this is not the best way to take a good picture. True, you may have taken a few good shots on your own way. But luck does not always favor. To evolve into a good photographer, your mind should actively search for ways to improve it. You need to question the quality of your shot.

Are you wondering what you should ask? Well, here are a few simple questions to put things in perspective before you press down ‘the’ button:

1. Is the main subject in focus?

It's Important to Decide Which Object to Focus | Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Sounds silly? Well, it’s one of the most elemental questions to be asked. Especially since you are perfectly aware of how miserably a picture can lose its essence when the main subject is out of focus. A properly focused picture has a crystal-clear subject and always attracts the viewer’s eye. So check your focal points before taking a picture.

What if there is more than one element that you want to focus on? In such scenarios, you need to increase your depth of field as much as is necessary or possible to cover the depth of your important elements. After this you need to focus on the most important among all the elements: your subject. For example, let us consider a portrait photograph. You should try to consider the eyes of your subject in sharp focus while other part of the face well within the depth of field.

2. What about my other camera settings?

A camera is always to be set carefully and you need to be aware of it. You may create marvelous effects or create a hopeless image, but it should never be done unknowingly.

To begin with, review whether the preset scene modes available in your camera like: Auto, Portrait, Macro, Sports etc. are adequate. If any one of them is, then go right ahead, set it and shoot away. As a beginner, this should be your choice. These preset scene modes are set in your camera by judging the light available and then calculating the best setting based on the data already stored in your camera.

Then, check the ISO. If you use an unnecessarily high ISO, you will get a noisy effect in your photograph. Your best bet is to set the default ISO to a lower one like 100 or 200. When you need to scale higher, just return to the default and set it again. Of course, do remember to return to default again so as to minimize your chances of forgetting to shoot in a higher ISO.

Another thing that confuses most shutter-bugs in their initial days is whether they should use the ‘shutter-speed priority’ mode or the ‘aperture-priority mode’. When in this confusion, the thumb rule is always to use:

• The ‘shutter-speed priority’ mode when some kind of motion is associated with your shot and you need to control it.
• The ‘aperture priority mode’, when you are not bothered about motion, and are more interested in the depth-of-field and exposure.

3. Is the photo-framing straight?

Aah! There goes another crucial question. And the answer should be a resounding ‘yes’ if you intend on taking that momentous photograph!

The frame of the photograph has to be straight. If the frame includes the horizon, then it should appear horizontally, and trust me, it’s one of the basic guidelines. You may intentionally tilt the frame to emphasize some other point, but you better have a good reason to be doing something like that.

4. Background? Who cares?

You should, if you want your picture to be good!

A Less Disturbing Background Pleases Viewers Eyes!

A background plays a vital role in differentiating between a ‘photograph’ and a ‘good photograph’. In fact, it is as important as your focal subject/ foreground is. An irrelevant or distracting background ruins your efforts and beats the purpose of the photograph completely.

So, always try to keep irrelevant elements away from the background of your frame. If the background is cluttered, your subject may get lost in it. Moreover, disruptive backgrounds draw the attention of the viewer away from the main subject. To improve your take, try changing your position or angle, or even wait if the background is dynamic. Trust me, it will be worth the effort.

5. Is my composition correct?

Now you should concentrate on how you should compose the photo. It is always advisable to follow the conventional composition techniques to suit the photo as most of the time they do suit your needs. Try putting the subjects on the nodal points of the rule of third. Also try to find out any lines or patterns that may guide the viewer eyes to your main subject.

But what if you find that the composition thumb rules are not serving your purpose? Then you should think of framing your photo in a different way not following these guidelines. You should have a good grip on the thumb rules when you think of breaking them.

6. What are the Sources of light?

Source of light is what makes your photo or kills your photo, depending on how aware you are about it or how wisely you make use of it. A good knowledge about the direction of the main source of light and its strength will help you reveal the answers to several other questions like:

Different types of Light in Photography

• Is this much of light enough for your shot?
• Do you need to adjust your shutter speed, or ISO setting or the aperture?
• Do you need to have some supportive light – may be a flash or studio light?
• Do you need a tripod or any other kind of support for your camera?
• Do you need to consider changing the white balance setting to compensate for the color temperature of the source?

As a thumb rule, unless you are going to take a silhouette or back lit image you should always try to avoid Sun or any other bright source of light in front of your camera since they will destroy the balance of exposure in your frame.

7. Am I close enough to the subject?

As a good photographer, you should always consider this point. You must be close enough to your subject to impart more stress on it. This way, you can easily fill up the meaningless empty space in your frame and you will be able to keep all the irrelevant cluttering elements out of your frame. Sometimes it is not possible to move closer to a subject even if you want to. Try using a longer focal length or a telephoto lens in those cases.

8. What about the Depth of field?

Depth of field is what defines the depth within which the elements will be with considerable sharpness. You need to decide whether you want to use shallow depth of field or a much wider depth and then you need to set your aperture accordingly.

As a thumb rule, we keep depth of field as large as possible in case of landscape photography, whereas we keep a shallow depth of field in case of macro photography. Increasing your depth of field will cover a vast range of depths and will keep them with considerable sharpness while shallow depth of field may be helpful in eliminating the distracting effects of unwanted elements or background.

9. Is the Shutter speed appropriate?

You better take a last glance at the shutter speed at which you are taking your photograph. Otherwise you may end up in a photograph with a lot of shakes. You must not use lower shutter speed unless you want the motion blur effect in your photograph. While you are clicking handheld, it is advised for the beginners to keep your shutter speed at least double that of your focal length. For example, if you are shooting at a focal length of 250mm, keep your shutter speed at least 1/500. This will minimize the probability of shake-effect in your photograph. If you are not getting that much of shutter speed that you want, try increasing aperture and/or the ISO setting. Or if you are bound to shoot at a lower shutter speed, use a tripod or any other support for your camera.

10. Do I need to Review my shot?

Reviewing Shots in LCD | Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

After you are done with this series of the above questions, you are ready to go for the shot. Now after you have made it, it’s not over yet. This is the point which makes a good photographer different from others. You need to review your shot after you have taken it. In case of a digital camera, it’s easier now to review with the help of the LCD screen. But with a film camera you can still visualize your shot in your mind and review it – it should not be very tough if you are attentive while taking the shot. Try to find out where the photo lacks or the ways it could have been shot in a better way. You can try a different angle or different camera settings. Go for another shot of the same subject in different way, if possible.

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Sudder Street is the place in Kolkata where many a foreigners used to have local accommodations. Some are tourists, a few are students and some more are working. The local people here arrange for a procession on every Holi, they go around the locality and then gather at a point to play with colours.

I hadn’t yet finished my breakfast when the procession came back and I had to drop the remaining of my breakfast since it was time for action. It was also an awesome experience. People there were really very excited – they danced in tune of the local banjo and they played with colours (all sorts of ) like mad – all the foreigners and local people were mingled there. I had to be extra cautious to save my camera from gulal and all sorts of colour – sometimes it seemed that I was doing some gymnastic moves to guard it– you never know someone from any direction will throw some colour to you and that may be the last moment for your camera.

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It was planned a few days before the day. I gathered some info from Asis Da and Tumpa about where to go. Finally, I sorted out to capture two different moods of Holi – the first one – Holi in Traditional Way (in this post) and the second one – Holi the Ecstatic Way (in my next post).

Tumpa could not go with me as she fell sick, but Dipankar promised me to accompany. On 1st March, 2010; I went out pretty early to our 1st destination – Central Park, Golf Green, Kolkata. Dipankar did not reach the meeting point and he did not answer my call (he fell asleep ) – so I decided to go alone!

It was a sight to see. The people of the locality gathered in the Central Park to witness the Holi morning and they celebrate the morning in a Tagorian Style – yes, with Rabindra Sangeet and Gulal (Aabir in Bengali). Different teams of the performers (most of them are associated with a local Dance school) gather at different predefined points and then they move towards the Central Park in a procession while dancing. After they reach the main stage, the actual performance of Dance with Rabindra Sangeet begins and it goes on for around 2 hours. And then it’s time for playing with colors – they use only gulal and all the faces are intensely layered with them. They didn’t spare me too – and I was there with gulal all over my face and some more on my camera. As a whole, it was a nice experience to be with them.

And here are the photos:

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A few of the shots are not upto the mark, but I love all of them since these were shot with my newly bought camera. The first day experience was very good with my new camera and I was more than satisfied with it. Initially I did not plan for this Nikon D90 – it was way above my initial budget limit. When I started my market research and got several good feedback about this one from different websites, photographers and seniors; I just decided to go for it. And now, I don’t have any regret for the decision, rather I am proud of this one.

We spent the whole afternoon in this exhibition ground – sometimes searching for the nice shot in nice angle and sometimes just to get a good view of the flowers. At the end, when the light became too less to shoot, we ended our photo-trip for the day.

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It's not What You Think

It was really a chilling weather on that day and we reached this place after a 2 hr long local train journey. When we reached the river side, we were quite disappointed to see the low tide – no water, no boats, no fishermen and hence nothing to shoot……we waited for some time and gradually explored that it isn’t so that there is nothing to shoot. We folded our pants to knee length and went down to the river bed in the mud. The wind blowing was so cold that we accidentally pressed the shutter release button quite a few times while trying to adjust the exposure by half-press. We tried to shoot the people passing across the river by walking through the mud….there were a few fishermen too trying their luck in the low water regions….and there were the whole river bed full of mud!!

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We were nine and went for a nine day trip. Our trek route was a bit unusual and travelers generally don’t follow this route. We wanted to have it that way so that we can explore some lesser-known places. The actual trip that was planned was to follow the route as Siliguri-> Maneybhanjung -> Chitre -> Tonglu -> Dhotre -> Rimbik -> Shreekhola -> Samanden/Gorkey -> Tonglu -> Sandakhphu -> …. -> Siliguri; but we had to divert our trip from Gorkey to Jorthang and then back to Siliguri.We were going fine, but Tumpa had caught cold and had a soar throat.

Day #1 (Bus Journey):

We started our journey by bus from Esplanade (Kolkata) bus depot in the evening. Before the journey started we all did a lot of homework, net surfing, planning for the route and exercising to keep our body ready for the stress and strain of the trek. We all were first time trekkers except Subhobrata Da, who had visited the place and around quite a few times. He was the one who was guiding us from the planning stage till we reach back Kolkata.

Glittering Tips, On the Way to Dhotre

Anyways, the bus trip was not that smooth as the bus stopped at different places a lot – once we got down and spend some time there as the bus was getting repaired of the tire puncture.

Day #2 (Siliguri, Maneybhanjung):

Due to the sluggish bus trip, we landed at Siliguri in the afternoon and we rushed to take some food to refuel ourselves. A few of us also took the chance to take a bath while others including me did not bother to do so. From there we hired a jeep to take us to Maneybhanjung. The trip was really a memorable one as that was my first trip to highlands. But everything was not so pleasant – if you have experience of travelling through those hilly roads, you must know that severe cold rushes through your spine when the vehicle take turns on those hairpin bends and one side you see the mountain and the other side is the deep valley. On top of that, as we started late, the sun went down pretty soon and it was more trilling to travel in dark in those mountains roads – in some part of which there is little room for opposite vehicle to cross.

Atlast our journey came to a halt when our vehicle was stopped at a check post and we had to unpack most of our luggages for them to check. Our destination for the day was not far and hence as soon as we resumed our journey, it was only a few minutes after which we reached the place. It was around 8 pm and the whole place was looking like a deserted place – the place was under utter darkness and we could see only a few houses nearby and pin drop silence reigned the whole place. On asking Subhabrata Da, we came to know that people there are used to going to bed that early.

Hairpin Turns, Chitre

We unloaded all our luggage and headed to Master Ji’s place. Subhabrata Da had already talked to him and made arrangements for our night’s stay there. We had woke them up and we made ourselves into the small wooden rooms. Master Ji’s original name is Jiban Chhetri and he is a school teacher there. He had some excess place which he used to make room for the travelers for justified monetary value. Although we did not expect that we will have something for dinner, but they acted fast and within an hour or so we were called to have dinner. Their hospitality is really appreciable and we finished our dinner comfortably.

After that, as we had nothing to do at that time (you cannot fulfill your wish to see the natural beauty as the place was pitch dark) and we had to wake up early next day, we went to bed and slept.

Representative, Ribdhi

Day #3 (Maneybhanjung, Chitre):

Although it was way too early to get up amidst the cold weather and after the sleep post the hectic journeys, we got up and get ourselves ready with warm clothes and rucksack. It’s the time to have the first trek experience. The daylight had barely broke out and we stepped out. Master Ji arranged for one porter and one guide for us. The place was really nice in contrast to what we felt the day before. It was a very small village with quite a few families. Soon we left the localities and started ascending the hill in the curly route. Our next stop was Chitre, only 4 km from Maneybhanjung. But that took almost 4 hrs for us to cover as it was the first trek for almost all of us. As it was very tiring, almost none of us was interested to take  a few snaps.

As we were mid way, we met a person coming down and he was talking to Subhabrata Da. We came to know that he was the person who lives at Chitre and he was going down to Maneybhanjung to arrange for chicken (Subhabrata Da had also talked to him early and informed him of our arrival). Only the ‘chicken’ thing was the good news and had some encouragement and hope for us to reach quickly .

We reached Chitre and took some rest while Subhabrata Da went to arrange where we should stay and after some time we joined him. The place this time was really deserted and had only that one family staying around and one small monastery. The family has one small cottage for them and a separate room for the travelers. We settled in that room and loaded our luggage inside that room and took some more rest. Although we were initially thinking of whether to put up the tent that we brought for that day’s stay; but the idea did not last long due to our tiredness.

Path to the Village, Dhotre

When the man came back (with the chicken of course), we went to his place to get introduced to his family. They had a nice family of five – the man, his beautiful wife, their cute little daughter, his aged but yet strong father and and a girl from his wife’s village who stayed with them. They prepared our lunch and we had it as if we were starving for long. After that, it was time for a nap and in the afternoon we explored the place. It was really nice and peaceful place with serene beauty of mountains and valleys in every direction. We also visited the monastery and we did some photography too.

In the evening, we had a good time chatting discussing with the family and the stories of how they got married and all that. We also tried their local drink called ‘Thoomba’ or so, which was basically some kind of seed put into warm water in a wooden pot – and we had to drink the water with a wooden straw. It was not alcoholic or much addictive – it just gives you a mild dizzy effect. We had brought our ration and portable stoves and it was our turn to prepare dinner for ourselves. We started well. But none of us were blessed with culinary skills and moreover it is difficult to cook at high altitude as water takes longer time to boil. We really struggled a lot and finally got the dinner ready. We had it and slept in the sleeping bag (another first-time thing for most of us).

Day #4 (Chitre, Tonglu):

Another day when we woke up early and got ready for our next destination. We bade good bye to the family and started off. This time we did not need to struggle a lot since the inclination was not that much. We halted at Meghma for a few minutes to catch our breaths and then we resumed the trek to reach near to Tonglu. There was a travelers’ hut at the top of Tonglu, but we decided to stay in the tent this time. So we did not actually went up to Tonglu, rather we changed our track and went aside to look for some plain land to put up the tents. And we got some plain grass land a few hundred feet under Tonglu.

We set up our tents there and arranged for our lunch. The place had no water source except a very small nearby waterfall (such small water sources are called ‘jhora’ locally). We brought that water and cooked with that. The sun was almost going to set when we finished our ‘lunch’.

Octopus, On the Way to Rimbik

Our guide went to the travelers’ hut at the top of Tonglu for that night keeping the guide with us. After some time, the guide also told that he too wished if he could go to the hut. So we had to let him go too. And we were there –  all alone. The place was more desolate and the nearest human habitat was several hundreds feet away and uphill. The small grassy plain land with our tents had the Tonglu at one side and surrounded by hilly forest at the other sides. We lit some fire beside our tents and chatted for some time, but we could not stay outside for long as it was chilling cold there. We went inside our tents (well around 7 pm) and slept inside the sleeping bags (staying within a tent was another first time experience for us).

Day #5 (Tonglu, Dhotre):

Next day when we woke up and got ourselves prepared for the cold morning, we were surprised by noticing thin layer of dew-turned-snow over our tent. We prepared maggi for breakfast after that a few left for a good view of sunrise from Tonglu top, while others and myself stayed there packing our luggage and tent. When they came back with our guide and porter, we started off for our next destination, Dhotre. Till now, we are following a route where there is a man-made road to travel. But now on, there was no road – we traveled through forest, amidst trees and bushes, and made our way through them.

Working in Heaven, Dhotre

After a long trek, finally we saw some human habitat….it was a school and local children were playing in the playground. We immediately got into action to capture those children in our camera and thereby left behind by others. After some time, when we realized that we were left behind, we hurried to the direction we were supposed to go. Anyone of us did not have cell phone at that time and moreover cell phone services were very limited in those region. Luckily, we found them soon and we entered the village. We found a suitable place at the end of the village and set up our tents there. We had maggi again and after some rest, we headed towards the village to explore the place. It was relatively a bigger locality with modest population. It was basically the home-village of our guide and he arranged for our dinner – rice and beef.

Day #6 (Dhotre, Rimbhik, Srikhola):

In the morning, we had a surprise – the guide denied to accompany us further. As I said earlier it was his home-village and he has returned after a long time, he did want to go away soon. So, we packed up with the porter only and traveled by a shared vehicle for some distance and then we traveled by foot. This was a comparatively nice trek as we were descending. But it was a long distance. By the time we reached Rimbhik, it was afternoon and we were hungry and tired like hell. We took a halt there and had our lunch. We had no plan to stop there since Srikhola is only 5 km away from this place, we were headed that way.

Eternal Flow, Srikhola

But this time also, we were late. We started our trek and we went ahead hurriedly. The route was not that clear and it was very narrow . One side of it was guarded by a wall of the mountain and the other was a valley of river Srikhola – and the sun set off soon. When dark set off, it was really a trilling situation – although we had a few torchlight, the darkness was so dense that torchlight seemed to fail to penetrate it and we were headed in that poorly lit road (if you can say so) surrounded by deep valley and mountains. In some places on the way, water was flowing from the mountain wall to the river valley making the way slippery and perfect for us to fall off the place. Yet we went way ahead of the porter who was going very slowly due to the luggage he was carrying.

And after the trilling journey, you can call it a night trek, we reached human habitat and it was Srikhola. We talked to the local people in charges of the huts and arranged one for us. The porter was still not in and we were worried for him as we have seen how difficult the road was and it will be more difficult for him to travel with those luggage in the dark. We unloaded in the hut and went to have something to eat. And the porter arrived then – we breathed a sigh! We had our dinner in the hut and went to sleep.

Day #7 (Srikhola):

And it was a rest day! We all planned to stay there for one day and experience the beauty of the place. In the morning, the whole time passed by in preparing breakfast and lunch and having them. After the lunch, we went out all on their own to explore the place. It was really a scenic place with the river valley and around. We walked off the places and returned back by evening.

Twins, Gorkay

Day #8 (Srikhola, Samanden, Gorkay):

After the rest day, it was the hardest day. We set off early in morning, but the bad news is that we had to travel almost more than 15 km on that day. We traveled and went on, had our lunch at some unknown place and then resumed again. Although the path this was not that much upwards, the long distance made us tired. When we reached Samanden, it was almost end of the day. There is almost nothing in Samanden except a school and a big playground of the school. We camped there on the school ground and took some rest.

When we are a bit recovered, we went out again to explore the place. The light was falling very fast, and we hurried to Gorkay. It’s a small village a few meters away from Samnaden school ground. There was a river flowing by and the small village was there with houses scattered here and there. The place was very good and only here we could see some small scale agriculture.

We could not stay there long and had to retun back to camp before darkness spreads out. And we started preparing dinner. The dinner responsibility was on me primarily that day and we prepared some kind a hotchpotch. And Tumpa stated to feel uncomfortable with her throat that evening. We had our dinner and Tumpa’s pain increased a lot. Our plan for the next day was cancelled.

Day #9 (Samanden, Gorkay):

We had another rest day. We spent the time roaming here and there around and made arrangements for lunch and dinner. We took the opportunity to photograph the place also.

The Farthest Corner of the World, Ribdhi

Day #10 (Samanden, Ribdhi, Jorthang):

We packed up and left early as usual. Tumpa still had the problem of soar throat and we cancelled our next part of the trip and decided to go back so that we can be ready if some emergency comes. Our next destination was Jorthang via Ribdhi instead of Phalut.

This time also, there was no predefined road and we made our way through forest and we reached Ribdhi after a long time of traveling. Ribdhi is again a small village and we halted there for some time and had some Thooppa. We waited for some kind of vehicle as Jorthang was far off. After a wait of a few hours, we got one vehicle and we headed to Jorthang. We reached the destination after nightfall, but scenic beauty on the way to Jorthang was awesome. The valley and the greenery was mesmerizing.

Flower, Jorthang

We booked a few rooms of a lodge and had our dinner outside.

Day #11 (Jorthang):

We again had a rest day and this was the last day of the trip. We explored the small town (yes, you can call this a town) and also got information about our departure. We had our lunch outside and enjoyed the whole day. I also went back to the road through which we came here the previous day to capture some scenic beauty.

Day #12(Jorthang, Siliguri):

This was the last day of our beautiful and memorable trip. We packed our luggage and gave all our excess ration to our porter. We caught a bus and headed to Siliguri. Here we waited for the bus time and arranged for the return tickets as we did not have return ticked booked in advance. Fortunately we got tickets in an AC bus and we traveled back to Kolkata…..with lots and lots of beautiful memories (so beautiful and memorable that I could recollect every detail and could jot down this whole write up spending around 5 hours at a stretch after almost 6 years of the trip)!!!

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This photo was taken during a family trip to Digha, West Bengal, India. I used to use a club provided Vivitar film camera with a 50 mm prime lens.

I always love to shoot in monochrome.They look wonderful. Someone truly said that when you photograph people in color, you are basically taking photos of their clothes; but when you shoot in monochrome, you are shooting their soul.

When I got the film developed and showed it to my seniors of my club, they told me that it’s a good photo and that’s it. I quickly jumped to printing it in our club’s darkroom and ended up printing quite a few copies in the same evening..!! I was so excited!

Yes, this is my first post and that’s why I thought of sharing my first so-called good photo. I was thinking of having my own photoblog for quite a long time and now I have this.This photo was taken during a family trip to Digha, West Bengal, India. I used to use a club provided Vivitar film camera with a 50 mm prime lens.I always love to shoot in monochrome.They look wonderful. Someone truly said that when you photograph people in color, you are basically taking photos of their clothes; but when you shoot in monochrome, you are shooting their soul.When I got the film developed and showed it to my seniors of my club, they told me that it’s a good photo and that’s it. I quickly jumped to printing it in our club’s darkroom and ended up printing quite a few copies in the same evening..!! I was so excited!

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