Best Photo: Nilesh Bhange’s photo titled “Apartment Reflections“

Hi Folks,

It gives me immense pleasure to inform you that the best photo for the photowalk at Indore this year has been selected…

And Abbas’s Photo of the Lady in Red Sari

Note: I do not have a link to the web page of this photo by Abbas. Please somebody send me the Facebook/Flickr etc link to this photo so that I can link it back from my blog, facebook etc

A big congratulations to all the winners and everybody who participated in the photowalk

Take care

Gunjan

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• Col Kamaljeet Chugh’s talk about good photos and tips about making money from photos (4)
• Photography Competition: Ramadan Photo Competition (0)
• Photo competition: Sony world photography awards (1)
• Photography Competition:Gap-Year.com travel writing and photo competition (0)
• Photo Competition: HP Climate Change Photography Contest (1)
• Second Worldwide Photowalk at Indore (0)
• Hemshankar Pathak’s tips on better photography (2)
• Photography Competition: Yamaha’s photo contest (3)
• Photography Competition ~ Women’s Entrepreneurship: Empowerment through Innovation (0)

Photographers at work

Hey folks,
It is time to explore your beloved Indore, once again… it is time to pick up your camera, look at your city from the eyes of a tourist and click some interesting photos.

It is time for the Second Annual Worldwide Photowalk at Indore.

Photowalks are a casual get-together of photography lovers. Yes, you do not need to know photography, nor do you need a fancy camera to participate. You just need to love photography and love the company of all kinds of photography lovers ranging from amateur-cell-phone-camera photographers to professional-studio-owning-photographers.

So if you love photography, love meeting new people and are located at Indore, you are cordially invited to join us this Sunday.

Here are the details.
Date: 25th July 2010, Sunday
Time: 5:30 AM
Venue: Opp Hotel Infinity, Indore
Charges: Free

More information: http://worldwidephotowalk.com/walk/indore-madhya-pradesh-india-hotel-infinity-opp-bombay-hospital/

Click on the link above to know more about the event and also to register for the event. Registration is free but is limited to max 50 people… now we have only 28 slots left, so I guess, you need to hurry.
See you there at morning 5:30 this Sunday

Feel free to contact me at 099930-99959 or at gunjan@kalptaru.in if you have any questions.

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A very easy and quick way to add drama and uniqueness to your photo is to get as close to your subject as possible. The idea is to remove as much of the background and edges of the photo as you can from the photo and keep only the basic things in the photo that define your subject.

Basically, you want to fill the entire frame (photo) with your subject in such a manner that the viewer does not see the edges of the subject e.g. you don’t see anything from the background in the photo of Buster, my German Shepherd, above.

If you use this technique, you will be able to get very interesting and fantastic shots from ordinary subjects.

Here are some tips that I use to achieve this:

1. If your camera has zoom, zoom in to the max. Examine the corners of the view-finder and make sure that you do not see the background at all. The entire frame must be filled by your subject.

2. Take a few steps closer to your subject. Your legs are the best zoom lens (if you take a few steps closer to your subject) or a wide angle lens (if you step back

3. I love macro lenses for this purpose. If you are using a compact camera, switch on the macro feature (it will be an icon of a small flower).
You can also buy close-up adapters for your camera. This fits in-front of your lens and enables you to go very very close to your subject.
If you use an SLR, get a dedicated macro lens. Macro lenses are slightly expensive but they are totally worth it.

4. Use the cropping option and make sure that you crop in such a way that the edges of the subject are not seen. No backgrounds, no distractions, just the main subject of your photo.

Here are some more photos that show this point.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions or suggestions, do not hesitate to share them in the comments below.

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Photoshare, a service of Knowledge for Health (K4Health), and the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in partnership with the Global Coalition against Child Pneumonia are organizing a photography competition called “The 2010 Photoshare World Pneumonia Day Photo Contest”.

Deadline: May 31st, 2010

Submit entry by post or by email (along with the Entry Form) to: photoshare@k4health.org

Contest Categories

• Africa
• The Americas
• Europe and Central Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Western Pacific

*Participants may submit one photo per category (5 photos maximum).

Top Awards- selected from all contest submissions

• Most Outstanding Entry
• Best Narrative

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One of the best people photos are the ones in which the background is blurred and the person is sharply in focus.
This blurred background is also known in photographic circles as “bokeh”.

Here are some means of achieving a smooth bokeh (without using photoshop or any other post processing technique)

1. Shoot in Aperture Priority (A or Av) mode. Set your aperture to the smallest value (e.g. f/1.8 or f3.5 etc)
   This opens your aperture to the largest possible size in your lens
2. If you have a zoom lens, shoot with the longest focal length possible e.g. if your camera has 10x zoom, zoom in as much as possible so that the person looks as close as possible.
3. If you are using an SLR, shoot with the lens that has the longest focal length.
4. A focal length longer than 85mm is recommended for portrait photos.
5. The distance between you and the person should be smaller than the distance between the person whose photo you are taking and the background.
   The closer you are to the subject, the more blur you get in the background.
   The farther the subject is from the background, the more blur you get in the background.
   Use this combination to get an optimum blur.
6. If you are a techie, read more about “Depth of Field (aka DOF)“, and study the technical stuff behind the scene.
   You can also use an online DOF calculator to satisfy your nerdy needs
7. If all else fails, use Photoshop to select the subject out and blur the background. Here is a useful tutorial to blur the background in Photoshop.

I hope you find these tips interesting.

Happy clicking.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions or suggestions, do not hesitate to share them in the comments below.

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Hi Folks, Just a quick note to inform you all that Gap-Year.com is conducting a travel writing and photo competition.

The theme is related to Travel Photography.

You can submit only photo there.

The last date to enter is April 16, 2010.

Please read more about it at the competition site i.e. http://www.gap-year.com/browse.asp?catID=1813&sNode=1813&Exp=Y#1813

Best of luck and take care,

Gunjan

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Photo by Col Chugh

Hi folks,

As the monthly photography get-together of Indore Photographers, yesterday, we had the renowned and very experienced photographer Col Kamaljeet Chugh as our guest speaker.

In the presentation he talked about his journey with camera and how he evolved from an army officer into a professional photographer.

The main points he talked about (with examples of his photos) were

• Always carry your camera with you
• Always take lots of photos
• Don’t wait for the perfect time, perfect location etc, try to see, what is the best photo that you can take right now.
• Your photos must tell a story to be sellable
• Your photo must be composed in such a way that every corner has something interesting or something that adds to the importance of the main subject
• Pay attention to the entire frame of the photo, not only the subject.
• You photo must stand-out whether it is hanging as the only photo on the wall or whether it is kept with hundreds of other photos.
• Learn to delete your photos mercilessly. If you are not satisfied with a photo, delete it. Take better photos.  Do not share the bad photos with the world.
• Your photos must follow the rules of composition and once you are comfortable with it, break it once in a while to capture some creative shots
• When you are traveling with the purpose of taking photos, always have your camera ready…. ready means a shutter speed of 125 to 250, an aperture of F/16 and ISO of 200 etc
• Do not hesitate to talk to people from ad agencies, news papers, web sites etc
• Always keep a collection of some of your best photos ready that you can show to other people. This will help you get work.
• Participate in competitions, specially the ones that pay cash or gift rewards. This will help you earn a reputation.
• There is always an opportunity to take good photos, where ever you are. Learn to look at the world that way.
• Practice to shoot hand-held at the slow shutter speeds of 1/15 sec or less. This will help you take beautiful photos even in difficult light situations.

And there were many such bits and pieces of advice that am not able to recall right now, but granted me the permission to share the slides that he used for the presentation.

This presentation has some beautiful photos taken by him, unfortunately you had to be here to know about the story behind each photo.

All photos in the presentation are copyright of Col Chugh

And this is how it was covered by the Patrika Newspaper

Our next monthly meet is scheduled on the fourth Sunday of Nov i.e. 22 Nov 2009.

If you are at Indore during that time, feel free to join us with another discussion with another senior photographer here.

Remember to subscribe either by RSS or Email to receive a notification as soon as I write the next tip.

Have fun,
Gunjan

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Hi Folks,

First of all, hope you all had a safe and enjoyable Diwali and you guys must have taken lots of photos. Now submit some of these photos to the next competition…

As quoted from the competition page….

“The HP Climate Change Photography Contest, in association with Sanctuary Asia and WWF-India asks you to record the impact of climate changes happening around you. A single, striking image has the power to tell a story that truly hits home. Through your photos, we hope to spread your message to the world and help bring about a change in the way we look at our planet.

The jury will look for images that will help draw attention to the challenges and solutions of climate change and drive us toward local and global action. You are limited only by your imagination.”

They are giving away HP computers and goodies worth Rs. 3 Lakh as prizes to winners, so I am sure, this is worth a try.

Here are some important info

• Competition Close Date: 31st Dec 2009
• Eligibility: Anybody who is an Indian National can participate in it
• Contest Details: http://www.hpcapturechange.in.com/contest.php
• Prizes: http://www.hpcapturechange.in.com/prize.php

Don’t forget to subscribe either by RSS or Email to receive a notification about new competitions that I come to know about or some new photography tips that I learn.

Best of luck,
Gunjan

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• 2010 Photoshare World Pneumonia Day Photo Contest (0)
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This Sunday, like the last Sunday of August, we had a get-together of photographers from Indore at my office.

Now we plan to make it a regular event i.e. every fourth Sunday of the month, a handful of photographers from Indore meet and invite a very Senior photograph to guide us and inspire us with their life and works.

This Sunday, we had Mr. Hemshankar Pathak as our guest speaker.

Hemshankar ji has been doing photography in Indore (MP, India) since 1964 and has won numerous awards for this photos.

He is not only a wonderful photographer, he is very jolly person as well. All of us were very comfortable with him and his talk about lights and composition was mingled with jokes, anecdotes and very useful advice for us all… just like my granny’s stories.

Here are a few things that he taught us during this talk.

1. Photography exists because of lights. So if you want to take good photos, pay attention to how light is falling on the subject, take note of  the background and then see whether is this creating the effect that you want to capture or not.
   If the light does not appear good, then wait for the right time of the day so that the sun is in the right spot and the light is in the right direction on the subject.
2. The best time to take photos is from half an hour after sunrise till 3 hours after sunrise and from 3 hours before sunset till half an hour before sunset. At these times, the direction of sunlight and the quality of light is at its best.
3. A few hours before and after noon is not a good time to take photos. Avoid it.
4. The direction of light falls under the following categories
   • Light falling from front of the subject.
     This light illuminates the subject uniformly. Another feature of this light is that it illuminates both the subject and its background equally, thus making if very difficult to separate the background from the subject.
     An image gets depth and details in textures etc by the variation in light areas and shadows in the  photo. Front light tends to not cast any shadow and hence the photos appear flat.
     According to Hemshankar ji, we should always avoid this type of lights.
   • Light falling on the subject from 45 degrees in the front.
     This is also known as Rembrandt light because of the extensive use by this light by Rembrandt for his portraits.
     This is supposed to be the best general purpose light because it both illuminates the subject properly and also casts shadows that highlight texture and add depth in the photo.
   • Light falling from side at 90 degrees.
     This light adds drama and mystery in the photo. Almost all the movies of horror and thriller genre use this kind of lighting to create suspense.
     Use this light to show only half the face, the other half becomes dark etc.
     This light, when used effectively can create photos with impact
   • Light falling from 45 degrees behind the subject.
     This light adds depth and definition to the subject. In this light, the outlines are very clearly defined and when fill light or reflectors are used to lighten up the dark areas, it creates beautiful photos.
     Another advantage of this light is that usually the subject will be will illuminated but the background will be dark. This helps to separate the subject from photo and highlights the subject even more.
     This light, when used effectively adds 3D effect to photos.
   • Light falling from absolutely behind the subject.
     This light is very effective for creating abstracts. The feature of this light is that it removes all features from the subject and only highlights its shape.  You can use fill light or a reflector to add some details in the dark areas
5. When composing a shot, ask yourself “What is my photo of…”
   Then find out the best way to capture that subject.
6. When taking photos of people, birds or animals, even in broad daylight, use a small flash. This will add a sparkle (catch light) in the eyes.
7. You do not need expensive cameras to take great photos. If you learn to use lights and composition effectively, you can get beautiful photos from ordinary cameras
8. Most of the amateur photographers are fine art photographers (Even if they do not realize it). They do not have a deadline or an urgent need to click a photo. So they should be patient before taking a photo and should spend some to find out the best lights, the best angle, the best background for composition etc
9. Shoot photos if you enjoy taking photos.
   Don’t shoot only for competitions or rewards or only because you got an assignment. If you start shooting photos for competitions or rewards or assignments, then creativity takes a back-seat and productivity becomes important. This is bad for a good photo.
10. Always show your photos to other photographers and listen carefully to their opinion. Respect their point of view even if you do not agree with it.

And there were a lot of others things that he had to say. It will be difficult to have a 3 hour talk condensed in one post, but you get an idea of the quality of learning and amount of fun that we had yesterday.

Our next monthly meet is scheduled on the fourth Sunday of Oct i.e. 24 Oct 2009. If you are at Indore during that time, feel free to join us with another discussion with another senior photographer here.

Remember to subscribe either by RSS or Email to receive a notification as soon as I write the next tip.

Have fun,
Gunjan

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“Qatar Visitor” is inviting photographs that capture the spirit of Ramadan and Id-ul-fitr.

As quoted on the site… “Can you capture the spirit of Ramadan/ Eid in a photo? The month of Ramadan is upon us, and we are asking photographers of all religions to capture what is special about Ramadan in a single picture. ”

The Prizes:

1. First Prize: A Crumpler Million Dollar Photography Bag with Accessories
2. Second Prize: A copy of the famous book “The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world’s top shooters”
3. Third Prize: A Pro-Flickr Account

Apart from that, the work will be published in Gulf Times and on the website of Qatar Visitors.

The Last Date: End of September

Submission: By email to photoqatar@gmail.com

General Rules:

• This competition is for amateurs only
• This competition is open for people from all over the world and of any religion
• This is a free competition i.e. you do not have to pay anything to participate.
• You can submit only one photo in this competition.
• The photo should be max 800px on the longer side
• File size should be less than 180kb

Don’t forget to read the rules in detail from the competition details site.

More details:
http://www.qatarvisitor.com/index.php?cID=428&pID=1466

Time for you to wish Ramzaan Mubarak to your friends and take some interesting photos.

Don’t forget to subscribe either by RSS or Email to receive a notification about new competitions that I come to know about or some new photography tips that I learn.

Best of luck,
Gunjan

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