Surreal Landscape - Manipulation Photography

Ever wondered how to spend the time within the room in those days of winter. Of course, a glass of wine and some liquor chocolate by the fireplace seems very irresistible. But to my photographer friends and those who are into photography, there is a nice way to pass the boredom.

So, last November I was in my room and was thinking of how to use my Benro tripod for some low light photography. And the campus outside was beautiful, but the cold weather made me reluctant to go outside and do some campus landscaping. 

I thought to myself...In this freezing cold and with no companion, are there any landscapes within your own room? I did what Mike Browne always asks to do in his photography tutorial videos in YouTube. 

And I got the idea...the texture of the surface of my bed has so many interesting contours. And a topographical photograph of it can surely be taken. So I started preparing for some bed sheet landscaping. And to put emphasis on the texture, I needed a light source and my cellphone flashlight provided me with one. So putting my camera steadily onto my tripod, I switched off all lights and the brilliant textures of my bed became much more satisfying than I thought.

And here is one of the shot.

My friends told me it fell like the surface of the moon and many were not able to comprehend what it actually is.

And here is the link to Mike Browne's YouTube channel if you want some inspiration for your photography. 

Mike Browne's YouTube Channel

Do follow me on Instagram @jpdeka and Twitter @jyotiprdeka. :D

Smoke photography - Two experience at different instance

Before reading this blog entry I'd like to say that I don't support smoking in any form and I'd like you all to try this out using incense sticks and share your experience.

Now this has been one of the best photography experience I'd towards the end of 2015. I was exploring different photography videos at the DigitalRev TV channel in Youtube and I happened to come across the Smoke Photography tutorial. Link has been given below.

You can have a look at this video and find out why its so interesting. Now let me narrate my experience.

The first time I tried this out was at my room. I finished watching the video and I knew I have to try this out. I have a Benro T600EX tripod bought from Amazon and a Nikon D3000 with the kit lens. Not a great expensive setup, but I need to improvise. The big thing that was missing was a good lighting setup and a black background.

So I decided to use the black screen of my laptop as a background and my cellphone flash as the source of light to illuminate the smoke. I took a few incense stick along with its stand and lit them up. I carefully put the incense right in front of the laptop screen. I turned on the cellphone flash light and it provided ample amount of illumination. I setup my DSLR on the tripod and switched to self-timer mode. I took the first shot at f/8. The picture was acceptable, but the smoke was too little. I lit another bunch of incense sticks and after several tries, I finally got a nice shot and I proceeded to edit it in Lightroom. A few tweaks and I got a nice beautiful shot.

My first Smoke Photography picture

I name this picture the 'Two trails of Smoke'.

Now the second experience was too good to be true.

 

I was at my friend's apartment on New Year's eve smoking and watching a movie on the projector and I was watching the smoke getting illuminated by the projector beam. There was a whole lot of color in the smoke and I just ran to my bedroom and got my DSLR with my new Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G.

I started blowing some smoke into the projector beam and using the projector light exit as a focus lock, I started clicking shots after shots and each one was special in its own way. Have a look at one of the shots attached to this entry. 

 

 

The beautiful blend of colors really excited. I took around 50 shots and all of them are yet to be edited. This has been one hell of an experience. To say the truth, I went that night and had a nice contented sleep to wake up to a lot of partying the next day and the partying went on for the week.

Fancy Bazaar - A Chaotic Indian Street Market

These photographs were captured in Fancy Bazaar, Guwahati, Assam, India. 

The market can be described as one of the crowded and chaotic street market in India. It was previously known as 'Phaasi Bazaar', later renamed as 'Fancy Bazaar'. 'Phaasi' stands for Hanging and the place was the home to the Guwahati Central Jail. Later the jail was shifted to the outskirts of the city and that was when the place was renamed.

The picture above shows the chaotic situation that prevails in this market. You can see the electric poles, a person riding his bicycle, garbage strewn in the street and so. And talking of the street vendors who are busy selling their clothes out in the open, tees are arranged randomly giving a nice disarrayed assimilation of colors.

And its pretty hazardous as well. In the photograph below, you can see tees being showcased just below power boxes.

And we have coffee mugs displayed in a fragile almost falling manner. A little disturbance and they will all fall one after the other resulting in a lot of damage. But this does not bother the vendors, for this has been the way it is done since ages.

And the clothes....

And the belts....

The market has remained the same since its inception and with the ever growing number of street vendors, it has become more and more chaotic and it has remained as one of the most important landmarks in the city. People from the city as well as nearby towns and villages stroll in the market during holidays, vacations, festival to buy goodies for their kids, relatives and themselves day after day. Most of the street vendors offer their products at a cheap price and that's a big advantage for the people. You won't find any well-known brands in the street. Of course there are boutiques in the market as well, but it is these vendors, people busy bargaining and the disarrayed display of products that adds a unique identity to this place.

Licenses available at

1) Clothes and Colors

2) Pottery Display in an Indian Market

3) Chaos in an Indian Street Market

A Creepy Silhouette

I don't know what got into me that one fine Sunday afternoon at Gwyer Hall, University of Delhi. I was clicking random photographs with my DSLR. Of course that was the same day when I clicked the Deadly Wasp photograph.

And this underwear was hung on the wires where we used to hang clothes after washing. I composed the shot such that a fine silhouette can be captured. Of course it is creepy and may take people some time to deduce what it is. But using this perverted subject to block the sun's light did result in an amazing silhouette.

Focus and Bokeh

How far can you go to achieve perfect focus and bokeh in your shot?

Bokeh means the extent to which the background of the photo gets blurred. With a wide aperture, you achieve the best possible blurriness. But another workaround is by composing the shot such that your background is far away from the subject.

This shot was taken way back in 2011 on the terrace of my home. I was practicing photography using my newly bought Nikon D3000 and concentrated on tweaking the aperture and shutter speed in Manual mode. And these bent wire grills provided a very good subject to capture. In an instant, I composed the shot and clicked and results were quite satisfactory.

Over the years, Ken Rockwell's website provided me the best tips for photography and you should check it as well. No, I am not an affliate of Ken Rockwell. But his website sure can provide ideas and tips to make the long journey of a DSLR photographer interesting. Because even with the cheapest DSLR and kit lens, you can achieve beautiful shots. The picture above is an example.

Ken Rockwell's Website