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

First Editorial at Dreamstime

This is my first Editorial image at Dreamstime and captured around four years on New Years Day, 2012 (exactly a month after I bought my DSLR).

The major difference between Editorial and Commercial License lies in the fact that editorial images contain people, logos,etc. I won't be able to obtain a release statement from the camel rider.

Moreover acceptance ratio of commercial licenses are much higher than editorials and editorial photographs don't require much promotion. You can gather an audience pretty fast and easy. But you do have to be careful to select only your best shots.

Anyway, I won't bore you all with these technical details. Frankly speaking, this image was selected after around 5 rejections of my best macro shots and it definitely provides me with a lot of satisfaction and encouragement to consider sending more photographs for the editorial section.

Yaaaahooooo!!!!!

Ref. ID - Image Link

Close-up of the Deadly Wasp

One STING from this BITCH and you are done for the day. 

But nevertheless it was quite docile that day as I had to go pretty close to take this picture. My friends were warning me of the consequences, but I didn't mind and went forward to photograph it.

Maybe it was enjoying being photographed before getting trampled by someone. I don't know its fate and what happened afterwards. And I am not interested in it. This definitely counts as one of my experience akin to those of Late Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter or Austin Stevens, the Snake Guy. You need a shot and you need to get as close as possible to get the perfect shot. And you have only luck to count upon.

Have a nice day, friends!!! More such photos are about to come in the upcoming days...

A Surrealistic View of the Taj Mahal

Below you can find a photograph of the famed Taj Mahal from an alternative perspective.

It is a reflection of the Central dome of the Taj Mahal onto a contaminated pond right next to it. It was taken during a trip to Agra with my friends Ishan Bhatkoti and Shashank Kumar.

The greenish tinge in the photo is that of the pond which is filled with Algal growth and I don't think it has ever been cleaned. This is a personified view of one of the 'Seven Wonders of the Modern World'. It depicts the dirty polluted environment we all thrive in. A post apocalyptic view.

I personally find the composition and perspective pretty interesting. But to each his own, I suppose.

Pets in the Hostel

It was the first morning when I got to click pictures of all the kittens that were born a few months before in our campus housing. We fed the kittens with a few glasses of milk from the Cafeteria. Now this one(the one above) counts as one of my favorite. You can see small droplets of milk right under its lips. It was too good an opportunity to miss. And of course, I also had the brilliant moment to capture all the kittens feeding on their mom's breast milk.

I just wonder the load their mother cat has to bear...Five kittens feeding at the same time.

From their birth to the day I departed from Delhi, it was total of around 8 months...A few of them couldn't survive. In fact, one of them died right in front of my room. Her neck was snapped by an elder male cat who lived nearby. I was just helpless seeing her gasping for breath and knew nothing could be done. She passed away the next morning. From that day, I always spent some at the night patrolling the corridors making sure that they can sleep peacefully.

Out of the six kittens, three survived and when I visited Delhi a year later in February 2014 and I was so happy to see them grow strong and able to fend for themselves.

Gwyer Hall, University of Delhi

This was my residence for two years at the University of Delhi. I stayed here during my Masters and it was one of the most beautiful place I have known till date. It has been officially declared a Heritage Building some years back.

It is the oldest hostel in University of Delhi. It was originally known as 'University Hall', later renamed as 'Gwyer Hall' in recognition of Sir Maurice Gwyer's services, the then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Delhi (from 1938-52) and the Chief Justice of the then Federal Court of India. For more information about its history, I request the readers to take a look at this link http://gwyerhall.du.ac.in/about%20us.aspx.

From the calm and peaceful surroundings to the 'Panditji ke Canteen', this has been one memorable era of my life. I still miss the 'Meetha Samosa' (translated as Sweet Samosa) in the Canteen. I used to buy them for classmates on a regular basis. And they used to demand more. Some of them used to visit the canteen just to buy these sweets and take them to their families.

That's all for now.

P.S. This is one of my 3-photo merged HDR Shot and that too without using a tripod. This has been accepted in the Dreamstime microstock photography agency. Check out this link http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-image59232068#res11501682

My First HDR Shot

This counts as one of my experiments with the Nikon D3000. This camera doesn't have a AEB mode. AEB stands for Auto-Exposure Bracketing and this is what photographers use for HDR photos. On top of that I didn't even had a tripod. So I had to set the exposure levels with extreme care.

I put my DSLR on a level platform and slowly took the over-exposed shot. Without moving the camera I set it at the correct-exposure and then followed it with an under-exposed shot.

It was an one time experiment and any disturbance with the camera position will result in a failed endeavor. I checked my pictures on the display and decided to superimpose one over the other using Photomatix. And a small amount of tone mapping gave the perfect shot.

Conclusively I was quite satisfied with the results.

A 'Barbed Wire Fench' in the backyard of the Taj Mahal

Back in 2012, me and some of my friends went for a photography tour to Agra, India.

Agra, as we all know, is the home to the iconic Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort. While exploring the area for some subject for macro photography, I came across this Barbed Wire Fench in the backyard of the Taj Mahal with a visually appealing backdrop of Mughal architecture. Setting my lens aperture correctly, I steadied my hands and clicked this picture.


Now abstract photographs are open to diverse interpretations and I believe  that this photograph epitomizes the 'Border Conflict' issue nations around the world are currently suffering from.

The photograph has been accepted by Dreamstime with Royalty free as well as Extended Licenses.

A hot summer afternoon at the University of Delhi

This was one of those days when I wish I had a DSLR with me. In fact, I can faintly recollect that I hadn’t bought my D3000 yet. So I took out my Xperia Mini Pro and clicked this 'squirrel holding onto a water pipe'. Though it’s not a great capture, it still counts as one of those moments that finally forced me to learn the craft of photography with a DSLR.

Till date I sometimes wonder as to what the squirrel was doing. Was it waiting for a few drops of water to sprout out of the pipe so that it can quench its thirst or was it just posing for me?

HandCrafted Weaver Bird

Hi Friends this is my first post on Blogger...I am a DSLR photographer. I use a Nikon D3000 with a 18-55mm lens. Though I am looking forward to upgrade to a D5200 with a 18-140mm lens soon, my D3000 is still giving me awesome pictures.

Recently I clicked a shot a HandCrafted Weaver Birds in Kolkata, India. I uploaded the photo on dreamstime.com and it was selected within a week.

I am posting a link to the photo. Do check it out.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-image58227706#res11501682

And here is the picture.