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?