Into the wild…

Last year I was a tad bit disappointed as I could not travel much. Ever since the trip to South Korea in 2007, I was traveling abroad at least once every year. I badly wanted that to continue, but 2011 did not give me a chance. 2012 arrived with a bang, and the entire year was dotted with travel. Both, international and within India. I took almost 24 flights, more than 9 train journeys, a few bus journeys and a few long road trips in the year. I won’t even add the total kilometers covered. I visited 18 places out of which almost 15 (including 8 major cities) were visited for the first time ever. All those trips were lovely and memorable, but the year ended with me going on a trip to one of the most beautiful forests of India and spending close to a week, in the lap of nature, into the wild!

We visited the Kanha National Park, and Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, and in between spent a couple of days marveling at the gorgeous Marble Rocks gorge in the Narmada river basin.

It is a little bit inconvenient to reach those places from Hyderabad. While going we had to take a train to Katni (MP) and then a taxi to Bandhavgarh, and on the way back, we drove from Kanha till Nagpur and then took a train. Jabalpur, Katni, Gondia and Nagpur are the nearest railway stations that have decent connectivity to most major Indian cities.

All throughout our vacation, we stayed at various MP Tourism Hotels/Resorts/Lodges. They were not “the best” at each location, but certainly in the top 5.

Bandhavgarh was our first stop. This is one of the smaller forest reserves in MP, but with one of the largest tiger populations. There are about 60 odd tigers here, and because of the small size, the probability of spotting a tiger is much higher than that in other forest reserves in India, the highest in fact. We did two safaris, one in the evening that lasted 2 hours, and the other early in the morning that lasted 4 hours. The best times of the day to spot animals is either just after sunrise or just before sunset. Summer is even better, we were told.

The guy in the pic above was our guide, Anil Sharma… if you ever travel to Bandhavgarh, and happen to stay at MPTDC White Tiger Forest Lodge, ask for Anil Sharma’s services during the safari! He is the best safari person they have, and has been there for the last 20 years. He knows the forest inside out and will tell you amazing stories! Whether you see a tiger or not is a matter of chance, but your guide being expert enough to understand animal alert calls and track tiger footprints is a subtle key.

The next stop was Jabalpur’s Bheda Ghats, where we spent a couple of nights to take a break, and enjoy the vistas provided by the beautiful Marble Rocks gorge formed by the Narmada. From there we moved on to Kanha, the largest of the forest reserves in MP, and also the best! At Kanha, we stayed for two nights at Baghira Log Huts (Kisli), run by MPTDC and one night at Forest Safari Lodge (Mukki). The Baghira Log Huts are the only place to stay within the core area of the forest. All other resorts are either in the buffer zone, or beyond that. Being in the core area meant that the animals would come on a safari to meet us rather than us going out looking for them. Monkeys, spotted deer and sambar were constant around the huts. The nights were dotted with deer alarm calls (on seeing a tiger around). We did 2 safaris in the Kisli/Sarhi zone of Kanha, and one safari in Mukki zone. We could spot more than a handful of the 30,000 odd species of animals/birds at Kanha. And sprawling meadows gave us a chance to see herds of deer, and much more, grazing happily in the sun. Unfortunately, the best we could get to spotting a panther, was a Leopard whom we saw swiftly jumping across the road. We did not see any tiger at Kanha (Kanha is twice as big as Bandhavgarh and has lesser tigers, so the probability of spotting one is really low). Below are some pics from our trip…

In the pic above, clockwise from top-left: Jackal, Male Barking Deer, Male Barasingha with Spotted Deer, Female Barking Deer.

In the pic above, clockwise from top-left: Deer in various parts of Kanha, with a fawn, in a herd, with family and solo.

Most people go on safaris with a single intention – spot the Tiger. It was very sad to see depressed faces of groups returning from safaris without spotting a tiger. We were also one such group after our first safari, when all we could spot was a tiger pawmark. We met the Tiger during our second safari at Bandhavgarh. The first sight was from a distance, the Tiger retreating into the woods from a meadow. Sharmaji, our safari driver was quick to turn around and take us to the spot where he anticipated the Tiger would come out from on the other side of the woods. We waited and watched in awe as the majestic creature walked out – stood on the road, turned around to show us his full strength, and turned back to climb up the hills on the other side. We watched as he lifted his tail up and walked away with pride. Seeing the Tiger on the morning of 25th December was our Santa gift :) Honestly speaking, even we went out on all the 5 safaris with the hope of seeing just the Tiger, but it was many times more pleasing to see so many other beautiful animals and colourful little birds in the forest.

Monkeys were a common sight all throughout our stay in Kanha, and above are 4 snaps from the hundreds I clicked for them. They posed and acted funny too!

I am bad with remembering names of cereals, flowers and birds. But these gorgeous birds we spotted at Kanha will be remembered for a long time: In the pic above, clockwise from top-left: Indian Roller (Neelkanth), gorgeous Peacock (I had never seen so many peacocks ever in my life!), Indian Pond Heron, Owl (I think Burrowing Owl, though I’m not sure).

In the pic above, clockwise from top-left: Diya, my adorable niece, Baghira Log Huts, Dhuandhar Falls, Bheda Ghat at the Narmada, Dense Bandhavgarh Forest.

And of course some usual crazy stuff from the two of us :) In the bottom left photo is my sister-in-law and her family… they had planned this amazing trip for us!

Roshnai has always wanted to go on a jungle safari, more specifically, African Safari. I, however, had never been in favour of one. Now my thoughts have changed and I would love to visit the Serengeti soon!

I spent the 31st evening at my cousin’s place in Nagpur before catching a train back to Hyderabad. We had all plans to scream “Happy New Year” and scare fellow sleeping passengers in the train, but the train arrived 2 hours later than scheduled. That meant we had to watch the fireworks in the sky waiting at the railway station and greeting each other :)

With the year ending well, we have already started planning for our 2013 vacation/vacations! The idea is the have at least 2 vacations, preferably one within India, and one abroad :)

If you plan to visit Kanha/Bandhavgarh and need more information, you know what to do :)

P.S. Please excuse me for the rather large and in-your-face Copyright Watermarks I have used in this post. Most internet users do not think twice before feeling free to lift images from blogs. Ask me and I will be happy to share them with you!

So you want to hire a candid photographer for your wedding?

Cross-posting this blogpost from ShutterPal‘s blog for wider reach :)

Wedding and couple photography, especially candid forms, are picking steam these days. Not just in the West, but also in India. The typical Indian Wedding Photographer is your local guy with strobes and flashes, bag full of cameras and handful of assistants. Unfortunately, people, especially the young and the socially-very-networked crowds have come to realize that those flashy and glittery photos in the most shimmering dresses posed in front of a facade of mirrors or false decors are no longer cool. What is considered cool and worthy of keeping as memory sake forever, is a bunch of photos shot well, that capture not the event as it happens, but the way it happens. People are looking for emotions to be captured, those expressions.

All fine so far. If you are getting married soon, you start searching on Facebook and Twitter for candid wedding photographers, typically in your own city. Thanks to Facebook, sharing photography portfolios has become easier than ever. We don’t need to know web designing or even create a website at all. Facebook has all the elements in place to put up your content, and promote it. Along with the ease of promotion, what has helped this sudden surge of photographers, is the affordability of a DSLR camera. Something that was out of reach for most a few years back, is suddenly cool to have – not just to get an entry into this profession, but also to have photos of nicer quality. What that means for you, is that you get a very wide choice to choose from – all kinds of rates and all kinds of fancy options. However, here are a few key points that I’ve collated from various sources, which you must think about before you make a decision. These points can also be good reads for budding wedding photographers!

1. Check that the photographer has a big enough and diverse portfolio to show you: You would want to see as much of the photographer’s work as possible. It is quite likely that he has uploaded only his 5 best photos on his blog or FB page, and that the rest are not worth seeing. But trust me on this, do not make a decision till you have seen at least 3-4 wedding albums and 25-30 photos – this is a minimum. In a country such as India, where all states and communities have their own ways to celebrating weddings, it is important so see if the photographer has covered a similar wedding before.

2. Do not fall for a photographer who has the costliest camera and only the most expensive lenses: Today, most DSLRs take equally good images. Whether one uses a full frame, or an APS-C sized cropped sensor, it does not matter. Also it does not matter if the camera has 15 MegaPixels or 24. A good photographer can create excellent photos even with a 5 year old 5 MP DSLR.

Talking of lenses, it is similar but not exactly the same. What you need to ensure, is that the photographer has at least one wide-angle lens (and an 18-55mm works just fine, trust me), at least one tele-zoom lens, and at least one prime lens (either 35mm or 50mm or 85mm, depending on which camera you are using). Also ensure that he has at least one lens that opens up wide enough, and by wide enough I mean f/1.8 to f/2.8. Having super expensive f/1.4 or f/1.2 lens in the kit is good, but definitely not a must have.  This is because lighting is not always great at weddings. Most Indian weddings are at night, and wedding halls mostly always have only ambient lights sufficient to set up the right mood.

3. Talk to your photographer and get to know him well: To enable a photographer to capture good photos candidly, it is important for you to be natural, and not cautious or aware of his being beside you all the time. If subjects get too cautious, the natural and candid looks fade away. Things get difficult for the photographer. For this, it is important that you and the photographer have enough conversations and get into each other’s comfort zones.

It is also important that the photographer is humble and not rude. Sometimes photographers go overboard and get bossy. This can be a very uncomfortable situation for your family and guests.

4. Turn up the lights a little bit, please: This one point is very important from a photographer’s point of view and something that the clients must ensure to get the best results. As mentioned above, lighting is an issue at most weddings. Indoor lighting is mostly kept just ambient enough, and you would be knowing this since you must have already come across those local photographers carrying their strobes and flashes all across wedding halls. If the wedding is conducted outdoors and during the night, clearly photographers face issue of lack of lighting. One of the key rules in candid photography is minimal usage of flash. So while most good candid photographers do carry flashes along, they are not used all the time for those un-posed and candid shots. Personally, I do not carry a flash with me yet. When really essential, I use the on-camera flash, which is also rare. Flashy photographs are done by local photographers, and flashes pretty much ruin the natural candid looks.

So, as a client, the best thing that you can do is turn up the lights a little bit. Most indoor wedding halls have light control board and since you are paying to rent the place, it is perfectly alright for you to ask them to put some more lighting. Best is to take your photographer with you a day in advance and let him check out the lighting for himself.

I’ve seen wedding photographers who were hired for clicking and also printing the wedding album, click at an ISO of 6400! At that ISO, and even with the best of today’s cameras, you can only imagine what the print quality would be. For digital-only soft copies, ISO 6400 may still work fine, but not recommended. So bump up the lights and let the photographers click at a more comfortable ISO 400-1600.

5. RAW vs JPEG, doesn’t really matter: If a photographer tells you that his pricing is on the higher side just because he shoots all photos in RAW, consider him again. Some photographers (especially the ones at the higher end of pricing) shoot only in RAW and swear by it. Honestly, to me, it does not matter. I can set my camera up perfectly to get awesome shots in JPEG and then fine tune them up on the computer. Shooting in RAW takes more memory, and then later, more time to edit and deliver. If you are planning to go economy mode, this is one of the most important things you would want to consider.

5. Understand the pricing offered by the photographer: Candid wedding photography rates vary a lot! And at most times, they will be higher than those quoted by the local flashy photographers who would also give you printed albums and a video DVD. It is very important to understand what the price includes before you book someone. Here are a few things that can push up the prices -

a. Backup – What if the photographer gets ill on the day of your wedding, or what if his flight gets cancelled? Does he have a backup plan for you? Typically, rates will be higher for someone providing backup options, than someone who has no such plans.

b. Number of cameras – Very often, candid photographers who charge petite amounts or offer free shoots, come with only 1 DSLR camera and a few lenses. I have myself done this in the past. Now here is a risk. If the photographer wants to shoot a few group photos after a few close up shots, he has to switch lenses. It would mean loss of time, and a risk of losing out on some special candid moments! He also runs the risk for damaging his own camera by this frequent changes of lenses. At Hindu weddings, there is a lot of smoke due to the fire, which puts the camera sensor at more risk. Typically, a good candid photographer would have at least two cameras, which he would use with two different types of lenses attached permanently for the event. Another option is renting an extra camera for the day of the event. Try and ensure that there is a second camera. Clearly, a photographer with multiple cameras will quote higher and you should be fine with it. Just as with a camera, also check if he comes with extra batteries to last the entire ceremony. You do not want him to stop clicking in a few hours and then spend 2 hours waiting for his batteries to get charged again.

c. Printed wedding albums – Nowadays many candid photographers also offer printed wedding albums. The rates go up with the size of printed wedding album requested. Most couples do not ask for printed wedding albums and this is an excellent way to cut costs, IMHO! While you cut costs by not getting the printed album through the same photographer, do ensure that he delivers you print quality images (200+ dpi). You may want to print a select few photos, later.

d. Number of photos – If you think, the rates are proportional to number of photos delivered, you are wrong. I know some awesome photographers who deliver not more than 200 photos from an 8-hour event, and some really sorry photographers who will give you all the 800 photos they click in a span of 4 hours. You must understand that any event can only have a certain number of candid moments captured. If a photographer is offering you more than 200 photos (for a day’s coverage), be guaranteed to get repeat shots.

e. Amount of editing – Many photographers at the lower end of the price spectrum, will just give you all the thousands of photographs they click, immediately transferred from their SD card to your laptop. You do the sorting, you do the clean up, you do the color and brightness corrections and you do the cropping. Honestly, if you want that, just borrow a DSLR from a friend and ask your relatives to click the photos.

On the other hand, good photographers will pick and choose the best ones for you. They will ensure that the photos are not just of good quality, but of print quality. Which means, they will set the brightness, contrast and color tones to create the best that they can. At the end of the day, the photos they click, are a proof of how good they are. And they really care about the perception they create amongst the audiences. I do not give any photos straight out of the camera. I always edit the photos, and pick and choose what I deliver.

To summarize – Hiring a candid wedding photographer who would charge you only Rs 5000, or $100, comes without backup plans, and gives you a few hundred photos straight out of the camera is not a good idea at all. Having just said that, I must add that I have done exactly that when I started out, and now when I think of it, I feel stupid. Thankfully for me – things just fell in place, and luckily the results were good :)

I hope this blog post makes some sense to you, and enables you to take a better decision! After all, what you pay for should be what you get, and what you get should be decent enough to be called “good” at the least!

On the same note, here is a link from another wedding photographer’s blog that also has some of these points and a few sample images of what you should ‘not’ expect.

Do check out my candid wedding portfolio and get in touch if you wish to hire me :)

Of One Million Fireflies and Water-falls

Traveling without a camera is not what I enjoy doing, but I do relish those trips just a little bit more. Looking through the camera lens does not narrow my perspective but it does narrow my perspective, you know what I mean! I visited Goa the first time ever, more than 25 years after I was born. By then more than 75% of the people I knew have been to Goa, and more than 50% of females I knew had at least one album titled  ‘Goa!!’ on Facebook! Unfortunately that was my first trip since owning a DSLR that I completed without a camera. Consequence was that I do not have a blog post on one awesome trip I’ve had. Well the reason I did not carry my DSLR was that activities planned in Goa were a little shady ;) (common, I am just being honest here) and I did not want to lose a great camera. I thought I’d never repeat the mistake, and actually I did pretty well keep up to my own expectations till the following happened.

Somewhere in the middle of last year, we were invited to join a wonderful group on a village expedition in the not-so-lofty-but-loftier-than-Lonavala Western Ghats near Kalsubai. We were on our first rural tourism itinerary for two days to a tiny village called Purushwadi in the early monsoons. Coming back to cameras, well I did not forget to carry the camera, but – wait for it – I forgot to charge the battery! Add to that the fact that I even forgot to carry the battery charger – there anyway wasn’t a charging point where we stayed.

So anyway, the whole trip was excellent. Started and ended with some most amazing views of the Sahyadris, and driving atop the hills at 3000ft above sea was awesome in itself. But the fun of the trip was the stay at Purushwadi. The trip was organized by Grassroutes, and we stayed with the locals, in tents! It was a two day trip, and the first day was spent having lunch and tea with the locals in their huts, and then going on treks, plucking fruits from the farms, and sliding in the mud! Post dinner, we all walked out into the bushes around the village, away from the people and into the wild. We were only following two things (three actually) – the darkness, and the sounds of the insects (and glows!)

Yes, the key attraction of the whole trip was sight of a million fireflies! Literally! The first time in my life, I had seen more than 2 fireflies, and now make it a million! It was an awesome sight and we just stayed there for like an hour. None of the cameras could capture the sight, and such things are best left to be seen with your own eyes than a camera’s.

The next day was fun filled. Starting with another trek and some more fruit plucking, we got a chance to plough the fields, clean some peanut pods, and eat awesome poha for breakfast. But what really got the group going, was gorging on buckets full of ripe and delicious mangoes and then – jumping into the pond of cool monsoon fresh water. I think, if the highlight of the first day was watching the fireflies, that for the second day was jumping into the pond and splashing around endlessly! The group splashed endlessly around the lazy river, and dived into the pond all afternoon. The sense of awesomeness that was created the previous evening by the fireflies, was taken to new heights by this feeling of conquering your self that jumping into a body of water gives you. The moment had suddenly come alive, and the feeling was fresh! After the mesmerizing dance of the fireflies had left us all wondering, the swims and the dives got the group alive again, and the feeling of being Alive is Awesome! The tiredness of the treks was gone, and trip was on its way to an epic conclusion.

This post is written for Cinthol’s new Alive is Awesome marketing campaign.

The above photo has been clicked by Dipna and all rights are reserved by her. Thanks Nickolai and Sunny for the photograph.

Enter a post title here, also upload a background image

Hello friend. How have you been? I saw you uploaded an awesome photograph of a lonely girl standing on a pristine beach with white sands and blue waters, with arms wide open! You look so pretty! Oh, and I saw your Twitter profile, wow those bangles in the background photo look amazing! Sad, we don’t see them much in the markets these days. Where did you get to buy them? And who took that picture?

You ‘liked’ that picture of the Phantom Sweet Cigarettes, doing rounds of ‘sharing’ on Facebook, didn’t you? Looks like you are an active member of this group called “Proud to be an Indian”. What fun it was smoking virtual rings of those sweet Phantom Cigarettes, scaring shit out of the elders. Cool yeah, long lost memories, good to have them refreshed.

Oh by the way, did you know that that image was actually created by me, from one of my photographs? Yeah, I searched high and low all over Pune to find those Phantoms. Eventually I had to mail the CEO of Harnik Sweets, Mr Gautam Harnik, asking him where I could find them. Here, you can read more about that story and also see the photograph on my original blog post. Go ahead, feel free.
http://blog.aditto.info/2009/02/14/231-of-phantom-sweet-cigarettes-and-ravalgaon/

Okay. Did you see that same photograph? Here it is again in case you felt too lazy to go and read the blog (I know you must be lazy, clicking “Like” and “Share” is easier than right-clicking on a link and reading it in another tab while you are at something else).

What I actually want you to see is that fine script at the bottom right end of the photo. You see that? It states that I hold the copyright for this image. Also, the disclaimer on my blog prohibits you from picking stuff without attributing it to me. Here is the link for that:
http://blog.aditto.info/disclaimer/

Essentially, you have violated my copyright by using my content, without attributing it to me. Worse, you even went one step ahead by cropping out the copyright line from the image. Well, you did not of course do it. Someone really smart must have done it, someone who knows how to use image editing tools too! You just promoted it further, you just shared it with an even larger audience. You just hit the “Like” and the “Share” buttons on Facebook. Simple for you, no? Not for me.

This is really trivial. It is a photograph that represents sweet memories of my childhood. But not just mine, it represents memories of millions of you, who are almost my age, who have lived during the times of the Phantom Sweet Cigarettes. I would be more than happy to share this with you, share the photo, share the stories, whatever you wish. I am happy to see that my photograph makes you happy.

Unfortunately, the story does not end there, I am pretty sure it won’t. This is not about sharing memories, this is about lifting content, without attribution or permission. I do not even get a link back to my blog, not even a ‘Thank You’ note. Some days later, the same FB group would have millions of followers/members and maybe even advertisers. The same FB group could use content uploaded on its page as its own for any kind of activity – marketing, political unrest movement, stalking people, anything – I am scared to even think of this. Content created by me or thousands of bloggers like me who use original content, gets shared across thousands of social media networks, groups and forums. Passing on links to the original content is acceptable, downloading and uploading as your own is not!

I also do a little bit of photography in my spare time. I make sure that I upload images with copyright information / watermarks only. However, I do not use tactics such as putting a huge watermark that covers 75% of the image. I think that really reduces the quality of my images and the appeal they carry. But I do expect you to respect the fact that I own the content I create – the photos I take and upload on my blog, the articles I write here, and anything I put on Facebook and Twitter. To think of it, Facebook and Twitter are turning out to be massive problems for people concerned about safety and copyrights. I never know when the photo I clicked of my beautiful friend will be downloaded from my photography page by a stupid girl only to upload it back as her own profile picture! People like you are shameless enough to put beautiful photographs as your cover photos on Facebook or background images on Twitter. Yes, websites like Pintrest scare me. It makes me wonder if the price of information and content on the internet is really zero!

A lot of bloggers are up in arms against this free lifting of content from our blogs. Read stuff that the Idea-Smithy has written on similar issues http://ideasmithy.wordpress.com/?s=copyright .

It is sad to know of such practices. Show some creativity guys, show some maturity. Show some decency to acknowledge the fact that you do not own the content you have uploaded. This does not go out only to you, but all the news reporters, and editors, and wannabe media people – You CANNOT lift images from someone’s blog or Facebook page to use it in a story or campaign of your own, without permission, or attribution and at times without paying a royalty.

Even as I publish this blog post, I am aware that there could be some content on my blog that is not created by me, for which I have failed to provide attribution. I am going through all my blog posts to check for those and make this blog a cleaner place.

To Milan, with love!

Milan, is one of the largest cities in the EU and one of the most celebrated cities of the world. Being a prominent international center of performing arts, Milan is also an important destination for tourists on the European circuit. Milan is identified (along with New York and London) as the Fashion Capital of the world. The rest of the good things about Milan are in general common with most of the rest of Italy – great art, great food, great language, great people, and all in all, a great place to be!

I was lucky to have got a chance to visit Milan, although it was a short trip lasting only 2 nights and 3 days (no weekends in that). Of the tons of photographs I did click while walking the streets of Milan, here are a few that may highlight some awesome places in the city!

The Milan Cathedral, or the Duomo di Milano, is the 4th largest cathedral in the world and constructed in the Gothic style. The exterior is made of what seemed to me brilliant marble. In front of it is a huge public square, and beside it is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a huge 150 year old shopping arcade.

The interior of the cathedral is huge, almost reminded me of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia. Whereas the exterior shows some excellent detailed carvings on some sort of a metal. I do not know much about Christianity, unfortunately, to have understood the depictions (though I do identify Christ in the picture below).

Streets in the downtown area of Milan are peculiar and quite different from some of the other Western European cities I have been to. They are cobbled with paver blocks, and also extremely tiny. Some streets are only wide enough for one bicycle to pass through at a time.

Trams are everywhere in Milan. I think Milan has one of the oldest tram systems in the whole world, and boy do the trams look pretty! Another interesting perspective of the city can be had from the top of the Milan Cathedral walking between the pinnacles and spires.

Unfortunately, and partly due to my own choices, I have not watched an opera in Europe. Something that I promise not to miss on my next trip (whenever it is). I should have done that in Copenhagen, or Munich, or Salzburg, or at least Prague, but I did not. Did not happen in Milan either. Milan is dotted with museums, art galleries and operas all over. One of the most famous paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, is preserved inside a church in Milan. However you need to book a slot on the internet in advance to be able to go and see it. It is in a fragile state even after multiple restoration attempts, and its sight comes at a premium. I was not fortunate enough to know about this before traveling to Milan. That did not stop me from seeing some of the other brilliant paintings in various churches and museums in the city, and also catch a glimpse of a lovely street play!

This clearly does not complete the picture of Milan, more so because I have not covered anything about wine, pizza, or fashion! Oh did I say fashion? Well, one of the most fashionable ways to go around in Milan is driving in a super cool Fiat 500 (yes I did it)!!!!