Stroll around Avenue Street

Avenue Street is a tremendously famous tract in the center of the city. As you head towards the kempgowda bus stand, you need to keep watching for the "State bank of Mysore" branch on the main road, which is hard to miss by any chance, and there you are, the Avenue Junction. Avenue Street is not only one among the busiest business places in the garden city, but it does take you closer to authentic Karnataka environs.

The first thing which is bound to catch your interest, a huge "Coffee Board" Coffee van which lands at the avenue street junction and sells coffee and tea in cups of hundreds. Suresh checked with them and they seem to sell over 400 cups in the morning 3 hours.!! Cool, rite! It’s even more fascinating seeing the amount of people who throng this place, early morning. Friends, businessmen, shopkeepers or labours, all jam at this place for a quick cup of tea and session of chat early morning and may be a quick glimpse at the crisp newspaper which seems to selling around like hot cakes.  After you spend a little more time, you start noticing the book shops all around this corner. Avenue Street is one of the most important destinations for people looking for second hand books. This place is one of the oldest markets and of course its get extremely crowded as the business commences.

The other important factor which adds to the popularity of this road is its sheer location. Avenue road connects the City Market (aka KR market) to the Kempgowda Road. There are Silver jewellers and brass utensils all along the street, which are among the other most shopped items at this Place.

As we started moving around the place, we could notice all the colours coming together quite early in the morning. There were few small markets around the temple of Avenue road which were quick in setting up flowers, there were kumkum stall which was already getting down to making those huge mounts of kumkum of various colours, ‘beedas’ giving that red colour to the flower seller’s mouth, ‘rajni Saar’s’ colourful sticker taking a bath at the back of an auto, the garbage vans here and there collecting tons of garbage from each corner, small flag shaped, local political party flyers garlanded throughout the street, as if being proud of all the mess, were adding to the mood of this place, as we got busy with our chores.

Avenue street is also known as the photographer’s paradise for the amount of variety and subjects which you could click here, but early mornings, today, I was just about happy and not overwhelmed by what I got there. Reading and hearing so much about this place, I was expecting quite a lot which somehow was not met. Though it wasn’t a feeble experience as well and we had our own share of meeting with new characters and getting a little closer to their lives and touching it somehow. While I enjoyed meeting my other co-photographer friends, I also took a while out to walk down some points less frequented by others. I also spent a while taking to an amma on the street, who was just too old to move her stuff around and was taking help of her son to setup their canopy. She loved the idea of this tall fellow with a camera and a smile and happily posed. While looking her shot at the LCD, she smile and a sense of satisfaction and unsaid thanks came out. That’s the feeling really, which keeps me going down the streets and clicking people.

I continued further exploring this street and another thing which I could notice was, that avenue street also has the most inquisitive set of people. Almost every single person wanted to know if we guys we were doing this as a part of some training. Some mistook us for press photographers and wanted to get into the frame. For few we were intruders early morning and few found a political edge when I overheard someone saying that these guys are going to show the negative side of Bangalore city. Well, society is made up of different kinds of elements and you got to accept it as it as.

We were in for another great location for photography, hidden across a stretch through few streets and some couple of shots away. This was a Sari making unit which we shot heart out which I shall be writing about separately. We continued under the guard of Suresh gounder who vouched for an awesome place for breakfast which was quite nearby. We spent time searching through the streets and could finally find “Chikkana Tiffin Centre” and bet you, this is an authentic, proper Karnataka food which was one of the most delicious serving I tasted since some long time. The location of this eatery could be fishy, but even after you find it, you need to still be prepared to jostle through a huge crowd for this amazing food. Highly recommended even if you have to spend more than half-n-hour like us searching for this place.

                 Well, this was another location covered in the beautiful city of Bangalore. Hope you have your own experiences about this place as well. Waiting to hear from you guys, your experiences of this place and any comments on what you saw via my write-up and shots.

Continue writing on my Book

These have been few years of my life, where i have been writing avidly over my blog. I have been getting up before the sun comes out and scaring street dogs for early morning photoshoots. I could also write some stuff for couple of journals during this period and not to mention, they got a cheaper writer than me who could use MS word and hence i am not writing anymore for them.
 I have been giving serious thoughts upon falling back and starting to write back on my book which i started few years back. Its still in a good shape though some of the characters have gone into mist of time. I wanna ask people who visit my blog, as to whats their opinion on this!! Should writing a ficition in a compelling manner work better than short stories!!! Do they prefer some snacky story on a little original context !!! Whats that people wanna read! opinions!!

Street Photography:A starting point

I have been an avid street photographer and have seen lot of people taking interest in this genre of photography. When we see the photos from the street, we always tend to enjoy the story a face or a moment tells but people have shivers down their spine when the idea of actually getting down to the street and clicking strikes them.
Some find it terrifying to go out and click on the street and some find it amusing to move among people. Some spend their time mingling with inhabitants there and some get embarrassed by the attention they get out of clicking photos. Here is a small article which I thought of putting up to help people understand more about street photography and its elements and how to go about it.

Secret of being able to click people:
Situation 1: One morning you go out in the market with your wife for buying vegetables. You notice that there is a photographer moving around taking shots. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind? After a minute, noticing him and thinking about his activities, you move to a flower shop, where your wife is trying to pick some flowers for Puja at home. The photographer now comes here and clicks a shot of this lady (your wife in this context) checking out fresh flowers and quickly moves on. How are you feeling now? Anxious!! Perturbed!!
Situation 2: One Morning you go out in the market with your wife for buying vegetables. You notice that there is a photographer moving around. He is taking shot of a vegetable seller. After click he goes to the subject. Both look at his camera LCD and come up with a smile. After a minute, noticing him and thinking about his activities, you move to a flower shop, where your wife is trying to pick some flowers for Puja at home. The photographer now comes here and stands around the shop. He looks at you, smiles as if saying “hey there! Ask me if you are curious”. You pop up a question “Are you from press??” or “Why are you taking those shots??” and he happily replies back “that I am a hobby photographer, work with Target  and click photos around streets”. You feel satisfied talking to him and he takes a shot of your wife checking out fresh flowers. He then shows you the picture on his LCD. The picture is of a hand feeling the freshness of the flowers and you are impressed by his perspective. How are you feeling now? Motivated to click such a shot in the market! Read On.

Here are some aspects of shooting at the streets which I wanted to line down:

1. Getting ready to shoot:
• Lesser baggage: While you plan to go out and shoot, plan your baggage accordingly. Carrying too much of gear might not be a good idea because you might want to keep your attention on capturing life in your shots rather than worry too much about the focal lengths. The best could be to carry a nice walk around lens which can work/act as a basic wide angle and extend up to a basic telephoto lens.
• Including longer lens?? Well there are different theories around this question. Lot of people say that longer lens would help you capture shots from distance and hence you would have candid shots without letting people know that someone is clicking them. The other school of thoughts says that get closer and into the frame to capture the soul in your shot. This is all quite subjective. I suggest a middle path, Initially if you are beginning into this genre, carrying a longer lens would help you curb your anxiety and avoid any attention and as you spend more time and gain experience, you can move with a wide angle lens and get into the mid of the action.
• Casual dressing: Dressing might not appear to be an important variable but then it attracts attention as well. Carrying lot of stuff and dressed like a tourist might makes you feel Odd one out in a busy market and attract lot of attention. Dressing a little casually and carrying your stuff in a casual manner would make others feel that you are one of those regular visitors to the market and might feel more comfortable to all around. In some situations, the opposite might work for you. Did I say “there are no rules here!!!”.
2. Moving around in the market:
• Observe: While moving around in a market place or a street, look for activities happening around. Every place is characteristic in its own manner. Try finding moments, Listen to various sounds at that place, notice hustle bustle in the market and how people are busy with their chores. Try to capture those moments. An early morning visit to a market might see people setting up their shops, cleaning around, making small rangoli, or a group of friends hanging around cup of tea near the old tea stall, fresh colorful vegetables with dew like water on them, a call centre cab stopping on the way for the employees to gulp down tea before they hit home are all moments and convey different emotions. You can also use different styles and shots to convey the mood and the time of the day as well. Fresh flowers, clean markets and hopes in the eyes are all conveyors of a morning. Look for usual places with unusual perspective and new dimensions.
3. Living in there:

• Become part of the scene: The best part of being a street photographer is that you get to be the part of the frame. You can mingle with people and be at the thick of things which would not only give you a lot to ponder about but also lot of different perspectives.
• Try and get involved: Most of the times I have gone out shooting on the streets, I have noticed that some of my friends would move around, click a shot and try to move out. This leaves the people around stunned, anxious and sometimes angry. The best method is to get involved with people, share a smile and not run with a photo. You never know, a smile or a small talk might give you lot of great shots.
• Neither appear conspicuous, nor suspicious: Also people, who tend to sneak a shot and move on, might appear suspicious. Be very aware about such activities. It’s very easy for people to suspect you and catch hold of you. So mixing up with people not only yields better shots but gets you into lesser trouble too.
• Bring home a story and not a photo:

Street photography is a genre of dealing with people. When someone lets you click their photo or you take without them noticing, you stand a chance to bring their story home. Try and talk to people rather than only clicking them. This way, you would know a lot about the place and their lives. In my interactions at markets, I have learnt a lot from real life examples of those people which is quite inspiring. So, not only click people but try to bring home a story about them.
• Respect privacy: While on streets, there might be lot of situations where people feel intruded, don’t want to be photographed. That is absolutely fine. We should respect privacy of others and move on by sharing a smile with them.
• Gauge the situation yourself: This could be quite important since many a times you might land in a situation which could be sensitive. You should gauge the situation yourself before clicking or taking an action. A sudden fight breaking out on the street or someone suddenly meeting an accident might tempt you to click them but could land you into a sensitive spot. With time and experience at the street, you would develop the eye to gauge the situation by yourself.
• Understand Law of Land: There are lots of places where you might not be allowed to take photos so it’s imperative that you abide by the laws of land. Ex: Shooting at the railway station, bridges, bus stand are all against the law since they could compromise the security, so avoid shooting at such places.

Some basics terms-Photography

Hello All,
I was thinking of starting the ball rolling somewhere and finally choose to start talking about some of the basics terminologies of photography. Here are some of the terms which could be handy while some of you try to grab the basics of the camera. Hope you have a good start on learning.

An example of using different apertures to control depth of field. See a bigger version here


Aperture: An aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels to the sensor of your camera. This is the opening which sets up how the light travels down and the appearance on the image plan looks like. The Aperture values which show up on your camera are also referred to as F-stops. The more the aperture value, the smaller the hole size, and the more the depth of field.
For example:
F1.8 would mean a larger hole which would give you sharpness around the focus area and rest blurred.
F5.6 would mean a smaller hole and sharpness around the focus and it’s near by areas increasing the depth of field.

Shutter speed: Shutter speed also known as exposure means the time for which the shutter is open to create the image on the sensor. Often the shutter speed which is displayed on your camera means that portion of
a second. For ex: if you go out in the light and the shutter speed of the camera shows 800, then it means the camera would expose for 1/800sec to create the image.

ISO: ISO in layman terms means the sensitivity of your camera sensor towards light. The higher the ISO value, the higher sensitivity is induced towards light. ISO is used in the cameras to increase the exposure during low light conditions.

White Balance: White balancing is a variable to control the casting of different colour tones in photos. where our eyes see and adjust automatically, cameras have a variable called White balance which helps you to control any undue casting which might come into your picture. For example: your camera is set to Tungsten white balance and you go out in the morning and click a picture of the lake. It would lend a bluish tone to the photography and you would immediately say that it’s not how it looked like there. You can play with the white balance to get the desired appearance and remove the bluish tone from the image.

Composition: Composing a photo or a composition means how to you place the subjects in the image which you plan to click. Most often we view through a viewfinder or a LCD to click a shot. The act of setting up an image is known as composing an image.

Metering Modes: Metering basically means how a camera determines the exposure of a particular shot. Our eyes are again excellently designed to understand different lightening but the camera sensor works on algorithms to find out the best exposure. In most of the cameras metering modes like evaluative, or matrix mode, partial, center weighted and spot metering modes are available. I shall discuss the usage of metering modes in a different article moving forward.

Focus Lock: Most of the cameras are designed to lock focus on the subject as we half-press the shutter button. Basically we are telling the camera to set focus on the subject. Cameras even provide you options to lock and then track the subject as they move around.

Exposure Lock: Cameras not only can lock the focus but also do lock exposure reading. This helps you to get the desired exposure and focus and then re-composition of your image.

Do share your thoughts or any other terms which you feel could be the part of this Thread. You are also open to pose questions which i shall try to answer or at-least refer to some website.