Saturday, November 20, 2010

"Photo Feature" : Autumn in US

" Photo Feature "
Autumn in US
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Friends,.
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Mr. Kishore B Jothady (Mumbai, India) is a photo-artist of high aesthetic sense. Retired from a German Multinational Company as Customer Service Executive in its International Order Processing Department, Mr. Jothady has intense obsession for photography art since long. He commands over various branches of photography, such as travel, black and white, architectural, landscape etc. He has received numerous awards for his art-photographs. This time he is before us with his experience of photographing colourful autumn in America. Having a look on his feature, “Autumn in US” will certainly take us into an amazing world.......
--Dr. Pankaj Sharma
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"When I was holidaying in US for 6 months in 2007, I was lucky enough to experience almost all the seasons that wonderful country could offer. I reached Charlotte, a quaint little hill town in June. It was mid-summer with soft but bright sunlight with sparkling blue and unpolluted sky. Afterward I experienced spring with colourful flowers all around in the well-manicured parks and gardens dotting the town. Then there came a brief monsoon and finally, the wonderful season that I was awaiting with unabated breath, the wonderful autumn. The peak of this season begins in northern mountains sometime in mid November, and moving coastward the peak usually is in late November. I was supposed to return to India during fourth week of November. Therefore, instead of waiting for fall to descend down to where I was, I decided to travel North West to see if I would be lucky enough to get a glimpse of that splash of colours the nature would offer. I travelled almost 600 miles in two days (not much in US) and got some good pictures. But imagine my surprise when I returned to my complex, I found the maple trees all around our apartments were splashed in more colours than those around the famous Smoky Mountains. The locals told me that in that year the fall had arrived early. Perhaps the nature was more eager to present this over enthusiastic photographer, who had come all the way from over 10,000 miles away, with all its beauty to last him for a lifetime before he returned to his native place. I shot a few thousand images. Thank god, I am in the digital age.
Nature's annual autumn color festival is certainly one of the greatest shows on earth. Each fall, millions of trees in the eastern deciduous forests respond to the shorter days and cooler nights by beginning preparations for their dormant winter period. It is just business as usual for the trees, but for us photographers, it is a spectacular display of the beauty and diversity of nature. Locals claim that autumn is more glorious in Aspens, Maples, and Birches. There is no better time of year to take landscape photos than autumn. Those wonderful blue-sky days of October naturally lead anyone with a camera to want to record the glorious fall color."
When is the best time of day to photograph fall colors?
Any time is good time for autumn photography. If it looks good to your eyes, it will produce good photographs.
Is it a good idea to use filters when taking pictures of fall colors?
I have used a polarizing filter in most of my pictures for obvious reasons– to darken and enrich the blue of the sky and to saturate the leaf colours.
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---Kishore. B. Jothady
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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Profile : A Passionate Nature Lover : Yuwaraj Gurjar

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A Passionate Nature Lover:
Yuwaraj Gurjar
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Friends,
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Yuwaraj Gurjar (Thane, Maharashtra, India) had a profound affection for nature since his childhood. He initially used to go for trekking to various forts and other places of Maharashtra. Progressively he started bird watching and nature observation in 1987. The small and lesser-known creatures, due to their wonderful structures, colors, mysteries & capabilities, fascinated him at all times.
Since Yeoor/Nagla parts of Sanjay Gandhi National Park are his favorite and within approach; he has been visiting there every Sunday and even on weekdays for last 23 years. While observing nature and its various aspects in these forests, he has felt the need of study material about this area’s flora and fauna. He has gathered good information about this region by his own efforts and always wants to share this among nature lovers through his articles. The photographs clicked by him portray the behavior of small creatures truthfully.
Mr. Yuwaraj has travelled various forests / National Parks / Wildlife Sanctuaries across the India. His dedication towards nature is praiseworthy.
Thit is interesting to know that he has Commerce / Software education background and works for Raymond Limited as Dy. Manager, Commercial.
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--Dr. Pankaj Sharma












Thursday, November 4, 2010

Learning : "Photographing Deepawali"

"Learning"
Dear Friends,

Deepawali is a festival of lights, joy and happiness. This festival gives us a good opportunity for high-quality photographs. Below mentioned points can be beneficial for clicking valuable photographs of this occasion.
1. At the outset our aim should be to capture the true feel of this festival.
2. Since this festival is celebrated during post evening part of the day, we have to be extra conscious for taking photographs.
3. If our aim is to shoot the people enjoying the firecrackers, we should set the ISO of our camera at a high level (400 or onwards). This will help us capturing their activities faultlessly. In case of shooting the firecrackers merely we should slightly under expose the photograph. This will boost up the details and colours.
4. Illuminated buildings and streets/markets present us good probability for excellent photographs. For shooting them as well we have to use a high ISO. But for noise free photographs, use of low ISO is very fruitful. In such case we have to rest our camera on a tripod in order to get sharp results. Along with a low ISO we can set a small aperture to achieve a good depth of field. But In such case moving objects will tend to blur. Sometimes (and not always) blurred moving objects add a wonderful effect to a photograph. Use of a wide angle lens is very friendly in capturing illuminated streets or buildings.
Using a high view point at times give fantastic results.
5. Shooting colourful electric bulbs by using utterly low shutter speed and with intentional camera shakes occasionally results into magical results. For this point, we have to set a low shutter speed (such as 1/15 sec. or 1/30 sec.) with a low ISO setting. Now by aiming at an appropriate illuminated decoration, we have to do two things at the same time, pressing the shutter releasing button and shaking the camera randomly. We can repeat this act twice, thrice or more. This will result into some pretty graphical images.
6. People, worshiping, or busy in lightening the lamps/candles, can also be our subject during Deepawali celebration. Here we have to use a slight high ISO. The use of tripod is quite useful in such case also.
7.
Apart from above technical points, the aesthetic sense and fine skills of a photo artist will help in creating splendid Deepawali Photographs.
I wish all my friends a Happy Deepawali and Happy Shooting.
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--Dr. Pankaj Sharma
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