Anand's photography blog

Ever since I was little, I was always captivated by vintage street scenes captured in photography. Anywhere I see a old picture of daily lives of people, I inevitably stop and ponder about what they were doing; what was about to happen; what happened to them earlier; what kind of difficulties or joy they had in life, what else has this particular place seen in time. You wouldn’t think that from a picture so many questions come up..so much intrigue spurs up. It does for me though.

Next time you are in Subway restaurant..check out their wallpaper…I go there and just imagine what life would have been at that moment.

I thoroughly enjoy looking at those pictures. Internet has made life a lot easier where I can just Google everything. However, at the same time, I have had this passion of viewing the pictures, I also have been itching to take my own pictures of street scenes. I have been afraid though.

Would I meet the challenge? Would I capture the essense of the beauty of everyday life like others have? I am not so sure. There has been many walks where I was keen to join but refrained due to this fear.

Alas, no more today. Thanks to Faded & Blurred (especially Frank), I am embarking on my first photowalk. I am lucky to have my wife there with me to share in this. I may come back with something amazing or worse, I may fail miserably! As some of you who know me, my standards are pretty high for myself. Let’s see how I do.

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General by anand_23

Here is the slideshow for the ceremony and mehndi. Enjoy

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

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My Portfolio, Wedding Photography by anand_23

Well, check out this video:

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Links to pictures to come soon.

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My Portfolio, Wedding Photography by anand_23

This took a while since my computer had crashed and we also had the actual wedding right away. So, I finally finished this.

Check out the slideshow below:

Also, the full rez pictures are: All Pictures

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My Portfolio, Wedding Photography by anand_23

Well I have won again for the Corona city photo contest. Actually my wife has really won this time. See, she had the original vision of a picture of my niece blowing a dandelion when we were taking family pictures of her and my brother and sister-in-law. Afterwards, it was her who told me that I have to enter this photo in a contest. I was against it.

You see, I love entering contests and have even been a judge and have seen the judging process as well. Things that they look for are : Composition, Creativity, Technical difficulty and also story-telling aspects of the shot. For me, the shot of my niece met the composition and story-telling aspects but was not much more creative and techincally difficult shot.

I figured anyone with a camera can take the same type of shot..so what makes it unique to win something??? Obviously I was wrong. Thus the credit fully goes to my wife!

Below is the picture that won! Thanx to my wife, my bhabhi (sister-in-law) and my bhai (brother) as well as my lovely niece, Chandni.

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My Portfolio by anand_23

I am going to start my 365 project with taking pictures of trash that people just throw around. I am sure you must have heard of the size of plastic containers floating in the oceans…this is the reason why it happens.

Hopefully this will show us how careless and self centered we are. Its time to grow up and take notice and do something about this and other issues like it.

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General by anand_23

Well, I have finally finished working on the video. I was trying to reduce 35 mins of footage to under 5. I couldn’t and this ended up right around 10mins. Sorry.

Anyhow, watch the video to get an idea of the shoot and Corvette power.

I had a lot of fun…

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General by anand_23

I will post some images from my recent Joshua Tree trip with a Corvette(Paras’) and a model, Holli. Hope you enjoy them.

Before that thought, a brief history on why, how this happened. My wife, Jana wanted to go to Joshua Tree with me and with our busy schedules, this was postponed for almost 3 years. Finally I thought about having an exotic car there with a exotic model and taking my wife there. Do two things at the same time. And I escape the hike this way too! (shhhh!)

Anyhow, I got started planning this since February 2010. Had to find a car. Had to find a model willing to go out to Joshua Tree. A make-up artist that would also follow us there. I am lucky enough to have Paras as a friend…it is his Corvette. I didn’t think he would agree since it is so far away(2 hours from Corona), but he did. Then I figured out the best time to go there. According to my wife, April is the best month since the wildflowers are out. Thus I settled for April. However, due to the rains we have had, the season for wildflowers seems to have been pushed back a little. We see them around us here in California, but in Joshua Tree, it didn’t arrive yet where we were shooting.

To find the model, I placed a casting call. Initially I had 4 models I was going to take. However, one by one, the models flaked out. Holli was the only one that kept in touch with me and re-confirmed and re-confirmed that she will show up. I kept in touch with her just to make sure that she will come. I was skeptical. Luckily for me, she did show up and didn’t flake and was on time!

Jana and I went to Joshua Tree before to scope out the location. You see, Joshua Tree is huge and it would be a waste of time to show up on the day of shoot and look for a location. I am so glad we did this as we were able to nail down two locations within the park. We marked it on the map and I took some shots of the place. Determined the time sunset…watch where the sun was…which angle I am going to be shooting…how was lighting and what would I require in gear.

My biggest concern after our location scouting was that the dirt roads were not good enough for the Corvette. I expressed that to Paras and he was ok with it. He said that he has to get new tires in summer anyways, so this would work out perfectly.

I couldn’t find a make-up artist that was willing to travel to Joshua and work on a weekend. You see, the weekends are their busy time. So, I was out of luck. Luckily for me, I found Allison Noel who was willing to get the model ready before the shoot but wouldn’t travel with us. No problem and it worked out great!

As far as gear is concerned, Maria, Tom and Abe helped out by lending me some stuff. Thanx to you three! Frank was supposed to get me a written letter saying this was a school project (signed by Jeffrey). Well that didn’t happen…I am waiting Frank! haha

Four days prior to the shoot, I consulted with Hollie over the clothing. I sent her some things I was looking for. The look I was going for. She luckily had the clothing and it was all set on the wardrobe bit. I had to email Allison the type of make-up I wanted on Hollie. Now, being a male, I have no idea what is called what in make-up area. So, I scoured the web for pictures of the type of make-up I wanted. I found it and sent it off to Allison. Looking at Holli, I wanted her natural beauty to show without over-doing the makeup. Allison confirmed that she should be able to do this, no problem. She is a licensed cosmetologist.

Night before the shoot, I am making sure my equipment is working, clean, batteries charged and making a list of things I have to take with me (lots of snacks!!!).

I realized a lot goes in planning a photoshoot….that is a lot of man hours!!!!!!! No wonder shoots are so expensive!

EDIT: I forgot to add the pictures of Paras actually spending time cleaning up his car. He washed it, then waxed it (with something the size of a bar of soap!!!). Had to wait for the wax to dry off and after an hour or so, it has to be buffed after this. That brings the shine out. Here are few pictures Paras posted. It took him about 3 hours to do the clean up! Thanx Paras.

Wax

Wax applied!

Buffing time!

The Beauty is Shining!!!

Next blog will list what we actually did on the day.

As a teaser, I am attaching one photo here for you.

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My Portfolio by anand_23

Check this link out for some great info

Dos & Don’ts: Tips for Looking and Sounding Great on Camera.

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Wedding Photography by anand_23

I know you have heard this before. And I also know that you will get to it later this week. And both of us know very well, that you are not going to get to it later this week, next week or even during the month. Before you know it, it will be the holidays and now you are just too busy.

There are many reasons for this procrastination. No need for me to spell it out here since I have done it as well.

I got to thinking about better photo tips to write on this blog and figured that if I didn’t cover the backup issues first and foremost, I will not be doing my job.

I used to have a 3 hard drive backup system(No it was not RAID) and one day, out of the blue, I tried starting my desktop computer and it wouldn’t go. 2 of my harddrives were in this. 1 was external.

I was not very concerned since I have my images on 3 drives….one of them would survive. Well, the two drives in the computer had crashed. I couldn’t retrieve much out of them. I tried all sorts of tricks including putting them in the fridge overnight and getting them to work. Alas, to no avail. I figured, that was ok since I had my external backup. Luckily, that was working, BUT, and a major BUT here…it was not updated with the latest pictures. It had many, but missed a lot too.

Unfortunately, I lost few of those pictures and couldn’t get them back. The moral of this story is that hard drives crash. And even your backup hard drive can crash. So, at a minimum, keep your files backed up in atleast 3 total drives. And in addition, keep them relatively updated.

I use a software program(for Windows) called AllwaySync to keep my pictures synced all the time. It is an amazing program and works really fast. I had used SyncToy by Microsoft, but it was too slow and cumbersome. So, I highly recommend you consider using this program. It is free to use for most of you. After you use it over its “usage” limit, you will have to buy it. (I paid $25 for it). Not a bad deal in anyway.

My backup system now involves three drives in the computer, one external drive, online on my site AND I use an online backup system. Am I nuts?? yes…maybe so, but these pictures, once lost, are gone forever. Unlike the negatives from the old days, we are not going to find these pictures again tucked in an old suitcase. Harddrives are cheap…buy them and have the system setup to backup every week or at least monthly.

There is my tip…backup! multiple backups please!

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Better Photo Tips by anand_23