43: Moon Aura

Plan: I always wanted to capture the aura of moon along with the passing clouds.

Story: I made lot of attempts with the zoom lens earlier. Then came across an article on use of kit lens. And saw a click of the moon with some building. So tried it with the 50F80. Along with the building and focusing well at the top floor could get this click.

42: Surat Fort

Plan : Click the pic of fort from the opposite bank of river. This is more like a document shot.

Story: Usually for clicking he monument we usually use a wide angle lens but since the face of fort which I wanted to capture was towards river. I had to go to the opposite bank. It is about 1km from the opposite bank. Set up the tripod and took few shots. I thought that evening light would be good but it was very soft.

41: Autum Clouds after sunset

Plan: Saw these beautiful clouds formations after sunset and wanted to create the feel using the PP.

Story: It would have been better if I went to the beach for such sunset. I had to settle for my roof top. Tried the tutorial and got some of the feel here.

40: Butterfly

Plan : Get a butterfly shot with creamy background.

Story: I had earlier got few butterfly shots and this time I got lot many of butterflies around. So thought it was easy. But AF was useless. Tried with manual focus and got this one where the insect is leveled and the BG is really far.

39: Girl at park

Plan: No plan !

Story: (How I spoiled the shot) While roaming in the park I got this group of children who got curious about the camera and wanted me to take their pic. I was not prepared for the moment but then it was setting sun. I tried high ISO 1600 on a kit lens.

I later realized that spoiled the pose as I took the shot in live view at the girl's face level but she was looking at my face.

Tried lot of PP to reduce noise and add contrast with dodge and burn.

38: Lonely Tree

Plan: Saw a tree at the newly opened river front and captured it. Wanted to show it along with the clouds.

Story : Took few clicks and this one was from a lower angle where I could frame well along with the clouds. During post processing made the look of an older photo by changing the white balance.

37: Rain on windshield

Plan: Lot of great images I had seen about rain captured through the car windshield and drops were giving good effect.

Story: This year the rain is not that plenty and if it was raining I was not in my car. This fine day I was in the car and it rained so picked up my mobile (the only available camera) and clicked this shot. Before doing that got near an interesting traffic island parked the car on one side and waited for traffic to be out of the island.

Learning: Use any available camera if you like the frame. Some post processing can always improve the image. 

36: Squirrel

Plan: I always wanted to shoot the squirrel for they are fun to watch. The issue is they are too fast and would not really pose.

Story: One sunday afternoon I went to the park and found that these squirrels were feeding on the grains and were coming and waiting at one location for quite a while. So decided to sit on the nearby bench and took few shots @300mm.

Learning: In sony I had good advantage about shooting in live view and the AF is really fast. So I kept the cam in my lap and took this shot.

35: Ganesha

Plan : Every year when there is a Ganpati I take some pics of him so this year is no excuse.

Story : Took the kit lens and composed with raised arm. Added brightness, contrast and sharpness in Fastone viewer. To avoid distractions I used the inner frame.

34: Smoking

Plan : Taking a picture of smoke had been on my agenda. So when I saw the smoke from this incense stick I tried it right away.

Story: I had attempted smoke earlier but in vein. Not very confident that this attempt would be successful I attempt in half mind. My earlier learning were put to use the light have to come from side or behind and the background have to be dark. Made a setup tried a test shot the counters were coming great. So waited for some decent pattern to appear and focused manually on the incense stick. It took a while for this pattern to appear and I clicked. Happy that I had got the click. Processed the jpg out of camera but was not happy. Attempted the raw file in Rawtherapee and some touchup in GIMP made a real difference.

Learning: Raw processing is yielding better result provided we know what we want as a final result.

Setup

33: Painted Stork from Bridge

Plan : Head to bridge and checkout the birds. If I find the painted stork than shoot it.

Story: Painted stork were there but the distance was really long for them to be captured. Tried manual focus and multiple exposure.

32: Early light

Plan: During photowalk I was early at the river front and the clouds in sky were good.

Story: I wanted something in foreground to give the complete photo a bright look so used fill flash.

31: Friends forever

Plan: Always had plan to join the photowalk organized by our local photog group "Drashtikon" to meet some talented photog's. This time it was at river front very close to my house.

Story: I was not clear on what to shoot as all the photogs were clicking at different things. Found these two kids and they were happy to be photographed by another friend of mine. I also took the opportunity and clicked some pics of them from my POV. I am usually not a good street photographer but the expression that I could get in this one made me quite happy. Also I recently learned the B/W processing which I applied and here comes my first street photo. . .

29: Wilderness

Plan : I was running out of ideas and motivation and rain was dampening my spirit. When I checked the NatGeo's your shot assignment "Wilderness" I got this idea to click the abandoned building which comes on my way to office and submit as assignment.

Story: Went to location and got few clicks since it was raining and windy I shot this with the canon P&S, this shot with colour was not worthy to be uploaded to NatGeo. Thought to make it Black and White and it was also very dull. Than read and saw some tutorial on black and white and made my first B/W. I was quite happy when I saw the final product after 6days of struggling. Alas it was late for the assignment . . . But still uploaded it on NatGeo your shot.

You can check it here . Hence you can find 29 coming after 20 . . .

30: iPhone Rakshabandhan

Plan : While my kids are celebrating Rakshabandhan click the moment.

Story: When I found that during celebration gathering everyone was clicking I got idea of clicking an iphone along with the shot.

Learning: Be open to new ideas while taking shots.

28 Bug closeup

Plan : My lens has a macro mode but it is 1:2 so I would call it more of a extreme closeup. Since this is monsoon time there are many bugs/insects around. So seen one interesting insect and taking an extreme closeup of it is a plan

Story: Went to revisit the Flamingo location and there was no flamingo there. So went to a small garden instead and there were many bees and insects there but this worm (If I may say so) was interesting with all spots.

Learning: Additional flash are useful for such photography.

27: Flamingo

Plan : Got the confirmation that Flamingos were in Surat. Also really close to my place. So try to capture a good flamingo click

Action: Tried them once on sunday but no luck to get a keeper since cloudy and less light. So decided to make another try when there is some more light at 7:00PM So this was the day. Just after the office grabbed the camera bag and headed to river. One good click out of 20 odd tries again light was fading fast. The keeper is shot at 1/80s at 280mm very lucky to have minimum motion blur with handheld.

Learning: Tripod would have worked wonder.

26: Mit

Plan: To use wide angle lens distortion to create a top angle large headed portrait.

Story: I was searching for place from where I would execute this and found that the stairs in my drawing room were just right. Just that the natural lighting was not enough. Put the manual flash with trigger on one side and bounce it of from the ceiling.

Learning : Kit lens can be very useful and with off camera flash things can be much better. The stair rails are seen in the glasses could have been avoided.

25 : My Mehndi

Plan: To capture my daughter's mood when she has mehndi on her hands. School is strict and do not allow wearing mehndi during school days but for one festival.

Story: She would not pose for me and makes faces which makes it difficult for getting the right mood. So by the time I got ready with my off camera flash. This test shot only came good where she was showing her real feeling about the mehndi.

Learning : To capture the mood of people be ready to catch right expressions .

24: Self Help

Plan: To create a photo of myself with my car then I thought why not make a photo of me helping myself.

Story : Created  a setup in my parking and to have proper lighting added a bounce flash. Used 10 sec camera timer and took three photos in succession. Rest was easy in post processing. By importing other 2 photos as layers.

Learning : Using flash to achieve consistent lighting over three photos is better than depending on the natural light to be same across 3 different shots. Also Implemented the PP of using layers and masking.

23: My First Camera

Plan : To shoot a pic of my first camera. ie Film point and shoot from Kodak.

Story: Since the body of this camera is black decided to create a setup using white clothes near the window for the light. Focused manually on its lens. This makes my first attempt at product photography.

Learning: If using cloth for the background "Iron It first".

22: Local Cricket

Plan: To pay a visit to my office friends who plays cricket every sunday. Take some of their clicks in action.

Story: When I reached the ground there were many other people playing in the same ground. Tried few clicks for baller and batsman. Looking at the croud changed few angles and moved to high speed jpg mode so that could catch the action in one of the 7fps.

21: The longest day.

Plan: To shoot the sunset on the longest day ie 22nd June. (Un)Fortunately this June is not raining and I could reach river bank for the sunset.

Story: Tried few click and was waiting for the sunset at 7:10PM sun was quite high. Located a place and made some trial shots. Found that sun vanished in mid air since there is too much moisture in the air. Had to be satisfied with this trial shot taken at 7:10PM

20: Night Lights of Cinepolis

Plan : To take the bridge and adjoining building at night.

Story: Bridge was not lighted up when I landed at the site. So did this building for its lighting instead. Considering the obstruction in front of this building I had to satisfy with this shot only.

Learning : There are times you may need to do the shoot again. Will try the bridge second time.

19: Seven lanes to haven.

Plan: Rainbow was on list and any day it would appear I would make it my project subject.

Story: It happens at the start of monsoon. Not very usual for the South Gujarat to have monsoon start with mild rains and rainbow. Also it was on the Sunday afternoon.

Learning: No autofocus will capture rainbow only manual focus.

18: Faith

Plan: To take a photo of Pipal tree which is worshiped across India.

Story: Women worship this tree and ties cotton thread as a ritual and prays for the health and long life of their husbands. Went to one such tree near my house at the noon time hoping to get some good clicks of the tree under the shade. Once went there and saw up, found the sun appearing from the leaves. So composed this click.

Learning: Got some details in the shadows done in post processing. Might be overdone a bit.

17: Busy Kid

Plan: I had an invite to one of my uncle's party where I was asked to click the photos. So I invested in additional flash and triggers since it would be more like wedding photography in a wedding hall. Using the off camera flash I wanted a single light shot with flash on the top.

Story: With no assistant, I was holding flash in one hand and clicking with other. Getting flash above the subject was not possible. Then I found this kid having food and was tied in his small table. I got my flash on his head and clicked with other hand.

Learning: Off camera flash has opened lot of opportunities about indoor photography and now with monsoon coming its going to be gr8 fun indoors.

16: Fence at dusk

Plan: Since monsoon is approaching I was keen to do some outdoor shots before I get confined to indoor shots for 2 months. Planned a trip to this bridge with family for afternoon to see if I can get one keeper from the view of items at the bridge.

Story:  We got delayed and landed there at dusk. Tried few shot at dusk but was sure that light was not enough for me to get a good shot. Then I saw this fence and thought of shooting it in a brighter background. To make it interesting found out one of the bent arrow on its top and took this shot.

Lesson: To learn handling the mask I did the PP in gimp using the mask to blur the BG and sharpen the dark fence. On closer look the edges are not as good as I would have liked but it is my current benchmark using this technique.

15: Tower to clouds

Plan: Create an image using my point and shoot SX130IS. Went to Aurangabad and this white monument "Biwi ka Makbara" which is inspired from Taj Mahal. Since the monument is white I was sure that the point and shoot cam will be able to get good exposure at noon.

Story: Found this moment where the cloud could be adjusted on the top of this tower and give a good cover over the tower. After trying few clicks could avoid visitors from frame in this click.

14: Bedroom

Plan: Since on this tour it was not easy to carry me sony DSLT hence am carrying canon sx130ix so the plan was to create images using this point and shoot. Got into a hotel bedroom which was well ordered. Lighting from the lamps seemed not sufficient for the photography but took up the challenge to click using the point and shoot.


Story: Created this image with a bit long exposure and using timer and keeping camera on the available desk. Applied some shadow recovery in fsviewer and little sharpening.

13: MoonRise

Plan: To take a moon rising in a clear sky at opportune time.

Story: I was at the Karla Caves the sky was very clear at that height. I was lucky to see moon rising above the hill. Took this shot at the time of sunset. Used the manual focusing and selected best of 4 shot since these were taken handheld. Improved the moon sharpness by preferential sharpening.

Learning: Fortune favors prepared mind.

12: Chakra-View

Plan: Clicking interesting patterns as they come my way is already on my card. This circular pattern is a roof of hut under a dim lighting.

Story: I was not hopeful of getting this shot correctly since LED lights were not enough. Boost the ISO to 800 and centered the circle in frame. Improved this shot a lot by adding brightness and contrast.

Learning: There is always room to improve the shot in PP.

11 Powder puff flower

Plan: To click powder puff flower. Have my focus correct is important since I had earlier missed lot of shot of this flower.

Story: Since I had missed focus in earlier shots. I took to manual focus this time. Used the focus magnification feature available in the A58. Clicked 3 shot handheld. This one is one of the best.

Learning: A dried flower next to my subject flower created a confusion "to keep or not to keep". I was not comfortable removing it in PP hence kept it instead. So keeping it out of frame would be better.

10 X-citement

Plan: We visited the "Imagica" and I planned to take few pics where people were enjoying the rides. This trademark roller coaster shot where the train is entering from top was in my mind.

Story: First I took the ride of the roller coaster. This made me notice few spots where people were most excited. Alas most of those points were very high. Found one spot where this roller coaster dropped suddenly under a bridge. Took the position from where I could shoot this roller coaster taking the dip. Used high shutter speeds and focused on the rail waited for the train to arrive.

Clicked one and it was good to go shot.

Learning: I might have used the "spray and pray" technique here but my confidence was quite high that I could nail this one.

9 Ray of Hope. . .

Plan :  I always found the light ray passing through dusty air interesting. I wanted to plan this shot but do not have a clue on how to make a quick setup. This has to be surprise shot at spot where I found the rays.

 Story :  I got this ray from the tree ar 10AM

Learning :  A subject under the light would have made a big difference.

8 "U 2 Brutus"

Plan: Take the Chess board and make an interesting arrangement by replacing the queen with opposite colour. Take a photo with the queen in focus.

Story:  Was not having very good chess set. Once got a very good set at hand took this photo. Tried both black queen in white set. and while queen in white set.

Learning:  Background could have been better. . .

7: Waterfall

Plan: Since I was visiting Khandvel Garden (Silvasa) on the weekend where there is a river flowing through the garden I had planned to click one photo of the water at 1sec shutter speed using the stand in the afternoon.

Story: Forgot to carry tripod but was sure that I would be able to use some rock or so to keep the camera. In the noon saw this waterfall in the Dadra garden so tried my hand at it. Light was too much and using lower shutter speed was not helping. So used my shades as a filter to click this photo with the camera on a fence pole. Finaly plan to Khandvel got canceled and had to be contended with this click.


Wind played is role in giving me shaky leaves.

6 Dragon Eye

Plan: As one of my planed click was to click eye of an animal with other part of the face blurred.

Story: It was my casual morning visit to check out birds when I was visiting my relatives. I found myself very close to this Gecko. Clicked one casual shot and found AF not locking on the eyes. Since the Gecko was very happy posing for me, I changed to manual focusing and clicked 2 more by focusing on the eye.

 

Cropped a bit tight to show that eye.

Flower in grass 5 of 104

Plan: Go to garden pick up a flower and click it in a different background.

Story : Went to a near by garden. Saw that under a three lot of yellow flowers were scattered in the green lawn. Thought of putting a white flower (Champa) in it and clicking it as a point of focus. While I was focussing on the white flower this dragon fly visited the same flower. As they say "Luck favors the prepared mind". I got to click this dragon fly on champa lying in the grass.


Learning: When in clutter focus Manually for best results.

Unscheduled Lake visit 4 of 104

Had to visit Jamnagar on official tour. For evening walk we went to the Lakhota lake there and it came out to be surprise spot where I shot this sunset behind the Palace which is in the middle of the lake.

To include the sun or not was my dilemma finally I included the sun. The pic is a bit noisy since I tried to get some details in the shadow here.

Stump vision. 3 of 104

 Plan: Get behind the stump and click the action of street cricket. Focus on stump and blur the kids in action.


Result:

Story: I had major issue since kids these days do not play with stumps. So this plan had to be impromptu executed on a day when kids are out with the stump.

So this was the day. Stumps were out and I was early from the office. Sun was getting down which was nice. Initially thought to click at 200mm but then considering the light took 50F18.

Kids did not have enough players to keep the wicket so my role was to click photo and serve as reserve keeper. First few clicks and I saw this composition in the LCD and was sure it was usable.
Longer Focal length would have helped. May be, but I think it would distort the background to not get these out of focus kids in frame.

Score : 7/10 (White stump colour could have made a difference)

Series of items focus on one : Small DOF 2/104

Plan: Search for a series of items and focus on one of it and other items are blurred. If required use the 50F18 lens.

Things like railings/window grills can be considered.

Result: 

Story:
Was checking out grills and railings but nothing interesting was seen. In the mean time went to rooftop. Bingo earlier had thought of clicking this one but did not since I had no DSLR at that time. There is a battery for inverter and it is having this colourful series on top of it.

Tried with kit lens but light was less and also DOF was not less needed higher aperture. Switched to my 50F18 in manual focus. Clicked 4 of them with different pieces in focus. Finally chose this one. 

Sunrise in the city - 1 / 104

Planning:

I will be on tour for first week of April. So the good news is that I will be
starting the project this Saturday. 

Sun being the source of Photon and hence the "God of photography" hence
I will start the project with the rising sun as a prayer and obtain blessings.

Subject is "Sunrise with the city foreground(Silhouette)" 
Things I want in this photo:
1. Good sunrise colours in sky.
2. Foreground City elements which are recognizable.
3. Planing to shoot from near a river/on the bridge.
4. If there is something interesting and close at location will use flash to light it up.
5. If tide/water is there I might get some reflections too.
6. Saw some texture of clouds in sky so might be lucky with some interesting pattern in sky.

Since there will be small time window to shoot sunrise. I will try it first from
the bridge and then move down to bank. This will allow me to make atleast
10 ~12 attempts. 

Result:

I score this attempt is 6/10. 
Next attempt I will ensure I select morning with high tide and shoot at  70mm~150mm. 

Story:

So here is the first attempt at the project. There are many lessons in the first attempt itself. I am going to love this project. 

I checked the sunrise time it was 6:35AM and reached the bridge at 6:30AM knew that sun will be seen in another 20min time. Surveyed the bridge and was congratulating myself for choosing a bridge where I could move in a way to adjust the sun over the foreground to some extent. 

Lens choice 18~55 since I wanted to take a wide angle with lot of sky.

Then it happened the sun came above one building. Used manual mode with auto ISO and clicked one. Being used to shooting sunset wanted a bit darker so reduced the ISO took second shot which is reasonable. High tide would have given some more water body. 

Zoomed out and tried to take lot of sky in the frame as planned and in 1min sun was getting stronger and higher.  


So Sunrise allows only 2min time frame for any clicks you want. 
So took a backup plan ran down the bridge to try some more but sun got really strong and now keeper from near river.

There is interesting praying hands in the traffic island. I clicked it while returning. Hide the sun in the trees so that the foreground details were visible. Here I also tried with flash but that was limiting the shutter speed to 1/160 while I wanted a faster shuter speed so finally boosted ISO and tried. one with ISO400 was reasonable where I could do some PP to get some thing interesting.

So Ideas are needed. . .

Got a bit nervous   about falling short of topics to shoot. So did some brainstorming and it was a cyclone of ideas. 

Following is the list of idea as they came. . . Well it has got all type of topics which suits the need. Indoor work for 
weekdays outdoor work for weekends even some of the topics can be done as season changes.
If anyone has something interesting do reply.

1    Window light portrait (one light portrait)
2    Portrait of person looking out from window (window as frame)
3    Water stream
4    Night building/bridge reflection in river/lake
5    Roadside Trafic Signpost 
6    Water lilly/lotus
7    Shining globe (See the future)
8    Seasonal fruit (Mangoes)
9    Two persons face to face silhouette
10    Sun Rise in different seasons
11    Moon  (May be 2 shots in different phase)
12    Special dish preparations (Undhiyu/Biryani . . May be 2 of them)
13    Night city skyline
14    Road at night & Road at day
15    Building at night
16    Insect silhouette
17    Flower Macro
18    Flower collection
19    Garden in three seasons and different time
20    Dinner table laid out
21    Bar (bottles/glass/bartender)
22    Vehicles (Car/truck/bullock cart/camel cart/Auto Rik/Train)
23    Ruins of old building
24    Festival pics (Kite flying/Diwali/15th Aug/26th Jan/Holi)
25    Rain related (drops in water/drops on window/people with umbrella)
26    Children at play (different games)
27    Composition With LCD screen of mobile/TV/TAB.
28    Candle/Fire of gas stove
29    People at work
30    Patterns of nature (weeds/algae/sky)
31    From vacation trip (4 locations atleast)
32    From PhotoWalk with local photog group (participate 4)
33    Motion blur while riding or driving
34    My photography tools (first camera/other tools/setup)
35    silhouette of person in door
36    Self Portrait
37    Water splash/drop splash
38    Musical Instrument
39    HRD
40    Stairs
41    Painting with light
42    Panaroma (at crossroad/skyline)
43    From my Car at night
44    Figures created by Matchsticks/spoon kind of things
45    Boardgame (Chess/Snake&Ladder)
46    Trick using utensils
47    clothing arranged in interesting manner
48    Interesting maze of wires

About Project 104 photos. . .

It started with discussion at my favorite photography forum where
we were discussing 365photos

So Here I will plan a photo for a weekday and a weekend and than
upload the photo I could make along with the learning.

I will number the post and edit them as the project progress.

Hope to learn and share my experience over the coming year.