Photography, The beginning

Last weekend was one of the best spent in last few months.  Whoever knows me or have read my first blog would have come to conclusion, that I went somewhere for photoshoot. A small change, this time I went for a Digital Photography workshop, by a well known wildlife photographer and ‘India Nature Watch’ co-founder, Kalyan Varma (http://kalyanvarma.net/workshop-intro).  Friends, as per your requests, I am blogging the overview of what happened on those two days.

Saturday, the session started of with a introductory video explaining the political and sensational impact of photography all around the world.  Kalyan has divided the first day session into (a) Science, (b) Art and (c) Equipments.  The morning session (Science) talked about how camera works, whats Aperture, Shutter speed, ISO, Exposure, White balance, Tonal ranges, Metering etc.  Does this list gives a feeling that its too technical, and confusing.  Its not.  Thanks to Kalyan Varma’s amazing presentation skills.  I would be able to explain each of these even if you wake me in my mid night sleep.

Next section was totally from different perspective, Art.  What make a photograph look great, Compositions, Rule of third, lines, curves, colors, space, frames, patterns and … so on.  When I recollect, its amazing how these many concepts are still in my mind.  The last session on day one, was about equipments.  Kalyan spoke about the different camera models, lens, accessories and where to buy them etc.  He gave tips about how to maintain camera too.  There are few surprises.  He also provided us with a goodies bag, with a calendar containing Kalyan’s wild life shots, a T-Shirt (his love for linux shows up as penguin), a small booklet with the concepts explained in morning first section and a CD with useful tools.

The second day started with at 7 AM in Lalbaugh, with hands on experience session.  Kalyan gave couple of assignments to shoot.  He & his associate, Ganesh, mentored us during the session.  It was followed by brief session on portraits.  He had some clever trick up his sleeve.  It was 10, when we came back to hotel for post processing session.  The post processing session was about useful tools that can enhance the photograph.  He also covered few debatable post processing tools.  After that we were given time to do some post processing work with the photographs shot in Lalbaugh.

The most useful session of the day was the critics section.  Each of us were asked to provide 4 of our best photographs (2 taken before workshop and 2 during Lalbaugh session).  The comments were unbiased and straight forward.  The comments contained what made it a great photograph or what would have made it a great photograph or why the photograph didn’t make impact.  At last, he spoke about photography for our future; Ways of exploring the photography skills and utilizing the photography for the community.

My mind was full of ambitious thoughts during my return back journey to home.  Guys, watch out for my 2012 calendar.  I am aiming at bring in a brief emotion when you flick the pages every month.  Let me hold the secret about the theme.  But for sure, it will not be butterflies, sunsets nor rain.

Sunday hit the bed with a satisfaction about meaningfully spent Rs.6000.

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