A bored day, some coins and an SLR is something that are a necessity to make an image like this. However If you look at the various trials that I took for this Image and what I learnt from it, I should say it was a day well spent.

I can already see some of the readers cringing with the flash used. Yes, I am not a person who likes the pop up flash with my camera, but what I learnt is that to be able to bring out the shine of the coins that was nearly the only way. Ofcourse you can do it also with a off camera flash, but since I dont really have one I am making do with this.

Hmm .. .next photography purchase, a good flash I think.

A precious gift from my wife for my 30th Birthday was to take me around Dubai on a sea plane. To my luck I got the chance to sit with the pilot right at the front. The propeller of the plane was a bit of a pain cos a lot of pictures have the propeller in them. Add to it the pollution of the Emirates along with the sandy haze, a lot of the pictures were very hazy. Believe me I enjoyed the trip and the sights, it’s just that it did not translate as well on camera. Love to go again in Winter if I get the chance, should be a much better experience.

Love the Burj Dubai in the background, through the haze. Can you see it ?

A 2000 year old aqua duct used to purify water which is now completely underground. Should tell you that we were really tired by the time we reached there at that location, but to see how cool and pleasant it was inside along with the realization that comes with, someone built this over 2000 years ago with only hand tools, just took the tiredness away.

Also inside were statues of Medusa, people who have played God of War will be familiar with it

I was just out for a vacation to Bangalore and I should say, the start of the monsoon was really special. This picture was taken just outside the door of the house where we have plants which my mom is really fond of. Once the picture was taken I just ran it though Paint.net and ran the filter to soften portrait.

I like this picture, as it was taken at the end of a really crazy weekend. What started off as a small friends get together, ended out to be a crazy weekend where I made really good friends and had loads of friends. But what was the best part of the picture was the fact that after a long and strained night we still managed to play some football, and after a tiring game, here is the picture that I took, that kinda signified the weekend for me.

I used the Soften Portrait filter in Paint.net, that is well one of my favorite features in Paint.Net.

I love this picture, cos I wanted to show this iconic building as well as the beauty of the park. Inspired totally from the workshop with Kalyan, this picture was liked by all. Of course like all photographers, I reviewed the picture in Photoshop but only levels were corrected. Correction of levels is a process to just check on the settings that you might have not done on the camera. This bring us to a very controversial question, how much of work on Photoshop is acceptable ?

Purists and people with Film cameras disagree to the fact that there are pictures that need to untouched to be an amazing Photograph, but is it really the case ? Isn’t the objective of a photograph to look good, so if a few adjustments are made to the picture (not morphing etc) it should be considered OK right ? What do you guys think ?

Saffron, the colour in the Indian flag that represents, Sacrifice and Courage. The Colour adorned by Buddhist Monks. Buddhist monks in the Theravada tradition typically wear saffron robes (although occasionally maroon–the color normally worn by Vajrayana Buddhist monks–is worn).

This picture was taken during our last trip to Sri Lanka, fantastic place, fantastic people and most of all fantastic food. Had the picture for a while, just added in the effect in Photoshop. Let me know what you guys think of it.

Last year I had the opportunity to attend an awesome photography workshop in Bangalore, by Kalyan Varma, one of India’s top Wildlife Photographers. And after an indoor session where he looked at drawing on basics of photography, we went out to Lalbagh in Bangalore. One of the largest botanical gardens in Asia, to put to test some of what we had actually learnt indoors. This picture was captured there and was one of the pictures I had joy in taking, Not only was this an interesting time of the year, but also the freshness of the new leaves gave a great mood to the picture.

If you travel around Dubai, this is not a very common view. The planning of the roads is such that there aren’t many of these signals. But when there are signals, mostly RED does mean STOP, unlike my experience in Bahrain, and in the recent past Bangalore as well. In Bahrain, Green meant go, so did red, the best part was the Amber lights which is go faster in most parts of the world.

Sunrise and Sunset are my favorite, and I think I am beginning to learn a bit with manipulating the light at these times. I really liked this shot of a sunrise after a camping trip to the desert off Dubai in Ras Al Khaimah.

Made some adjustments to contrast and saturation to really bring out the colors of the sunrise.