Marine Drive Mornings 1

During my marathon training days, this is the stretch i used to practice on. Early in the morning, when the light was just right, the golden period, i used to badly miss my camera. Clearly, i can’t jog and shoot at the same time. So, i decided that i would revisit the place after the marathon and try to capture life on this stretch in the mornings. The extended winter ensured that there was a healthy amount of smog, which may not be environmentally proper, but really did assist me in making some photographs.
It was a joy shooting here, as there are tonnes of people here which gives many street shooting opportunities. Hopefully, this is just the first part of the series, which i plan to explore further.   

Looking Back at 2011

O Majhi: As we sail into the sunset of 2011, presenting some of my personal favourites from  2011.  (Click on the link on the left hand side to go to this particular post) 

This year has been quite fulfilling from my photography perspective. After a dismal number of posts in the last two years, i finally posted the more photographs in 2011 than in 2010 and 2009 combined. I hope to post even more photographs in the new year. 

Happyness Marathon: The year began on a blast, with one of my images winning a competition that was organised by the makers of the film ‘Dhobi Ghat’ and Mumbai Weekend Shoot – a Mumbai based photography group.  

Year enders are the bane of print media professionals. So i thought of doing one, as far as this blog is concerned. So, looking back, i would say i learnt a lot in photography. Got to use a lot of camera bodies, apart from my own Canon S5 IS. Went from hating micro four-thirds to loving them, all thanks to the Olympus EP3. As for dSLRs, well go to use the Canon 1000D, 550D and Nikon D3100. Had planned to get a Canon 550D for myself by Diwali, but that wasn’t to be.  

Shaping the pot 

Started gravitating towards black and white. But have tried to keep a balance between the BW and colour images on the blog, as i feel both treatments have their own pros and cons. 

Phone or Camera: This was one image that got a lot of love, one the blog as well as among my friends on other social networks. 

One major addition in this year has been inclusion of a lot of people in my photographs, all thanks to the addiction called Street Photography. If you check my 2008, 2009 and 2010, there will be just 2-3 posts/year which will have any sort of human being. Thanks to Street Photography i tend to include people in atleast 7 out of 10 photographs that i make now. Have become a convert since i first came across a great resource on Street Photography, while testing out Google+ (yeah, Google+ is responsible for the addiction). Read quite a lot on the genre and hope to explore it even further in 2012. 
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Silent Spaces

Discovered Adobe Lightroom and have never gone to Photoshop since. Such a lovely utility LR3 is for minor colour corrections!  

Shoot, Chimp, Move On…

Also gained a lot of blog buddies this year whose comments and critiques have pushed me to explore photography even more. The page views have increased considerably when i compare it with those of previous years. I hope to maintain that momentum in 2012. 

Here are some images with colour. 

Portraits – 1
Ice Cream Waala
A Mouthful of Sky : My first attempt at capturing multiple exposures

A Ghost: Dabbling with compositing various images

Finally, this year was also about Photo Essays. Although i technically did just four of them (pathetic) i added one more essay which was more of a compilation of sorts. 
Blissful Bihu
In the mood for Ramzaan

Pudhchya Varshi Lavkar Yaa
Ghazals will never sound the same again
The Newspaper Project





So that was it for 2011. Hope to have many many more better images in 2012. 


Till then, Wish you all a very happy new year!

Take Care,

Ciao