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My Journey to IITian production town – Kota

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

This was my second journey to the city which has produced lots of IITians. My second Creative Candid Photography assignment in Kota. (Note to self::Its been 5 month that I have been full time photographer and second visit to Kota)

At bangalore airport the security guard asked me to have haircut as my picture in the pan card did not resemble me anymore. So he asked me to get some identity card with long hair(not really sure if there is a process to renew pan card due to hair overgrowth and also makes me wonder if same applies to hair loss).

My flight was spicejet flight from bangalore to jaipur via mumbai. The crowd to tier-2 cities is quite unruly(same seen on journey to indore and madurai) and here as well I saw people traveling from mumbai to jaipur quite unruly too. Use of mobile phones, tray table open all the time to name a few of the acts. The flight was not unruly though. It reached before time.

I decided to go to durgapura station in jaipur to catch my train to kota. (On the recommendation of her highness princess of Kota, Anushri). If you love food on railway stations then its a wrong station to be on. I had lots of time to kill and ponder on the question of a kid on the station to his parents that ‘Do only girls have long hair?’. Another boy on the station asked me if I was into music industry, more specifically drummer.

The train got delayed and reached only around 10pm. And trains do not have concept of late night dinner or midnight buffet, which meant hungry trip. I finally reached Kota at 1.30am, an hour late. And I was brought declared hungry to this hotel called Madhushree. I checked in, the guy on the counter was confused that which suite is to be given. There was option between honeymoon suite and ruby suite. I did not have appearance of a honey-mooner, so finally I got ruby suite. A really nice double room.

Slept well. Woke up early to have complimentary (free-free-free) breakfast. And as I wanted to have something light and filling(remember that I did not have dinner yesterday), I settled for idli (I know some people will raise eyebrows on my choice), but somehow I feel sambhar in this part of india is much more tasty. And bravo Madhushree, it proved me right.

Then I was off to the venue with another IITian joseph, who happened to know my friend Ashish and had seen my work as well. The engagement ceremony started little late. And there was lot of crowd. Usual tussle for taking good pictures in confined spaces. The lunch had dal baati, a substitute for sleeping pills. Then there was a break for some time and since I had dal baati, I was dropped to my hotel Madhushree. I took little rest and then again headed off to the wedding.

The wedding procession was just starting when I reached the venue. Typically there is a guy who sings super-remix of all sorts of songs. And then there is a band and ladies with lights on their head and a generator to kill all the bad odour left by baraat. I love Marwari baraats for ghoomar song. The style is pretty cool and I feel like dancing too. But after fracturing my hand while doing dandia, I feel scared to do any dance that involves turns. The wedding was cool one yet again. Nice food, nice fun. The brides side had a procession for her as well.

Now the faces have started looking similar as the pundit turned out to the same as Ashish’s wedding. He is slow and little weirdo. Not that I am very fond of pundits. But this guy was supposedly in police and quit his job and started weddings. Makes me wonder if most of people in wedding business have come after quitting their job.

The vidai happened at 6am and Madhushree was calling me. I went back to the hotel and fell asleep in her lap. Though I was supposed to start for jaipur at 8am, I finally took indore jodhpur express. Tata bbye to IIT city.

From this blog I will start rating the hotels I have stayed in:
Madhushree: Minimum room rent:2500, Rating: 4/5

Posted in Travel, Weddings | 9 Responses »
Tags: bangalore, candid, creative, delhi, IIT, kota, mumbai, photography, wedding

IITian who can click!

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

Disclaimer: None of the characters/incidents in this article are inspired by 3 Idiots.

Them: “What was the reaction of your parents?”
Me: “They were speechless, and are still speechless”
Them: “What happens to the knowledge you gained in IIT?”
Me: “IIT teaches you lots of things, not only technical stuff.”

Though I was always inclined towards creative fields, I opted to appear for JEE, which is the best engineering exam in the country. And like every kid from a mid-size town, IIT was a dream. It still is a dream.
When I got through JEE, my heart used to say, if not computer science then I will choose architecture branch. But while filling the options, mind won over heart. And I chose the standard options – Computer science, Electronics and mechanical. There was no architecture in my list.

After getting into IIT, you are treated like a king by your family/friends/city. But once you reach the college, everybody is an IITian. And the race to gain the technical knowledge from the best professors in the country begins. Sometimes the mind just refuses to gain the knowledge. But after surviving an exam like JEE, you get the confidence (confidence rating=75%) that you can pass all the exams. And this confidence actually works (may not get you the best grades though).

I also got a chance to nurture my art skills at IIT. Various competitions related to arts specially the Diwali celebrations more popularly known as ILLU and Rangoli started the creative itch in me. Years passed by. I graduated from IIT with some more knowledge in Arts. Like most of the students, I also got placed into a good MNC. One of my friends had predicted that I will stick to the same MNC all my life. I said “maybe”.

Job security is a prime concern in India. We prefer security. And my job gave me lots of job security. It gave me enough money to enjoy life as well. And I made it a point that I enjoy my life. Most of people in India want to keep earning for everybody else in the family/society. And forget to live for themselves. I hope that changes in the future.

Once I moved to Bangalore, I got more chances to do some creative courses. I started learning animation and I decided to go to US for studying animation. My family was shocked when they heard this. My mom asked me “what happens to your IIT degree?”.

Anyway, after analyzing the financial viability of animation, I dropped the idea of pursuing it. (Confidence rating=70%). At the same time, my bro-in-law had bought a digicam and I started doing photography, people liked my work. I got inspired by two friends of my friends Anupam and Gaurav, who used to maintain a daily photoblog. I also started my photoblog on flickr. I used to write a small interpretation/story associated with each picture. It was well received. And this gave me more motivation. (Confidence rating=90%)

I bought my first camera (DSLR) when I was on a business trip to South Korea in Sept’2007. And then the journey started. I started doing more and more photography. Some people used to comment on my photographs daily. There were many people who silently followed my work, and would tell me once in a while that my photographs made them happy. This would bring me a sense of satisfaction. (Confidence rating=95%)

Arts related jobs are not very highly rated in India, so a decision to move into photography was still a far dream. Many people have the habit of commenting without looking at your work. “You want to move into photography from a software job? Are you mad?” this is something which you might hear often (confidence rating=85%). Anyway I used to compare myself with myself. And I wanted to keep improving on my work. (Confidence rating=95%)

In between I also attended some theater workshops, which gave me some nice friends who supported my creative side. And this gave me more confidence.

Time moves very fast, and it was already 2 years that I maintained my photoblog. The response became better. I had never tried to sell my photographs. (I still haven’t). But there were some people who hired me for some assignments. (confidence rating=100%)
The turning point came when I was selected to cover 2010 Kingfisher Calendar Launch event. My work from the launch event got me some more fans. It increased my confidence to make a career switch. (Confidence rating=150%, confidence threshold exceeded). I decided to take a tough decision. I decided to quit my job.

There is a big difference between “what you can do” and “what you wish to do”.

When an IITian decides to do an MBA just after IIT, nobody really cares that what part of his knowledge from IIT he is going to use. But when the same IITian goes to a non standard path, people start raising eyebrows. But what I feel is if you have the passion, then there will be results, maybe slow maybe fast. But there will be results.

Posted in Uncategorized, creative, photography | 85 Responses »
Tags: bangalore, best, candid, creative, dreams, fashion, following, IIT, IIT JEE fashion, JEE, job, leaving, love, moments, passion, photographer, photography, Photography IITian Journey, top, wedding

Best Photography Business Card Design

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Recently my visiting card got selected to be featured on the website http://www.cardonizer.com/ as one of the most creative business cards. I had not submitted the card to them but they themselves asked me if they could feature it. And I was more than happy. They also asked me few questions related to card, like what inspired, material and more designs. I had already planned to blog about the card. But then this thing happened before my plan could be executed. (For the past few months, I have not been allowed to be LAZY)

So what inspired the card. When I started with the idea of the card. I had two things in mind, one it should be SIMPLE, and second it should connect to the heart. My website name had already been decided by then (http://cam-dev.in ), so I decided that my card will be a camera, a simple camera. So the first criteria got fulfilled, now the next task was to make it connect.

My 2year old nephew had a role to play in this, he had this nice toy camera and when I would go to my sisters place, he would relate to me with the camera. Whenever he saw that I was carrying a bag he would say khichik-khichik (click-click, his term for the camera) and try to see me through the viewfinder … so the idea was a simple camera with a viewfinder to see the world. So the front of my card was cam with dev written on it. (which made it relate to my website cam-dev). And while reading the contact information you could see the world through the viewfinder.

I designed the first draft in Adobe Photoshop (A mistake, as I am not really a design expert), then I was asked to convert it to vector format by the PrintXpress people.
My first design had a simple ring to denote the lens. It got reviewed by few of my friends and then I got it printed. It did not look like a lens and the card looked too empty. Also I had chosen 40% black for the contact details, which looked very light after print and it was not legible. So the card design was updated with a lens glare and color change for the contact details. I decided to go for the thickest sheet possible(280gsm ivory) , so that the card was more durable. Also the person at PrintXpress was quite helpful in doing the selection.

In between I had got 200 cards printed in Mumbai, hoping to distribute them when I went to Kingfisher Calendar Launch party. But I just gave 5 cards. So I decided that I will get the rest punched too. When I was collecting the cards from PrintXpress, then one gentleman asked me if he could have one for his collection. And I happily agreed.

**Update:
Its also featured here
Also featured at here

Posted in creative, design | 6 Responses »
Tags: 2010, 2010 best top 10 60 25 business cards, bangalore, best, business, candid, card, creative, creative business card photography photographer design visiting, delhi, fashion, india, moments, mumbai, photographer, photography, portfolio, top, wedding

A Journey Through Glamour with Kingfisher Calendar Launch

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

It was all a dream, definitely a dream till it turned a reality. I wonder how it begun though; never fathomed a dinner with a friend who told me about the contest by Kingfisher looking for a photographer to cover the calendar launch event, would be it. Yes, that was it. But I came to know about the contest only on 7th December. I had deadlines at my workplace to take care of before my vacation from 9th December 2009 kicks in. So I had to finish my work before that.

Irrespectively, the journey began. I made my profile on the website (My Contest Profile) and started asking (read begging) for votes. I spammed inboxes of all I knew to vote for me and coaxed my friends to spam their respective friends. It worked. Very next day I reached 10th Rank. And the day after that I was in top 5.

As I was about to travel on 9th and my access to internet would have been limited, I decided that I will carry my 4 years old 4 Kgs laptop to browse. I saw myself spending my travel and time thereafter asking (read again as begging, from an expert beggar by now) for votes. Some people who liked my photography also started getting votes for me. Within no time it was a close contest. I moved to first spot in few days and stayed there for good 2 days. But last three days of contest saw a tough competition and I finished second in the number of votes. Yet, I hoped I will still be selected because of my photography skills. When results were declared on 17th, I was there on the list of winners. It all felt like a dream. As a photographer I had some plans, but this was “THE” opportunity for any photographer.
And a BIG BIG BIG thank you to people who had the confidence in me and made me reach there.

I came to know that the event was in Mumbai at Dr. Vijay Mallya’s house. I was already on vacation and about to roam in Mumbai. COINCIDENCE. Isn’t it?

In the dreams, you are supposed to be well dressed and look as best as you can. But the dream was over and reality was so close; I tried shopping for the dress code Calendar-ish, which was kind of confusing. Help came from a friend Yash in finding the good areas in Mumbai to shop. And we zeroed in on a designer shirt and black trouser and some accessories.

I was all set to attend the party; my friend from Kingfisher side was Sambhav, who had the invites for me(The babe on invite was so hot). He had also arranged for the flight back to Bangalore (thanks to the contest). I woke up early in the morning to get ready on time and reach the venue on time. The event was supposed to start at 1pm, but got delayed a little. I like a kid in candy shop arrive a bit early and was lucky to get the glimpse of the calendar girls; their posters were already put up which were not covered by any photographers by then. Not many people around at that time also made me click the pics peacefully (you see, arriving early at times helps). The pics are there in the end of this blog (READ the blog and then only jump to them ).

On the entrance of the house, there were beautiful babes, who welcomed the guests. It would be a sin to address Dr.Vijay Mallya’s house as house, so from now on I will refer to it as a PALACE. And Dr. Vijay Mallya as the KING. On the entrance there was this big poster which depicted all the Kingfisher hotties over the years, truly Kingfisher and Hot girls are like twins. This followed calendar preview, wherein the models came and posed.

Babes receiving the guests

Mallya, I mean The King and no signs of Booze. That’s Blasphemy, so there was a counter with all UB products or call it drinks adorning it (for free of course).

As I heard from a passer-by, the guests list comprised of all big names of Bollywood, it was quite exciting to speculate who all will arrive. The calendar was brought to the stage at around 1:30pm and it was beautifully wrapped in yellow. It itself made a perfect picture. The King arrived at around 2pm and so did the models from the calendar. I started getting some shots of the models and followed each one of them, and they were sweet enough to pose for me.

And suddenly someone appeared … any guesses …. ???
DEV.D (Abhay Deol)

So this Dev.P was in front of Dev.D or vice-versa, I just started clicking him …click click click … and got some nice shots … and then focused back to the models …

Others to make their presence felt were Madhur Bhandarkar, Mandira Bedi, Simone Singh, Purab Kohli. I was getting all confused by now as to whom to click … hot models around me or the Bollywood celebs … and then Nagesh Kukunoor arrived and I clicked him … one more good shot …

Cyrus started a funny game at around 2:30 and it involved five teams of two guys each, YES GUYS … and partner A had to get a drink from a lady in the audience and partner B had to drink the drink in a milk bottle meant for babies… here there was some cheating from all the teams and Siddharth Mallya was declared the winner, the reason given by Cyrus was that he was the son of the King .

After the event was over I was going to the drinks counter, to get some fruit juice but then I had to stop … why… why … why … because Deepika Padukone was sitting inside the Palace. and I got two candid shots of her… and then later on I mustered the courage to go inside the palace and get a click of her … but then she said I will be back in some time … and then later on I got some more good shots … one with the Prince too …

And then Kunal kapoor made his entry … and I went very close to him and I think he felt I was a stalker … I almost appeared so with my big camera … and click click click … few more good shots … meanwhile Cyrus had started his question answer session for the hot models … questions involved their english accents, about their funny names, height and etc etc … and ya their relationship with Atul …

In the end the Ace photographer Atul and the King gave their speech … and Deepika arrived on the stage … there were just click sounds thereafter … She was looking billion bucks. She unveiled the Calendar. I think I was clicking more of her pics than the Calendar…

Post launch Deepika was posing with the new Calendar and thus started the mad rush. Every photographer was stepping on each other to capture Deepika. Glad that I had got much better candid shots earlier.

I had a morning return flight from Kingfisher. I didn’t sleep at all and was uploading some pics on Facebook/flickr … It was really a life changing experience … and I think it is an experience I will cherish for my lifetime …

And here are some hot pics from the Calendar … You can ask me for the full size images…