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Posting a couple of photos taken from Nelliyampathy.

Misty morning.. On the way up to the hills



Green haven.. Path to Victoria



Problem of plenty.. A confused Lion tailed macaque pondering which one to choose..

Here's a pic of the Multnomah falls near Portland, OR

EXIF:
Canon EOS 7D Mark II EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
ƒ/4.0 24.0 mm 1/50 ISO 200

Blackbucks


Tigress moving through grass

Here's a full view of the same falls.

Visited Siruvani forests recently and posting a few clicks..

Gaur blocking our way



Elephants grazing peacefully on the banks of river Siruvani



A Nilgiri Langur enjoying a handful of ripe guava

Navin,good click. Try B&W with high contrast.

Playing around with Photogrid

iPhone 7 plus and Olloclip wide angle lens, it's discrete, portable and gives great results. First image is Palazzo Cinemas, Forum Vijaya Mall, Vadapalani, Chennai. Second Image: Vanishing point, Salem Junction, Tamilnadu.

Today we went to the opening of an exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society, Benelux chapter, at the European Patent Office, The Hague, the Netherlands

I joined the RPS last year May, upon arrival in the Netherlands from Delhi, India. I have really enjoyed my time with the RPS. Learned lots of new stuff and hopefully improved my photography. Met lots of interesting people and made some new friends.

My most “exhibited” image to date is still this night shot of the streets of Chandni Chowk, Delhi, India. It won an award in India, was displayed at a photography exhibition in Delhi too. Then the RPS choose it as well and it has been on exhibition at the RPS Headquarters in Bath, UK. So now, at the EPO in The Hague, the Netherlands for three months. Then on to the university of Brussels, Belgium. Next, most likely my office!

Actually, I don’t care too much about photography contests as such. However, it is hugely rewarding to see your picture printed and displayed at a public exhibition.

It’s one of the first things I noticed/learned when I joined the RPS. Print your pictures, if anything, just for your own enjoyment. So much better than looking at them on your iPhone!

I have an A3 sized print of this image hanging in my office as well. It gives me pleasure every time I look at it. For the memories of our four years in India, and for the photographic aspects. I often get asked whether this is a HDR picture. It is not. It was shot with my Olympus OMD E5 mk2, 12-40 pro lens. Hand held and the only editing was done in Lightroom. Mostly, I cranked up the clarity and I tuned down a few of the high lights, that’s all.

I have my own Epson printer these days, a R3000 that allows me to print this type of photographs at very high quality at up to A3 size. Mind you, whereas printing your images does add a whole new dimension to your photography it also adds a new dimension and requires quite a bit of skill and experimentation as well. If it looks good on a computer/smart phone screen, doesn’t mean it will look good as a print. But if you get the printing right, it will be so much better than on any screen!

You will have to excuse my wife for this picture, she isn’t that good at taking pictures:



Here’s my Chandni Chowk image in some more detail:



Jeroen

Very nice shot Jeroen. The motion blur adds a special dimension.

A food for thought (nothing to do with your photo/aesthetics/technique) - if this were a street where people and shops were more in line with Western standards - would it have appealed to some of your friends from Europe? I find that photos that showcase 'exotic' India - Kumbha mela, Pushkar, sadhus, guys with wrinkles on their faces, high contrast and vibrant colours - Steve McCurry style - to be most popular abroad. I have mixed feelings about that. Not the colours and contrast, but selective showcasing of India to cater to stereotypes.

Anyway, a few recent shots. Just nature, and ordinary subjects, so no controversy :) P.S. excuse the image quality, I have downsized existing jpegs.

Visit to the dentist


Cormorant. Silhouette in front of the setting sun, hidden by clouds. I had to tone down the colours, folks would have thought I went overboard with saturation. Sometimes light can be that interesting.


The egret. Sometimes a subject can be very ordinary, but the setting can be interesting.


Duotone. Shot after sunset. The upper nest has babies - see the snake-like neck.

Well, for starters it appealed to a lot of Indians. It won an award in India and was exhibited in Delhi. Not a foreigner in sight or in the jury.

Street photography is hugely popular these days. And you will find pictures of people and shops from just about anywhere in the world.

Our RPS chapter is running a big photographic project in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, see http://www.rockinrotterdam.eu/index

We aim to take one creative photograph of every street in Rotterdam. We are nearly done and later this year we hope to have an exhibition. Next to about 20 RPS members we had some 120 people from the general public, mostly folks who lived in Rotterdam, go out and take photographs of every street in Rotterdam.

The project is very popular, lots of publicity on radio and television.

Here some of my contributions:

http://www.rockinrotterdam.eu/galler...aalhaven-noord

http://www.rockinrotterdam.eu/Defaul...35170&Items=16

So yes, it’s possible to take a creative photographs that would appeal to people just about anywhere on any street!

I don’t consider this Indian stereotyping. This is how a very substantial part of India still is. This was shot in Delhi, but I could have easily taken a very similar image in just about any major Indian town/village.

It’s just part of how India looks like. When people think about the Netherlands they come up with images of wind mills and tulips. Sure enough we got lots of those, but it is only part of what makes up the Netherlands.

What I do find remarkable is that I have come across many Indians who hardly recognise that this still exists. Or when they do, they would never ever go there.

A little anecdote; A few years ago we had the Ericsson executive team visiting our office in Gurgaon. We decided to take them on a little tour through Delhi, including Chandni Chowk. All my colleagues in our local management team are Indian except one, my boss. None of them had ever been anywhere near Chandni Chowk. It was me showing them around! I had noticed this before. All the wives of my guys, were astonished that my wife would do her shopping in local shops. They would only shop in the big shopping malls. For us those big shopping malls held no attraction whatsoever.

Chandni Chowk is, what I would consider part of Indian heritage. There are some beautiful buildings, magnificent architecture. As none of it is protected, I assume most of it will be gone in the next decade or so, if not sooner. I think that would be a real shame.

I don’t think wrinkles on faces make a difference as such. Lots of wrinkled faces in India and all over the world. The trick is to find faces that appeal, show emotion or evoke emotion. I do like Steve McCoy’s work. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few years ago. If you really would like to know what makes him tick and get a very different view of his work then only the most published pictures, get his book “Untold, the stories behind the Photographs. He has taken pictures all over the world on just about any topic. From the Gulf war, 9/11, Cambodia, Tibet etc etc. And I can stare at nearly every image for minutes!

What I like in this particular picture is that you just see several guys going about their day to day business. Nobody noticed me taking a picture.

Anyway, thanks for your feedback. I like to think I have taken a good picture when people look at it for at least a few seconds and hopefully have some sort of emotion towards it. Whether they like it or not, is actually less relevant.

Jeroen

Don't take me wrongly.

Many of my friends shoot street. And love Mr. McCurry. And I continue to have arguments with them re shooting selective portrayals. Which are extremely popular. It is like arguing about the relative merits of Dravid vs Sehwag, if you followed cricket. I tell them that it is a sanitized version of ghetto tourisim/shooting. One can momentarily experience, and then escape. And feel good about himself/herself - life situation - after the experience.

Many Indians (well, take any country with a huge population and a steep pyramidal social structure) - once they have reached a certain level of affluence - tend to move around in a certain social orbit. Team BHPians might be aberrations, because of our love for travel and exploration. Some of us might be happy sipping chai in some remote mountain shop, or having a drink with truck drivers at 11 pm in some godforsaken dhaba on a highway. And yet not taking out the camera at all, not even the mobile, to take a photo of that old woman who is running that chai shop in the mountains. Who has lines etched into her face due to struggle and harsh environment conditions.

This old article holds true for many photographers. Indians and non-Indians.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10odede.html

Anyway, this type of discussion is OT.

Thanks for sharing this article. It beautifully articulates the reason why I avoid shooting poverty in India.

So when I shoot people, I stick to happy subjects.:)

BTW, this discussion is not OT. In fact, we should discuss such ideas more often.

Slum tourism sells, that's a reality. Here's a link on 500px that portrays poverty in India like no other and the author is highly respected: https://500px.com/the22row I had a running battle with him on the forum for a few months and then gave up. This is the India that's portrayed abroad and this is the India that sells in the West. There is always a sadistic pleasure of portraying India like this. It's like the areas in our locality that we'd not even think of visiting that's where these guys roam and get their images from.

That said, here's an image of a water lily taken today: Nikon D610/ MicroNikkor 105mm f/2.8G.

Sadly yes.

This guy is a great photographer. Wish he used his talents to shoot differently.