Av: F/3.2; Tv: 6s; f: 11.5mm (35mm-equiv:69 mm); Ev : -0.33; ISO: 100

This is actually a very simple photo of an industry at night. It has a very well-balanced feel to it and just gives a feeling of tranquility.
To capture this photo, I used a tripod and a relatively long shutter speed of 6s. I tried an Exposure bias (Ev) of -0.33 in this photo to reduce the brightness and achieve black in certain areas, which would enhance the effect of the lights.

* The use of natural framing in this photo draws the attention of the observer towards the subject in the centre.
* The reflection of lights on the water surface is another plus point of this photo. The smoothness of the water surface was achieved by the long shutter speed. If not for the smoothness of the water, the photo wouldn’t have had the same effect.
* I did not have to resort to much post-processing for this. However, I had to use the clone tool to erase a glaring electric wire within the framing area.

Improvements I would like to see in this photo include

* The improvements in the quality of the photo with less noise, especially in the area of the lights.
* More emphasis on the framing with increased exposure would have made it a little more apparent, but that would have diminished the contrast between light and darkness.
* I could also have tried with a very narrow aperture to give a star-around-the lights effect.

Tv: 1/125 (0.008 ) s; Av: F/3.2; f: 31.3 mm (35mm-equiv: 189 mm); ISO 140

This is a photo which conveys a feeling… a feeling of faith. This photo was taken in an “Othekola”, a type of “Bhuta Kola“, a religious ceremony in Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka. I like the way the look in the eyes of the worshipers has come out on the photo, conveying a sense of awe, faith and a little bit of fear.

To be frank, while taking this photo I was not concentrating much about the expressions of the people. I was looking to get the motion blur while capturing the fall towards the pile of embers. But, I discovered that adding a bit more shadows and tweaking the levels and saturation gave a whole new meaning and dynamism to the photo. I like the noise in the photo which gives it an old, grainy, spoilt look to the photo.

However, the noise can be viewed as a drawback as well. Another drawback is that people may see it as a loss of a little naturality of the photo because of the effects in Photoshop; but I wanted a different colour tone for this picture and so was experimenting with it.

I would have been better if the subject was better focussed and the background was blurred out a little.

Av: F/3.7; Tv: 0.006s(1/160); f: 63mm (35mm-equiv:380 mm); ISO: 140

This is one of my favourite “people” photos. I took this when I had gone into a dumpyard to take some other photos for a topic I was working on. This was actually a spontaneous shot. I was preparing to take the photo of the girl when she got conscious and started running. I just clicked a few shots, following her path – did not even see the bird. Only after seeing the photos at home did I see the bird.

This photo did not have the same effect in colour as it has in Black and White. I tweaked around a little in Photoshop – increasing the contrast, cropping the image, added a little more shadows to get the final outcome.

• Strong points about this photo would include the way in which this photo shows a poor little rag-picking girl enjoys her play in her make-shift play-ground ie the dumping yard. This photo also has a dynamic quality, because it shows the subjects with a hint of motion blur. This was because of the fading twilight present at the time I clicked this.

• Having said that, this photo has plenty of drawbacks. A picture with better clarity would make this photo of higher standing. And although, the motion blur is good, if there was more focus on parts of the girl and the bird, it would have been better.

Av: F/8; Tv: 5s; f: 6.3mm (35mm-equiv:38 mm); ISO: 80

I am a fan of black and white photography because I feel it brings out a lot more depth and meaning to the photo when compared to a similarly-shot coloured one. That was exemplified in this photo, in fact. I originally shot it in colour mode, but as soon as I tried it in B & W in Photoshop, my mind was set on using B & W for this snap.

Coming to the process of taking this snap :

I started this photo shoot with the idea of taking a snap of a busy traffic light from a high altitude with the trail-of-lights effect. So, I used a tripod and that gave me the liberty to bump up the shutter speed to as high as 5 seconds which resulted in the beautiful trail of headlights showing a bustling and dynamic look to the traffic.

I achieved the stars-around-the-light effect by the least possible F-value (or Aperture value) with my Kodak DX 7590 which is F/8.

Next the fine tunings with Adobe Photoshop CS3 – Along with conversion to B & W, I also worked around with the levels to adjust contrast & brightness to achieve pitch black in the dark areas and thus highlighting the lights. I cropped off the sides to position the photo better and avoid the mess of the numerous banners.

Some of the things I would love to improve in this snap :

The lighting from the lamp post should have been better defined, with a star-effect around it as well.