Holiday and other messes

At last the desired day had come for me to go home for sometime and rest my back. I have been working at a stretch for last 4 months and now I am out of all types of Idea, feeling restless and caged in one place for too long. We finished the studio assignments (two of them were there, one portrait another still life), sat for the critique, attended the final slide-show and then said goodbyes to each other and wished for new year in advance and that's all for the month of December '10. I was darn busy doing and planning for my studio shots so couldn't write any post till today.

I boarded the bus to Chennai around 6-30. During the journey I am writing this post on board and I will post it when I reach Chennai or probably at the airport. The i-net is not working properly now. Bus ride is nice than I thought. AC coaches with nice sleeper berths. We will probably reach Chennai by 7 o' clock in the morning.

At Chennai Airport:
I had some time after the security check so thought of updating the post a little. After I switched off my pc last night, I realised a horrible mistake I made. I forgot to take the bottle JD whiskey that I bought for BB's dad. She was furious when she heard this. I am feeling like dumbest dumb person in the world. Then came the second blow after we reached Chennai. It was raining and rained so hard that all our luggage got completely drenched. We reached one of our class buddy's house and there was no power. Whoa!!!!!! whatever could possibly go wrong, went wrong. However, we enjoyed some delicious breakfast there made by his mother. But again on the way to airport, we got stuck in the traffic and then in the airport stood behind an everlong neverending queue for sec-check. However, for some God's unexplained grace we passed the sec-check very fast and Now as am writing this last bit of my blog, our flight's boarding annoncement are going on. So gotta go now!!!!

Back to basics

I am back from Varkala, and I can not say that the trip was complete failure, however, yes I couldn't get a single day to photograph the moonlight assignment. Reason being the Rain God hadn't let me go alone to Varkala. It rained day and night there and only one day the moon was visible for I think 15 minutes around mid-night. I was visiting this kind of beaches for the first time. The place is scenic and awesome. Can't explain how beautiful it was in my words. I was missing my BB a lot. This is some place where should have someone with you. That special someone. I cliked some photos but I don't know why I din't feel like taking photos most of the time, it was just a feeling to enjoy the breeze, sitting there by the beach for hours and hours.

It was a hectic journey from Varkala to coimbatore and then drive up to Ooty on the same day, almost 550km run on road. Takes some tole on your helth. We reached Ooty just at the eleventh of hour of 'everything gets closed', grabbed a bite and went back home. I was feeling the fatigue after I came back home and had a bath.

However, now it is our time to forget the outer world and get inside the studio for atleast next twi months. Our winter break is also near, so I am happy. If you want to chekc out some of the Varkala's photos, please go here.

To the coast of Arabian sea.....

So we are going to Varkala, a coastal cliff and beach in the state of Kerala. Approximately 430km from Ooty. It was suggested by few of our classmates and their families for good seafood (since me and two of other classmates who are traveling are Bengalis and Bengalis have a disturbing inclination towards fish) and better climate for our Moonlight photography assignment. We started on 17th evening and decided to drive down to Coimbatore and hault for the night at one of our tavel-mates' place. We reached coimbatore around 10-30 in the night and grabbed a bite at Domino's Pizza (Those who doesn't know, its a happening Pizza franchise nowadays in India like Burger King in US). I retired to bed while girls were watching Big Boss (some trashy version of Big Brother) around 12-30 in the morning.

Next morning we boarded a train from Coimbatore around 9-20 in the morning (which was already running 1 hour late) and still in the coaches awaitingour destination to come. Almost everyone is sleeping and I am trying to find out the reason not to talk to go to my bunk and instead write this.

Lets talk about Varkala. A small town in Kerala, this place is located near the cost of Arabian sea. The cliff is the only place to visit. With an avarage hight of 250 ft. the cliff is a natural beauty to savour. Sea food and tranquilty is the specialty of this place which attracts mostly foreign tourists (especially elderly people, who are tired of everyday life in some busy European city). Approximately 2 and half km. away from the main town and railway station this place is visited by a large number of tourists almost around the year. The peak season is from November to February. It is connected through Rail and road from all major southern Indian cities, e.g. Hyderabad via Coimbatore. Chennai Via Thiruvanantapuram, and directly from Trivandrum. I hope that this give me some fruit when I taking some much of trouble.

Speechless moments

Momento senor.....its an awesome moment for me. I have received two honours from my college. For the 2nd session my photo has been chosen as the Image of the session and I was the runner-up for Photographer of the session. For the 3rd session I am chosen as the photographer of the session. Hallelujah!!!! I am happy.

Currently we are in between sessions, and we will step inside studio on 25th of this month. In between we have to do some more shots of interesting moonlight lit landscapes. This is another excitement in my life. I have never done such things. We have to shoot photos in moonlight, as in the landscape or a outdoor subject like a rock, tree or building lit with moonlight along with light painting. I am having goosebumps by the thought of it. Four of us have planned to get out of Ooty and go somewhere to take photos for this assignment. Lets see where we head to.

Light painting

Whoa!!!!! man its fun and I for some weired reason never tried doing light painting. We had hard time painting with torches and flashguns, but it was AWESOME!!! First few days were awful, because we couldn't get to the location, and it rained Dinosaurs & Godzilla (in comparison to cats & dogs). As we sat together cursing the weather in whatever language and words possible. I went a step a further and tried some indoor light painting, which was not what the assignment said, so didn't actually accomplished my own project.

Ultimately we found some spot for our light painting and we did just about fine. I tried something, sort of horror. The camera was put to a test of combination of long exposure and high ISO. The only problem of Digital SLR is they have everything integrated and its in a compact body. The battery is there and sensor runs on electricity (supplied by the battery) so when you are doing the long exposure, the sensor is working because its continuously registering images unless you end the exposure. So for this continuous work, the sensor gets heated up and its gives noise. so for longer exposure there is noise, however, for some reason I didn't have noise at all (according to me a very little noise is negligible in this case). One possibility could be that it was cold and secondly I used only 8 second exposure. But need to research on this a little more.

A lotta missing in my blood & bones

Yeah! this is the day and I couldn't get something that was nicer than this. I couldn't get some simple shots, because I was lazy. I think it happens after a long stretch of heavy workload. I have nothing else to say as I am pi$$#d off with myself and there is nothing that can change this. However, I am trying not to vent the anger on my work and let it get worse......

Flashing the world

Now comes the interesting part, flashing the world. No not what you are thinking smarty knickers. Portable flash guns and the off camera flash (OFC) usage. I like this and this is my favourite part of using artificial light. Dustin, here I come (Hey man I just want to follow you. You inspire me a lot). I currently have one old Vivitar 285 HV flash, which gives me pretty good results. Lets see how far I go with this.....

Something's amiss

We miss something and that something is our attitude. I personally feel that an artiste should always have a set of typical attitudes to carry for different situations. I am dwelling in some completely different territory where the everything is different than what I have experience for the most part of my life. This has left an impression on my character. I am not a very good stalker so I would not say that people are very fond of me and they treat me like a God, however, I learnt to land in someones heart without speaking a word. I mingled with people whom we, the mass detest and also learned some ways of life. A new life for me you can say. We have been put to rigorous training of professionalism. We have been asked for next to impossible things like photograph sunny day shot (called BDE situation shot) in cloudy rainy day. Me and my friend boarded auto and went to some view poing in 6 degrees c cold in rain and photographed some valley for HDR outdoor shot listening to my friend cursing the faculties with some godforsaken words. Amazing isn't it, atleast I can't forget this for the rest of my life.

Wherever I go I first try to learn the local language. its a difficult task atleast for a northerner in southern India. I somehow managed a "Learn Tamil through English" book from a local book store (about 1/4 size of any big bookstore of Calcutta) which happens to be Ooty's one of the biggest bookstore (except Higgin Botham's, which according to me less a bookstore and more of a paperback seller). Yeah yeah all you Ootyites would call me prejudiced and opinionated. I am trying to adjust, that how I do it, adjust and accommodate. I am cooking now and I have bee doing so since last month as I told you I have bought a cooking range (nothing fancy, a small gas stove and some basic utensils). So, now the food isn't a problem. I wish that there was some good Internet speed here so that I could spend some more time in researching on the i-net. Anyways, our humans' list of wishes is longer than the Great wall of China, so I better not mention that.

Chapter-2: Tougher than as it seems

Life dosen't give us much of an opportunity for the things we miss, however, there is always a chance for all of us to start all over again. I think that's what I did and now I am happy. Yes I know all those cliche lines to start "my kinda blog". I don't know why, but I feel like writing this more and more whenever I get some opportunity. My parents are proud of and happy with me, my BB is delighted and friends are always encouraging, what else I need! Now there are few other things that I need, succsess in what I started. That is what I am working on.





Its been almost a month that I am writing again after my last post. There had been lots of things going on here. Session-1 had been accomplished successfully, had seen lots of good work of my fellow classmates, Mr. Hiller taught us various aspects of compositions, asthetics and last but not the least, one of my photos had been selected as the image of the session. This was entirely a new experience for me. Returning back to basics and reveal my inner eye is the best task so far for me. Session-2 has started and that's also with a different touch. Much more technical and equal emphasis on the asthetics aspect of our photography. This is what LLA calls art and science of photography. I love it. The best part it, this assignment deals with lights and its diffrent qualities, e.g. direction, colour, contrast etc. This couldn't go wrong in anyway, as this deals with the elements of nature. So beautiful those things are, that no one can possibly take a bad imprint of them.

My lessons: No ball-park figures no more.

I have been so busy in accomplishing assignments, that some days seemed harder than they were. It all started on the very first day and I was not even aware of its complexity. I was just another student for them in their 10Th anniversary batch. However, this is not just another corner in the crossroads of my life. This is something big and its happening. I always wanted it badly for a long time. Its just that, it was not happening for me. I felt the need for going back to basics when we were handed out the first assignment handouts. Photograph the natural shapes and it should look like any letters of the alphabet. All 26 letters had to be represented like that. It took longer than I expected to accomplish the assignments. Most of the letters were easily found on the streets and in things around us. I wanted to make some difference. searched for abstracts as well. It was completely a new purpose for me and it opened my eyes, kinda an eye opener for me. I restricted myself to comparatively exclusive objects and shapes.

This is for 'A'

This is for 'I'

This is for 'P'

This is for 'T'

This is for 'Y'

The LLA (or rather I should call it LaLa, because we friends decided to call it LaLa Land) had changed their modules and added few more. Restructuring rather than refurbishing. I liked it. Now we can get the hang of every genres they teach. The assignment went well. The next one was all about spot metering. we started learning about exposure. There are so many things that I dint know about exposures and metering. They reinstated a fact with this assignment that if I can learn to use spot metering then I will be master in exposure and metering. It was accomplished successfully. Our faculty Mr. Geofrey Hiller is happy with my work. I used my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D for most of my shots as I am fond of it and it gives me a different perspective all the time. The fixed focal length always helps me rejuvenates my creativity and compose photos even in some difficult situation. However, I also my Nikkor 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G for wide angle and low angle shots. The most challenging part is the ever changing lighting conditions. It is monsoon and the lighting condition is always changing becauase of the clouds and mists. So keeping the 'correct exposure' correct is a bit tough. Before coming and settling in Ooty, I thought that I will be doing a lot of landscapes, however, to my utter surprise, I have become more inclined to street and night photography. I felt that this may be temporary or who knows, it can be permanent.

By the way, I thought that you all would love to know that today is my birthday. However, this is the second birthday that I am gonna spend away from home.

Game theory:Settling down for the basics.

I am in Ooty and that was the biggest news for only a day. From the very next day the gloomy weather, failure in finding a decent accommodation and unconventional eating made me crazy. However, I managed to get a decent and sound sleep. Walked the climbing roads with 6 kg. of backpack on my back. You must be wondering, what I am trying to point out. I am just trying to say that my dog-days are back and am kicked back to basics.

I reached Ooty on 7th August. It was a late evening, when my cab started climbing the Nilgiris through the hair-pin bends and tricky hill roads. There was no sign of any light around us, and the only light visible was passing vehicles. After flying for 5 hours and spending 3 boring hours in Mumbai airport, my eyes were way too tired to bear those 1000 watt lights of trucks and buses. The mountain looked like some dark cove of demons where the small peeking lights from villege houses seemed like evil all seeing eye of fate. Despite this, I was relaxed, because I assessed my driver by the way he was driving in the city. He was a senior driver that the Car rental gave me. When there were no cars or lights visible, I could look around me and see my radium-dial watch competing with the glowing indicators of the power window switch of the car doors. I reached Y.W.C.A. Anadagiri guest house at around 9 in the evening. Had no problem settling down in my cottage. Cold night gave me shivers and was not ready to forego the comfort of my warm jacket. However, I had to do that after sometime. Later I realised that the flushing system in the lavatory is faulty, the telephone is not working and there is no drinking water. I requested for a different room immediately.

This was the first part of settlement. Now the next phase, next day. I shifted to another room with everything perfectly in place. The only problem I had moving 52 kg.'s of luggage is, I went out of breath. Went out to search for houses. This is a very tiring and boring job so far in my life. No I am not prejudiced with some outlandish feeling, I am speaking from my past few experiences. The houses which will seem very decent, are always already let out or over priced. The land lords literally behave like lords and speak as if they are some Maharaja/Roy-Bahadur from the era of Viceroy Wellington and they are speaking to some petty farmer subject. Brokers are some weired species which the Physiologists even failed to describe. Their words changes as soon as you turn you back and they speak double meaning words. then comes the hardest part, settling for the security deposit. Yes, you are right, this is harder than the settlement of rent. Any moderate landlord will ask for atleast Rs. 40k to 50k as an advance over the rent you are going to pay for next 11 months. I sometimes wonder that what if my grandpa would have had bought some decent houses in Calcutta and let them out. By now we would have been filthy rich. This is I think by far one of the easiest way of making money.

However, after crossing all those hurdles and making my self clear about the priorities to the broker, I and my fellow classmate (at the Academy) Bhavesh Patel found ourselves a more than decent house just right for us. Completely furnished with all the necessary things and also a decent enough rent. I was relieved to some extent as I don't have to go through that harassment anymore.

Now, the last thing left for me is to approximate my monthly expenditure. Though sounds pretty boring and hackneyed, but practical. I would never want to loose a penny, that I could spend on something important. The most imminent task in hand at the moment is to again pack back and shift to my new apartment for the next one year. Adjusting to this wacky climate would be a Little tough for few weeks, but I will be seasoned eventually. I will take a break now and report back in some time.

Fiddling tension: The pondering moments of my preparations

I was tensed right from the moment I confirmed my admission in the Academy (Hereinafter I will refer to my institute, Light & Life Academy as Academy). I watched different reviews from time to time, talked to my seniors about my decision, and of course talked to myself as well. I was not confused but rather nervous after seeing such a intense quality of pupil and their work at the Academy. Also the kind of people are going to be my batch mates, are very talented and creative. So will I be able to make my way through this? And here it comes; my bad habit of being tensed at times and also for most trivial things in life is an annoying one. At times, I myself get pissed off by this. However, it is also true that at times I don't get tensed and become irritably cool and people get pissed off by seeing my reluctant attitude. Sangita calls me an abnormal human being and sometimes also says that you may have come from some other planet and still trying to adapt the ways of our emotional ventilation.

Now enough of this 'BS' talks. I am going to go to Ooty on the 7th of August and that is also a little messy. My flight from Kolkata to Coimbatore is a connecting flight through Mumbai. The flight from Mumbai was supposed to leave at 12-45 p.m. but now it is rescheduled at 2-55 p.m. I will not have that much of time to get to Ooty after I will reach Coimbatore. So, planning to stay there for the night and start for Ooty on the next day morning. I guess its for something that God has stored for me. Lets see what happens.

The worst part of this entire stay at Ooty will be staying away from Sangita. Yes I know what you people are gonna say, that I am overreacting or may be showing off to impress her. No, am not in a mood for such things. We are together for last 5 years and there is a bonding that we have which compels us to be together even after a very very bad fight. Yes!!! this is what I am going to miss, the fights. there are few things which we cant miss at times, and fighting for flimsy things are one of those.

After all these, will come the hardest part for me, The Packing. Whenever I need to pack, I seem to feel like one of the characters of Jerome K. Jerome's classic comedy, Three Men in a Boat. I always miss something or the other to pack, so I make a very long and annoying list, which during the time of re-pack gives me a terrible headache to follow and get the things repacked. Once I was in Pune and I lost the list. That was my happiest moments and I took no time to rampage my own things and just stuff them back in my bag. But yes that's just the other side of me which doesn't come out very often. Usually I care a damn about what I am getting with me and what's not. Last time I forgot my entire set of toiletries and guess what, I woke up next morning, went to the lavatory and then realised that I dint bring anything. The misery was, it was a Sunday and had to wait till the shops open the next day to buy soaps and a razor. horrible ain't it? No it isn't, because that's the beauty of it. 'Ti's called adventure and I at times love it.

I am also a little bored, because just two weeks back I dint have enough time even talk to my parents as I was working for different projects. And look at me now, jobless, penniless (obviously after I got admitted in the Academy) sitting back home and day dreaming (not actually, but read in the books that jobless people do that, so wrote it). HORRIBLE!!!!!!

Anyways, there will be a year long update through my blog and I will keep writing as it gives me strength to fight the fatigue of the day to day life. Quoting Anton Chekov I conclude my account today.

"Any idiot can face a crisis, but it is the day-to-day life which wears us out"

Success step 1

I came back and guess what, with an offer letter. I am going to study photography for a year, and that is what matters to me. About the place; there's no word so good enough in my dictionary to express the true portraiture of it. I was awed by its beauty. The institute is so beautifully placed and built, that someone will be bound to be inspired to create something very artistic. The man behind all of this, Mr. Mohamed, is person of high statute and humblest (I have ever seen in a professional) in nature. I had a long talk with Mrs. Iqbal and can definitely say that she is a very good motivator and a well disciplined personality. I also met people who are going to be my classmates for next 1 year. Also met those who will not be so, however, became very good friends of mine.

Now comes the harder part, arranging for the money. My dad is trying very very hard for it and I know what kinda burden it is on his shoulders. Sometimes I feel so guilty about my mistakes and the things I wasted in life. There were ample amount of chance in my life to turn around and live it in my way. But I was always afraid of failure and never took a risk. I dint know that living one's own dream is so beautiful and there nothing like it. If you want something, then you need to loose something, because its a balance of life. So I sacrificed the ease of life for the the dream, because its worth foregoing.

Now I am awaiting the money to come so that I can confirm my registration for the course and buy my gears. That's for today.

Post Graduate: The rapids in my career.

I think its time I should take a firm decision, and that is obviously about my career. I have learnt something from some great teachers. I know how things work, I can manage to make some of the things work the way want them to. I make images, atleast I think. Does this mean I am apt enough to be a professional? I don't think so, and this realisation came to me, after I worked my behind (read something else) off for a year in Kolkata. Someone can work all his life and learn nothing, and someone can learn only by working and not studying. I am none of them, atleast dont think so. I think I should be someone who can never be questioned about the quality and that is only possible, when I will know, definitely to create quality. The quality comes with perfection and perfection is matter of practice. However, after sometimes this year, I started to differ to my own prejudice. I knew that something was missing. I lack something and that is what is stopping me from progressing. That something was the most important thing in my training. How to take my work to the next level and make them look professional. I need a professional help and that's that.

Once decided I started searching the colleges abroad who can make remarkable difference in my learning and work afterwards. I wanted the best, if not the second best but not mediocre. I shortlisted many and eventually understood that I will never be able to go there. The fees is impossible to arrange for. I then felt a need for a reconsideration and this is what i found. be it a foreign university or an Indian one, if the faculties are of international standards and they teach with a state-of-the-art methodology, then its all same. No one of those are not going to give us guarantee of employment anyway. So whats the use of spending the extra dollar for foreign relocation. Some would call it a stupid excuse of the failure. But I call it reality. However, keeping the debates apart, I pin-pointed Light & Life Academy in Ooty. It is run by an alumni of Brooks Institute, Mr. Iqbal Mohamed and Advertising professional Mrs. Anuradha Iqbal. Fethered with faculties around the world with varied industry experience. What they have for me is a complete 1 year course for professional photography. They will teach me everything I need to become a complete professional. The bottom line is, I was confident enough to go ahead.

Then came the hard part, convincing my Dad. To my utter surprise, he was very confident about me. Later, however, I came to know from him only, that my mom convinced him, because she is very convinced about my capabilities. I am so happy to see that I am successful to instill the confidence in my parents again. I got their consent and talked to the people of the Academy. Another surprise awaited me, the selection process was almost over and I was very late. had only 3 days left for sending the application.

I took no time to do that and now here it is I am sitting here, arranging for my departure to Ooty for the final round of interview. I cracked the preliminary test, which was a review of my folio. Now if I crack the next and final round, I get in. Whoa!!!!! I still can't believe that I am doing this. It was always my dream to do something like this. Now God help me, I really want this to work this time. I am leaving on 29th morning for the interview, which is scheduled on 30th june.

Connecting dots: Post calendar launhing strategies

Delayed season's greetings to all. Now for the news, I have successfully launched my calendar on 14th of this month. Though I was expecting to do some more stuffs, but it went according to plans so far. Firstly, I should thank to my entire crew and the Cafe Coffe day people for a hearty and generous cooperation. Without two people it would have never been possible, my fiance Sangita and Arpita Ganguly. It was hot summer afternoon, when we started off and inside the cozy & glass panned suave interior of the coffee shoppe my philosopher and guide in photography Mr. Subhasish Banerjee uncovered my first promotional calendar. Its the first big step of mine in the industry.

The entire set was displayed to the invitees and all of them were presented a complimentary copy of the calendar. I have got praised by many and also critiqued by some (which I look forward to most of the time). I also circulated the link through emails and soical networking sites' messaging systems to gain some public attention and popularise my work here. I know its tough to get a stance in here and as long as I dont have it, I am no one. People seems to like my work and also approaching me these days for hiring my services. The conclusions I drew from this is that it is more important to market what you do than to do some big hip things. Marketing and PR is what this industry is banking on and that is why this initiative has gained me some wee bit attetion. I am also sending a desktop version of digital calendar to all my current and prospective clients.

After I finished with the calendar, I started designing my marketing brochure for the designers, boutiques, stylists, model agencies and other professionals. I have given it a thought many times and couldnt find a better idea than getting a printed brochure. I couldnt mange much but tried to put the best in here and here it is. I made something like a package kinda thing. This would I think help my clients to choose according to their choices. The beauty of this package is, its flexible and something exclusive to each of my clients. Tailormade to suite their needs as well as the industry requirements. I have learnt something during the struggle here. People dont love honest effort, but they love a honesty when it is mixed with some spices and presented with some glitters. So here it goes, a spiced up me with all those works I have done so far.

I have gathered the entire data sheet for the people/organizations I should contact with this brochure. I couldnt care much and do it in some easier way by buying some data from the market. But I dont want work to fall in some wrong hands and then let them use it for some evil purposes. These days if you can pay something around 5-6k, then the data of entire nation's model's contacts will be in your hand. Then contact them Someone from Mumbai offered me something like that. I refused and enquired about how he got my contact. He said, its easy, google the list of photographers you have in India. Then go by statewise. Collect the data and then confirm their contacts just by calling them. This is one profitable business around the world now.

Now it is still in the process for now and I am not going to start the marketing all over again, till I circulate this entire lot to the people I selected. There are some projects in my mind and there, I want some more time to establish my name which will in turn help me get more response in those projects, be heard and have a stance on the plate.

Bengali Calendar: Heading toward a new direction of self promotion

Its been months since my last post and that's because I was stuck knee deep in work since February. I have worked for a modeling academy for making their students' portfolios and their own promotional calendar. I also took up an product photography assignment for a Jute bag manufacturing and exporting company. The portfolio section went well, lets say the models/passouts need more grooming interms of posing in front of the camera and knowledge about the styles and trends.

The product photography assignment is the best product photo shoot I have ever done. My client is a real gentleman and he liked my work the day he saw it. I was overwhelmed to know the fact that he refused to work with anyone else except me for this assignment. It will end soon as the last phase of shoot is going on.

I also started a new project for my promotion on my own. It all started when I was planning to shoot a conceptual glamour portrait. I was looking for a good MUA for a long time. God must have been very fair with me when he gave me a chance to be acquainted with Mrs. Arpita Ganguly. I explained my situation and my concept to her. Budget was not at all a constraint for her. Addition was a paid shoot for another model I knew from the past. She likes my work and wanted to get some of her jewelry and other glamour photos clicked by me. The entire session was done in a day. My MUA was more than happy with my work. It went well and I was craving for some more. Then it occurred to me that why don't I just go ahead and shoot some more photos and make a calendar for new Bengali year 1417. It would be a wonderful promotion for me at this level. It also work as surprise because no one had seen this kinda work in my vault. Everyone instantly liked the idea and there we are. I got serious and real help from my MUA, who is an experienced industry professional. She brought few models who would be interested in working in my calendar. I also called upon models from my initial team. It went well till now. Shoot for one calendar page is due now.

Then came the headache of choosing a venue and booking it. It cost me 7 days of hard work, several nights of sleep and some real good deal of time to choose one or rather I would say "to find one" venue. After such a hard work, I finally narrowed down two places in my nearby shopping mall. One is an open food court and another is an outlet of a coffee shop chain. The second one obviously worked out well for a launching party. The venue is affordable and on the other hand suave enough to charm people. The initial decision for holding it on the Bengali New Year's day (i.e. 15th of April) also had to be changed because of heavy rush and overpriced venues. So now its only some wait and then I will get to the reaction of the industry professionals.

The reason I chose Bengali year as my calendar's platform, is to make it a USP. Most of our Indian photographers, be it the legends or newcomers who are even working in my city, are going by the wind. They are making English year's calendar. Without any disrespct to them or thier judgement, I do not want to go by the trend. That's where my work is different. My calendar is simply a Fashion & Glamour calendar but for the Bengali year. It would get the different time-frame for its launch every year so will catch the attractions of more people than it would have got if I would have been going with the crowd.

Opening my box of creation, and guess what.......

I opened my box of creations and it turns out to be a painful one to close it, because my clients like "simpler" yet "attractive" outputs from me, not creative. I was really hurt and confessing now that I was not being able to take the rude behaviour from one of them. Still it was fun in a way, that in the entire session I had the liberty of choosing what and how to shoot. Despite their mild opposition, I pretended that I din't hear them and shot the entire set according to my choice; and voila!!!! I got 90% success. 10% missing because of my entire shoot din't go according to the plan. I had to change some of the concepts, because it was not suiting the model's features. What else, I got bored editing photos, cursed my purse for not being a casino jackpot machine, and lastly felt pitty on some people because they can be as freaky as they can spend an entire week in indecision.

There are people in this world (may be 'universe' is the more appropriate term, since our scientists found water on the moon), who are eligible enough to be a a judge of an indecision-society. They are choosy to the level of infinity, dumb because they have no sense of understanding art & creation and also a loser who thinks and tries to make lesser people believe that they are popular and talented. Believe me I have seen it throughout my photographic career that talent, nowadays does not have anything to do with the persons qualities. It has to do with your ability to sell your self (rather $#!t) and buy others attention at the cost of real currency. The more references you have, the more popular you are. Hows that sound, a real loser of me? Oh yes, that I am, because I can not sell my bad things to people, so I only sell things which are not bad, so less sale and less popularity.

Now lets talk some sense (as I was going real weired and abstract today). I had few assignments and now 30% of it is accomplished succesfully and after much hard work. Rest is due in February. About this assignment, I am greatful to my friend and famous model Mainak in Calcutta. I had full liberty from his end to go ahead with the shoot as I want and believe me guys, that is what a real creative person wants. Money matters, but only to some extent, what matters most is that whether you are being given the libery of go ahead with your mind and heart, both. Otherwise I din't take up photography for copy paste work.

I think that will be all, because the dosage of frustration is enough for now and I should also give you all some time to think about it. So, cheers and take care.

2010 calendar

This is my first post in the new year and I hope this year's been giving away its best to everyone as it did to me. I have been busy for last few weeks for my first glamour calendar. Though its my first attempt and am not gonna brag about it, however, this will remain as one of my best experiences. It taught me many a new things and I have come across a variety of people, starting from models, actors, makeup artists, stylists and many more. I have worked hard to keep my standards up, however, was not happy for my own work and dropped few photos behind as they were not at all good. re-shooting was not possible, since this is not a commercial calendar so I had to keep everyone satisfied. Most of the shots were finalized after a gap of several months. E.g. the shots of Mainak, they were shot 7-8 months back during a conceptual shoot. Some were shot keeping the concept of calendar in mind.

There are few shots still left to be finalised and then put on the calendar. I have decided to put this on for selective sale and only to interested people. Also I will distribute few copies to my prospective and old clients. This is to portray my entire year's effort and concept played wild in my mind to come out. Its more like a portfolio calendar for me. I have also thought about the sales part thoroughly. I will sell it and then distribute the profits evenly amongst everyone, who has worked for the calendar. Now it will be upto my viewers, who will decide, whether to buy or bye bye.....

Here's a preview of my 2010 calendar.
Calendar 2010

Forgot to mention that this week I also was busy with my results of Diploma of photography. Its a God's grace that I secured the first position in both the semesters. My hard work gave fruites. When I saw the marks myself, I was so happy, that I couldnt stay still for a while. Hope this gives a boost to my work as well.