Chennai Metblogs » Photos, Video and Podcasts

Street Photography Workshop

rama — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:16:19 +0000

The Photographic Society of Madras in tandem with Pixetra Club is organizing a workshop on candid/street photography on Sunday, 11 Oct ‘09 from 9.00am to 5.00pm at S. S. S. Jain College for Women, (near T. Nagar bus terminus/Madley Road subway), Chennai. The first session will be at the venue. For the second session, they will go on to the street.

The workshop will be mentored by Mr G Sethuraman, a professional photographer of more than 25 years and a passionate teacher.

The fees will be Rs.600.00 and is to be paid using credit card at the Pixetra site or by cash at the venue before the start of the workshop.

For more details contact Sethu at 93823-43437 or email at sethu@pixetra.com

Walking ….

rama — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:38:34 +0000

…. Yes walking helps us in many ways, it helps us to reduce fat and improve fitness, maintain healthy living, it transforms your health and many more tangible benefits.

Ok this is not about the merits of walking and why you should start it immediately.

This is about Walking, but with a Camera. (As C says … any type of camera be it a Mobile phone or Point & Shoot or a SLR).

Photowalkers

More Photowalkers

The Eighteenth Chennai Photowalk is on 19th April ‘09 & 26th April ‘09. Yes, two editions, different locations, different times. Check here for more details.

The Contrarian Photo Workshops at Bangalore – March 09

GVB — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:43:06 +0000

Photo by GVB

React to the indecisive moment. “A photograph is a reaction to what you can see and organize within a frame. After that when you look at your contact sheets, you can make a judgement about whether you want to use a picture, whether it’s good or funny or not. But at the moment you’re working, you’re on automatic pilot.” — Elliott Erwitt

This is Mahesh Shantaram in his own words

“ a contemporary art-documentary photographer in Bangalore. Escaping cubicle captivity in 2005, I went on to study photography in Paris and returned to Bangalore to kickstart a new life.Sometimes, I’m a wedding photographer bringing art into what is generally seen as an artless profession. At other times, you’ll find me silently documenting vestiges of modern Bangalore. As an art photographer, I’m represented by Tasveer.

Through these workshops, I want to share anecdotes of people I’ve met, inspiration from situations I’ve been in, and the resulting epiphanies that brought me here.”

More details of the workshop scheduled in March 09 at Bangalore at http://thecontrarian.in/workshops/

(One may ask what the Contrarian Photoworkshops at Bangalore has got to do with Chennai Metblogs. This information is brought for the sake of Photoenthusiasts at Chennai)

The Book affair

rama — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:25:19 +0000

The various moods and the pictures from the recently concluded 32nd Chennai Book Fair at the St George’s School grounds by BAPASI.

But the books and the love for it will push most of us from Chennai to visit them in their 33rd edition or more to come after that too.

Kathipara Grade Separator 2006-08

GVB — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 06:18:37 +0000

Kathipara Grade Separator is finally operational, details you would have read in the earlier post of praddy. Here i present three images – during construction , partially operational and fully operational stages.

Construction in progress with A R Rahman billboard in background – July 2006

Partly operational - View from St Thomas Mount - July 2008

Fully Operational on Deepavali day October 27, 2008

Chennai’ites are awed with this grade separator. Of course with some confusion. With more road signs coming up the facility is a great boon to those who cross Kathipara

Traffic bottleneck in this crucial gateway is a thing of the past.

Now Chennai looks for the Padi Grade Separator to become operational soon.

When the Shutterbugs spot a subject ….

rama — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:27:32 +0000

…. they go all out to capture more of the person, object in varied angles, lights and perspectives. They would’nt want to miss the Golden Moment.

Seen here are the Photographers in action during the 12th (1st anniversary) Chennai Photowalk.

The First Chennai Photoworkshop, Oct 08, 2008

GVB — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:54:26 +0000

Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan, of the popular blog Selective Amnesia the person who initiated Chennai Photo Walk, along with Mahesh and Seshu Badrinath are conducting The First Chennai Photoworkshop on October 8, 2008 at Chennai.

What is this workshop about ?

Chandrachoodan says

” Get three people who’ve never met in the physical world to jointly lead a workshop. To make things complicated, let the workshop be about photography. Heh! Still too easy. Let the workshop have three very distinct, rather unconnected sessions lead by these very different photographers. Each talking not with prepared notes and rehearsed-over-the-years efficiency but with just an hours very nervous grabbing at reeds preparation.”

If you are interested and would like to know more about this read about The First Chennai Photoworkshop at Selective Amnesia

Painted Pumpkins and the like

GVB — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:09:29 +0000

In my post “Painted Houses at Chennai” moyra commented “I am hoping someone could please explain to me about the effigy hanging in the last of three pictures” The picture referred to has an effigy tied to a new building under construction at Velachery.

I thought I would do a post on this subject of painted pumpkins and the like.

d4dpak and ravisha in their comments have explained it better. People use different variants to ward of the evil eye on something new and these fixtures can be seen in shops also. One such fixture commonly used is in the image above. Here the object is made of coconut tied with turmeric coated thread to which a large sized shell is tied up. Hung for display and sale in a shop at Bazaar Street, Mylapore. On closer examination i find an alum also forms part of this assembly.

Painted Pumpkins are tied in front of shops with the same belief. In Mumbai, 2 green chillies and one lemon fruit attached with a thread will be sold at the traffic signals on Fridays (or is it on Tuesdays). The car owners / drivers buy and fix it in their front bumpers – I wish I had an image of this item.

In Temples, before the deity is taken on a procession, the pumpkin and coconut are taken by a person in a rotary motion, thrice in both clockwise and anticlockwise direction and breaks it on the ground. The lemon fruits are kept in front of the wheels and run over when the procession starts.

All these are performed with the belief that such practices will help ward off the evil eye.

Mamallapuram Guest House

rama — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 07:54:39 +0000

This is the Mamallapuram Guest House inaugurated by erstwhile CM of Madras Mr K Kamaraj 51 years ago and was under the ITDC Management subsequently. Taken over later by the GRT group and rechristened as GRT Temple bay.

Welcome to the National Salon 2008

GVB — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:45:15 +0000

The Photographic Society of Madras will commemorate its 150th anniversary with an exhibition of photographs to be held from September 17th to 21, 2008 at Lalit Kala Academy, Greames Road, Chennai.