Pohor a yearly photography extravaganza

This year we have seen a steep increase in macro and bird photographs, at the same time diminishing landscape photographs. C'mon fellow landscape photographers let's take a good aim for next year :)

Jokes apart it was a delight to see some amazing bird pictures and macro shots, some of them are here. And yea one of my pictures "Nets of Fortune" got featured too.

Top center is mine.(picture above)

Some astonishing landscape photographs made it too.

A photograph is hidden in RAW #1: Post processing a long exposure frame.

A few of my friends were interested in understanding what are the in-between steps from taking this picture from RAW to the final output.

So I thought why not write a small tutorial :)

Step 1 : Opened the RAW file in Adobe Lightroom to balance the exposure by adjusting the Highlights and Shadows and finally a little bit of increase in exposure. I fixed the White Balance of the image to what it looked like at that time. Next I fixed the lens distortion and vignetting. (I usually add a custom vignette at the last stage of the process)

Step 2 : Took the adjusted file and open up in Photoshop for further processing.

Step 3 : Added a fast exposure of the same frame and using a inverted mask brought in the static leafs of the trees.

Step 4 : Now I merged all the visible layers to create a new merged layer and opened that with Color Efex Pro 4 to add some Polarization. This has increased the vibrancy on the foliage and given some contrast to the clouds.

Step 5 : Next I used Silver Efex Pro to convert the image to B&W also added additional contrast to enhance the dynamics.

Step 6 : Finally I used a Curve Adjustment Layer and pulled the midtones just a bit to make the image a little darker. I inverted the mask on it and painted in a custom vignette to pull the viewers eye towards the subject in the frame.

And voila its done.

As you can see once you have the basic idea of what you want to achieve, it will be just few simple steps to get there.

Although this one took not more then half hour to process. I would admit that in some of other pictures I did spend days taking breaks in between to get to the final output.

Hope you guys have enjoyed the explanation here and will excuse me for the cranky language.

Till the next picture, keep clicking!!

You can visit my Facebook page and 500px page to view and review my work.

A Landscape Photographer's treat : Framed Souvenirs

Framed Souvenirs is an annual showcase of photographic brilliance by the trio Arpan Kalita, Manabendra Choudhury and Himadri Bhuyan.



This year was a special treat for landscape photography enthusiast like me, as the walls are full of landscapes to wow and wonder.



Let's go in a journey of few of my favourites.

Dale of Hope by Arpan Kalita

This landscape pulled me again and again closer to the feelings of the photographer when he took it. It forces you to think did this dappled light on the rolling hills actually lit up like this, on asking Arpan he said "You got to see it to believe it" and I believe you. Arpan is an actualist when it comes to landscape photography, he intends to take the viewer to the location and to the time as it was.

Here are a few more by this wonderer.

Catch me on your way back by Arpan Kalita

Emareld Soul by Arpan Kalita

Manabendra Choudhury is the second jewel of the trio who showcased his landscape work. Lets follow a few.

Stillness Speaks by Manabendra Choudhury

He is the water man of the lot and his style of varied viewpoints on wetlands, lakes, cascades is really moving. This one above shot in Sonbill wetlands has such a mastery on perspective with the mallowness of the night that it pushed me to ask "How?". Manabendra da as we call him, said "this was shot from neck deep water on a full moon evening". Now that is what I call commitment and therefore the wonders captured.

Feast your eyes on few more of his captures.

Fairy by Manabendra Choudhury

Rapture of a flow by Manabendra Choudhury

Finally Himadri who does not need any introduction or may be needs a rather long one. :)

Here is a guy whose is creativity is always on steroids. I think of him as not a landscape photographer but a photographer with his own genre.

His intimate vision and expression has always managed to surprise me. Without trying to explain his art further, which is impossible for a mere mortal like me. Let me show you some.

Queen by Himadri Bhuyan

Now this is something although you want to keep looking for its prettyness, instead it takes you deep into the rabbit hole. Himadri was kind enough to explain me the technique to produce such an image, and from what I could understand its not easy. Then I thought folks like Himadri, Arpan and Manabendra da do it not because its easy but its hard. May be its a sense of accomplishment they get, and while they are at it we get to see wonders on shows like Framed Souvenirs.

Here are a few more from the poet.

Into the Universe by Himadri Bhuyan

Temple of the King by Himadri Bhuyan

Looking out for next year.

Landscape Photography Vlog#1 : Shooting the Bamboo Walkway

Hello guys I am Utpalendra Deka an user experience consultant with a passion for Landscape photography.

As always the first question I ask myself when I see Landscape photos from masters like Marc Adamus, Patrick Marson Ong and our very own Debraj Chakraborty is 

What was going on in his mind when he shot this?

So although a novice to Landscape Photography, I thought why not share what I was thinking when I took this.

The bamboo path : The amazing thing is, this walkway is completely built with bamboo on the hillsides in the bank river Brahmaputra by antigens from Majuli and the bend here feels like it's leading to infinity.
Shot with Nikon D7200 and Tokina 11-16mm f2.8
@ 11mm 1.3sec f/14 ISO100

On this day I got ready to shoot this location on the north bank of river Brahmaputra near  Guwahati city. The plan was to shoot the sunrise. So I did my ground work the day before fuelled up the car, checked the map for routes, checked weather forcast (expected slight clouds), packed food, checked memory cards (formatted), charged up the camera batteries and a few more ... sigh that's a lot!

As I was going for a sunrise shot and I had an hour long drive to the location, so I started way before first light. All the way I was hoping that its not going to be a complete grey sky.

As I reached the location and I was lucky as it is not that far from the road, I spend some time setting up the gear. Used the app Sun Surveyor to check the exact location where the sun will come up. Now its time to just watch and wait for the right light.

While I waited for first light, just to kill time I kept walking the bank of the river and found this awesome floating bamboo walkway built on the steep bank of the river. What a catch!!

As the first glow of the sun came I was heartbroken to see that the sky was as bland and grey as it gets, but now I have another shot in my mind. To shoot the bamboo walkway :)

So I reset my gear on this curve of the walkway.

A wider view of the walkway.

I chose a vertical frame to enhance the walkway, something like this.

A vertical frame worked best.

Here is what happened on the shoot.

If you want to see more of my photography visit my 500px page or Facebook page.

BSNL GPRS settings for HTC One V with Android 4.0.3

I had been knocking my head from last two days looking for the GPRS setting for my new HTC OneV from BSNL. There is nothing on its portal, finally I had to reach the BSNL telephone exchange to get it and it seems they have that just now and is yet to be updated to their portal.

Here is how to set it up on your Android 4.0.3 device, for those who need it.


1. Tap on Settings to go to settings panel.
2. Tap Mobile network > Access Point Names.
3. On the APNs screen, tap  Menu  > New APN.
4. On the Edit access point screen, enter the APN settings. Tap an APN setting item to edit it.
For BSNL holders in East India the following setting will work which is BTW not available in the BSNL portal for HTC One V Android 4.0.3.

Name : BSNLNET
APN : bsnlnet
Proxy : not set
Port : not set
Username : not set
Password: not set
Server : not set
MMSC : not set
MMS proxy : not set
MMS port : not set
MCC : 404
MNC : 38
Authentication type : not set
APN type: default,hipri
APN enable/disable: APN enabled
Bearer : Unspecified

5. Tap Menu > Save.

And you are done happy browsing.