The travails of a photographer

At weddings, professional photographers do their bit and then they take the bride and groom “for location shooting” and finally produce a big album and some CDs (followed by a big fat bill)

I wonder how many people do actually watch those CDs. If you analyse it, the main reason is the length of the CD.
I thought there should be some way by which one does not get bored by the visuals. I took some pictures of a wedding that I attended and made it into a movie which runs for just 7 minutes. (The movie is attached at the end of the post)

It is not very difficult to photograph events and people.

Apart from the bride and the groom it is interesting to click people when they are in their natural best. Take a good close up and you can identify the colours on the eyelids

or may be the sharp stilettos.

It is easy to click when people are relaxed:

For every one good photograph there are about 10 that goes into the thrash can.

For example I spotted a photogenic face and tried to capture her (from long distance of course) The first one was not very complimentary and out of focus too, so lets skip it.

The second , third, fourth and fifth were all partially blocked by people’s back or hand or a waiter passing by with steaming starters…..

Finally I got one right.

Now what is the point in keeping this in my camera or in my computer. The right person who would appreciate it the most is the person in the photograph. Just imagine her joy when she sees herself in a good stance or a good profile. So I send it across to her. (or better still I will send the link of this post to her)

That brings us to the topic of the photographer. He is always behind the camera and he is seldom shot at.

Last month I attended a wedding in which I wore a brand new colourful Kurta with matching jute chappals. But I never got to see how I looked in that Kurta. I am a shy person when it comes to being in front of the camera but still there is always that curiosity to see how that brand new colourful kurta looked on me. No I did not see myself in the mirror at home as the full length mirror was occupied by wifey. (you know the last minute rush to get to the venue in time)

At the venue they had adorned me with a colourful turban and Johnnie said that I looked smashing with the turban and the kurta but I have yet to see how I looked.

May be like this:

Or maybe like this:

Or I could have been like this:

(by the way that is Johnnie dancing away to glory)

I even thought of looking at myself in the mirror of the hotel elevator, but that elevator had no mirrors. It only had see through glasses by which you can see the panoramic view of the traffic jam down as you go up !!

They say that the boy’s side has a particular turban and the girl’s side have a different coloured turban. I don’t know which side I was from, as I have no idea what they tied on my head !!

I am no great fan of the Face Book, but in the recent past I have been scanning the profiles and photographs of all those who attended that wedding to see if I can spot myself in that kurta and turban. Some where by mistake somebody must have clicked me in a crowd or something like that, but no luck so far.

Its been a month now and the search goes on…….. and if I don’t find it, please inscribe on my tombstone “Here lies the man who does not know how smashing he looked in a colourful kurta and turban”

Cochin and Elephants

The last two days of our stay in Kerala were spent in Cochin and Ernakulam.

The view from the 10^th floor of the hotel was pretty good.

The only problem was that we had to depend on the mini bus to take us to the city.

The first day was devoted to Jew street and visiting all the historic churches nearby (more on that in the next post)

There was a Tribal mela held near marine drive.  We ambled around for some time and the thing that caught our attention was the ice cream !! (more of ice and less of cream)

A stroll in the mall at Marine Drive turned out to be a good shopping event for some.

We were lucky to witness the last day of the eight day long festival of the Shiva Temple at Ernakulam (near Darbar Hall) where the deity is taken out on the caparisoned elephant in procession.

This elephant is accompanied by eight other elephants all decked up.  

I was observing these elephants, the huge giants that roam the earth, but so docile and submissive to the quick orders from their mahout.

Their eyes speak a lot.

 Pretty feet in chains   should be an apt title for the picture below.

The changing of the coloured umbrella is a ritual that takes place here with the accompaniment of the  Panchavadiyam.

It is said that the best available chendavadiyam artists are arranged for this occasion.

The instruments used for the Panchavadiyam are Timila, Madalam, Ilatalam, Idakka and the kombu. 

Blowing the kombu is not an easy task as can be seen by the way this boy is straining on it.

It was fun to watch the crowd, some eagerly following the drum beat and keeping a count of the 14 beat adanta taalam, while others waiting for the next programme to start.

(I believe there was some variety entertainment after that as I could see these sound mixers busy fine tuning their work)　

We moved out of the Durbar Hall ground and entered Avenue Regent Hotel. The air conditioned comfort and the soothing drinks put us at ease and was a good prelude to the dinner that followed.

I found the food quite good and a special mention should be made about the magician who mysteriously appeared as soon as we finished our buffet dinner.

Well, this video that I made with the still pictures should explain that sequence better:

(wait for the complete video to buffer and then replay it so that you get the right effect with the music)

Movie making

Many a times (while watching a movie) I felt that “if this was made my way it would have looked more appealing”

In short I always wanted to make movies of my own.

As I mentioned earlier in one of my blogs, a good and appealing movie is that which has a good story line, a good director and perfect editing.

Remember Richard Attenborough’s  movie Gandhi which bagged 8 Oscars out of the 11 nominations, way back in the early eighties ?

I had the privilege of watching the shooting of that movie, as a major part of the movie was shot in Pune.

One thing I loved about it is that they do their homework well before the commencement of the shooting. There is no half baked script or cutting corners and penny pinching.

Just imagine there were 300000 extras for the funeral shot (in Delhi) Twenty thousand feet of film was shot (with 11 crew members) which was cut down to just 125 seconds on the editing table.

My all time hero (as a director) is Steven Spielberg. You have to hand it to him for the variety of movies that he made. From Close Encounters of the third kind, Jaws, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, Munich . . . . . . the list is endless.

Steven Spielberg did not make it at the Oscars (for ET) as it went to Gandhi. He finally got it for the Schindler’s list in 1993.

In case you are wondering what the above  photographs have to do with the Oscars and Spielberg well its my first attempt to make something like a movie (at zero cost)

I put together  some of the still photographs and some movie footage that I captured with my digital camera, and tried to make it into a video. Hope to do better and better in my future attempts when I lay my hands on some good editing software.

So here is my first attempt at it. (hope Spielberg doesn’t see it)

The first one is of the Chenda kottu (drums) that I saw enroute from Cochin airport to Thekadi in Kerala.

 

The second one was to capture bits and pieces of Dance at a friend’s wedding. Frankly speaking I don’t like those disco lights and its very difficult to capture the action in such light (that’s why the still pictures I used in the video looks better)

In the future I hope to make something like this that is shown below.

The stay at Philipkutty’s Farm

Had been for a week long trip to Kerala and I am jotting down just a part of the trip.
Or to put it in a better way, I should say that this was the best part of our whole trip.
A little beyond Kumarakom there is a Farm known as Philipkutty’s Farm. Had heard and read about this place a lot so I had to book well in advance.
It is situated on an island which was actually reclaimed from the backwaters of Vembanad lake by the family.
This place is run by two ladies, Anu and her mother Aniyamma (whom all calls as mummy) Of course the two kids Philip and Aniya also pitches in.
The best part about this place is the family touch. They wait for you when the vallam (a small boat) approaches. Oh I forgot to mention that there are no connecting roads to this place, so the only approach is by the vallam. They send this vallam across which ferries you to the place where the family waits to receive you.
That is the family below :

We were 18 of us so they had to send two boats.

That is Priyanka and Martin trying out the Titanic pose above . . . . . .
They have villas where you can stay, and as proclaimed by their brochures, no TV no A/C.
Or you can opt for the lunch package which includes a tour of the farm followed by lunch.
(we opted for the Lunch package as we were hard pressed for time)
It sounds simple but if you break it up and list it down, it turns out to be a long list, the things that you get to learn by the tour of the farm as well as the long list of delicacies spread out for lunch.
Here Anu explains about the island which is about two meters below the lake level so during monsoon they have to pump out water back into the lake.

I couldn’t resist a close up of the fig.

Here is Martin’s dad having a closer look at the hanging bitter gourd

Some were fascinated by the geese:

These pictures were clicked at the rear side of their house where you can hardly make out the difference between land and water due to the water hyacinth

There were nutmegs, okra, pumpkins, cinnamon . . . . . to name a few.
Those below are Tapioca trees. A well grown tapioca tree yields about 5 kilos of Tapioca when you uproot them.

While Anu was taking us around showing us all the finer aspects of cultivation, I noticed two stacks of braided palm leaf, which brought back my childhood memories.

I remember how my grandmother used to make these as I sat next to her keenly watching her skillfully weaving each leaf. The final product looked artistic and it used to fetch her 50 paise (half rupee) per piece. It was painstaking, thinking of the process it had to go through, first soak the whole palm in a pond for a day or two, then split it into the two halves and when it is semi dry, you start weaving it. Once done you dry it in the sun and the finished product looks like the one below:

This is used to thatch the roofs in the days when tiles were unheard of (or one could not afford it)
Here is a picture of one in process in our house at Alleppey (Alepuzha) and believe it or not the one on the extreme right is me.

After the tour, we had time to explore the place and most of us were fascinated by the old look of the villa and the surroundings:

Some posed photo session in process :

While we were exploring the place, I could hear some lovely music and I followed it. The source was from one of the rooms where Philip was playing the keyboard. I did some video shooting to record the music and I must say, he is really talented.

Anu announced that the lunch was ready and I had a tough time holding back the group so that I could click this:

Some of the things that I can recollect now are :
Chicken curry
Fish Vattichadu
Fish fry
Beef fry
Prawns
Pineapple pachaddi
Bitter gourd fry
Cabbage thoran
Dal
Banana flower cutlet
Mango pickle
Pappad
Rice
Appam
I saw some going in for the second and third helping.

(in case some are wondering about banana flower, here is a picture of it)

© Photographer: Joezachs | Agency: Dreamstime.com

This was followed by payasam and the small variety of banana (which is very very tasty and sweet)

Aha finally all 18 of us in one frame. It was fun to have all from different nationality, Indian, American, Dutch, Greek, German & Spanish. And this time I am in front of the camera (again extreme right)

After resting for some time we were ferried back to the other side where our bus awaited us.

Priyanka tried to pull out the flower from the water, to offer it to Martin and see what she got. (hook line and sinker)

Some of these feathered friends were giving us a quizzical look.

And this is the link to their site.