PIXETRA CLUB’s FOTO-GURU CLASSROOM IN THE OUTDOORS is coming to Kochi in the third weekend of September. Learn to take photos without a lot of technical equipment and without spending a lot of time setting up the shot. Capture some wonderful slices of candid life!

Novice to advanced photo-enthusiasts, new-camera owners, experienced shooters, all levels of amateur photographers are quaranteed to have fun.

Tucked in the coconut groves of a unique Kerala village, Kuzhuppilly Beach House promises nature, backwaters, beaches, ample seafood & local people.

The class is structured to help a novice photographer understand step-by-step the theory & practise of taking great outdoor photos.

For more details click here.

Daniel was born in England, raised in Southern California. He has been shooting for 34 years, 18 professionally. Based in Aspen, Colorado for the past 11 years. He shoots advertising, stock, editorial and fine art. Not content to just document the outdoors, he makes the activities and environments he shoots part of his life. As such, he has have climbed all 54 of the Colorado “Fourteeners” and Mt. Rainier. He uses a variety of formats including Nikon for digital, Leica, Nikon, Hasselblad in 6×6 and panoramic 35mm for film. When asked to describe himself he will often say, “I don’t shoot for a living, I simply live what Sam Abell calls “The Photographic Life”.

What draws you to do outdoor photography? Which came first, your interest in the outdoors, or your interest in photography?

To read the full interview and profile, click here.

Make sure to check out Daniel’s gallery page.

Nicolas Chorier is a Frenchman who specializes in “kite photography”. His new book Kite’s Eye View: India Between Earth and Sky, is published by Roli Books.

Chorier makes 40-sq-foot kites from siliconised nylon and carbon or fibreglass rods. The camera sits in a cradle on a line beneath the kite, and can be raised to 1,000ft (300m). Chorier says lower altitudes are “more interesting”. He uses a Canon 5D camera and the whole rig can weigh about 2kg, with lens and extra battery. The camera cradle operates by remote control and can achieve a 360-degree rotation and 90-degree tilt. Using an air-to-ground video link to provides real-time monitoring on a portable TV for accurate framing. “Once I feel my kite flying nicely, I rig up my camera on the line about 100 feet below the kite.” Kite and camera can then be flown up to the required height. Chorier carries the remote control on his shoulder and the video monitor around his neck. He walks and raises and lowers the kite for shooting angles. “Sometimes the kite comes down, but as the sail of the kite is big, it parachutes or glides down slowly. I have lost one camera, dropping it in the Yamuna river behind the Taj Mahal,” says Chorier. “I have shot thousands of pictures above India. I love India, its sounds, smells, colours, people. Shooting India is so rewarding to my senses,” Chorier says.

See the full text and gallery at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/south_asia_
india0_a_kite0s_eye_view/html/1.stm
TFS, Raghuram Ashok

A Kite's Eye View

I love the ‘challenges’ at dpreview. This recent one has the most interesting entries I’ve seen a long time - funny, creative and technically super shots too.

http://www.dpreview.com/challenges/Challenge.aspx?ID=2008

I’ve learnt a lot and even honed my vision by looking at photos a lot. In this context I enjoyed some of the forum posts in the same website:

Read on:

Hello everyone,
I’ve started to use the dpreview Challenges, to develop a better eye and give myself a goal to improve my photography… one thing that I really think is worthwhile, is to step through every image in a Challenge, honestly rating each image in accordance with my personal quality scale…
Casting a lot of votes isn’t ‘mental’ … I believe that it’s a major part of getting value out of the Challenges… because when the Challenge voting is complete, here’s the tip - go back and in the top left of the screen, sort the images on ‘My Votes’…

see the full discussion at
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=32415536

Photography Challenges

Carrie Sandoval has been photographing babies for six years, and she has attracted quite a following. It’s easy to see why: her photos are composed with an almost magical attention to organic form, light and simplicity.

Ms. Sandoval, who is based in San Diego, specializes in photographing newborns, although she shoots children of all ages. She got her start in 2002 with she bought a D.S.L.R. to capture her own children, then a 3-year-old and 10-month-old twins. Next she began snapping shots of other children at play groups, and soon parents began asking her to photograph their children.

I asked Ms. Sandoval for some of her tips on taking great photos of babies. Here’s what she had to say.

Q: What shooting mode — manual, aperture, auto — do you use for babies?

Read it fully:
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-to-take-better-baby-photos/?ex=1263355200&en=11d729cd3a0dd246&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=TE-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M106-ROS-0709-PH&WT.mc_ev=click

Dont miss the artist’s website: http://www.capturedbycarrie.com/

Calm Sleep

This what one of our pixetra club members did. Literally!!

Here is Dinesh Kumar (our Featured Member this month) talking about how he got into DSLRs

“Photography started for me at a very young age and although I got to try out many film and digital cameras, I never actually owned one till my college days. I learnt to use a camera properly, you know, the Aperture, Shutter speed, DOF etc; on a Sony H1 prosumer model.  An accident (I dropped the H1) paved the way for my first DSLR, a Canon 450D with which I shoot primarily now.”

Interesting right? to know more about Dinesh and to check out his beautiful portfolio of sunrises and twilights go to the Featured Members section of our site.

Tell us your story and we will be happy to feature it online with your photos. Later…

pixetra club partnered with The Blue Yonder and attended the cham dance festival at the Tashi Lhumpo monastery. Anything we do at the club promises to be a unique experience. With special access granted to us, members who were on the trip were able to photograph the dress rehearsal , the pre-dances ceremony in the temple, the monks getting into costume and masks for the actual dances besides of course a ring side seat at the actual dance. We even managed a chef’s tour of the monastery kitchen where a feast was put together for the visitors.

And boy did we click away! Here are some samples.

We went, we clicked and we came away with just one lasting impression - the irrepressible spirit of the Tibetan people. Driven out of their own land but thriving and keeping their traditions alive in an adopted one. Walking tall, ever cheerful, ever hopeful.

True grit and true style. We salute their spirit and hope we can go back soon.

Keep smilin’, keep clickin’ !

 

With the smell of Hyderabadi biriyani fresh in my nostrils, I would like to introduce you to a feast of a different nature. The city of pearls saw some rare gems being photographed right off the streets recently.

The pixetra club held a weekend workshop for it’s members last weekend. Roaming the streets of the city on Saturday, the enthusiastic club members clicked away to glory. The results were a veritable feast for the eyes. To whet your appetites, we have some shots of the members clicking away. But we would like to start showcasing the work of our enthusiastic club members here. Ace lensman Sethu is sifting through all the shots taken at Hyderabad. Once he decides on his favorites, I promise to display them here for you. 

So keep coming back to this buffet table. For now, here are the starters I promised before. 

Bon Apetit.

 
We promise you that at the end of this experience, you will be shaken to your core.

pixetra club offers a chance to photograph the ‘cham dance performed by Buddhist monks at the Tibetan settlement in Bylakuppe, Coorg. The ‘cham is performed both in Tibet and Bhutan. Dancers wear colorful masks and elaborate costumes. You can learn more about this dance form on our site here or at the Wiki here.

The tentative plan is to leave Banglaore on February 22nd, shoot the dance on the 23rd and be back in Bangalore the same night. We are working out the logistics and we will update the blog with any changes. So keep watching this space.

You can also mail us at for more information and to reserve your place in the group.

So goodbye till Bylakuppe or as they say in Tibet, Kale Shoo!

Oh yes! we mean what we title our posts. The trip to the Agumbe rainforest was an unqualified success. 
  
pixetra club joined hands again with Amoghavarsha (www.amoghavarsha.com) on a “Photo-workshop in the Outdoors” to Agumbe on Jan 24 and 25. We’ll let Amogha speak of the trip he led:

“We left from a bustling bus-stand in Bangalore on Friday night and arrived the following morning in one of the most pristine rainforests in India – Agumbe. During the short 2 km trek to the research station, spotting some rare birds including hornbills got everyone refreshed! The morning trip to the base camp also proved very exciting as we got to see many different birds, insects and even a rat snake!

After lunch, a short trek through the rain forests with its tall canopy brought us to the Jogigundi Falls. We went down the stream and got to photograph rare birds, insects and frogs. Some of us experimented with shooting waterfalls. After this we headed to the famous Kundadri Hills to capture the beautiful sunset on the beautiful landscape of the Western Ghats. And then, back to the camp for a Q&A session on photography. The night was spent in tents inside the forest reverberating with beautiful forest sounds.

Next day morning we were on a bird trail where we spotted quite a few exotic species. Post breakfast, we trekked some more until lunch and then went to the sunset point again before starting our return to Bangalore in the evening.