Thursday, April 21, 2005

Drained of colour...

Some of my favourite black and white pics... I love the medium. It is so emotive -- when the human eye is not confused by lots of colours, the mind can perceive better the shapes and lighting of the scene. I am not claiming that it is not possible to take coloured pictures. On the contrary, it is more difficult to conceive an aesthetically pleasing coloured shot. However, I am biased towards the monochromatic medium.



This is actually a coloured image that I digitally desaturated. I like it better than the original version. A tea mug that someone left on the window sill in my old office.





My favourite Goa, yet again.





Shyam, a waiter at an Irani cafe that we frequent on weekends. This is not a candid shot -- I asked him to sit at the table and look outside, but he kept staring at the camera.





People on street. I just like the way people sit on the ground in India. It is very rustic and endearing.

14 Comments:

At 7:12 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

love the last two :)
at some pt, i want to make a gallery of facial expressions and gestures that i have seen only desi people do.

 
At 7:28 AM, Blogger EB said...

Nice pics! And speaking of things black and white--and noting your love of cryptic crosswords--the blog entry at http://lovely-ideas.blogspot.com/2005/02/screwball-scrabble.html and the link therein may interest you. After all, what's photography if not writing lights?

 
At 10:57 AM, Blogger Mint Chutney said...

Very nice Anurag. I absolutely love B&W photography. For me the pictures evoke more of an aura when taken in black and white.

 
At 11:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hi anurag!
nice pics, man. u r right. black and white does soothe your mind.... no confusion there.
and yes, u r right about my scientific orientation, too. currently, i am a research associate in my institute. but i am not in IISc (i'd love to be there). i'm in iiitb (www.iiitb.ac.in). but, iiitb is a great institute, too. so, no complaints. :-)

 
At 11:22 AM, Blogger eM said...

This is rapidly turning into a photoblog I see :)
But love the tea mug thing, think you could do something similar with a coffee mug and a smoldering cigarette? I think that might be interesting and I'm not a good enough photographer to do it!

 
At 11:37 AM, Blogger Anurag said...

HF: Welcome. I will check out the link. Too drunk right now to try brainy things. :))

Mint C: Thanks. I think B/W pics evoke the sense of nostalgia as well.

Mandar: I know people in IITB. Which department are you in?

eM: Where have you been? What do they say about pics being worth 1K words? Well, I did write a lomg post before this one. But you are right; it is just very easy to post pics. :))

 
At 1:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

no no. i am not in IIT-B. i am in iiit-b (bangalore) (www.iiitb.ac.in).

 
At 4:57 AM, Blogger Varun Singh said...

What a coincidence! I also tried few black & white potraits last night. Check out my photoblog, I'll post more pictures soon.

 
At 4:59 AM, Blogger Anurag said...

Munna: Sorry, forgot to respond to your comment last time. I'm glad you like something. :)) That's a good idea, to make that gallery.

Addict: Thanks.

Mandar: Sorry, I misread your comment.

Anand: Thanks. It's Anurag, BTW.

Satya: Nice idea, about the pic of beer bottle. I use a Canon EOS Rebal G. It's the base model of Canon SLRs. I have three lenses:
i) Canon 75-300 USM III, which I use for close ups.
ii) Canon 28mm USM lens, capable of apertures of f/1.8, which is my patent wide angle lens.
iii) Canon 50 mm lens (also capable of f/1.8), which is for commentary scenes.

 
At 6:59 PM, Blogger Varun Singh said...

Canon Rebel XT is on the wrong side of 50k, isn't it? I want to buy one for myself but its too expensive :-(. Presently I'm using Canon Powershot S1 IS, which is also quite good.

Say, do you have any online resources about photograpy? E-book perhaps? I couldn't find any to-the-point website thru google.

 
At 10:07 PM, Blogger Anurag said...

Varun,

The one I have is a film camera, not a digital Rebel. The camera body that I have costs aroun 12K these days. If you want to pursue photography seriously you must buy an SLR camera. If you want to save money in the long run, you should invest in a digital camera. Therefore, you must buy a digital SLR. Right now, the entry level Canon digital SLR is digital Rebel. Which is on the wrong side of 50K. What you should do is ask someone coming from US to get it for you. The list price in US is around 900 Dollars, which is around 40K. For authentic camera pricing I always go to http://www.bhphotovideo.com. That's where I bought all my lenses from, when I was in US.

There is http://www.photo.net, which has some useful reviews in the forum and learn sections. Their basic tutorial is at http://www.photo.net/photo/tutorial/.
The site was started by Philip Greenspun and used to be my learning ground. Now it has become a bit boring, but still has the old content in archives. Also Check out Phil's photos on the site.

 
At 7:51 AM, Blogger Varun Singh said...

Thank you very much Anurag! I'm constantly updating my photoblog, keep visiting :)

 
At 2:52 PM, Blogger Cee Kay said...

Very nice!! Like the pictures. I too think that black and white medium is more expressive than color. And the way you play with shadows makes the picture come alive.

 
At 12:42 AM, Blogger Tan said...

Love the monochromes!

 

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