Hampi with a phone-camera

Hampi Photography

About three years ago, when I was last in Hampi, I made a few images of the place with a cell-phone camera. I thought they aren’t bad, although they were technically inferior. (See earlier post on Hampi with cell-phone camera).

I was back in Hampi last week, leading our photography tour with a bunch of high-energy folks. I continued to shoot with phone-camera. The technical quality of images have improved, but continues to be a long way from DSLR-like image quality. But they are now perhaps reasonably good for small-screen viewing, and you may not find evident technical issues in a small screen.

Here is a collection of images I made. The important trick shooting with a phone-camera, I realize, is to not go after challenging situations, avoid tricky lighting, keep it simple and pay more attention to composition. For those who can’t stop asking ‘what camera?’, this is a new not-yet-in-the-market phone-camera devised through cutting edge research on a project conceived by a consortium of phone makers and camera companies to create unparalleled next-generation high fidelity mobile imaging solutions, provided to me on early access. For those who have feet on the ground (which is pretty much everyone who is reading this, including you, I am sure): the last set of images in 2014 were shot with a Samsung S3 and the ones below are made using a Xiaomi MI 5.

This tour was fun. It was open exclusively to people who had attended our tours and workshops in the past. Interacting with all the regular travellers, three days flew-by in no time!

Hampi Photography

Among all the places that I photographed in Hampi, Hemakuta Hill was probably the most photogenic and yielded well for photography with a fixed focal-length lens. Above image of one of the much-photographed two-storey Mantapa was made at Hemakuta.


Gurukula: a millennium old schooling system that has survived with time

Earlier this year, I made several visits to Art of Living International Center in Bangalore to photo-document a school of traditional knowledge: a Gurukula. Here is a collection of images from my visits.

(Below is an easy-to-navigate slideshow of images with captions. If you are reading this in an RSS Reader or over email, the embedded slideshow may not be visible to you. Please click here to see it on the website).

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The Eclectic Hornbill Festival – Images and Information

Hornbill Festival

On a cold December morning, every road in Nagaland seems to be leading to the Hornbill Festival venue. Large signboards, usually adorned with portraits of Naga people clad in their beautiful best traditional wears, welcome you to the ‘Festival of Festivals’. They are compellingly beautiful images – seeing one of them in a newspaper or a magazine will compel you to pack the bags and catch the next flight available.

The Hornbill Festival is a celebration of Nagaland’s traditions and cultural heritage. Sixteen communities–collectively called Nagas–come together at the festival venue to exhibit their wears, enact their daily life and re-create their energetic festivals at one place. Imagine spend a year travelling through rural Nagaland, witnessing their way of life and celebrations, and then think about bringing it all together in one-go. That’s hornbill festival for you.

Here is a collection of images from Hornbill Festival – celebrations, performances and portraitures, made in the last two years of leading photography tours to the festival.

Hornbill Festival
The festival venue–called Kisama Heritage Village–just outside Kohima. The venue is far larger than just an amphitheater for performances. Surrounding the amphitheater are the resting places of the participating communities, restaurants, shops, museums and community areas.