Proctor & Gamble are using social media and traditional event marketing for a new / existing brand of shampoo. Till the name is revealed, it is being call the Mystery Shampoo with web presence here : http://mysteryshampoo.com, Twitter presence here : @mystery_shampoo and Facebook presence here : http://www.facebook.com/MysteryShampoo. Following are photographs from the event held at New Delhi, Select City Walk with Bollywood celebrity, Ayesha Takia.

She does have long and pretty hair. Very cute and so much better to look at in real life.
	The support staff was lovely and the hair-stylists, even though overworked – considering how many women were interested in finding out more about the Mystery Shampoo – was very courteous & friendly. I had a great time – now waiting for my sample bottle to get into the challenge!

That last photograph is of me trying to get a shot of myself after getting back home from the event – to capture the hair and new danglers. I’ll have to think of better vantage points to get the hair!

The Avantha Masters Golf Tournament marked the re-introduction of the European circuit to the Indian playing field. The tournament was held at the DLF Golf Course, Gurgaon. The winner was Andrew Dodt. Andrew is a professional Australian golfer. This was also the Avantha Masters’ debut tournament.

	There was quite a turnout in terms of the audience crowd – especially with the number of children. The crowd etiquette was quite amazing too.
The runner-up was Richard Finch. You can read the Telegraph UK news story here. This was my first Golf tournament and the winner was especially gracious while posing for photographers.

Shot on a wood table mostly. With light coming in from a window on the right, the laptop on the back and a couple of paper / book reflectors. Mostly shot on long exposure. Of course wouldn’t be possible without a tripod. I’ve shot the Nexus One with the Case Mate cover, the Divoom speakers and a couple of print books that I’m giving to a client – after I shot their event.

One of the things to be careful about when shooting shiny / plain surface products is that they tend to catch a lot of dust & lint – the maximum time spent in the above photographs was cleaning them up in Photoshop because even after using CyberClean, there were lots of linty things on the black surface of the speaker, the soft blue part of the Case-Mate cover and the screen of the phone as well.

The Samsung Bloggers’ Meet was held at the Hard Rock Cafe, Saket, New Delhi. The event was managed by @mediaredefined , Digitas and Communique and the agenda was to introduce two Samsung phones to the audience : the Samsung Galaxy S and the Samsung Wave.

This is before the start of the event – the venue was made available by Hard Rock Cafe, just 15 minutes before the event was supposed to begin. The ‘standees’ were being made ready and the projector was being setup. The entire projector setup seemed quite hi-tech especially because the phone screens were constantly being plugged into video / screen on projector mode.
I might have gotten a little carried away with the standees – they were made well – because they photographed real well. Some of the early arrivals. People connecting to the internet once the wi-fi details were passed on.	The demo phones in the hands of @praval from @mediaredefined The demo phones being fired up for the start of the event. @realin @pacificleo and @vivekk poring over the demo instruments. Sarfaraz from Samsung, starting with an introduction to bada – the mobile phone OS that Samsung has created.
The two Samsung techies who came down from Bangalore to answer more detailed questions regarding the OS and the platforms in question. from the adjacent table of bloggers.	Two flyers for the Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Wave phones. @gautamghosh doing a thorough check of the Samsung Wave mobile phone.
Sarfaraz from Samsung demonstrating how one of the contact apps works on the Galaxy S.
The question and answer session was melded within the presentation – which is probably a good thing. Technical questions being answered by the Samsung team. Food, water, brochures, standees and bloggers.	The snacks were good – I tried only the non-veg ones. Sarfaraz from Samsung demonstrating a feature where you can sync up details from three social networking platforms : Facebook, MySpace and Twitter : for any of your contacts and see those details without having to separately log into your own Facebook / MySpace / Twitter accounts.
Excitement levels were high for the Nascar game that was played amongst three contestants. Ankur, from Samsung is at extreme right.
The winners getting hold of their Samsung Wave and Samsung Galaxy S phones from Samsung’s Ankur. @praval is in the background.
The Samsung Galaxy S : the more expensive of the two phones. Very light weight.
The Samsung Wave.
Sarfaraz giving the lowdown about swype, a new way of inputing text into your phone – this was something I was hearing of for the first time. The Samsung Galaxy S. The bag with contents that each blogger received : at right and below.

This Samsung Bloggers’ Meet was my first corporate-sponsored bloggers’ meet and frankly, I wasn’t expecting anything as good as this even was. The Samsung people were friendly, fielded all questions with honest answers and there was a lot of banter. Of course, everyone aspires for a more attentive audience and that isn’t always what you get. The Hard Rock Cafe people were polite and courteous and the @mediaredefined people did a good job handling the event – including managing once of the contests despite there being no phone network inside the premises and despite all the suggestions being thrown their way.

I for one, did not realize how four hours flew past – apart from the fact that I was busy with the camera, I did learn a thing or two about the mobile phone market and what companies like Samsung are planning. My only comparison point – as far as personal experience with mobile phones goes – is the Nexus One. And I’m still not sure how the two Samsung phones measure up. In any case, the Android platform is poised to take over the world – quite literally and I’m glad there are more platforms like Samsung’s bada that will keep Google on it’s toes.

The light streak from a couple of cars and motorcycles was more chance than plan. The plan was to try the camera remote with long exposure so as to get starry lights. After minor but many post-processing steps in Photoshop this was derived. The original image is below.

There is an upcoming photo shoot for a client who needs to take photographs of the interiors of their service apartments. I am going to be using only ambient light for the shoot and will try some photorealistic HDR instead of the usual blown out edges and halos. Similar to the effect on the above edited image. Long exposures on a tripod, with a remote – maybe I can get some starry lights in the service apartments.

I’m not sure where I’m getting the spots from at the top of the image. It could be a dirty UV Haze Filter, a ditry lens or dirt on the mirror in the camera. I hope it is the first. The full resolution image can be seen on Flickr.

Industrial photo shoot from half a decade ago. Shot on my Fuji SLR, 35mm film. A visit to the Mundra Special Economic Zone to cover all aspects of the Zone – from railways, to the Adani Jetty, the ports, the hypermarkets, an annual conference, etc.

This shoot was one heck of an experience – mainly because it was my first time on a port in the midst of all those huge cranes and containers. Photography is prohibited on ports and even though we had the requisite permissions, there were times we got chased down to show the physical proof in the from of the signed papers we were carrying.

Photographs from half a decade ago. Shot on my Fuji SLR, 35mm film. A visit to the Siyaram Silk Mills in Maharashtra to photograph the factories and shop floors. Comparing the quality of my photographs from then and now, I was quite a terrible photographer I might add.

The shoot itself was managed quite well by the Siyarams staff. This was one of the two initial paid photography shoots that I had completed. During this particular shoot, I realized that being a woman industrial photographer was slightly easier from one aspect – the workers tend to look into the camera with none of the camera-shyness that would otherwise be present.

Two of my close friends, Bharat Midha and Priyanka Sachdeva finally tied the knot on 20th of June 2010. I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to be their unofficial wedding photographer. Here are some of the selected images.

Complete gallery of the wedding photographs on the domain booked especially for them. the total number of photographs presented to them was 120. To hire us for capturing your wedding, give us a call on 99100 22104 or send us an email on naina@studioaside.com

I’m giving away one portrait session – to one lucky person. The winner will be announced on 30th of June, 2010 and the process of making that choice is random – chits with names will be added to a box and on the morning of the 30th, one piece of paper will be picked and the person will be entitled to a free portrait photography session [ which will include ten final digital high resolution photographs emailed to him / her at the end of the session - after due-editing ].

Some of the latest portraits on my Flickr photostream

Elaborate shooting setups are not my style and I prefer to shoot in natural surroundings with natural light as much as possible. Post-production of photographs is my forte.

The final choice of the winner is my decision. The winner’s travel to and from the place of the shoot will be borne by them – and I’ll be more than happy if they also serve me a free lunch The winner can decide what they want to wear, whether one outfit or five, where they want the shoot to take place – it will not be an in-studio shoot, and whether they want to bring someone along for the shoot or not – to be photographed with them – not a separate portrait session!

The pictures, after approval from the winner, will be uploaded on this blog as well. I’m thinking of one free portrait session every two months should be awesome – we all like our picture being taken – well. Throw in some awesome post-production & it’s almost perfect.

All you have to do, to apply is send me a couple of your photographs to naina@studioaside.com and RT this contest on Twitter – use the Retweet button on top left. Even if you don’t want to send photographs, RT’ing this blog post is the only eligibility factor – please do an @naina or @studioaside mention so that I know you have RT’ed this. I will be shooting only in either Noida, New Delhi or Gurgaon – if you are located some place else, this might not be such a good idea

Client’s portrait shoot. Also uploaded in ultra-high resolution on my Flickr photostream. All photographs have been processed in Photoshop. They were shot in Nikon’s native RAW format .NEF

Elaborate shooting setups are not my style and I prefer to shoot in natural surroundings with natural light as much as possible. Anand knew that before we undertook the project and on an early Thursday morning – as early as we could make it, we found ourselves at the perfect location : the Select City Walk mall in New Delhi – the chairs outside in the ‘lawn’ and other outside whereabouts.

I prefer to do most of my work after I’ve shot – in Photoshop. The trouble with that is there’s always so much that can be done – so many different approaches that can be taken. For that, I must thank Anand, because he mostly knew what he wanted and left the other bits to me – whatever direction I wanted to take.

Anand got the above picture printed on canvas – although I’ve not seen the print myself, I’ll have to take his word for it when he says it came out real good! Again, lots of Photoshop and bokeh – the table in the above shot was quite grimy but bokeh took care of most of that.

The Select City Walk personnel were quite co-operative – Anand and I pretended to be friends shooting pictures. The back story I’d prepared was that Anand was new to town and needed to send hot photographs back home to impress his friends! Of course we didn’t need to use that story.

The last shot above is a pseudo-HDR. Pseudo because I manipulated exposure in Photoshop for the same shot and then complied them together in Photomatix Pro and then brought it back into Photoshop for bokeh and other enhancements. It’s not perfect – I would have liked to introduce a sharp, contrasting, grainy look but Anand was not looking for that approach, hence I let that be. Maybe I will work on one of those looks on my spare time.

Uploaded this photograph on Flickr. This was during client work at an industrial photography engagement at a rice factory / mill located on the outskirts of Delhi. It’s quite unlike me that I enjoy industrial photography but I’ve come to realize that the main draw for me is to be able to make a picture out of all the hard edges and dirt and metal. I like being able to do that. Sometimes there are glimpses of something beautiful that I see, that has further potential, after being processed, to turn into something quite unexpected. The photograph you see below is the final product.

This is a loosely documented process of how I got to it. Would be impossible for me to give exact values of tweaks that were made in Photoshop and Photomatix Pro. It is an HDR image & I usually tweak till I like what I see. Sometimes I go back multiple times to fix the image some more – in this case, I stuck with the first product of the processing.

Three exposures while shooting +1 0 and -1 : I don’t remember if I used a tripod for this one.

PhotomatixPro put the three exposures together to create an HDR, which I then tonemapped to something I liked – there’s a lot of microcontrast going on in this image. My Photoshop file still has the layers so I have the HDR product from PhotomatixPro below. You can see it doesn’t look much different from the originals. It does look a tad more ‘dreamy’.

Then I Photoshopped. Unsharp Mask and Noise Removal. If I ever decided to get this printed, I would prefer to see a more ‘smooth’ image, and a little more sharpening doesn’t hurt anyway. Using the Transform perspective and skew tools, I aligned the image to an angle that I liked a little more than the one I had shot.

Duplicate the layer and overlay at a 100% – I like doing this to HDR images – it increases the contrast and removes the pasty look – unless you want the pasty look. I prefer more ‘pop’. Skewed the angles some more.

For this particular photograph, I thought it might look better with a double overlay so I duplicated and did another 100% overlay and I liked it better. Not only does the contrast pop, it also accentuates details – makes it more grungy – so there’s an overall noise-removal smoothness but a grungy look.

I use NIK Software’s Color Efex filters and applied a cross processing using Y06. Once.

And twice.

Using the Darken/Lighten Center filter, I made a slight change to the lighting – to subconsciously allow the viewers’ eyes to focus on the main pipe – not too much otherwise it kills the effect.

I also use NIK’s Silver Efex, which primarily helps tweak black and white images. One feature that I absolutely love is the ability to increase the ‘structure’ of an image – small details jump out. So I applied the filter – there are too many choices but I used one to increase contrast a little and maxed the structure. And overlay at 50% on the color image from before.

Followed by a final ‘Burn Corner’ tweak using the Automate filter of Pixelgenius’ Photokit.

Imagine. I haven’t even bothered to play with curves, levels, alpha channels etc. that live within Photoshop. There really is no limit to what all can be done. This is how I do it and instead of following this to the ‘T’, it’s better to figure out what you like seeing & then do that. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still nowhere near finding my ‘style’ of photography. It probably depends on something as flippant as my mood! And if you’re wondering if you’re going to get photography assignments based on how well you can process – at least in India – the answer, in short, is no.

Spy Lens from Photojojo. Experimenting whether it really works. An evening at Galleria, Gurgaon. Usage Verdict : you need to have a VERY steady hand or a tripod – which for sneaky portraits, is not going to work. And a lot of patience. Using the angles is a little disorienting, you need to get used to setting directions – when you need to capture something on the left, you need to move the camera to the right. Working with a 55-200mm lens gave me only shaky pictures – I was shooting by hand, no tripod and I think I might have been a little jumpy because of the coffee.

Product Verdict : Made in China. I was honestly expecting something made in Europe / the US. The mirror collects too much dust – there’s no way to keep it closed – it’s exposed constantly. Chances of getting caught : not unless the person being shot has used / seen the spy lens earlier.

As you can see, I did not get many shots. After a while my hand started to hurt – carrying the Nikon D90 with the zoom lens AND the spy lens attached to it. One of the downfalls. But it’s a great tool to get some candid shots and to not make people uncomfortable. Hopefully, I will put it to good use sometime soon instead of sneaking around for pictures. And not get all shaky ones either.

These pictures are the results of a new Vivicam Tripod and preparation for an up-coming industrial shoot. I needed to get used to the new tripod and I also needed to try out bracketing and HDR. The shoot’s been finalized for this Monday and I’m hoping to get atleast 100 passably good shots from the entire day. In the following shots, the first image is the final HDR image after post-production. Clicking on this large image in all sets, will take you to their respective Flickr pages.The four images under it include the first three which are bracketed exposures and the fourth is the original HDR image.

The above photographs isn’t too good a picture. There’s no focus. It’s a bad composition. Even in terms of the HDR, there is way too much going to fully appreciate how the HDR might have enhanced the picture.

The above is still a passable picture but the HDR result wasn’t uplifting. The only reason I like the photographs after post-production is because of the red and the blue. I still feel it’s an overbearing final result. One of the noisiest images from all the five sets.

The above is my favorite image from the entire series on this page. The photograph had some merit in terms of composition but it was bland otherwise. The HDR result brought out the highlights : colors and lighting. Which I then picked up while post-processing and pulled out even further. The HDR result was a lot dreamier – foggy, cloudy. The final post-processed photograph is sharper but still retains the ‘dreamy’ aspect because of the blown up saturation. Unlike most over-saturated images, this one doesn’t hurt the eye.

The above, staircase picture is my second favorite because of the idea / story behind it and also because of the colors. As a personal preference I tend to like colorful photography when it comes to my own pictures. I’m always looking for black and white ideas too but seem to prefer only portraits when it comes to colorless pictures. The stairs were easy to post-process – the focal point was the green lawn and the sunlight. The post-production reduced the luminosity that the HDR captured but also provided additional depth.

The above image of the water tank is my least favorite. It’s boring. No point of interest. The sky is bland, the structure is bland. After HDR and post-production, I also realized that my lens was dirty.

Nima Chering was the child who captured our attention, our cameras and [ although we might not concede ] our hearts as well for the short time we spent at the Sanga Choeling Monastery at Pelling, Sikkim, India. We did not get a glimpse of the Khangchendzonga Mountains but we did get enraptured by Nima’s antics. The route he walks to and fro for school is the very same route where we stopped multiple times for a break to gather our breath.

Not only did Nima pose patiently, by the end of it he also succeeded in testing our patience by not giving up trying to pose some more, every opportunity he got or could wrangle from us. I just could not stop clicking the button for his face was captivating – those eyes could have burned holes.

Model & Stylist : Akanksha Redhu
She runs a segment on her blog called “Look Of The Day” and updates with photographs whenever she finds something cool to share. For details of clothes, accessories and shoes, please visit her blog. Akanksha can also be found on Twitter.

Most times it doesn’t take much to make good photographs. Every photographer has a style they can call their own. As a photographer, I tend to use Adobe Photoshop heavily – not to enhance the model’s figure or skin as much as I use it to create a mood, lighting or other effects that have traditionally been used in studios. You can’t go wrong with a Nikon or a Canon as far as the quality of your RAW photograph is concerned. I prefer to shoot in high-resolution JPG format as much as possible. My goal, currently, is to get as many good photographs in minimum amount of time. I don’t like to waste time actually ‘setting’ up a shot – most of the times. Just shoot.

Photographs from a vacation at Pondicherry in 2006. On my way further to Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

People in the photographs include Antoine Carrier, Shasta Leland, Patrick Linden and Kunal Udawat. The day was hot and humid. There was a tiny halfpipe, a video-camera, a Fuji Film SLR, five sweat-drenched people, a Luna, an auto-rickshaw and not much to do. Of course the beach was calling after this was done and over with. Shasta even had a cat who littered in his bed – cute kittens. I experimented some more on the beach but my Fuji was getting old.

These were shot in a moving car at night. The light streaks are from traffic lights, moving vehicles, lamp posts and other artificial light sources.

Some of the photographs that I shot – as shown below, got published in the Rock Street Journal‘s April – May 2009 Magazine Issue. No credit provided in the issue but apparently they’re going to mention it in the next issue.

A big thanks to Archit who traced the RSJ Magazine issues and bought all three he could lay his hands on.

The band members are Vinay Venkatesh, Sunneith Revankar, Venkat Raman, Vinit Bharucha, Rahul Hariharan and Aditya Gopinathan Nair.

Bhayanak Maut is a Mumbai based hardcore / deathcore band.
You can find them on Twitter too. This concert was held at NSIT, Dwarka, New Delhi, India.

The complete album can be viewed on Facebook [ with about 60 photographs ].

I’ve not shared the before and after photographs from the Lingerie Fashion shoot that I did. Here they are.

The photographs were shot on my Fuji SLR film camera on a 49mm lens. The negatives were developed and scanned at a photographer’s store at Connaught Place, New Delhi. I forget the name of the store now. The scan quality was terrible – innumerable scratches and artifacts and the shots were not even developed in the correct ratio. So, what I got to see on my screen when I ran the CD ROM on my laptop after I got the scans from the photographer’s store – was disheartening at best. But Adobe Photoshop to the rescue and I ended up doing my first ever cosmetic / plastic surgery on Photoshop!

Clicking on the ‘after’ photograph will take you to it’s Flickr page.

We did not have a great model because it was a student’s shoot without any budget so we requested one of her classmates to pose for us and assured that we would not use the face of the model. It is a big deal to pose for a lingerie shoot for a girl – in India at least.
I had to work on the skin because the arms and legs were not waxed and had hair – although, fortunately the hair weren’t too bad. the other stuff I had to work on included the breasts and the butt and the tummy – to remove tyres and flab. I also worked a little on the arms.
I am not an expert in re-touching photographs and post-production but I was quite happy with the results I got after I was done with these photographs. It took me about three months to come up with a version that I liked enough to post on Flickr or post online.

All photographs from this lingerie photo shoot can be seen on my Flickr collection. In case someone wants to evaluate the high resolution versions, clicking on the ‘after’ photograph will take you to it’s Flickr page.

Lingerie design credit : Akanksha Redhu. The model would like to remain anonymous.

This is from my second trip to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands – specifically Havelock and Port Blair. This is one of those places I could back to repeatedly without even so much as a thought of getting bored. Lovely place, beautiful scenes and good food if you know where to go.

That is the only panorama image I could manage from the photographs I shot when I was traveling to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Clicking on it will take you to it’s Flickr page and you can see the larger version as well. Havelock Island sunset just before a boat ride that continued till midnight! The restaurant of the Barefoot Resort on Radhanagar Beach and the hills behind it on Havelock Island. Farmland leading into forest area on Havelock Island. A child on the ferry. One of the many beaches on Havelock Island. View of Ross Island while on the ferry to Port Blair. Kunal getting ready to dive into the water. View from another one of the beaches on Port Blair.

This was shot on the beach next to the Elephant Reserve on main Andaman Islands. Trees encountered between the Barefoot Resort and the Radhanagar beach on Havelock Island. Another shot on the beach next to the Elephant Reserve. Sunset from the ferry while returning to Port Blair from Havelock Island. View from beach number 6, Dolphin Yatri Niwas, Havelock Island. The ferry departing after leaving its load of passengers on Havelock Island. Moon in the sky when the ferry was pulling out from Havelock for the journey to Port Blair. On one of the beaches on Port Blair. Elephant beach on Havelock Island – good beach for viewing coral reefs. Before the Tsunami, the preferred location for viewing coral reefs was Jolly Buoy Island – but that’s gone underwater now.

These photographs were all shot on film on my Fuji SLR and the negatives were scanned and developed at a local photography studio in Bombay.