The Diesel India Launch Preview party was held on the night of 9th September at the Diesel Store in the Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. The band, Faridkot played four lovely songs and they have a new fan! The event was themed around the “Diesel Democratic Party” and “Be Stupid” – photographs of people, the store and activities follow – alongwith a couple of videos. With approximately 80 photographs, this is a long blog post – let the images load and scroll away!

The red-carpet welcome to the Diesel store. The event was supposed to start at 1930hrs but as is the case with such things, delays are inevitable. Got in at about 2015hrs.
	The lighting / chandeliers in the Diesel store were quite lovely, as was the propaganda design. The food stalls outside the store were supposed to mimic the snack stalls at a political rally – but I didn’t *get that till @priyal told me.
Trying the different depths of field – everything was so *pretty in the store!
Faridkot’s drummer – please let me know if you know his name.	Please help with the names – if you know who the people in the photographs are, please leave a comment!
Gavin Pacheco, guitarist, from the band Faridkot. From their website : “Currently a part of Delhi Funk Rock and Blues band Hypnosis, he has performed in various colleges and festivals all over the country.”
Miloni Parikh, from the Diesel entourage. One of the busiest people throughout the evening! Thanks Miloni, I was well taken care of.
For the above four, clockwise from top left : the bar; surprise flowers; Anupam Roy of Grey & Saurian; Miloni with the evening’s DJ.
Faridkot, the band, getting ready to knock our socks off.
The audience, getting ready, to have their socks knocked off!
	Pretty flowers & beautiful people!
Rin, from Mansworld, just before I introduced myself lest he think I was sneaking a picture of him	Drink-fixing!
Inderpreet Singh, the lead vocalist of the band Faridkot.
More people still coming in and being attended-to at the welcome-desk. Inderpreet and Gavin, rocking the beat!	Rajarshi Sanyal, guitarist for the band : Faridkot.
The drummer from the band Faridkot.
Akshat Nauriyal with the video camera.
@praval [ with the phone held high and @honeytech to his left.
"Religious Heads". This is when the crowd started wondering what was up! It got the conversation going.	After Faridkot had done their bit, the Diesel Democratic Party recruitment-speech came on alongwith a projector-aided presentation. Lots of noise at the party now!
The Diesel Democratic Party propaganda being handed out, urging us all to BE STUPID.
Some activity at last! Teams are being made and the crowd really starts to *party! I had no team identification and the girls on the "Most Wanted" team were nice enough to take me under their wing	Akshay Raheja from Faridkot. The DJ. [ Name anyone?! ]
People are really focusing on the agenda! Coming up with flag-designs and slogans even after being made happy at the bar!
Lots of movement happening now!
Participants showing off their ingenuity – a couple of the suggestions were in fact, quite good! Don’t forget to check out the two videos in the end – a short video of the Faridkot performance – I was too far to get good sound; and the Diesel Democratic Party Dance demo!	Sorry @praval – the actual writing on the flag got washed out in all the spotlighting
The fake currency, the DDP pamphlet and the ribbon badge of the Diesel Democratic Party. The fake currency has the date 22nd October 2010 mentioned on it and I have no clue whatsoever what’s in store!

So there you have it, a decent enough preview party / launch at a small scale – looking forward to the large-scale launch and hoping to catch some more action with Diesel! You can find Diesel India on Facebook and they are @diesel_in on Twitter.

I’ve been featured on the Profile column in the September issue of Grazia magazine. Photographs of the article on the pages of the magazine below. The article heading is “The new breed of power networkers” and features two other ladies : Rashmi Vaswani of Rage Chocolatier @rashmivaswani03 on Twitter and Padmini Harchandrani, @paddychop on Twitter.

Many thanks to Mamta Mody for writing a lovely feature – she captured my entire ramble-on-the-phone and boiled it down to it’s essence. And she was very patient with my incessant questions – “What photograph are you going to use? Can I see the article before it’s printed? When’s it getting out?” etc.

Apart from the fact that I’m thrilled about this feature – the awesome folks at Grazia also used a photograph that I shot myself – a self-portrait – so in the credits for the photographers, I’m mentioned too! Thanks to @akanksharedhu for letting me use her mirror for the photograph!

These are photographs from the first wedding I shot on my Nikon D90 – the camera was new and the photographs are now old – from February 2008. Wedding of Akanksha and Aman. Got around to editing the photographs over the weekend. First attempt at a sort-of story-telling style – with diptychs and triptychs.

The mehendi right before the start of all the ceremonies.

The bride dressed-up at the day of the engagement and more details photographs from the mehendi.

A game of cards at the groom’s home – just before all the formalities begin. Relaxing on the rooftop.

Much dancing ensued to welcome the bride and her family – the day and night of the Sangeet at the groom’s place.

the bride with brothers and best friend at the pre-wedding party.

All dressed-up for the engagement ceremony.

The groom waiting patiently for the engagement ceremony to begin.

The bride’s turn to wait patiently while the groom completes the customary “horse-ride” – an Indian wedding isn’t quite complete without a “ghodi”.

Some more dancing right before the engagement ceremony and a huge deal being made out of the horse-ride.

Even on-the-cheek kisses are a little risque at Indian weddings – but just after the engagement, it’s easy to get away with.

The just-engaged couple. I had to be present in the capacity of elder-sister during the actual ring exchange, hence no photographs of the actual engagement in process.

Jewelery being gifted and a lovely smile from the bride-to-be.

The newly-engaged couple.

The “official” photographer had put a small backdrop and light setup in the hall and the couple was whisked inside for some quick portrait shots. I got to shoot some too.

More posing at the behest of the official photographer. The couple is now starting to tire. But just when you think they’re done…

…he picks her up and…

…they exchange some more kisses!

The wedding ceremony, puja and havan – alongwith the seven rounds of the holy-fire – the “saat-pheras”.

Offerings being made to the fire and the ritual of taking the first step together after the seven rounds around the fire are complete.

A wider view of the wedding mandap.

More offerings to the fire, the mantras being recited and smiling bride.

And it’s almost done – some running around to find more offerings for the fire.

Somre more mantras and exchange of sweets.

The bride in a hip mood after being married : throwing the rice up and behind her to signify the “vidaai” or departure and the walkway decorated on her way out.

There are a lot of lovely little things in an Indian wedding – but if I knew the details of all of them, I’d be a wedding pundit, not a wedding photographer! Always a good thing to get details of all ceremonies before actually planning to shoot a wedding. The other wedding I’ve shot was for Bharat and Priyanka if you haven’t seen it already. There’s been a huge improvement in my photography and I’m looking forward to another wedding to cover!

I shot these photographs at the Pantene Mystery Shampoo event that declared the winner of their 14-day contest. Katrina is one of Pantene’s brand ambassadors and the winner was crowned by her. The last photograph shows the photograph of the winner with Katrina. The event was held at Hotel Taj Lands End, Bandra, Mumbai.

So YAY! The last shot was snapped by Bharat who had accompanied me to the event – and you can see I don’t even know how to stand properly I will be uploading more portraits of the people that I shot at the event later this week or next week after I’ve closed some of the branding projects I’m working on. With more details on who the organizers were and what the whole deal was about – links to videos etc.

This is a set of photographs from the special menu created by Kanishk who is preparing to be a Master Chef. Location courtesy : Quesa Lounge, Noida.

Shot on the Nikon D90. Photoshop levels and curves and exposure for post-production of images. We didn’t have a food stylist. There was Lamb guard of honour with whiskey honey glaze served with red wine reduction, Prawns in rum and filo pastry strips, Chicken Breasts with Pepper Vodka and mirin glaze served with balsamic reduction and Cognac & Mocha Cheese Oreo Souffle. The Balasmic Reduction and Red Wine Reduction were to die for. Yummy!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ].