So now, the free calendar that I mentioned in the last blog post about personal reflections on 2009......

Comment about your reflections on 2009 and/or hopes for 2010 to have a chance at winning it...

The calendar is customized with pictures clicked by me. I can give away only one, so will have to choose someone! Probably will do a random lucky draw of all the commenters.

I also have free Google Wave invites to give away so, even if you can't get a calendar you can always get those. Send me your email id for a Google Wave invite!

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Kalaghoda festival is happening again in Mumbai! In my previous post I have mentioned how much I enjoy these events. Currently the mini festival is going on which is only for couple of days. The area is all festive and bubbly again. I took some videos, when it was just beginning and the stalls were getting set up, do take a look.







I really enjoy this way of recording some of my visual experiences and also sometimes thoughts on them and sharing them with you!

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My last post about my troubles with online photography got quite a few responses on LinkedIn and Twitter, which gave me some insight into the post processing of photographs. You can read the exchanges on Linked In here:

Women on Photography
Professional Photography

Summing some ideas here:
- Photoshop/Gimp: Post processing snaps quickly by automatic watermarking and scaling or doing it in batches
- Outsourcing: to services like Studioworkroom or Lightroom (but these cost!).
- Web Software: a service (Free) to do scaling/watermarking in batches like FastStone (via @tsuvik). This one looks good, but haven't tried it yet.

I also came across this Photography blog, looks really good! I am really amazed by how helpful people can be via social media!

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When I got my cyber shot I was quite excited, I could now put up pictoral content on my blog, social networks etc.. However once I got the pics I realised that uploading a photo is not all there is to online photography.

- Watermarking
To avoid misuse of my photos I have to put watermarks on it. Being a image editing duh it took me a while to learn it.. even then watermarking the images I wanna put up takes its share of time.

- Resolution Scaling
Due to many reasons lowering the resolution of the snap before upload is a better option. It lowers the file size which leads to faster uploads and quicker web page loading. Also it allows me to upload more files on sites that have a upload limit. This again takes some time per snap.

- Organizing
This is something I am still working on. I click photos when I see something interesting or when with friends/family, but then what? In just a couple of weeks I have clicked over 800 photos. 500 have been deleted or sent to the respective friends and then deleted. This still leaves me with 300 photos that I wanna keep. Lot of organizing!

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Recently a Facebook friend asked me to create his modeling portfolio. We went for a shoot last weekend. Quite a fascinating experience where we learned a lot. Both of us cause he was new to modeling so he had to work on his poses, looks etc.. while I needed to pay attention to the lighting, image quality along with suggesting him poses and stuff.

All in all fun stuff! Check out the images, let me know what you think.

Took some snaps on my way to Coimbatore, to have my difficult conversations ;P

Lately I have been busy creating my online photography portfolio. I think my photographs are pretty good and am looking for freelance photography assignments as a way to better my skill and get paid!

I took a good look at available portals out on the web, and have come up with these solutions. These can also help you if you wanna create your photography portfolio too!

Photo Blog
Upside: I personally really like this idea, cause I am already familiar with the blogging interface. Its easy to take some cool theme maybe a black one (like this blog) to put up photos. I chose a wordpress blog, which has a theme called Monotone. Its pretty impressive! This theme is especially good for horizontally wide photos.

Downside: Upper limit (in the basic free version) of 3GB, but if you think about it that is a LOT of space.

Examples:
Mine
Paul Snows

Flickr
Upside: Flickr is great cause it has a huge photo community. So this way you can connect with a lot of fellow photographers within the city.

Downside: Flickr also has a limit of 100MB photos a month and 2 videos. Which is quite ok. Especially for a portfolio you shouldn't need more than this.

Examples
My Flickr
Sudhamshu's flickr (Sudhamshu is my twitter friend)

Behance
Upside: This is a photography, graphic design, illustrations, typography and other arts community. Good to connect with other people here, especially if you are into graphic design or any other arts also.
No upload limits!

Downside: When I did a search through my address book, none of my contacts were here. So it is as of now more abroad centric, not too many Indians there.

Examples
My Behance
Prajeesh's Behance (Prajeesh is my only contact on Behance yet!)
Ijazz's Behance (Ijazz is some stranger, he has lot of buzz on Behance)

Its open only via invitation so if you want an invite, contact me.

Slideshare
Upside: You can make a powerpoint on Slideshare, good way to present to a client! You can even send it via email! Its Quick!

Downside: To make changes, you will have to delete the initial one, then re-upload the new ppt.

Examples
Mine
Desert Photos
Egypt Photos

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