—Categories: featured, travel photography, Uncategorized

Shot with Xiaomi Note 3

Before the recent launch of Xiaomi Note 3, I was commissioned by Xiaomi to use the phone-camera and create a collection of colourful images. Here is the set of images created during my assignment. Do have a look at the them below, and scroll down to read-on about my thoughts on photography with a mobile-phone.

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Until now, I hadn’t taken mobile-phone photography seriously. My slightly older smartphone did not have a very powerful camera. Although I kept reading about how much better the phone-cameras are becoming, I wasn’t too sure. Using the Xiaomi Note 3 helped me change my opinion about smart-phone cameras. Today’s phone-cameras can easily create good quality images, which could once be made only with a decent quality dedicated digital camera.

Continue reading Shot with Xiaomi Note 3…
—Categories: featured, myanmar, Uncategorized

Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival, Inle Lake, Myanmar

Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival

Also see: Our photography tour to Myanmar in October

It was a festival morning. About a hundred or so boats had gathered as a long thick band in the middle of the lake, waiting for the procession to pass by. A hundred boats would seem like a lot, but against the scale of the lake that is spread more than a hundred sq kilometers, the boats did not make up to much. As we approached the place of all the action, I heard the sound of bells at a distance to my left, somewhere in the vicinity of a monastery in Lin Kin Village. The procession was about to begin. Today’s procession was to take four Buddha idols of Phaung Daw Oo pagoda from Lin Kin to Nyaung Shwe town.

Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival

Inle Lake sets out for this festive celebrations every year in October-November months. The procession of Buddha images begins from their temple of residence–the Phaung Daw Oo pagoda–and crisscrosses every village in the lake taking eighteen days before returning home. Everyday, as Buddha moves from village to village, entire community gathers together to escort the parade with great fanfare. Every village decorates a long boat that will be part of the ‘boatcade‘. Each boat, carrying more than a hundred people rowing in sync to music, escort a gilded boat carrying the four golden Buddha images slowly glides over the lake. But one Buddha image continues to stay out of the festival.

Continue reading Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival, Inle Lake, Myanmar…
—Categories: photos

Banganga Tank and Mumbai Skyscrapers

I was in Mumbai earlier this month, and it was the first time I photographed the city’s outdoors. Few places can offer such diversity to a street/outdoor photographer as Mumbai does, thanks to it’s sheer size and contrasts.

Banganga Tank, Mumbai

Although this is not my first visit to the city, this is the first time I noticed how tall do Mumbai’s buildings seem to rise, in whatever little space available. I have seen many images of Mumbai with skyscrapers looming in the background and had assumed that they exist in the photographs by choice (of the photographer’s composition). They seemed to fit well in those compositions. During this visit to Mumbai, I realized that if your image has Mumbai’s skies, it is very unlikely that there are no skyscrapers, no matter which part of the city it is!