Mayank's Viewpoint

The Monsoon was generous in North India in 2010 and twice during the season, I found myself travelling in a bus on the Delhi-Jaipur highway during heavy downpours. As the bus moved, rain splattered on the glass window next to me and created on it what looked like streams! Owing to the almost opaque layer of moving water on the window, the scenery outside turned into background and kept changing as the bus progressed. Fortunately, on both occasions I was carrying compact cameras (Canon PowerShot A720 IS and Canon IXUS 105 IS / SD1300 IS) using which I tried to capture some of the painterly sights.

The dusk mood in a Jaipur (Rajasthan, India) park where I went regularly for winter evening walks fascinated me and I thought of capturing it with the compact camera that I carried in a waist pouch: Canon PowerShot A720 IS. Owing to low available light, some of the initial attempts to capture the mood were unsuccessful as most photographs came out shaky due to slow shutter speed, ISO 400 was the maximum I could go up to to retain reasonably good image quality with a small sensor cam. It then occurred to me that detail was not important in arresting the mood so I took a series of photograph using A720 IS’s manual focus mode, deliberately ‘unfocussing’ all the shots. With blurred photographs, camera shake ceased to be an issue and loss of detail enhanced the mood, imho. Here are some of the results (taken on March 18 and 19, 2010):

Here are some photographs taken in foggy conditions at Mount Abu, Rajasthan (in July 2007) and at Sultanpur National Park, Haryana (in March 2008). In both situations, I tried to make use of the two gifts that the fog offered: a natural impressionistic feel and natural isolation of elements.

Some more glimpses of nature, photographed during evening walks at Central Park, Jaipur (Rajasthan) India. These photographs were taken with a variety of compact digital cameras carried either in pockets or waist pouches.

Some more glimpses of nature, photographed during evening walks at Central Park, Jaipur (Rajasthan) India. These photographs were taken with a variety of compact digital cameras carried either in pockets or waist pouches.