All charged up

at Jewar in Uttar Pradesh. the astronomy trip was clouded out but there was another kind of show in the sky.

At work

Raining stars

stars rising just before dawn at Nuh, Harayana. this is a photograph totalling an exposure of around two and a half hours. below is a different way of seeing the same two and a half hours.
shortlisted in the Greenwich Astronomy Photographer of the year 2009.

Bollywood

outtakes from a shoot i did for Reid & Taylor. had to shoot while the TV commercial was being shot as we did not have separate time for the stills. agency: Ideas@work, Mumbai.

Orion

my first successful attempt at deep sky astrophotography. still light years to go. the Orion Nebula(M42) is the nearest star-forming region to the earth at a mere 1300 light years(approx.) located in the ‘sword’ of the Orion constellation(pic 2). astrophotographers are an obsessed lot spending nights of efforts for photographing something which eventually often looks like a hazy white patch in some noisy black photograph.
200mm f/5.6 lens, Nikon D90, Astrotrac, stack of 5 shots of various exposures, totalling around 7-8 minutes. Nuh, Haryana. Pic 2 - Crop from 18mm f/4.

Sounds and sights

shot in various places in India and Italy. the last one is on the way from Ajanta to Mumbai. Me and Gopi were driving back when we saw him walking along the highway. we asked him whether he wanted a lift. he was happy and sang bhajans till he got off after about a hundred kilometers.

Floors

Speak up

a campaign for the DNA newspaper in Mumbai promoting people’s participation in social causes. both outdoor and press. the last one was an outdoor at the mahim crossing in Mumbai, which is perpetually jammed. we had some hard hitting lines on some strong issues, but the client thought they would be ‘controversial’. we had to stick to the noncontroversial issues. still a pretty good campaign as it probably did some good.
2006. Rediffusion DYR, Mumbai. other credits: Hemant Anant Jain, Nikhil Ketkar.

Exhibition posters

posters with cutouts pasted on ‘abstract’ walls. campaign for an exhibition of abstract paintings.
2006, Rediffusion DYR, Mumbai. other credits: Mayuresh Wagle. one show merit.