Journal Image » Streets

Candid Street Portraits from Kolkata – Using Props to Spice Up Portraits

Ranjay Mitra — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:16:35 +0000

Sometimes street portraits could appear very dull & monotonous. Though portraying daily life is the essence of street images, props are often required to spicy things up a bit.

I shall talk about props in a bit. In this picture, two devotees of Hindu Goddess Kali are spending a quiet moment on a joint. They spent an hour, intermittently smoking & sharing niceties & talking of various philosophical aspects of life!

The device they use is called a “Chhileem” in the local language & very similar to a local cigar. Rudimentary in construction, this tiny device could deliver a serious shock to anyone not used to the raw smoke of tobacco.

They were a little hesitant for me to take their pictures. Their concern came from being ill-advertised to the younger generation. Although smoking from these “Chhileems” and similar cigars are restricted to finding the special type of tobacco, they are widely spread amongst the devotees’ population along the Ganges.

While doing a few studio shots in Connecticut, the model, an old gentleman had given me a great deal of information on props for studio shots using Cigars

He had mentioned some famous Smoke Shops that feature some of the finest Cohiba cigars, Macanudo cigars and all other major cigar brands. These are some of the finest & available online at http://www.famous-smoke.com/. So anytime I have a studio photo shoot with a cigar smoking model, I know where to order some!

The image above is shot on a Nikon D200 with on camera speedlight set on -2 ev & using a wide angle lens.

Journalimage.com Launched

Ranjay Mitra — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:29:34 +0000

From: Photoduniya.com

We have finally launched journalimage.com, a website & blog specifically for street candid pictures and documentaries. After having your trust & readership for almost two years, your constant feedback, suggestions for more concentrated street photography and encouragement have convinced us to move ahead with journalimage.com.

If you have not started already, I would be very eager to hear from you on your experience with street photography. And as for the tool to share, WordPress is the best. I have spent sufficient time pondering over various blogs and tools, but I have not found one that could hold a candle against WordPress. It is as easy to set up as it is a pleasure to publish.

I shall keep posting on this blog too, but do update your bookmark with journalimage.com.

Back in New York

Ranjay Mitra — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:01:10 +0000

After a few years in California, I am back in New York. While the New York City remains the biggest attraction for all the street photography, the upstate also gives me the chance to do quite some nature photography. So I shall start posting my New York pictures once I start going over to the city.

California, and San Francisco in particular, had a lot of me. I still have a lot of street pictures from San Francisco and I shall keep posting them sporadically.