Anirban Saha's

How many of you have seen this image below :

Did you laugh at it ? All seeming true. Isn’t it ? It wasn’t a fad when I started photography. It was not many years ago that I bought my camera.  A junior of mine inspired me to open a facebook page for my photographs. People appreciated. I’m happy about it. I am no one to lecture people around about specific do’s and dont’s,, But this post has a purpose. Read through.

This image has three sets of stake holders :  One who photographs and laughs at it. One who does not photograph and laughs at it. One who photographs and does not laugh at it.

So what makes it so laughable ? – The Indian youth, the kind of publicity Facebook offers or is it the Indian society’s mindset ?

Well, time to ponder upon. But before that ..few quick points :

As a facebook netizen, I get irritated because of the following :

1) Mass tagging : You click a photograph. However good or bad you know it is, you tag 40 odd people in it. 6 of them turned up to “like” it. Dear friends, respect your work. If your work is good, your heart gets satisfied at first. You do not require “like”s to tell your heart – “I’ve done a good job”. A good photograph, will always find viewers, (and definitely at Facebook). Please do not do this. ”Good thought, Good words, Good deed… leads to ultimate success” … is true to the rest of the world. For us in photography (if you are seriously in it ) “Good thought, Good frame, Good shot …leads to ultimate success”. See, even I used to tag people. That time, tagging wasn’t so mainstream and I had limited it. But with maturity, I felt this is unnecessary. People kept commenting on their photographs so that they would remain obnoxiously visible. I personally do not approve of the intention.

2) Requesting for a “good” review : Be open to criticism please. We are artists. If someone is spending some time of his/her’s, at least respect that effort. You might agree, or you might prefer not to. But be open to them; who knows, you might get a million dollar advice!  Do not ask a person (who is elder to you) “Dada, bhalo comment koro”. That comment in bengali roughly translates to “Elder brother, please leave for me a good comment”. If your work is good, your elders will always say its good work and will suggest betterment. If your photograph is bad, why did you upload it in the first place?

3) Creating a group chat, adding a hundred people and asking to comment : I shall get personal at this. If you want me to review it, please show respect and humility. Drop me the link to your photograph personally and I shall oblige.

As a person I get irritated when :

1) An young kid shows off his DSLR behaving as though he is some awesome photographer : He very well might be. But humility marks an artist.

2) Speaking all bull shit about another photographer : Well, that’s entirely personal and loosely related to photography. More of a personal trait. But friends, be honest. Be humble. Appreciate others’ work. Who knows you might get something interesting to learn from them ? Respect your seniors and more importantly – contemporaries.

For a moment, let’s not laugh at it. I really did not intend to crack a joke. But if you have managed to laugh in between, let us find time to laugh at you. Why do we point at a handful of  Indian Youth, generalise them and make ourselves believe that, that is the picture of the entire nation ?

Personally speaking, all the 5 points I pointed out previously would hardly manage to gather near 200 heads in my 2500+ photographers in my facebook friend list. Can I say that all of the young photographers in my profile ask from me “good comments” ? Can I claim that all of them, creates a group and send links ? Perhaps, no. Even I was generalising.

We need to understand that times are changing. We require to shift our attention from traditional Computer science or whatever engineering, medical or whatever traditional to more creative aspects. If they are interested, let us guide them.

Let us not impose on them our thoughts, or laugh at their aspirations. Let us encourage freedom.

Not everyone is bad. If we carry out statistical analysis among the Indian youth who hold the camera, we will see :

1) An overwhelming majority will be under the age of 22. That’s precisely college and school students.

2) A very good percentage shall be of people who REALLY want to learn and is not getting proper guidance. Youtube cannot suffice always.

Now what has Facebook done ? They bring to these young people good photographs to inspire them. The youth stands inspired today. All these Name-Surname-Photography is an exhibition of their aspirations. They express their frustration when they are not guided properly. All the mass tagging, messaging and stuff are exhibitions of a mix of expectations and frustration.

They wish to be guided, They wish to be visible and a pat on their back shall work wonders, trust me.

I was/am a regular face at Kolkata Weekend Shoots. And if you happen to read this, you already know where I post my photographs. Online, I started a group – “Amateur Photographer Unit Pan India”. It got moderately good response. This is where I started knowing each of members personally. I took it offline with “The Meetup Group : Photography Discussions” and now see this :

Prashant Awasthi, Srivatsan Sankaran and Me just enhanced the concept of my previous initiatives to make “Journal of Indian Photography“. Few people said that we have many such “pages”. How much of the response shall we get ?

Now be informed :  This page is 15+ days old. We did not “tag” people. We did not “mass share” links. I personally invited few people.
This page has 1219 members right now. I am blessed, we found very good help from people we look up to : Mr Sayantan Mitra , Sapna Reddy, Mr Trilochan Kalra ..and their friends. Among my contemporaries we found Raghav, Rammohan Paranjape, Antony Pratap , Arundhati Chatterjee, Karthik Pashupathy, Kartikeya Jain, Vishnu Sivanandan.

We conducted a contest.. That’s Contest#1 : “My best shot”. We have more than 141 people participating in it. The youngest of the lot being a 15 year old guy Kushaghra from Kolkata who photographed with his iPhone. We had 16 year olds participating. the average age was near 22 I guess (I shall come out with the complete statistics), spread over – Delhi , Lucknow, Agra, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Nagpur, Kolkata and different parts of Bengal, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati .. Such is the impact.

Yes friends, who laughed at the first poster – Such IS THE IMPACT. We all want to learn.  Let us not curb any young feeling. We might have had bad examples. But that’s extremely few. I would not say that the entries are master pieces. We all can become better. We require encouragement.

We have NOT set a specific agenda for “Journal of Indian Photography”. It is open to anyone who wants to join. It is open to any idea, you would like to give. It is open to any suggestion for its betterment. If you happen to read this from any part of India, and want to join in, help spread awareness, help share knowledge …feel free to join in.

For a moment, let us not take the short cut.

For a moment let us not laugh at the poster.

For a moment let us just not walk that extra mile to make the difference.

For a moment let us walk that extra mile to “FEEL THE DIFFERENCE”.

It’s an incredible journey, trust me.

Disclaimer : I am not an acclaimed photographer. I work in TCS because I love programming.  I’m just another person who refuse to curb freedom.

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I just noticed, that this space was not updated for the last 1 month and more than 20 days. Quite contrary to the Anirban Saha people knew in 2009.. well, he posted two posts in one single day !
So what have I been up to ?
Let me see, if I can script it down with few photographs.

March 1 : I bought Nikon D7000. Ever since then, I am advised not to lift the camera Thanks Spondilities.

In the photograph : Akriti Singh.
March 3 – 5 : My Shantiniketan shoot with few other photographers. It was interesting and my second attempt with studio lights. Made some incredible friends in Indrani Chowdhury, Priyasha, Akriti. Later during return, had a spat with few of the “recognised” photographers regarding reproduction of the photographs. Decided not to post the shoot photographs. Posted 2 collages’ Facebook cover photograph resolution for Akriti and Priyasha. Did not process the rest.

March 9 : Organised a small photoshoot, the photographs of which are already updated in this blog

In the photograph : Pratyay Mukhopadhyay
March 27 : Boshonto Utsav in Shantiniketan. Some outing with my mom and an exclusive one. She proved herself to be my mom and rightfully so It was one mad trip with different permutation and combination of sorts. First, one of my cousins were supposed to go, then she cancelled it. That morning I messaged Pratyay and Rudra about the plan. They readily agreed. Got a car, left home at 1:30 am.. reached Shantiniketan at 5:15 am… and what a day ! Had fun with Rudra, Pratyay, Koustav, Tanishta and her friend and family.

The blog post for the same was in the form of an adda ( discussion over a cup of tea ) and was well received.  Did not expect such a warm response. Thanks Arko Sen, Aurindam, Achira, Samya. The adda needs to be bigger, needs to get better.
March 15 – March 28 : Got to understand my teacher Sounak Chattopadhyay from a closer distance. There is so much to learn from him, and when I say this I do not necessarily mean music. He, as a person, as a leader is perhaps a better imposing figure. A lot to learn, I tell to myself.

The photograph : Kalamandir, March 29.. Sounak Chattopadhyay’s music school Chinton’s presentation “Ronger Jhorna”

March 29 :  I got to share the stage with Indrani Sen. That’s perhaps a bigger achievement than me singing there.  Indrani Sen shall never get to know what she means to me, my sister and the entire family. Her’s was the first cassette we bought after boro jethu gifted a tape recorder. The last track : Dure kothaye, dure dure…. happened to be my Grand mom’s favourite. That was one of the primary introduction to Rabindrasangeet. Everything so changed after having come to dum dum park.  Oh yes, I sang there… with a gang of other “Sounak’s students”. I was shit scared. But it turned out well.
It was shown sometime later in Tara Muzik. They showed me properly among the others Okay, this is lame but it made me happy

Photographs by Sayon Kumar Saha

April 15 : Narayan Puja at my home. Kapu got her new and official name ” Aishaani “. Thats’ another name of Maa Durga. So she has three proper names now : Aishaani (meaning Maa Durga) Saadhvi (meaning Maa Durga) and Indrani (because she was born on a Tuesday) Phew.
It was an incredible feeling feeding Kapu (Aishaani, Saadhvi and soon she will have 108 names like Maa Durga) with the first rice (Anna-prashan). No words can perhaps explain the feel.
Supratik “ar or bou”(and his wife, as my daddy uncool puts it) was invited and we had an awesome evening together.

In the photograph : Choto-Thakuma and Kapu (Aishaani)

April 21 : The highlight of the day was  - Choto thakuma (youngest of all my grand mothers) came to our home. She is the next best person after my Grand mom. The entire family (including my jijaji – Soumen) came to our home and I got a slice of my childhood I had to feed Kapu with fish (better pronounced as phish!) and rice. :/

No images for the next event. :/

May 6 : RJ Arvind (Radio One) called me and told he will interview me. I had no clue. I kept on thinking what was happening.

May 8 – 9 : I actually gave the interview. It was fun. All my English were edited out. My bengali were kept and I stammered. I should  be ashamed of myself. I stammer in my own mother tongue. Sometime soon, I want to speak about Tagore ( If I am given a chance that is) in Bengali.  It went on air on May 9. I sound so kiddish :/ TagoreQuotes.in got a huge promotion on May 9. RJ Arvind very entrepreneurally shared my photographs in his facebook profile. Okay, I must admit :  It was weird. ..well, happy, weird, shy .. Come on, my vocabulary isn’t that good ! …and warm thanks to RJ Arvind and Aninda Das. Looking forward to some more work, and this time I will definitely not sing :/

In the photograph : Soumitra Chatterjee (Does he require an introduction anyway ? He has been taking the film makers by a storm across the globe, he being Apu, or capturing the fantasy of Bengali intellectual youth being Feluda. )

May 19 : I photographed Mr Soumitra Chatterjee. This was not a regular Saturday. Not in all Saturday’s I sit with a LEGEND at his work place and at his home listening to him and photographying him. The mettle of the Legend. #respect

 — * —

..and in between, I had tension at office, at home.. my health.. Things started getting solved by themselves. Well, I guess problems and dependencies are now a regular part of life. I can not be that young kid who always nodded at the good stuff But then again, who wants bad to ever happen? We all work and work hard for the better, to be better, to experience better and yes, live better. While, I was writing this, I realised.. in this game of life, superheroes aren’t reality. Perhaps, the littlest bit you do from your heart for others make you a super hero in their eyes. And for you to do good… don’t worry, stick to your dreams. Coexistence is the rule of this game.

By the way, I had some incredible time with family. Kids, are the best thing to happen to any household I believe. Kapu made my dad.. (yes, MY dad) a 62 year old kid. And my family includes all the incredible kids who are my friends –  Harshit, Sayon, Surya, Basak, Avishek Rakshit, Shrija, Tanishtha,  and Sayan ! Instead of blabbering, let me paste some photographs. 

First photograph courtesy in the last section : Aishwarya Das. Last photograph : Koustav Ghosh.

None of my posts under this category ends like this. So, here goes my thank you list. Trust me, each of my friends are God sent. I believe in that. Thank you Abhinav (da), Tapashree (di), Animesh (da), Arunodaya (da), Shashank (da) Anirudhha (da) Anupam (da) Sunit Siddharth Mayank Pranai for all the encouragement in office. Darwin, Sathish and Balaji – God bless. Sounak Chattopadhyay (my teacher), Shekhar kaku … thank you for all the encouragement. Aninda Das, RJ Arvind thank you for the honour, Mr Saptarshi Roychowdhury, Indrani, Priyasha, Akriti, Saikat, Koushik, Pratyay, Rudra.. thank you. Harshit, Sayon, Koustav, Surya, Sayan, Avishek, Prashant, Srivatsan for being such an incredible family. Toushik for the mad last sunday ! Well, my didi… giving birth to Kapu is possibly the best thing she has ever done Hahahhaha… signing off. God bless.

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Glimpses,small talks, photographs of Boshonto and fond memories, adda that can never be scripted down.

বাতাস ছুটিছে বনময় রে, ফুলের না জানে পরিচয় রে।
তাই বুঝি বারে বারে কুঞ্জের দ্বারে দ্বারে
শুধায়ে ফিরিছে জনে জনে॥

ওরে ভাই, ফাগুন লেগেছে বনে বনে–
ডালে ডালে ফুলে ফুলে পাতায় পাতায় রে,
আড়ালে আড়ালে কোণে কোণে॥

~ কবি গুরু রবিন্দ্রাথ ঠাকুর

বাঁচার ঋতু , প্রানের ঋতু , ভালবাসার ঋতু … ভালো লাগার ঋতু – আমার বসন্ত ঋতু। বাসের জানালা দিয়ে দেখতে পাচ্ছি ফুটপাথের ভিকিরির গায়েও এক মুঠো আবির ঢেলে দিয়েছে কেউ। হাসছে সে, হাসুক। সুর্য তার সমস্ত্য আলো দিয়ে আকাশ সাজিয়েছে। আর সাজিয়েছে বাসন্তিকাকে, যার এক ঝলক রূপে জালিয়ে দিল চোখ। আমার পুড়িয়ে দিল চোখ। আগুন লাগলো মনে মনে। সেই আগুনের আঁচে বস্তি তে ভাত ফুটছে। মা উকুন বাচছে মেয়ের। বসন্ত এখানেও। তাই বুঝি মাতাল বর তা আজকে মদ ছয়েনি। আর সে মদে আকাশ বিভোর করে চাঁদ উঠেছে। বসন্ত এসেছে, আমার বসন্ত।

~ সাম্য কার্ফা

A flash of fiery red; A dash of burnt auburn.
A splash of bright orange.
An explosion of sunburst hues .
I close my eyes. And smile.

Because I see with my closed eyes, the willowy boughs of the palaash tree, as if it stood before me.
Laden with the blessings of bloom, it sways hypnotically in the sweet spring breeze, like a snake sways to the music of a snake charmer’s pipe.
It swoops down and shimmies up with the rhythm of the wind, and it paints red all over its invisible canvas.

A spring in your step ; A smile on your lips.
A sparkle in your eyes.
Colour on your cheeks.
Feel life. Feel alive.
Boshonto. What does it play in your mind?

~ Imon

That slight bitter-clay taste of Abir in your mouth.
That slight crinklyness of your skin that is often the only reminder that you are not who you are for now.
That heady smell, that dusty, earthy, heady smell, which intoxicates even sans the bhaang!
The fingerprints you leave on everything you touch.
You’re afraid to go clean yourself, because that will only get you further painted, because no one is who they are… Yep, it’s holi.

~ Arko Sen

On this day, friendships are made, strengthened and kept. Ushering Spring with the festival of colors at Shantiniketan, it’s something worth your time. When you see those smiling faces, find yourself in the middle of thousands of people singing Rabindra sangeet on a bright sunny day, an unequivocal thought lingers in your mind all day long.. It’s all about love.

~ Aurindam Mukherjee

Life seems a whole lot brighter as small children dressed in sarees of every hue possible took to the stage amidst a hearty burst of the Rabindrasangeet being sung by the choir then…6 to 60, all putting in their contribution to the rainbow of melody which colours the sky. The performances end at around 9:30 and then starts the revelry, students and tourists alike smearing abir on each other, teasing and laughing, The mirth in their voices, mixed together in perfect unison. There seems to be no archness of manners, no unnecessary sophistication attached to the celebrations, everyone bent on enjoying the one day of freedom from their bondage of regularity to the utmost. The air around changes colour as the mood changes, the day getting more exciting as it nears to a close…

~ Achira Dasgupta

..while in the adda, I did not know how to participate. This city bred guy who has spent years trapped in the jungle of concrete and in fear of colours… what would he contribute to, in the discussion ?
It was yesternight when I was sitting by the side of my open window, doing I do not remember what. The music playlist came to an end. The world seemed to have come to stand still. ভিশন দম বন্ধ করা নিশস্তব্ধ।
I hate this feeling of being suffocated. I played the other set of tracks on. আমি তাঁরেই খুঁজে বেড়াই যে রয়ে মনে , আমার মনে, আমার মনে … আমি তাঁরেই খুঁজে বেড়াই। How beautifully Ustad Amjad Ali Khan added to Tagore, how beautifully, he has taken this song to an entirely different dimension.
Dreams …you perhaps can never plan them.
Wishes …you perhaps can never guide them.
Depths of the human heart – you perhaps can never gauge them.
The colours of Shantiniketan’s Boshonto Utsav still fresh in my mind, the full moon with its grace spelling her magic. I closed my eyes,

ও আমার চাঁদের আলো,
ধরা দিয়েছ যে আমার পাতায়ে পাতায়ে ডালে ডালে।
মোর অন্গিনায়ে বাজলো গো, বাজলো সেই সুর আমার প্রানের তালে তালে।

Trance again. Took me away to another world. Its fun, its fun to see how we all deny our hearts at times. ..specially at times, when our nature paints it with its’ colours.. the colours of spring, how true. The colours of change, how true. The welcoming of warmth, how true ! The colours that slowly define us, ..how true.

মুগ্ধ কোকিল মুখর রাত্রি দিন যাপে,
মর্মরিত পল্লবিত সকল বন কাঁপে।
দশ দিশি সুরম্য সুন্দর মধুর হেরি,
দুঃখ হল দূর সব-দৈন্য-অবসানে॥
নিবিড় অন্তরতর বসন্ত এল প্রাণে।
নিবিড় অন্তরতর বসন্ত এল প্রাণে।

Adda friends :

Photographs by Pratyay Mukhopadhyay, JU 3rd year Civil Engineering student. “Like” his page in Facebook.

…and Anirban Saha, umm the host

Personal note :
It feels incredible to have them in the adda. Aurindam is a JU passout and one of my oldest twitter-made friend. Arko Sen, is perhaps one of the most creative persons I have met. PS : An awesome programmer too! His “About me” is interesting. It reads, ” just an egoistic ill-phisyqued arrogant unattractive weird eccentric narcissistic misanthropic philogynistic nihilistic postmodernistic objectivistic hetero-techno-retro-sapiosexual male.” Haha.
Achira Dasdupta, is not new in this blog. Always bubbly, enthusiastic …and English honours student !
Samya is a person, I befriended very recently. A writer by passion, he already has his writings published at many newspaper. And guess what ? He is doing his masters in Chemistry. When he gets poetic, I make it a point to keep shut. I fear spoiling his sense!
Imon, too is an old friend of mine. Not very frequently do we talk, but when we do, she always make sense. Strict, sensible… and at times I feel, how come she is my friend? Haha.
Pratyay, by now you know – He is a champ ! It is his photographs that encouraged me to this adda.
And, the omni present Tagore, amidst all of us.

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Not sure, if I shall be publishing my model shoot #2 ( Shantiniketan ) photographs any time soon. Model shoot #3 happened in less than a week’s time and was an experience in itself.
I definitely have to improve on my lighting and post processing skills. All theory knowledge and zero practical is so not good
I am looking forward to some theme based shoots / outdoor next time

About this shoot :
Shot at Camerena studio at e-mall, Chandni Chowk, Kolkata.
It was a pleasure having Souvick Saha as a guide. He is a very senior male model in the industry and a very warm person. Pratick Jaiswal is doing good in this fashion industry. In this short span of time, he has made a place for himself. Sreeja Sarkar is few tele-films old and it was a pleasure working with her too. Achira Saha is my elder sister. No other face came to my mind when we thought of middle aged Bengali beauty.
An honest confession : I was actually under huge pressure and started doing things wrong in the middle of the shoot. Rahul Roy Chowdhury and Sutanu Das came to the rescue. Got to learn a lot about light setup from Sutanu Das. Later, I came to know he is a very renowned photographer himself

Achira’s costume was designed by Indrani Chowdhury. Her brand name is Invokee. She too, is extremely talented and has made a good place for herself in the industry. Saikat Nandy did the makeup and I tell you – he is a champ ! He takes up challenges and delivers them effortlessly. This was my second work with them.
And this shoot too was a work with Sayon Kumar Saha. The edit was guided by Srivatsan Sankaran and Prashant Awasthi.

I have not finished editing all the photographs. Sharing only a few.

Photograph courtesy : Anirban Saha Photography
Contact : +91 9903055542
email : mailme@anirbansaha.com
All rights reserved.
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While in the middle of the procession, one naga looked at me and scratched his head !

Friends, thank you for the encouragement. This is the second set of photographs I took while inside, right in the middle of the Naga procession. Many friends asked me, why I had to sneak into the Naga procession to photograph them.. The police we shouting and lathi charging all people with or without a camera. One of the Police shouted at me “Please matlab hato!” (Yes, what ever that meant) but I managed to make good terms with a lady police officer. One senior police took me to the starting of the street and asked me to photograph from there. Now that I am mad and if you happen to know me, you shall know how I am.. I decided to sneak into it and feel how it is like to be one of them, with ashes on my body, running and roaring “Har Har Mahadev”.  And yes, photographying them as well.

Ganga Arati Feb 9, 2013 *Amavasya time started*. © anirban saha . com

After mid night. © anirban saha . com

When I decided to sneak into the Naga procession, dodging Police’s attention.© anirban saha . com

Har Har Mahadev… © anirban saha . com

Photographying them while they were running roaring “Har Har Mahadev”, and yes ! Dodging the Police at the same time, isn’t an easy job. But it was fun. © anirban saha . com

Dance of the Nagas while in procession. My priceless moment. © anirban saha . com

Another set of Nagas © anirban saha . com

After the Dip, the walk of the Nagas © anirban saha . com

This is the link to my first blog post about My Kumbh Experience.

Photograph courtesy : Anirban Saha Photography
Contact : +91 9903055542
email : mailme@anirbansaha.com
All rights reserved.
“Like” Anirban Saha Photography at Facebook

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