Little Girl and Her Smile

Here is a little girl from a nearby village. I like her expression a lot. I find her restricted smile hiding a life that is too hard for us to comprehend. Her eyes tell a story to me. 

Steps To The Ganges

Among the things that pull me towards Kolkata, one is the ghats. There is a life over there at the break of dawn that makes me feel one with something very beautiful. I do not know what it is. But somewhere inside I feel extremely happy when I see people taking dip in the Ganges, washing clothes, or simply sitting and looking at it. The ghats are not as congested as those at Benaras. But simple and attractive. It feels like I am looking at a culture that has been there not only for hundreds of years, but will be there for ever. Yes. I know it will be there. Mother Ganga will go on pulling us towards it no matter how gigantic a mall comes up. 

Photographing Children

A tiny tot with an ice cream. This is my favourite.

Photographing children is a delight for me. I love children, their straight-forwardness and their brilliant smiles. I have been doing a lot of street photography these days. So I do not get much time to come online and post my pictures. Here are three of my favourite street photographs of children. 

This following one is of a few village children. I made friendship with them at Joydev Mela and managed to get a lively picture. It is very important to become a part of them before you take their pictures. They must be natural in front of the camera. In this picture I like the shyness of the girls. It adds a flavour to the picture.

I shot the following one just three days ago. It was a pleasure to photograph these street children from the pavements of Bidhan Sarani. They ran up to me when they saw me with a camera. And I got a great opportunity. I entertained them a lot by carrying out a photo session of them and their parents. It was a wonderful experience for them as well as for me. I was happy to see their amusement when they saw their pictures on the LCD of my camera. It was something new to them. 

I hope my readers like these pictures. Photography, for that matter any art, is very hard to practise if you want to make it to a laudable position. It is not easy and mere 'eyes' is not enough. It is more than that. It is everything from people management and street smartness to good knowledge of your equipment and its limitations. It is a lot of hard work. Given the kind of time and hard work that it demands, ony those people, whose living depends on it, can practise it to the depth. So it seems that things are pretty bleak for me.