Light and Nature

Seeing Things ..

Karan Kauchhur — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 04:16:25 +0000

No! not like “Seeing Things” which don’t exist, but to see things that do exist… differently. Lets see if I can explain this clearly. When you are shooting landscape and nature and the light is beautiful you tend to miss out on finer aspects while creating the image. I usually, like most photographers do some scouting before the magic hour to find a nice spot and set up my gear and wait for the right light. But sitting around doing nothing would waste a lot of time. I use that time to observe things around me, sometimes you can get a good abstract out of finer details.

The shot above I created while waiting at Island beach SP. I liked the pattern on the sand. I put a ND filter on the lens and with a simple lens zoom trick I created the shot. Its simple and good use of time and works as an abstract.

The above two shots of the frozen surface of the lake created in Harriman SP in NY. I was driving up to Bear mountain and on the way I stopped on a few spots and noticed these.. thought would make a nice abstract.

This one was at Sandy Hook Beach, yet again waiting for the sunset. The tide was coming in and these small rocks were interrupting the smooth flow of the waves.

This shot I created in Ocean Grove. The low tide was creating these interesting lines moving back and forth. Probably had something to do with the texture of the beach sand. I also used these patters as leading lines in one of the Pier shot.

Tagged: abstract, abstract images, beach, composition, lakes, New Jersey, nikon, photography

Jersey Shores

Karan Kauchhur — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 19:17:28 +0000

The New Jersey Shore line is a little over 200 miles of coastline spanning from Sandy Hook all the way to Cape May in the south. I have visited and photographed most part of the shoreline. My favorite being the Sandy Hook and Cape May point. Its a popular vacation destination on the East Coast. Unfortunately we were hit by a devastating Hurricane Sandy in Oct’12 and that has pretty much ruined most of the coastal communities and state parks.

Its been over two months now since Sandy, but most part of the coastline is still closed for visitors. Last week I drove down to Island Beach SP and just a few miles before the entrance, there was a barricade beyond which no one is allowed. Today I checked for Sandy-Hook and that’s shut down too. It sucks not to be able to go back there now. I hope they open it by Summer time, else the tourism industry would take a huge financial hit. I was quite bummed about it, was going through some pics I had made in the last two years and thought will share with you all. Hope you enjoy them:

Lawrence Harbor

Asbury Park

Barnegat Lighthouse

Island Beach SP

Sunset Beach, Cape May

Ocean Grove

Broken Pier at Ocean City

Sandy Hook

Tagged: beach, coastal, jersey, jersey shores, long exposure, lowlight, New Jersey, nikon D7000, NJ, photography, shores, travel

2012 in review

Karan Kauchhur — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 16:19:22 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

iNstaKaRan

Karan Kauchhur — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 03:44:14 +0000

I’ve not picked up my camera in about 3 months now, thanks to my stupid injury in September. Actually the injury was pretty serious, but the way I got injured was pretty stupid. I was walking down the stairs and missed a step and twisted my right ankle. Got two torn ligaments and my foot looked like Hulk’s foot.. except that it wasn’t green but Blue/Black. Was decommissioned for 2 months and bedridden for a month. So, I have not really created an image in a long time.

Mostly sitting around at home I was trying to figure out ways to do more with my time. So, I installed Instagram and started recycling my images with it. I’m not in particularly impressed with the App, but it does give a whole new twist to the images. Its pretty good with regular cellphone shots, no denying that. However, I gave it a try and was decently satisfied. So if you guys are on Instagram do connect, My id is instakaran.

Tagged: instagram, karan kauchhur, photographer, photography

Let there be NATURAL LIGHT !

Karan Kauchhur — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 22:45:09 +0000

One of the most important rule I have learnt about landscape photography is to capture the right kind of light. Just like any other rookie, initially I scouted for locations and created images. Not that it is wrong to do that, a great location makes a huge difference. The problem comes when you travel to a great location and shoot average images which anyone could shoot. Although I always knew at the back of mind that I need to shoot at “Golden Hours” because that’s when the light is right. But I never knew its importance until I compared my shots with the top landscape photographers in the US. The main difference apart from many other differences, I realized the natural light they captured along with the great location made the image incredibly awesome. Needless to say, in order to improve my images I started shooting during the Golden Hours as well and started getting great results.

However, that was not good enough for me. Every good landscape photographer I spoke to mentioned “Light” as their first rule along with location and other things. So, I thought to myself, if Light is such an important part of an image then the “Right” kind of Light should make an ordinary location look awesome too. The image below is an example of such. This is a spot in Sandy Hook Beach in new Jersey. I have made “believe it or not” more than 20 unique photographs in the same location. And I don’t mean a 1 mile radius, I mean 50 steps radius at the most. What makes every image unique? It’s the “LIGHT” along with other composition techniques. Its a very simple shot, with soft light at sunset falling on the dramatic clouds with a slight long exposure to capture the motion of the waves.

This image landed up as SIGMA Corp’s Fan Photo of the Week. The image below is of the exact same spot, except that I am looking North instead of east. The clouds are not so dramatic, however the afterglow after the sunset is crazy here, and makes the image so much more interesting.

So, my theory was proven correct. And this was important because it helped my improve the quality of my images a lot. All Pro Photogs know and understand this, and that’s why they make quality images. I thought of putting this blog for the rookies who might underestimate the power of Right Light in Landscape Photography.

Tagged: afterglow, beach, composition, golden hours, landscape photographer, long exposure, natural light, New Jersey, nikon D7000. sigma 10-20mm, photographer, photography, right light, sandy hook beach in new jersey, sunset

Skyline NY

Karan Kauchhur — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 01:06:52 +0000

A week before I screwed up my right foot, I took my Mom and Grandmom for an outing to Liberty SP, in Jersey. Funny thing is that I have lived here for over 2 years, and have never made a trip there. To my surprise there was a fantastic paved cycle route there. The state park is quite peaceful and beautiful, and I look for such places to go on Sundays for bike rides. For me that was not the ‘only’ best part. From there you get to see a beautiful view of the Brooklyn Skyline, and Manhattan skyline from a slight more distance. I used to generally drive to Hoboken to get the view. Overall quite enjoyed the place. There is a Ferry ride from there to Ellis Island and Statute of Liberty Island.

Anyways, so I was carrying my Camera bag and tripod. I was hoping to catch the sunset there. I thought it would be dramatic, because there were a lot of clouds that evening and a storm was brewing. I did not get much sun light though, so I waited a while for more clouds to come. The resulting are the images below:

I always feel that NYC is best seen in B&W, so I could not resist making two versions of the same image.

I tried to capture both the skylines in one shot, but unfortunately the Manhattan Skyline was a bit to far for a wide angle lens.

And this is the 9/11 memorial created on the Jersey side. We wen there just 2 days before the anniversary, else would have captured the Twin Lights as well. Also don’t forget to check out the ‘Goodies’ page for free Facebook Cover and Desktop Wallpaper of these images.

Tagged: 9/11, brooklyn, manhattan, memorial, New Jersey, New York, nyc, photography, skyline, travel, urban

Broken Pier

Karan Kauchhur — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:54:11 +0000

I have been looking for this spot for quite some time now. I saw couple of shots of this pier on 500px and Flickr, but for some reason nobody had put the location to this place. So, a few weeks back I stared searching the Jersey coastline on GoogleMaps, beach by beach to check where exactly it is. Finally found it on 59th Street in Ocean City about 2 hours drive from where I live. That evening I decided to drive down there. It was quite a long drive to take just one or two shots..

As it turns out I didn’t take 2 but 7 unique shots . And I like all of them. Also do checkout the Free Desktop I have made from one of these shots.

I reached this spot at around 7 pm. The sunset time was 8:27, so I had a lot of time to kill. Unfortunately the natural light was not so soft at 7 pm, and I wasn’t planning to stay the night there, and it was a long drive back. So In order to make these long exposure shots I stacked two .6ND filters on my Sigma 10-20 and one .6ND Grad filter to make sure Sky doesn’t get washed out. That allowed my to keep longer exposure, more saturation in the colors and good texture on the water surface.

Tagged: beach, broken pier, coastal, long exposure, New Jersey, ocean city, photography, travel

Trip to UK

Karan Kauchhur — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 15:36:05 +0000

The last long weekend I went to UK. Getting the Visa was a slightly painful process, with no way of tracking the progress. After almost about 4 weeks of effort, I got my Visa and within the next day I bought my ticket. So far all I have seen in Europe are the 3 airports (Uk, Germany and France) while on my way to US. So, this was a great break for me. Finally a trip I had been planning for the last almost 7 years.

I had a few days and there was a lot to see. Wasn’t not sure when I’ll be here next so tried to make the most. I was putting up in Oxford, photos of which were taken through Instagram (Instakaran)

Shot above is of Big Ben. The clock is a lil washed out. Being artistic was not the idea in the trip, there was a lot to see and I had less time.

It was amazing to see an amazing mix of modern and old architecture in harmony. London, to me seems like a good mix of New Delhi and Mumbai. There was so much similarity on how the roads were and the parks, people all around and they even had a Connaught Place.

These taxis were very comfortable and surprisingly very spacious. There was no Boot/Trunk, the seats were pushed back and there was huge legroom.

And I just loved these telephone booths, they were everywhere. My home town had a few of these too once, but were black in color.

Trafalgar Sq.

And a Cop guarding the Entrance to Buckingham Palace. There was no tour that day , they were preparing for Queen’s Birthday.

Then one day I took a tour Bus to Bath and Stonehenge. Bath had beautiful architecture, the Roman baths were also an interesting piece. To me they were just glamorous, public bathrooms . A Few hours from there was Stonehenge. Not so grand as I perceived.

I’ve been wanting to go to UK for a long time. There is so much history and culture there, 4 days aren’t enough to really enjoy and absorb, all that it has to experience.

Tagged: bath, big ben, london, photography, stonehenge, travel, uk, united kingdom

Beach Abstracts

Karan Kauchhur — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:39:03 +0000

Recently I have been trying some minimalism abstract coastal shots. I have mostly in these case used a 70-300 Nikor VR lens VR. For these shots I had to isolate the subject from the rest of the scene, hence the telephoto lens. Another reason is that since I am playing with waves, its important that I keep my camera away from the high tide so as not to risk it from getting wet. I have already once almost destroyed my Sigma 10-20mm lens by getting to close to water. I had to drive 2.5 hours to Sigma office to have it fixed. Don’t want to do that again . A telephoto helps in such scenarios.

The images below are all long exposure shots, essentially 1s or more. For these photos I had to make sure that I don’t go to more than 2-3 seconds ( based on natural light) so as to get good texture from the waves and not make it look like “mist”. For some reason there are a lot of rock jettys on the beaches of Jersey, which really helps when you are looking for crashing waves or a foreground interest or even leading lines.

f/29.0; 1/6s; ISO-100

f/29; 1/6s; ISO-100

f/16; 0.3s; ISO-100

For the image above, I timed the shot so that the waves go over the small rock and give the bump in the texture.

f/22; 0.4s; ISO-100

f/20; 5sec; ISO-100

This image in my opinion emphasis on the art of seeing. As a photographer it is imperative that you have a keen eye on such details. There are no waves here, just the groves on the beach as a result of receding waves.

Tagged: abstract, beach, coastal, composition, long exposure, photography, texture, waves

Back to Sandy Hook ..

Karan Kauchhur — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 02:15:20 +0000

In my last post I said that I am kinda bored of going back to Sandy Hook beaches again and again. It still holds true but I did make a recent visit again. The problem of going to the same spot again and again is that you eventually run out of compositions. All you can hope after that is you get a different dramatic natural light, which might make the image unique. One of the reasons I keep going back is the distance. Its about 45 min drive from where I live, so its easily accessible.

So, now the problem I face is how to get creative every time I go there. And I take it as a challenge. Now, importantly I look for dramatic clouds, and high tides and prefer to go during coastal flooding, which may sound dangerous but its not. Essentially, what happens is that the water comes into the beach bit more than usual. Also, another thing I have started doing is using props. There is a lot of drift wood on the beach, so once in a while I pick one up and put it in my frame as a foreground interest.

The shot below is an example of such:

And this shot below shows the movement of the waves. The idea was to keep the exposure long enough to capture the movement but short enough to capture just a short burst. Because of that I was able to capture the right mood of the waves at that time, and adds a lot of texture.

I also used the rocks from the jetty as a foreground interest:

Tagged: beach, composition, jersey shore, long exposure, New Jersey, NJ, photography, waves