Time Passes Swiftly, Especially When You’re Having Fun

Photograph/ Prasad Np

As the Chikmagalur round of the Frame The Star Face-off comes to an end Prasad NP aka desi Traveler takes us through the final day and also what to expect in the finals.

I never believed Einstein when he said that time is relative, until now. We were all enjoying ourselves so much that we never realised when the time passed and we reached the final day of the Chikmagalur round. While the contestants were coming, clicking and going back I and the Better Photography team were present from day one. On the first day we were with such senior masters like Chirodeep Chaudhory, Anil Risal Singh, Raju A Khokle, and Soumitra Pendse. We were then with the young men who are changing the rules of the game by coming up with their own style.

All this while I was really enjoying observing each of the photographers spending time with them, asking questions, wondering what they will come up with next and learning in process a few techniques like remote triggered flash photography, focus tracking, long exposures to freeze waterfalls even in bright light and even 360 degree panoramas. All these techniques used for capturing the CLA 200 from Mercedes-Benz India

One of the most striking features of the competition was that though the photographers were given exactly the same subject, brief  and location, each one of them interpreted the competition in his / her own manner. The interpretations were different because each one of them visualised the car in a different manner. From storytellers to design freaks to techno geeks, we saw all of them in action. While some of them got up at four in the morning to catch the first light, the others took the car out in the middle of the night to catch some light trails.

While some wanted to capture the life around them with the car, for others the car was the only subject and everything around was a distraction, if not adding to the picture.

But all said, each of the photographers took the competition extremely seriously and tried their level best to come up with excellent shots that will take them to the final round in the drive from Chandigarh to Shimla, in Himachal Pradesh.

Now that all the photographers are back home, working on post processing the images, they have an even tougher job considering they clicked hundreds of good images. It will not be easy to choose the 20 they need to submit for the contest.

Now, imagine the job of the judges who need to select the winning images from the hundreds of images they will receive from the photographers.  As K. Madhavan Pillai, the editor of Better Photography, explained to me, the judges will receive the images anonymously, with no clue who the photographer is, so that the chances are equal for all the participants.

For the next round: The judges will select three winners who will join the Chandigarh to Shimla drive and will further click more pictures of the Mercedes-Benz CLA 200 and finally a winner will emerge, who will drive a Mercedes-Benz CLA 200 for a year.  Till then, all the best to all the participants!

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Prasad Np is a passionate photographer who enjoys photographing people, wildlife, and travel. He is the author of the travel and photography blog called desi Traveler.  You can connect with him on twitter @desiTraveler