A Few Pics Of The S55

I always try and find things around the house to practice my photography and lighting on.  Sharmila got tired of me taking random pictures of her, so now I use a stuffed Ernie doll that I gave her. Today I decided to go out and shoot some pics of one of our cars. I am thinking of selling the S55 and maybe get a convertible instead. I needed some good pics of it to post online, so I decided to practice lighting and flash photography on the car. Wanted to create some strong black and white images. Here’s what I came up with:

One color shot just for the heck of it:

A Hectic But Fun Weekend In The Poconos and NYC

Sharmila came to NYC this past weekend and 6 of us headed off to the Poconos for 2 days, where we had booked a cabin. The drive was a little over 2 hours, but we left late and by the time we got to our cabin, it was really late and quite dark. The cabin was in the boondocks and was surrounded by trees, making it quite spooky at night:

To add to the eerie feeling, we noticed this truck parked right outside the cabin – why was it there? Was someone else lurking in the trees waiting for us? If you’ve watched the Hills Have Eyes movie, you know what I’m talking about

All of a sudden, the girls gave out a gasp and I look around and we see this a few feet away in the woods:

From far away, this statue of Mary and baby Jesus looked like someone standing and watching us. A few feet away, there was also a big status of Jesus in the woods.Why would you surround your cabin with religious statues?  A little weird……it definitely added to the spookiness.

It the outside wasn’t eerie enough, we walk in to the cabin and see crosses hanging from the wall and religious references all throughout the cabin:

We were all thinking that someone would come in the dark of the night and perform sacrificial rituals around our bed or something!

The inside of the cabin was really nice:

Fatema was trying to heat up some food and forgot to take it out in time – here is what a burnt piece of bread looks like – Fatema, please leave the cooking to the rest of us

The next morning, I decided to wake up and take some pics of our surroundings.  This was the view from our deck:

I went exploring in the woods behind the cabin. Saw this really cool looking tree with moss growing on it:

Here is the Jesus statue that I talked about earlier. In the daytime it hardly looked spooky, but nonetheless, it’s a bit odd being surrounded by these statues everywhere you turn:

It was a hot summer day and the view from the woods was really nice:

Looked down on the ground and saw this little guy being a “busy bee”

Also saw this little guy – he froze when he saw me, allowing me to snap a quick picture:

The next day, Sharmila and I went hiking in Bushkill falls:

The main falls above were just ok…nothing super impressive, but as you climb down the stairs that you see in the picture above, you get to the bottom of the falls where there is a creek and the creek was really impressive – the combination of the water flowing, rock walls jutting out from the sides and the greenery made for a really pretty scene:

A pic of Sharmila taken with her camera phone:

On the last night, the 6 of us wanted to check out this show (it was visited by the travel channel and chosen to be the most haunted place in PA) where they do weird things like summon spirits, perform seances and bend spoons and pennies with their mind – if you know us, you know that both of us really like doing spooky things. So it was a perfect show for us Apparently, the house is haunted since there were 3 deaths that took place there – Walter (who was killed by his), his wife (who committed suicide) and their daughter (who was electrocuted)! The place was also where Houdini performed many live shows, so they paid homage to Houdini all over the place:

Look at those eyes:

The show, for the most part, ended up being more theatrics and magic tricks and not enough spirits and ghosts. But we all got to participate in the show in some form or another.

Here’s Sid shuffling a deck of cards:

And Fatema putting tape (lots of it!) on the poor guy’s face:

This is what happens when you give rolls of tape to women and tell them to go wild on your face:

The guy trying to predict the contents of the envelope while his eyes are taped shut.  He also guessed a few things about Sharmila….he called it mind reading:

The part that was sort of cool was when he bent coins and forks without touching them:

Shivani channeling her powers to help bend the fork

Rohit is proud of his wife’s powers, as long as she doesn’t use it on him

Sharmila, with a picture of Walter, the spirit that apparently haunts the building:

A shot of the girls and the hostess outside the haunted building:

After our Poconos trip, we came back to NJ and the next morning, headed out to NYC to see India’s Independence Day Parade. It was another hot day and the streets were lined with tons of Indian people walking around, eating food and watching the dancing on stage. Here is a shot of people sitting on the streets, having lunch:

Lots and lots of people out on the streets:

This guy was showing his patriotic side:

Richie and Shalu happened to be in NYC as well so we met up with them at the parade:

I noticed something very interesting as we walked the parade – I kid you not, every Indian guy walking the street had the same hairstyle! I don’t know what style it is, but the back of the head is spiky and every where I looked, all the guys were sporting it. As proof, I took shots of random guys who walked by me:

Jay Sean, a UK based Indian singer who recently had a top 10 song on the U.S. charts and Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood actress, were the guests of honor at the parade:

After the parade, we went to Spice Market in the meat packing district for dinner.

It serves “street style food” from Asia. The ambiance was nice, but more importantly, the food was really good. Everything we ordered was excellent. Here is the inside of the restaurant:

We ordered the Chef’s tasting menu, which was a 5 course meal. We started with some shaved tuna with chilli tapioca and avocado salad with tempura onions, before moving on to char grilled chicken and beef skewers with ginger fried rice. We also had spiced chicken samosas, which were excellent. Dessert was Ovaltine kulfi with caramelized bananas and pop corn!

After dinner, we headed out to see  Amar and Neeta who live in Harlem. On the way back, we stopped by and took this picture of the Empire State building, which was lit up in the colors of the Indian Flag in honor of India’s Independence Day:

The next 2 days,we took a bus tour of uptown and midtown NYC as well as Brooklyn. I had bought the tickets as part of a package including the helicopter tour that we did a few months back on Sharmila’s birthday weekend, but when we went to the ticket counter to collect our tickets, they would’nt give them to us due to some confusion in their system. After spending 3 hours with them, we finally got out tickets and set out on our bus tour of NYC.

We did the Brooklyn tour first. It was a HOT summer day and we were sitting on top of the bus which had no shade (there was no lower level seating). I actually had an umbrella for a good part of the ride to give me some relief from the heat. I don’t know how the others on the bus managed to stay on for the ride with the sun beating down on them – it was 96 degrees!

These kids on the street were playing around in the water gushing out of the fire hydrant. When they saw us coming they mischievously directed the water at us and we all got soaked! I guess it’s a tradition for them during the hottest days of the summer:

The rest of what you see here are random shots that I took as the bus went through Brooklyn and NYC – some of the images are funny, some quirky, but that’s what I was trying to capture – all the cool things that you can see only on the streets of NY.

A cool shot of one of NY’s bravest:

A funny poster behind a bus:

Times Square in the evening:

Anyone that has been to Times Square might know about the Naked Cowboy. He stands on the streets in his tight shorts, guitar in hand, and entertains the crowd. Get this – he has decided to run for mayor of NYC and apparently, he is 2nd in the polls! I couldn’t believe it! Remains to be seen if he wins or not, but I captured these 2 images that I thought were funny – him playing on the streets:

This funny poster:

We drove through South Street Seaport:

We also went through China Town – took a shot of this funny store sign:

The Brooklyn Bridge:

A cool sign outside a building in Brooklyn:

I saw this grungy looking building and thought it was really cool and added character to the streets:

Ok, this next picture is a bit revolting, but somewhere during the tour (which is a hop-on, hop-off tour, meaning you can get on and off anytime you want), this guy gets on and sits down in front of me. He is one of the hairiest guys I’ve ever seen in my life and I could not resist taking this next shot:

Love this shot of  the mailman in his colorful turban and headphones going about his day:

Another cool wall with grafitti on it:

It was a really hectic, but fun few days which we ended with celebrating Sid’s birthday!  We were on the move a lot and didn’t really get to relax since we did so much, but it makes for fun memories. Both of us now need a few days to nap and recover

Weekend Volleyball and BBQ

A bunch of us got together to play volleyball this weekend. It was a beautiful day and people were out with their kids and dogs. We all just got together, ate food, hung out, played some really bad volleyball and had a fun, relaxing afternoon before heading over to Amrita and Binesh’s BBQ. A few pics from the day.

A beautiful, summer day in Michigan:

Cute lil puppy:

Headed over to Amrita and Binesh’s BBQ – they had their backyard bonfire going:

Had a lot of fun playing with the kids. The kids loved this flashlight and had a lot of fun taking scary pics with it:

Sharmila found this in Amrita’s fridge…don’t ask

Another fun, summer weekend in Michigan…

Amaan’s 5th Birthday

Went over to Charlie and Tamanna’s for Amaan’s 5th birthday. Didn’t get a chance to take pics of the birthday boy, but here are a few of some of the other cuties:

How cute is this little girl?

Here is Amaan with his pensive look:

A fun shot of Zach – he loves to pose for me whenever I shoot him (if only he would pose for his mom)

And lastly, a shot of the drama queen cutting the cake – it’s a tireless job, but someone’s gotta do it:

It turned out to be a beautiful evening. Thanks guys for having us over!

Catching up with Deven, Heema and Bharat

Deven, Heema, their kids and Bharat were all in town over the July 4th weekend, so we made some plans to do brunch with them at Comparis On The Park in Plymouth before heading out to a graduation party and then later to meet Megha and Nihar. We hadn’t seen Deven and Heema in about 3 years, so it was good catching up with them.

Here are some pics from this afternoon – little Vidya eating her ice cream:

My favorite shot from the afternoon – such a cutie!

Sid was a great kid and gave me lots of smiles:

After brunch, we took a walk by the park in Plymouth:

A nice shot of dad playing with his son:

Vidya fell asleep after a while:

A shot of all of us finishing our brunch:

It was really great catching up with Deven, Heema and Bharat and seeing the kids. We should definitely make an effort to make plans to take a yearly trip somewhere guys. Let’s work on that! Have a safe flight back and keep in touch!

BBQ at Amrita and Binesh’s

Binesh and Amrita invited us over for a BBQ today at their place. Megha and Nihar were in town with Malini, so it was really nice to catch up with them and see little Malini. She is so cute and has the cutest facial expressions. The place was full of kids, so it was fun taking pictures of all the little monkeys

Here’s little Noor playing with her ball:

Little Rai posing right after he had some blue frosting from Noor’s birthday cake:

Older brother Arjan:

This blue colored dragonfly looking thing was flying around and all the kids were excited:

Arjan trying to look at the dragonfly with his mom Mona:

Rai playing with the garden ornaments:)

Rai the movie star:

Little drooling Diya:

The back portion of Diya’s hair always sticks out and refuses to go down according to Nisha – had to get her mohawk hairstyle on camera

Love this shot of mother and daugther:

Shardul and Family Photo Shoot

Our friends Shardul and Anita wanted me to take photos of them and their family at a park here in Michigan. Shardul’s grandfather, who is 92 years old was visiting and they wanted pictures with him. The man looked amazing for being 92 years old!

Here are some pics from the day…

Look at how cute Sofia is!

She was such a ham! She posed and smiled and laughed throughout the shoot, sometimes even giving me this look like “Whatcha lookin’ at?!”

Here’s a shot of Jaisen – he just got his green belt (2nd degree) in Taekowndo, so he was really happy about that. But it was really hard getting him to look at the camera:

A shot of the entire family:

A fun shot of father and son:

A dramatic shot of Anita and Shardul:

I have a lot of really nice pics from this shoot – too many to post. But it was a lot of fun and hopefully Shardul and Anita will like the pics.

Off to a park in Novi to celebrate Father’s Day. Wishing all the dads out there a very Happy Father’s Day!

Deven Pimputkar – 12 Days Old

So last week, I posted saying that Sharmila and I photographed 12 day old Deven, our friend Samir’s newborn. I love photographing newborns because they are amazing at that age – just so tiny and fragile and wrinkly and cute! The day before, Sharmila and I planned out the props and we went and bought quite a few things. Deven was a trooper – we put him through a LOT in terms of props and plopping him on mats and chairs and even a weighing scale, but it was all in the name of getting some really cute pictures, so hopefully Deven won’t hold a grudge

Here are some of the pictures that we took – how cute is this little guy?!

My favorite shot of the day – I would enlarge this one for sure.

The little guy was in a deep sleep in the early part of the shoot.

Love his tiny little wrinkly hands!

Love this shot – he woke up for a few seconds as Sharmila was tying the bow on him:

Samir and Avani are both Michigan fans, so we had to take this shot:

Great shot of his smushed little lips:

Here he is on a weighing scale. I REALLY wanted an old school weighing scale – the kind you use in grocery stores which has a round dial and a hanging pan. Samir and Nirav looked all over for such a scale and couldn’t find one, so Nirav managed to get this one instead, which we had to make do with. Nonetheless, it made for a great picture:

Hopefully Samir and Avani will like the pictures. We had a a lot of fun shooting the images (the shoot lasted for 3 hours!), but it was worth it in the end.

Anyone else having babies? I love photographing newborns, so let me know. The best time to take pictures is while they are less than 10 days old.

I want to thank my beautiful wife for helping me with the props and coming along with me to the shoot to help out. Could not do these photo shoots without her help.

Until next time…

Sneak Peek – A few pictures from the weekend photo shoot

I did 2 photo shoots this weekend. One was a surprise birthday party and one was photographing a little munchkin (about 12 days old). This post is a sneak peek of a few pictures. Stay tuned for more pics next weekend!

First up is a pic of this little man with amazing hazel eyes. He was such a ham! He did the same pose for every shot that we took with his family. He was asleep before I arrived, but once he saw me taking pictures at the party, he woke up and followed me around and would be the first to pose every time I asked him to be in a pic.

This little girl is his sister and loved taking pictures too:

The 2nd photo shoot was of little Deven – our friend Samir and Avani’s little bundle of joy. We spent a lot of time trying to capture some really cute pictures. Sharmila helped with the pics, but this time she did not get pooped on! The little guy did poop and pee during the shoot, but it was reserved for his mommie!

I’ll be posting a lot more of little Deven next week, but here’s a teaser pic of the little cutie. We had a ton of props at the shoot and it made for some really cute pictures. Look at those smushed lips and baby smooth skin!

As usual, had a lot of fun taking pictures at both the shoots. I’ll be posting more pics of this little cutie next week. Time to go to sleep, got an early flight to NYC tomorrow morning.

The Wedding of Jennifer and Dennis

I photographed the wedding of Jenn and Dennis at Stony Creek yesterday. They are a gorgeous couple and were very laid back and fun to work with. Sharmila accompanied me to the wedding shoot. It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday (which makes it really hard to get good pictures because of the harsh light of the sun causing all sorts of shadows). Sharmila and I drove out to the Royal Park Hotel (RPH) where Jenn was getting ready. RPH is where we got married, so it was great going back there and it brought back memories of our wedding day.

We had planned an hour to do a photo shoot at the RPH, but Jenn was running late and we never got to shoot those pictures, which is a shame because I had planned to take some creative, dramatic shots of them. It’s next to impossible to create drama in shots once the wedding starts because things happen so quickly from that point on that you have little time for light setups and such, so I wanted to take the time to create some extra nice images with the right lighting, etc, but unfortunately due to Jenn running late, we had to skip over that.

Jenn did not need me to take pictures of her getting ready, so while she was getting ready upstairs, I shot some pictures of the groom downstairs in the restaurant. I like this shot of Dennis – it looks like he’s modeling a suit in a magazine or something

Dennis was funny and had a great sense of humor. Sharmila asked him to go behind the bar and pretend to guzzle beer from the tap and it made for a fun picture:

A shot of Jenn and Dennis seeing each other for the 1st time:

Jenn looked beautiful – love the details on her gown:

We drove from the RPH to Stony Creek, where they were getting married. Once we got there, I posed the couple and took some quick shots of them before the guests started arriving:

I love this next shot of the 2 of them – it’s sexy and romantic against a beautiful backdrop:

Wanted to finish with a shot of this cutie – look at those gorgeous baby blue eyes!

It was a pretty hectic day and it was tough trying to singlehandedly capture everything from the key moments to the surroundings and the guests to the little details at the party, but it was fun and we managed to get some good shots despite the fact that Jenn and Dennis were constantly all over the place and being pulled in many different directions.

Thanks to my wife for coming along with me and paying attention to the details. It was fun and I’m looking forward to shooting more weddings this year. On a separate note, I have been recently hired by someone else to shoot an event at Tribute, am upscale restaurant in Michigan, so I’m looking forward to doing my 1st event photography next weekend!