Wabi Sabi

Wabi-Sabi: The Japanese Art of Finding Beauty in Imperfect Ceramics

Pottery and collecting ceramics is another hobby of mine that has been slowly garnering as I feed more into it. I have learned that artists do this thing where they explore their creative sides through different artsy activities and I guess that includes me. In the very last few days of my trip to London, the flame had been reignited as I stumbled upon a pottery workshop that I could attend and the experience was unlike any other before. The yearning I had to try it hands-on and learn had been fulfilled and the style of the workshop keenly reminded me of my own set of them. I had documented my wholesome experience in the following series of photographs shot on my Fujifilm Xa5 with a XF 35mm f1.4 Fujinon lens.

mastering the cylinders by a fellow participant

Art Direction

Trying my hand in different areas of art had always been my thing. One of them happen to be Art Direction. Art direction is what you don’t see explicitly on the screen but is an important process of film-making. It is something that sets the whole mood of the movie, specifically the time frame of the incidents that takes place. Watching movies with the perspective of a professional artist makes you delve deeper into the movie in regards to the sets, lighting, etc. I had always been curious to know the behind-the-scenes of it all. When the opportunity presented itself, I was delighted. The first project I worked on, as a costume designer, was called Contrast. It was a photo documentary showcasing the contrast of a foreign woman in a very local setting of Hyderabad such as in a crowded bus or a butcher shop. The wild idea needed equally wild outfits and I was ready to throw in my two cents. Another project which gave me the most exposure was a short film called Lipi. It happened to be a time-travel movie hence the sets played a major role as they had to be consistent with every scene. The film revolved around an Indian post office and an empty room had to be transformed into one from scratch. I remember vividly working on a shoot, how the perception of the whole film could be changed based off of art direction.

Art direction is not just for home movies but also very significant in documentary-making. Documentation of photographs, although similar to art direction, the work environment of both differed largely. While photo documentation took place more on-schedule and less spontaneous, movie-making was a new schedule everyday as it had to be in collaborative efforts with other departments such as audio, camera crew, etc.

As much fun as art direction can be, it can also be very grueling at the same time. It requires a lot of physical effort such as being present for outdoor shoots, etc. In a way I prefer documentaries over films, if I had to choose, given my schedule as of now. In fact, I would love to have my own production and create certain sets to document different areas of art and life in the near future. I love challenging myself to new endeavors. Here’s a list of few films/documentaries I’ve worked on if you are interested:

1) Contrast by Kishor Krishnamoorthi

2) Lipi by Harikanth Gunamagari

3) Hide n Seek by Deepak Redddy

4) Ranga Veda by Harikanth Gunamagari

Chumbak ft. Mandakini

“Chumbak is a brand that I had the chance to work with…”

Botanical Watercolours

Ever since I visited the Botanical Garden in Madrid and their gallery, I couldn’t stop thinking about how thoughtful they have been at encouraging their artists. A group of water colour artists in Spain were given saplings of Tulips and had been asked to paint the growth of the plant. The artists took these plants back home and had taken good care of them. And then they had painted a botanical water colour of their own Tulip plant and submitted it to the Garden’s gallery for display.

I was very impressed with the administrators of this beautiful little Botanical Garden taking such an initiative to encourage artists. The art culture that surrounded this place seemed magical. Although ambitious of me, I would love to see something similar in India. It would be delightful to see people accepting and encouraging artists on such a level.

Picture taken from the official Society of Botanical Artists website.

Fujifilm XA5 Review

Day 54, time flies!! I can’t believe its already the end of Feb. And yes, the much awaited review that all of you have been waiting for, is here. I’ll keep it really short and simple for now. I’ve been looking for a good compact camera with similar features of a DSLR camera and I was keen on getting a Sony Alpha, but for some reason it never worked out. On the way back home from our Dubai trip, I spotted the Fujifilm XA3 camera at the duty free store and it was love at first sight. But to my disappointment, it was not available anywhere in India. We wanted to buy it from US and just when we were about to place the order, Fujifilm had announced the latest version from the same series, i.e., Fujifilm XA5. It was released this month on Feb 9th, available in three different colors – black, brown and pink. Fortunately, we had a friend coming from the US and managed to order the very last piece available in a pink color (I missed the brown one in a matter of few minutes). But the color of the camera was my least concern.

Included with the X-A5 is the Fujinon XC 15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ Lens, the company's first electric-powered zoom lens. Regardless, I didn’t wanted to stick with kit lens and wanted something close to a 35 mm lens. And so I ordered Fujifilm XF 23mm f/2 R WR Lens, a wide angled lens with it.

The package had finally arrived and here’s what I think of it:

Shot on iPhone 7 plus

The compact size is what I was looking for my travel and this camera was perfect.
I preferred using the 23mm lens more often than the kit lens.
I found that the camera's auto-focus doesn't always respond as quickly as those on other models when capturing photos and videos. This didn’t happen often but it seemed to happen more in low-light settings.
The 4K video quality was something I was looking forward to but again the auto focus had struggled especially while video recording, which wasn’t the case while taking pictures.
Battery life is pretty decent as well. I would definitely recommend this to the bloggers (fashion vlogs, make up tutorials, etc.) who have been waiting to hear this review from the day I posted about this camera.

Also sharing few of the first images shot with this camera using the 23mm lens: