You start off as an amateur photographer. Some of you run around taking 10+ pictures of the same thing you thought was a great shot, and show it to your friends expecting positive feedback. Some of you don’t show it at all fearing negative comments. When you have been on the shooting frenzy for a while, you hit the saturation point. Some of them will give up completely. The rest of you then begin to criticize your own pictures. You then become selective and begin to sort the pictures you want to show the world. You then begin to look for your soul and signature in them. A photograph that needs no watermark to tell us who took that picture. like the one below:

Henry Rollins by Anton Corbijn

Copenhagen Photo Marathon 2010 is when i decided that i needed to find my signature photograph. I wanted my soul, which consists of elements of urban life, underground art, alternative music and story telling, in my pictures. I had very much planned in advance that i would be shooting in black and white, a form of photography i never tried before. I somehow was not satisfied with the black and whites, so i decided to dig deeper. Thankfully, my Canon 550D is so advanced that i could tweak the colors to presets. I then tweaked the Blues (for Rock music) and Reds (for Urban life) to obtain a magenta shade, and i was in LOVE. The new preset complimented my photography to make it my watermark.

Ghosts by Vinod Bharathan

There is somehow this strange resemblance om my photographs to Anton Corbijn’s photographs. But i will honestly tell you that i’m in no way inspired my him, he just happened to do it before me …. and with names like Tom Waits, Iggy Pop and bands like U2 and Depeche Mode.

Me and my girlfriend had been out to Kalimnos, Greece, on holidays this summer. We like to photo-document our experience as we are more of the adventure tourist kind. But, every now and then, we would like to take pictures of each other. Being Mr Vain myself, i’m a bit camera shy. It often have to pull a safe-face or a joker face every time the camera is aimed at me. I now have created a joker-pose and i quite like it.

Lomography, for those who are not aware of it, is casual photography with characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, “happy accidents,” and alternative film processing. It belong to the hipsters of photography enthusiasts. This also requires special cameras, like LOMO LC-A or DIANA F. They are analogue film cameras with basic controls. The over-saturated  colors are obtained from treating the film in diverse thermal conditions.

But now in the digital age, these effects can me easily obtained using an application in iPhone or Android camera phones. But there is always a debate on the puristic value of the outcome. I personally think that it is the outcome that counts. It is the composition, the atmosphere, the content that matters to make it an attractive capture. It doesn’t matter you have shot that picture with a “real Lomo camera” or just you iPhone, if that picture doesn’t contain the above said ingredients, then that pic is fuck worth.

I had one of my “lomo purist” friend complain about how she found it hard to develop the films as the film processing studios are becoming extinct and rare. The remaining ones charge you an arm and a leg for processing a 36 roll film. This is one hobby that will eat your wallet thin. One would also begin to doubt the photo moment as they are too expensive to make mistakes on.

I have played with the “real Lomo” camera, and have found it bulky and expensive for a hobby, and so, now i’m happy with the application i have on my Android phone. And yes, it is the final outcome that counts.

The above pic is taken from Roskilde festival in 1984, when stereo BoomBoxes were hot. It is funny to notice how time has changed the look and technology. We haven’t reached the space age yet, and thats because we are now enjoying the Apple age. Below is the pic of a girl at Roskilde Festival 2010 (26 years later) listening to her version of Boom Box – her Apple computer.

I had my first visit to Roskilde Festival in 2000, as i got the tickets as a gift from one of the close friend of my girlfriend then. Thank you Eskil, i have never stopped since then (except one year!). So this makes it my 9th Roskilde Festival. 150 top band per year, times 9….. yes, I have pretty much experienced the Roskilde feeling out to the max, The sex, drug and rock n’ Roll bit. Its not much of sex and drugs anymore as years went by. I started focussing on other things that Roskilde festival offers. Stuff like art and creativity. I started absorbing inspirations from this festival vibe. To think differently, with no boundaries, bravely, colorfully, rebelliously, senselessly. I had been busy  spanning one end of the camping to the other seeking interesting stuff, The last few years at the Roskilde.

Unfortunatelty, i wont be able to do much of running around this time around, as i sprained my ankle. I guess i am going to be this guy who i shot last year.

i will most definitely listen to some good bands and give you the feedback.

Meanwhile, check some of the Roskilde moments i have captured thru the years.

Today, as i walked back to the trains from the office along with my colleague Brian, i realized that i was totally blank in my head. We usually talk about wold issues and how we can solve it all, but today Brian has to recite monologues. I just realized that i have so many things to do and so little ……. money !  One of the upcoming events to be held this wednesday, is the Copenhagen Zombie Crawl. here are the pics from last years crawl. I will try to make it this year as well.. but no promises..

Now this is a delicate topic. Lot of my good friends live there, a lot of my friends think great about this place, but i HATE this place. I fooled myself into a photo competition assuming the theme was “life in Nørrebro”. Paula and i too a long walk from one end of Nørrebrogade to the other. The more deeper i got into this town, it was hard to take my camera out, as inquisitive eyes were prying on me. It was like i have gone into a forbidden zone to document their secret lives. Here are some of the outcome.

urban jungle-5, originally uploaded by barnumz.

And so, i have decided to take up yet another photo challenge. This time it is for Metro Express Global photo competition with the theme ‘Urban Jungle’. I have had a few ideas in mind, but had to narrow down to the most practical ones as the time and resourses were limited. One of my ideas incorporated a few people/models in prime parts of the city. Most of the volunteers bailed out on hangover alibis. Therefor, we (Paula and Me) had to find other ways to get this shoot done. After walking around half the city, we decided to do a chai-latte at Baresso, where i told her my plan B, which was well recieved. All we needed was a fish and a spherical bowl. None of us being pet owners and no access to the internet, we raked our brains for petshop. Paula claimed that she has seen one at Amager-Center.
“ok, finish your chai, then we go buy the fish and shoot it” said Paula to me. A statement that could be so much outta Tarrentino movie.
We managed to get the fish and the bowl, and my idea was to shoot the bowl in the middle of the city by dusk as to get the vibrant colors of the sunset. But i later realised the the cold temperature outside might kill the fish before i get my shot. So. i decided to shoot it on my balconey instead. so, here is the outcome.

This is an experimental project for an upcoming short movie shot in time lapse photography. This movie consists of 306 photographs stitched together. This kind of photography is called time lapse photography.