You know an art form and you want to communicate a message through it ? Go and do it in a sensible way and in a proper medium.
The words might sound strange and out of context to our field of work, but when things goes wrong when you try to prove your point by defacing and spoiling a heritage center thats when as an artist anyone will get hurt. During the recent visit to Hampi myself and my friends noticed quite a number of graffiti work done by some unknown tourist on the boulders near the main temple at Hampi. These things are done in places which any passer-by wouldn’t have noticed. Enquiry with the locals did reveal that this is suspected to be a foreigner tourist who was staying in Hampi for some time and a complaint has been lodged and the search is on but all this will materialize only after the cops dig through the cctv footage and try to relate and do some investigation. I am still not able to understand what the person was trying to prove by doing such hasty things at such a beautiful place. The graffiti depicts some really bizarre scenes like that of a soldier assaulting the ladies, people behind bars, men being hanged by soldiers, etc. The local authorities i heard have tried to erase the work using known means but have failed to do so because of the medium of the paint used, which doesnt seem to give up. Though Hampi is now one of the most sought after place in our state and a happening tourist spot and the authorities have ensured all sort of electronic security measures to track unwanted activities, activities like these still creep in and try to do enough damage and spoil the reputation of the place. Am just sitting here at the luxury of my ac workstation with the hope that atleast tourists who visit this place behave more sensibly and try to respect places of archeological importance irrespective of the place it is in or the type of message they want to communicate – anyways the fact is that there are better place to show your talent than at such places.
Below you will find some of the images of the graffiti work.
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Me and My World – Video Montage
Secondly this part of the blog i want to share a small video montage which i shot and edited during a one night stay at Manali during September last year on the way to Spiti Valley. This was my first ever exposure to a DSLR with HD video recording feature. I spent some time in the flight as well as on the way to Manali in bus about a concept and based on prev stint with Manali market, i decided that i will try doing some candid shooting of people busy in their work. Though technically its not very sound i just wanted to share this with my fellow photogs and wanted to know about your critique and comments on the concept. Am confident that if i go back to the place now i can do a better work, but I do have a bit of opportunities on hand here itslef which i aim to capitalize soon. Shot completely on Canon 550D and Canon 50 F1.8 II handheld.
Video Footage is pretty nice buddy!!! There is a bit of glitch / noise in the video, but the quality seems to be amazing from 550D. Lovely work dude.
Thanks Anoop 🙂
Noise is something which i dont think could have avoided. Firstly am shooting with a 550D which is prone to noise beyond 640ISO and am sure i was way beyond that. Secondly my exposure dialing skills/techniques were in-existent during this shoot.
But I have to admit for budget movie purpose this cam can make miracles when used under proper lighting conditions.
Now its time to push my new cam to limits in the next weekend’s trip 🙂
Shiv
Really nice video and got me back to my roots in Himachal. Thanks for sharing and good capture of the Manali market – like the classical music background, gels with the video. Thanks