Saturday, 04 May 2024
Saturday, 04 May 2024
We are very lucky that from our housing complex we can get a bird’s eye view of all the prominent landmarks of New Town, from Biswa Bangla Gate, Convention Centre, Hanuman temple, Seven Wonders in Eco Park... I wanted to document the landscape of New Town as it is now before all of the empty spaces get filled up.
It was a cloudy evening. The towers of Rosedale Garden could be seen afar. Dark clouds were looming in the horizon. I clicked the black and white frame to highlight a big city under turbulence. It was clicked before the pandemic came upon us, but it did turn out to be prophetic.
Last September, I was passing by when I spotted kashphul waving in the wind. I realised they would make for a great shot during sunset when I would get the perfect backlight. So I drove back later with camera. I love landscape and astro photography.
Mobile photography
I may be staying in the US now since 2018 but my heart is still back in New Town. I had clicked this picture at the Cafe Ajante side of Eco Park, This boy was staring at the water for long. It struck me that there is an Apu of Pather Panchali in each of us, who finds wonderment and joy in sights of nature.
I clicked this picture just the other day in August. The towers of our complex were visible atop and I lay in wait for a flight to pass. When one did, I clicked and there it was. When I heard of contest a few days later, I had the entry ready in hand.
This is the first time I am taking part in a contest. The picture was clicked in Eco Park last December during sunset. New Town by itself is a scenic township. Eco Park and Biswa Bangla Gate are my favourite spots. There is also scope for bird photography.
Judgespeak
This contest received so many great entries that I spent sleepless nights judging them. For two nights in a row, I sat from 10.30pm till 3.30 or 4am marking them. We used parameters like uniqueness, story-telling ability, composition and framing to make our choices. The contest allowed DSLR as well as mobile phone clicks and the ratio of the two would be 15:85. New Town residents are blessed with picturesque locales nearby and we received lots of pictures of Biswa Bangla Gate, Eco Park and the sunset in the wetlands. It helps, of course, that the air pollution here is relatively less than in the rest of the city.
— Tanayesh Talukdar, consultancy executive, photographer and a resident of Animikha housing complex
The other judges were Nairit Datta Gupta and Ashok Menon.
