Kelby Photowalk 2010- Koti

Kelby photowalk is an annual event conducted in over 900 cities. It is an event aimed at both professional and amateur photographers. There is no participation fee and all it requires is a camera and interest in photography.

This year: Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Tamil Nadu, participated in the event. Each state participated with multiple groups with each group containing not more than 50 participants. Hyderabad Photography Club (HPC), was one of the participating groups from Hyderabad. With three sub groups of 50 each; one headed to Secunderbad, one covered Necklace road and NTR marg and our group descended on the Koti market.

Below are some of my pictures from the walk:-

I got the idea of taking this picture while crossing the puddle of dirty water. All I needed now was a model. I waited.. and waited.. and finally saw this girl, oblivious of all the photographers taking pictures of everything and anything. She was in a world of her own.

I had to reposition myself again and again because the path where I was standing was very narrow and every few seconds, some someone would want to walk by that path. I had all sorts of distractions; kids jumping up and down, screaming for attention, people carrying heavy loads and bumping into you (they are not to be blamed because I was standing in their path). The place was chaotic and filthy.

I set my camera on multiple shot burst to give myself the option of picking the best and voila!... after scanning through several copies and some image editing, I have a winner.



I was skeptical about taking portraits on my first
photowalk but after I reached the spot I realized
that more than the fruits and vegetables, which were to be our prime subjects, the people captured my attention and they were competing with each other to pose for our photographs. It was amazing and totally unexpected.

Of the several people I came across I found this boy to be an interesting subject. He was young and eager to pose.


I was in a dilemma with this picture. The background was very captivating but I wanted the focus to be on the two men. I wanted to capture their mood. The tall guy seems to be daydreaming and the short one is seriously pondering about something.

I finally decided to go with the portrait. I changed the background to monochrome and got the focus on the two men just as I wanted.




Great Hyderabad Municipal Corporation employee is taking a break from work. He relaxes on a pile of dirt on the road side while preparing his gutka. Even though he is in the middle of complete chaos he sits in silence, minds his own business and remains unperturbed by his surroundings. Maybe he is a zen master incognito. ;)







Even in this day and age I couldn't believe that we still have rickshaws on our streets. It must be a torture riding in our highly polluted, jampacked streets. I captured this closeup image of a rickshaw man hoping to picture the mood he was in. To me; it seemed like he was in deep thought wondering when his troubles would end.





A kid is busy preparing garlands for the day. He is so focused on his work that he doesn't even notice that I and another photographer were closely watching him to take a picture.
















This was probably one of the easiest pictures I took on this walk. His age, his walk, the basket he was carrying on his shoulder, the old street and the lighting were just perfect.

















After two hours of strolling in narrow lanes, crowded streets, dodging speeding vehicles and protecting our cameras from drizzle and pollution, we all got together with hopes of having captured wonderful pictures, for a group photo (R to L- I am the third guy in the yellow t-shirt with the big wide grin).