THE PHOTOWALK: BESANT NAGAR BEACH OR ELLIOT’S BEACH

It was supposed to happen at Besant Nagar beach. Besant Nagar is a popular area in Chennai, because of it’s beach, the Broken Bridge and the Karl Schmidt memorial. It’s lovingly called as Bessy Beach among the younger crowd.

I was supposed to be on this photowalk with two other friends of mine. Shankar did turn up but we couldn’t meet because we had never seen each other before. We were under confidence that Arshad had our numbers and we both had Arshad’s number. But Arshad had slept off and never turned up. His alarm clock (apparently) didn’t ring when it was supposed to.

STROLLING ALONG THE BEACH, WAITING:

So, I was out there at Besant Nagar, at about 7am in the morning. When I reached, I parked my bike and rang up Arshad. There was no answer.

I was waiting for them to arrive. During these days the nights were pretty cold, right until the sun was up. The morning sun was warming up the beach slowly and was driving away the cold of the night. I had to get rid of the jacket I was wearing. I hung it on my shoulder. I took my camera out and started photowalking.

I walked further inside, towards the sea shore. The sun was rising up and it was getting really warm now. I did some shots while walking on the beach sand. Mean while, I called Arshad again. There was still no answer. At that point, being unaware as to why there was no answer, I thought that Arshad must be one hell of a serious photographer and doesn’t like to be disturbed while shooting. I thought I must’ve turned up late.

THE KARL SCHMIDT MEMORIAL:

And there it was, basking under the rising sun. I’m sure it would’ve looked really pretty when it was constructed. Now it looks more like a toilet if you ask me. A rather ancient toilet for ancient people. Until this time I had only heard about it. I only knew that it was in Besant Nagar and I had a plan of doing some shots around it. Seeing it for real was rather disappointing. I did some shots anyway.

I had to get to office. It starts at 9am. So I had to pack up and leave. Before I started my bike, I gave yet another call to Arshad. There was still no answer. I stopped at a hotel for break fast. And from there, on the way to my office, I stopped at a tea stall for some tea and smoke. That’s when my phone rang and I saw it say “Arshad calling”. He told me that he just woke up and blamed it on his alarm clock.

TECHNICALITIES:

The four initial shots are single exposures. The black and white images are processed in Nik Silver Efex. I used the same technique which I have mentioned in my black and white tutorial. The shot of the crow is just sharpened in topaz adjust and I added a hint of vignette in Nik Colour Efex.

The shots of Karl Schmidt memorial are HDR shots. I did them by shooting the bracket images at 2 stops. Starting from -2 and gradually increasing to +2ev, I shot 5 exposures. I made the final images by merging them in Nik HDR Efex and some editing in photoshop and Nik Colour Efex. I used the same technique which I have shown in my HDR tutorial.

I did all these shots using my Nikon L120.