Giving away

Among the many things that happened last year was  my participation in a blog give away for the very first time :) The gorgeous Vineeta Nair of Art n light was giving a Mora by Ritika Mittal stole away.   ... Wait ?! was it a Mora?! I would have killed for this one, but thankfully  no such desperation was required.  All we needed to do was to drop a note about tradition and what it meant to us. Easy peasy. I did my bit and waited patiently. And  in due course a  beautifully finished stole came to me in a cloth package bearing the signature red dot !!!

Image courtesy Artnlight

I am yet to thank  Vineeta and Ritika for their generosity formally. So I start the new year with this little note of thanks.

Taking the right cues from the two ladies I admire so much, the very first post of 2014 on Girl about home  is going to be a very first give away!

To all my  lovely readers  who coming back to the blog time and again.   For  all those I have connected with through this site. For keeping up with my moody, erratic and half hearted posts sometimes - here is a sincere word of thanks too. Do keep reading the blog as well as my recently launched Facebook page. I promise to keep sharing on both these spaces out through out 2015.

The rules of the give away are simple .
For a 9 by 13 inch card mounted print on archival grade paper :

Temporary home at  Kumbh Mela Allahabad,  Maha Kumbh 2013.

- follow girlabouthome if you are not following already

- like  the Chandan Dubey Photography Facebook page at:  
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chandan-Dubey-Photography-/253623451376709?hc_location=timeline

- drop me a comment about what your own home means to you, in the comment section below this post.

- Once there is critical mass of comments,  I will choose five responses  and draw the name of the 
winner by lots. 

The give away is open to readers of the blog around the world. Don't forget to leave your email ids !

Happy new year guys, come get your print!

Photo boxes

Letters to God,  Limited edition fine art print

These are much photographed times, and each one of us is a photographer. For many like me, taking images and sharing them is a fundamental way of consuming life. To the extent that I don't quite know what to make of the visible unless I  have framed it in a photograph !

In my mind I never stop composing pictures, reading light and calculating exposure values.

It is a problem! Gone are the days when Dad's Yashica would be pulled out of its bag for special occasions, holidays, birthdays and festivals...I have to put the camera away on important occasions lest I  forget to enjoy and  just be there rather than hyper record and lose the moment completely!

The most pleasurable part of taking the picture is actually seeing it in print! Never mind the digital revolution, nothing beats an actual picture that one can feel, better still process it with ones own hands!
Even when a dark room is no longer easily available, the thrill of receiving those `do not bend' envelopes from the printers that come bearing your work is truly indescribable.

One day early this year, I pulled something out of one such  sacrosanct envelope, and bent it! not just that, soaked, tore, plastered and  moulded the photograph ! Sacrilege? right?.. and  how I did suffer too! For this gorgeous textured fiber paper does not print cheap!  

Here are two actual photo boxes then, the first made as a composite of 21 images taken across traditional homes around Rajasthan and Uttarpradesh- The Haveli box. While the second is made with pictures  of random temple walls.

The Haveli box

Letters to God, table top box

Hand painted detail.