Spunk and Colour - Meenakshi Pamnani

It started out in the early months of 2016 when I conceptualised and decided to document and chart the journey of fashion prominent women bloggers in Hyderabad. I knew some of these bloggers personally and I reached out to a couple more and received the warmest reception from them. The plan did hit a bump (pun intended) when I found out I was pregnant but I did meet the bloggers over coffee and they were ever so sweet about sharing their stories with me. This blog is the second in the series.

Meet Meenakshi Pamnani!
My connection to this fashion blogger is more personal than professional. She started her blogging journey back in December 2014 and that is also the time when I started shooting for her blogs. My association with 'The Shimmer Girl' has been the longest with our mutual obsession over glitter, sequin and chocolates. The Shimmer Girl aka Meenakshi Pamnani is all of 21 years old but she is on her way to making a mark in the Hyderabad fashion blogging scene. 

What started out as a hobby turned into a passion for this blogger. Meenakshi was already a celebrity of sorts when she set out to become a fashion blogger. A national level athlete with a prominent social media presence, she was already a celebrity of sorts when she discovered her love for all things fashion and beauty. Her style is all about colour and shimmer, something she feels very passionate about. 

From being a part time blogger to turning a full time fashion writer and adviser, she now directs style and fashion related content for a number of lifestyle websites. 

Now happily married to cricketer Ravi Teja, Meenakshi has a lot of new posts and collaborations in the pipeline for her viewers along with a stream of exciting videos on her channel.

Here are some of my favourite shots of Meenakshi from our past collaborations:

You can follow her blog here and her YouTube channel here

Throwback to the first post in the photo series where I photograph and chat with some significant women personalities and bloggers in the city - Quiet and Fierce: Chandana Munipalle

Quiet and Fierce - Chandana Munipalle

It was in the aftermath of a major photography drought I went through that I conjured this project in my head where I photograph the prominent bloggers in Hyderabad city. Though the number is quite small, this little but significant community of bloggers is the one to look out for. In my series of meeting and photographing these amazingly talented and beautiful women, I will be talking about them and what drives them to do what they are doing now. And the first of these women is 'The Girl at First Avenue' Chandana Munipalle

At first glance, Chandana will bowl you over, with her quiet demeanour. As you get to know her, spend more time with her what will hit you more clearly about her personality is her perseverance. Chandana decided to become a fashion blogger at a time when fashion blogging was still in its nascent stages. People hardly understood the What, When and How of the industry, let alone understand the nuances of fashion blogging. Over the years, she has made the mark for herself as a blogger who is fierce and selective about her choices and true to her passion. My obsession with using the word 'fierce' to describe her comes from her sheer grit and honesty to what she does. If there is a prospective campaign she feels creatively unchallenged by, she will not take it. Such is her passion. We spent a good few hours mulling over the sad state of fashion blogging now, especially in Hyderabad. With numbers not entirely being true determinants of influence, both Chandana and I felt that there needs to a be a major transition in the fashion blogging scene so as to engage more audience and create more creative content.

If you have never read her blog, you must read now. You will find it hard to miss her style and how she weaves a story in a post. My personal favourite is this post on Charminar 'Citystories'

If you are looking for inspiration and some brilliant creative content, follow Chandana and her blog

#Photostory : A day in the life of Mumma

Celebrating my mother with a series of photographs I clicked of her over the day. She is the woman I look up to because she embodies joy and courage in the face of testing times. Her transformation from being a housewife to a woman who works and handles a business is commendable. Now the eldest member of the family, she guides us like the true matriarch that she is, inspiring us along the way. 

I welcome any feedback you, the viewer, may have.
Happy viewing

An early start to the day

Her constant companion - Suhana

Getting ready for work

At work : A Cafe she runs along with the family

Meeting with relatives and well-wishers

Caught candid

Deep in conversation

Homework follows

#Photostory : Sunday Afternoon

Photo story (meaning) : A story illustrated with sequential photographs in the manner of a comic strip.

Photostories intend to tell a story or explain a brief scene in the form a photographic series. This particular series is called Sunday afternoon. Some context here: The protagonist of the series, Suhana, is a natural brat and to sit still is hardly in her nature. This set of photographs happened on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

I would appreciate any feedback you, the viewer, may have. 

Happy viewing

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

Sunday is a lazy day. Suhana, the naughty one, was up at 6 in the morning. One by one, she woke up the entire household by jumping up and down on the bed. By noon, she was done with her lunch and was sitting quietly on the floor thinking about what to break next. In a last ditch attempt to distract her, her mother offered to get her some chocolate milkshake if she stay put.

It worked.

Content and now with a full tummy, little Suhana climbs the sofa

Having woken up so early in the morning, Suhana starts to feel sleepy. 

Just lying down...

*YAWWWWWN*

Sleeping at last! 

#ExplorerSeries : To the Zoo

When was the last time you felt like a little kid and went to the zoo? For no apparent reason. Just. My family has a long standing love affair with the Zoo. My uncle, whom I call Nandusa, is a lover of zoo trips. On hardly a minute's notice, he will assemble the people in the house, hop into the car, pick up chips and chocolates on the way and head to the zoo. 

Hyderabad's Nehru Zoological park spreads over an area of over 350 acres and houses scores of different species of animals. My earliest memory of the zoo is of my dad driving a beat Maruti Omni and me and my cousin crammed in the back of the car with the door of the trunk propped open. We packed picnics and lunched out in the zoo park, right next to the lake or the model dinosaurs in the prehistoric park. After, we played with the frisbee and even enjoyed a couple of games of badminton hardly ever getting to beat my mum who was a local champ at the time. Even today, those Sundays spent at the zoo make for a happier time than a feverish trip to the overcrowded mall in the present. Simpler times were indeed the happier times.

And that is why, Nandusa loves to go to the zoo and loves to take us along. To be aware of a simpler happier time, when having fun was a shared lunch with the fake T-Rex. But we haven't been to the zoo in a while now. Our last trip was a couple of years ago and it was him, his brat of a daughter Suhana and myself with the camera. With half the family back home nursing our matriarch back to health, I decided to carry my camera along on the trip to document the trip as the father-daughter explored the zoo. This is also Suhana's first trip to the zoo after she grabbed the concept of animals and learnt to recognise them correctly. 

The following series of photographs are nowhere related to the zoo, it is a photostory of a father playing guide to his awed daughter. 

This is the first of the many posts that will subsequently follow in the #ExplorerSeries 
Would love to hear feedback.
Cheers!
D

My First Professional Assignment

First Shoot EVER!!!!

Coming soon! Baby announcement photograph :)

September 21, 2012

It was the day right after my birthday that my cousin talked me into doing her pregnancy shoot. And maybe I was feeling overly confident of my skills as a photographer, I said yes! I was officially treading down the path towards trying to be a professional photographer and earn my living through it. That day, I was scanning Pinterest and Flickr like there was no tomorrow, looking for photo inspirations. There were plenty and I felt belittled each time I came across a professional's photo shoot albums. I was basically a self-taught photographer with a fancy DSLR and a kit lens. And then there was the cousin who had put her faith in me, I could not let her down.

I chose my home for the shoot because I loved shooting in natural and available light and I knew the lighting in my house at the back of my hand. So I decided to use that to my advantage. We chose mid-afternoon as the perfect time when the light would be the brightest and she would have no morning sickness as she was in the 8th month of pregnancy (Note: More than photographing a child, shooting a pregnant woman in her third trimester is the most challenging. Her health should be the primary concern and the photographer should never attempt a shot at a place they are not familiar with)

And then, we began...! 

A few of the photographs from my first creative photo shoot.

One of the 'gender of the baby' announcement pictures. It's a boy! 

Photographs against interesting backgrounds

One of my all-time favourites. With all the plush soft toys and baby stuff.

The Mum, The Dad and the baby booties!

The fun parents photograph

I used a variety of properties for the shoot, but more on the essentials for a maternity shoot in another post. 

Till then, happy shooting! 

7 times you piss off your Photographer!

We photographers are a crazy brunch. And we are also super chill. But when it comes to the nuances of our craft and the people ruining our vibe, we flip the switch and become raging monsters. As clients or friends, these might be the things you did to piss off that photographer friend but were unaware that you did.
Next time around, be warned.

1) Adding filters to the photographs that have already been processed for them by their photographer.

2) Using that free app on your phone to 'Photoshop' a body part, thus aesthetically ruining the whole photograph.

3) Making small talk about RAW images and not knowing what RAW actually is.

We know you have read a lot of blogs about Photography on Pinterest and you consider yourself a pro when it comes to camera talk. But God knows I have not gotten a correct answer about the difference between JPEG and RAW from these 'enthusiasts'.

4) "Dude, you charge so much! It's just clicking pictures!"

This is true for most part. Yes, our primary goal is to click pictures. But that's just not it, is it. We have to get all the details right, make sure we haven't missed a crucial detail or moment or an angle in a shot. Then we spend hours to make sure the colour, composition and the feel of the final photograph is as we visualised it for you, the client. We use expensive equipment, state-of-the-art accessories, travel and other logistic expenses. Please, go ahead and do the math!

5) "Bro! Come to the party. Camera math bhoolna!"

*facepalm*

6) Cropping the Photographer's watermark out while sharing the picture on social media.

If the Photographer superimposes their watermark on the picture, then there's no way out. But I have seen a number of clients just conveniently cropping the watermark from the corners of the photograph while sharing it on their facebook and twitter. You think it's no big deal. We think not!

7) "Photoshop that!"

Them, countless photoshop requests.


That is all I have from my end, let me know if there is something in particular that has annoyed you beyond reason. I am sure this post needs a sequel.

Until next time, Cheers! 

D