Scenes from February

February was a very lovely month with a lot of celebrating. Friendships, relationships, families all mixed in one giant feeling called appreciation and gratitude.

photos from my instagram @tanagandhi

Today is the last day of this month and my lunch was spent by the poolside soaking up some Vitamin D (My short videogram here). I looked back at this month in nostalgia (already, I know!) and felt this crazy urge to JOURNAL ALL THE THINGS AND TAKE PHOTOS OF ALL THE THINGS.

Weekly Florals | Flowers and Light

"My eyes have once again been proven wrong..." - Passion Pit

This week has been something! Somehow, sometime during this month, my Instagram stream has transformed into all floral pictures. It almost reminds me of the unconscious doodles that often plague my notebook when I'm intensely thinking about something. Taking photos of flora is similar in the same way. Almost cathartic even.

India Trip Part 3: On-The-Go All-The-Time

Unlike my previous India trips which were very relaxing and calm, this trip was go-go-go all-the-time. From attending my cousin's wedding to shopping for my own with a lot of other things mixed in between, I'd rather have my trips go this way than relaxing. That's sometimes the type of travel I love the most.

So during this India trip I...

Met with one of my dad's friends who has an amazing collection of stamps from India dating back to the 1970's!!



Went shopping for my wedding. Can't believe how many saris we saw in one day!



Visited some 100+ year old temples nestled in the heart of the city



 Had LOTS of chai everywhere we went



Attended my cousin's wedding. This was the horse he was on during his baraat procession



For once, got henna done on myself! (Picture below is my cousin's hand)



Went on an overnighter coach from city to city. This was definitely one of the rougher parts of the trip but I'll always look back and have fond memories of it. Below is a stop we had at a "24/7 Food Mall" How very Western...



Spent the day in the Maharasthran countryside



Enjoyed airline amenities



Found kittens in the attic of our house!!!

And definitely many many more things like having lots of Indo-Chinese food (THE BEST!), visiting family, visiting the India office for my work, traveling to old and new places alike, reliving my nostalgia and making new memories that add to this nostalgia and ohhhh the travel bug.

India Trip
Part 1 - The Food
Part 2 - Modes of Transportation

One last India post coming up!

7/52: From Where I Stand

Do you ever wonder what people who aren't into feet are thinking when they see feet pictures? Do they pretend they didn't see it? Do they shake their fists into the air and yell *What happened to this world?!!*

This past Sunday, I laid out white backdrop paper on the floor of my room. I had some awesome light coming in and used a white styrofoam board as the reflector.



I picked up all the material things I currently love and sprawled them across the floor. Here's the final image:



Some statistics on where I stand today:

• Five hundred and sixty two: the number of times I've wanted to go back to India or do some other form of travel.
• Slowly accumulating a slew of cameras... I liked taking photos on my elph point and shoot in college but I never thought I'd have these many cameras. But such is the life of a photographer.
• I'm packing for my surprise bachelorette party this weekend! I have no idea what's going on but they did tell me to pack my camera. I already know this is going to be awesome! ;)

6/52: Food

I'm loving these Weekly Photo Challenges. I've made it my goal to create shoots out of these photos that I could eventually put into my portfolio along with getting experience in photography and art direction--all at the same time!

Similar to last week, I made an inspiration board to help figure out what kind of mood and setting I'd like to go with for Food. I prepared these things on the weekday so I can plan the shoot during natural light hours on Saturday.

Luckily, I was able to borrow a marble cutting board from work that was A LOT of fun to work with. I can see so much potential with it!

I had a 7 day free trial with Lynda.com so I decided to make full use of it and ended up watching a course on Food Photography! Bill Robbins showed us his essential food photography kit which included tweezers!! So I decided to try it out...and you see the clusters of small chili seeds there? Those were meticulously placed there with my tweezers!

My original intention was to go with a more random and naturally styled shoot. However, I didn't like the composition nor did I find it compelling enough to make it the final image. So I went with something more organized...

Calla Lilies: Flowers and Light

I picked these up because, oh man, the colors together were so gorgeous.

Despite their short "shelf" life, and the kombucha looking stems in water, they're still a top choice for TWO days.



I'm glad I did this session the day before they started looking not so fresh...

Rangoli & Current Thoughts On Creativity

Current thoughts on creativity vary from

• having an impulse to create something and can't hold it in any longer
• loving the iteration process
• not sticking to the original idea ...it's never the best idea anyway...maybe.

So it only makes sense that when my mom started applying Rangoli for Diwali last year, I wanted to capture the moment where the expert (my mom) and the novice (me!) make a piece together:

Rangoli from Tana Gandhi on Vimeo.

India Trip Part 2: Modes of Transportation

My experiences traveling to India are always a mix of nostalgia and appreciation all wrapped in a giant emotional thing we call feelings.

During my India trip, my family and I used the rickshaw a lot despite having our own car. It was amazing because I was able to get shots like the ones posted below!

Compare a van vs. a rickshaw:
You can see everything in a van that you can in a rickshaw but you wouldn't feel the essence of being present in a city as you would in the latter.

 

 All photos taken with the Canon G15 
India Trip - Part 1

5/52: Yellow

Color themed challenges are so exciting! You can do so much and with so little! This week I used it as another excuse to play with flowers.

Regained my close to never activity on Pinterest  by creating an inspiration board for flower shots that ultimately helped me come up with the ones below:



And then this:

Instaxes for this week: