Custom canvas prints: much better than digital photos

If altering the look of your home is on your mind, canvas print might just be the right thing for you. Are you aware of the fact that custom canvas photo prints is one the most economical and elegant means of altering the look of your home? If you are looking for companies that convert digital photos into beautiful canvas wall prints, of the size you desire, you would be glad to know that there are many such companies available.

If displaying your beloved photos is your aim, the best way to do so is by printing photographs on canvas. There are many occasions which ought to be captured and the best way to do so is by creating stunning canvas wall prints. The occasions which are very important in life and which should not be missed being captured on a portrait are graduation ceremony, wedding, childbirth etc. If you like nature and want to capture it on canvas, then there can be nothing better than doing just that. Capturing nature at her best and having the canvas picture in front of your eyes is a rare treat.

Capturing photographs on canvas
An acid-free canvas material is used to sketch and print canvas pictures.  If you approach reputable companies, you will find that they use ultraviolet pigmented inks to ensure that the canvas does not fade away. Moreover, several coats of lacquer are sprayed on it in order to ensure that your print stays protected from dirt and fingernails.

The process of photos to canvas printing
It is quite simple to turn digital pictures into canvas art. All you need to ensure that you have researched and searched for companies which have a good reputation in the market. Photo In Canvas and Photo To Canvas are two leading companies in UK delivering high quality canvasses at great value prices. 

Varun Rajput: State of Grace (Liquid Tension Experiment)

Here's a video that I recently did for Varun- an amazing guitarist and a fine composer. I would strongly recommend you to listen him live if you stay in or around New Delhi.

Check out more of his work at:
www.myspace.com/varunrajputmusic
www.facebook.com/varunrajpu.music

Adding Subjects to Slow Shutter Shots

Adding subjects to a slow shutter click has given me a number of good shots. Slow shutter shots usually can be taken only at very low light conditions, unless we stack up multiple ND filters and shoot with a pin-like aperture. I usually have this habit of using external lights while clicking slow shutter. But it is not that we can’t add subjects without artificial lighting. And yes, in many cases, the on-camera flash ( perhaps the most hated light source in photo communities) can also give amazing results.

I am sharing two of my photographs, one without the use of any additional lighting equipment and the other only with the on-camera flash. And yes, we’ll see subjects added to the still slow shutter shots discussed in the previous post.

The Mediterranean Sea shot I had shared in the last blog-post was an extremely clichéd photograph . But however clichéd a photo idea may be, you add a face to it and it becomes uniquely distinct from all others. I asked my fellow traveler and author, Sachin Garg to get into the frame, clicked it again, and here I had Sachin shouting wow for the next couple of minutes. The only thing that we need to ensure in such photographs is that the model stays perfectly still throughout the exposure, or else we'll make him look like a ghost!!!

The jetty that I shared had a couple of birds moving around and it made a great photo opportunity.  In such cases, flashes come in handy. Flashes help by exposing the main subject just at the right instant and then the long exposure will make the surroundings and the sky look alright. I used the on-camera flash to freeze the bird (I would have loved to use two wirelessly triggered flash lights in such a situation, the result would have been amazing, but I had none in my bag). I locked my camera on a tripod, set the flash on front-shutter-sync, took manual focus of the jetty where I expected the birds to flutter, waited for them to open the wings, and clicked just as I saw them flutter. I got this after around two dozen attempts of 20 second exposures.

Stay tuned for more on using flash bulbs in the upcoming posts.

 -          The Wandering Viewfinder

Slow Shutter Shooting

Six out of ten times when I am thinking of a composition that is out of the world, dreamy, calm and soothing, it is slow shutter that comes to my mind.

Ya, going high key is an option…but the images can be too dry and shiny to be soothing. Using flashes and other forms of artificial lighting also helps many a times, giving great and extremely dynamic looking photographs, but then pushing up the F-stops makes the images a bit too sharp to be dreamy.

Slow shutter shots are great and have actually no alternative in a variety of cases.

I clicked this in Bled, Slovenia. If you have a water body, and a couple of other subjects fitting nicely into the composition, and it is almost dark or completely dark, then I think let us not talk any further and go slow shutter.

Slow shutter almost always gives amazing results with all water bodies. Ponds and lakes look silky smooth, waterfalls look like the ones in heaven, and seas look like clouds.

This above photograph below was taken in Cassiss (Southern France) sometime in the evening. This is in fact just the right time to click the seas in such a mood. All I did was squeezed the aperture small enough to ensure that the photograph is not overexposed while my shutter remains open for a long time (10 Seconds) , fixed my camera on a tripod and clicked!


The one below is called "Flowing Lava or Urban Chaos". I took it from the top floor of the Eiffel Tower. The long shutter illuminated the beautiful streets of Paris just enough to make them look like molten mass.

And then after all, shooting with a slow shutter is like having a number of huge huge flashbulbs with us, we can light up a city or an entire mountain from tip to toe with it!!!

Low Key Photography

I wasn’t really aware of the fact that I had a thing for low key photography…until recently when I was sharing and discussing some of my work with a couple of fellow photographers when one of them pointed out that a lot of my shots had predominantly dark backgrounds and intense & focused lights. I realized that subconsciously I had developed this habit of squeezing the aperture to the fullest on getting the slightest chance of it, and it was actually giving decent results. It was then when it came to me that my portfolio needs to have an exclusive section on “Low Key Shots” (http://wanderingviewfinder.com/lowkey/index.html)

Low key shots are those which have a lot of dark areas. Low key photography is predominantly characterized by subdued lights and underexposed details, which may either be achieved by means of a subtle and subdued light over the entire frame, or intense lights only in some areas. High key photographs on the other hand are overexposed and have a lot of bright areas. High key shots look dreamy and happy, while low key shots look dramatic and mysterious.

Low key photography relies heavily on the play of shadows and absence of details. It is important to allow light not to fall everywhere in the frame, at the same time the highlights and borders of the subjects need to be lit nicely.

The following photograph was taken with a set of three off camera lights in place. One from camera left high, one from camera right low, and one from the model’s left side snooted a low, almost on the floor.

And its not that we need a full fledged studio setup like one discussed above to shoot good dramatic shots. In a recent trip to Hampi, a friend picked up these two cute little kitties and it looked like a great photo opportunity. But it’s not always that I am lucky enough to have my strobes and stands and umbrellas to make it a good shot. This photograph had to be taken in the available daylight. I asked her to move to a place where sunlight would actually light up only the kitties and not her. Usually wall corners, edges of sheds, etc can be useful in such circumstances.

If investing in external flashes is not on your list right now, you may also consider having any light with a thick sheet wrapped with silver paper to direct light. I got a number of decent shots with such DIY arrangements. This photo was taken with such a setup.

The Wandering Viewfinder