Goodbye Seychelles, Hello Dubai Hello Bengaluru

so 7 days had passed so quickly and now we were waiting for our cabbie to pick us up and drop us to the international airport.
ours was the first flight from Mahe to Dubai and since protocol demands we be at the airport at least 3 hours in advance meant that we would be spending a lot of time at the departure terminal at Mahe.

Shooting Glamour Portraits from Home - Help and Tips + all 4 parts in 1 post

its not as easy as it seems, but here are a few pointers that everyone needs to keep in mind

The Model : its great if the model has a lot of patience (along with looking stunningly beautiful) and its an added advantage if she can do her own make up! otherwise its going to get difficult to find a make up artist last minute! 

Glamour Portraits from Home - Bedroom

Part IV - Glamour Portraits from Home - Bedroom

not exactly Boudoir , but not too boring either. for the bedroom shoot i wanted to use just 1 600 RT flash unit with available lighting.

the 2 bedrooms we used had 2 different natural light options. for the forst one, we kept a 600 RT flash unit in the balcony at low power, while the model was posing in a long sweat shirt on the bed.

Glamour Portraits from Home - Basement and Outdoor

Part III Glamour Portraits from Home - Basement and Outdoor

Basement shooting was a bit tricky as there was absolutely no good source of light and i had to use 2  600 RT flashes mounted on 2 stands with soft box.

this purpose of the shoot was to highlight the model and NOT the car. the car was merely used as a prop.

the trick here was to achieve a good hair light and so we had to make several modifications to the car seat to allow the light to fall on the models head.

Glamour portraits from Home - Hallway Elevator

Part II - Glamour Portraits from Home - Hallway Elevator

for this, we were fortunate to again take the help of natural lighting , thanks to the very large window . here i decided to use 1 flash set up 600 RT mounted on stand with soft box , which was triggered using another 600 RT flash mounted on my Canon 1DX and Canon 5d mark III.

Glamour Fashion Portraits at Home - Living Room

Location hunting is a major pain , especially if its a last minute impromptu shoot.

normally a good location will have a nice uncluttered room for indoor shoots or a beautiful garden for outdoor shoots. and a typical place for a shoot would be a "resort" or "hotel" but not without demanding their pound of flesh. at one resort in Bengaluru we were told that a pro shoot would cost us anything above Rs 1 lakh! or if they had to charge per hour it would cost us Rs 10,000 per hour.

The Seychelles Diaries - Day 1 Bangalore and Dubai

i am a professional wedding photographer and so travelling is something that comes naturally to me. i never really enjoyed travelling when i was on assignment as i never really got to enjoy the travel, most often i would get confined to the hotel rooms, marriage halls of the events i am covering, so this is truly the very first time i enjoyed the travel. more so as it was my honeymoon! and magnificent Seychelles was our destination. so i decided to blog our journey from Mangalore to Seychelles for 2 reasons.
1. the photos are just not to be missed
2. this could serve as a travel guide to first time travellers to seychelles from India. will be writing about the must visit places in Seychelles, the local cuisine, culture etc. in the upcoming blog posts. 

we have been planning our honeymoon destination for months now and we had narrowed it down to the usual suspects Maldives, Mauritius , Bali, Malaysia etc. Nicole, my wife hates the cold, so travelling to Europe in January was totally out of the question even though we had initially agreed to go to Greece.

i really dont remember now who had come up with the idea of Seychelles but i was fortunate to have a friend Mario who arranges holidays through his firm Fleetfoot Journeys based in Mumbai.

after countless hours of talking over the phone and hundreds of email exchanges we were extremely happy to get our confirmed hotel reservations. made all the payments months before the Rupee had a nasty fall and had booked our flight tickets from MANGALORE TO BANGALORE, BANGALORE TO DUBAI, DUBAI TO MAHE (Seychelles)

there was an alternate route to fly via Colombo. but since it was our first time travel together abroad as a married couple, we thought it would be best to go via Duabi. in any case Dubai has a wonderful airport, which looks like a massive shopping mall.

some pics clicked at Bangalore airport, its not wise to take out the DSLR and start shooting inside the airport. a lot of pics are taken using their smartphones but i dont think its allowed to click photos with big bulky DSLR's inside the airport.

bangalore airport

The Chocolate Room - Bangalore

Death By Chocolate.... Guaranteed!

found out this place by pure luck, as i was desultorily looking for places to rest my lazy back side after jamming with my band Dying Embrace (oh yes i play in a band as well). i seriously have no idea why i looked up wards but there it was, the huge bill board for The Chocolate Room looking down (pun intended) on me.

Plan B

Plan B when plan A doesnt work out for you

the only good thing i really like about the city of Bangalore or Bengalooru is the variety of food joints, restaurants tailor made to suit everyone's palate. just a few months ago i had blogged about another place called Hae Kum Gang and delicious mouth watering (and wallet tearing) Korean dishes (read here) and todays review (or not) is of a pub/restaurant called Plan B which is situated on the same building as the Korean Hae Kum Gang restaurant.

Hae Kum Gang - Korean Restaurant in Bangalore

Korean cuisine is an acquired taste. if u Like Japanese food, then in all probability you will also like Korean food. one doesn't really have to travel to Korea to experience their cuisine and we were fortunate to visit Hae Kum Gang, located at Castle Street, near Brigade Road, Bangalore,.

The Tasty Tangles - UB City, Bangalore

The Tasty Tangles - UB City, Bangalore : was recommended by my good friend Vikram Bhat who , like me, also is a big foodie. the roast duck was easily the best i have tasted till date!