pixetra club events
While there is no shortage of college "festivals" in the major metros of India, Bangalore's Indian Institute of Planning and Management conducts a gala each year called Amaze which is known for its high popularity and large attendance. This year pixetra associated with Amaze as a co-sponsor. New to Amaze 2008 was a photo contest called [click] whose theme was "A Moment In Time." Bangalore's renowned wildlife photographer and conservationist, Sudhir Shivaram judged the contest along with pixetra'S Sethuraman. Sudhir's slide-show/ lecture on Digital Photography Techniques and Tips on 'How to Buy a Digicam' was well attended and very well received.
The prize winners:
- 1st prize - Srivatsa Bhargav
- 2nd prize - Anand Yaligar
- 3rd prize - Vishwanath Vittal
A new beginning! pixetra Club members and friends interested in astronomy got together to enjoy an evening of astral gazing in the second week of February at Skyline, a Kochi high rise building where several telescopes were set up. However the night sky turned out to be very overcast and nothing could be seen! This did not cloud the gathering's mood though; under guidance from Dr. Shaji and Prof. Sobhan, faculty in the Astro-Physics Dept. of Maharaja's College, Kochi, the members enjoyed serious learning in beginner's astronomy: our guides showed a power point presentation on subjects ranging from constellations to specific planet-position and more. Members came away with heads full of facts and a whetted eagerness to make sure to catch up with a full night sky though our telescopes at the next meeting!
And sure enough, on 22nd Feb they assembled again and this time the skies cooperated! Dr. Shaji pointed out Sirius (how many of us know this is not one bright star, but in fact a bright star and a faint white dwarf behind it!) and the constellation Orion. Kids and grown-ups alike were awed by the spectacle of Moon craters so up close and clear! Now we all want this to be a regular event already!
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Foto-guru classes are becoming a regular event ever since we provided a form for you to fill-in online and express your interest to sign up for classes (if you don't know about this, do check it out at www.pixetra.com/club/foto_guru_form). The inquiry forms have been coming in almost daily! The first Foto-guru classes in Bangalore for this New Year took place on Feb
2 & 3. We actually had a participant come in from Hyderabad to attend - Binu Nair heard about the classes from his friends and was not willing to wait till the club is up and running in Hyderabad! |
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We made New Year's resolution to try break away from traditional classroom sessions in our photo-workshops and so just 3 weeks into the New Year we planned an outdoor nature photography workshop for pixetra club bangalore members. Nature photographer Amoghavarsha took his assignment as workshop co-ordinator one step further and decided not to have any lectures at all! Members spent the entire day at the Ragihalli Nature Camp Area adjourning the Bannerghatta National Forest Preserve - a blissful eight hours getting hands-on experience photographing nature: birds (magpie robin, coppersmith barbet, laughing dove, bulbul, paradise fly-catcher, parakeet and babbler to name a few), insects, butterflies, landscape, and even horses (the camp is a stud farm of sorts). Amogha was of course available for one-on-one and small-group discussions on ways to improve both the art and craft of nature photography. pixetra's own photography teacher, Sethuraman too was at-hand helping out with camera how-tos and general tips and techniques.
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A surprise bonus was when our trekking guide for the day, Shivu, literally took the road less travelled as he de-toured a bit and the group enjoyed looking a very cute grown slender loris - definitely worth the cuts and bruises the thorns on the off-track rewarded us!
Various members' blogs/ photo blogs and galleries on the trip are at
Pratap Ramdas' association with pixetra's parent company Tradelinks, goes back many decades. But it was just recently that Pratap came to know about pixetra club when he stopped by at our M. G. Road store in Kochi. At this meeting we discovered Pratap's penchant to teach photography! A new bond has been formed!
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pixetra club Kochi members' first activity for 2008 was to take up Pratap's invitation to come enjoy a day of nature photography classes in the outdoors at his home-town, Munnar. We started off the day's business with a quick primer by Pratap on quality of light and color temperature with reference to white balance in the digital camera. Next, en-route to the Mattupatty dam a short halt at a truck-stop on the highway to photograph stunning valley views with tea estates in the foreground. Here we did a lot of simple exercises like "looking at light" and "set your camera to manual" - all stepping stones to more deep visualisation and art-photo lessons that were to come. Once we reached the waterfront, Pratap took us thru the steps to shooting textures and patterns - we tried our hand clicking wood-bark and stone textures. After a portrait exercise (photographing each other) we moved on to lunch.
In the afternoon "session" was Pratap's imprompto slide-show - rather than sequentially showing pretty pictures, the teacher opted to show a select number of his shots as he expained how they were shot and the thinking and approach behind each. Over tea Pratap shared a couple of photo books on Kerala that awed and inspired him and members enjoyed looking through the beautiful collection of photos in them. A fitting finale for the day was the last stop at a valley overlooking the scenic Munnar Hills for twilight and sunset shots.No surprise that all of us were completely exhausted and dozed off during the entire trip back to Kochi!
| H V Praveen Kumar likes to credit luck for most of his great photographs - we would've willingly agreed if he has taken just a handful of wonderful pictures. But when you go thru a stack of prints this high, each an exquisite example of perfect timing (ah, that elusive fourth dimension that is every photographer's dream to capture), one does hesitate branding his art-form mere lucky shots. We'd like to blame it on his passion, knowledge and dedicated diligence. |
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pixetra club was so fortunate to have Praveen address Bangalore members and share this passion and perseverance with us on Dec 8. Praveen started off his talk with tips on awareness and conservation, a must-know pre-requisite to foraying into an Indian jungle. His large collection of birds and animal photos - a display of blown-up prints (in itself a welcome change after much exposure to power-point slides) were well received by our club members.
Sometimes it all comes together. The pixetra club Bangalore members' outing to Bhadra was meticulously planned to be a smooth weekend trip to the River Tern Lodge in Bhadra (http://www.junglelodges.com/resort_wildlife.asp?resort=River%20Tern%20Lodge) by club coordinator Judy and our nature resource-book Amoghavarsha. Its no surprise therefore that the event was amazing fun for the twelve members who spent the weekend shooting bird, plant and wildlife photos! What was serendipitous was the coming together of three kings of natural life
knowledge: Karthik, the resident natural life encyclopedia at Bhadra, our friend and natural life enthusiast, Amoghavarsha who has made more trips to Bhadra than some migratory bird varieties and the quietly effervescent store-house of natural life information, Deepa Mohan whose regular blogs on nature-watch and conservation are a popular feature on the net, not just in Karnataka, but country-wide, I am told. (Check her out yourself at http://deponti.livejournal.com/307812.html - do read mention of our trip at http://bangalore.metblogs.com/archives/2007/11/the_pixetra_club.phtml)
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So, saying a good time was had by all would be the understatement of the year. We had just about the best time so far! The trip included stay at the idyllic River Tern Lodge, boat- and jeep- safaris into the jungle, photography tips galore from Amog and Sethu, and a slide-show lecture/ workshop on nature and protection by Karthik. Yes!
pixetra club members from Kochi area got together and took off on the third weekend of Oct to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in Thekkady, Kerala. The trip was undiluted fun - from the night at the Vallakkadavu Jungle Camp in tents, to the early morning trek into the forest when they actually got to see and photograph elephants, bear and herds of gaur and sambhar deer - not to mention the wonderful birds, butterflies and wildflowers. The Sunday lunch at The Spice Village followed by a members'-photo-review session at the property's conference facility completed the totally enjoyable experience.
The trip was made altogether more useful thanks to the presence of not one, but two experienced natural-life photographers: nature/ wildlife photographer and close friend pixetra club, Amogavarsha, from Bangalore; and all the way from Mumbai to be with us, Alok Brahmbhatt, Senior Correspondent of Better Photography Magazine and a passionate nature photographer! Club members were treated to group and one-on-one sessions with these enthusiasts - needless to say they benefited big heaps. Big thank you to Amog and Alok from all pixetra club members and staff. Lets look forward to many more such events, guys!
| pixetra joined hands with Reliance Fresh at Ponnurunni, Kochi, in the last week of September 2007, in a cross-brand-promotion lucky dip. Customers who bought Rs. 300 or more worth produce at Reliance Fresh qualified a chance to win prizes. The draw was held on 25th Sept at the pixetra Showroom in Kadavanthara. pixetra's Managing Director, Srikantan Suryanarayanan gave away an Apple iPod, pixetra Club Membership including the Club T Shirt and Rs.1000 coupon, and a Luminarc Glass Set as prizes to K.K Raju, N.R. Amrutha and Malathi Devi. Congratulations, prize winners! And a special "welcome to the club" to Amrutha! |
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Early this September pixetra club sponsored an awesome photography exhibition called Wide-Angle at the Chitra Kala Parishad. Anita, Venkat, Shankar and Nishant, four techies united by a common passion for photography got together their best image files and had them printed into gorgeous blow-ups. The exhibition was well attended by photo and print lovers from all over the city - the quartet ended up selling a handsome number of prints; major proceeds of the sales went to Jagruthi, a voluntary organization working with children affected with AIDS. Highpoint of the event was a talk by Dr. Manoj C. Sindagi, well-known wildlife photographer.
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Recently pixetra club fielded a request from one of Bangalore's large hi-tech MNCs! Manhattan Associates' Josh Club in Whitefield organized their first ever Photo Competition called Photo Flow. pixetra Club accepted Josh Club's appeal to be part of the judges' panel and showed its appreciation by offering special discounts to Manhattan employees. For more fun, pixetra offered three contest participants FREE lifetime club membership!
The actual response for the competition was tepid by their expectations but Manhattan employees made up for what they lacked in quantity with high quality entries. The panel of five judges had a tough time tallying points awarded to the photos on a merit scale and coming up with winners. Josh Club had called for entries under two generic ("People" and "Preserving the Environment and Nature") and two company-related ("Manhattan Associates Values" and "Supply Chain Management") topics. In all 115 photographs by 30 contestants were displayed.
After the judging, pixetra club's Sethuraman addressed the participants to give them quick tips to take better photos and improve their chances in a competition. It's expected that the next contest at Josh's there will be an overwhelming number of entries!!
pixetra club's Foto-Guru activities for Bangalore were kicked off in the last week of May with a "Basics of Photography" class in the cosy mezznine floor of our pixetra cunningham road showroom. We tried a new format - two long full-day sessions instead of the four shorter sessions. A Sunday outing at the Lal Baugh Gardens provided ample photo-opportunities - nature, people, tourists, birds - quite a variety of subjects to try out. The participants were above average beginners with a range of P S and DSLR gear in tote.
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pixetra club - Foto-Guru "Basics of Photography" Class - the first ever beginner level photography summer camp for kids and parents kicked off at the pixetra showroom in Kadavanthara, Cochin, on May 15. Two batches of eager students armed with various kinds of digital and film cameras - from simple point and shoot to advanced DSLRs, rallied around to listen to lectures, watch power-point presentations and take part in discussions on art and science aspects of photography. An excursion to Fort Cochin for a morning of picture taking further helped the participants whet their creativity and put newly acquired skills to practical use.
This year, our pixetra club summer calendar of events features Amal Jyothi Engineering College in Koovapalli near Kottayam, Kerala. pixetra was invited to participate in the College's grand inter-collegiate "Azure" festival. Besides putting up our brand presence and product display, we were asked to judge entries into the "FlickR" photography contest. The topic for the contest suggested by pixetra club was "Macro". 19 colleges teams participated - a total of 54 entries were short-listed and the final three winners were awarded pixetra gift coupons for Rs.5000 as prizes.
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The Bangalore Photography Festival opened at the Galleria in Leela Palace, Bangalore, on Monday 15th April - pixetra had the privilege of being the main official partner for this event. By participating in a community activity totally devoted to cheering all levels of photographers - from casual hobbyists, serious amateurs and prosumers, all the way to professional photographers - pixetra confirms its commitment to putting the photo-enthusiasts first. The youngest entrant was a 14-year old and
the oldest, 87! The Festival, a first of its kind for the organizers, had an amazing turnout - close to 20 professional shooters and 75 amateurs photographers submitted prints - a panel of moderators accepted all the professional images and screened the amateurs' photos, finally picking a whopping 300 photos to be displayed.
On the concluding day of the Bangalore Photography Festival, a glossy coffee table book of the best of the festival photographs was released by pixetra Managing Director, Srikant Suryanarayan. The first copy was received by Darshan M; Director, Sales and Marketing of Crossover, the company that organized the event. Top photographers from Bangalore and Mumbai were present.
With a view to increasing brand recall and to accentuate the 'fun element' of pixetra, we ran a "foto quote" contest. With a prize of Rs.10000/- up for grabs, participants had to go online and submit an original quote of not more than 20 words on either photography or travelling. The contest was open for six weeks and to promote it, we placed colorful tags with wacky one-liners on vehicles in parking lots and on the roadside, in Bangalore and Cochin. We also e-mailed our regular customers and friends about the contest.
The contest was judged by an independent panel of judges and the winner was Mr. Anand Rao of Bangalore; the winning quote: "Look into my eyes, you might know what I see. Look at my photograph, you might know what I think!". Mr Rao was awarded a pixetra gift coupon for the prize amount Rs.10000/-, at the Bangalore Photography Festival. Also, since every participant is a winner, all participants were sent gift vouchers redeemable at any of our stores!
In February, pixetra was part of the Bangalore BirdRace, an annual event that all bird lovers from the area look forward to. Thanks to a keen interest shown by the organizers, pixetra had a small display station showing off a collection of latest models of binoculars and telescopes at the Race's starting point in Central Park Hotel. The pixetra club in Bangalore will participate in such events regularly to encourage nature and ecology awareness. When fully functional, the club will organize a variety of activities that outdoor lovers, especially bird watchers and those who love photography will welcome.
