[Click on the thumbnails to enlarge]

It’s a big feast for your eyes if you happen to be in Bandra area of Mumbai around Christmas. Ecstasy prevails in the atmosphere. Roads are crowded with shopping enthusiasts; not to mention, especially women and kids! Not only the big shops and malls, but also the road-side small stalls are well lit and decorated with lots of festive items to sell. Obviously, the red and white colors are predominantly spread across every shop. Santa Claus’s red clothes and snow white beard! Inside one such small road-side shop I saw this cute little Santa hanging on the side-bar of the shop.

I set the camera to portrait mode, focused on the eyes, recomposed the frame and clicked! The intention behind setting the camera to portrait mode was to set the background out of focus and emphasize on the subject.  Further, I softened the portrait on photo editor for a dreamy look.

If you go to Bandra and do not visit Mt. Mary church, it is as unfortunate as visiting Agra and not seeing Taj Mahal. Mount Mary’s Church in Bandra was built for Mother Mary in the early 19th century. Mt. Mary’s church is a place of worship for people of every religion. This church is one of the finest architectures in Mumbai. Actually I wanted to shoot this picture as displayed HERE. But, unfortunately I couldn’t get wider range in the camera phone.

I think this is the best shot I got from N79. The lighting conditions and the distance were ideal in order to get a crisp image. I liked the crispy look of the image and its color saturation.

Just in front of this church is Mt.Mary’s statue. Her posture, facial expressions are such that whoever stands in front of the statue bows down with respect. The divine source of eternal peace!!!

See the fun! Could you see a clear reflection of the church on the glass? Normally photographers use polarizer filter to get rid of such reflections. In this case the reflection added more charm to the image, I suppose!

This is the picture shot with a camera set to Auto mode.

You can spend quite some time at the small shops around Mt.Mary’s church. These shops are full of small statues of Jesus Christ, Mother Mary, hanging holy crosses, colorful candles, and so many other tiny items. One such small wooden holy cross was hanging there. I thought of using the depth of field (DOF) technique to emphasize the holy cross. It wasn’t that difficult. I set the camera to Portrait mode, focused on the cross, recomposed the frame and clicked.

Unfortunately the light weight wooden cross was slightly wobbling due to the breeze. Had it been stable, sharpness of the image would have been much better.

Move to Part – IV