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Arpan Das
@arpandas_photography_adventure
Best of the week 41 at #nomadict 2021
I was a painter during my school days, but unfortunately, I stopped to pursue my career in Science. Nevertheless, I always had the hunger to do some kind of art besides my career in science. Photography came in as a form of art during a family trip to north-east India, when my father bought a point-and-shoot camera. He asked me to use it and document the moments we experienced together. I quite enjoyed it and decided to keep doing it besides my studies.
"Currently, I am an Astrophysicist by profession."
I just finished my PhD degree back in April and now work for the data reduction pipeline for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) at Universities Space Research Association and NASA Ames Research Centre in Mountain View, California. I love being both a scientist and artist at the same time. In my opinion, they complement each other quite well. In a fancy way, I can say I have a scientific brain and an artistic soul. There is a similarity to the way I see the giant mountains for photography and the universe for astronomy, we are tiny or almost non-existent in front of both, it is a fascinating fact, “how small we are”. I love my day job as much as I love photography. Finding the right balance is important for me and luckily I have managed to do it quite well so far.
When I just started taking photographs, I used to do all kinds of photography: nature, street, portraits, and macro. When I moved to Italy and went to the Dolomites, I immediately fell in love with the Alps. Since then, I decided to focus on landscape photography. Canada, where I traveled to later on, helped me evolve a lot in this field. I gained so much knowledge about and experience in the outdoors by traveling in the mountains of Canada.
The winning shot was taken in Kootenay National Park. I went there mainly because I love backpacking and camping, and that place was on top of my list for a long time. It is quite challenging to bring all the camping gear and photography gear on hikes like this. But when you get a sunrise like you see on the photo, you shout “hell yeah”, all the efforts pay off.
The day before was full of snow and nothing was visible, which is quite sad when you hike a long distance to see the beauty. So, watching that sunrise the next morning was more than fascinating. I learned, again, to never underestimate mother nature. When I woke up it looked cloudy and I felt a feeling of disappointment taking over, thinking that the sunrise wouldn’t be nice. Then the sun broke through the clouds and an intense color covered the sky, colored the mountains and was reflected in the water. Nature at its best!
For the shot, I focused on two things: the amazing light and the composition. The light was picture perfect, one of the best sunrises I have ever witnessed. The composition was striking too, everything pointing towards the center of the frame and the clouds and the fallen leaves complementing each other.
"I try to be really creative while I'm shooting, as well as when I am editing."
I see editing photos as digital painting. One of my favorite painters is Albert Bierstadt and I try to emphasize a lot of his painting effects on my photos. Moreover, I am a huge fan of fantasy movies and games. I obtain a lot of inspiration from them.
Several of my photos I position as fine art prints. For me, a camera is just a tool to capture the image, but there is a vast field of creativity in fine art photography other than just capturing the photo. Photographing for print is a whole different world. There is a lot more work to be done for printing than posting on social media, e.g., local sharpening, soft and hard proofing, producing accurate colors etc.
"It is therefore extra satisfying when I see my artworks in a giant frame."
Currently I am extremely interested in backcountry trips, of which the winning shot is a result. Finding new places which have rarely been photographed is tremendously satisfying! Having the result printed even more. I’d encourage everyone to produce and adjust some photos specifically for printing, it’s a different workflow and some more effort but it will definitely spark your passion and make you feel even more motivated!
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