[Assam] First Prize Winner!

[Rajib Das]

C-Da,

Flickr is an online photo site - much like many others
- except their tools to upload, manage and enable
others to see digital photos is far better. Moreover,
it acts as a social networking site for photo
enthusiasts of all hues. People flock to Flickr to see
great digital photos from amateurs.

You can check it out at www.flickr.com. It is easy to
use.

Rajib



--- Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:

> Hi Rajib:
> 
> I don't know how to do that. Can you help? What is
> Flickr?
> 
> c-da
> 
> 
> 
> At 8:11 PM -0700 8/13/06, Rajib Das wrote:
> >C-da,
> >
> >Have you put up all your photographs on Flickr?
> >
> >Rajib
> >
> >
> >--- Dilip/Dil Deka <dilipdeka at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >>  Guess who?  Chandan Mahanta had the best picture
>  in
> >>  the Best Garden Photography category of the 2006
> St.
> >>  Louis Post-Dispatch Great Garden Contest.
> >>
>
>======================================================================
> >>
> >>    Picture perfect
> >>    By Becky Homan
> >>    SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH
> >>    08/12/2006
> >>
> >>  The pale-yellow flower of a native lotus
> (Nelumbo
> >>  lutea) is a close-up photo by Chan Mahanta,
> >>  first–place winner in the Best Garden
> Photography
> >>  category of the 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
> Great
> >>  Garden Contest.
> >>  (Chan Mahanta)
> >>
> >>  How do you tell a plant to say "cheese?"
> >>
> >>  Here's how, metaphorically speaking. You look
> for
> >>  the most beautiful, if subdued, daylight - early
> in
> >>  the morning on what will be a sunny day, or
> anytime
> >>  that high clouds make for bright-but-overcast
> >>  weather. You find a flower or foliage or some
> scene
> >>  that moves you to want its picture. And you come
> in
> >>  close if your camera has a macro lens, or you
> step
> >>  back with a longer lens and work on just the
> right
> >>  composition for your image.
> >>
> >>  Winners in the Best Garden Photography category
> of
> >>  the 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Great Garden
> >>  Contest did most of these things. And more. All
> are
> >>  amateur photographers, by the way, but with
> >>  gardening or photography among their favorite
> >>  hobbies.
> >>
> >>  "Overall, the entries were impressive," says
> contest
> >>  founder, horticulturist and judge Ken Miller.
> "Some
> >>  people took pretty common subjects and made them
> >>  special. Others took exotics and did the same."
> >>                   Advertisement
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>  Chan Mahanta of the Old Jamestown neighborhood
> near
> >>  Florissant did both. He came in first in this
> >>  category.
> >>
> >>  His close-up image of the pale-yellow flower of
> a
> >>  native lotus (Nelumbo lutea) is breathtaking -
> >>  familiar and alien, all at the same time.
> >>
> >>  That photo, says another of the contest judges,
> >>  horticulturist John Mareing, "is quite unique in
> >>  that he has focused his camera on the very
> center of
> >>  the lotus flower at the time of pollination.
> >>
> >>  "Mahanta's photo captures the contrast between
> the
> >>  impressive developing pod and the delicate
> stamens
> >>  surrounding it," Mareing continues. "The
> composition
> >>  is interesting and artistic, and the photo
> exhibits
> >>  great clarity and depth."
> >>
> >>  Mahanta, like the third-place winner in this
> >>  category, Dave Bennett, had won prizes in other
> >>  categories of previous Great Garden Contests.
> >>  Mahanta placed first in Best Home Garden by an
> >>  Amateur in 2004, and Bennett won third place for
> >>  Best Flower Garden in 2003.
> >>
> >>  This wasn't a problem for the judges, who worked
> >>  "blind" when reviewing the photos and learned of
> >>  each previous winner's status after making their
> >>  picks.     MORE
> >>    SLIDESHOW: See photos of the winners gardens
> >>    GROUP WINNERS: Together again
> >>    EDIBLE WINNERS: Edible efforts win prizes in
> >>  garden contest
> >>    SERENITY WINNERS: Outdoor oasis
> >>    PROFESSIONAL AID WINNERS: The 'wow' factor
> >>    AMATUER WINNERS: From cottage to collections
> >>    MORE CONTEST STORIES
> >>    2006 Great Garden Contest winners
> >>    Judges tell their own stories
> >  >
> >>
> >>
> >>  "We don't have published rules regulating that,"
> Ken
> >>  Miller says. "We have an unofficial rule not to
> >>  allow the same gardener to win two years in a
> row.
> >>  These (2006 photo winners) already waited two
> years,
> >>  and they've also gone into an entirely different
> >>  field."
> >>
> >>  For Chan, photography grew out his father's love
> for
> >>  the subject.
> >>
> >>  The elder Mahanta had dropped out of high school
> in
> >>  the Assam state of British India in the eighth
> >>  grade, Chan says. He went to learn commercial
> art
> >>  and photography in Dacca, now the capital of
> >  > Bangladesh. "He ended his career as a country
> >>  photographer," Chan adds, when the prosperous
> tea
> >>  trade waned near the end of British rule. But
> before
> >>  that happened, Chan's father was a society
> >>  photographer for both native and British
> society,
> >>  "all of the 'Who's Who'," Chan says, "and he
> made a
> >>  pretty decent living."
> >>
> >>  All of his photography was done without
> electricity,
> >>  by the way, in a "lean-to" with a mirror
> reflecting
> >>  sunlight through a small hole on the north side
> of
> >>  the little building, for making exposures. "When
> I
> >>  tell this to my friends in photography now," he
> >>  adds, "they are mesmerized."
> >>
> >>  Chan's family was able to send him to the Indian
> >>  Institute of Technology, where photography led
> him
> >>  to study architecture. "Photography made a big
> >>  impression on my life," Chan says. "It is the
> art of
> >>  looking at things."
> >>
> >>  He didn't own a camera until 1971, a full year
> after
> >>  immigrating to the states. It was then that he
> >>  bought a single-lens reflex Canon. He still
> shoots
> >>  with an updated version of that film camera but
> with
> >>  newer Fuji Velvia film that, he says, produces
> >>  beautiful color. "What I get with the digital
> camera
> >>  can't quite match it, yet." All of his contest
> >>  photos were shot on film.
> >>
> >>  Also a passion is the macro lens, designed to
> focus
> >>  at very short distances for nearly life-size
> >>  magnification. "If you go and frame something
> close
> >>  up," he says, "all of a sudden a whole new world
> 
=== message truncated ===


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