Articles

The Roadblocks of Blogging ride

Posted on by Archana K B / 5 Comments

I have already blogged about writer’s block before, here and there. But the Write Tribe community has asked to do it again, and here I am. The prompt actually made me introspective, asking myself my fresh and current take on the subject. I realize that main reasons for not blogging is indeed the overwhelming activity of other bloggers who blog daily and churn posts within hours on a given prompt. Especially after the A to Z challenge where I found alarming number of Indian bloggers creating awesome posts, where as I was struggling to catch up daily. So was jealousy the reason? More prominently, it was the self-doubt. I did hinted at it in the previous post.

After finding the reasons, I move to find out what all I do to bounce back.

  • Write on what occupies your mind

Some call it free write, but what I imply is to post about something which you are busy with. Are you reading a book? Blog about it. Were you busy with your kid, husband or other office problems? Rant about it.Taking some photos? Do a photo post. Searching in Google and getting lost in Facebook? Post about it.

  • Get new books to read

Got some 2-3 easy read books to start with and see where the path leads on. Currently reading the latest book by Preeti Shenoy.

  • Watch new movies:

I watched two movies the past week, 2 states and Highway. Both were pending on my list. These days, I am fan of the latest crop of actors. They do fairly well. The scripts are good and ways of story telling is also different.

  • Have conversations to get ideas

Some say opportunities do not come to people who sit idle. Inspired by Jaya Narayan whom I met few months ago, I started asking on Facebook forums for some leads on whatever I was stuck in. Be it photography, or something else. You may get some answers or sometimes none. Either way, its worth a try. Facebook should be useful once in a while, na?

  • Take new easy projects

I started off July photo challenge in Instagram to see whether I like photography challenge better or the writing one. I had done the latter before, and wanted to see whether I enjoyed doing photo challenge equally. The medium of phone photography was a relatively easy way to start with. I can always summarize them into blog posts later. If you are twitter freak, you can compile the important tweets you made or the links you shared into a blog post.

Leaving you with a Hangout video conducted by SHEROES on writing career. You may not be looking at writing as a career, but there are plenty of advices on writing principles.

Note: The video is good only after the initial hiccups which goes on for first 12-13 minutes, so be prepared for it.

Internet/Links/Photography/Webscape

Photo essays database

Posted on by Archana K B / 3 Comments

 

While searching for photo projects similar to that of Stranger portraits by Danny, I stumbled across many photo essays from photographers and abroad. Thought of collecting all such informative links, so that it will also be useful to fellow beings searching for similar topics.
Indian Photo essays:
For further reading:
  • Photo essays on news in TIME 
  • Photo essay samples  
  • Few general photographic projects which you can add to the Project 52, Photo a week, 50 prime for 50 days, ABC Challenge, and you will never run out of photo project ideas.. 
  • Essay ideas on being asked for school photography project 
  • Open courseware with videos and articles on detailed digital photography. There are also some sample photo essays and tips. 

This would be an ongoing bookmark list, which may grow over time.

Bangalore life/Photography

Sampoorn Santhe – 2014

Posted on by Archana K B / 7 Comments

Along with Dastkar and Kala Madhyam,which is famous on its own among craft-lovers,  Sampoorn Santhe is one fair I look forward to in Bangalore for its collection of arts and crafts. Mostly this happens at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, the arts college of Bangalore at Kumara Krupa Road. Both times I visited the fair before in the previous years, it was for shopping. The beauty of handmade has its own charm, while the prices are kept affordable. The craftsmen come directly from different parts of the country and sell the craft products directly to the customers. Continue reading →

Photography

Photowalks and Portraits

Posted on by Archana K B / 6 Comments

I started photowalking on May 1st. It was at the K R Market, Bangalore city centre.

Immediately after the A-Z challenge, I enrolled in this photo walk, so as to not lose the momentum of getting myself involved in something. But mostly, this was a weekend offering. Street photography was not something I would ever tried my hands on all by myself. Even in groups, I find it hard to break the ice. Hence as much as I enjoy the crowd, and could visualise the pictures, I end up either failing to paint them, or painting differently because of my shyness or my limited technical knowledge.

But I realized its okay. Every photographer from the past has been doing that. In my search of bettering my photos, I stumbled upon two famous street photographers, Dannyand Eric Kim. Their posts too showed that they had the fear of strangers. Yay! I had company.Continue reading →

Articles/mommy/Relationship

Article on parenting in Smart Indian Women

Posted on by Archana K B / 1 Comment

Writing is the one area I wanted to concentrate this year, as part of my January plan. I did apply for content writing and article freelancing, but the prompts, theme and the number of deliverables was quite a shock to the amateur writer in me. I could not come up with a single word for the article-style writing which made money.

One day, when I got a reply from Smart Indian Women, I never thought I could write a 500-word article. As usual, the next day morning, I sat down to practice free write, (the schedule which I do miss at times), the theme of mother-child emotional bond floated in my mind. I started penning down my emotions, and at the end, it was exactly within the limit of 500 words. Strange coincidence huh?

As in the films, after the child is born and shown to you in the labor room, you brim with joy, and laugh and cry. And when they start sucking for the milk, the river of motherhood overflows. But for mothers like me, the bonding happened much later.

Struggling with the fatigue of the sedatives and the pain of the stitches, I was rarely able to tend to her needs at the hospital. The breastfeeding struggles followed with the sleepless nights. Though the doctors advised to keep trying with the baby to suck at my flat masses, my mother kept criticizing me for making the baby cry. I was more practical. I was more selfish. I wanted her to try, rather than trying myself to gain more patience…

Read more…

Bangalore life/Personal/Photography/Thoughts

The Devilish Mountain

Posted on by Archana K B / 1 Comment

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
~Edmund Hillary

The valley was beautiful. But now I see the mountain. The big mountain. The deadly beast which could either make or break my life.

Every time I sit down to write with a prompt, words jumble around around my head like a bee hive of mosquitoes at dusk. And slowly you get the bites. They evade you even if you try to beat them. That’s the irony. You can’t escape from them, even if they are very small individual creatures. I wrote too, about the massive rival, self-doubt in the previous post about the writing tips. And here I am, battling it out. Instead of writing a proper fictional piece, or writing articles for freelancing, I am unlocking my mind.

But still unconvinced, I turn to my other interests. Take photography. I started going out with the Bangalore Photowalk group on weekends, to places where I have not been, like the old market buildings, meeting other photographers, and very talented ones.

Flower market [Explored]

I realized there are masters and grandmasters and professionals battling for business in the world of photography, along with the amateurs and beginners, whose photos are far better than mine. I had stumbled upon a graph few months ago on social network, which had the graph of an amateur photographer down at the bottom, just after he dived into this field, as he gained more and more knowledge. It kind of exactly depicts my present state of mind. (Oops! Couldn’t find that photo again!!)

I stop showing my photos around, and hide in the shell of my home. And turn to quilling. This should be easy. Just the rolling of a paper and mere sticking. So I try quillography of Nayana, thinking that, I would stick on her play area wall, like naming a room.

Post by Archana Ramakrishnan.

The layout of letters was easy to get printed. But the designs around that, had to come from my mind. I scouted internet and the Bangalore Craft Lover’s group for ideas. But the quilling designs displayed shocked me to some extent. What creative design I could come up with which won’t look like I have copied from others? Not much. I did try to start something, but laziness and lack of inspiration kept me down. She is too young to appreciate my intricate nature of the work.

Like the writing challenges, I realized I would be better if I had the buddies to inspire and give a shot. I did ask in forums for the same, but realized I will have to go out of my comfort zone, and take measures to handle Nayana. I will have to send her to daycare in the afternoon, if I have to get out in the weekdays. Then I have the problems of not having any experience. Strangely, everyone is a beginner when they start. So we should be easily getting opportunities, no?

The mind blocks have formed the mountain so high, that I could not see the sun, though I could see its rays of hope touching the peak. Surely I can gain some pleasure in conquering the mountain. But for that, I need to climb to the peak.
And that’s a long way to go.

***
Written for the mountain prompts