Darter: Photography workshop at Hampi

Hampi was in my to-visit list for a long time. But for set of collective reasons the trip to one of famous destinations of Karnataka could not materialize for a long time. However, sometime in mid of Dec-2010, renowned travel blogger cum photographer Arun Bhat announced his inaugural photography workshop at Hampi. Well, no prizes for guessing that I decided to take the plunge without any second thoughts. A perfect way to break my jinx w.r.t Hampi.


Some points about the workshop:

• The workshop was conducted jointly by Arun Bhat and Shreeram MV. It was nice to have instructors with fortes. Arun is mainly into landscape photography and whereas Shreeram is heavily into wildlife photography.
• Our base location was Sloth Bear Resort of Jungle Lodges. Field trips were at various sites of Hampi and to Doroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary.
• The major advantage of being part of this workshop was that we were at right place at right time. The best moment for me was witnessing and capturing sunrise being atop Matanga Hill. Our hike to the summit started as early as 5.30 am ! Such kind of commitment we can hardly meet being on a casual trip with friends and family.
• Unfortunately, due to commitments at my workplace I had to join this workshop a day late. Missed out the introductory session and field trip to Hemakuta Sunset point.
• For me the Eureka moment of the workshop was when Arun illustrated about his efforts for getting a perfect image from Tadiandamol peak. Usually, we take nature photography for granted :) there's so much ground work and planning for getting a perfect frame.
• Birding with Mr. Santosh Martin, forest warden of Bellary was a fruitful experience.
• Also, I made full use of recently bought gorilla tripod and it was handy for shooting various landscape photographs with high depth of feel.

Arun and Shreeram are planning to conduct second edition on Feb-19-2011. Visit FB page of Darter for last updates.

He're a few selected photos of the tour.

Array of pillars at Sule-Bazaar in front of Achyutaraya Temple

Atop Matanga Betta: You need to very careful from these creators. One among them was about to flick away my camera bag.

Virupaksha Temple as seen from Matanga betta:

At Queen's Bath: an interesting composition with arches and shadows

Hazararama Temple: Only temple in Hampi having carvings on soft granite.