The Tour of Nilgiris 2016 is a 8 day cycle tour and race through the western ghats, passing through some of the most beautiful hill ranges and forests of South India. The race starts in Bangalore, and culminates at a different city every year. With a 110 cyclists in bright clothing and fast cycles, we make quite a few heads turn in the villages we pass…
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Kali Kayak Festival 2017
The Kali Kayak festival 2017 was an event that lasted three days long, but an experience that will last forever.
Somewhere in the middle of the Kali reserve forest lays the river Kali, running wild and free though the Western Ghats. Untamed, ruthless and harsh, like a snake in search of its prey. I’m kidding. It’s controlled by a dam, and you need luck to be in the river when the water gates are opened. And Ganeshgudi, a small town in Karnataka close to Dandeli and known for its adventure sports, was the epicenter of the Kali Kayaking festival.
If whitewater is your kind of rush, then the Kali river festival in Karnataka is the place you need to be. The three day festival had participants not only from all over India, but from New Zealand, Australia, UK and Nepal as well.
The festival was held just at the onset of the monsoons, between June 2nd and 4th. The races included the slalom, down river, boater cross and down river marathon. The surprise package was the huge turnout for beginner’s race with over a 110 participants.
The last race was the river marathon, a team event, where the participants were randomly grouped into teams of 4, and raced down 8kms of river running through the Kali reserve forest.
None of the tasks were easy, most of the races had a rapid where the participants were required to paddle through a bottle neck called the dislocator Rapid. The weather during the festival was gloomy and rainy, drizzling all day and rainy at night.
The event was covered in detail by a team of 8.
Aditi Shastri – Videos
Adrian John – Photography & Production
Md. Faseeh – PR & Photo edits
Nithin Francis – Video Editor
Praveen Jayakarn – Photography
Puneeth Kumar – Aerial cinimatography
Supriya Vohra – Social media
Neil D’souza – Director
Marathon footage : Nth Adventure
Music
The Raghu Dixit Project – Lokada Kalaji
The biggest challenge we faced white covering the Kali kayak festival 2017 was getting to the location. The best spots were on the other side of the river, and the only way to get there is either hitch a ride on a raft, or a Kayak. With raft’s coming in rare, and busy with safety, using the Kayaks as Taxi’s was a fun but scary experience.
The organisers for this event were Goodwave adventures and GETHNAA.
http://www.goodwave.in/
Malabar river festival 2016 aftermovie
The Malabar river festival 2016 film is a showcase of the 3 days of kayaking, deep in the heart of Kerala. There’s a lot a to be said about this years festival, with last-minute confirmations, confusion and the insecurity that it may not happen at all. But in the end, we pulled through, had a great festival, and chilled at Chechi’s every evening over a hot cup of lemon tea.
The MRF 2016 was almost not going to happen. Government and sponsor interest was low. Athletes were unsure because of the Olympics and weak rains. But then we decided to take the crowd funding route, and the campaign gave us the much-needed initial momentum. In the end, things worked out just right, and the event was a big hit as usual.
Everyone had a great festival, despite all the odds. The Indian athletes had upped their game big time. The ladies had more to cheer for as the Rapid Rani prize money was higher than the Rapid Raja.
The local kayakers had grown a lot since last year, where they just participated, to winning most of the berths in the intermediate category this year. New events like Slacklining, SUP have expanded the festival reach.
The winner of the festival, Joe Rea-Dickins was crowned the Rapid Raja and Beth Morgan, the Rapid Rani respectively.
Shot by
Benilal V
Faseeh Md
Joe Rea-Dickins
Vivek Premsingh
Parabjeet Singh
Neil D’souza
Edit
Hyatt Noorul
Music
Thaikkudam Bridge – One
Organised by
Goodwave adventures
Director
Neil D’souza
IFSC Climbing World Cup – Navi Mumbai 2016
The IFSC climbing world cup first intrigued me when I saw a post shared by a friend, about a crowdfunding campaign for it. I stopped scrolling through random posts, and had to read it again. Wait, was that a WORLD CUP that’s saying it didn’t have the money and was crowd funding? That sounded more like a scam. So i checked with a couple of sources and it turned out to be true. India was hosting the Climbing world cup for the first time and we didn’t have enough sponsors to cover the cost. So I decided to pitch in my hard earned 2,000 rupees, and that was that. Shooting the event hadn’t even struck me.
A month later, I saw they hadn’t hit their targets, but were still going ahead, because of multiple sponsors coming in last minute. So it was definitely happening. And they were looking for volunteers, and I decided to pitch my bit in to shoot. Unfortunately, to shoot the world cup, one needed to be accredited by some international body, and the indian body for climbing, and this was with 1 week left for the tournament. I knew these legalities were out of my scope and left it.
Cue in 1 day before the event was to begin, and Sharad (One of India’s top climbing photographers ) called me and asked if I’d like to shoot. To which I explained the official problems, and he said he would take care of it. A few hours later, I was in my flight to Mumbai, to shoot the first ever IFSC Climbing world cup organised in India. One of those moments, where it can happen only in India.
I arrived the morning of the setup, and got to meet a lot of new faces, and met my new team members. That’s when I was informed, that I was going to shoot the entire event, ALONE. There were enough photographers, but just 1 to do video. A couple of photographers were there to assist me with video and you can call me mean, but I don’t think I could use their footage.
So I spent 2 whole days covering the event, close ups, taking interviews, time lapses, hyper lapses, talking to the people setting up the wall, and in the middle of all that, I eventually got bored with just video, and popped in some lovely photos as well.
The venue itself got a huge footfall of 1,500 people. The local crowd even had some favourites, and could be seen chanting and cheering them on .
I even got to meet acclaimed sports photographer Eddie Fowke and spent some time with him, discussing how to take sports photography and filmmaking ahead. I loved one specific line of his, where he said, he’s making less than a Mc’Donalds employee in his country, but then, he gets to travel the world.
From the technical aspects, shooting itself was a challenge. I had to do the work of 3 people, video, audio, and assistant. I had to shoot wide, steadicam, closeups, time lapses, hyper lapses, crowd reactions, interviews, dump footage and amidst all that, not miss the main athletes attempts and some Indian favourites.
Post the world cup, the Girivihar cup was held, at the same venue, which was an open tournament for Indian athletes as well as those broad. This gave me an opportunity to interact a little closer with the Indian athletes as well.
Shot by Neil D’souza
Edited by Hyatt Noorul
Music by MTV Sound Trippin ft. Joti AND Sultana Noora
Shot on Canon 5D mkIII + 35mm Sigma art + 70-200mm Canon L
Sennheiser Hotshoe mic
Between Years Slackline festival 2016-17
The Between Years Slackline Festival was organised by Slacklife Inc, in Lonavla, Pune, India, between 29th Dec to 1st Jan. I think it’s high time to ditch the party high on new years eve, and try something different, like this, a high that is just out of this world. Definitely one of the best ways to bring in the new year.
Footlights 6 by Tarantismo
Footlights 6, is the 6th edition of the students dance showcase, organised by Tarantismo Creative Dance Company. It’s held every year, somewhere in the heart of Bangalore.
Malabar River Festival 2014
*Rewind* *Cue background music and flashes of memory*I’m headed to Kodencherry (nowhere near Pondicherry and somewhere in Kerala) last August to the Malabar river festival, as a friend of mine informed the organisers he knew a wedding photographer who might be able to shoot a Kayaking competition. Strange connection, but I’ve seen stranger.
Alexis and Sandunes live at Indie March at Counter Culture
Got to catch the second half of the Indie March at Counter Culture last night, owing to a late flight back from a wedding shoot. Wasn’t gonna shoot, but some awesome lighting by Guru tempted me enough to pull out the camera.
Air, water, sun and steel
Lots of travelling, lots of shooting, lots of editing, no time for updating. Such is the paradox, a word re-introduced to me by one really humble Italian friend. We need to make time for ourselves, amongst all this sun and steel and keeps pushing us into a tight box. View from the almost infinity pool in our hotel at Pune, India.
Floating in magically pieces of sky
floating in magically pieces of sky, Cloudlight.