Who is Samir Bharadwaj?
Samir Bharadwaj is a writer, designer, illustrator, photographer and an all-round do-it-all generalist who suffers from aspirations of polymathy and delusions of grandeur. But in spite of that, he finds all this talking about himself in the third person to be extremely disturbing … so I’ll just switch to normal speak now, thanks. I keep myself busy freelancing in a variety of creative fields, and absorbing as much as I can from around me, in the hope that all that absorbing will add to my storehouse of things I can think about. I like to think of course, because thinking is so much easier than not thinking, and I’m lazy that way.
… able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!
Well, ok, to be fair I’ve never tried it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do it! It just means the proper opportunity hasn’t presented itself yet …
And it’s exactly that sort of misguided thinking that has resulted in my working on print design, corporate identity, animation, book illustration, paper engineering, informational articles, fantasy fiction, 3d simulations, animated 2d television commercials, automobile designs, corporate videos, large posters, small gifts, pop-up architecture models, web site designs, CMS setups, story boards, greeting cards, magazine editorials … and cookie flavoured doughnuts.
The list is growing.
Chronically misunderstood (and sometimes mis-spelt)
No, truly moving about page is complete without revelations about the emotional scars and deep dark secrets that haunt the author being broadcasted to the world, so here goes.
No one understands me *snif*. And then they go ahead and misspell my name a lot too. In school they thought I was studious and thoughtful because I didn’t make a racket like everyone else. Even the fact that I was not topping the class never seemed to break this image. I finally thought I was getting out of the acadamic rigmarole, my record unblemished by any medals of great scholorship when they decided to present me with a parting gift in the form of a Certificate of Good Character. What?! Where did that come from? … I’m just trying to do my time and get out in one piece boss – don’t want any trouble. What does that mean anyway? “It’s ok that you didn’t excel at school … at least you’re a nice guy.” Shhh!
They mis-spelt my name on the certificate, of course.
I’m still trying to figure out whether I should take that as a compliment. That and the few chunks of metal I picked up in the august hallways “higher education”, which also had my name mis-spelt on them. Mind you, I’m not really over sensitive about the name, but if you have to give me chunky shiny stuff fit for a hip-hop video, at least copy the 15 letters correctly from your computer records. It’s Samir, not Sameer. And let’s not even get into what has been made of my second name.
Location Location Location
Living in Dubai. Thinking of Mumbai.
What’s that logo weirdness?
I’ve been using that logo (top of the page) personally and professionally for many years now. It’s a visual juxaposition of “Samir” in the roman alphabet and the way it is written in the Devanagari script (Hindi). The last bit after ‘M’ reads in both the typeforms.
Go ahead, ask me anything
No really … these questions are moderated, but almost anything goes. Ask what you may, no matter how obscure, obtuse or ludicrous, and I shall attempt to answer.
Now on to the kids. Kids are getting stupider you say? Really? They’ve all been behaving so well over the past few decades, glued to to their glowing screens, playing their console video games, or pretending to be swarthy 40-year old men on internet dating forums; I never noticed the change. But, let’s just assume that it’s true for now.
I blame any and all quality defects in new generation products on bad manufacturing practices. Basically, they just don’t make ‘em like they used to … probably because they don’t know how. Just think of the sorry state of erotica and sexual instruction today. Even in the forsaken ancient times the Indians had the Kama Sutra
So, Jonathan, I hope that answers your question. In the meanwhile boys and girls, the moral of the story is: make love, not war … or was that make love, not pÖrn … I can never get that right.
Thanks for the question. Dropping me into the deep end here aren’t you?
For those who don’t know, ‘DxO’ is an image enhancement software, and ‘Genuine Fractals’ is a image enlargement software.
Too much pixelization at 100% in your photographs could mean that the original camera quality setting is too low, or DxO is being too agressive in its enhancements, or you’ve enlarged the photos too much beyond their original size using Genuine Fractals. Or, any combination of these three issues.
I can’t really tell you specifically what is wrong with your images until I see them and get a few more details. I’ve sent you an email, I’m sure we can figure it out.
My beloved Flora
If you’re one of the curious ones, you might have gotten here by clicking on that little statue that flits up and down the middle of this site when you scroll the page. It’s an image of the statue of the Goddess Flora that graces the top of the great old fountain at the centre of Mumbai’s southern business district. So much of an influence does this lady have over the area that it is still popularly refered to simply as ‘Fountain’.
We all have that one place in the world which just feels right to us. Something deep in our soul connects to it and it feels like home even if it isn’t in the literal sense of the word. For me Flora Fountain and the area that surrounds it feels like home, and so I thought it would be a good idea to keep a symbol of it on this site. Flora is watching!
Trivia
- I love making stuff out of paper.
- My first computer was an Amiga 500 with a whole 512Kb of memory!
- I later upgraded my Amiga to a whopping 1Mb of memory.
- I never got rid of that old workhorse, and it still has a proud position in a closet in my home.
- The same closet also houses a large reflective astronomical telescope that sits in what looks like a bag of golf clubs.
- When I first carried that telescope from India (many years ago in less paranoid times), I managed to convince the flight staff to let me carry it onboard as hand-baggage. Thankfully the flight was empty and the telecope could comfortably occupy two extra seats.
- No, unfortunately the telescope was not served two meals.
