Modhera Sun Temple again!

My last post, where I covered this part of the history lesson. I need to create a website where I can post pictures of this beautiful temple and other places I visited.

and now back to Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc from the Casablanca Valley, Chile and watching movies :)

Senior Moment !

Starry and his moods...cheerful as ever, sometimes you are a grumpy old man grandpa but mostly cheerful :)

Some of you might remember him from my old post Starry Claus ...

Finally a true Sepia for Saloni! This picture does look better in Sepia. Orignal picture that I posted yesterday is here

Note : Click on the picture for bigger image

1 of 5

Spring is here !! Time to have some fun outdoor!


1 of my 5 loves - I fired my bike yesterday and first try I could here it roaring, ready to be out in the wild after hibernating for 4 months :)

It's a beautiful Kawasaki Ninja 250 - pumps upto 34bhp at 8000rpm!

Ithaca coffee house

Taking up Sudeep's suggestion to photograph something from day to day life, here is some place I don't go too often, but I should. It's the Ithaca Coffee house. They have nice smoothies and the coffee is good too. More interesting is the other section of the coffee house, the Triphammer Wine Shop :)

To a place unknown

The road where I didn't mind getting lost on a bicycle 4 years back. It was the starting of fall season, colors had just started changing. It was one of the most wonderful rides I have had; every turn offered me something new, exciting and beautiful! Makes me wonder if my life has been following the same road ever since!

Bridging the Gap

One of the walk bridges at Cornell

There is a nice trail by the side of this bridge that takes you down the gorge. Another one of those places I usually visit few times a year!

Sepia for today

Waiting...

Prospect hill, Ithaca

View from this place is amazingly beautiful in summer and any clear day. Corn fields on one side of the road and wild grass facing the valley on other side. This is the highest point around Ithaca and a place where I can find total darkness for star shots. Foggy morning helped me get the shot I had in mind.

3 years back I came here with a group of about 50 students for the first time to see auroras, although it didn't turn out quite as spectacular as we imagined, the place was beautiful and now I often drive around this place.

Something to share :
My photograph 'Aslam, the porter' entry from March 12th, has been selected as 'Photo of the Day' at Digitalimagecafe.com :) <--- Click It feels great to be on the front page of some website ! 24 hours of fame, no fortune :)

Color me green

I have seen this done before and considering Kiwi was on sale ;) I decided to give it a shot. Again backlighting, I am beginning to have a lot of fun with light. It's amazing what a slight change in angle, bouncing the light off the wall and/or using reflectors can do to an utterly normal looking shot.

Sorry Tanu and others for not being able to post the B&W shot today due to the unlikely weather and few things I had to finish. Tomorrow, rain (snow) or shine, shot will be B&W, followed by Sepia and some outdoor shots capturing day to day life!

Shot for yesterday was the glass with colored water I used for March 21st entry. Water had formed bubbles as it stayed there for 3 days. I have the hardest time throwing away things I like, things as simple as a glass of colored water!

Rain

*** Removed for Challenge Entry ***

Any suggestions for the shot tomorrow? I am open to any kind - indoor, outdoor, single-shot, multiple-shot, B&W, sepia or color, its your pick.

Lemon for the Tart

And now the question is when do I get the Tart? I know who is making it :)

Experiment with backlighting.

Drinking to ...

• A martini glass - $2.5
• Slice of lemon - $0.10
• Strawberry for the color - $0.25
• Snaple for drinking - $1.99
• Photograph well taken - 'Priceless'

There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's a job that pays :)

Back to colors

*** REMOVED FOR CHALLENGE ENTRY ***

Getting back to my favorite subject. I had to crop the shot to get rid of the mirror frame. A little play with curves, level and noise reduction in photoshop. Click on the photo for the full size image.

Taken at f32 with 5sec shutter speed.

Amma

Amma - my grandmother !! She is definitely one of the most beautiful women I have known. Everyone in the little town of Haldwani calls her by the name 'Amma'. Over the years I have fought with her, loved her, shouted at her, hugged her and now when I look at her its a feeling I can't describe in words.

Here Aparna, your request of a women in B&W :) .. orignal picture is here

Old days!

Back to one of the pictures I took while I was in India. This is my maternal uncle. Talking to Aparna about B&W pictures reminded me of him. He loves being photographed, I got him to pose for me but my favorite turned out to be this candid pose. Back when the first photographer opened a store at a place about 150km from where he lived, he traveled there especially to get his photographs taken. I remember seeing one of the first - single frame, double exposure shots, where he was dressed with a hat and glasses on right and without them on the other side. Those shots were a mystery back then, now it's a piece of cake (with a little help from photoshop!)

No title

Trying some highlight in portrait shots again! My friend Nihar agreed to pose for me :)

Thinking!

Removed the image to be entered in a challenge. Sorry to those who have seen the picture and are going to vote in the challenge!

Outtake for 'Hands' and 'Low-Key' challenges for this week at DPChallenge. Not sure if this is good enough to be entered in any of the challenges!

Setup : Had a very dim halogen lamp turned on, used another light source (my bicycle LED light) from the left to highlight the hands. Aperture Priority mode, fixed focus, self timer, under-exposed by 3 stops to compensate for the black background.

Note : Depending on how your monitor is calibrated you will/will not be able to see the highlights properly.

Dhol Baje!

Even though there is motion blur in the shot, I like this one...the motion just potrays the energy in the picture...

Finally my blog is working again, after all those Error messages and can’t access this blog presently!! Still looks a little flaky while publishing it, but hopefully it will stay on!

Heart that moved!

An experiment shot, so shoot me with criticism, suggestions, tips and anything else I could have used! Or simply say 'nice shot!'

Lens zoom while the shutter was open from 18-50mm .. a table lamp covered with red blanket to get the colors, crop, neat image and save for web !

Holi Hai !

H a p p y - H o l i !!!

All the colors I could find to remember Holi !! For those who don't know what holi is, click here.

Shadow of a Tree!

On the day I was returning back from India, I had a day in Delhi (capital of India). I decided to check out a famous temple recently built on the outskirts of the city. After having a heavy lunch; being my last lunch before I take the flight, I decided to hire a cab (auto-rickshaw, will post a picture for those who are curious what it is) to the temple that was about 45 minutes ride from where I was. As we left the city it was sprawled with beautiful fields on one side and heavy construction of apartment complexes on the other side. I saw a family working in one field, couple of farmers working in other, kids playing by the side, the sight was just beautiful. As we reached the temple I was still thinking about that family and how much I wanted to capture it! I left the rickshaw and after looking at all the people in the temple decided to walk out of there and instead walk around the campus of the temple, which would lead me to that farm.

After walking for almost an hour with some stops for quick shots on the way, I reached the place I wanted to shoot so badly and to my luck the family was still there!

By now I had reached the part of freeway where I could not find an empty rickshaw or any other ride, so I decided to continue walking. I was having so much fun taking pictures, it was almost 4 hours later I realized I better find a ride back home or I will miss the flight!

For me this shot is more than just a picture, it's something that was perfectly composed in my mind even before I took it, something that made me see things I would have otherwise missed!

Back to India : Nainital

Decided to take you on a trip back to India. Enough still shots, and I still have many more pictures to share from my part of the world!!

Aslam, works as a porter in Nainital. Wrinkles near the eyes seem to have appeared earlier, he looks pale as he sits there waiting for a bus to arrive, so he can earn 50cents for the load he carries. He has been working in Nainital for over 40 years now (not a real count), he started when he was a kid. Aslam owns 2 horses and during tourist season he takes people for horse-back riding to famous places around Nainital. He saves some money to send his children to school, so they don't have to wait for a bus to arrive, for the reason he is waiting today. Aslam is 60% of the population of Nainital...

My second attempt at converting a picture to B&W, until recently I was never too keen on B&W shots. I believe the world is so colorful and we are fortunate to see those colors, why b&w than? Got the answer in textures, where color is distraction and thought this was the perfect shot to try it.

P.S. Edited my entry for March 05th - its the challenge entry for Square crop

Odissi or Orissi dance

I missed the blog entry yesterday as I had gone for a traditional dance festival of India, Raas-Garba at Cornell. There were performances by different dance groups at Cornell. Started with the Cornell Sitara group, followed by Odissi dance, Dhol and Raas Groups.

All the performances were great, but only dance I was really able to capture in its true essence was Odissi.

Odissi or Orissi is a classical dance that originated from Orissa, a state in India. Roots of this dance can be found back in 2nd century B.C., although it got lost during the colonial periods. It was revived back in the 20th century and started gaining popularity in the 1960's and 70's

All classical Indian dances are either rhythmic and story telling dances. In Orissi, rhythmic dance has elements of foundation, flowering and liberation while the story telling dances revolves mostly around Lord Krishna and is called abhinaya (acting).

The dance is about feelings expressed through expressions, fluid wrist movement and a very firm foundation of feet.

These shots were taken at 1600 ISO, with the 75-300mm lens using the on camera flash, something I hate using but had no other option.

Click here for more pictures of Odissi dance

Angles

2 hours after playing racquet ball - my mind, body and camera stops working. Well, camera stopped 'cause the battery was dead. While the battery was recharging I played around with different things and decided to go with my favorite subject, my guitar (technically its not mine, thanks Sudip for letting me have it! and yes, I do practice, sometimes)

Mirrors are amazing, you can have all the angles of the subject in the picture! Placed the guitar at an angle, resting against the mirror.

Fork full of air

Taking this shot I realized, having too many reflecting surfaces in a shot isnt really an easy job. Mirror, fork, relection of the fork are all reflecting !

Bottom fork is the reflection in the mirror, top one is the actual fork.

Light source was a desk lamp at the right corner, another halogen lamp reflecting off the ceiling. Used a white paper to cover the reflections on the surface!

Levels, Crop and Rotate in Photoshop.

Through the Silver Clouds

Just following this weeks theme. Tried a different angle this time. Used a cooling filter, Auto level and Auto Color in Photoshop to get the actual colors I wanted.

I tried all the White Balance settings but just could not get it right at this angle!

Hanging!

Playing with mirror is fun! This shot was taken at +1.3 EV to make sure I get a bright enough background.

Mirror was at a place where I could see the reflection of the edges meeting, I think this gives the picture a 3-dimensional effect.

Theme of the week : M I R R O R ... in pursuit of finding my reflection!

Square Crop Challenge

Windows of Wisdom!

My entry for Square crop Challenge.

Still working with black

Aim of the shot :

• Controlling the light &
  
• Relections

Wine glass on a mirror. Used a table lamp bouncing of the ceiling. Keeping the camera on self timer, I pressed the shutter without the black background. This underexposed the shot to give me this result.

I don't think it is any different from having the background from the beginning and underexposing the shot by using the exposure compensation.

Any tips or suggestions ?

Smile with me :)

And whats so great about this picture ?

Honestly, nothing from the readers point of view. But for me this is a shot of something that makes me smile every time I look at it!!

Warmth

The Invisible dancer

I have always wanted to click this, finally I managed. And its difficult to get the right exposure and a sharp shot.

I will make this a black background week.

Edited to add the details of the shot

• Incense stick
• Black background
  
• 500W halogen lamp bouncing from the ceiling
• Aperture priority mode f/5.6 - 1/60sec
• on camera flash
• manually prefocused to a fixed spot
• a little luck! would need more luck to get a belly dancer :)