Guindy Children's Park -- Photos

The 'zoomed' in flower

The photography course that I have joined is indeed helping me! I would have never 'planned' and 'executed' such a photo without the training that I am undergoing. The trick for the photo is to zoom in using a telephoto lens (I used a 300mm lens) and to have a wide aperture (5.6mm) to throw everything other than the intended subject totally out of focus. I could not completely cut out the wall in front of the flower and is a minor irritant in an otherwise nice photo (According to me, obviously!!!)

Poster Creator

Found this cool website where I can create my own posters. It's an awesome website. The only problem is that it allows very less options for manipulating the font size and other stuff. Check it out.....

Guide to 35mm photography -- Book Review

This is not a book review per se as I have still not completed this book. The main reason that I am writing about this book is for the simple reason that I find this book to be fascinating. Any amateur photographer would really appreciate this book for this has all the needed information for understanding the basics of a camera. The concepts like aperture, shutter speed, focal length, exposure, depth of field and so many other things that I have never heard of are given in a succinct fashion. Each of these topics covering not more than 2 pages (The book is also a small one) and with lots of examples, it is very easy for a person to follow. The best way to learn from this book is to carry it in the hand when someone sets out on their photographic expedition. A very good companion. A 'MUST HAVE' reference book for anyone who is interested in photography.

Macro Mode Photography

The beauty of 'Macro Mode' photography in full bloom! A close-up shot of a flower. Each and every strain of the flower is visible in this photo. This book is definitely helping me a lot nowadays to take better snaps. Check it out.

Livonia -- Take One

Photo #1

Photo #1: The angle from which this photo was taken is almost perfect. The two odd looking pink flowers at the foreground of the white flowers seem to highlight the white flowers at the background.

Photo #2

Photo #2: The ducks appeared as though they were giving me a modeling session. They kept appearing at all the right places for me to capture their photos. This one was taken using the beach mode and it has really come out well.

Photo #3

Photo #3: I would rate this as one of the best photos that I have taken till now. I took a lottt of photos of the ducks but this one stands out for the angle of the shot. The camera was brought down to the ground level so that the grass looked blurred. Luckily for me, the duck's eye was perfectly obtained as the focus point. (Check out the full size photo by clicking on the photo to see it for yourself)

Photo #4

Photo #4: Again the angle of photo making a lot of difference to the final output. It would have been perfect if not for the car that shows up in the background. I tried a lot of angles for eliminating the car from the picture but this is the best I could get........

Click click -- Random Images

Photo #1

Photo #1: I have been hearing about the 'Macro' mode in the camera and never had a chance to test it fully. Finally, I had this red visitor to our first floor. What better way to test the 'Macro' mode than to capture this visitor in my shutter box? The yellow & red color have come extremely well.

Photo #2:

Photo #2: One of the things that I learnt recently is the value of the 'Slow Shutter Speed' option in the camera. A corn seller with the small fire near the beach side produced this amazing shot with the camera in a slow shutter speed mode.

Photo #3:

Photo #3: Nothing compares to the various shops that are there in the beach. Beach is probably one of my most favorite photo hunting grounds and this photo of a 'Bajji' shop in the natural light has come out perfectly. The trick here is to switch off your flash when you want to take photos in the natural light.

Vijayawada Trip Images -- Part III

There is something engrossing about photos of people and their emotions. Myriad amount of thoughts go through the minds of people and when these are captured in a candid camera, they offer the best kind of images and the most satisfaction for a photographer. Given below is a series of snaps of various people and at various locations in Vijayawada.

Photo #1

Photo #1: A saint walking near the river Krishna. His colorful attire, the trident in his hands, the matted hair and the yellow vermilion smeared on his forehead was something that conveyed a lot of strength. I did not get a lot of time to capture this image for there were a lot of people taking bath in the river and I had to hurry with my snap.

Photo #2

Photo #2: There is something so soothing and peaceful about children playing in a park. Their carefree nature when mixed with the spaciousness of a park brings out the best from children. This small guy(The one in the white shirt) was slowly climbing up the ladder to go down the slide and I immediately got ready with my camera. Unfortunately, his elder brother (The one in the blue shirt) took him in his lap to go down the slide. Just before I could snap the moment, the elder brother found out that I was getting ready for taking a photo. The way in which the small guy is expectantly looking down at the slide unmindful of everything else around him best summarizes the picture.

Photo #3

Photo #3: A tricycle driver lost in his world. He seems to be totally dwelling in his own thought train with no awareness to the fact that he is driving in the wrong side of the road. This photo was shot near the hotel in which I stayed.

Photo #4

Photo #4: A person begging for alms from people returning from the Kanaga Durga temple. The kaleidoscopic nature of her dress, the dark tone of her skin and the innocent looking child in front of her evoked so deep a feeling that I couldn't help but snap this photo. The fact that I was walking down the stairs when I took this photo explains the blurred looking nature of this image.

Vijayawada Trip Images -- Part II

Photos taken through my friend's Olympus camera are presented here. I tried to categorize this blog entry with photos having flowers as the main theme.

Photo #1

Photo #1: Beautiful looking yellow flowers as the foreground and a temple gopuram (tower) as a blurred out background. The color reproduction with this camera is of the highest nature and this is one photo that showcases it brilliantly.

Photo #2

Photo #2: A blurred out white flower and a purple flower in the background. I specifically liked this picture for it kind of gives a fleeting/dreamy image of the flower in the foreground.

Photo #3

Photo #3: The cage like gate in the background and the faithful reproduction of the various hues of this photo makes it a very endearing one.

Photo #4

Photo #4: A closeup shot of a big and beautiful yellow flower in a garden in Vijayawada. Each and every color in the flower looks so resplendent in this capture.

Vijayawada Trip Images -- Part I

Had been on a trip to Vijayawada recently and I am getting a bit toooo obsessed with photography for I took two cameras for the trip. One is my 'trusted' & 'beloved' Canon A95. The other is a camera that I had borrowed from friend (A olympus camera with a 10x optical zoom). All the below photos are from my camera.

Photo #1

Photo #1: A fast moving train. I consider this as one of the best photos that I have taken till now. I had not intended the photo to come this way but I guess the best things in life are never planned for! Had got the focus on the last compartment of the train and when it came near, I had moved the camera a bit faster than I had actually intended. The result is a blurred out tail piece of the train.

Photo #2

Photo #2: This photo was taken on the Krishna river bridge. I have never seen a bridge where there are two seperate rail tracks. I got a lot lucky when another train came in the other track and I had a pretty good capture.

Photo #3

Photo #3: The Vijayawada trip was unique in that I travelled in almost all forms of transport (Except on a plane). Had seen a lot of tricycles in Vijayawada but somehow was hesitant on travelling in one of them. I went to a place called Amaravathi and there finally got into this person's tricycle. Wanted to capture that moment so that it could be frozen in my memory forever.

Photo #4

Photo #4: Nature has this uncanny ability to show humans their limitations and bring them back hard and fast to the earth. Rains & floods had played havoc for a couple of days and the above photo is a bullock cart surrounded by water.

Photos for Fun -- Part II

Till now, I never realized the importance of having a good optical zoom camera. I have been pretty satisified with my Canon A95 camera and the photos that it has been giving me. The various scene selections that are possible in this camera is amazing and is more than sufficient for an amateur photographer like me. I had a chance to use my friend's cameras and that is when I realized the need for an optical zoom in the camera. I used the Canon S2 IS and also the Olympus SP500UZ cameras and these cameras left me amazed by the kind of photographs that I can get with these. Below I have given some of the photos that I took with the Olympus camera.

Photo #1

Photo #1: I have taken so many snaps of this flower using my camera and it has never come this well. The color reproduction and the way in which each and every strand of the stamen of the flower is visible is just amazing.

Photo #2

Photo #2: Cats are never my favorite animals and so I did not take photos of the cat when my friends were clicking away photos of this one during out trip to Udupi. Finally, I took up the camera from my friend and my friends had let go the cat by this time. The cat started chasing something in the nearby wood pile and I couldnt resist myself from clicking this photo. The blurred out background and the various shades in the picture make it a decent one.

Photo #3

Photo #3: A water drop on a big leaf!!! Every photographer's dream snap. The crystal like water drop & the light green shade of the leaves makes this near perfect. (It would have been perfect if only I had the patience to cover the entire leaf. A small portion of the leaf is now missing in the left hand side of the photo)

Photo #4

Photo #4: A fluttering butterfly in an open space is one of the toughest to capture in a camera. This one kept flying from one plant to another so fast that it was almost impossible to get a proper snap. I got lucky and I ended up with this decent shot. It would have been a lot better if I had zoomed in a bit further but with the amount of time that I had to shoot this snap, this is all that I could ask for!!!

Travelogue - Kancheepuram

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.” -- R.L.Stevenson

There is something unique about traveling and visiting new places. It is a pulsating as well as a serene experience rolled into one. The objective of travel is not about finding a new place. Rather, it is about finding a new 'You'. The objective of travel is not about exploring pathless paths of a land. Rather, it is about exploring unknown regions of your subconscious mind and heart. The land, the people and the culture of a new place lends beautifully to a learning that no modern university can attest of teaching.

I have always been fascinated by towering temples and their architectural brilliance and when one of my friend agreed on traveling with me to Kancheepuram, I was eagerly looking forward to the journey. Having heard about the fact that there are close to 108 temples (small & big) in and around Kancheepuram, it was always bound to be a great experience. With two other friends joining us, it was very clear that there would be no dearth for fun. One of the things that we failed to do before we embarked on the trip is to find out the temples that we ought to visit during our short one day trip. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we had a free rein and hence gave us the liberty to choose places on the fly.

Let me be honest about one thing here. I am surely not an atheist but this trip was more about seeing and appreciating the sculptures & the architectural beauty of the temple and less about God itself. A lack of mention about the beauty of the God in those temples can be expected in this article.

The first temple that we visited on reaching Kancheepuram is the ‘Kamakshi Amman Temple’. This is one of the most famous temples here and is dedicated to God Parvathi. We had to stand in a long queue to see the deity but the best thing about this queue is that there is no ‘Special Entrance’ or ‘Darshan Ticket’ through which someone can bypass the line.This queue personified to me the fact that all are the same before God. As we reached the temple only at around 11 and the temples will be open only till 12:30 PM, we had to rush the visit of this temple a bit.

The next temple that we went is the ‘Ekambareswarar Temple’, a temple constructed for Lord Shiva. Photography is allowed inside the temple (We cannot take photos inside the sanctum sanctorum though). It is a very big temple with lots of deities and a very big praharam. I have heard that one of the purposes that temples served during the ancient days is a place to take a long walk (As an exercise). This is clearly evident in this temple as it has a very big praharam. Completing three rounds of this would easily account for 2 to 2.5 kms of walking. I couldn’t restrain myself from imagining about the various other purposes that the king who constructed these temples would have thought about.

There is also a beautiful Siva Lingam that has 1008 small Siva Lingams carved into it. I was so tempted to take a photo of this Lingam but somehow I had this nagging feeling of performing sacrilege and destroying the sanctity of the deity and hence restrained myself from taking a snap there. Apart from this big Siva Lingam, there are lots of small Siva Lingams around the praharam and with various names. I would really like to know how each of these Lingams gets a different name. I did take a photo of one Siva Lingam and it has been uploaded here.

The third temple we visited is the “Varadharaja Perumal Temple’. Unfortunately, by the time we entered the temple premises it was closed and we had to content ourselves by looking at the temple and the 100 pillar hall that is present there. The 100 pillar hall with its exquisite and delicately carved sculptures is a feast for the eye. Each sculpture in the pillars of the hall is a thing of beauty and the sheer effort and perfectionist work that has gone into each one is mind-blowing. Once again, my camera became very active and two of the photos from this temple can be found here.

One is the photo from the 100 pillar hall and the other is the view of the temple tower itself. The sunlight permeating inside from the temple and the entrance blocking the sunlight to give a feeling of a photo frame is something that I loved about the temple tower photo.

As all the temples in Kancheepuram closes by 12:30 PM, we were left with nothing else to do but to visit the “Kailasanathar Temple”. This has been declared as an Indian heritage site and hence we were allowed to look at all the great sculptures that are present in the temple. This temple is around 1350 years old and I would consider this temple as one of the best temple I have visited till now. I could easily write essays about each one of the sculptures that is present in this temple.

The only unfortunate thing about the visit to this temple is that we did not have the patience to wait till 4 PM for seeing the main deity of Lord Shiva. Nevertheless, I could see God oozing out through the work of the master craftsmen who would have worked on each and every piece of carved sculpture that is present in this temple. The sheer amount of effort that would have gone into making this temple left me awestruck. The paintings that used vegetable oil colors are also something that should not be missed.

Entering this temple is in itself a surreal experience as it transported me to a different era when kings ruled the world and the minds of the people remain unpolluted like the environment. We spent nearly 2 hours in this temple and at one point the security person who is posted there came to me to comment about the number of photos I had clicked away till that point!!! I would really love to visit this temple once again with a DSLR camera so that I could take even more close-up shots of idols and sculptures. Even though it is not fair on my part, I have given just two photos for this temple.

The fifth temple we visited is the “Ulagalantha Perumal Temple”. Ulagalantha means to measure the earth. The folklore is that king Bali, the grandson of Prahlada, conquered the whole universe and even defeated Indra, the king of Devas. On the request of Devas, Lord Vishnu took the form of a small boy and asked Bali for three foot space. When Bali accepted this request, God placed one of his feet and covered the entire earth. With the second foot, he covered the heaven. When God asked where he can get his third foot of land, Bali asked God to place his feet in his head. The idol of Vishnu here in this temple is close to 15 feet in height with his right foot on the head of Bali and his raised left foot on heaven. The sheer size and beautiful stone carved jewelry that adorns Lord Vishnu is something that can be appreciated only when seen directly. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed in this temple and I was left to take just the temple tower from outside.

The last temple that we visited is the “Chitragupta Swamy Temple”. According to Hindu mythology, ChitraGuptan is the accountant of Lord Yama, the God of death. For all practical appearances, this temple looked like a modern one and even had mosaic floors. The unique thing about this temple is that the board outside the temple said that it is the only temple for ChitraGupta in the whole of south India.

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” -- John Hope Franklin

Namakal -- Photos

I had been to Namakal to give a technical seminar for 2 colleges on "Embedded Systems". If giving a technical seminar to the final year students was a great experience, the another great thing that happened in Namakal is to be allowed to take photos of the God Anjaneyar from a close range. One of the temple priest permitted me to take snaps of the God (My colleague knew a lot of people in the temple and so they let me shoot photos!!!)

The above photo directly went to a photo studio for a lamination (12 x 8). One of my friends was very impressed with the photos and he has got a wallpaper size (20 x 16) photo of the same now!!! The photo that I have given below also has come really well. The only thing that I did with this photo is to play with it in Picassa to enhance the colors and to crop some unwanted details. Thought would share it here so that other interested people can also take print outs of the same.

Photos for FUN!

Photo #1

Photo #1: I used the slow shutter speed to take this photo of water droplets falling from the water pump. The only modification that I have done to the photo is cropping it to show just the relevant details. The glistening blue things are the water droplets!!!

Photo #2

Photo #2: This photo was taken with me lying down in the beach sand with the camera almost touching the ground. The 'Beach' mode in the SCN (scene) selection of the camera was used for getting the appropriate colors of the beach, the sky & sand.

Photo #3

Photo #3: In one of the online photography lessons website they had stressed the importance of making a closeup shot REALLY close. I tried it with the badam tree leaves in my house and the results came out real bad............. This photo is one of the exceptions where I was able to get the focus right where I wanted it.

Photo #4

Photo #4: A closeup shot of the water bottle that hangs from the water pump. Even in this photo, the focus is not where I wanted it to be but still the end effect of the photo was something that pleased me.

Besant Nagar beach -- Photos (Take II)

Photo #1

Photo #1: A woman predicting the future for a young man. The eager & anxious look in the face of the young guy and the all knowing posture of the woman forms a real beautiful setting.

Photo #2

Photo #2: The colors captured in the photo speaks a thousand words. You name a color and it is present in this photo.

Photo #3

Photo #3: My most favorite photo in all this. This small kid just came up before me & stood looking at the camera as though he was waiting to be photographed. The kurta that he is wearing gives a 1950's look to the picture. His dark complexion combined with the sepia tone enhances the quality of the picture.