Let the picture speak

Taken with iPhone !!?

2010-06-01T14:33:00.008-04:00

University of Massachusetts, Amherst - 29th May 2010:

"How can an university be so scenic.. ?" [:O]

"And how come nobody told me so.. ?" [:x]

"Why didn't I just carry my camera anyways.. ?" [:|]

"Errr !! This is not supposed to happen this way !!!" [:(]

"How about the camera on my iPhone ?" [:)]

"No aperture and shutter speed settings ? No zoom to fit the frame ?" [:O]

"Not a problem.. " [:D]

Tips:

* To fit the frame --> Move your lazy a** around a bit.. keep it slow and steady.. You don't want to disturb anything around.
* To get the right exposure --> Point the phone to a frame of light settings that would give you the desired brightness settings. For example add more of the sky if you want a darker setting and vice versa. Then hold your breath and your finger on the touch screen, quickly move the phone to your frame and hoping that nothing has changed by then and you still have everything you wanted in the frame: click the picture !

"Don't let the camera stop you from making a good picture !!!"

Heaven is a place on Earth...

2010-05-09T12:39:00.008-04:00

Goa, March 19-21:

Never thought that the four paths would cross again. Each spun off in a different world of our own, was there a common place in the world we could meet again ? Was there still a common language we could converse in ?

That would be called the heaven, with beer in one hand and smokes on the other... The whole beach action in front of us.. but pitch silence in our minds... with the synchronous laughs. We laughed about our past, present and the future... and a million more memorable moments we spent there... And tatoo to never forget it...

Heaven is now a place on Earth, when the best buddies are together....

A random state of a drunken mind...

2010-04-04T16:27:00.012-04:00

Random {Place,Time}:

Too drunk to remember.. Too random to comprehend...
Just a snap-shot to say it all...

Stop and Stare...

2010-04-03T13:23:00.007-04:00

Tokyo, March 2010:

"Stop and stare

I think I'm moving but I go no where

Yeah I know that everyone gets scared

But I've become what I can't be, oh

Oh, do you see what I see..."

Science behind the Artistic mind...

2010-01-25T19:49:00.010-05:00

Springfield, Jan 1st 2008:

Capture the essence of the Mustang !
The power, the speed and the style !

The process of capturing a picture by a camera is based on the amount of light falling on the sensor. The photographer can control this element using two knobs. The size of the Aperture (Opening of the shutter) and the speed of the shutter opening. Together they limit the amount of light falling on the sensor, and hence decide how overexposed or underexposed the picture would turn out to be. Another way of working with your camera (simpler one) would be to control one of these parameters and let the camera decide to appropriately adjust the other parameter, such that the picture is correctly exposed.
On a regular point and shoot camera you might have come across some predefined settings for different mode of operations, for example the 'sports mode', 'night mode' etc etc.. This is exactly what is different in each of these modes. They set the aperture and shutter speed differently such that it is more appropriate for the mode in which you want to take the picture. And that accounts for the few of the millions of dollars the camera company spends in order to make life easy for the point and shoot users.

Now given the science behind the photography, its all about how artistic you can get with it.

Play around with the shutter speed and let the camera decide the aperture opening. You would have experienced that making the shutter speed too slow, would cause a motion blur in the picture. Think of it as the camera trying to take so many pictures and trying to put them together on one page. Hence everything that moved is now blurred. If you are a student of Signal Processing or Image Processing, you could solve the definite integral of all the images over the time of exposure.

In an artistic spirit of mind, you could now think of moving your camera along with the car, such that the car can be stationary from the camera point of view and the whole surrounding moving. Like the Newton's frame of reference model. To the camera the movement of the object (car) is absolutely stationary and the whole surrounding is moving in the opposite direction as the movement of the car or the camera.

As a student of engineering, there are few assumptions that needs to be met. For example:

* The speed of the object and the speed of the camera movement should be same.

* The motion has to be linear. And uniform speed. Accelerated motions are tougher to model and capture.

* No rotation of the object that could uncover new regions on the object. etc etc ...

But as an artist, you can assume that all these are always met. And if not then slight error would add to the artistic feeling of the picture.

With this, you now need to try a few times, to get the right shutter speed and movement of the camera along with the movement of the car. And a right combination would get you the good picture.

It took me over 20 trials to finally get one, that I think looked pretty cool !

Eywa

2010-01-20T19:20:00.000-05:00

July 11th 2154 - Pandora: Sáwtute zerá’u fte fol Kélutralti skiva’á. - "The sky people are coming to destroy Hometree."

All right.. you caught me... That's not a picture from a moon in the Alpha Centauri. :p
Its just a figment of my imagination at work. :)

Boston Aquarium-2009:
Trying to capture the magnificent under water world and its living habitat.

What can I say? I have no more words...

Frosty Fall !!

2010-01-17T20:21:00.000-05:00

October 18th '09: A day to remember. Snow even before the leaves have finished turning colors ? Yeah !! Its the fall season, and there are still leaves on the trees, some of them still green. And the winter snow was here 2 months early !

Its not my expertise to talk about the reason behind this mix up in the weather. So lets leave that to the side. But it sure was a beautiful view, I could not miss capturing it.

Snow fall is always a beautiful sight to see. The snow flakes floating in the air and falling down to make a perfectly pure white blanket covering everything on the ground. In the end, it leaves everything black and white. I could never capture the snow fall on my camera. But this time, I had to make it happen. Snow flakes behind the colorful background. It was spectacular sight. The white snow, trying to add its own flavor to the color gamut.

Two beautiful things needed to be captured in one shot. A perfect scenic background and floating flakes at the foreground.

So here is the frosty flavor of the foliage for you. :)

Rocky...

2010-01-10T18:01:00.000-05:00

June 2009 Andover: Yet another moment, which I failed to capture it sharp. But happy that I captured it at all. If the picture did not tell you all the story, then here goes it...

That's Rocky, one of the cutest kid I have seen. Sitting down on the lush green grass next to a tree and looking up to his dad, and telling him that, he wont go back home, he likes it out here and he wants to spend a lot more time sitting here.

Rocky is just 1 year old and he doesnt speak much. I must have got all that from the picture.

Well, what more ? Let the picture speak !!

Which face are you ?

2009-06-20T15:08:00.000-04:00

Global Village, Dubai, 11th Feb 09:

A saw a very interesting thing in one of the store in the global village. It not only caught my attention with its the vibrant colors, but triggered a feeling of 'all eyes were on me'. The exact same feeling I get, when I am about to take an awesome shot.

The park had booths and stores from different nations, that exhibited the culture and their way of life. And of course to sell the arts and crafts of all countries. The concept to create the whole world in one place. Impressive, but I would still prefer to travel around the world in person.

As usual, I was there, searching for an artistic shot, that could be my theme shot of the theme park. Although this was not really one of the exhibits for the park. I finally got myself a souvenir.

Faces of different shapes and sizes and colors all hanging on the same wall, kind of gave a feeling of a global harmony. The feeling that, we all look different, but still all so similar. The spirit of 'one world'.

Dream

2009-06-19T01:38:00.001-04:00

People talk a lot about their childhood dreams. Most of the time, I am confused when they say, they always wanted to be a doctor, and how they loved helping people or an engineer because they liked fixing broken things.
Whats the confusing part ?
I never had any such dreams.

I never had any dream of becoming an astronaut and fly into space. Nor did I see myself doing something for world peace, when I grow up. I almost always don't know what to say when the conversation ends up in this topic.

Now, what has all these got to do with this picture ?

Harvard Square, Boston, Aug 3rd 2008: I took this picture and it got me thinking.
There has to be something that I used to dream about when I was a kid. So i decided to try and remember my childhood days. I got to a point where I remember, that I used to dream about robots a lot and sometimes about the stars in the sky. But most of the time, the very small things in life fascinated me.

Hong Kong !!

2009-06-07T00:04:00.001-04:00

Now, how did that happen ?

Kowloon, 31st Jan 2009:

Rows of shops on either side. Sky covered with banners and signboards of advertisements. The road is the side walk. If you find yourself walking on this every busy Mong Kok street ,take time to enjoy the unique Hong Kong's Western Market.

With the unexpected 10 hours of transit in the Hong Kong airport, I decided to try my luck in convincing the immigration officer to let me out for a couple of hours. I remember reading on the internet that Hong Kong, a free trade nation gave permits to go out without a VISA. It took me 3 tries to finally convince an officer.

I had no clue where to go and what to do. Picked up a few tourist brochures at the airport, spoke to a few random people and the currency exchange lady about the places. I bought a map and a subway pass. Hoping in and out of every subway station, I managed to visit quite a few places, along with the Western market. With my back pack and my camera in my hand, I had one fun filled adventurous day!

The one thing, that I would never forget, is the feeling of happiness, and the satisfaction that, I had worked myself out a really beautiful experience, without getting bogged down by the fact that I was alone and unprepared.

And Yes, the Hong Kong trip happened, not because of my work trip, not because of the flight ticket screw up, but because my camera would not take a 'NO' for an answer.

Butterfly effect...

2009-06-03T23:02:00.000-04:00

Boston, June 15th 2008: A butterfly sprung up.. and flattered its wing so fast.. that the whole world would just stop still and listen to it. It didn't matter to him, if time stopped or not.. but he just wouldn't stop. He just wanted to cause a tiny bit of change..
Then the butterfly effect began...

Like the childish mind.. wants to spring up, flutter the wings and play all day.
Look up.. You will see your self, jumping out of your shell..
Leave the perfect little world below. And go do something that is fun, just for yourself... just for this moment... be a part of the effect of that change.

Desert Dance

2009-05-25T23:17:00.000-04:00

Dubai, 13th Feb 09:

Belly dancing, is what I went to Dubai for. Always been fascinated about it. And so am I with lot of things related to the Arab-Egyptian-Turkish lifestyle. Lets talk a little bit about the belly dancing and photography, especially this particular one.
One of the things, I am very passionate in still picture photography, is to get the 3rd dimension into the picture. The dimension of motion. To me, the picture would not have made a whole lot of meaning, if I could not capture the movement of the belly.
As you would have rightly guessed, I was torn between the jaw-dropping, sensuous dance and my passion of getting the one picture, where I could get it all just right ! After a few experiments, I got the right shutter speed, that captured the motion in the dance, keeping other parts of the dancer perfectly still.

The main idea behind this composition was to give an anonymous perspective to the dancer. And of course capture the distinctive move of the belly dance.

The day, I got my Rebel xt.

2009-05-21T15:51:00.000-04:00

Boston, 21st May 07:

A week earlier, I had finally made up my mind, that I was going to spend some of my savings and buy an SLR. That would mark the beginning of my new hobby. I was a little scared that it would just be a wasted investment and I would never pursue the hobby, like all the other times I have done till date.
When I got the camera, I was too shy to walk around with it and take pictures of random things. I was also scared that in the end, they would not be good at all and I would just feel demotivated. On that day, with a little bit of motivation from Sivam and a threat from Kavitha, that I would get kicked if I didn't take it out, I decided to walk around my office building and take pictures of the tulips. I got some good pictures, which everybody thought was because of the cool camera.. :)

Picture dedicated to all my friends for their encouragement:
Naveen, Ramesh, Madhvi, Pradeep, Smitha, Gowri, Kosha, Anushree, Shilpa, Vinay(2), Kavitha, Sivam, Aishwarya, ...

The first leaf...

2009-05-20T18:20:00.000-04:00

'The first leaf' carries a lot more deeper meaning in my life. The closer you are to me.. the more you get out of this picture.
For starters...

Boston, 29th September 08:
It had rained the previous night. And the fall had just begun. I reached for the car door to drop off my laptop and get to work in a hurry. Almost did not see her.. the leaf. The only leaf that was on the car, probably the only one that fell that morning. Like it was meant to be..
It was my first fall. I had no idea how fabulous colors, it brings into one's life. I was breathless...
I clicked my first picture for the fall, the first one of the beautiful colored leaf. Then I sat there for a long time, and watched her fly away...

Thoughts before the picture...

2009-05-19T13:14:00.000-04:00

Boston, April 14th 09:

I was getting out of the Boston Public Library, little upset that I could not get any good picture that whole day. My mind was still stuck on the Photo gallery that I had visited at 'The Boston Athenaeum', 10 1/2 Beacon St. The pictures of the Hancock Tower taken from the helicopter, was just amazing. And I had tried a whole lot to get the best I could, all evening of that tower. But none of them impressed me. And hence, I was pissed...

When I stepped out of the library, I saw the building half lit, with a blue sky at the background. And if I framed it right, I could get the lamps hanging on the entrance of the library at the foreground of the building. It looked pretty. I was happy. I had a good picture of Hancock Tower for myself. Original and Creative.

Love...

2009-05-18T00:08:00.000-04:00

Herzliya, Israel; April 23rd 2009:
I was sitting in the bar in Herzliya. A very nice little Tapas style bar (Tapeo Bar). There is when, I saw this perfect picture.. and I could not help myself from not taking it. My hands shook.. mouth went dry.. but, managed to grab a quick shot.
I don't know, if that was because I was afraid of screwing up the picture.. or afraid of messing up the love.
Picture dedicated to all those who are in love.