Friday, February 12, 2010

You know the feeling? When...

Its the last day of the work week, and you've been getting late for work almost every other day that week, getting stuck in bad traffic just because you did not start early enough. On this day, you manage you get up early, only to fall asleep again, and eventually end up getting delayed. You again start late, cursing under your breath about all the bad traffic you'd again have to face today, grimacing at the thought of not having anyone else to blame, but finding it hard not to shout out the choicest of expletives at random people on the road!

But...

Once you start, albeit a bit late, you find that the roads are unusually calm with very less traffic, you could breeze through the usually congested roads, be surprised at yourself behaving so gentlemanly, stopping in the middle of the road to allow pedestrians to cross over, hum a tune on the way, end up in the office parking lot with a smile on your face...

But...

It slooooooowllllyy dawns upon you that its a festival day which most people are having a holiday for and you, sir, have no such luxury!

The only luxury of such days is the calm roads...

Friday, February 05, 2010

Pristine Kemmangundi

This is a trip made in December 2009. I know its late. I've been trying to get back to updating my blog on a regular basis from last 3 weeks or so. To say that the last few weeks have been crazy hectic would be some sort of an understatement! Anyway, not digressing further...

December is the time the people in the IT industry herd like cattle and embark upon the great migration across the country-side. ( Okay, so that was me desperately trying to make up for the understatement earlier! Its just to show you the degree of "underness" in the earlier statement! :D ). In simple words, I had a 2 week vacation time pending, so I took it! Finding a time when a subset of my friends would be free led to me finding 3 others along with me being free to go somewhere on Dec 19 and Dec 20. By that time then, I had made up my mind to drag everyone to Kemmangundi. And for good reason - the weather at that time of the year is sublime! Perfect postcard landscapes, blue skies dotted with fluffy little white clouds - ah, just divine!

So, we started on Dec 19th morning at 6am in my car. The other participants being Sac, VV and SP. I took control of the wheels for the first part of the journey - made some amazing time, reaching CR Patna (Kamat hotel) for breakfast by 8:30am! We had a heavy breakfast, topped with some average tasting coffee and resumed the drive. This time, SP took over from me. Now, don't get me wrong here - SP is a very good driver... its just that he becomes a totally different person when behind a steering wheel - a person who thinks he's flying a plane or is driving a F1 car! Usual mid-range hatchbacks' engines, in India tend to dislike working at RPMs greater than 5000! Anyway - it was a breezy drive till Chikmagalur, after which things started to get more interesting!

Outlook traveller's magazine describes the Chikmagalur - Kemmangundi drive in an interesting sentence - "The exotic and scenic drive from Chikmagalur to Kemmangundi is like viewing beautiful panaromas on a violent shaky television" :D - well, that sums it up. Horrible pathetic roads! My poor car bore the brunt of both the roads and SP's driving... and to top it all, we forgot to fuel up in Chikmagalur! We were going to Kemmangundi in quarter tank of fuel. This really got me anxious! Let me leave out my anxiousness from this post - in the end, we made it alright with no problems :)

The drive itself was rocky, but very scenic - every now and then, we would see something that makes us stop, get down and click away! One such picture taken during one such stop is seen along with this post. We reached Kemmangundi by 12:30pm. We were somewhat travel-weary and hungry by then. Sac managed to get us accommodation in the horticulture guest house where we set aside our bags and had lunch. Then we rested for a while, before taking a jeep to Hebbe falls.

Hebbe falls is about 8KMs by walk, 12KMs by "road" from the place we were. We decided to take a jeep to the falls. It was a half hour or so, extremely rocky ride to the place where jeep could park and from there it was a 10 minute walk through small puddles of water, average length streams of water, etc. I could say I "got my feet wet" (hint: lookup military usage of the phrase :D). At the falls I tried some slow shutter photos from a distance. Could not get as near as I had hoped I could, because of the water droplets splashing out - did not want to risk taking out the camera there! We spent some half hour there before walking back to the jeep and headed back to our room. It got dark by the time we reached back. Just had some dinner and slept early. For, we had plans to get up at 5 and walk to Z-point to catch the sunrise! Sac was feeling feverish by that time and he took a crocin and slept off early. Me, SP and VV chatted for a while and then went to sleep. All of us set alarms for 5am!

A couple of things made this Z-point walk, at 5:30am somewhat interesting! The previous evening, when we came back from Hebbe falls, I told SP that we should ask about the route to Z-point. We got rough directions - drive about 2KMs in car and from there another 45 minutes walk to the summit. I was of the opinion that we should ask for a guide. SP rubbished my opinion saying there'll be lot of people going towards Z-point in the morning for the very same reason we would be! Come 5:30am, we started by car in pitch darkness - we could only see about 10 feet ahead of us at any point in time, thanks to the headlights. The only indication of where we had to park the car was when the 4 wheeler track abruptly ended! We parked the car to a side and stepped out - bitter cold, howling winds... trembling we all step out. VV switches on the torch... a powerful LED torch. I ask him to turn it off for a moment. We all look up - gosh! what a sight :) Millions of stars - all appearing so bright. That's the kind of sight that makes you forget your location, the time of the day, the bitter cold... everything. We started walking now... still pitch darkness, that was only disturbed by our bright torch. After walking some 2 minutes, we realize that we have hit a dead end. Up till there it was a plain land walk. Now, it was a steep ascent suddenly. As we ascended the cold got even more colder, the winds picked up speed! I initially started out with a jacket. As time went during the ascent, I had to put on the jacket hood to protect my ears, then use the hand kerchief to wrap around my mouth and nose! Huffing and puffing, climbing for some 40 minutes... still pretty dark, we had reached the summit. We just picked a plain, grassy spot, and sat down. I setup my tripod and camera. Waited for sunrise... In the bleak pre-dawn light, one can only see the outlines of the hills around... and that was all we could see any direction we looked. We were surrounded by hills in all directions! The powerful winds trying to knock us out is something to be experienced! Sunrise was a slight disappointment due to cloudy skies but the whole experience of getting up at 5, driving/walking/climbing in pitch darkness in a very chilly weather was memorable enough!

We returned back to our rooms by 8am, had bath and ate breakfast. The first thing we had to do was fuel up. Lingadahalli - nearest fuel station, 20KM away. On the way, we stopped at Kalhatti falls. I do not know why this is so famous - it just a 50 ft or so high water fall and people using the surroundings as their personal bathrooms makes it even more un-inviting! We did not spend much time there. We fueled up and then chose to return to Bangalore from there. We had plans to visit Mullayanagiri - but since that meant we had to go back the same way we had come till Lingadahalli and imagining the road conditions, we thought its prudent to just return back - we could get back to Bangalore before dark.

The return journey was mostly uneventful - tired people choosing to sleep in patches of the drive. Bringing back memories and some nice pictures too. A 2 day trip to that place is not justice enough! Cannot wait to get back there sometime soon!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Somanathapura - A Short Trip


Geometry
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S
I had made up my mind to get away from the city this weekend. I was thinking of Belur. But my mom suggested Somanahapura which has a similar temple like in Belur and is nearer to Bangalore.

Somanathapura is a small village situated 140KMs from Bangalore. (Route: Bangalore - Maddur - MalavaLLi - Bannur - Somanathapura). It houses a stone temple with exemplary carvings from the HoysaLa period. The temple is strikingly similar to the one at Belur. The main idol of Channakeshava, being the main deity at this temple. What more, its much less crowded than Belur (except that, I did not see a huge bus packed with kids on a school excursion coming there the very same day! What luck).

I scouted around the place for almost 90 minutes or so. There are so many things pleasant about ancient temples - the calmness, the cold feel of hard stone in the innards of the Garbhagudi. The intricacy of the carvings, the amount of craftwork going into the details of an ornament on a sculpted goddess. The sheer size of the monolithic nature of the gopura (the towers). Managed to get some decent pictures. The weather could have been better. In the december winter, I would bet for blue clear skies. But some darn depression in Bay of Bengal, near Chennai put paid to my hopes :(

The visit to Shivanasamudra after Somanathapura was disappointing, to say the least. Very less water and huge crowds, most of them already half naked coming out of their cars, ready to jump into water!

One of the photos taken at the Somanathapura temple, is seen along with this post.

Oh yeah, I also discovered that driving and caffeine have similar effects on me :D

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Weekend shoot [06/12/2009]


Splash
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S
Manchinbele reservoir was the destination. Naren, Sac, VV and myself started off towards the place at 4pm and reached by 5pm. The sky was not as clear as I hoped it would be. Nonetheless, we were in time to view the setting sun.

Apart from the usual sunset landscapes, I got an idea while shooting the reflection of the sun in the water. I was just thinking that it would be much more interesting if there was a subject in the water - like a boat moving across the water. Since there was no such naturally available subject, thought why not create one of our own - a splash of water. Naren volunteered to throw pebbles into the water. Got some 3 decent shots in 10 attempts. One of them is seen along with this post.

When I sat down to process the photos, I realized that the splash shots should have been taken at a higher ISO. Well, next time perhaps...

Waiting for sleep

This is what I listen as I wait for sleep. The haunting keyboard notes do the job.

Standing by the window, eyes upon the moon
Hoping that the memory, will leave her spirit soon

She shuts the doors and lights
And lays her body on the bed
Where images and words are running deep
She has too much pride to pull the sheets above her head
So quietly she lays and waits for sleep

She stares at the ceiling and tries not to think
And pictures the chains she's been trying to link again
But the feeling is gone

And water can't cover her memories
Ashes can't answer her pain
God, give me the power to take breath from a breeze
And call life from a cold metal frame

In with the ashes
Or up with the smoke from the fire
With wings up in heaven
Or here, lying in bed
Palm of her hand to me head
Now and forever curled in my heart
And the heart of the world...

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Weekend shoot [22/11/2009]


Laalbagh Glass-house
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S
I was out of ideas this week. Me and my friend Raghu, made last minute plans to visit the KR park in Basavanagudi and Lalbagh. It doubled up as a nice morning walk and a decent photoshoot. For once, I stopped shooting in manual mode all the time. Yet to get a good hang of the camera metering modes. Hope to get fluent with them soon.

Here's one photo of the glass house in Lalbagh.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Laksha Deepotsava


Laksha Deepotsava
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S
Yesterday was the last monday of the Kartika maasa. This is considered an auspicious day for the worship of lord Shiva. Temples usually arrange for people to bring as many oil lamps as possible and light them during the evening. This is called "Laksha Deepotsava".

I thought this would be a good opportunity to get some pictures in dark settings. I went to a temple fairly early - by 6:30pm. People were still gathering and I knew this was going to get busy here real soon, with lot more people pouring in. One disappointing thing was, the temple had bright halogen lamps everywhere! I had not expected this. I wanted to shoot with only the light from the hundreds of lamps around. This was a bit of a dampner. But, I managed to scout a couple of not-so-bright places and take some pictures. You can see one of those with the post here.

Also, this was the first photoshoot after I decided to shoot RAW instead of JPEGs. I had fun processing the RAW images and also learnt the flexibility that RAW photos have to offer. Once a JPEG is edited, the quality and valuable information is lost. Whereas with RAW images, you can apply any processing and export images to JPEG/TIFF. The original RAW image has not changed and can be processed differently again. Also, the camera always produces RAW format. If the camera is set to produce JPEGs, it has to process the RAW data into a JPEG image on the basis of settings like saturation, hue, white balance, etc. Usually, this processing is better done on a computer than what's done by the camera. All the more reasons to shoot in RAW mode. Only drawback is the large size of the RAW images - you'll need more card capacity to shoot the same number of images. Also, the rate of capture might be lesser than JPEGs when shooting in burst mode.

Now waiting for an opportunity to shoot in daylight to see more advantages of a RAW image.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Weekend shoot [07/11/2009]


Chocolate Cake?
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S
Went out to take some shots with friends from NCJ days, to Sankey tank. Plan was to catch sunrise and we did catch an oh-so-lovely sun that rose quietly behind a thick cloud cover :| Anyways, managed to take some shots and had to head back when it started to drizzle quite heavily.

Later in the evening, a rather unplanned drive along Kanakapura road took us to a really creepy location and also to the Art of Living ashram. This photo was taken there. I'm patting myself on my back here, for this, is a handheld shot @ ISO 800 :D Used Noiseware CE to get rid of some noise which, unfortunately, led to the loss of all EXIF data on the image.

Also, recovering from a bout of illness. All this roaming around surely wore me out rather quickly.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Hectic weekend


What flower is this?
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S
Saturday was a day full of hectic roaming around. Had to walk all of the 2.4 KMs to get hold of my new lens - btw, bought the Nikon 55-200mm lens :) Naren chose to drive me around, otherwise, it'd have been even more stress for me :D Anyway, tried a few shots around my home, and I love the lens. Sadly, I could not go any place to shoot. Seen in this post is one of the pictures I took from my neighbour's little garden. I've no idea what this flower is called - anybody knows?

Sunday was mostly spent driving parents around for some functions and a temple visit. Naren had a small accident in the evening - wishing him a speedy recovery.

PS: Till I get back to active writing, you'll mostly see pictures and mundane posts :)

Monday, October 26, 2009

Have a wonderful week


Light Sieve
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S
I know I've not been active here. I'll get back soon. Meanwhile, my pics would act like a filler :D

I've started this new thing recently - of going to various places in Bangalore very early in the morning and take some shots. Last week was the first week and the place was cubbon park and surroundings. Parked the vehicle at the cubbon park entrance near corporation circle and wandered inside the park, in front of Vidhana Soudha, then back, going towards Vittal Mallya road. Managed to get some decent pictures.

I play cricket too during weekends. So, this is going to be tough to make it to these photo shoots on the days we play cricket. Lets see how it goes. I'm yet to think of a destination for the next shoot.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

The plant that I had bought over a year ago has now grown bigger.

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Education

Forever holding dreams within my heart,
Through nature's inflexible grace,

I'm learning to live...