Web site revisited

And here I am with another set of images from the place where I made the previous set.

Last weekend when I went to the place with my friend Ramesh Adkoli it was completely covered in mist and the visibility was very very less.  In the bitter cold of the morning it took some time to zero in on the kind of web which I was looking for.

I love winter just for this. Everything around gets covered in mist and the morning chill, though tough to beat at times, just refreshes my mind.

Enjoyed making some images at the place that day.

Sun came out to say a hi only by 8:10AM.

Cheers,
Ash

Winter web site!

Last time when I went to my practice nets - TG Halli, I had forgotten what I had thought before leaving the place the previous time! I had spotted few web sites! Yes, spider webs! But it was too late that day and Sun was high. So I had left the place thinking that I would visit to that place first in my next practice session. But almost the same was about to repeat, if I had not decided to take a leisure walk.

There were some tall grass shrubs on which there was a tiny colony kind of webs all over. It was then I suddenly remembered my previous visit and rushed to get my camera. Sun was just coming up and the ambiance was mildly misty.

Instead of using my regular macro lens to make some web patterns I decided to go wide. I used my wide angle macro this time which allowed me to go very much closer than the wide angle lenses, thereby achieving the magnification, and retaining the wide angle aspect in the image at the same time. I love my wide angle macro lens - Sigma 28mm f/1.8 - which gives me some unique and amazing perspectives. More about that in a separate post sometime later.

I wish I had spotted it sometime earlier that day. As I was making the images, the mist was slowly disappearing and the light was getting bright. Thanks to the straying clouds I got few spotlights as well.

The next time when I go there this would be high in my list and will try to better some of the results.

Cheers,
Ash

Shapes and forms

This winter is proving to be very enjoyable for me in terms of photography. The misty mornings that we had for about a month has proved very fruitful. I spent a couple of mornings on the last few weekends at T.G.Halli, on the outskirts of Bangalore photographing that aspect, which we get to see only during the winters - the dews. 

Each time when I arrived at the place for the first half an hour or so I was going blank on what to shoot and how. But as the morning sun slowly comes out each time he was opening up the mind and by that time I was immersed in the essence of the place and I was finding myself amidst an immense opportunity each time.

Last time when I went to the place I was moved by some of the shapes and forms of the grass and the way they were beautified by the morning dews. I got glued to my viewfinder for long. The result is this blog where I have shared some of those creations.

Hope you enjoy.

Cheers,
Ash

Winter is here

I love mist. I simply love the feeling of being in mist. Everything around you would be dull and less contrasty and the mood is simply amazing.

After quite a good break I went back to my favorite photography backyard - TG Halli last weekend. As I was little late in reaching the place I had missed the morning mist. But while searching for a subject to work on when I lied down to the level of the grass the surrounding looked amazingly fresh. There were tiny droplets of the mist on these grass and the wings and the body of the damselfly was also having tiny sparkles of the mist. It was an amazing sight when I saw from the low angle.

Here I am presenting to you some of the images which I made on that morning. Nothing much to share in words.

Winter is here.... and.... I love it.


Cheers,
Ash 

Silent bells

It is a small village near Yellapur, a small town where I spent all my childhood. There is a temple of Ganapathi, which is popular among the people around Yellapur and Sirsi. The place is Chandguli. A serene and calm place amidst forest and it is one of the places which is closer to my heart. I had felt an unexplainable feeling when I had been there for the first time!

It was a feeling that I was there before. A feeling that I belong to that place! Never ever it happened to me till today in any other place! No, it was not a deja-vu (which I often experience on many occasions!). I had felt a connection. My faint memory says that I was in my 11th or 12th standard then.

The temple has several thousands of bells which devotees offer to the Lord when their wishes come true! A ritual which we see in several temples across India, in various other forms of offerings. The complete temple is completely surrounded and stuffed with bells. If they all make sound together then I bet many people from nearby villages also would go deaf! Yet they are all hanging there silently, without making any sound.

They just remind me of Buddhist monks or a Hindu saints who practice silence. These saints, though belong to the same kind - humans, who are making loud noise all over the world, they have realized that the inner peace is attained only in silence. These silent bells resemble those elegant people so much.

They are all celebrating silence at that place.

Please note that photography is prohibited at the place and I have made these images with prior permission from the staff there.

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Results of BBC Wildlife Photographer Of the Year are out. My dear friend Adithya Biloor has won the runner up award in the Nature in Black and White category for his wonderful image of an ant on the leaf. You can visit his site - Lens and Tales to view many of his wonderful images.

Another good friend of mine - Nilanjan, who had won the same title last year has another of his wonderful image winning a Highly Commended in the Behaviour-Birds category.

Feels great to see some Indian names in the winners list.

Heartily congratulations to Adithya and Nilanjan!


Cheers,
Ash

At times when I looked up...

Clouds are something which give me an array of emotions.

When the clouds are heavy and dark I get scared about their tensed mood and the way in which they give the feel that they will wash away everything beneath them.

Then on a winter day when the sky is lovely blue few small clouds here and there give me a nice feel of some wanders with no idea about their destination.

They make me smile and I keep watching them for quite a long time till either they vanish into the air or move far far away. My heart feels very light after seeing them.

These are some of the images which I had made over past couple of years (the recent ones being today) which depict different moods of the clouds (and mine as well ?!!). 

All images are made from my balcony at home.

 

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. 
   
Cheers,
Ash

Seeing beyond obvious

Sometimes on the field I get glued to one particular subject or scenery for quite a log time and it takes several hours for me to come out of it.

One such thing happened recently to me when I found a pair of small flowers with an interesting arrangement. I got so much impressed with their relative posture that I spent a good couple of hours shooting only them.

For me their stance resembled that of a man and a woman with the man leaning forward towards the woman.The gentleness on the flowers and their opened structures were giving a pleasing mood to the entire scenery.

It was like a handsome gentleman proposing to a beautiful and graceful lady. Resemblance of the bud is left to the imagination of the viewer though! ;)

Blame it to my state of mind but I got too much carried away by the show that without my notice I had spent a good two hours exploring all the possibilities to capture the scene with different combinations of focal length and light.

It was fun. Initially I decided to shoot with the ambient light and once I was quite satisfied then I decided to throw in some directional light using a off-the-hot-shoe flash.

The flash light added a different dimension to some of the images. In some of the images they looked like celebrities!! I started loving the feel of the result and that kept me going. By that time I was kind of addicted to the scene and was not in any mood to explore anything else around.

I had used predominantly two focal lengths - 50mm and 28mm with a combination of various aperture values ranging from f/1.8 on both till f/7.1 combined with various light intensities and directions. Each combination had its own uniqueness. Though some of them suit my taste bud and some didn't, the process of making these images gave me a very good learning.

What you are seeing here are some of those which are close to my heart.

Hope you enjoy the set. Sometimes images like these exist in our very own vicinity.

We just have to keep our eyes open to see them

Cheers,
Ash

Life in abundance

Monsoon is the life-line of Western Ghats. It not only transforms the land into a green carpet but also enriches the life forms during that time. 

One can see various types of wild flowers, vividly colorful mushrooms, richly green ferns and a rich number of other life forms like frogs, insects, cicadas and various other critters. With abundant food available it is no less than a festival time for the predators!

Last time on my visit to Jenukal Gudda, near Yellapur, I had a nice encounter with a Green Vine Snake. That was the first and the only time I photographed a Green Vine alive! Though I have been seeing this species of snake ever since my childhood, it rarely showed up since the time I started the photography. Hence I was excited to shoot this guy and he obliged happily.

During this year's Western Ghats trip in July I was expecting this species of snake to show up in one or the other place we visited. I always had my eyes open to find this one but all went in vein.
In all the places there were cicadas, frogs and other insects abundantly rich in number but there was no sign of a Green Vine.

With forest fragmented due to the construction of roads and highways these snakes have a constant pressure to sometime cross the road in order to find food or mate. That makes them vulnerable not only to the fast moving vehicles but also to their predators. These guys are masters in camouflaging. You just cannot find them once they are into some green shrubs or a tree. It is just next to impossible to find them if they don't move and they know that! For such a camouflaged guy it is nothing less than a disaster to come on the bare surface of a tar road where he is easily visible from anywhere. It is like getting onto a battlefield...unarmed!

Road kills are common across the Western Ghat region. During monsoons there is no surprise if the number goes high. The forests and its fringes will be filled with food and life and the grass looks greener on the other side of the road (!), which tempts guys like these to venture out into the bare tar roads and to cross them in desperacy!

The results are disastrous many times. We were a witness to one such road kill during this year's trip in July. It feels terribly sad to see such a charmingly beautiful creature lying flat on the road dead with its inside out!

No cheers,
Ash 

Moist ~ Green ~ Lively - Season's first Trip to Western Ghats

...

Cloudy weather  ~  Expecting clouds to pour down anytime  ~  gathering dark clouds  ~

Peeking sunbeams through the dark clouds, confusing if it would rain or clear off  ~  drizzling  ~  distant thunders  ~  water sprinkles  ~

sound of raindrops hitting the car bonnet  ~  bubbles on the still water on the road  ~  ripples on the calm waters  ~

looking up towards the sky  ~  street full of dark umbrellas  ~  people rarely looking straight  ~  bent heads  ~  wet roads  ~  filled pot holes, defying their depths  ~

rich greens  ~  moss on the rocks and logs  ~  wonderful ferns  ~  colorful mushrooms  ~  splendid wild flowers  ~  wet forest floor  ~  stretching and crawling leeches  ~  wet dead leaves  ~

 

 

muddy red waters  ~  full flowing rivers  ~  re-incarnated waterfalls  ~  silently flowing forest streams  ~  skiddy and slippery river banks  ~  submerged dead trees  ~

cloudy forests  ~  lively valleys  ~  misty canopies  ~  singing streams  ~  bathing rocks  ~  smiling plants  ~

This is what Monsoon in the Western Ghats is all about.

Isn't it? :)


All images are from my recent trip to Western Ghats between 8th and 10th July 2011.

Planning again in Aug. 


More details here: 
http://www.landscape-wizards.com/home/services/workshops-and-tours


Cheers,

Ash