A dawn in the outskirts of Bangalore

"SRS Betta" (!!) a new place for me, was selected by Dinesh for the next day morning shoot. The name first sounded weird and a the possibility of any distant linkage of this name with the popular SRS Travels (a transportation company) flashed through my mind! It was only the next day morning I got to know the name of the place when Dinesh told me - Shri Revanna Siddeshwara Betta.

It was about 5:40 am when we arrived at the place and the sky was still deep blue with some bright stars shining. The East was giving an indication of changing the sky colour soon by bringing in the Sun. Horizon was slowly turning pink.

The place offers very good opportunity for landscape photographers. The two rocky hills stand prominently in the otherwise plane landscape. The nearby lake provides a nice opportunity to get some reflections of those hills, on a ripple-less morning.

As we were making images around the lake the Sun broke out of the horizon. The light was soft and of the kind of typical winter Sunrise.

~ M A H A B A L I P U R A M ~ Under the silent storm!

Tamil Nadu is getting completely soaked by the recent series of deep depressions in the Bay of Bengal. The satellite images showing the swirl of cloud are painting a really horrifying picture of very heavy rains in the east coast of India. As I am writing this blog there is another warning standing in the parts of southern coast of Tamil Nadu for tomorrow and day after!

Me and my family has seen the beginning of these pouring times in Chennai and we missed the fury of the cyclone by a whisker! All hell started to break loose the day after we left Chennai. On the last day of our stay (Nov 8th, 2015) it had given us a hint about the days to come! Oct - Nov being a regular rainy season in Tamil Nadu (due to reverse monsoon) we thought that it would be a regular rain with a bit more duration and slightly heavy clouds! But the story was different! A dangerous storm was silently brewing in the sky above us and we were happily enjoying our city sight-seeing and visits to popular tourist destinations thinking that they are regular cloud movements!

Mahabalipuram was one of the places where we spent our Saturday (Nov 7th, 2015) morning. The sky was cloudy and it was drizzling intermittently at times. The low moving, rain bearing clouds are always a treat for the photographer, which fills the sky nicely with shades while shooting the temple architecture! I was happy because the clouds were hiding the harsh sun behind them and the light was pretty even. It drizzled a bit while we were watching the main shore temple complex and then again a bit of drizzle while we were at the place of "Pancha Ratha" (complex of five chariots). Though the intensity was a bit high we thought that it is just a momentarily shower and did not take it seriously. But when we head back to the car to proceed to Arjuna's Penance then the fury started! It went on to about 20 odd minutes and at the end we had to abandon the idea of going inside the complex of Arjuna's Penance and started to head back to Chennai. What we saw there was a pre-cursor for the days to come!

Here are some of the images which I made that morning at Mahabalipuram.
(Click on the images to see them bigger - recommended!)

While I pray for the safety of all in Tamil Nadu during these tough times you enjoy these images.

Cheers,

Ash