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 

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

A pretty common friend - Pond Heron

At last, here I am....back on my blog with something....at least!


All these days I was very busy at the office and all I could do was just looking at various images from various photographers and enjoying online...Thanks to my office work which was allowing me to go home only by night 10 and morning at 8 I was there back at my seat!

At last I am back here with images of some common birds and my thoughts on how does the images of common birds also look soothing and pleasant depending on the weather condition and composition.

It was a usual Saturday morning in June and it was a bit of cloudy. In our regular backyard - TG Halli there was not much activity apart from few Larks and bushchats. The immense activity of the Whiskered Tern was absent and so were the birds. A few pond herons and Egrets were occupying the place where we had witnessed some wonderful action a couple of weeks back. Everything was calm and quite.



Only majority that day was that of Pond Herons. Not much though but probably because of the absence of the other birds pond herons were getting a chance to showcase themselves! :)

Some were quite bold as they allowed us to go a bit closer than they regularly do and some were even fishing freely!



As the morning was cloudy, which helps in a way to reduce the extra contrast that a sunny condition will result in, I decided to concentrate on a pond heron which was sitting on a mud boulder with some nice patches of green grass.



Initially there was very less wind and hence almost no waves on the water. The surface was calm and smooth.



Then a small breeze created a thin layer of waves on the surface...The absence of direct sunlight made everything look soft and saturated.



Keeping the grass in the foreground as out of focused, I captured some images of the bird which has a smooth green wash over the whole image. I liked the feel of the green wash over the image.

By that time it was about 45 min since I was with that guy and I decided to take the advantage of that and made a slow move ahead...he called it 'enough' and decided to explore a different place!




Contended with the set of images as I got up from the ground I saw that the distant Savanadurga was wearing a cloudy cap! Again on ground I crawled in a different direction to keep the Egret in the frame while capturing the scene.


Cheers,
Ash

Re-'Tern'ing to the backyard!

It had been almost 2 years since I had seen Black Bellied Tern in what is as the backyard for many of us - T G Halli. Since then on my several visits I had not seen them in that place. Of course terns migrate locally (local movement) and you will not find them there in the early winters or during the monsoons but in the mid and late summer they are likely to arrive at many of the water bodies around Bangalore.


On the first weekend of May when I along with couple of my friends (incidentally both were Prashanths! :)) went to visit T G Halli I was expecting some River Terns to be present along with some sub adults for which they were feeding from past couple of weeks which was beautifully photographed by Ganesh, Pramod and Shiv. I was thinking that those Terns might have been returned (Re-Terned?? :)) and I was crossing my fingers as to what is the surprise that is there this time!


The place dint fail this time as well! When myself and another of my friends Sriharsha Ganjam were looking for some opportunities, I spotted some Terns. They were looking like River Terns and were very far. Contended that they are around and we continued looking for some macro and other opportunities. As we slowly moved on, I noticed that there were a good number of Terns around and some exhibited a smaller size....and wait...some had Black Belly! 'oh! They are back' I thought! Claimed that they are Black Bellied Terns! Then the fun started. Self and Harsha, after unloading our bags started crawling on all fours. We took almost 30min to cover a distance of nearly 50mtrs! When I noticed, the birds were having brick red or maroonish colored bill and I was remembering Orangish bill for the Black Bellied terns. I went into doubt then. As I normally dont keep the field guide in my camera bag (which is already more than 10kg!) I had decided to check for it at home.


We both were quite close to them and enjoyed making some images. They also seem to have accepted our presence and kept on doing there part of work. It was a pleasure to watch them that day! Their plunging into the water for fishing was something which we will not forget easily.


As I put my bag on the rack at my room, I referred to the field guide and it announced that they are 'Whiskered Terns' which winter around almost whole of India. Their breeding grounds are in Kashmir and Northern parts of India and breed in the time of June - Sept.


Went to the same place on that Sunday as well and found them again in the tank.




Made some images of the Little Ringed Plover and for my another surprise saw a lone Stone Plover (Great Thick knee) as well!



But the highlight of the visit were the Whiskered Terns again...I think they will be around for some more days before they begin their long journey back to their backyards, where they breed!



It was a pleasure watching them!

Cheers,
Ash

Finally Oxygenated!

As of my last post I was struggling to get the internet transferred to my new home and within few days of that post I finally got the net back! Feeling good! Finally I am oxygenated! :-)

The winter mornings here are becoming better and better. I always had wish of photographing T.G.Halli in misty weather and making images of dew covered butterfly. At last I am able to fulfill that wish in past couple of weeks.


On first Saturday of November when I had been to T G Halli it was very very misty. The place was looking surreal! The experience there was awesome and I got challenged by the attempt to make landscapes! Even though I have done some landscape images in the past but most of them were of the sunset time which I was pretty comfortable with. But this kind of mood capturing was a new challenge to me. I was experiencing a surreal joy in that place but all my attempts to capture that mood in the camera were going in vein! I was not happy with the results! Making landscapes in such situations is not that easy! A good learning from the failure! This is the reason I love to fail.... I learn the things.....


Last weekend was another wish coming true! - Dew covered butterfly! I always amazed by looking at Ganesh 's images of dew covered butterfly as to how beautiful they are and how wonderfully he has captured them in the image!


After our plan to Nandi Hills crashed because of last minute change, myself and Naga headed to T.G.halli last Saturday in search of dew and the beauties! We were there at 5:30 and the ambiance was fabulous! We had almost 40-50 min before the first rays of light actually hit the ground! Everywhere it was misty and it was looking heavenly!


Finally made few images which I always dreamt of! Satisfied and Happy!

Planned to visit Bharathpur and Ranathambore on the last week of this month.
Hoping for some good time in Bharathpur!

It feels good to be back.....on Net!

:-)
- Ash