Angle matters!

My previous attempt was to show how the same subject looks different and gives different feel if we look at that from different angles. The one thing that we sometimes forget as photographers is to spend some time around the subject and looking at that from different angles. I have missed many such opportunities where I realised after I saw the image on the computer screen. 'Oh! I should have tried that angle!' ...'Ah! That other angle IF I had tried might have given better impact!'... Such expression I have got many times when I saw some of my images once I come back to home!
So last weekend I tried to capture an interesting subject in all possible angles that I felt interesting! I spent almost an hour around this shell, trying to capture it in different angles. Below are some of those results.



I particularly liked the distractions around. But the twig on the upper right corner is a bit disturbing.... but still a keepable image!

Now, next I tried a very slightly different angle where I got rid of those twigs and went for a clean shot. Below is the result:


And then went around this guy [The guy was still inside! Having his weekend sleep...happily!]
and the other part of his shell was having a very interesting pattern on it.


As this was bit flat, I decided to shift my tripod slightly to my right to get some high light in the frame. My idea was to keep this subject in the high light area and having the slight dark area in the right space of the frame in order to balance it. This view of mine resulted in the below image:


Then I thought of using 50mm lens and get some view of the scape around. Smaller focal lengths sometime yield some different perspectives. Below is the result of that experiment:




By this time [still if you are reading!! :)] you will come to know how different angles give different perspectives. Some angles may look good to some people. Ofcourse the taste and the liking differs. But we need to explore different possibilities to get the image which really satisfies our inner vision.



At the end of the day its the satisfaction that we get from the image is what matters!


Cheers,
Ash

Some attempts for something different!

Past couple of weeks I spent trying something different! Went to Ramanagaram twice but not for vultures! They were flying happily above my head as usual but I was not with my tele lens there. My eyes were searching some patterns or some unique angles or some experimentations or some adventure! I tried to produce something different!



In the below image I was waiting for Indian Robin at the place of Agama. I spent a good 45 min waiting for that bird to arrive with 50mm lens on my camera. All the time when I went slightly away from there the bird landed at that spot! Finally made this image thinking that something is better than ...... !



The below pair is the antennae of a dragonfly!! I swear I never knew dragonflies possess such beautiful antennae!



Then spent some time in my aunt's garden and tried some macros and abstracts.










Not totally successful! But I have the satisfaction of learning some skills and how to control the frustration! :) Creative photography is really challenging!

I am enjoying it!

The game is on!

Cheers,
Ash

Amidst the clouds - A trek to Kodachadri !!

The mountains always fascinated me! So are the clouds! The joy mounts when both these combine together and produce a visual spectacle! Monsoon is THE time to enjoy this. As the monsoon was on its way we decided to conquer Kodachadri!! For the weekend warriors like us these treks bring such an adrenaline that it takes months together to get out of that mood!
Needless to say that the trek was fantastic! We hit by the monsoon showers(or the pre monsoon showers??) while we were climbing through the grasslands. The leeches were everywhere and were looking very well built!! We literally ran in some places inspite of having 12 kg backpack!! But every trouble melts away when you see the huge dense clouds hitting right at the high peaks of the Sahyadris! The eyes start to think if its a reality or any kind of dream or illusion!!



This time I had decided to carry my photography gears to the top and after lot of calculations and assumptions I had finally decided to carry everything!! :) So my backpack was my Lowepro CompuTrekker with all the lenses and was happily weighing 12 kgs!! Naga, KG and Manu also had their backpacks which weighed definitely not less than mine!


All the pain that one undergoes in carrying such heavy stuffs through the mountains start disappearing when you start enjoying the nature over there. For us at the first it was White Bellied Blueflycatcher which gave tremendous pleasure! It was a lifer for me as well!(Uff!! A lifer after a loooooong time!) Then it was followed by the Blue Oak Leaf butterfly and what seemed like a mixed hunting group of White Bellied Treepie, Racket Tailed Drongo and Barbets. [It may not be a mixed hunting group as the barbets dont hunt insects].


After a small pit stop at the famous Mallu's place and having some lemon juice and banana we set out further. It was then that the play of leeches and the shower started! After enjoying all these (!!!) we were at the top at around 3:30 in the afternoon. After taking some rest and negotiating about the staying place in the local Inspection Bunglow we started ascending the peak and we were there at around 5:30!


The nature is pristine over there! Boy, what a wonderful sight it is! Even though it is not first time for me but still I get the same joy every time as if it is the first time that I am coming there!

The distant mountains were blue and the clouds were passing by beneath our feat! The forest beneath was echoing with the whistles of the Malabar Whistling Thrushes! The grass was green and so were the deciduos forest patches! All in all the feeling was fantastic!
After witnessing the sunset it was time to come back to the bunglow.

The night was cold and calm and I slept as if I haven't slept for years!! It was very calm indeed.



The next day morning when I opened my eyes it was 5:15 and we should be at the top again by 5:45! As the clouds hid the sun behind them, the sunrise was not much evident except for some golden rays amidst the clouds. The air was pure and cold. Everyone of us enjoyed to the fullest.
Started descending at around 10:30 and we were back at the bottom by afternoon.



The flight of the White Bellied Treepie, the whistle of the Malabar Whistling Thrush ,the call of White Bellied Blue Flycatcher and the sudden shower when we were in the grassland.... all these will remain green in my memories in the time to come.


I have already started planning my next trip to Kodachadri!! :)

Cheers,
Ash

Long time no see...!!!

Feels like it has been a very long time since I last blogged[May be it is!! :)]! The journey from Ottawa to Bangalore was boring and tiresome except when the flight was flying over the cities of Dubai in night and the whole city was lit with wonderful lighting. The sight was amazing! I glued to the window for nearly half an hour and enjoyed the top view of the man made lightings below on the ground. Apart from this and the feeling that I am going home, everything else was boring!

Went to my native for couple of weeks as soon as I landed here. I had planned it to be a photography trip but in fact it turned out to be not even close to that! Most of the time I spent in attending the marriages and other functions! Made only few decent images.



Out of the 2 weeks the time I enjoyed was when we went to Honnemardu, the backwater area of Linganamakki Dam built against the river Sharavathi.The view of the backwater area was amazing, but at the same time I felt very bad when I imagined the amount of thick forest that got destroyed while building this dam. We went to the top of the highest peak. The sightings of peafowls, ruby throated bulbuls, yellow browed bulbuls, malabar grey hornbils, racket tailed drongos, black drongos, blue tailed parakeets and the gliding of an eagle that we witnessed from the hill top all added nicely to the experience.


Then a small walk along the backwater area was also proved lucky as I got some good opportunity to make some compositions with my new wide angle :).


As the sun was getting angry in the noon we decided to head back to home. After having a nice lunch we decided to head to a falls, locally called as "Dabbe Falls" which is on Kargal - Bhatkal road. The road was very challenging and my poor Alto did really well :). To view the falls we had to descend for almost half an hour and it was 5.00PM already! After coming so far it would have been of no meaning if we dint go to view the falls. The real surprise came to us when we saw the path which heads downwards. It was almost 70 deg descend!! and I was stupid enough to carry my tripod along with me!! While descending, at one point of time I was about to leave my tripod somewhere around so thinking that I could bring that while coming back! But somehow managed to take that till the view point. The falls was beautiful but as the time was a bit late we decided to start our journey back where we had an arduous task of climbing back to reach the car! Surprisingly we came up within 15 min and we ourselves were totally surprised!! All in all that day was the day which I enjoyed the most.



Now I am back at my office in Bangalore and alive and kicking!!

Feels nice to be back here.

Cheers,
Ash

Returning home...!

Its time to return! After staying for almost 7 months here, after experiencing one of the worst winters in the history of Ottawa and after witnessing the sprout of green all around, its time for me to say good bye to Ottawa! 

The time I spent here was memorable both on official and personal front. Lot of learnings in both. Made some very good friends and enjoyed the stay as well. 

 Going back home with some good memories to cherish. 

The spring is in the air here. Today it rained quite heavily! The woods are turning green faster. Soon it will be lush green everywhere...... and I am going to the land where the deciduous forests have shed their leaves and have got ready for a hot summer!! Quite an interesting contrast for me! I am eagerly looking forward for it!

Hoping for a safe journey.... 

Bye Ottawa,

Ash

Life is emerging....slowly!!

As I have told in my last post, the spring is slowly replacing the winter and the snow is melting very rapidly. As the dead cold of the winter is now being replaced by some fresh warm air, the life here has started slowly emerging. I am seeing activities everywhere! 

  When I had been to Andrew Hayden Park on Sunday evening, though it was pretty cold for a spring evening (around 2deg) but it was full of life! 

   The nuthatches have started hunting the insects and the woodpeckers have started searching the suitable place for their nests! I saw two species of woodpeckers that evening and was very much delighted. Because of some lack of luck I just missed an image of the most colorful bird that I have seen here:Northern Cardinal. As I was cursing my luck, I saw an opportunity to photograph the ever active nuthatch which was posing very beautifully by clinging upside down on a tree trunk and curiously looking for some feed. Then it was joined by another one and then another one and then..... another one!! Within minutes there were 4 of them! I never knew that they are found in groups as well!! 

  When I was busy photographing them a cute little fella flew just above my head and sat very near to me!! I think he didnt realize that I was a human as I was amidst the shrubs and was motionless for sometime! He sat very near to me and bestowed with his images of some cute poses. When all the nuthatches finished their search and slowly went into deeper shrubs where I could not enter with my equipments it was time for woodpeckers! I was utterly surprised! Even though did not get really a good quality image of it as it was totally against the sun but enjoyed their sighting and observation a lot. 

 As the activities in that place slowly slowed down I went on exploring some other parts of the park. Found a bird similar to our Iora in color (bright yellow) from a distance. The beaver was very busy picking something out from ground for its dinner! As it saw me initially it hesitated to continue then when it knew that I was not there for him then he continued his digging and then after some time he just stepped into the water and happily swam to the other shore!

 The wind started slowly getting speed and the chill in the air slowly started troubling me. Before my hands and toes started feeling numb I decided that it was my time to leave. Even though the sun hasn't set for the day  was forced to leave as it was cloudy and windy! 

All n all a nice Sunday for me with some good images and wonderful sightings. 

The life here has started again!

Cheers,

Ash 

A lucky evening!

The spring is around.... :)

After all the winter storms and the dead cold shiny days finally some good time is here. Even though it is not yet green here but the snow has started melting and the migratory birds have started arriving. I was overjoyed when I saw the first pair of Canadian Geese coming back to their place near my office! The trees have start budding and the days are getting longer! All are indications of the Spring! :)

 Made a couple of evening visits to the nearby Andrew Hayden Park and had some good time over there. Tried some compositions and enjoyed photographing the Red Winged Blackbirds by standing in the knee deep snow for about 30min! 

  The Ottawa River is slowly melting and hoping to see it flowing before I leave Ottawa! 

 Today the weather was bad and it was drizzling throughout the day! Hoping for a sunny tomorrow! 

Cheers,

Ash

Niagara! - Nature at its best.... Man at his worst!!

  I had been to Niagara couple of weekends back. For the people who come to US and Canada visiting Niagara is like a must do activity! I was also curious to see the Nature's marvel as many of my friends had praised the place a lot and had told me to visit it without fail. Because of all their description and because of the fame of the place I joined the team of my friends and decided to visit Toronto and Niagara on a long weekend.

Whenever I saw the pictures of Niagara, I was amazed by the Nature's marvel and the beauty of the place. But had heard from some of my friends that it is very commercialized. But I never gave a serious thought about that... until I landed there!!

  When we started from Toronto after watching the bird's eye view of the town from the top of the tallest tower in the world -the C N Tower, it was almost 6.00. By the time I opened my eyes our van was in Niagara city! After dumping all our luggage we decided to go to view the lights on the Niagara. 

  

    To reach the view point from the Hotel where we stayed we have to walk for around 2Kms through the center of the town. I never imagined that such a busy commercial center exists near the falls. While I was walking in the streets I felt that I am in some busy commercial city. All around the streets there were Bars, Casinos, Dance clubs, Night clubs, Some horror museums, Flashy Giant Wheels, and lots and lots of crowd.

  I started wondering how much more we have to walk to see the falls! According to my guess (and experience till then!) this much busy streets cannot exist near the falls. I was thinking man cannot spoil this much the surroundings of the falls! But I was proved completely wrong!! As we walked just down the streets, we could see the colors that are getting reflected from the mist of the falls. A few more steps ahead... and there it was.... falling through the magnificent rocks in enormous volume, which is hard to even imagine!! The lights on the falls was adding to its glory. Just as I was enjoying the falls when I turned back all the flashy lights of the town was lighting up the whole night. If I face towards the city I could not believe that there is a Nature's wonder just behind me as I was not feeling any essence of Nature there! The whole place is exploited for the commercial purpose so much that if you are a true lover of Nature you feel suffocated and deeply hurt by witnessing that tragedy there!

As the night passed, it was the time to view the falls in the morning. I was already down as I had witnessed the miserable state of the mother Nature last night! So decided to make some images of that perspective to show the ugly face of man and and his dirty deeds at that place!

 After viewing the falls from the bottom, my friends decided that they will spend some time in the commercial place, visiting Reply's Believe It or Not Museum and all other stuffs. I decided to stay back near the falls. I spent almost one and a half hours near the falls. Sometimes it felt that the volume of the water that flows and falls at that place was actually the tears of Mother Nature which is crying after seeing the state of the place!! There is no surprise even if you feel that the falls is also 'made by man' to build this commercial place called 'Niagara'!!  I would have convinced if the city was built at a distance from the falls, say at 5 or 8 Kms from the location of the falls. There was no necessity to build such a commercial place just on the banks of the falls. It is nothing but utter foolishness of man and his arrogance towards Nature! In this respect the falls in India are much lucky! Wherever you go you will feel atleast little of essence of Nature. Even though there may be some plastic litter around the place but as a whole the feeling is worth experiencing and far far far better than the feel of the 'Place Niagara'!



We left the place in the afternoon to reach Ottawa by night. When I closed my eyes in the bed there was only one thought in my mind which said:

Niagara - Nature's Wonder.... Man's Blunder!!


Regrets,
Ash

An evening with Ann!

    It was on Dec 24th, Christmas time when the whole Ottawa was busy decorating the houses and streets for the festival! There are lights of different color all around the city. The joy of the festive season was in the air and everyone were busy in buying the things to decor their homes. It was in this time when we were invited to attend the Christmas Carol Party in the Cathedral Church of Ottawa! I always wanted to see the celebration of Christmas in the traditional christian way and it was a perfect time for me to experience that! Thanks to Ann Bourke who invited us to the dinner party and thanks to Sam and Lynn who extended the invitation to me and Prashanth as well! :) So we were there with Ann and it was an excellent time! I enjoyed the music a lot and the memories of that evening will last for very long.

  It had been almost 3 months and we decided to meet again for a dinner and decided the venue as East India Restaurant on Somerset. We had decided that we will gift her something memorable! As she likes traveling and photography my obvious choice was to gift one of my images! [:) a slightly selfish thought! :)] After many rounds of discussions we zeroed in on the image of Jog Falls which I made during last monsoon trip to that place! I processed the image and after some struggle we took a nice 8x12 print of the image and went in search of a good frame for that. Finally, we were able to locate a frame which suited the photograph well. I was curious to know if she likes it or not as it was my very first image which got printed and framed! So I was also a bit of nervous! 

  We got the table after standing for a good 1 hour!! Thanks to a party by one of the Indian families which occupied a good half of the place! The food was good and the ambience was fantastic. Ann went on to tell her experiences of her encounters with the Lions in South Africa! She narrates amazingly! I enjoyed it a lot! 

   After the desert was served, it was the time that I was waiting for! On behalf of the friends I presented her the gift bag and requested her to open it and let us know if she liked it or not! My heartbeat was audible to my ears! I was curios and a bit nervous! She slowly opened the gift wrap and slowly took the frame out and very slowly turned the frame and............... the smile on her face and the joy in her eyes said that all!! I was relieved and contended! :) There was the first print of my image in the hands of a person who gave me one of the most memorable experiences of my life on the last Christmas eve! This photo is just a small token of memory from our side which reminds her of us in the time to come! 

Below is the photo which I got printed and framed! I had never shared this image before!

Ann is planning to visit South India next year! 

You are always welcome Ann! 

 Had been to Niagara last weekend and working on the images and planning to come up with an article about what I have felt at that place (in fact about how bad I felt !!). Hoping to upload soon.

Cheers,

Ash 

Out in the woods!!

After a very long time had a very nice and satisfying weekend! I with some of my friends here had been to Algonquin Provincial Park . An amazing place to be. Spanned across 7500 plus Sq.Kms full of lakes and forest with a good count of around 30plus species of mammals and a fantastic place for birding in Summer and fall. Although the time that we went is not one of the ideal but still spending the night in the amidst of the pine forest is something different for me! Enjoyed!
Even though we dint had luck with any mammal sightings, I spent some good time in the field experimenting some simple compositions!
I always believed that the empty space in an image, if used intelligently, has a positive effect on the composition. In some images it gives a good amount of depth to the composition. I call the depth in the case of composition is the amount or depth of thought that it generates in the viewer when they see the image. As we know that the thumb rule of composition or the rule of thirds etc are all towards achieving such depth in the composition.
So this time I tried to play around with this aspect and tried to create some very simple composition which may seem very basic or sometimes may be empty as well.



For example, in the above image the space on the right was a deliberate choice. Some people may argue that the vertical composition may suite better but for me it looks that may restrict the mood, giving less space around which may leave the viewer having less space to think.



The above image was a deliberate overexposed image where I tried to create a gloomy feel.


Here is another attempt to capture the mood of 'Solitude' or 'Lonely'. The challenge for me was to get the right exposure as the light in that part was playing alot. Its always challenging to get the right exposure when you want the details of the snow unless you are using a handheld lightmeter with you.



I was searching for the right opportunity to capture the feel of the snowfall during the entire winter! But that day found a good opportunity as this home caught me attention. The maroon colored wall was giving a nice feel to the frame. Dont know how much I am successful in capturing the feel here but I am quite a bit satisfied. There will always be scope for improvement :).



A deliberate attempt here to make an experiment with positioning of the subject of interest! I was mainly attracted by the color gradations on the fallen log. This part was in the complete shade. My attempt was to keep the hole created by the knot in the wood, in the center of the frame and trying to balance the whole image still after keeping the hole at the center.
You only have to tell me whether I am successful or not.
Note: On an uncalibrated or dull monitor all the fine colors on the tree bark may not be visible fully.

I had a luck with a big bird, which was similar to the peafowls that we find in India. On our way I found two of them on a bundled grass. By the time we stopped the car and I rushed to the place with the age old 200mm Manual Focus lens on my camera, the bird hid behind the grass bundle. I waited in the knee deep snow for about 10-15 min. I was able to see the tail of the bird. I went very curious and focussed my lens (as it will not Auto Focus) and made sure that I set the right exposure as the lens will not meter also!! I had a tough time! By the time I set the right exposure, the bird slowly started moving and then... It just flew!! That too in the opposite direction! :( Finally with all those attempts and preparations what I was left with was the flight shot of a head less bird!! :(



So all in all, had a wonderful time in the Algonquin and now I know where to go if I come again to Ottawa in Summer or Fall!!

Cheers,
Ash