Golden Garbage

It was around 7 PM this evening. It was the 14th time of Load Shedding for the day.

To free myself from the darkness of my room, I took shelter under the moonlight in my terrace (of course with my camera).

Since my umpteenth attempt to capture the moon was not as successful as I had expected, I turned my lens to other directions in search of some prey.

It was then I spotted this garbage dump (created by some independent anti-environmental enthusiasts, who did not believe in the system of disposing garbage) and the canine toilet (ada...andha EB box dhaanga) glittering under the super bright rays of a sodium vapor lamp.

I placed my camera on my parapet wall (I don't have a tripod yet) so as to avoid shaking, and shot the picture with a 15 second shutter delay.

Sometimes, even garbage glitters... that’s not irony, that's Illusion!

Aalavandha Vinayagar

It was the time when I was new to digital image editing (read photoshop & photoimpact). The features of these applications amazed me to a great extent.

I did not have a digital camera then. Hence my favourite passtime was creating images using new features I learnt in Photoimpact.



The picture posted here was created in Photoimpact using Material layers tool. It was a prospective greeting for 'Vinayagar Chaturthi - 2002'. (But I later overruled that idea since I felt that the picture was a bit too violent for a festival greeting)

Trivia - Highly inspired by the movie 'Aalavandhan', I created lot of collages about that movie. But this one's my favourite.

The official title I gave the picture is the title of this post ;-)

Time-ku enna aachu?

All I can do about this, is shoot a picture and post it on my blog.
Nothing else...

How about you?

Known is a drop...

A new experiment with my canon. Shooting a drop...



I put my canon into manual mode with 1/3200 sec shutter speed. Had to go out to my garden to get that sort of a lighting to support my super fast shutter. In the super macro mode I started focussing on the tap.

drop...

(click)

drop...

(click)

huh! I could only shoot the tap...

Suddenly, I could feel a bulb glowing over my head! the 'continuous' shooting mode.

After a 60 shots in continuous shooting I got my picture. Triumphantly, I transferred the pic to my PC. And then the unexpected surfaced. The picture had unbelievably heavy noise...

Photoshop came to my rescue... extensive noise reduction + brightness & contrast adjustment + radial blur to overshadow the remaining noise.

That was the story of the simple water drop....

As Rajnikanth rightly said in Baba

"Known is a drop....
Unknown is an ocean"

Old Photo Effect

The person in the picture is Mr. Subramaniam, my neighbour. He's a person with great knowledge in anything from history to spirituality and I truly admire him for that. We share a lot of common interests and a good friendship beyond age barriers.

Coming to the picture, it is one of the first few, shot with my Canon S3IS, with light from an overhead tubelight. I have applied some color tinting with picasa for the 'old photo effect'.

Kakka Kakka - An episode from a Ni-MH's life

Naanga 4 paer... Engalukku 'gali' aagara bayamae kedaiyadhu...
Maththa Batteringa engala ilankandru-nu solluvanga...



Those were my Sony Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries. They are the ones that keep me clicking... ;)

Green Day

This picture was shot on a late saturday afternoon, from atop a hillock in Karungulam (Tirunelveli District) which houses a beautiful perumal temple.

The title of this post reminded me of a wonderful song titled 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' by the band Green Day. The song has no relation to this picture, but somehow its lines impressed me a lot.

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

Saturday Special

When I was hovering around my house to click something for today's post, I found this 4 inch plaster of paris figurine of hanuman.

And here we have the picture for today's post. A good blend of light from a 60 watts bulb + Super Macro shot with my Canon S3IS + color tinting in Picasa.

Trivia - I got this Hanuman figurine in 2003 from a doll vendor in the Howrah Mail on my way to Kolkata. It was during that trip I shot the first picture of this Blog. It doesn't stop there. There was one more Hanuman related experience in that trip. Watch this space...

Krishnapuram

Krishnapuram is a small village in Tirunelveli District at a distance of about six miles from Tirunelveli town. There are a good number of images and idols of sculptural interest in the temple, attracting hundreds of visitors. Lord Venkata- chalapathy has been installed here with Sri Devi and Bhoo Devi. Pujas and abhishekam are being conducted to the Lord daily and some important festivals are celebrated every year.

When our Mahindra Armada entered Krishnapuram, it was around 4 PM. The sanctum sanctorum was locked. I could see that the bhattachari had not arrived for the day.

As I was speaking to Palani Kumar about taking pictures of the sculptures, a sluggish looking fat man in a lungi  and a dirty shirt came into sight.

Me: Ulla Photo edukka permission vaanganuma?

Fat Man: Photo ellam edukka koodadhu sir. (in a stern tone)

Palani Kumar: Madras lerndhu vadhirukkanga... Koil manager yaaravadhu irukkangala? (he was speaking in a typical Tirunelveli accent)

Fat Man: Adhellam yaarum kedaiyadhu. Watchman-a konjam gavanichittu aiyeru varathukku munnadi rendu photo eduthukkanga.

Palani Kumar: Appadiya.. seri. watchman enga irukkaru?

Fat Man: Naandhaanga Watchman !!

The above pictures costed me 20 bucks, but are sure worth thousands to me. 
You can find a bigger resolution of the above picture in here.

That was once in my life when I felt a little corruption in any system is always welcome.

Get ready to ENTER

A Photograph of my TVS Gold Black Keyboard +
A Google Image Search for an image of a door +
Some 'Photoshop'ping +
A Post on the Photoblog =

People think you are a creative photo professional ;)

Shrikanth's classical viswaroopam

A carnival of classical music is being conducted in my locality every year in commemoration with Sri Rama Navami. My friend Shrikanth (in picture) was offered an opportunity to sing this year.

To people who do not know Shrikanth, he is a born genius in music from a family of carnatic musicians. He has an inbuilt talent of learning any musical instrument without a formal Guru. He has his personal blog here with his wonderful works posted regularly.

Now back to the programme, Shrikanth exploded with his talent showcasing a never before spirit that made the concert a grand success. He got rave reviews and further opportunities to perform. The Magnum Opus of the concert can be found in Keerthi's blog here.

I tried to cover the concept of the whole concert and its purpose in this picture. And I would say I've achieved it to an extent.

Anbe SIvam ;)

"....Yaenna naanum kadavul !!"

- Nallasivam (Kamal Hassan) to A.Urs (Madhavan) in 'Anbe Sivam'
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"Kadavul irukkar-nu solranae...avana nambalam;
Kadavulae illa-nu solranae...avana kooda nambalam;
Aana naan dhaan kadavul-nu solraan paar...avana mattum nambavae koodadhu!"

- Raja (Kamal Hassan) in 'Vasool Raja MBBS'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Though both these dialogues appear contadictory to each other, they are not!

I wonder at this demigod of acting!

Panaromic Pamban

The bridge in the picture is the world famous Pamban bridge, which links Rameswaram to Tamilnadu. It is a low lying bridge that shoulders the rail tracks. And during Sea Traffic, The bridge opens up to give way to steamers.

I could not capture the bridge in one single shot since I did not have a wide angle lens. So I took it in 3 parts and used the photo merge tool from Adobe Photoshop.

The pic has multiple hues since the shots were taken during different parts of the day. ;)

Marma Desam

When I entered the 'Aayiram Kaal Mandapam' of Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple, I realised that my canon was back in the car. It was then my N73 came to the rescue.

The lighting was bad. Yet I was able to get a decent picture of 'Kaala Bhairavar'.

So here it is after some post production work in Picasa.

A closer look at time...

One of my very first trysts with macro photography using my intel poocket digital pc camera as a web camera for variable focus.

Diwali and Powershot S3

"Dei, Camera eduthundu vaada", my dad said.

"Engappa?"

"Motta Maadikku polam... U can get some good shots of fireworks in your new camera... enna?"

"Serippa"

My dad carried the newspaper of the day and went to the terrace. I carefully took my new (then) Canon Powershot S3 IS and followed him.

It was a great diwali evening full of colorful fireworks. I shot everything I saw.

But my great photography saw to that nothing actually got into the camera. Feeling angry about the fact that buying a good camera did not make me a good photographer, I was getting ready to leave.

I just shot this pic before leaving. Not a great one but was better than any of my fireworks shots.

Now Showing...

When I was scanning my computer for a good photograph to post on Pugaippadam, I bumped into this picture.

It did not involve any significant photography, but it some great significance in terms of time and place of the photo.

It was during June 2003 when I stumbled upon this temple in Patna as I was searching for my hotel.

The pundit in the temple was more than happy to let me take a photo of the deity.

The photo was one of the very first digital photographs shot by me.

Camera Intel Pocket Digital PC Camera CS 780
Original Image Size 0.8 Megapixels
Focal Length 6 mm
F-number f/2.8
Exposure 1/60 sec

I'm happy to start my photoblog with this pic.

Jai Bajrang Bali...