Morning at Hebbal lake

6th May, 2012


After a long period of hibernation, I decided to spend morning at Hebbal lake. Actually I did not have any plans to visit, but I got a call from one of my friend asking if we can meet at Hebbal for photography, so I happily agreed to meet up. As usual I reached Hebbal lake at around 6.15 AM in morning. Soon I realized that the camera battery was not charged enough. I guessed that it might last for not more then 10-12 shots. I decided to hang on for a while and press the shutter only when I saw the shot that I wanted. There was no room for experimentation or test shots. I said to my self that If I wanted to get some shots which I could keep from today's trip, then I will have to be very selective on when to click a shot.

I started roaming round to find a perfect frame. Soon I saw 2 lone pelicans lazing around on the far side of the lake. I framed this shot and clicked.

Soon they were joined by a pair of Spotbill ducks. So I framed this one. I decided to exclude one pelican, somehow I felt three subjects in the frame will be more effective then four.

While looking through the camera for another shot, I realized that I could frame the pelican between a tree trunk and an electric pole. I felt that this was interesting, and infact I like this one more then all the shots taken today, just because it is different.

Later on I saw a crow sitting on a tree that had lost all its leaves. I thought it would be interesting to frame the black bird (crow in this case) against deep blue sky and also the fact that the branches of the tree created nice patterns which the lone crow seems to break. Thinking of this I took this shot.

I think this was the last shot, after which the camera battery drained out. I was satisfied by this trip, not because of the shots that I got, but because of the fact that I took about 10 shots out of which 4-5 shots were successful. Usually I tend to take many shots and keep very few.

Visit to Somanathapura and Shivanasamudra

I wanted to document this trip long time back, but somehow was not finding enough time to do it. So here it is. Since the trip was arranged from my office we all gathered near our office and left in a mini bus at around 6.30 AM. Our first stop was for breakfast at Adigas on Mysore road. We had dosas, idli and all kind of south Indian dishes. We also parceled our lunch because none of the place that we were about to visit had a decent restaurant.

Next stop was Somanathapura temple. Somanathapura temple is one of the finest example of Hoysala architecture. The condition of the temple is also pretty good, though there was some repair work going on when we had visited. As we went around and saw the lovely architecture of the temple I took few photographs.

After spending about an hour and half at the temple, we moved on to 2nd destination, which was Talakad. Talakad is a small village situated at the bank of Kaveri river. There is also some history associated with this place. For us, it was all about having fun bathing in the river. I took a boat ride and also spent some time photographing my friends who played volleyball in river.

Sometime later we move on to the last destination, which was Shivanasamudra. By far this was the best and the most scenic place. I also managed to get few decent shots here.

Soon I followed my friends to the place which you see in the photo just above and this was when I slipped on a wet rock and fell in water. Luckily I managed to keep my hand out of the water because of which my camera was saved from getting dipped in water. Nevertheless it did get wet because of water that was splashed around when I fell. To prevent any short circuit I removed the battery and the camera remained out of action for rest of the trip. After a while we went to another water falls nearby called Gaganachukki. We had to climb down about 100 stairs to reach this lovely place, but the effort was worth it. Here we spend about half hour bathing under the water falls. It was really amazing experience, last time I remember I had such fun was about 5 years back when I had visited Khandala with my friends.

This was pretty much end of the trip. When returning back we stopped at Adigas for dinner and reached Bangalore at around 9 PM. Visiting so many places was pretty hectic for a one day trip, and place like Gaganachukki itself is such that one can spend entire day without getting bored.

Urban winter

Feb 26, 2012


Most of the time when I visit Hebbal lake I usually concentrate on getting frame filling shots of birds or shooting macros. However now days such shots no longer seem appealing to me. Kinda looks boring or very repetitive. Probably that is a reason why these days I end up keeping only 2-3 shots from any trip, while deleting most of the shots in camera. This time when I visited Hebbal lake, I found decent early morning atmosphere. Though winter was long gone, early morning atmosphere at Hebbal lake still showed some passing signs of the season. I thought of capturing the beauty of nature and also emphasizing on fact that this beauty exists within an urban setup. Not sure if I was able to pass on this idea to viewer via the photographs, but I defiantly got some different shots as compared to my previous shots from Hebbal. Here are few shots that I liked from this small trip.

 

This one doesn't match the theme, nevertheless I liked this one so kept it.

Rainy evening at Nariman Point

14 Oct, 2011

Last year I had visited Mumbai with my family. One place that I usually never miss to visit when I am in Mumbai is the beautiful Nariman Point. I still remember those days when I joined a company in Mumbai some time around 2004. Invariably we used to spend evening during weekends at Marine Lines or Colaba. Watching the sun go down behind the city skyline was such a fulfilling experience. This time around I witnessed another angle of nature's beauty amongst the high rises of the Mumbai city. As soon as I reached Marine lines, I realized that there was a massive cover of rain clouds which seemed to engulf the city skyline. Never ever had I seen such massive formation of clouds. Luckily now a days I always carry my camera along, because of which I was able to capture this amazing phenomena. Just within few minutes after I got these shots, it started raining and it rained heavily for about 2 hours.

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Lalbagh flower show January 2012

No, I had not been to Mars which would explain my long absence from the blog arena. Its just that these days I haven't got much opportunity to travel or visit any new places. However when 26th January was nearing, I was ready to go to Lalbagh to get few floral pictures. Looks like visiting Lalbagh during flower shows has now become a routine. I think I haven't missed a single flower show from the time I have been in Bangalore. The challenge from photography point of view is to get different shot and compositions from each visit. This is what I got this time during my visit to flower show.

Lalbagh flower show (Aug 2011)

12th Aug, 2011

 This is my 4th visit to lalbagh flower show. During my last visit I had faced some difficulty in doing photography because of large crowd, so this time I decided to take a leave from work on Friday and visit the flower show hoping that because of working day I will find less crowd and can shoot the flowers more easily.

I reached the flower show at round 8.45 AM, got the ticket for Rs. 30 and headed straight to the glass house where the flowers are kept for display. I was happy to see that there was not much crowd in this time. Soon I got my Nikon D40 and mounted Sigma 150mm macro lens to capture the floral beauties. I always try to look for opportunity to shoot flowers along with some insect to give a different dimension to otherwise boring flower portrait. This time around there were not too many variety of flowers, same set of flowers were put up in different sections of the glass house. Having seen my shots from previous visit, I realized that last time I got many shots of colorful flowers bunched together in a group creating interesting colorful patterns, however there were no individual flower portraits or any real closeup shots that emphasized on the design or color of an individual flower. So this time I had decided to make some different shots as compared to my previous visit on 26th Jan 2011. Here are few intimate closeups of the flowers. Got in real close to emphasis on the colors and design of the flowers

There were few insects and bees around, which gave nice opportunity to shoot them up close against colorful flowers.

Sometime it was just so difficult to isolate a single flower, so shooting them in a bunch was only option, however this also give a nice composition as the patterns created by bunch of similar flowers look really nice. Here are some

And finally, after moving out of the the glass show, I got my 18-55mm lens to shoot some frames of the glass house itself and the Lotus temple built out of roses (which happens to be the major attraction of the flower show). Here are few shots.

Overall, it was very satisfying experience. Will be looking forward for the next flower show.