29-02-2008 - Similar, but different

I'd wanted to take a picture that screamed rare or unique (in the spirit of Feb. 29, see?) but couldn't come up with anything special.

28-02-2008 - In a park, under the lights

With mosquitoes to keep me company.

No prizes for guessing where this was shot.

27-02-2008 - Spring has arrived

And in good time too! Sivaratri isn't too far away. It's another matter that spring and autumn are nearly non-existent these days. We only have a hotter summer and a cooler summer, together spanning the 12 months of the year.

26-02-2008 - Mother and child?

I didn't notice the smaller spider to the right when I took this picture, to be honest. I was interested in getting a picture of the bigger spider while it was doing something I didn't quite understand. I took a series of pictures and in the pictures that I took after this one, the smaller spider is nowhere to be seen. Do spiders eat other spiders? I could see the bigger spider doing something strange - can't describe it well - for a long while after this.

25-02-2008 - Fresh supplies

Of pickles and chutneys! Handed over to us by in-laws and parents when we met during the TTD tour. There are 4 more boxes (evident by all the oil marks on the newspaper) in the fridge!

24-02-2008 - Tetrahedron skeleton

A very old tree (with an interesting history) in the Talakona (Chittoor distt., AP) forest. The combined length of all the vines of this tree is ~5 km. The vines form interesting shapes and structures, such as this one.

Honeycomb update

The original picture used in the post for 14-02-2008 didn't show the detail in the beehive very well. Resizing (via Flickr) the image for display on this page mucked up all the details.

I've replaced the picture in the post (and also in my Flickr photostream) with a cropped version which includes only the beehive. In any case, the surrounding elements were irrelevant to the context inasmuch as the blog post itself was concerned. Also, I resized the picture myself. This leads to better results than depending on, say, Flickr to resize them.

23-02-2008 - Awaiting the onset of spring

I wonder which plant this is.

And you might be wondering why the sky is the colour it shows up in in this picture. This branch was very far away from me (I was shooting with the lens set at 300mm). Far enough for the tiny on-camera flash to be ineffective at providing sufficient fill. So I spot-metered off the branches, which resulted in a weird exposure for the sky (one of the channels must've blown out, I think). In any case, I liked what I saw, so here it is!

22-02-2008 - The wonder and beauty that is nature

I took this photograph from the new LIC guest house outside of Tirupati town. It is a very peaceful area off a state highway (I think) with very little (in the form of people, sound etc.) happening nearby. We were greeted with this scene as we entered the guest house and I managed to find a vantage spot in one of the corridors to grab this picture. I think it depicts the mood in that place at that time very well.

21-02-2008 - When was the last time you did something for the first time?

This was the first time ever that I travelled Indian Railways in first class (class code FC).

Of course, the answer to the question in the title before this event would have been the cake-cutting on Valentine's Day for me. Before that was the visit to Lepakshi in late January 2008, before which was the cake-cutting on New Year's Day, before which was dune-bashing in the deserts south of Dubai on Christmas 2007, before which was skiing in the shadow Mt. Titlis, also in late December 2007.

So I've been enjoying a lot of "firsts". Importantly, I've been enjoying these in the company of my wife, which makes everything all the more memorable.

20-02-2008 - Crossing paths

We live in a quiet residential colony where a reasonable amount of activity on roads happens only between 8 and 11 am in the morning and between 5 and 9 pm in the evening. It's a refreshing change from the mayhem and chaos that roads in Bengaluru usually are.

50 up!

Half a century of photographs up on my PAD as of today, and I feel elated. Not all of them (just maybe, none of them as a matter of fact :)) are very interesting or special. Elated I still am, nonetheless. I look forward to 100 now, with the eventual goal of 366 firmly in mind.

19-02-2008 - The early bird catches the worm

My glimpse of the early morning sky on a working day in a very long while. I wake up early usually only on holidays or when I go out of town on a ride/drive.

As they say, the early bird catches the worm. And today, I was able to catch that early bird in its flight to catch its worm!

18-02-2008 - Getting old

A strand of white hair from my scalp, and my weathered, beaten, scarred and chipped phone.

17-02-2008 - Makeshift playground

Could we see the next Ronaldo emerge from here?

16-02-2008 - Abstract II

Tiger stripes?

15-02-2008 - Rose candle

An interesting trinket that we picked up at a small fancy items shop in Bern's Bärenplatz market.

14-02-2008 - Honeycomb

Three beehives suddenly sprang up in the apartment complex, and one of them was torched (I believe that's what they do) a few days back, which left only the skeleton of the hive hanging from the parapet.

13-02-2008 - On the eve of Valentine's

This happens to be our first Valentine's Day together, and we celebrated it with some balloons and cake.

12-02-2008 - 'With a little help from my friends'

... is probably what the moon would say for the tree that seems to 'support' it here.

Sharpening this picture was tricky, so I just let it be. Lighting wasn't the best. I could only get a 1.6" exposure even at ISO 1600. The tripod I have is inadequate for this kind of stuff. Hence, the slight blur in the moon. 1.6" is too long for a moon shot.

A faster lens would've helped, of course, so is someone willing to gift me this beauty? :) (Along with a nice sturdy set of tripod legs and head to go with it, of course.)

11-02-2008 - Brrrrr!

10-02-2008 - Journey

Of transformation.

09-02-2008 - This makes my blood boil

I am not against smoking. Different people have different choices. However, I am against stuff of this nature. The Veerabhadra Swamy temple in Lepakshi is a very historic, old monument and one should not go around smoking (and then just throwing those butts) in such places.

08-02-2008 - Oh, no! There he comes again...

...and he's going to force me to take yet another photograph. Somebody, HELP!

07-02-2008 - Sad

06-02-2008 - Surface tension

05-02-2008 - Food pyramid

I invite suggestions for cropping this picture. The idea behind this picture was as much to capture the shape of the stack of orange peel as to capture the vibrant colours of the fabric on which the stack is sitting.

I could have composed it differently to get an easy crop but this was a long exposure and space was constrained and I could only do this.

04-02-2008 - Mwuhahahahahaha!

Just what did the hedonic in me see there?

Nice sleight of hand displayed by my wife in capturing this picture!

03-02-2008 - Starfish

02-02-2008 - The silver lining

How far can the rains be, now?

01-02-2008 - Ah, the dilemma!

What do I bite now?

(Is there even a contest? :D)

An exciting ride - lots learnt, lots to learn

I'm one month into my photo-a-day initiative and it has been a really exciting ride and a real challenge to constantly find new subject matter. I am under no illusion that I'm consistently making interesting pictures. I know I am not, and there is still a long way for me to go before I can say that. What I wish, though, is that I had started this in January 2005 when I seriously dived into photography. Then, perhaps, I may have been in a position now to say that I can make interesting photographs of everyday objects. However, it's never too late nor too below my dignity to admit that I must learn and am learning, day-by-day, photograph-by-photograph.

That said, I believe I have made some progress on a blog that I had originally intended to start on 01-01-2007, and were it not for the fact that I was just sitting idle at around 1630 hrs on 01-01-2008, I would probably have forgotten about it this year too! That progress manifests itself in many ways, the most fundamental and probably most inspiring of which is the fact that I have now begun to observe what is around me. This was something I was never too good at before, or if I was, it wasn't detailed and sustained and intensive. A case in point is the photograph in this post. Another picture that I'm somewhat proud of is the one in this post.

I have also seen that I am not able to make pictures with impact in situations where things are not totally in my control. This illustrates such a situation pretty well. I have usually needed my time to think about and compose a picture, and time is a luxury when I'm out with a group, as was the case that evening. What I require in those situations is an even more observant eye. A good thing is that I always have my wife's little Lumix with me all the time these days. I never carry my bulky DSLR all the time and that obviously leads to lots of missed opportunities.

I look forward to the rest of the year with interest, expectation and most importantly, the hunger to experiment and learn. I am doing this blog with an open mind and am taking pictures of whatever catches my fancy. I don't know if that's a good idea, and that I should perhaps be concentrating on a particular theme instead. However, what I've been doing so far is working for me. The day I feel I am not able to get interesting subject matter with this ad-hoc approach will probably be the day I may decide to take a themed (or some other) approach with this photo-a-day initiative.

Thanks to every one of you who's commenting on the posts and on my Flickr photostream and chiming in with words of support and encouragement!