The simple minimals

There are two things in the world that the mankind is very curious about. The magnanimous big exotic world of the big and the diminutive ,deep and unknown world of the tiny beings. The advantage of the latter is that one can find them dwelling around say right around your daily jogging tracks. Knowing their locations nearby one just needs to be blessed by light and rest their presence can make the day for you. Well I agree, we are rarely satisfied , and making the day for us is one tough ask for a tiny creature to ask for :). Having nothing better to do this evening,I went out for a stroll and  I saw a couple of butterflies soaring around the twigs nearby. I thanked the stars as I had my paintbrush with me and I decided to make those twigs as my easel.Well I certainly look at my cam as a paintbrush these days as there is actually no sense in what I click offlate :D. Here are some of the images I made today with those twigs and butterflies.

Two is company 

Two wonderful twigs basking in the sun as if the fresh sun getting energized. Having two similar patterns always gives a sense of duality that can add a lot. It also reminds me of me and my friend, who I can consider to be my alter ego.This ones for my friend :)

Chores

Its amazing to watch these tiny creatures soaring effortlessly in air , taking a break in between as if they are halting for a breezer and again moving on. If we have a sight we can exactly see "us" in them. At dusk,most of us are seen like this.Someone waiting for us home ,and we rushing to get to our homes...

Finally inbound

A small butterfly rests on the twig , making that little twig so sought after. This is life isnt it, You are blessed with that special person in your life and all of a sudden you feel special , important and sought after.Its all relative ,and perspective based isnt it :)

Antagonisms

Isn't life fully made of these. But if carefully observed, its these that add contrast to the life. Ofcourse their are outcomes out of it, sometimes you are at top, sometimes you have to adjust and accept your set of conditions , but the best is to be happy with the outcomes of antagonisms and move on smiling. Lifes biggest lessons are taught by these....

Acquiescence

Life certainly becomes colorful and warm. once the set of things we have gets our acceptance and we learn to make the best of conditions we have. Whatever little things we have, all when put to their best of use, bring us moments of glory for us. Takes time, but its there, we just need a vision for that foresight.

Well this is about it... One thing is a fact, If we want to assimilate things and learn , even the tiniest of creatures have got a lesson for us mortals. Our receptacle needs to be big thats it...
till next time.... 

Exodus

Exodus or migration as better put ,has been a phenomenon since the days mankind first started to flourish. or should I say animal-kind.,yeah the latter sounds better. Avians and mammals in almost all parts of world have been observed undergoing migrations for the search of water and food , or to avoid harsh conditions in winter at the place where animal dwells.Elephants, wildebeests in africa , or amur falcons, flamingoes from siberia are noteworthy examples of migrations. Worthwhile to mention is the northern wheatear , whose migration had been recorded using geotagging devices, observed to migrate from its breeding grounds in alaska to its wintering in kenya , a distance of 29000km round trip!!!
Well, to be specific this little snippet is far from being a topic on migration. Though it does deal with a flock of birds that migrated to the beach I stay near to.These terns must have been there right during the neap tide to have a supper of algae, moss or small fishes.Guess google must be having loads of info about this.(see akshi beach).
As luck would have it , I was just there that day at the right place on that beach, at right time. As i saw this flock from a distance, there was just one thing left to do for me , to approach them closer.And since you dont have any cover on the beach you just end up disturbing them. I stood far from them , moving little steps closer till the birds could spot me.This was that moment when I realized how important the birding ethics are and how much i missed the hide.These are those situations when you are in double mind ,as to whether to approach them , or stay behind and enjoy the scene.The long focal length did give me an advantage and I could click them from an appreciable distance. Following series of flight is from the same scene, wherein 16 frames have been merged to make a gif file.

The fort and the temple in background is colaba fort in alibag and the place is akshi. I hope you all like the series and my first attempt at making gifs. 
I went back to the beach several times later after this day , only to my chagrin. May be they have gone ahead for their journey, the beach whose brown sands were turned white , is now totally vacated with no trace of them. I wait for them , to return, to decorate the beaches again and for me to click them again , for that perfect shot , yet ethically......

Shores and the rocks..

One of the most cliched form of photography may aptly be called as the sunset photography by the beach. Not saying sunrise because not many would not fancy getting up early,baring a few. Many have earlier blown their trumpets regarding about golden light and the shoots during golden hours and I really am no great photographer to get into all that.But like everyone does I too fancy shooting the oranges and the pinks and purple hues in sky where god actually paints the sky as if its his easel and late sunlight like his paintbrush. It is always an out of the world experience to see the transformations of the clouds and colors, its really no wonder to see people getting philosophical and getting into retrospect along with the changing hues. Certainly a surprise to see when people can really relate the different hues to different phases of life. 

..And time pauses..

men by the sea shore , on the rocks , stand witness to the amazing views and the myriad puffs of clouds in the sky. Sometimes even time stands still to such serene and calm moments.. mine certainly did that day.... 

Hues galore  

just a regular cliched pic of the myriad hues on the easel of horizon that day.......

Illusion... 

A horse carriage on beach running along the sands. Sometimes, absence of something , can really add in not being there. absence of color here somewhat did that. Also slight long exposure created an illusion of more than one horse , making it a chariot instead of carriage :) 

Stage...

certainly the stage was set for the clouds to dance on the horizon, the winds played the music and clouds swayed happily in their tunes, I a mere mortal was lucky enough to witness....

An acceptance....

A simple fact to accept , we are nothing more than just spectators to the play of nature. A play that has perfect semblance with the laws of all sciences around, to create a balance , a decorum suitable for all to sustain... but alas, our race always has failed to do so, and we have knowingly or unknowingly messed with the perfection.Nevertheless, we have finally been alarmed about the 11th hour and I hope somewhere we do strike a balance and be again in tandem with it. Hope......

Monsoon monotones....

It has been a long while since I have written , and honestly it took a while for me to break a block in my mind. Also discovering about what to elaborate about, specially when nothing around was there to shoot was a question. Just somethings then happened , my chariot again began to roll , my mood again pumped up, thanks to the seasons , and some people who encouraged me to break this block.....

About the monsoon, most of the pics we all observe show colours , mostly greens taking much of the attention as mother earth covers itself in green blankets. I just wanted to portray monsoons in monochromes, since somehow I get more appealed with monotones than colours. A simple reason may just be that my brain may not be that well in analysing colours ,as in monotones :D . Here is a series of some pics , in monotones ,about the monsoon mood....

Progress...

A simple pic , clicked from the windshield of a car. The half broken tree, and the roads and the trucks, made straight through the heart of the nature, gave me a thought about where we are and what stand we always take. Nature is always ignored ,when question of progress arises.I am not against anything , this is just a view and what i felt during those seconds when i clicked.

Two beginnings 

A story of a rivulet and a tree is what this is all about.Tree has started its journey towards another season, probably shedding all its leaves and waiting for the springs to arrive, rivulet has started its progress from a little rivulet towards a bigger stream and may be finally ending itself into the river. A stark contrast in nature.

Unstoppable 

A waterfall ,a pic of which is so cliched that everytime you see a monsoon pic ,it has to be there. Well however true it might be, seldom it happens that we are there and we dont click it. Here is one such picture,  mist and the falls, an emblem of monsoons 

Woods and the way.

The freshness of the monsoons is obviously unparalleled. The dust settles down, everything becomes clear, the mist adds a mood , and all just add up for a wonderful poem of the season.....

Standing tall

A flower, facing the downpour ,still surviving it , shows and teaches many things. sustenance in spite of the difficulties involved, a spirit to hold on ,come what may  listening and surviving to the rhythm of the falling rain..

The sights

Rainclouds, I always love them and the way they shape up the pictures. I always feel that Rain clouds come floating in, not to muddy my days ahead, but to make me calm, happy and hopeful and their presence always elate me. And if i am above them, whoa!!!!!!!!!

Warmth and cold 

monsoons are tough no doubt, both for the humans and the animals alike. It was amazing to see the affection of the group of monkeys , of course  to fight the cold and take heat. Animal behaviors are certainly the best to see , especially when its about showing affections, and the silver rain drops just add to the flavor....

Dream

A contrast , an aspiration of a twig to be a tree, we all have some dreams that we always see , without having any idea that it can get complete or not. But we must always dream , sometimes they are the only right thing to do. For who could deny to us , whether we are right or wrong :)

and at last adding a touch of a color , but not green , an artificial one though, but certainly seen only in monsoons the way it is, a blend of red colour of the brake lights :) 

Well that was about that , a series of very simple day to day pics, wishing you all a lovely monsoon and hoping for all of you that you all get caught in the rain with the perfect one  :) I certainly got my share of it :D ., Here is wishing you all amazing dreams with every sound each drop makes :) :) 

till next time........... 

State of the mind

At times, we all are in a confused state. A state that sometimes can hamper thinking abilities and creative sparks in an individual. I am quite sure that all of us go through the phase and get bugged. As for me , honestly, confused state is something that I always cherish. It is something that opens up a plethora of opportunities, and if executed ,something or the other actually clicks.Although with many caveats.

Now when this confused state comes when you travel or when you have a camera in your hand ,many would say that it wont be a good sign for making pictures, which is quite true to an extent. But there is always a chance to be taken, with some caution of course to implement some opportunities in confusions.who knows ,may be we could have a different look towards the world e are in.....

Many may not approve of this ,as the common definitions are that you should be sure of what you are shooting , but looking at a thing in many confused ways may sometimes yield some eccentric viewpoints.Isn't it true that when you actually are lost in a dream,you find a better one...here is a series of some of my confused states of mind,from the jungles....

The music of nature-, the perception of the height of the trees and the motions of the green make it look as if winds have changed directions and flowing up.No of interpretations made from such images are myriad and its better to leave them on the viewers...

The army of trees-, a spooky appearance of a jungle. I wanted to create a nightmarish feeling of the night times in jungles, alone. The dark woods and grey grass created a feel I wanted, again tastes vary from viewer to viewer....

The broken dreams-,there was once a time when I was fruiting with all my might and there were greener days for me, but all has gone brown now, exclaimed the tree. I wanted to portray how the times changed for the tree,in the left., winds of changes they say are always unavoidable.....

Through the dreams-,A feeling of dejavu, feeling of repeating the journeys may occur a lot of time in sleep. What we remember about them after we wake up is not a clear picture , a mixture of things is rendered afterwards. This was more or less what I wanted to portray, a motion through times..

From the similar lines of above pic this is below the way I portrayed a flying peacock.Honestly I wanted to make a clear picture of a flying peacock, but it was too far from me , and backdrop of trees was interesting. 
At times , you should use your tools to the way you want them to....

Coexistence-, The story of togetherness of egret and buffaloes, the day to day flying away of egret from one buffalo to other one, and the calmness of buffalo is what i wanted to portray.The bluish rock like structure is actually a calm buffalo who always remain so and egret the same one which was on buffalo for an instant and flew away in next one....

Together for ever-, The state of mind need not be always hazy ,confused or undefined.They can be deep,unmoved and defined. The two trees, standing together , on a beautiful landscape indicate a deep thinking levels, which can infer too many things about what they may really be thinking about....

Well this is about it , the confused state of mind. I know I may not have been successfully in representing the idea behind the subject but as it goes its the curiosity that drives us. And as the prominent artist Salvador Dalli puts it ,"what is important is to spread confusions ,not eliminate it "I feel its more proper to spread them far and wide, it only helps to clear them. 
Also in every walk of life confusions always encounter you ,aptly its been said that "If you are not confused ,you aren't paying attention"... so the bottomline simple goes " Stay confused, stay blessed " ... :)

The Woods and the Denizens.....

Forests , from a long time have been considered as the first temples of divinity, nothing can be more refreshing than a drive through the forests , hearing the sounds of the nature via the winds gushing through the dry leaves, the chirping of the birds, the calls and sounds of the denizens. Nothing can be more pleasing to the eyes and mind than to see a totally different life cycle flourishing in the nature.This set of pictures is just an account of the happy dwelling of the denizens of forests in their home, admiring it to the fullest.....

When we talk of the woods and the denizens ,the first that comes to the mind is monkey , that dwells on the woods for most part of its life, depending totally on it. A langur rests of the branches in the jungles....

A mother langur with its child , in evening light ,waiting for her clan to proceed into the woods....

A different life forms of avians also depends on the woods for their survival. Some dwell on woods, some into it. Owls are known to rest most the day into the tree trunks before proceeding for their nocturnal activities. An owl below seen to be resting in the tree trunk......

The tree trunk here was a nest of this owl, who could be seen regularly resting on the tall structure of the tree trunk.

A greater coucal appeared to be entrapped in the maze of the bamboo twigs, probably finding its way out. life some times takes a hard turn in the forests, but there is where the spirit and the survival of the fittest matters....

A peacock looking at the surrounding ,to search something , in the morning light ,stepping by the woods...

A very intimidating character , Indian gaur or the bison in its habitat in the dry forests of summer season....

Apart from the gaurs , monkeys and birds, the forests are found to be inhabited by myriad animals like cheetals, sambars, mongoose , monitor lizards and list goes on and on....
There also are carnivores feeding on the smaller animals like jackals, panthers, and tigers who basically are at the top of the food chain...
 A jackal below , looking for some signs of prey in the bushes..

A predator that is mostly known for the use of the trees to rest, hide preys, and dwell is the leopard or the panther.Since the leopard shares its space with a more powerful predator like a tiger, it hides its prey on the 
trees to protect it. Also it dwells high up to avoid confrontations...
A leopard, with its kill (top left corner) in the woods....

And the god of the forests as they say is the tiger. The life line of the jungles and the most revered cat of the forests .
 A tiger in its habitat in bandhavgarh forests in central India.

The forest life cycle also depends on one of the tertiary consumers, who feed on the aftermath, who are also known to keep the jungles clean. Above tigers , of there is some one in the food chain are these, the vultures.

In some mysterious ways , the forests never seem to be at a standpoint ,at every instant a thousand things keep happening into them. A worlds begins there, a worlds ends. Change and development always continues there, which is probably the most important lesson the woods offer us.... in physical terms, we move though them, but deeply within its the other way round, they move through us ,through our hearts.. Always....

An evening....

I love to spend most of my evenings on a lake near my house. Since I can spend long hours on that lake, I sometimes get ample amount for experiments.Mostly the lake is inhabited by common birds like egrets , kingfishers and bee eaters etc. Time spent on those experiments allow me to get into the nuances of the art and science of photography. This little writeup after a long sabbatical is just about some of those pics on the lake during a silent evening....

This is a reflection of the bamboo sticks in lake water that was kind of making an eccentric pattern.The water surface painted with the reflections and the sunlight made it look different. Working on the patterns of the reflection , here is another one pattern made by the reflection of tree covered by egrets. Reflections, they sure are kind of different , especially when they are cropped to include only the water surfaces.

Apart from the patterns , the steady reflections made by the birds too can create a frame. For instance in this pic , the flying birds and frozen moments created a frame for me. The colours of the dry grass and the twigs and greens reflected from leaves made a colour quotient that is characteristic of the lake sides....

 

 



 

 

The hovering blue kingfisher was a star of the evening , when it was the only bird that was into my framable distance. The slighly lower shutter speed gave me a motion blur in its wings and as luck would have it ,its head was steady then.

The light , it surely changes everything from mood to the drama in an image. The setting sunlight's golden hue and the silhouette of the flying bird made a good recipe for the image....

And as the sun bid us a goodbye, it was time to wrap up the evenings , both for the birds and for me, not before recording some patterns of the flocks as they went to their abode.....

The disciplined pattern of the flock, making a shape that will be an aeronautical advantage similar to an aeroplane is something I have always been in awe with. Something that will be mastered by us , but only artificially....

And finally the dusk knocked the hourglasses and it was time. The birds just flew away to their destinations , bidding the lake goodbye for the timebeing, as they both know , the cycles would always go on..... the decorum and discipline will always remain.... and we all will be, I hope, just the silent admirers......
 

Perceptions....

We always encounter this debate whether photography is an art or science.Though we all end up saying its both art and science. Mostly photographs can be judged both from technology point of view as well as the art point of view. Using either of the one can result in either a technically perfect photo with no art, or an excellent art photo with technical faults. We all start with techniques first when we start photography, exactly opposite takes place for painters, they start with pure art. Which is why we mostly come around art in paintings and moment pictures in photographs. After a while, we all reach a saturation point and in a need to satisfy our hunger for thought food we begin our journey towards the unreal. Many have their own paths, own thinking and executions.Of course , in search of uncommon we go to lengths ,some find success ,some don't. And as a common notion in this world, mostly the conventional rules. Below are some pictures , some technically  flawed pictures that I shot with pure deliberation. Of course there have been several experiments before on the same , and I may be blowing the same trumpet again, but still, here goes... some of my attempts to amalgamate art abd science of photography...

 

This is a baby elephant and its mother moving along the forests. The upper body  of the mother in front is a reflection of motherly care that elephants are famous for.Freezing of a pic or slowing it down is always a prerogative of the photographer/artist and his thinking and executions....

This is a crocodile that was resting in still waters, owing to harsh light , I decided to shoot monochrome to pump up the contrasts and added grains by over sharpening the background. These kind of pics can be edited according to mood you are in....

After taking some conventional shots of the leopard, i decided to cut down the exposure so background got darkened, the left half of leopard I retrieved later, I also liked the flower near the leopard giving it a perfect jungle feel.....

This is a heron , again an underexposed pic, but then it all depends on taste buds of person to person, just a weird experiment this time.....

I actually desaturated the beautiful colors of the magnificent Indian rollers. The contrast of the background and the light falling on rollers made a perfect recipe for monochromes.Just amplifying the feel of duality in the pic....

These are one of the most common birds that we can sight near any lake.We always have a tendency to use a high shutter speed to freeze the motion , many maestros then decided to counter the technical aspects and slow it down to reflect the motion of the flapping wings. The above pic is combination of panning and slow shutter speeds that reflected the motions....

Similar is the above pic where the commotion is more apparent along with the setting sunlight reflection in the lake.Avery slow shutter fused the wings and the birds and tangled them to create the effect. One more similar pic below, where two egrets separated them from the flock ...

Apart from breaking technical rules in photography , there is also distortion in visions. I shot a normal pic of a geese in lake whose reflection caught my eye. The shape of the geese and curves in reflection made a shape of OM. Also flipping the image made it look like a trident. I converted it in monochrome to give it a more profound look like a trishul.....

These are some of my perceptions towards the aspects of photography. To satiate the hunger of art , both within and outwards ,is a very difficult job. Sometimes you are successful in satiating your inner search , most often not.... but it should be on...and as always ..the debate will go on........