Happy Deepavali!!!

This panorama shot was shot by my brother from our terrace on the 3rd floor. The shot is actually shot at 18mm wide angle. I cropped the unwanted sky on the top and some part of the ground to create this panorama effect.

On this Darkest Night of November let us all rekindle our lives with the Magic of Love, Joy of Compassion and Warmth of Togetherness and reignite our Passion for Peace, Growth and Success... Wish you all Happiness, Prosperity and most important Contentment on this Deepavali.

Saakshaath by the window

Finally after more than a month took out my camera yesterday. Took this snap of Saakshaath standing next to window. The natural light coming from the window gave a very moody lighting. Edited this snap using GIMP and converted it into a black and white snap. Applied a filter called Old Photograph and this is the result.

Photography Workshop - Second Assignment on field.

Sunday, 21st March 2010... Bright sunny morning and hardly any clouds in sight... The morning fog just evaporated due to the harsh sunlight. Sudhir called everyone for a huddle. "The Sun is out bright and this is causing some harsh shadows too..." he said, "... Your second assignment is to use this situation such that, the subject is in the bright sunlight and use the shadows to make your backgrounds dark... if possible black." We all dispersed trying to find a subject which is close to the shadows and is in bright sunlight. After 10 minutes of searching the landscape, I found a small tree with white flowers and this is what I got...


Some of the white flowers were in sunlight and the dark leaves and the shade under the tree provided me the required dark background. The flower is just about a centimeter wide, white petals with bright yellow Anthers... Now if you are wondering I'm not a botanist... I had to lookup Wikipedia for the term... LOL... I did some minor adjustments to the RAW file tweaking the exposure and cropping the photograph to get rid of other distracting elements in the photograph and to improve the composition of the picture by offsetting the flower from dead center. This was the first time I used Nikon's Capture NX 2 (Trial Version). I kind of like what I see. Hope you like it too...

Star Dust - Nat King Cole

This is one of my favourite songs... Heard this first in the movie "Sleepless in Seatle"... on of my all-time favourites... I'm sure there would be many who love this...

And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart


You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by


Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely night dreaming of a song
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song


Beside a garden wall
When stars are bright
You are in my arms
The nightingale tells his fairy tale
A paradise where roses bloom
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain

DO BE DO BE DO 

 

I, Me, Myself... 

The Onion Man

My first attempt at Blogging... Yes you are reading it right... I decided to start blogging... LOL... I'm sure half of you swearing and saying "God Save the world..." LOL I don't care...

This was the other day when I stumbled upon one of my friends Blogs called "The who's who of human crap!!" I was interested to put a comment there... This comment took nearly an hour... planning to post the same comment here since it's the first time I typed something like this...

Accidentally stumbled upon your blog while reading through Harish’s Chronicles… This was a great reading... You mentioned that “….With so many faces, and characters and so many emotions enveloping our mere existence it becomes difficult at times to recognise ourselves.” This line was very thought provoking… Here is my perspective… I believe there is nothing like inner persona… I think every human being is multilayered… like hmmmm… an Onion… A persona is the sum total of many layers which are made up of basic characteristics like emotions, thoughts, memories, experiences, instincts etc…. All these layers mould us or make us to what we are, how we think, how we react, whom we flock with, what our interests would be etc… the “innermost fears, darkest secrets, loathsome peeves, dirtiest fantasies”, as Harish mentions, are all part of us… we can’t take them away just like that… It takes great will power to peel these layers… Each layer peeled would take us close to our “Inner I” (spirit or atma)… This has been and is the quest of all the great saints… One who succeeds peeling away these layers in search of this “Inner I” would find infinite and eternal bliss (Parmanandam) and would attain liberation from the cycles of rebirth (Moksha or Nirvana)… and becomes one with GOD…

Hold to the idea, “I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act,” and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself. - Sri Vivekananda

I’m sure what I typed just now might not make any sense… Some might doubt my sanity… I doubt it myself now… LOL… Reading through it I’m still puzzled what made me write this… I was listening to a call when I started reading these blogs… and an hour and half later I typed out something… which I never expected to type even in my dreams… This is the first time I’m expressing my thoughts… I wish words to justice to the thoughts I have in mind at this moment… Just remembered… I’m still in my late 20s and I’ve my whole life ahead of me to think about this… right now priority is meeting my targets… So Adios… Please lemme know how you found this…