Lensored

Surfaces

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:26:00 +0000

Like just about everything else in Death Valley, scenic beauty is about the bare essentials. Ma Nature uses basic ingredients and a deceptively straightforward recipe to conjure the most incredible landscapes.

Ingredients: Earth, water, sun, salt

- Pick a piece of earth

- Add water

- Bake in direct sunlight on high for a prolonged period

- Add salt as needed

- Garnish with black rocks, if desired

The results, as seen below, can be spectacular!

"This place is overexposed"

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:34:00 +0000

In Paris recently, I complained to the Lady, about how it was impossible to take any picture that had not been taken a thousand times before.

The Lady agreed and said: "It is true. This place is overexposed."

...and just like that, an idea was born!

Far Rockaway...

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 02:51:00 +0000

I chanced upon this sonnet by Wordworth and thought the words were very befitting to the time I spent at the Far Rockaway.

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea;
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder everlastingly.

 (By William Wordsworth)

Trip to the Butte

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 01:22:00 +0000

The ravages of time are on elegant display at the Coyote Butte - at the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah. A product of wind erosion, the buttes are a flamboyant exhibition of the most fragile sandstone rock formations which are constantly perishing as they yield to the unrelenting forces of nature.

Volcanicity

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:49:00 +0000

The ancient Hawaiians thought of the volcano as the manifestation of a goddess. Pele - the fire/volcano goddess - was a volatile, temperamental, yet irresistible woman, known for dramatic shifts in mood. She could be a raging, unpredictable, destructive force, but was also revered as a creator - of new land, and new life.

Over the past year, I have tried to seek Pele out, and she has rewarded my efforts by offering glimpses of her many moods and faces (the pictures below are a compilation from these encounters). As I have gotten to know Pele better, I have realized why the Hawaiians thought of her in the way that they did. I have also learned something that the Hawaiians do not seem to have stressed - that words and images do no justice to her beauty.

Cinder cone and lava field, Hale'akala

Cinder cones, Mauna Kea

Lava lake, Pu'u'o'o vent, Kilauea

Lava tube (aerial view), Kilauea

Into the Void, Hale'akala

Geothermal pool and travertine terraces, Yellowstone

Geyser runoff and thermal springs, Yellowstone

Volcanic olivine green sand, Mahana Beach

Cloudscapes

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Sun, 29 May 2011 21:20:00 +0000

Hale'akala and Mauna Kea are two of the most sacred peaks in Hawai'i. Located at elevations higher than 10,000 feet, the summits of these peaks are almost always above the cloud cover. Here, the sun rises from, and sets into the cloud cover - something I had never witnessed before, except from airplane windows. The result is a constantly changing 'cloudscape'.

The interplay of these constantly changing cloud patterns and the light of the rising or setting sun is impossible to capture in any meaningful way. The pictures below are but a representation of experiences too powerful to even describe, much less photograph.

To be there and witness these moments, is to gain some insight into how certain places might have come to be regarded as sacred to begin with!

The Grass Project

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Sun, 15 May 2011 12:31:00 +0000

I have been meaning to put these photographs up on the blog for a while but did not have the right words that would resonate my thoughts to describe them. I heard this beautiful song from the motion picture soundtrack of 'Away We Go' and thought was evocative of what I might would have wanted to say.

See the clouds are creeping towards the sun
and I'm slipping away
I'm seen by anyone
the light it turning grey
the day is done
The water is so cold
and heavy on my mind
I dreamed of walking with you
but I fell behind
looking for a road
I could not find

And now the ice is starring
and spring is near
there is no one calling
but the sound is clear
no, I'm not yet gone

I'm still not here

Retro Getty

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:59:00 +0000

We have featured images of the Getty Center on Lensored before, but not using retro photography. On a recent visit, I left the digital camera at home, and took only the analog Diana F+ and a cellphone with the 'Retro Cam' phone app. This is intended to be the first of two posts comparing 120-film black and white analog photographs (the real deal) to faux-retro digital photography (less authentic, but far more convenient and cheap and with instant gratification). The reason for this being an "intended" rather than "actual" post, is that 120-film takes a week to develop and frankly, I have no idea how the pics will turn out...

Assuming everything turns out fine, this may be how we settle the debate on which retro photography technique is preferable...or perhaps it will just get more heated.

Either way, here goes....

Retro NYC

noreply@blogger.com (Bolshoi The Boxer) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 03:52:00 +0000

The HTC EVO Android phone as I discover it is a thing of greatness. After suffering the setback of losing a classy Nokia E63 gifted to me by dear Adelphius Vikramis in an NYC yellow cab, I was needless to say, overcome with immense grief and guilt. That combined with a set of circumstances favouring my decision to go for an Android phone led me to the EVO. Which in turn led me to the awesomeness of Retro Camera. An app on the Android Market that does pretty much what Hipstamatic can pull off on the iPhone.
These are images I've been taking over the course of the past few days. Oft repeated NYC themes as you can clearly see, though refreshing when seen through the lens of the Retro Camera.
I virtually took no effort to take these pictures, nor time, which to the chagrin of many an SLR purist are both expended in the mere setup of the right frame. That combined with a nifty 8 megapixels of clarity makes for some pretty enjoyable photographing experiences.

http://www.urbian.biz/apps/retrocam/

Elephants

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 17:15:00 +0000

On our two most recent trips, elephants left a strong impression. Some we saw in the flesh, framed against East Africa's spectacular Amboseli plains and Mt Kilimanjaro. Others we saw set in stone, framed against Ahmedabad's equally spectacular Adalaj ni Vav.

149,043,219.....

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:31:00 +0000

149,043,219 is a unique personal benchmark statistic that understandably is of no value to many of you. Except for the 149,043,218 of you that visited Yellowstone National Park before me. Given its distinctively beautiful and often times dangerous geothermal features its that one place off the beaten path that you go to, to stay closely along the pathway as evidenced in the photographs.

149,043,219 (contd.)

149,043,219

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:29:00 +0000

Back to 149,043,219

The Hunter

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:23:00 +0000

On a balmy evening in the Ngorongoro, a Black-shouldered Kite caught its prey...

...ripped it open...

...pulled out a choice morsel...

...ate it...

...and preened for my camera!!!

So it goes in the wild I suppose...!

Wire - Less - 2

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:46:00 +0000

Wire - Less - 1

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:24:00 +0000

Lady Diana

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 01:49:00 +0000

The Diana F+ is a plastic toy camera - a replica of an old Russian-made camera from the 1960s. It is made of plastic, has a plastic lens (frequently with irregularities), no ability to zoom, questionable focus and only four aperture settings (sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy or pinhole). It uses 120 format film. There is little control over the images - light leakage on the film is common, shaking is inevitable even when mounted on a tripod, and in these days of instant digital gratification, one has to manually drop the film at specialized film labs with 120 film processing capability, and wait 24-90 hours to see the results.

...oh, and it takes absolutely breathtaking pictures!

One

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:08:00 +0000

These pictures were taken on a frigid morning drive through Yellowstone's Hayden Valley. The previous evening had brought an unexpected snowstorm, and since we hit the road before the sun came out, the snow was still on the ground. A herd of bison was moving through the valley toward lower regions and we were lucky enough to encounter them.

The title of the post alludes to the U2 song, one of the videos for which features similar images of bison. The sight of the animals reminded us immediately of the video, and Stuti successfully captured the images. Anytime you can even partially recreate the work of Mark Pellington or Anton Corbijn, it counts as a success!

Ocean Silhouette

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:20:00 +0000

I really have never understood the appeal of the beach on a sunny summer day (read: rotting washed-up seaweed, hordes of fishermen, dodging sandcastles, dodging volleyballs/beachballs/baseballs/frisbees, crazy children and crazy dogs, joggers and cyclists who don't like people in their way, parking-spot wars, elaborate cleanup rituals, sandy cars and sticky clothes). Besides, the water is southern California is cold!

Fortunately, the hordes leave en-masse after sunset, leaving the beach to the locals. This is convenient, because this is when the ocean tends to be at its most evocative. While I believe that both sunsets and silhouettes are somewhat cliched photography subjects, I am constantly struck by the touch of poignancy they add to any picture, especially when in combination.

Below is a series taken during a recent late-evening walk on La Jolla Shores beach. There is nothing overtly conceptual about these images. They're just...pretty.

...and sometimes, pretty is all you need!

L A......

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 02:49:00 +0000

Sharing some pics I took when Lensored met up in LA...

Fire !!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:12:00 +0000

After an awesome trip to LA what can be a bigger dose of reality? The call of The Laundry. Follow that up with a crazy fire burning up on the roof of a brownstone across the laundromat just sums up an average day in Brooklyn. For some! These are some images I captured of the inferno-from-across-the-street-from-the-laundromat. No one was hurt.

Lensored in LA II: Griffith

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:00:00 +0000

As documented in the preceding post, the Lensored gang got together in Los Angeles last weekend. While I had no initial plans of posting any pictures from that trip, yesterday I came across a quote from Leonard Nimoy in the New York Times, where Nimoy paraphrased Robert Heinecken. Heinecken (a concept photographer) supposedly stated that if one saw an object falling from space, one should only photograph it if one was on a mission to photograph objects falling from space, and that anything else would be mere photojournalism.

Thinking about this quote, I went through my pictures, and picked out the series below, all of which were taken outside the Griffith Observatory. These pictures are not part of a mission to photograph the observatory - however, Robert Heinecken was at UCLA, Leonard Nimoy has a theater named after him at the Griffith Observatory, and observatories, in general, spend a lot of time contemplating objects falling from space.

On a more personal note though, this post is tip of my hat to the old friends I met this weekend, one of whom gave us the reason to get together, one with whom I am engaged in an ongoing debate about concept and composition (which underlies much of the thought behind this post) and one who taught me to appreciate and photograph architecture (which I have attempted here). The old times aren't really the old times if we get to refresh them ever so often!

Lensored in LA

noreply@blogger.com (Aditya Shringarpure) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:43:00 +0000

Last weekend, we decided to take a cross country trip to Los Angeles from Raleigh to hang out with old friends, including those that contribute this blog. It involved two red-eye flights (including one exceptionally long flight delay), reaching LA at 3:30 am, lack of sleep, mini-vuvuzela inspired midnight birthday celebrations, vegan meals (when in LA.....) and generally randomness around the city. You get the overall picture.

I started going through some of the photos I took there when I got back. I had decided not to take my usual SLR along this time .That lens, while I love it, is simply too heavy and I wasn't too keen on lugging it around. So I had just my iPhone (broken screen and all), with its not-so-great camera to take any photos. Now I admit I'm not really fond of phone cameras, and am a bit snooty when it comes to using them. However, I recently found this interesting app called Hipstamatic, which recreates old film camera prints. The app is intended to be used mainly for fun, but then again, so was the Brushes app, and you only need to look at the New Yorker magazine cover from a new months back to see the extent that people take an app. Ultimately, photography (like art) is about composition. And if an app like Hipstamatic can add a certain character to that composition, then all the better. And yes, it is definitely fun to use. Enjoy a small selection of these photos.

The Lone Surfer

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:30:00 +0000

A sister-post of sorts to Pacific Palette

Pacific Palette

noreply@blogger.com (IVV) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:01:00 +0000

I live close to the Pacific Ocean. I've frequently walked on the shore and told myself that I need to come back with the camera. Last weekend, I finally remembered to carry it with me during a late evening walk on the beach and clifftops.

There is much I could say about the pictures below. I could talk about timing (though I did not time anything), weather conditions (though I did not check the forecast) and location (though I happened to be here only because it is 5 minutes from home and I was too lazy to go farther). I could discuss camera settings (though I didn't really change any at all), concept (though anything I say would be retrofitted) or composition (if 'stand, look, click, repeat' equates composition). I could talk about the parallels between this post and Horizons, which are both legitimate and uncanny, but ultimately coincidental...

Truth is, sometimes all you need is a little imagination, and a camera in the right place at the right time - the sun, sky and ocean take care of the rest!

Pink In Blur.......

noreply@blogger.com (Bhumi) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 13:47:00 +0000

I have been meaning to create this post for a while now and continually I've found a dearth of verbal constructs to define the abstraction of these images. Then, this morning I came across this prodigious quote which said it all:

“ Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers shackles limiting our visions." – Salvador Dali

To me this best defines the abstract and the intangible quality of these images leaving much to one’s imagination.