V-I-B-G-Y-O-R

Anjuna Flea Market

2016-05-22T18:21:00.002+05:30

Goa – Goa Reloaded – Goa Revolution! What’s this suggests? Any guess?

In 2015, I went to Goa for 3 times – nothing can be better.

Lost some of the mobile snaps and wasn’t getting the required time to post the snaps. Finally I’m done with a section – some random photos that I have clicked in Anjuna’s weekly (Wednesday) Flea market are here for your treat.

Hippie selling Ninja shoes

The market is an interesting place, where you can see handcrafts from across globe.

The place is full of colors and life. On purpose, I developed all these snaps in monochrome - wanted to highlight the vibrancy using black-n-white only.

See the high resolution images of this post here in Flickr.

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A weekend in Shimla, 2014

2016-05-22T15:55:00.000+05:30

Went to Shimla over a weekend, back in 2014. Wanted to take a break from July’s hot and humid Delhi.

Clicked few snaps and they were pending since a long time due to other commitments of life!

Finally came out with them. Hopefully you will like them.

See the high resolution images of this post here in Flickr.

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Learning to play with birds

2014-03-26T16:39:00.002+05:30

I'm experimenting with Nikkor AF-S VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED and what could be better than trying this telephoto zoom lens on bird photography? This lens in my hand and my hand in bird photography - both are new to me. Very clearly I realized that this is the field of photography where I need most sincere patience to capture quality.

I did not tried though that seriously, I did not went outside for my so far venture in this area. All the snaps I captured either through my window or from rooftop of my room; need to get rid of this laziness soon.

These are what I achieved so far, hope to learn more and more in coming days.

See the high resolution images of this post here in Flickr.

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From Mumbai to Delhi by Rajdhani

2014-03-18T09:32:00.000+05:30

Mumbai - the city which helped me becoming what I'm now. After 3 long years, I have been there recently. Old friends, familiar roads and places, good communication (specifically the local train), hospitality, the best auto/taxi culture and many more - all these are there in Mumbai for my 'Welcome' sake.

I was down with health issues in this 3 days/2 nights trip. Many plans were not met. The drama became sweaty due to traffic congestion and I almost missed my train. Thank god, I was just in time and departed safely from Mumbai. Destination Delhi.

On the way to Delhi, I received a gift from the setting sun of Mumbai - a picturesque sunset and I was quick with my mobile.

Through the window of Rajdhani express

From Mumbai to Delhi

To conclude - the trip was not that disappointing.
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An Indian Bride

2014-02-19T17:57:00.000+05:30

NOTE: I'm not taking interest in wedding photography neither I want to turn myself as a wedding photographer.

One of my childhood friends recently got married (very stupid act!) and she asked me to capture few candid shots of her marriage. I agreed and gave it a try, I also tried the Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8G on this occasion for the first time since it was purchased.

See the high resolution images of this post here in Flickr.

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Back after 9 months

2014-02-19T16:52:00.001+05:30

Good evening friends, hope all of you are in good health.

I was absent from this world since last few months due to some personal venture; things are partially wrapped now and I finally get the time to be in touch with my beloved photography. I abandoned my gears for last 9 months and they showed their anger - my Lexar 64GB (class 10) card is dead permanently. Hopefully this won't happen again.

After the long break, it is time to click something. I tried the Nikon AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF ED VR for the first time since it was purchased almost a year back.

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Weekend diaries: an evening in Dubai (19-April-2013)

2013-05-09T00:20:00.000+05:30

I admit freely that living in Dubai is a lifetime experience. A visit to Dubai always thrills me, it has many things to offer. It attracts me with it's engineering marvels, with it's beautiful cityscape, glamorous lifestyle, global population and what not!

This time I was in Palm Jumeirah. The weather disappointed me in one hand and gifted something else from the other hand. From Jumeirah, all the landmarks of Dubai are visible - I planned a shot. The weather was so cloudy that the visibility was very poor. I waited and waited for it to be in my favor but not. Finally it was the time of sunset and clouds played their role for something good - a drama.

The dust bug of D600 did not spared me, that is evident from the photographs but the day ended with a smile on my face. It was time for the evening. I was in Jumeirah Lake Towers to visit one of my friends, the view from his balcony was something spectacular, here is a glimpse

That is why Dubai is so beautiful in everyone's eyes.

See the high resolution images of this post here in Flickr. More stories of Dubai:

1. AT THE TOP
2. My last weekend in Dubai
3. Happy New Year 2013
4. Exploring Festival city

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Weekend diaries: Al Aqah on 22-Feb-2013 and 12-Apr-2013

2013-04-26T19:40:00.003+05:30

22-February-2013

Al Aqah mesmerized me last time and I promised myself that I will visit again but this time to capture sunrise. On 22-Feb early morning (5.30 am) I bid adieu to my weekend sleep, left for Al Aqah with my friend and this time my new D600 accompanied me.

We were there on time and had the allowance for setup. Mr. Sun started to rise from the confluence of sea and horizon.

It is difficult for me to choose only one and show here. I captured a series of snaps and posted them here in sequence. Reflection of rising sun on Hajar mountains on the opposite side was beautiful too.

Leaving the bed early was beautiful and obviously fruitful. Another good Friday!

12-April-2013

I woke-up early to see the sunrise in Al Aqah again and headed straightway with one of my colleagues. Nature is not always in your disposal to fulfill your wish! It was a heavily clouded morning - so no sunrise. But nature never let someone to return from her door empty handed! Drama of clouds!

On Aqah beach we came across a Filipino family, they were collecting wild oysters from the rocks. Delicious weekend lunch!

Life is easy with a caring partner

Al Aqah! see you soon.

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Weekend diaries: Khor Fakkan and Al Aqah on 08-Feb-2013

2013-04-26T18:40:00.004+05:30

Friday - the most awaited day of the week in my working life since last 3 years. Friday is my weekly day-off so the day for relaxing, outing, cooking, sleeping, photographing, blogging and doing whatever! The Fridays of November to February are the best here, weather is cold and soothing - perfect for going out.

On one of such Fridays, I went to Khor Fakkan with my friends and colleagues. It was a beautiful sunny day, the sky was blue and the clouds were white.

On our way to Khor Fakkan

I captured the above video on our way. The day was really beautiful - one of those days when you get perfect sky colors. I kept on capturing till we reached Khor Fakkan beach.

Some dark clouds were also there but they allowed me more dynamic sky like the following:

Afternoon we reached Khor Fakkan beach, spent a good time on beach. After 2-3 hours of playing and swimming we were very much hungry! Had lunch, ate ice-cream on the beach - ah! felt like school days... We went further north from Khor Fakkan - destination Al Aqah.

Al Dana - Way to AL Aqah

The cloud formations were so beautiful! One of such rare days when nature is very much pleased on you and decided to show you her incredible beauty! We reached Al Aqah and the sun was on his course of setting!

The beach of Aqah is not sandy, it is full of small and big rocks - but they do an incredible job to magnify the beauty of the place. I was unable to capture the sunset as it happened behind the Hajar mountains. But I was able to experience and capture one of the most beautiful blue hours I had ever seen.

That's all what I had on that Friday, I will always remember 08-February-2013. Hope that I successfully showed you what I experienced and you enjoyed and more - you wish to experience on your own, then welcome and good luck!

See high resolution images of this post here in Flickr. Stay tuned with my works at 500px | Flickr. Hang out with me on Google+ | Twitter | Facebook.

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Making of a star trail

2013-04-02T13:57:00.001+05:30

March 2013 was a good month for me, it allowed me to relax at my own terms!

Most evenings I had the leisure in which I tried to learn and explore - how to capture stars and how to make a photograph of star trail.

Before starting up, I read few articles to get the basic know how. I found many articled over net - courtesy Google and lists of blog that I follow regularly. In particular I read part 1 and part 2 of "All about night photography and photography sky" (the native article is in Russian). Also I closely watched many photographs by the author of the above mentioned articles and by Lincoln Harrison. But there is a big gap between reading/watching something and producing the same thing by own - same as the difference between theory and practical. So things were there to challenge me - they were determined and so was I.

The first big step was to shoot in manual focus mode. I never tried manual focus in my life before, I was afraid to manual focus. I took a deep breath and turn my lens into manual mode and focused to the infinity by rotating the focus dial of my lens. Steps to be followed (that I followed) are:

1. Turned the lens into manual focus mode (as mentioned above) and focused into infinity (for stars, it produce good results)

2. Use wide angle to ultra-wide angle lens and stick to the wider part, I had my Nikon AF-S DX 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens and I used 18mm.

3. Set the aperture as wide as possible, f/2.8 or wider is capable to produce good results, with my lens I was permitted to use maximum of f/3.5 only and so I did. They say, work around limitations and you will be able to present the best!

4. Shutter speed that I used either 25 sec or 30 sec. For star trail the 25 sec to 30 sec of exposure for each shot is good enough. If the intention is to capture only stars and to avoid the movement of stars then the thumb-rule is to stick with a shutter speed of (600/focal length) sec e.g. if you are using a 24mm focal length then a shutter speed of 25sec will be good enough to have a well exposed stars and without any movements. Remember, this thumb-rule is applicable for full frame system. For cropped system, you need to further divide by 1.5. Also remember, there are exception as this is only a thumb-rule.

5. Pump ISO on higher side to increase light sensitivity of the camera sensor. The recommended value is ISO 1600 to ISO 6400. I was sticking to ISO 800 to ISO 1600 zone to avoid the light pollution of the city, higher ISO was blowing out my horizon.

6. Mount the camera into a sturdy tripod (a compulsion) and set the camera into interval shooting mode (obviously after few test shots) to shoot 200 to 400 shots (preferable in RAW) or more.

7. Make sure to have a fully charged battery and preferably one back-up battery (fully charged) and an empty memory card before starting the session. My one fully charged battery and an empty 8gb card was good enough for a session of 400 odd snaps.

That was all about shooting and the most important part. The next part is about post-processing and relatively easier part. Steps are:

1. Import all your images from memory card to your computer, open them in your preferred software (in my case it was/is Adobe Lightroom), apply the necessary lens correction and appropriate white balance.

2. Export your images as JPEG, do not scale down the image size - keep the original.

3. Download Startrails or StarStaX from web and install - both are freeware.

4. Open all your images through the downloaded/installed software and ask the software to process. There are very few sliders/options which you can play with as per your taste. Startrails allows you to make animated output as well.

5. Once the processing is done, you can save the image either as JPEG or TIF or any other format. If you want to further enhance the exposure/contrast of your image then play with the TIF output.

That's all!. I heard that the same can be achieved using Photoshop, but I guess that will be a lengthy process with lot of layering ans masking. Here no hassle of Photoshop!

My first trial yield this image - around 120 images processed in StarStaX, the foreground is bit boring (actually missing!) but honestly I was trying to get the know-how only.

First trial with Star trails

After achieving the above, the beauty of night, orange colored moon rise at midnight, bites of mosquitoes and continuous experimentation with star trails made the following nights more fun-filled and productive.

Around 420 shots were stacked together

Around 250 shots were stacked together

Over 400 images (precisely 443) from 10.45 pm to 2.30 am on a clear starry night (due to an afternoon shower) resulted the above image. Processed in StarStaX.

EXIF data: Nikon D5100 with Nikkor AF-S DX 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens; 25 sec (each), f/3.5, ISO 800, 18mm.

A long way to go before making an AWESOME one!

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Al Hayle and test shot with D600

2013-03-06T00:05:00.001+05:30

01-Feb-2013: Al Hayle

It was weekend (Friday) and I did not wake up early to go for a photo walk what I usually do with my colleagues/friends on Friday early mornings. Rather we decided to go out after lunch. It was not winter anymore in Fujairah neither hotty summer, the temperature was pretty much bearable but the day was little bit overcasted.

Weekend destination was set to Al Hayle castle, around 10.0 km from the city through the Al Hayle industrial area and mountains - the oldest fort in UAE. We (me and my colleague - just 2 of us) started after having our lunch at around 3.00 pm with our bi-cycles.

We crossed the Al Hayle industrial area and entered in hilly area, the road was no more in plain - high high and higher. The sky was in non-cooperation mood. We were in 2.0 km radius of the fort after going through small villages and welcomed by darkness and storm

For the above image I combined the exposures, that's why it looks much brighter but the reality was more darker.

This was our camera setup for the first image. From this point we decided to go back - we did not dared to go through the storm. May be next time!

On our way back (the return journey was much much easier as we were coming down) in the industrial area, we met an abandoned ship (actually a mini boat) named Perkasa II from Port Kelang

We met him on our out bound journey as well but in night it was more dramatic, the day time snap comes here

We were physically exhausted after 15.0 km (approx) of cycling.

20-Feb-2013: Test shot with D600

On 9-Feb I received my D600, then I just tested some blank shots with the camera and was reading the manual to get familiar with the controls. But no serious shots and I missed the last weekend photo walk. So D600 was not used for anything major.

On 20-Feb after returning from office I saw a beautiful sky through my window and I could not resist myself from capturing it

The sky was really so colorful and dramatic like this, I merged the exposures here to present the reality as much as possible.

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New buddy joined the family

2013-02-15T17:37:00.001+05:30

My inspiration at my current stage lies in these words of Henri Cartier: "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst."

Dis-regarding my earlier kiddish clicks with point-n-shoots, the shutter actuation of my D5100 counts round of 7500. If I look at my public photos in 500px and Flickr, then it shows there are barely five hundred images that I could dare to make public and out of them a maximum of 100 will stand out in my eyes now.

If I take Henri Cartier's word in serious sense (means not just random clicks but those clicks which are worth to count), then there is a long path ahead to travel before getting over of my "worst".

Still I dared to introduce a full-frame member in my d-slr family. Yes, my D5100 has a brother now - the mighty D600.

Launching of D600 really lured me towards it, I wanted it in my bag. Lots of reviews in many forums/blogs encouraged me to go ahead with one negative note: dust/oil spots on the sensor issue. In December (2012) there were big deals in the market and I could find that Adorama would be happy to deliver the camera to me in UAE (where B&H or Amazon would like to disappoint me). Even after paying international delivery charges, and duties the deal was really mouth watering for me. In UAE we do not get such deals and eventually I have to pay much more than the amount of this deal just to buy the camera body. No doubt, I have to compromise the warranty - still better than buying from black market I guess.

After sleeping 2-3 nights over the issue I placed the order on 16-Dec and immediately it went to back order list. After waiting for almost 50 days and compromising one item from the package Adorama shipped my order on 5-Feb-2013 and I received it in UAE on 9-Feb-2013 via UPS.

I was little disappointed with Adorama due to the small item which I compromised, it was a Adorama's in-house lens cleaning kit. In all my email communications, they claimed that the item was available and kept aside for my order. All of a sudden they started to show that item in back order and mentioned that it would not be available till March-2013. I cancelled it and asked them to ship rest of the package - 50 days is a big time to wait.

Finally I got D600 with 24-85 kit lens, 32 GB Lexar card, Nikon Wi-Fi kit, Lower pro camera bag, additional battery and charger set at little less than AED 8200 - a very good deal at the end. A total of 296 AED I paid as customs duty (of which 221 is only the customs and UPS charged 75 as disbursement fee) - it turns out to be around 3% of my total cost. For your information, only D600 body costs AED 9000 in UAE (official retailer price).

I spent 3-4 hours in my office anxiously to leave and un-pack the package. I captured the un-packing with my trusty D5100.

Like many others, I tested the sensor and it looked pretty clean to me.

I looked at the shutter actuation in Opanda as well, I had a pre-shutter actuation of 10; I guess Nikon or Adorama did that to run a quality check.

It is time to go out and explore the new monster buddy. I will keep on posting my new venture with D600. For the time being, D5100 will take the back seat but he will remain as the core member of my team.

Stay tuned with my works at 500px and Flickr.

Musandam trip

2013-01-21T01:39:00.000+05:30

This week I went to Musandam (in Oman) as my office arranged a day outing for all staffs. Obviously some photos of the trip are waiting for you but this time the photos are not output of my favorite D5100, they are children of my new Samsung Note II. I wanted to test the camera of this mobile, ofcourse not against tough low light condition but in moderate day light.

We started from Fujairah at 9.0 'o clock in the morning, after almost one hour of bus ride we reached Oman. all of our papers were already submitted to the authority, so it took few minutes in the border (it is a common tourist activity between the two countries).

We started our offshore journey from this point, the weather was very pleasant - soothing cold breeze and comforting bright sunlight.

After an hour of roaming enjoyment in the Strait of Hormuz we took a halt for some activities.

A small beach where we enjoyed swimming and bit snorkeling

Banana ride was arranged as well (though very slow!)

By the time we finished all these activities lunch was served and we were very hungry.

This is how we had our lunch!

Post-lunch session was for some relaxing happy moments, smiling faces were all around.

Some (uncensored!) dancing activities:

Some photographic activities:

Some fishing activities (it was not large scale activity for fishing, just for some entertainment and we caught only one):

Done! all the activities are over and it was time to return.

Relaxing moment

We reached shore by 4.0 'o clock, it was a good 5 hours of offshore entertainment. We came across fish market in the jetty.

On our way back to Fujairah, we utilized the journey with a small nap.

At Khor Fakkan we greeted good bye for the day to Mr. Sun

Around 6.00 pm we were back to pavilion. Overall it was a good outing - refreshing for all. Thanks to our company management.

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Exploring Festival city

2013-01-12T02:34:00.000+05:30

Hello friends, hopefully you all are having a very good time in the new year. In 2012, I made sure that all my photos taken in 2012 are published here - I succeeded 99%. That lack of 1% happened because one set of photos I could not manage to process and publish - Festival city. Finally they will be here now.

250 degree panorama of Festival city

The above panorama feats the Business Bay bridge, Garhoud bridge behind of that, Burj Khalifa, Intercontinental hotel and ofcourse the Festival city.

Festival city after a Light-n-Sound show

180 degree panorama of Festival city

View of Business bay bridge (Garhoud bridge in the background as well) from Festival city

Friends are having a good time there!

Another panorama featuring Business bay bridge in left and Garhoud bridge in right

A cruise passing under the Business Bay bridge

Under the Business Bay bridge

Crown plaza, Festival city

See high resolution images here in Flickr.

Please feel free to comment. All comments (criticisms & appraisals) are welcome. Please do not reproduce the images for commercial purposes without prior permission.

Happy New Year 2013

2013-01-03T14:57:00.000+05:30

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year 2013. Love and peace for all. Hopefully you all had a great time on new year's eve and the new year started with a good note.

I went to Dubai after office, the plan was to capture Fire works of Burj Khalifa. There were millions of people who had the same wish (atleast to watch the beauty if not to capture). It was a big fight to reach a good location. Finally we (me with my friends) decided to go to Business Bay area instead of the Dubai mall / Downtown area - with an expectation of relatively less crowd and a good view.

I managed to get these images of the spectacular fire works:

Honestly, these are not amongst the best images which you could possibly find on web upon searching, but these are the best what I could manage on that occasion. There is video version of the fire works as well:

In the images and the video, you can see the crowd - now multiply the crowd with thousand, that was the reality and we experienced them on our way back. Anyways, it was a good experience overall. During set-up and waiting period, I tried to capture one more time lapse sequence, result below:

On 1st of January, we went to Dubai mall to celebrate one of my very close friend's birthday, this time the crowd was negligible as compared to what we experienced 12 hours before.

Panorama of Dubai mall from Souk-Al-Bahar

We were celebrating in TGI Friday on 2nd level of Dubai mall, the location of this restaurant is simply superb - it is at the highest level of the Dubai mall and facing the fountain and Souk-Al-Bahar. Not only the location, the menu and food quality as compared to the price is just great.

Souk-Al-Bahar from TGI Friday, Dubai mall

The fountain show from TGI Friday is a splendid beauty

Once again, wish you all a very happy 2013 - filled with joy, love and peace.

See high resolution images here in Flickr.

Please feel free to comment. All comments (criticisms & appraisals) are welcome. Please do not reproduce the images for commercial purposes without prior permission.

Phuket, Thailand - Part VII

2012-12-31T00:58:00.003+05:30

Day 09 - our last day in Thailand, sadly the return journey had to began. Our Phuket to Bangkok flight was early in the morning at 6.55 am. We settled all our hotel payments an other formalities on last night itself. Alex (our driver and guide) picked us up from hotel at 5.00 am. The sky was dripping but at a slow pace. Air Asia flight took off at time and we reached Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International airport after flying 45 minutes. There was big difference in climatic condition between mainland of Thailand (Bangkok) and the island city Phuket.

In Bangkok we had a big break - almost 4 hours. Earlier in Phuket, Thailand - Part I I mentioned that, Bangkok airport is very beautiful and well maintained. Four hours though a big time if you have to waste by sitting and waiting but bit small time to explore Bangkok. We decided not to go out but to explore and shoot the Bangkok airport.

Mythological culture of Thailand is well influenced by our Indian mythology. Stories of Ramayana's and other Purana's are well sighted in their culture as well. Twelve giants are the prominent features inside the 2nd floor of the Concourse Building in Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International airport. The statues of the giant characters based on Ramayana mythology symbolize the kingdom’s guardians. They are not only meant to manifest the airport’s grandeur but also to attract the visitors attention. Besides, the display of these giant statues, which are the reproduction works from the giants at the Emerald Buddha Temple, the airport also introduces the oriental literature to the visitors, and serves as and invitation for tourists to visit the Emerald Buddha Temple, where the actual giants stand to protect the temple from all devils and ghosts. The sculpture of these giant statues is a testament of Thailand’s intriguing art and culture.

12 Giants (characters of Ramayana) inside Bangkok International airport

Each has difference name: Tosakanth or Ravana Giant, Sahassadeja Giant, Askan-mara Giant, Cakravarti Giant, Inthrachit Giant, Mangkornkan Giant, Maiyarap Giant, Suriyaphop Giant, Tosagiriwan Giant, Tosagirithorn Giant, Wirun Jambang Giant and Wirunhok Giant.

Presence of Buddhist art and culture also equally prominent.

By the time we were done with these and our breakfast it was time to check-in and immigration. There were more beautiful and features were waiting for us. After passing trough the immigration we came across a bronze sculpture depicting characters from mythology based on the story of the Churning of the Milk Ocean (Samudra Manthan).

Bangkok airport kept on presenting good things to us. Happily we board our flight and made an wish to visit again this beautiful country.

Here I conclude my Phuket (Thailand) trip. Hope you enjoyed. See high resolution images of my Phuket trip here in Flickr.

See other parts of my Phuket trip:
Phuket, Thailand - Part I
Phuket, Thailand - Part II
Phuket, Thailand - Part III
Phuket, Thailand - Part IV
Phuket, Thailand - Part V
Phuket, Thailand - Part VI

Please feel free to comment. All comments (criticisms & appraisals) are welcome. Please do not reproduce the images for commercial purposes without prior permission.

Good bye 2012

This is my last post of 2012. So far it was an interesting journey since I started in August (2012). Overall it was a good year for me, it surprised me with many life events like:

- Stooped smoking (honestly not 100% but definitely 99%) since first day of the year

- Traveled to two new countries: Sri Lanka and Thailand

- Have seen Durga puja after 2008

- Did some adventure: bungy jump from a height of 50.0 m, been to a very rough sea with approaching storm in Mirissa

- Experienced world's fasted coaster: accelerated to a velocity of 240 kmph within 5 secs in Ferrari World theme park

- For the first time did cycling of almost 40.0 km in a day

- Progressed a lot with my Photography, for the first time my image voted in to 1st place in any challenge

- Re-connected with few very good childhood friends after school days, made few new friends

2012 stood good for our country as well. Though there were lot of turbulence happened this year in social-political-economical life of us, but the way young India started reacting to these issues that is a very good sign of a bright and prosperous future.

Hopefully 2012 was equally great for you as well. Definitely there were some personal losses to all of our life, but the brighter side of the life prevails. Dear 2012, soon it will be time to say good bye. I am glad that I could meet you. I am Thankful for all you gave me. There are many special memories which I owe to you. Hope your friend 2013 will be as good as you. Love and peace for all.

Wish you all a very very happy and prosperous New Year - 2013.

Phuket, Thailand - Part VI

2012-12-29T02:13:00.000+05:30

Day 06 and 07 completely lost due to heavy rain in Phuket. Day 08 was bit better than the previous two days. Early morning we called Alex - our Thai guide-n-driver.

We visited Cher Aim spa village (situated opposite to Central festival shopping center in Phuket) and had pearl massage for an hour. It was necessary to lift our mood. The massage did the magic. We forwarded with our plans to visit Phuket Butterfly garden and some shopping (we were heading towards end of our trip). Drizzles of rain made sure that, we are not alone - accompanied us regularly.

Once we are done with Butterfly garden, we did some shopping - mainly some souvenirs. We visited the snake garden as well - due to heavy rain I kept my camera inside the car only, did not dared to expose my camera. Then it was time for another splendid Thai lunch. And then back to hotel.

See high resolution images of my Phuket trip here in Flickr.

See other parts of my Phuket trip:
Phuket, Thailand - Part I
Phuket, Thailand - Part II
Phuket, Thailand - Part III
Phuket, Thailand - Part IV
Phuket, Thailand - Part V
Phuket, Thailand - Part VII

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Phuket, Thailand - Part V

2012-12-28T21:53:00.001+05:30

Day 05: Phang Nga bay

Our day 5 itinerary was booked for Phang Nga bay visit. Phang Nga bay is an wide spread area in the Andaman sea between Phuket and the mainland of southern Thailand. An extensive section of the bay has been protected as the Phang Nga National park.

Starting of the day was similar to Day 03, when we visited Phi Phi islands. Though few differences were there like it was a different jetty (much smaller than the previous day), the travelling boat (also the the group of travelers) was smaller in size (for a maximum of 20 tourists) and the tour guides were more friendly this time but the weather was not.

From here we started our journey.

And we progressed towards the Phang Nga bay.

Rain interrupted in between as much as possible.

Through all the interruptions, we cut through the rough sea to Phang Nga bay National park.

In Phang Nga bay, we traveled in a small canoe/kayak through the mangrove jungle and captured the scenic beauty.

On return trip (from kayak to speed boat), we saw a Thai snake (do not know the exact species).

It was a superb journey of good half an hour in the mangroves.

There is a small fishing village in Phang Nga - Koh Panyee, the village is built on stilts by Indonesian fishermen. The population consists of roughly 200 families or between 1500 and 2000 people descended from 2 seafaring Muslim families from Java. We had our lunch in this village.

After having delicious lunch, it was time to capture this beautiful village in my camera.

Wooden jetty of the village

View of the village from jetty

Inside the village

A falcon (pet) in the village

Typical Thai boat

I tried a bit of tone mapping in the above image of the boat (single image). I tried to capture few human beauty as well.

One of our co-travelers from Malaysia

From here, we headed towards Khao Phing Kan - popularly known as James Bond island (since the island was featured in the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun in 1974). About 40.0 m from its shore lies a 20.0 m tall islet Khao Tapu. Rain tried its best to spoil our visit.

Khao Tapu in James Bond island

From here we began our return journey towards mainland. By the time we reached mainland, we were all wet - courtesy rain and rough sea.

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Phuket, Thailand - Part IV

2012-12-28T05:50:00.001+05:30

Day 04 of our trip. We planned to explore the Phuket town and do some activities with limited travelling. The day was bit cloudy and rainy since early morning.

We started with the Big Buddha Phuket. The Big Buddha of Phuket has been designed with a contemporary art in Maravi-chai posture. The reinforced concrete made statue is 45.00 m high and 25.45 m wide. The surface of the statue is ornamented with white marble. For more information, visit official website of the Big Buddha Phuket here.

It was not only the weather who was not in our favor, Mr. Big Buddha did not favored us either. He was under maintenance, so I got an image like this:

The Big Buddha Phuket

Overall, the Big Buddha temple is built on a big mountain plateau. There are many more statues and sculptures, major construction and maintenance works were in progress.

At the Big Buddha temple, Phuket

Now, it was the time for some activities and adventure sports. From Big Buddha, we went to Flying Hanuman - for an adventure sports in hilly jungles of Phuket. Visit Flying Hanuman's official website for more details. If you are visiting Phuket and you are physically strong enough for bit activities (and passionate) then this is a must activity.

It was a good two hours in Flying Hanuman. Our spoiled mood (due to poor weather) was elevated now and we were ready for more. What's more? What about bungy jumping? We agreed and headed towards Jungle Bungy Jump Phuket. Details about bungy jump in Phuket can be found here and here.

This bungy jumping is operated by professionals from New Zealand, their safety regulations were upto the mark and satisfactory. If you want to experience bungy, then you can trust these guys.

This was my first time, frankly I was nervous - you can make that out in the video clip.

When it was over, I grasp my breathe and took time to realize my existence on this beautiful earth. The shock of free falling was a life time experience. It was worthy to take risk. But later your legs capture full concentration - due to tight ropes the legs start to pain (heavily).

We celebrated our first bungy with a delicious Thai lunch (it is recommended to keep your stomach as empty as possible before bungy).

See high resolution images of my Phuket trip here in Flickr.

See other parts of my Phuket trip:
Phuket, Thailand - Part I
Phuket, Thailand - Part II
Phuket, Thailand - Part III
Phuket, Thailand - Part V
Phuket, Thailand - Part VI
Phuket, Thailand - Part VII

Please feel free to comment. All comments (criticisms & appraisals) are welcome. Please do not reproduce the images for commercial purposes without prior permission.

Phuket, Thailand - Part III

2012-12-27T04:07:00.000+05:30

Day 03: Phi Phi islands

Hopefully you remember that, on Day 02 we went to local travel agent to book our activities there with our driver/guide Mr. Alex. Our first booking was for Phi Phi islands.

After having breakfast, we were picked-up from hotel (arranged by travel agent). Primary destination was a nearby jetty. There we were briefed about safety measures for the whole trip. Our boat was big enough to accommodate 30-40 adults. We started our journey with other travelers. If you wish to make your trip more private you can book small boat as well, just keep in mind that the cost will be more.

Journey started in the BLUE earth

Phi Phi is a group of islands, I do not remember names of them separately. I do remember that, our guide mentioned that this one (immediate above image) is one of the main islands. And if I'm right then it is Phi Phi Don island.

Scenic beauty was incomparable but you have to bother the crowd. I wanted to enjoy silence in this beautiful place - unsuccessful.

In this island, we had our lunch.

After having lunch, we resumed our journey. Next destination was a shallow depth safe zone - for swimming and snorkeling.

The color of water and colorful fishes was simply superb. I'm not good in swimming, hence controlled my emotion and concentrated to capture our beautiful co-travelers.

It was enough of travelling in boat, swimming and snorkeling. Now the time was for relaxation.

Here we relaxed for almost two hours and began our return journey. Overall it was a good day.

See high resolution images of my Phuket trip here in Flickr.

See other parts of my Phuket trip:
Phuket, Thailand - Part I
Phuket, Thailand - Part II
Phuket, Thailand - Part IV
Phuket, Thailand - Part V

Phuket, Thailand - Part VI
Phuket, Thailand - Part VII

Please feel free to comment. All comments (criticisms & appraisals) are welcome. Please do not reproduce the images for commercial purposes without prior permission.

Merry Christmas

2012-12-26T02:32:00.000+05:30

Nature's way to greet 'X-mas'

Wish you all Merry Christmas. How was your day? Hopefully very very good. 5.30 am to 12.00 noon, almost 40.0 km of cycling and hopefully few good snaps - this was about my day.

I do not remember after how many years I woke-up today at 5.00 am in the morning. But it was worthy - got an eye-full sunrise at Kalba beach.

Sunrise at Kalba beach

Today for the first time I tried to create a timelapse, let's have a look, you can check the same in Flickr :

Apart from the above images, the 40.0 km of cycling yield with the following:

Present in the shadow of past

University of Sharjah, Kalba branch

Enjoy your holidays, have fun with your family and friends.

See high resolution images of my road trip in Flickr and 500px.

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Phuket, Thailand - Part II

2012-12-24T14:43:00.003+05:30

Day 02: Wat Chalong and Phuket zoo

We started our day with a healthy breakfast. On our day of arrival (that's the previous day), our hotel did not send taxi for airport pickup. We booked a private car from airport to reach our hotel (it is normally 600 Baht in day time while in night it is 750 Baht) - the taxi guy was honest, so there were very little discussion (or bargain) while deciding price and the car was brand new Honda. We were happy and we asked him if he wish to be our guide for the next few days - he agreed happily.

On our 2nd day morning, we called him to pick us up from hotel. He came in time and first took us to a local travel agent to book our upcoming trips. It was not high time, so we had a fare deal there, also presence of our local guide helped.

Next we went to Cher Aim spa village (situated opposite to Central festival shopping center in Phuket) and had aromatic oil massage for an hour. That was refreshing, after the massage all our body pain/ tiredness due to our long journey - all vanished. Me and my friend decided to come again (atleast once) during this trip. This massage made us physically (also mentally) ready to explore Phuket.

From spa, we went to Wat Chalong. Wat Chalong is the most important of the 29 Buddhist temples of Phuket.

At Wat Chalong, Phuket

Offering prayer, Wat Chalong, Phuket

Wooden elephant at Wat Chalong, Phuket

Eco-friendly (green) (:P) elephant at Wat Chalong, Phuket

At Wat Chalong, Phuket

This image (above one) is one of my personal favorites. One of my very good friends liked this image very much and said it will look very beautiful if printed and framed. I delightfully offered her a print out of this.

Pagoda of Wat Chalong

Buddha statue in Wat Chalong pagoda

Beauty on course of capturing beauty

She was on an assignment to shoot a weeding, most probably paid assignment - I was on an unpaid assignment to shoot her :).

Let's play

From Wat Chalong, we went to Phuket zoo. If you wish to be with the animals of Phuket zoo (be it tiger, falcon, parrot, crocodile or snake) - that I liked very much in Phuket zoo. Otherwise it is not a very big zoo.

Tiger in Phuket zoo

Parrot in Phuket zoo

Falcon in Phuket zoo

Elephant in Phuket zoo

Crocodile show in Phuket zoo

A beautiful tatoo!

They are not registered in the zoo :)

It was almost evening, from Phuket zoo we rushed to a nearby restaurant - we were very much hungry. I do not remember the exact location of the restaurant but the location was beautiful.

View from the restaurant

While I was busy in capturing the scenario around, my friend was busy in capturing me in action (surely you noticed what he intended to capture).

Enough with camera, the food was on table! We did not wasted time and swallowed delicious Thai sea foods.

See high resolution images of my Phuket trip here in Flickr.

See other parts of my Phuket trip:
Phuket, Thailand - Part I
Phuket, Thailand - Part III
Phuket, Thailand - Part IV
Phuket, Thailand - Part V

Phuket, Thailand - Part VI
Phuket, Thailand - Part VII

Please feel free to comment. All comments (criticisms & appraisals) are welcome. Please do not reproduce the images for commercial purposes without prior permission.

Phuket, Thailand - Part I

2012-12-18T01:03:00.000+05:30

July 2012, I packed my bags again, this time for a 8 days long trip. Destination - Phuket, Thailand; company - the same friend who accompanied me there in my Sri Lanka trip.

We booked our flights (Dubai to Bangkok by Jet air and Bangkok to Phuket by Air Asia) and hotel well in advance. Everything was self-arranged. On a fine Thursday evening we took off from Dubai. Next day early morning we reached Bangkok (Suvarnabhumi International airport - BKK).

It was a good sunny morning and a beautiful airport. I must admit one thing, I liked Bangkok airport more than Dubai International airport (Terminal 3) - superbly built and maintained.

After passing through immigration and visa procedures (Thailand offers visa on arrival to Indians tourists for a period of 15 days, they charge 1,000/- Thai Baht per head for granting visa) we refreshed ourselves. There we had our connecting flight after 3 hours. My friend was tired and took another quick nap.

I tried to sleep but failed, hence decided to capture them:

The Air Asia flight to Phuket departed from Bangkok with a delay of an hour due to some technical difficulties. I slept in the entire flight though it was a short flight of only 45 minutes. After reaching Phuket International airport (HKT), we hired a private taxi to reach our hotel - another good 30 minutes.

Finally we reached our hotel in the afternoon. We took our bath and lunch and then utilized our respective bed. We slept for 3-4 hours. Woke up late in the evening and walked through the city just to have an overall idea. After walking for 2 hours in the city, we went to a beach side restaurant and enjoyed Thai beer and concluded the day.

See high resolution images of my Phuket trip here in Flickr.

See other parts of my Phuket trip:
Phuket, Thailand - Part II
Phuket, Thailand - Part III
Phuket, Thailand - Part IV
Phuket, Thailand - Part V

Phuket, Thailand - Part VI
Phuket, Thailand - Part VII

Please feel free to comment. All comments (criticisms & appraisals) are welcome. Please do not reproduce the images for commercial purposes without prior permission.

12-12-12 Special

2012-12-13T01:14:00.001+05:30

Today's date is 12-12-12 (12-December-2012), end of the series of special dates that we first saw on 01-01-01 (01-January-2001). I don't know any special auspicious facts related to these dates but just by having a look it seems to be special. And when you realize that one have to wait minimum 100 years to see again these pattern of dates, you yourself realize that it is special indeed.

From the morning, I was planning to post something but was stuck with routine. It's almost midnight now and finally it is here.

While concluding Sheikh Zayed Mosque post, I expressed my wish to visit the mosque atleast once again but in evening time. In one of my earlier posts I mentioned that I was in Ferrari World theme park in Abu Dhabi on 02-December. On my way back my wish got answered and with all desired particulars. It was evening, during day time it rained a bit but in the evening the weather was just perfect. So enjoy the snaps now.

I hope you celebrated 12-12-12 in a special way and enjoyed your virtual trip of Sheikh Zayed Grand mosque with me. See high resolution images here in Flickr.

Good part of these set of images is that, I submitted one of these images to a photography challenge in dpreview. And that submission gave me the pleasure of being 1st. This my first image which got placed 1st in any challenge.

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First trial with HDR

2012-12-10T19:56:00.001+05:30

After getting my D5100 I tried in-camera HDR option (in JPEGs) but it was disappointing. Few days back I was watching some tutorial by Alan Kesselhaut and wanted to give HDR a try again with bracketed RAW images. After first trial I cannot say that I achieved what I want but definitely it is one step forward than in-camera HDR. Here are Some trials (and obvious errors) with HDR.

Madinat Jumeirah Souk, Dubai

In front of my residence, Fujairah

Madinat Jumeirah Souk, Dubai

Please feel free to comment. All comments (criticisms & appraisals) are welcome. Please do not reproduce the images for commercial purposes without prior permission.