Bad Stream, No Consciousness

Father and Son [Flickr]

2012-02-06T23:31:41-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

Water lily [Flickr]

2012-01-19T19:53:56-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

Taken at Sankey tank, Bangalore

Knock knock... who's there? :D [Flickr]

2012-01-19T19:53:36-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

Taken at Sankey tank, Bangalore

Trekking up Bilikal Rangaswamy hill [Flickr]

2012-01-09T20:02:16-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

A hill situated 50km from Bangalore - this is a very nice spot to trek

Panorama of the landscape from Chandragiri fort [Flickr]

2012-01-01T21:19:28-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

At Bekal fort [Flickr]

2012-01-01T21:19:00-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

Kappil beach [Flickr]

2012-01-01T21:18:17-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

A tranquil evening setitng in at Kappil beach, Kasargod.

Yakshagaana [Flickr]

2011-12-12T23:30:36-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

From my archives - taken at a dance ballet called "Soubhagya Lalitha" - it was a dance fusion with the story of a an evil being ("Rakshasa") being humbled by the goddess Lalitha. The evil being (shown here) was portrayed with Yakshagaana whereas the goddess was portrayed in Bharatanatya.

New-born in the house

2011-11-25T16:09:00.001+05:30

I am now a "Maama" to a girl baby. My brother/sister-in-law were blessed with a girl baby recently. The arrival of the baby is some story now...

Sister-in-law is studying MD in Davangere. Meanwhile, we are all here in Bangalore... including the brother-in-law. Parents-in-law shift base to Davangere a couple of weeks before the due date in earnest anticipation. That leaves the brother-in-law, the wife and me back here. We work out and debate all sorts of combinatorial possibilities and zero-in on the "most likely weekend" for the baby's arrival, book a bus travel and land in Davangere. After spending the weekend watching movies, playing cards, visiting nearby lakes during chilly mornings, dining in a lakeside restaurant, the baby is still cozy inside the mother's womb and we return back arguing as tpo who screwed up with the combinatorial calculation.

2 days into the new week and still no news from the remote site. Come wednesday evening 7:30pm, we get a call saying that the sister-in-law has been admitted into the hospital for delivery anytime soon. After a frantic 90 minutes of packing, dining, fuel filling, picking up coffee and some snacks for the journey, we set out on my first real long drive in the night.

After 4 hours, having encountered a section of road under repair and taking a detour, feeling anxious that the delay would cost us, stopping twice in pitch dark deserted sections of the highway to sip some comforting hot coffee, 4 toll payments, change of driver mid-way, we land in Davangere at 1:00 am. I was way too sleepy to comprehend the situation. I just waited till the wife told me that it was ok to go sleep for a couple of hours. That was the deepest sleep I've ever experienced, perhaps. After being harshly woken up by the unrepentant alarm at 6:00am (just 4 hours of sleep!), we go to the hospital. Again, I was not fully awake to comprehend what was going on. We hang around till wife tells me its ok to go have breakfast. After a quick trip, a long wait and a quick nibble at the delicious beNNe dose, we get back to the hospital. Shortly thereafter, we see the cute little baby being carried out of the delivery room and we passed it around like a hand ball for a couple of minutes before settling it down on bed beside its mother.

That there was some rough story-telling about the whole saga. Following are some pictures of the new-born.

Bhakti (Devotion) [Flickr]

2011-11-27T20:12:45-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

Bharatanatyam solo performance by Prakruti Hosakere

© Srinivasa S

Camera Model : NIKON D90
Software : Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
Exposure : 1/100 second
Aperture : f/5.3
ISO Speed : 1100
Focal Length : 220 mm

Divine [Flickr]

2011-11-27T20:12:20-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

Bharatanatyam solo performance by Prakruti Hosakere

© Srinivasa S

Camera Model : NIKON D90
Software : Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
Exposure : 1/100 second
Aperture : f/5.6
ISO Speed : 640
Focal Length : 260 mm

New born [Flickr]

2011-11-24T20:10:50-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

The joy of holding a new born in your arms is something to be experienced first hand. Seen here is a new born girl baby - my niece :) Provided a soft finish in edit to give the feeling of tenderness in the photo

© Srinivasa S

Camera Model : NIKON D90
Software : Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
Exposure : 0.008 seconds
Aperture : f/5.6
ISO Speed : 200
Focal Length : 55 mm

Shanmukha temple [Flickr]

2011-11-15T20:26:25-08:00

Srinivasa S posted a photo:

Located on the outskirts of Bangalore, the temple boasts of a gigantic idol of Lord Subrahmanya - seen here is the idol lit up during night time.

© Srinivasa S

Camera Model : NIKON D90
Software : Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
Exposure : 8.000 seconds
Aperture : f/22
ISO Speed : 200
Focal Length : 18 mm

A chilly morning in Davangere

2011-11-02T10:43:00.001+05:30

Last weekend, I was in Davangere with my in-laws and sister-in-law. We had 2 days to spend there. Winter was about to set in and the early mornings and late nights were getting quite chilly. My wife floated the idea of going on the Davangere - Harihara highway early in the morning, where there's a road-side lake offering a very nice view of the sunrise. Decision made, we all woke up at 5:00am and headed out to the spot by car. A quiet 20 minutes drive, brought us to the lake. Walking around a bit, I found a spot to set-up my tripod and camera.

Reading about photography, one would know that the best times for landscape photography is about half-hour before/after sunrise and half-hour before/after sunset. I seldom had a chance to get to a beautiful spot during those times. So, what I discovered on this outing was a revelation. What they say in those photography forums is much beyond true! These times force you to think different and photograph out of your comfort zone. Gone were my belief about "fast shutter speed = good/sharp photos". During these times, especially there are water and cloud elements involved, capturing them at slow shutter speeds gives an altogether different dimension to the way the photo comes out.

So, all-in-all:

a) Early morning photography - check

b) Witness a beautiful sunrise - check

What to do with my photos?

2011-10-18T14:37:00.000+05:30

I have been into photography as a hobby for close to 2 years now. Up until recently, I have been clicking pictures, sharing them out on facebook/flickr, and that was about it. At the end of 2010, I got an idea from my cousin to create calendars using the pictures I have shot. After spending about a fortnight on designing calendars, I ended up with single page calendar designs, printable at 18' X 12'. I even got some prints done and gave them out to relatives and friends. Here are a few of them:

This was a landscape photo taken at Jungfrau, Switzerland. The crystal clear sky and the white snow, made for a compelling contrast in this image. I had several photos taken while I was there. The need to shortlist one among them was tricky. Most photos I shot were in landscape orientation, and this was the ONLY one I had shot in portrait orientation. Hence, I chose this.

A photo of the Vitthala temple seen through one of the several stone mantaps, in Hampi. This place is a creative breeding ground! Lots of geometry to be explored and experimented with. I was mostly trying to get close to the ground, to click a photo of one of the mantaps on the Hemakoota hill. From one angle, I could see the gopura of the Vitthala temple. Capturing both the mantapa and the temple tower as seen in this picture makes it one of my favorite photos from that trip. Choosing this for a calendar design, was only natural.

This was a small fridge magnet, containing a model of London bridge. Shake it up, and small flakes rise up and gradually float down. I used light from a torch from the left side to create this image. This photo was the result of sheer boredom on a rainy day, left with nothing to do alone at home. A student of my mother had given this fridge magnet and I had not even looked at it properly until I raided the refrigerator to look for something to eat, late in the evening. Once I saw the gradual falling flakes, the idea was born. The hard part, after this, was to get good lighting. To say that I spent close to an hour and clicked about 40 photos suffices to describe my struggle that day. I had to show my hard work in a calendar design.

Last month, when I visited a friend's newly-rented house, I saw that he had used prints of his photos and used them to adorn walls in his room. I borrowed this idea and used simple items like thermocol boards, cardboard, glue and double-sided adhesive rolls. Here is what it looks.

I am still looking at new ways to put my photos to other creative uses. One thing I can say for sure. The joy of getting your hands on a large print of your photo is something that one has to experience! :)

Access weirdness to some websites

2011-10-01T13:17:00.001+05:30

I am NOT a networking specialist. These are just some of my observations about a weird issue I went through recently.

I have a desktop and laptop at my home. I use my desktop for all the heavy-lift work. Import photos, process the RAW images, fine tune them, resize them for web and print and finally back them up - pretty much the whole workflow for getting images from the memory card off the camera and getting it ready for print. I'm a flickr user - I upload my work there. Ever since I upgraded my desktop to Windows 7, I was unable to even open up the flickr homepage. The browser (ANY browser - I tried with firefox (different versions), chrome and IE) would just get stuck with "Connecting to http://www.flickr.com...". The laptop I had was running Windows XP - things worked just fine on that! For many weeks, I could not figure it out. I just worked-around this issue by using my laptop to upload work to flickr.

Recently I was fed up enough to sit and spend some time trying to figure out what the hell this issue was all about. Let me categorically state that I have still not figured out what causes this issue even now! I just got the thing to work on my desktop. I still have to do one extra step everytime I have to upload pictures to flickr!

I started with the basics.

Does my DNS resolve the web address? Yes it does...
> nslookup flickr.com
Server: resolver1.opendns.com
Address: 208.67.222.222

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: flickr.com
Address: 68.142.214.24
Am I able to ping the flickr server? Yes
> ping flickr.com

Pinging flickr.com [68.142.214.24] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 68.142.214.24: bytes=32 time=322ms TTL=53
Reply from 68.142.214.24: bytes=32 time=325ms TTL=53
Reply from 68.142.214.24: bytes=32 time=330ms TTL=52
Reply from 68.142.214.24: bytes=32 time=323ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 68.142.214.24:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss)
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 322ms, Maximum = 330ms, Average = 325ms
I tried opening up the browser and directly using the IP address of flickr.com in the address bar. Does not work - the site is not that simple!

We're sorry, Flickr doesn't allow embedding within frames.
If you'd like to view this content, please click here.
I vaguely did not search on google. I found that some people do have similar issue, but not with flickr but some other websites. The one suggestion in many of those cases that stood out as being common was to check MTU value and try a lower value. I checked that both in Windows and in my Netgear modem, the MTU was set to 1500. Now the thing to do was to find the correct MTU for flickr.com...

> ping flickr.com -f -l 1500

Pinging flickr.com [68.142.214.24] with 1500 bytes of data:
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.

Ping statistics for 68.142.214.24:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)

Flickr does not like MTU 1500

> ping flickr.com -f -l 1400

Pinging flickr.com [68.142.214.24] with 1400 bytes of data:
Reply from 68.142.214.24: bytes=1400 time=354ms TTL=52
Reply from 68.142.214.24: bytes=1400 time=350ms TTL=53
Reply from 68.142.214.24: bytes=1400 time=355ms TTL=52
Reply from 68.142.214.24: bytes=1400 time=350ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 68.142.214.24:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 350ms, Maximum = 355ms, Average = 352ms

MTU 1400 works, but can we get this to work with a higher MTU. Lower MTU means more overhead!

Using a binary search between 1400 and 1500, I ended up with a value 1472 which flickr seemed to work with. I changed the MTU setting on my modem and voila, I am now able to upload pictures without any hassles.

I do however do not leave my MTU set at 1472 all the time since most other things work fine with MTU 1500. This is the minor step (reduce MTU to 1472 at Netgear modem) at the time I upload photos to flickr and revert it back to 1500 once I am done.

Update

2010-08-10T04:25:00.003+05:30

Kanyadaana

Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

So I seem to have forgotten that I have a blog. This is an understatement of sorts. I know - sorry. So, this blog post is just to serve as a "Hey, I'm still here and here's what I've been upto" kinda post.

First things first - I got married! Kinda sudden, you think? :) This happened in late june and I think I'm still entitled to be called a "newly wed". And oh yes - 5 of my other friends got married between May and July!

Jungfraujoch Panorama

Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

Then I went on a vacation to Switzerland for a week. That was one hectic, extremely awesome trip!

Then my new project started to catch up once I got back to office. Now I am in the US on an official trip till mid aug.

In between all this, with such a large value of big-events per unit time, the excitement is constant and on-going. Amidst all this, I can say that this rapid rate of life, while exciting, is not allowing the real feeling of "being married" sink in fully.

I guess I'll come back with more posts in the near future.

Photography wish-list

2010-03-31T15:24:00.004+05:30

Putting this down here just so it gets recorded somewhere - I can revisit this from time-to-time and see if I need to make revisions (which is very much likely :D)

Camera wish-list

I currently own a Nikon D40. I bought it in April 2009 - just nearing a year in the field. Its a great camera

to start with, in the SLR world. I've managed to take lots of nice pictures and its light-weight - no fuss carrying it around. Its now off the store shelves, but the new ones replacing this particular model are no better, if not worse than my D40. So, in short, I love it.

But...

Some of the short-comings of this camera, as I experience while shooting pictures are:

Only 3 AF points - this is a great handicap IMO. It slows me down quite a bit in some situations. Imagine having to frame a shot differently just to align one of the AF-points to the point of interest in the frame, AF-lock it and then re-frame the shot! It can get annoying at times
Most picture controls are in-menu and not in more accessible forms like buttons/dials - Changing ISO, metering, AF-area - these are some of the most frequently changed settings even between shots. These are all in-menu settings only - meaning, I have to take my eyes off the view-finder, navigate a couple on menu screens and change the setting - again, slows me down.
No exposure bracketing - Again, slows me down. Have to change the exposure compensation between shots instead of relying on bracketing to take a series of differently exposure-compensated shots
Lack of in-built focus motor - Puts onus on the lens having a motor of its own for me to be able to auto-focus. Nowadays it may not be that much of a drawback since most new lenses do have focus motors in them. But, take my case-in-point - a portrait lens. Choices being 50mm f/1.8, 35mm f/1.8 and 50mm f/1.4 - out of these only the latter 2 lenses have focus motors in them. The first lens does not. Turns out, that the first one is the least expensive one among the lot. I ended up buying the 35mm f/1.8 because of this limitation.

I do not intend to give away my D40 EVEN if I buy a new camera, for it is such a gem of a piece. But here goes my wish:

Nikon D300s - 51 AF-points (ability to choose cluster of them for any particular shot), addresses all the short-comings above and is the closest camera to the pro-FX line of Nikon.

Lens line-up

I currently have the following lenses:

Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6AF-S VR
Nikkor 55-200mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S VR
Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 AF-S

While being an adequate starter-kit covering most of the ranges (from 18mm wide to 200mm tele) there's something more I'd look for. My wish is to (someday) replace all 3 of the above lenses with the below set (an addition too!)

Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S VR (Wider, longer, sturdier and equally sharp as the 18-55mm lens)
Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6 AF-S VR (At least get to the base telephoto range for any sort of wildlife photos)
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF (No focus motor in lens, but an awesome and inexpensive prime)
Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 AF-S (My interest in macro photography)

Accessories

There are some minor things surrounding the equipment listed in the above wish-list - cable release for shutter, a more roomy and protective camera bag, etc. One thing I do want is an inexpensive speedlight. Especially for indoor photography. Even the fastest of primes are sometimes inadequate. Instead of buying expensive and faster (f/1.4 and f/1.2) lenses, I thought its better to go for an entry-level speedlight like SB-400 or SB-600.

There - that's my current wish-list. Lets see how long it takes to get these. Anyway, the point is to be able to get good pictures. Does not matter what equipment one uses :)

Fastest DNS service?

2010-03-23T11:41:00.005+05:30

I've been running on opendns for quite a while now. Initially when google announced its public DNS, I adopted it and found some quirks with some of my commonly used websites. They would randomly become inaccessible. So, I went back to the trusted opendns. This was almost 4 months ago. I thought its time to do a test of which DNS service is the fastest. (More than anything, I like to shake things up in my computer every now and then :D)

I found this tool on google code - namebench.

I ran the tool with the parameters as seen above and here are the results. I must say I did not expect this kind of a result.

BSNL Broadband 145 IN is 484% Faster than your current primary DNS server

Recommended configuration (fastest + nearest)

Primary Server 218.248.255.145 BSNL Broadband 145 IN

Secondary Server 61.1.96.71 BSNL-2 IN

Tertiary Server 61.1.96.69 BSNL IN

Tested DNS Servers

IP                    Descr                    Avg (ms)
----------------------------------------------------------
218.248.255.145       BSNL Broadband 145 IN    53.83
61.1.96.71            BSNL-2 IN                72.90
8.8.4.4               Google Public DNS-2      140.15
216.146.35.35         DynGuide                 188.07
203.124.230.12        Tatanova Mumbai IN       295.73
156.154.70.1          UltraDNS                 300.96
208.67.222.222        OpenDNS-2                314.53
208.67.220.220        OpenDNS                  315.73
61.1.96.69            BSNL IN                  378.12
202.63.96.13          SolNet IN                916.23

You know the feeling? When...

2010-02-12T08:35:00.004+05:30

Its the last day of the work week, and you've been getting late for work almost every other day that week, getting stuck in bad traffic just because you did not start early enough. On this day, you manage you get up early, only to fall asleep again, and eventually end up getting delayed. You again start late, cursing under your breath about all the bad traffic you'd again have to face today, grimacing at the thought of not having anyone else to blame, but finding it hard not to shout out the choicest of expletives at random people on the road!

But...

Once you start, albeit a bit late, you find that the roads are unusually calm with very less traffic, you could breeze through the usually congested roads, be surprised at yourself behaving so gentlemanly, stopping in the middle of the road to allow pedestrians to cross over, hum a tune on the way, end up in the office parking lot with a smile on your face...

But...

It slooooooowllllyy dawns upon you that its a festival day which most people are having a holiday for and you, sir, have no such luxury!

The only luxury of such days is the calm roads...

Pristine Kemmangundi

2010-02-05T12:25:00.004+05:30

High on nature, low on fuel
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

This is a trip made in December 2009. I know its late. I've been trying to get back to updating my blog on a regular basis from last 3 weeks or so. To say that the last few weeks have been crazy hectic would be some sort of an understatement! Anyway, not digressing further...

December is the time the people in the IT industry herd like cattle and embark upon the great migration across the country-side. ( Okay, so that was me desperately trying to make up for the understatement earlier! Its just to show you the degree of "underness" in the earlier statement! :D ). In simple words, I had a 2 week vacation time pending, so I took it! Finding a time when a subset of my friends would be free led to me finding 3 others along with me being free to go somewhere on Dec 19 and Dec 20. By that time then, I had made up my mind to drag everyone to Kemmangundi. And for good reason - the weather at that time of the year is sublime! Perfect postcard landscapes, blue skies dotted with fluffy little white clouds - ah, just divine!

So, we started on Dec 19th morning at 6am in my car. The other participants being Sac, VV and SP. I took control of the wheels for the first part of the journey - made some amazing time, reaching CR Patna (Kamat hotel) for breakfast by 8:30am! We had a heavy breakfast, topped with some average tasting coffee and resumed the drive. This time, SP took over from me. Now, don't get me wrong here - SP is a very good driver... its just that he becomes a totally different person when behind a steering wheel - a person who thinks he's flying a plane or is driving a F1 car! Usual mid-range hatchbacks' engines, in India tend to dislike working at RPMs greater than 5000! Anyway - it was a breezy drive till Chikmagalur, after which things started to get more interesting!

Outlook traveller's magazine describes the Chikmagalur - Kemmangundi drive in an interesting sentence - "The exotic and scenic drive from Chikmagalur to Kemmangundi is like viewing beautiful panaromas on a violent shaky television" :D - well, that sums it up. Horrible pathetic roads! My poor car bore the brunt of both the roads and SP's driving... and to top it all, we forgot to fuel up in Chikmagalur! We were going to Kemmangundi in quarter tank of fuel. This really got me anxious! Let me leave out my anxiousness from this post - in the end, we made it alright with no problems :)

The drive itself was rocky, but very scenic - every now and then, we would see something that makes us stop, get down and click away! One such picture taken during one such stop is seen along with this post. We reached Kemmangundi by 12:30pm. We were somewhat travel-weary and hungry by then. Sac managed to get us accommodation in the horticulture guest house where we set aside our bags and had lunch. Then we rested for a while, before taking a jeep to Hebbe falls.

Hebbe falls is about 8KMs by walk, 12KMs by "road" from the place we were. We decided to take a jeep to the falls. It was a half hour or so, extremely rocky ride to the place where jeep could park and from there it was a 10 minute walk through small puddles of water, average length streams of water, etc. I could say I "got my feet wet" (hint: lookup military usage of the phrase :D). At the falls I tried some slow shutter photos from a distance. Could not get as near as I had hoped I could, because of the water droplets splashing out - did not want to risk taking out the camera there! We spent some half hour there before walking back to the jeep and headed back to our room. It got dark by the time we reached back. Just had some dinner and slept early. For, we had plans to get up at 5 and walk to Z-point to catch the sunrise! Sac was feeling feverish by that time and he took a crocin and slept off early. Me, SP and VV chatted for a while and then went to sleep. All of us set alarms for 5am!

A couple of things made this Z-point walk, at 5:30am somewhat interesting! The previous evening, when we came back from Hebbe falls, I told SP that we should ask about the route to Z-point. We got rough directions - drive about 2KMs in car and from there another 45 minutes walk to the summit. I was of the opinion that we should ask for a guide. SP rubbished my opinion saying there'll be lot of people going towards Z-point in the morning for the very same reason we would be! Come 5:30am, we started by car in pitch darkness - we could only see about 10 feet ahead of us at any point in time, thanks to the headlights. The only indication of where we had to park the car was when the 4 wheeler track abruptly ended! We parked the car to a side and stepped out - bitter cold, howling winds... trembling we all step out. VV switches on the torch... a powerful LED torch. I ask him to turn it off for a moment. We all look up - gosh! what a sight :) Millions of stars - all appearing so bright. That's the kind of sight that makes you forget your location, the time of the day, the bitter cold... everything. We started walking now... still pitch darkness, that was only disturbed by our bright torch. After walking some 2 minutes, we realize that we have hit a dead end. Up till there it was a plain land walk. Now, it was a steep ascent suddenly. As we ascended the cold got even more colder, the winds picked up speed! I initially started out with a jacket. As time went during the ascent, I had to put on the jacket hood to protect my ears, then use the hand kerchief to wrap around my mouth and nose! Huffing and puffing, climbing for some 40 minutes... still pretty dark, we had reached the summit. We just picked a plain, grassy spot, and sat down. I setup my tripod and camera. Waited for sunrise... In the bleak pre-dawn light, one can only see the outlines of the hills around... and that was all we could see any direction we looked. We were surrounded by hills in all directions! The powerful winds trying to knock us out is something to be experienced! Sunrise was a slight disappointment due to cloudy skies but the whole experience of getting up at 5, driving/walking/climbing in pitch darkness in a very chilly weather was memorable enough!

We returned back to our rooms by 8am, had bath and ate breakfast. The first thing we had to do was fuel up. Lingadahalli - nearest fuel station, 20KM away. On the way, we stopped at Kalhatti falls. I do not know why this is so famous - it just a 50 ft or so high water fall and people using the surroundings as their personal bathrooms makes it even more un-inviting! We did not spend much time there. We fueled up and then chose to return to Bangalore from there. We had plans to visit Mullayanagiri - but since that meant we had to go back the same way we had come till Lingadahalli and imagining the road conditions, we thought its prudent to just return back - we could get back to Bangalore before dark.

The return journey was mostly uneventful - tired people choosing to sleep in patches of the drive. Bringing back memories and some nice pictures too. A 2 day trip to that place is not justice enough! Cannot wait to get back there sometime soon!

Somanathapura - A Short Trip

2009-12-14T13:02:00.003+05:30

Geometry
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

I had made up my mind to get away from the city this weekend. I was thinking of Belur. But my mom suggested Somanahapura which has a similar temple like in Belur and is nearer to Bangalore.

Somanathapura is a small village situated 140KMs from Bangalore. (Route: Bangalore - Maddur - MalavaLLi - Bannur - Somanathapura).
It houses a stone temple with exemplary carvings from the HoysaLa period. The temple is strikingly similar to the one at Belur. The main idol of Channakeshava, being the main deity at this temple. What more, its much less crowded than Belur (except that, I did not see a huge bus packed with kids on a school excursion coming there the very same day! What luck).

I scouted around the place for almost 90 minutes or so. There are so many things pleasant about ancient temples - the calmness, the cold feel of hard stone in the innards of the Garbhagudi. The intricacy of the carvings, the amount of craftwork going into the details of an ornament on a sculpted goddess. The sheer size of the monolithic nature of the gopura (the towers). Managed to get some decent pictures. The weather could have been better. In the december winter, I would bet for blue clear skies. But some darn depression in Bay of Bengal, near Chennai put paid to my hopes :(

The visit to Shivanasamudra after Somanathapura was disappointing, to say the least. Very less water and huge crowds, most of them already half naked coming out of their cars, ready to jump into water!

One of the photos taken at the Somanathapura temple, is seen along with this post.

Oh yeah, I also discovered that driving and caffeine have similar effects on me :D

Weekend shoot [06/12/2009]

2009-12-06T22:45:00.002+05:30

Splash

Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

Manchinbele reservoir was the destination. Naren, Sac, VV and myself started off towards the place at 4pm and reached by 5pm. The sky was not as clear as I hoped it would be. Nonetheless, we were in time to view the setting sun.

Apart from the usual sunset landscapes, I got an idea while shooting the reflection of the sun in the water. I was just thinking that it would be much more interesting if there was a subject in the water - like a boat moving across the water. Since there was no such naturally available subject, thought why not create one of our own - a splash of water. Naren volunteered to throw pebbles into the water. Got some 3 decent shots in 10 attempts. One of them is seen along with this post.

When I sat down to process the photos, I realized that the splash shots should have been taken at a higher ISO. Well, next time perhaps...

Waiting for sleep

2009-12-06T02:16:00.003+05:30

This is what I listen as I wait for sleep. The haunting keyboard notes do the job.

Standing by the window, eyes upon the moon

Hoping that the memory, will leave her spirit soon

She shuts the doors and lights

And lays her body on the bed

Where images and words are running deep

She has too much pride to pull the sheets above her head

So quietly she lays and waits for sleep

She stares at the ceiling and tries not to think

And pictures the chains she's been trying to link again

But the feeling is gone

And water can't cover her memories

Ashes can't answer her pain

God, give me the power to take breath from a breeze

And call life from a cold metal frame

In with the ashes

Or up with the smoke from the fire

With wings up in heaven

Or here, lying in bed

Palm of her hand to me head

Now and forever curled in my heart

And the heart of the world...

Weekend shoot [22/11/2009]

2009-11-22T19:35:00.002+05:30

Laalbagh Glass-house
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

I was out of ideas this week. Me and my friend Raghu, made last minute plans to visit the KR park in Basavanagudi and Lalbagh. It doubled up as a nice morning walk and a decent photoshoot. For once, I stopped shooting in manual mode all the time. Yet to get a good hang of the camera metering modes. Hope to get fluent with them soon.

Here's one photo of the glass house in Lalbagh.

Laksha Deepotsava

2009-11-17T11:59:00.003+05:30

Laksha Deepotsava
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

Yesterday was the last monday of the Kartika maasa. This is considered an auspicious day for the worship of lord Shiva. Temples usually arrange for people to bring as many oil lamps as possible and light them during the evening. This is called "Laksha Deepotsava".

I thought this would be a good opportunity to get some pictures in dark settings. I went to a temple fairly early - by 6:30pm. People were still gathering and I knew this was going to get busy here real soon, with lot more people pouring in. One disappointing thing was, the temple had bright halogen lamps everywhere! I had not expected this. I wanted to shoot with only the light from the hundreds of lamps around. This was a bit of a dampner. But, I managed to scout a couple of not-so-bright places and take some pictures. You can see one of those with the post here.

Also, this was the first photoshoot after I decided to shoot RAW instead of JPEGs. I had fun processing the RAW images and also learnt the flexibility that RAW photos have to offer. Once a JPEG is edited, the quality and valuable information is lost. Whereas with RAW images, you can apply any processing and export images to JPEG/TIFF. The original RAW image has not changed and can be processed differently again. Also, the camera always produces RAW format. If the camera is set to produce JPEGs, it has to process the RAW data into a JPEG image on the basis of settings like saturation, hue, white balance, etc. Usually, this processing is better done on a computer than what's done by the camera. All the more reasons to shoot in RAW mode. Only drawback is the large size of the RAW images - you'll need more card capacity to shoot the same number of images. Also, the rate of capture might be lesser than JPEGs when shooting in burst mode.

Now waiting for an opportunity to shoot in daylight to see more advantages of a RAW image.

Weekend shoot [07/11/2009]

2009-11-07T22:29:00.003+05:30

Chocolate Cake?
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

Went out to take some shots with friends from NCJ days, to Sankey tank. Plan was to catch sunrise and we did catch an oh-so-lovely sun that rose quietly behind a thick cloud cover :| Anyways, managed to take some shots and had to head back when it started to drizzle quite heavily.

Later in the evening, a rather unplanned drive along Kanakapura road took us to a really creepy location and also to the Art of Living ashram. This photo was taken there. I'm patting myself on my back here, for this, is a handheld shot @ ISO 800 :D Used Noiseware CE to get rid of some noise which, unfortunately, led to the loss of all EXIF data on the image.

Also, recovering from a bout of illness. All this roaming around surely wore me out rather quickly.

Hectic weekend

2009-11-01T22:07:00.003+05:30

What flower is this?
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

Saturday was a day full of hectic roaming around. Had to walk all of the 2.4 KMs to get hold of my new lens - btw, bought the Nikon 55-200mm lens :) Naren chose to drive me around, otherwise, it'd have been even more stress for me :D Anyway, tried a few shots around my home, and I love the lens. Sadly, I could not go any place to shoot. Seen in this post is one of the pictures I took from my neighbour's little garden. I've no idea what this flower is called - anybody knows?

Sunday was mostly spent driving parents around for some functions and a temple visit. Naren had a small accident in the evening - wishing him a speedy recovery.

PS: Till I get back to active writing, you'll mostly see pictures and mundane posts :)

Have a wonderful week

2009-10-26T09:35:00.003+05:30

Light Sieve
Originally uploaded by Srinivasa S

I know I've not been active here. I'll get back soon. Meanwhile, my pics would act like a filler :D

I've started this new thing recently - of going to various places in Bangalore very early in the morning and take some shots. Last week was the first week and the place was cubbon park and surroundings. Parked the vehicle at the cubbon park entrance near corporation circle and wandered inside the park, in front of Vidhana Soudha, then back, going towards Vittal Mallya road. Managed to get some decent pictures.

I play cricket too during weekends. So, this is going to be tough to make it to these photo shoots on the days we play cricket. Lets see how it goes. I'm yet to think of a destination for the next shoot.

2009-09-09T09:06:00.001+05:30

The plant that I had bought over a year ago has now grown bigger.

Education

2009-09-05T22:59:00.001+05:30

Forever holding dreams within my heart,

Through nature's inflexible grace,

I'm learning to live...

2009-07-27T22:07:00.002+05:30

Turn it on, turn it on...

Let the feelings flow

Close your eyes...

See the ones you used to know

Open up, open up...

Don't struggle to relate

Lure it out...

Help the memory escape

Like reflections on the page... the world's what you create

~ Wither (Black Clouds and Silver Linings, 2009)

Chikmagalur trip - Hunkal Woods

2009-07-15T15:20:00.005+05:30

Chikmagalur trip

This is going to be a full fledged trip log. Noticing how my recent trip posts have been rather short, this time, I want to let the floodgates open :D

One among our gang was heading off to Australia for an MBA and so we thought we should do a weekend trip someplace before he leaves the country. The destination was basically chosen over a cup of coffee at Barista, thanks to an enlightened soul called Murali. No sooner than the words "Hunkal Woods" came out of his mouth, Girish was on his phone talking to the owners of the Hunkal Woods estate in Chikmagalur and inquiring/negotiating about the tarrifs. This was 6 days before to the planned start of the trip. Over the next 3 days, 6 people had confirmed and we had a booking confirmed, thanks to Naren, who made the payment. We decided we'll rent a mazda so that none of us will have the headache of driving, considering that the destination is 280kms away, and also everyone gets to travel together and have fun along the journey as well.

2 days before the start of the trip, my boss offered me his Scorpio for the trip, which I gladly accepted! It took less than 4 hours to convince everyone that Scorpio would be enough to seat 6 of us + our luggage comfortably and it works out a lot cheaper than if we'd book a mazda. With everyone onboard and agreed on the plan, it was just a countdown to the weekend. Just the day before the start of the trip, Karan confirmed that he too would join us for the trip, taking the count of people to 7. This meant that the seating of everyone within the Scorpio was a difficult one. After some heated discussions, (Me and Girish wanted to drive, Sac wanted all people together in one place during the journey), we decided that we'd go in 2 vehicles - the Scorpio and Naren's Santro. I'll later come back to this decision and illustrate how good this decision turned out to be!

Plan was to start at 5:30am from my place. Everyone was to assemble at my place before 5:30am. Karan and Girish were the first to arrive right on time. Naren, Sac and Murali arrived 15 minutes late. VV was to be picked up on the way. So, it was 6:15am, by the time we put all the luggage into vehicles, distributed snack packs among the vehicles, etc, picked up VV and hit the NICE road. We thought we'd beat most of the heavy traffic on NH-4 by starting early - but, boy, we were so wrong. We were held up for a good 20 minutes on NH-4 thanks to some jackasses who had come off on the wrong side of the highway just because their side was jammed! Girish, who was riding shotgun (ah! new term learnt on this trip - riding shotgun amounts to riding in front passenger seat) skillfully guided me through the extreme left lane (to be read as gutter shoulders) and we were out of the muck sooner than we'd normally have.

Then it was a long stretch on NH-48, till we reached CR Patna to make a stop for breakfast. The road was patchy, with 4-laning work going on. But with low traffic and extreme power of the Scorpio, we could easily maintain speeds above 100 kmph. We reached the breakfast spot at 9am. I was warned by people from the Santro that I was driving rather rash, overtaking on blind curves, etc. Somehow, people in my car never complained about anything like that. Although Murali mentioned that, by now, he was "intimately familiar" with the ceiling of the Scorpio! That, I attribute to the patchy roads and hard suspensions on the vehicle :D We finished breakfast and continued, now with Girish on the wheels. Mr. Girish has an interesting driving style for handling curves. I don't know whether he does this usually or he was doing it specifically because I told him that Scorpio does not handle curves well at high speeds. He goes to the right lane and then cuts across to the left on a leftward curve (opposite on the rightward curve). As we proceeded, the weather slowly changed from being pleasant to cloudy and then it began drizzling. We reached Chikmagalur, after driving thru on and off rains. It was 11am. The destination was still 25 km away. Since this was the last big town, we bought some essentials and continued. This stretch of the drive was very scenic - we could already sight the lofty peaks around the Chikmagalur area - the top of the peaks kissed with dark grey clouds - quite a sight. Finally, after 24 km of so, we saw a board indicating to take a left for Hunkal Woods. This road was 3km long and was the worst possible road to drive on. The road was estate maintained and the rains had basically turned the road into a mud slush. Poor Santro got could not continue at some point - it was not getting any traction and the wheels would just spin furiously in the mud. It took some out-of-box thinking and extreme driving from Sac to get the Santro past this point. (This was why I mentioned that it was a good decision not to get a mazda. I'm sure the mazda would have got stuck here till winter!) The moment we landed in front of the estate bungalow, where we were to stay, it started raining - a beautiful welcome. Top of that, we were served the best coffee there was! It was 12:15pm. We spent some time to shake off the travel weariness, sipping coffee and onlooking the gentle rains. We got our bags and set bases in the rooms of the bungalow. We chatted with the caretaker there for a while, discussing about the options we have of things to do there. We chose to go on a trek to a view point after lunch. The lunch itself was simple, tasty and sumptuous.

We started off on this rain-trek, (without Sac, who had a bad stomach ache) with jackets on, carrying umbrellas. I was particularly worried about 2 things - taking my DSLR in the rains and LEECHES. Camera was in a good quality bag, and I carried an extra plastic cover to protect the bag. I borrowed gum boots from the caretaker there to "protect" me from the leeches. Till then, I had not seen any leeches and was feeling ok. About some 15 minutes into the ascent, they started appearing. There were everywhere. Climbing up our legs with dogged determination of finding some skin! Like those black alien things in Spiderman-3. It was at this moment, I realized this phobia of mine - leeches! Most of the trek was spent in checking for leeches rather than clicking photos! It took us almost 2 hours to reach the view point. Such pristine splendour of mother nature on display, we had our mouths wide open when we first saw the sights from the view point. We could see all of the peaks around the area, covered with a thick green blanket and crowned by clouds! We spent some 15 minutes there, clicking photos, looking at various peaks with binoculars, etc. The descent was less eventful and we reached the bungalow by 5:30pm. Each of us checked ourselves for any leeches stuck on us, a few of us did have one or two of them. And then had a bath. We had another round of the scintillating coffee and started playing dumb charades. From 6pm to 9pm, time just flew by, playing dumb charades, feasting on some hot snacks. After another simple yet tasty dinner, we played indoor cricket and then retired to sleep.

Next morning, I was the first to wake up by 6:30am. VV and Murali were awake by 7am. Time for another coffee - we never got tired of drinking coffee on this trip! I ventured out for a walk with my camera for some photos. Wandered around the bungalow for about half hour, clicked some snaps. It started drizzling, so I had to run back to the bungalow. By now, most people were up and some were thinking of another small trek. We had a heavy breakfast after which Murali, Girish and Naren started for another small trek. I decided to give this a skip and stayed back with Karan, VV and Sac - we played some cards, table tennis and had bath. It was almost noon by the time the trekking trio returned back.

The trip was coming to an end and none of us wanted to go back. Yet, we unwillingly packed our bags, had a nice simple lunch, wandered around the bungalow on our own for a while and then started back at 2:30pm. The drive back was unusually sombre with everyone keeping to themselves - listening to music on ipods, sleeping, etc. We reached back home by 9pm .

This place was absolutely fantastic. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone going to Chikmagalur. I cannot wait to go back there this winter - yes, I've already decided - I need to get back there, at a time, when there would be no leeches so that I can get some nice snaps :)

Dream...

2009-07-06T11:33:00.003+05:30

Theater! DT, Prog Metal, Experimentation, Chaos, Melody, Extreme talent, Guitar/Keyboard harmonics

Well, that previous paragraph came out more like a tag cloud! Phew. So, I've begun a rediscovery of sorts, of this amazingly talented bunch of people that form what is popularly called Dream Theater. The things John Petrucci can do with a guitar, that Jordan Rudess can do on a keyboard are simply mind blowing, to say the least.

Even though its most unfair to judge a band with just one song, I think I can make an exception in this case. "Take the time" - this one song should encompass all that Dream Theater is and probably more. From a bird's eye overview, this song just sounds like a garbled mess with the music score distributed among 'n' different eccentric fellows, each of who wanted the song to go in an entirely different direction! I'm sure a lot of people turn themselves off to DT at this and move onto "greener" (?) pastures of pop (??).

But some brave people do dive in - there's chaos yet some semblance of order (I'm still talking about that one song). The rhythm does not stay the same for more than 30 seconds or so. No sooner than you become accustomed to a head banging pattern, you've got to stop and change gears (oh - beware of neck sprains!). Do let the competing guitar and keyboard solos completely sink in - calmness amidst chaos! For most part of the 8 minutes and 21 seconds, you'll feel like you're on a roller coaster ride that's running on a crazily varying electricity supply. Its an experience of life - so many things happening at once that its very easy to feel overwhelmed. But it does land you in a soft cushion of assuredness of a steady chapter at the end.

The timing could not have been better for their new album to come out - Black Clouds and Silver Linings. Cannot wait to explore that.

# One of their albums is aptly named Systematic Chaos

Shivagange Trek

2009-06-16T18:24:00.005+05:30

This is a stony hill near Dobbaspet, Tumkur and is about 60KM from Bangalore. Its an ideal place for a day's trek.

We started at 4:45am from Bangalore. After wading through the really hopeless stretch of NH-4 till Nelamangala, it was a breeze driving on the toll stretch of the highway. We reached the small village at the foot hills at 6am and started climbing at 6:15am. This was a really good time to start climbing, as the sun was still mild and it was cool. We reached hill top by 8am, in spite of taking a lot of breaks for photos, water, refreshments, etc. The last 20% of the climb is the steepest and there are railings for support. Beware, though, as the steps are very narrow and of uneven heights.

We were lucky, as the hilltop was covered with clouds! We were walking around in the midst of clouds. Even though this is summer, it was darn cold up there! We went into the Giri Gangadhareshwara temple and chatted with the priest there for a while. We ate some snack bars and biscuits. We went to see "Shantala drop" where some queen Shantala had jumped down from. We could not see how steep it was, due to the thick cloud cover. We just lied down on the rocks, in absolute silence, gazing at the skies, with clouds moving all over us, and the winds eerily howloing away. Perfect settings to forget everything, clear the clutter in your mind and get refreshed.

We started back at 9am. And it was to be an eventful descent! The monkeys had all woken up by this time and we had learnt a lot from others' experiences to be wary of rather aggressive monkeys. We spotted one or twon monkeys, but they seemed rather mild and did not bother us. Mind you, all of us had bags of snacks and water with us. Our only defence against them was my tripod! Half way into the descent, having not seen any trouble from monkeys, we thought that the monkey trouble here was hyped up. We clibmed atop a big boulder and sat down for a break. We never thought that the monkeys would try to pull off a covert operation! One monkey stealthily crept up behind us and wanted to snatch one of our bags away. We spotted it in the nick of time and managed to scare it away. Turned out that it was one of the foot soldiers and it called for more backup. Then came one of the commando monkeys - unnerved by our presence, unflinched by our weapon, it singlehandedly started to corner us! We had to jump off the boulder one by one. The last man to jump was always going to be in trouble, for there should always be one of us trying to keep the monkey at bay while the others jumped - Murali did a brave job!

After that encounter, we decided not to take any more breaks and got back among human civilization by 10:15am. We started back, taking a different route through Magadi and reached Bangalore by 12:15pm.

Tips

1. Start early! This definitely saved us from monkey trouble during the ascent

2. Having a big group helps

3. Carry minimum amount of food/water - take only one bag. You can protect it better

4. Do not forget to enjoy :)

HuthriDurga trek

2009-06-01T10:24:00.004+05:30

Huthri Durga
Originally uploaded by thisismetallica

HuthriDurga is a hillock near Magadi. It is about 80km from Bangalore.

Route: Bangalore -> Magadi -> Continue towards Kunigal (some distance after Magadi, there's a Y fork where you should keep towards right) -> After this right fork, proceed 5 km and then start asking the villagers for HosapaLya at which you have to take a left (this left turn is VERY easy to miss!) -> After the lest, continue for 5 more km to reach a village -> Another left here (this is easy to spot if you remember to look for a really small road that goes in the direction of the visible hillock) -> After the left turn, its 2 km of winding uphill drive to another village/settlement. Park your car someplace and start walking!

We started at 5:20am. Hit the NICE road from the Mysore Road and exit at Magadi road. Magadi road is now beautifully made 2 lane road. It was a pleasure to drive on that road. After Magadi, we got lost a bit and had to ask around and drive up and down the same road twice before we finally got on track and reached the foothills at 7:00AM. Its a small trek - takes about an hour to reach the top. Its steep in bursts and you get a spacious, vegetation less barren stone with a very relaxing breeze that should take away all the tiredness. The view from the top is excellent. There's a temple of Lord Shiva where pooja happens only on Mondays and Fridays. You can still catch a glimpse of the sanctum though. (NOTE - beware of some aggressive monkeys!) Some 50 meters away from the temple is an "Echo point". Its facing the direction opposite to the place where you started the trek. We shouted quite a lot to "test" the echoes. Shouting apart, do make it a point to sit there in total silence. We then sat down in shade to have some cereal bars and plain cake. Started back and reached our parked car by 10:15AM. Reached Bangalore by 1PM.

There goes - another day, another trek. Many more to follow :)

Psycho

2009-05-26T20:58:00.004+05:30

That's the name of a 2008 Kannada movie. The songs are excellent. A welcome change from the usual stuff being doled out nowadays. Film debut for Raghu Dixit as a music director and the freshness is there to see. The movie itself is also commendable.

"Mahadeshwara" and "Ee tanavu ninnade" are best numbers on the album!