The Cyprus Carnival Parade

The Annual carnival a big affair in Cyprus. It happens over a fortnight in Spring and ends with a long parade on the main road in Limassol, Makarios Avenue. The parade is a visual spectacle and is a good opportunity for photographers looking for colorful subjects!

For more photos from the carnival, check out the post on the Cyprus Blog.

Fun in the snow on Troodos

First trip to troodos this winter and it was great fun! It was too crowded, but we persisted and managed to find a parking place. Then, it was the usual dose of fooling around on the snow. This time, it was not just restricted to the sliding, but also a bit of target practice, reaching for the snowball with a kick!

See more pictures of even more crazy antics (and even a video) on the Cyprus Blog.

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Up, close and personal - Animal Photography

There are many who argue that collecting money to allow people to hold/pose with animals in zoos and other establishments is an unethical act. I have a divided opinion on this. Major zoos which advertise such things do collect the money for conservation purposes.

I also feel that allowing such interactions would help people understand the animals further thus increasing their love for them. I have tried using this line with Vidhya whenever there is an opportunity to hold snakes, but she has been relentless in her campaign of not allowing me to pose with snakes.

I am posting below all our "encounters" in different parts of the world. I love animals, i love photographing them. But the best thing is to be close to them and feel their wildness.

The next few photos are from our Singapore trip (which i am yet to write about). The first one is a with a California Seal taken after the "Splash Show" at the Singapore Zoo. For some reason, i was scared and my expression in the photo turned out to be a little silly!

That's me and my mom feeding the lories at the "Lory Loft" at the Jurong Bird Park. This was an excellent enclosure where the birds (hundreds of them) were flying around freely and you could feed them (some liquid). The ones Vidhya was feeding were more interested in her watch rather than the drink. One even landed on my dad's shoulder and he was more than happy to accommodate it.

The next photo is from Dubai. When you go for a Desert Safari which includes dune-bashing, your starting point would be a place where people can watch many "native" animals and interact with them. Unfortunately Vidhya's cousin, who was taking the photographs, took some time to understand the nuancies of a Digital SLR and many photos didn't turn out ok. But, he has improved a lot now and he is as good as any other amateur i know.

Thailand was one of the best vacation spots i have been to. We spent a month there and we had lot of fun. The photos are from a place called "Safari World" which is around an hours drive from Bangkok and a place in Pattaya called "Crocodile Park".

Like the bird in Jurong Bird park, this one too was very interested in the watch Vidhya was wearing.

The one below is called our "Family Snap" by my dad! The Orangutans were extremely friendly, sometime too friendly to feel comfortable.

The biggest tiger i have ever seen, it was trained to let out a huge roar whenever someone sits next to it for a photograph. The bear looks like it is showing the namaste sign, but it is actually holding a banana in its hands.

Vidhya at her bravest! Don't know what came over her, she readily volunteered to go over and take photographs with the elephant. Only the first photograph was part of the "posing plan". The second and the third were not informed to us at all and Vidhya, though appearing to be smiling" was shaking for quite some time after. The elephant, without any warning, lifted her with its trunk and Vidhya had to request the mahout to ask the elephant to put her down.

Saved the best for the last. The photos below seem to unnerve anyone who sees it, even us! Don't know whether , given an option, we would pose once again with a croccodile.

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Bird's-eye View

I have posted the below photo for possible inclusion in the JPG magazine for the theme "Bird's-eye View". In case you haven't heard of this magazine, check it out. JPG magazine is an excellent photo magazine which is made up entirely of contributions by amateur photographers. They also give away pdf versions of all issues of the magazines for free.

The photo was taken from a plane just before landing at Heathrow. Luckily, our plane had to wait in queue before landing hence treating us to beautiful aerial views of London. If you want to see more photos of London, vist the London page for lots of photos from our one week vacation in London.

Fun with sparklers during Diwali

The money i decided to buy crackers with wouldn't get me much more than a few packets of sparklers. Thankfully, it was Vidhya's brother's "thalai-Deepavali" (First Diwali after marriage) and he had purchased umpteen crackers to blast.

But, I had decided to put the sparklers i bought to good use, though i wasted many in the process. We tried many long exposure photographs using the sparklers. The one below was for a duration of 10 seconds, but it took few photos to get the J's orientation right.

Next, the duration was changed to 20 seconds and i tried to write Vidhya's and my name. I just managed it before the sparkler finished, though it was tough getting the H and Y right.

We did try a lot other tricks too, the heart shape being the most common attempt for any long exposure "light" snaps. The next one was done using the "sattai" or the rope which emits a streak of fire when lit at one end.

Diwali was fun. The view from the terrace was awesome. The photo below gives an idea of the number of rockets which can be seen at any instant.

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Dreaming about you

We had a photo competition here in amdocs (the results are not yet out) and one of the categories was "dreams". I did a lot of research on the net for an idea and one of the photographs which i found (actually on a photoshop site) was that of a guy appearing transparent in a photograph titled dreamy. I liked the concept and wanted to get something similar done without photoshop, as the competition had strict guidelines about the use of photoshop. Vidhya came up with the idea of "Dreaming about you" wherein she is seated appearing to be asleep and i appear in the photograph like a ghost which will give the indication that she is dreaming.

This is the final photograph which we came up with ...

Of course, many questioned the validity of this photo, as it looked "pretty obviously" a photoshopped one! But, this is the photo straight out of the camera (converted to black and white). So, here are the steps to duplicate this photo

• This was taken in a totally dark room (absolutely dark)
• The camera was put in Shutter-Priority mode i.e. a mode where you can control the shutter speed and the camera handles everything else.
• I used a shutter speed of 10 seconds. This can be anything based on the effect you want.
• When the room is dark, Vidhya goes and sits on the sofa. Then, i click the shutter-release button (basically, take the photograph).
• Then, a light (preferably a powerful one located such that it doesnt put Vidhya in a shadow) is switched on for a fraction of a second and immediately switched off. Because of this action, the room (including Vidhya) are exposed on the camera.
• Then, i go into the frame, position myself. Then, the light is switched on and off (like the first time).
• Here is the logic behind the photo: Since i and the background behind me got exposed during the 2 times the light was on, i appear to be transparent in the photograph.
• Few things to get this photo right: Vidhya had to be dead-still during the 10 seconds. Otherwise, her changed position would get exposed when the light is switched on the second time. Get a background which can covey the transparency well.

We took a lot of attempts to get this right. First, Vidhya was not happy with my position in the photograph and complained a lot about my posing skills. Then, we moved around the props in the room till we were satisfied with the overall composition.

Sometimes the switching-on-and-off action was too fast resulting in a dark picture. In other cases, the switching on happened a little earlier than expected resulting in my movements getting exposed in the photograph.

At one point i got bored with the same pose i was giving and we wanted a different look to the picture. Lokesh and Sarvesh posed for us and it turned out to be a great photograph. We wanted to submit this photograph calling it "Nightmare". It was a tough call for us deciding which one to submit for the competition.

This technique can be used to produce some very interesting pictures if you think out-of-the-box! Look at the picture below where Lokesh posed and then i went into the scene with a keychain light and drew the horns on him.

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How big are the stars and the planets in the Universe?

I got this interesting email-forward today showing the sizes of the planets in the Solar System compared with the Sun and other stars. We are indeed small and negligible compared to the other occupants of our universe.

Arcturus is third brightest star in the night sky after Sirius and Canopus. Pollux is also one of the brightest star. Antares (below) is the 16th brightest star in the night sky. Betelgeuse(below) is the ninth brightest star.

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6 tips to take great photographs at music concerts

The Bryan Adams concert here in Limassol was my first music concert ever. So, it is obvious that it was my first ever attempt at taking photographs at one. Prior to this, i had attempted to take photographs of musicians on dimly-lit stages during the various festivals which happen here in Cyprus and needless to say, the outcomes were not so good. So, this time, i did a lot of ground work and i was happy with the photographs of the concert. So, i decided to pen down few tips which might help anyone take good photographs at such concerts.

• Avoid using Compact Cameras, the point and shoot type. They are slow to start up, slow between photographs and have a shutter-lag. Even the latest point and shoot cameras suffer from these drawbacks. If you want good photographs, go the SLR way. Better still, go for a digital SLR so that you can immediately check whether the photo you captured is good enough for your liking.
• Use High ISO. Most of the concerts would have sections of the stage well-lit, but the rest of the area would be dark. There will always be some kind of a spotlight on the artistes on stage. But this light is not enough to get a good exposure. So, use a higher ISO to get a good picture in spite of the little light. Avoid ISO 1600 as it can get too grainy. But, take many practice shots to get the exposure you like. A high ISO would help you get photographs like the one below where you can see the lights from the all the mobile phone cameras in use.

  

• Use Shutter Priority Mode. I have had good success with Shutter Priority mode on many low-lit situations. You can customise the shutter speed based on your capability to hold the camera still. Using the program mode will make the camera try to get the best possible picture and in most cases (for concerts), the shutter will be opens for many seconds! Override this and use shutter priority. The Big Ben photo below was shot from a running open-top bus. I used a shutter speed of around 1/20s (don't remember exactly) and ISO 1200.

  

• Use a Zoom Lens, unless you are a good friend of the rockstar and manage to get a seat on the stage. Of course, not having a zoom lens would give a different perspective of the concert like the first photo below. I carried both the 18-70 and the 70-300 lenses with me and i switched them from time to time to take different views. From the first photo, you can kind-of guess where i was seated - far away from the stages and yet, with the zoom lens (and some cropping), I managed to get some decent close-ups of Bryan Adams.

  

• Don't use Matrix Metering. If you don't understand what I am saying, then it is time you take out your manual and look up on this. Matrix metering will work for many landscape shots but will mostly fail in concert shots where a small section is brightly lit and the rest are almost pitch-dark. Switch to Spot Metering and meter for the person whom you want to take (if you want to get the rockstar in focus).

  

• Obviously, Flash is useless. Ok, in some situations I am wrong. When you want to take a photo of yourself standing in front of the dimly-lit stage, you need to switch to the night-portrait mode or if you don't have one, manually enable the flash so that you are also well-lit. But, in other situations when you want to take the photo of a far-away rockstar on a stage, a flash is useless as it can light up, probably a few feet away from you. Worse still, if you have any object close to you, it will show up in your photograph in deathly-white. When i was in egypt, i had been to the sound-and-light show at the pyramids (first photo below). At that time, i had the "relatively ordinary" Nikon Coolpix 2500. I put in on a tripod, disabled the flash and let the camera decide its own exposure and I got pretty decent pictures. There were people around me pointing their cameras at the pyramids and shooting in auto mode with the flash. All they would have got is the chair in front of them with a white colouring!

  

Even if you follow these tips, you might not get it right the first time. So, practice a lot (another reason to move to Digital-SLR cameras) when the local artist comes on stage before the main act. Find the correct exposure (shutter speed/ISO) needed to get a decent image of the rockstar.

Hope you find these tips useful. Feel free to add more in the comments. Would also love to hear about your shooting experiences in music concerts.

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A trip to the Shipwreck near Limassol

The most famous shipwreck in Cyprus is the Xenobia Shipwreck. You can take a submarine trip to see the Xenobia Shipwreck. But, this post is not about this shipwreck. It is about another small one located very close to Limassol off the coast of Akrotiri village. Below is one photo of the wreck. If you want to see more photos, go over to the Cyprus Blog.

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Kelefos Bridge in Cyprus

Kelefos Bridge is a medieval/venetian bridge by the Kelefos river located in the mountains of Pafos in Cyprus. This is a very scenic place ideal for an afternoon picnic. I went there last weekend. It was terribly hot in Limassol. So, i was more than ready when Puneeth asked us to accompany him on a drive to the mountains. In fact, it was also drizzling a bit in troodos and the nearby mountains, something unheard of, in the cyprus summers.

I took lot of photographs including, for the first time, photos of crabs and some insects floating on the water. To see more photographs of this beautiful place, go to my post on the Cyprus Blog.

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Surf's up - It's Wednesday - Edition 3

Again, missed the Wednesday. Maybe, i ought to change it to "Surf's Up - It's Thursday"!

• World's Brainiest - An Interesting site for quizzers and also those who want to soak up a daily dose of General Knowledge. They have loads of quizzes with the quickfire quiz of 5 questions just right for a break from work.
• Create you own Comic Strip - A very innovative site where you can create your own comic strip customising hundreds of options. If you ever want to insert jokes or punchlines in any of your web pages or newsletters, this site will help you a great deal "visualising" it. Based on an email-forward i received, i created a comic strip. Click on the pic for a better-resolution image.

• Bethann Frillman Photography: Bethann is a professional black-and-white children's photographer. She is the wife of a former Bitsian Subodh Karnik. I came across this link from the latest BITSAA (BITS Alumni Association) Summer 2007 edition of Sandpaper Magazine. The photos are amazing and i have saved many of them into my "inspire" folder hoping that, someday, i shall be able to take photographs like hers.

That's it for this week. Enjoy Surfing.

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Surf's up - It's Wednesday - Edition 2

Okay, its thursday this time. I started this post yesterday, but couldn't find time to complete and post it.

• Make Faces! Make a Flash Face by choosing various components of a face like head, hair, eyebrows, eyes, nose etc. Look below at the face i created. Not exactly a masterpiece, but a piece of work nevertheless! Have hours of fun making faces.

• Ok Tata Bye Bye: I love travelling and one way to vicariously enjoy the pleasure of travelling is by reading travelogues and this site has got loads of them. I particularly liked the travelogue of the 32 day solo ride through Ladakh called Freya's Diary.
• Smashing Magazine: This site is truly smashing, to say the least. This has to be the one-stop shop for any one involved with any aspect of website design or anything artistic on the web. Enjoy this site. There are hundreds of informative articles.

Some of the articles on this site which i found to be well-compiled:

1. 50 Beautiful web-designs
2. Freebies: Icons and Buttons
3. 21 Fresh and Usable Wordpress Themes

That's it for this Wedbesday's edition. Enjoy Surfing!

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Bryan Adams concert in Limassol, Cyprus

We are going to the Bryan Adams concert, supposed to be the biggest ever concert staged in Cyprus. The concert is being held tonight at the Tsirion Stadium near the Limassol Highway. This is my first ever live concert. Vidhya tells me that she is a big fan of his music and there is no way we could have missed this concert. The only time i have listened to live music was during the Rock Shows back in Pilani. I have never survived the loud music for more than 15 minutes. Lets see how this concert turns out. Hope to take some photos. If i do manage, i shall post them early next week.

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Volleyball Collage using the Burst Mode in Nikon D-70

The Volleyball event is currently going on. After having been eliminated in the first round, i had nothing else to do but to take photographs. Below is a collage (Not exactly a collage, but a layering of different photos) of photos taken with the burst mode. I put 5 photos on top of each other in photoshop and deleted sections of the them such they give a continuous feeling to the action. Wish i had captured one more in the sequence where the person takes the service. Today is the final and I am going to attempt to take a long sequence.

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Dogs, no sex please!

Sign posted outside a bakery in Limassol, Cyprus

The Cypriots love their cats. They are all over the place. The cats even have a monastery for themselves called the Cat Monastery. But, the poor dogs, they don't even have the basic rights! God save them!

Surf's up - It's Wednesday - Edition 1

Usually many bloggers do their weekly round-up of interesting links on a Sunday. It is difficult for me to do the same, as Sunday is probably one of the busiest days of the week for me, as i try to spend as much time as possible outside the house savouring the creations of nature. So, i have decided to share the interesting finds of the week on a Wednesday!

1. Point Blank by Vikram Nandwani. In Vikram's words, "I am doing custom caricatures to try & raise money for a Community Conservation Project in Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra". His caricatures are funny and thought provoking. I have posted two of them below. Go over to his site for many more.


2. Photos of Kaipu(Poras Chaudhary). Digital Camera Magazine's Photographer of the year 2006 winner, Poras' photos are a cut above the rest. The richness of the colours in his compositions have to be seen to be believed.
3. California Coastline Photos. Aerial photographs of the entire coastline of California. If you are planning a trip/trek to any of the coastal beaches/areas, then the photos on this site will help you evaluate the place before you actually visit.

That's it for this Wednesday. Happy Surfing!

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Extremecy - Cyprus x-games

Extremecy event happened over the weekend in Limassol. It included all kinds of shows and competitions for bikers, skateboarders and people attempting anything else which normally sane people wouldn't attempt. I somehow forgot about this event, as i had also last year and ended up watching only the closing stages yesterday where some skateboarders were fooling around on the ramp. Below are some photographs taken by Puneeth who had been there earlier in the day.

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Shooting of the movie Boomerang in Cyprus

First of all, why would someone come to Cyprus and shoot a movie? Unless they wanted to commit financial suicide, of course. So, i was surprised when i heard that 90 people had come over from India for a month-long for the movie Boomerang, based on the famous movie Charlie's Angels. A similar movie, Three Roses, made in Tamil based on Charlie's Angels was a miserable flop. It seems that this movie is a 50-50 venture between a Cypriot Producer and an Indian one. Lets hope that this movie turns out to be good, as it would serve as an easy reference for me to show someone about Cyprus. This move doesn't have a hero and stars Amrita Arora, Kim Sharma (ex-girlfriend of Yuvraj) and leher (a relatively new face). Btw, it didn't surprise any of us that Yuvraj had dumped Kim Sharma, judging by the way she was throwing her weight around on the sets(as informed by friends!).

Amrita Arora had given an interview to Mid-day on her return from Cyprus. I have taken some sections from her interview. Have a good laugh!!!

• "Amrita says she went to Cyprus in Greece to shoot for Boomerang". I wonder what the Cypriot producer will feel after seeing this. According to Amrita, Cyprus is in Greece! Amazing geography!


• "The Cyprians are family-oriented people like us". Just because we are Indians, Cypriots don't become Cyprians!

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UPDATE : Yesterday (June 6th), i received polite comments/emails from the producer of this movie threatening me with legal action if i didn't remove the photos, as the dress the heroines wore were made from his money and they were copyrighted with him. So, i have removed all the original photos. I have erased from my memory that i ever went to watch the shooting. and what i have written below are just accounts of the shooting which i heard from friends. None of the images in this post are photos taken during the shooting. But, to replace the original images, i went back to alassa park few days later, took some snaps and then used some images of bikes and dune buggys from the Internet and then merged them using photoshop to convey the message. I had also taken a photo of Kim Sharma from the Internet, cut out the face and then superimposed it on one such photo. I hope that she was wearing her own lipstick. I don't want another producer threatening me for owning that lipstick!

I am preparing a replacement post so that i don't infringe on any copyrights. Visit this page again in a few days to see the updated post!

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Old habits die hard

Last weekend, we had the annual amdocs cricket tournament. Until last year, we used to play on a dusty school ground, but this year we shifted to a dried-up lake bed. In winter/spring, this becomes a salt lake and we have thousands of flamingos stopping here on the way to Africa. When the lake dries up, it becomes an ideal boundary-less ground for all kinds of sports. If Ravi Shastri had been here, he would have loved to try his key-into-the-pitch report here, for the key would have gone all the way in. Such is the moisture in the surface. A smooth and soft surface leads to a very even bounce and thus a good game of cricket. To make it even better, the teams in which i and vidhya played won the cup in the respective categories (Yes, we had women's cricket too!).

Anyway, back to the subject of habits, if you notice all the photos below, there is one common aspect which you should notice. No, not that i am in all of them, they are meant to be my pictures. One common thing which you should notice in all the pictures (apart from the grotesqueness of my face in the last one) is the way i am biting my tongue in the pics. This is a habit which has stuck with me for a long long time. I always do this when i am concentrating at any sport. I don't realise this and since many people ask me, no i don't feel it nor does it pain! The first photo is from last year's event (at the school ground) and I am at it then too. If you compare the first and the second photo (taken this year), I am surprised that i am amazingly consistent in my bowling action, right up to the position of the individual fingers on my hand!