Tulip Fest 2009

Recently we went to the Tulip festival at Thanksgiving gardens. We had to postpone our trip by a week as the bloomomoeter was only at 15% which means due to the recent snow the tulips were not in full bloom. When we went there a couple of days ago it really seemed like a good decision to postpone the trip. Below are few of the hundreds of shots that I was able to shoot.

The Easter Eggu Bau Hunt!!!

I dragged myself for an Easter Egg Hunt [Eggu Bau == Egg for Aarav] last Sunday, yes on a precious Sunday with Radhika and Aarav to one of our friend's backyard. Egg and Hunt somehow don't sound right to me juxtaposed. The Egg in Easter symbolizes birth or rebirth in most of the current and the past civilizations. Hence used to decorate. In the end it turned out pretty good mainly because of the awesome weather and the kids had a good time. There were some really animated sugar high toddlers running around the yard creating plenty of mess to clean up for later. Sundays do sound so precious nowadays, just feel like doing nothing, staying at home kind of a day.I don't know if its global warming or the earth just needing more precipitation, but can you believe that its still snowing heavily in April. Good for the ski resorts I guess. But not so much for us, who are waiting to burn our tires to long road trips in the summer, so much to see, so much to do, places to go, people to meet, and enjoy the summer in spite of the blistering heat... wow that had a rhyme to it. Last year the summer was a blast! 1 SUV, 2 Camping Trips, 3 Months of rollicking fun, 4 National Parks, 5 Lakes, 6 Families for the get together, simply priceless!!! Hope this summer is as good as the last if not better.

Painting with Light.

Light painting is one of the interesting subjects in photography. There is virtually no limit to what you can achieve with this technique. Remember the famous Sprint ad with people playing around in the park with lighted props? It does not consist of just illuminating your subject but goes beyond that. From just enhancing your composition to giving it a more creative look, various results can be achieved. And with the new Xsi, this was just the thing that I decided to try out.

All we need is a camera which is capable of taking shots using really long exposures, a tripod, a dark room and a flash light or a led torch. The sharper the focus of the flash light/torch, the more precise the results can be. The longer the exposure mode, the more you can get done on the shot. So here is what I did. Switched off the lights, set the exposure mode to 32, and clicked. Once the shutter is open, illuminate or paint the objects. I decided to use liquor bottles as they were a far better subject that anything opaque. The tip here is to not keep the flash light at one location for too long or the picture is burned. Hence plan ahead and keep on moving. Once the shutter closes, the shot is done and the lights can be switched on. I just had a single flash light here but if you have colored gel rings, then you can achieve a more colorful effect by changing the color of the flashlight intermittently. Below are few of the shots taken using this technique.

The Amazing Charlie Chaplin.

"I love walking in the rain because, nobody can see me crying."
- Charlie Chaplin

Such immortal words, what a fabulous artist, a great comedian who brought smiles to the faces of millions, but was sad and depressed from inside. Sometimes I wonder, are all clowns that way? Making people laugh is not easy, it requires an enormous amount of talent and spontaneity. Nowadays its all about funny dialogue delivery but this guy did not have those tools at that time. Or may be he did but he did not choose to use them; who knows. His movies were silent and his body language and expressions were all that he needed to make people laugh. I think that is a really special trait.

Did you know that there is a whole planet named after Charlie Chaplin? Such was the impact he had during the WWI and the great depression. His "The Kid" is one of my favorite movies. As a kid I used to watch almost all his shows on Doordarshan, yes as we call it DD1 or DD2. As I was going through and organizing my DVD collection I came across a movie of his, so I decided to watch if for a while and it was same as if I was watching it 20 years ago, simply timeless.