Archive for category Photography
Sunset at Sankey Tank
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on March 3rd, 2010
After spending an evening in Lalbagh, it was time to visit Sankey Tank. The sunset at Sankey Tank had amazed me the last time I was there in the evening. I did make a trip to the place early in the morning in May last year and although I had planned to click landscapes, I ended up using my telephoto to capture birds. So I had decided that I will visit the place again to click landscapes especially in the evening.
I reached the place around 5pm and had expected it to be the right time. It was quite sunny and hot until 6pm and I was not able to get good snaps as I was directly facing the sun. It was a clear bluish sky and I couldn’t see any interesting patterns in the sky. I was disappointed. There were hoards of pigeons near the entrance and it was quite a sight to see them fly but I didn’t manage to get a sharp snap of a pigeon in flight.
I waited until the sun descended behind the buildings and then managed to get a few snaps of the sunset with the reflection in the water.
One of the other reasons to go to Sankey Tank in the evening was to check out the musical fountain which was a recent addition to Sankey Tank. I was all prepared and I had taken my tripod with me. The show started around 7pm.
Although it wasn’t as good as I had expected it to be, I managed to get a few long exposures of the fountain and returned back content.
An evening in Lalbagh
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on February 28th, 2010
Lalbagh offers the perfect spot not only for families who want a spot for the weekend, but also for shutter-bugs who want a place to get inspired.
I had never visited the Lalbagh lake side after I bought my SLR so, since we didn’t have any major plans for this weekend, I thought I will see what I can get spending an evening beside the lake in Lalbagh. I wasn’t disappointed.
I started off with my wide angle clicking snaps of the trees. The sizes of some of these trees amazed me – huge would be an understatement. They seemed easily a 100 years old if not more. I felt bad considering that the government could be reckless in allowing the Metro Rail Corporation to acquire parts of Lalbagh and cut down trees in the name of development.
Anyway, politics apart, I continued along the walking path. Most benches were taken by couples and there were a few people walking/running along the path. There were a few feeding whatever they could to the ducks in the lake and a few others returning with boxes of grapes from the ‘Drakshi Mela (Grape fest)’. A few workers were on to their routines of cleaning up the place and watering the plants.
And then there were squirrels, which were half-alarmed by the humans, but half-curious to see what they can get. The dogs seemed to enjoy it too – and were playing beside the walking path.
I also got to see quite a few water birds. It seems strange that these birds are generally not visible to the casual visitor but if you have a camera in your hand you tend to spot quite a few of them. There were egrets, pond herons, ducks, mynas, kites and other birds that I don’t know the names of. There was a huge pelican too and it was quite a sight to see it fly.
I clicked a few snaps and waited until sunset and returned back home content with my visit.
Trek to Ettina Bhuja and Ombattu Gudda – The Experience
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on February 24th, 2010
It had been over a year since I did some major trek. The last one I did was to Kalawara Betta (Skandagiri) in Feb last year.
So when Manja asked me if I wanted to come for a trek to Ettina Bhuja and Ombattu Gudda, I was in 2 minds. On one hand, this is an opportunity not to miss. It had been a long time since I had gone on a trek and I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. On the other hand, both Ettina Bhuja and Ombattu Gudda are moderately tough treks and require the help of guides. In fact, Ombattu Gudda is known for people getting in and never coming back, and then being found unconscious. There have been incidents of snake bites, and people getting lost forever. In fact, most of the people who had come with us on the trip had gone to Ombattu Gudda just a couple of weeks back and had lost their way in the woods. Thankfully they found their way out to tell us the story. They said even the GPS was useless because of the dense vegetation. This time, not only were they planning to go again, but take an altogether different route which was seldom taken. Further, it was 2 treks in 2 days. To add to it, I was kind of busy with my office work and the fact that it had been a year since I did a trek made me a bit uncomfortable. It is in these situations where the decision that you take in the moment makes a difference. I decided to go.
Trip to Turahalli, Chudahalli, Agara and Begur
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on February 9th, 2010
About a couple of years back, when I had just finished the solo ring road trip, a thought came to my mind. I wanted to visit 100 unconventional places around Bangalore. I started creating a document with places around Bangalore, which soon became a list of places in Karnataka.
The recent trips are all from the list and this trip was one of them.
Trip to Horanadu, Kalasa and Kudremukh
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on January 30th, 2010
We went on a 3 day trip to Horanadu, Kalasa and Kudremukh from January 14th to 16th.
We started from Bangalore at around 5 in the morning. The route to Horanadu was mostly fine except for the last stretch. We took the following route: Bangalore (NH4) -> Nelamangala on to NH48 -> Kunigal -> Yediyur -> Channarayapatna -> Hassan -> continue on SH57 to Belur -> Chikmagalur -> Aldur -> Balehonnur -> Magundi -> Balehole -> Horanadu. The road from Magundi to Horanadu was not very good although it is very scenic. It is a stretch of about 40km.
You can very easily make out when you enter Chikmagalur district. The place becomes more green, you can see quite a few hills, lakes, areca nut trees, coffee plantations, and the air is cooler and pure. We clicked a few snaps on the way.
Trip to Chitradurga, Chandravalli and Holalkere
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on January 9th, 2010
Our first trip in 2010 was to Chitradurga. Chitradurga is about 200km from Bangalore and is quite hot in the summers so this is the best time to visit if you intend to.
We had done the required preparations for the trip – mapping out all the places that we intended to visit and the distances to each of them and the things that we had to carry.
We left Bangalore at 5am in the morning. Our plan was to reach Chitradurga by noon with a visit to Vanivilas Sagar Dam on the way. The road to Chitradurga is very good; it is part of the North South corridor. The driver of our car felt like we had paid the price (toll) to rip on the roads and he was treated to a wonderful road where he was easily reaching 120-150 kmph (the maximum speed of an Indica).
We visited Vanivilas Sagar Dam around 10:15. Vanivilas Sagar Dam, aka Mari Kanive, is the oldest dam in the state. I had been to the dam just a couple of months back and so I knew that there is a way to the top.
Steps to follow to get the right snap everytime
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on November 20th, 2009
I am a technologist. I try and identify patterns in anything I do and try to come up with a general abstraction that applies to the whole everytime. So it is with photography. Ever since I got a Canon Digital Rebel XTi
So here are the steps I have been following with full manual photography:
- Composition – Photography is an art. The most important aspect of a photo is the composition. We have seen how sometimes an image taken even with a point-and-shoot turns out to be better than the best of the DSLR’s. Composition is more important than you may think! So whenever you intend to click something, look at what you want to capture – move around to see what might be the best position from where to capture. Decide on horizontal or vertical orientation of the camera. What is the amount of noise (unwanted things in the image). Can it be reduced? Can the noise be made interesting? Think about what your image should look like before clicking – don’t leave it entirely upto the camera. Sometimes you may actually have to take a couple of snaps to see what it looks like, before you get the right shot but don’t that’s only for minor recorrections.
The composition determines the focal length – distance from your camera to the subject that you want to capture. We then look at the exposure triangle.
Read the rest of this entry »
Lalbagh Flower Show – August 2009
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on August 10th, 2009
One of the reasons why I visited Lalbagh in June was to make sure I know what it takes to click flower macros using a SLR. While I did get a few good snaps, I was in for a very different treat when I visited the flower show last Saturday.
The last time I visited the Lalbagh flower show was in January 2007, which meant I hadn’t been there for 2.5 years!
Selective editing using image decomposition and the threshold tool using GIMP
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on July 2nd, 2009
Have you seen photos where parts of the image are enhanced more than the others? Have you come across situations where color level editing over the entire image darkens some portions of the image so much that they become invisible or when you apply warmth to an image, some parts look artificial? If so, what you need is selective editing and this post covers how to use GIMP to do selective editing.
This post covers quite a few aspects of GIMP image editing:
- Image decomposition
- Quick mask
- Alpha channel
- Selective editing
Using this, we convert an image that looks like this:
to:
Trip to Gopalaswamy betta and BR hills
Posted by Gautham Pai in Photography on June 30th, 2009
We went to Himavad Gopalaswamy betta and B. R. hills last weekend. The main intention of the trip was photography.
We left Bangalore on Friday night and reached Mysore early morning. There were some adhoc changes to our plan; we were supposed to go to Mysore by train, but later realized that a car is going to cost the same and so hired a car in the last minute.
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Sankey tank - Sunset
Flower - Lalbagh
Sankey tank - Sunset
Horanadu Shree Annapoorneshwari Temple
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