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Photography

An evening in Lalbagh

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.

Categories
Photography

Trip to Turahalli, Chudahalli, Agara and Begur

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.

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Photography

Trip to Horanadu, Kalasa, Kadambi Falls, Kudremukh and Hanumangundi falls

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 from Bangalore to Horanadu was mostly fine except for the last stretch. We took the following route to Horanadu: 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.



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Categories
Photography

Trip to Chitradurga, Chandravalli – Ankali Caves and Holalkere

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.



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Categories
Photography

Lalbagh Flower Show – August 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!

Categories
Photography

Trip to Gopalaswamy betta and BR hills

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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Categories
Photography

Early morning in Lalbagh

So as part of the weekend photoshoot series, I visited Lalbagh today.

Over the past several weeks I realized the importance of aperture in the photos and I felt that a full manual mode gives me a lot of control over my images when compared to any other modes. So my intention this time was to try the full manual mode.


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Photography

Trips to Ranganathittu, Varthur lake and Sankey Tank

Ever since I realized the limitations of my Canon PowerShot A630, I started hunting for a new camera.

My initial plan was to go for a Canon Powershot SX10IS; the 20x optical zoom for a camera worth 17k (US price) was too hard to believe. But I got a good deal for a second hand Canon Digital Rebel XTi (EOS 400D). I had no second thoughts when I got a Sigma 70-300mm Macro Telephoto Zoom Lens and a Velbon tripod along with the camera which came with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm lens.

In order to test the camera before buying, I planned a trip to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. Vinay, the guy who sold me the camera asked us to go early in the morning. So we left at around 4am from Bangalore and reached Ranganathittu around 7am.

Categories
Photography

Sankey tank – sunset

I had been to Sankey Tank today to experience the sunset and also click a few pictures.

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My Updates Photography

A very productive weekend

With 5 movies and a solo trip on my bike around Bangalore on the ring road, clearly, this is one of the most productive weekends ever! 🙂

Movies I watched:

  • Cast Away
  • Forrest Gump
  • Road to Perdition
  • Insomnia
  • Whole Nine Yards


And now about the trip:
I was bored. That is when this thought came to me that I could go round the city on the ring-road. I had planned a similar trip around the Mysore Ring road during Engineering, however the road was not yet complete.

So I started off at 3:25 pm from Indiranagar. I reached the Marathalli junction at around 3:45. My plan was to return to this exact same location and then return home.

Just to give you an idea of the route I took, here are some places I came across during my trip:

Marathalli, Sarjapur road, BTM ring road, Bannerghatta road, Deve Gowda petrol bunk, Kathriguppe, Pantar Palya, Bangalore University, RVCE, Kengeri, Papareddy Palya, Peenya, Tata tea, BEL circle, Hebbal fly-over, Devanahalli (had lost my way), back to Hebbal fly-over, Banasvadi junction, back to Marathalli.

I lost my way thrice during the trip. On one occasion I was on my way to Hyderabad. Little did I realize that I had taken the wrong way from Hebbal. It was only after I reached Devanahalli a good 25 km from Hebbal fly-over that I realized I had hopelessly lost my way!

After having travelled for about 150 km, for about 4 hours 15 minutes, I returned home safe and tired. Wow, that was a memorable journey!