Villagescapes

As the scene whizzed by I couldnt help but wonder why I found it so captivating? Rather than why, why suddenly? My eyes were glued to the glass windows marvelling the landscape strethcing out.... the interplay of colours kept me captivated.... innumerable shades of green, contrasting the skies blue, sometimes broken by bright red and pinks of bougenvillas or someother way side flowers. The golden coloured paddy, bright brown leaves of the neem, the blue mountains beyond. Adding to the joy of the trip we also chanced upon sunflower fields, delightful villages and ancient temple structures.

We were on our way from trichy to a picnic spot 'puliyamcholai' or tamarind grove. It had felt the same way the previous day as we had driven to kallanai (the clay dam built by karikala chozhan). I didnt know it then, but the drive the next day from mayavaram to chennai was just as beautiful.

3 days , 1000 kms on the road, and the highlight ( apart from ofcoure seeing my sis and grand mom) was the village side which i had never acknowledged consciously before. The guy in 'zen and the art of motorcycle maintanence' says 'biking' merges you with the landscape through which you are cruising. For once, drving down in a car made us feel that way.

Some of the sights that captivated me....

Art of Photography

A regular saturday ... a late morning, and after cursing my self over the state of my living mess while enjoying hot cup of filter kaapi, I roused myself to remove cobwebs that have settled aroud me. As I moved around cleaning, clearing and stacking away things, clothes, books, files I came across my camera carelessly tossed around in one corner of my shelf... where it was sitting waiting to be reclaim the almost fanatic love I once possesed for it and for the art of photography.

No, I have not given up on photography... I have not given up on my baby canon Sd 300 , the one for which I spent almost 2 month equivalent of net hours researching. But in a way I haven't advanced with it. I take photos, tons of them actually, take the time to edit some over picassa, but I wonder if I have advanced in my techniques at all.

I always thought that a good photographer is a person who can exactly reproduce what she sees with the naked eye and in her mind on film - the perfect contrast, the correct level of sharpness, highlighting certain objects in the field of view, and ofcourse ensuring every single object in view is presented beautifully. But in my case, many times my mind knows what I want out of a picture I am capturing, but it doesn't translate to the image on my LCD.

Does a pro take thousands of snaps and then filter her One Best? Or does she take one shot and knows that she got a master piece?

Does editing photos on picassa to get the effect add up to cheating?

What makes a photograph a good one - is it were you present a beautiful scene exactly as it is or you make people take a second look at what is actually a normal scene?

How does one look at a photo and exactly make out if it was the object captured or if it was the photographer???

A lot of questions as I dust my tiny equipment...and certainly a long road to tread till i get to pro status...High time I started finding the answers!

Ps: if anyone has any answers, please do let me know!!!

Burnt Sienna

As I walked down the 4th Main Road, Gandhi Nagar on a lazy sunday evening. I noticed this one tree laden with burnt sienna and pink leaves, a stand alone image of beautiful fall colours. By the time, I got around to taking the photo ofcourse, the leaves were more dry than alive. Still, this was the last photo i wanted to captue and post for the year 2006... and now its the first one for this year!