Welcome to Pappu's world of Motography

Holi hai!!!!

2011-11-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while (more than a year)since I updated this blog. Not that I did not do any rides or did not take any pictures but it was sheer laziness that stopped me from updating my motography blog. I kept updating pictures on my facebook regularly but I was not moving my ass to type the travelogue for those pictures. Since my last post I sold my Honda vtx 1300 cc and bought a Triumph Sprint ST 1050cc. I already did couple of real long rides on them but the post that I am going to write is not a recent one. It happened in 2006 on the Holi day.

We had a holiday on the holi day. It was in the middle of the week so I decided to stay back in pune instead of running to Mumbai like every Friday. Wifey had been to USA on an assignment about a month back. I decided to sleep till afternoon but my colleagues had a different plan on their mind. One of them had bought a new bike about a month back. He was done with his running-in period and wanted to take his bike somewhere. He convinced couple of others too and finally everyone except me wanted to go somewhere. Being a lead of the team I did not want to break the enthu of the team (oh yes, that is one of the rare project where the lead was welcomed in extracurricular activities ;), so I decided to join too.

I suggested them to ride till Mangaon via Mulshi Tamhini and come back. We decided to meet at Chandni chowk in the morning. As usual I was the first person to reach there, but to my surprise everyone gathered within next 10-15 mins. Couple of them came without the helmet. I sent them back to get the helmet. Meanwhile we decided to have the breakfast and play chutkibhar sindoor holi there. After about an hour both of them came back with their helmets and we started our ride.

The ride while going towards tamhini was very good. We passed through the small yet beautiful towns of pirangut and Mulshi. Stopped at a few places to click pictures near the Mulshi lake.
When we reached tamhini ghat, everyone wanted to get their photos clicked in front of the awesome scenery of the ghat. They kept on passing one by one through different sections of the ghat and kept clicking the pictures.

I was feeling hungry so I wanted to go back and have something. We decided to drop Mangaon and head back home from Tamhini itself. Rest of the team was happy clicking pictures so we decided to break into two groups and meet at the restaurant in Paud. So four of us decided to go and reserve the table. Three of them were still not satisfied with the pictures and they decided to join us within 15 mins.
So we came to Paud. The restaurant (forgot the name) was full of colorful people. As the restaurant was full, we decided to wait for the remaining three. We waited for almost an hour but they didn’t come. Unfortunately the cell phone network was not good during those days so we couldn’t contact them. I started fearing for the worst. We had signals in Paud so I asked couple of them to wait there and find out the contact #s for local police and ambulance. I headed back with one of the colleague. I saw a big group gathered near a village between Mulshi and Paud. I was praying that my worst fear should not come true. I stopped and immediately went there. There was one bike standing in broken condition. The headlights were broken and there were some scratches on the bike. I recognized the bike. It was from our group and people were beating the rider. I immediately went there and tried stopping these people from beating him. I think I was the only person that time who knew the local language. Somehow I managed to calm them down.

Apparently they kept clicking pics for a long time. He was riding carefully through the village and kids were throwing the water balloons on him. To avoid getting hit from them he sped up and suddenly one little girl came in front of him. He managed to brake but he still hit her and she fell down. It was just a gentle push and the girl was fine without any scratch. However people saw this happening and gathered around him. They broke his bike and started beating him. That’s when I reached there. Luckily I reached there on time.

I started talking to the mob. Somehow I managed to calm them down. Now they were talking. I was shit scared. Now these people wanted money to treat her. Following was the rough conversation that I had.

One of the villagers (V): We need to take her to the doctor. Give us Rs. 5000 for that.

Me: but she looks fine. She doesn’t even have any scratches.

V: She got hit internally. She is feeling dizzy since the impact.
She looked scared but not dizzy in any way.

Me: In that case lets take her to the doctor together. I will bear all the expenses even if they are over Rs.5000.

V: Why do you want to waste your time on this? Give us the money and go. We will take care of it.

I wasn’t simply ready to give the money. For the matter of the fact that we did not have 5000 on us that time.

Me: No, that’s fine. I will come with you.

V: Today is holi. No clinic will be opened. Give us the money and we will take her to the doctor tomorrow.

Me: I don’t have that much of money. Let’s take her to some hospital in Pune that case. There I can pay by the card.

Now they started getting irritated.
V: Give the money and go otherwise we will break all the bikes.

Me: Look whatever has happened has happened. If you want to go to the doctor, I will come with you and pay for the entire treatment. You won’t get anything by breaking our bikes and beating us. If that happens then you won’t be able to treat her. Bla bla bla…

V: Then let’s call police.

Me: Fine. Let’s call police. If police comes, then they will take money from you and me too and still you wont get anything.

V: Give us whatever you have with you and go. Otherwise we will break your bikes.

We all got together. Since the girl was not injured and didn’t really need a treatment, there was no point in calling the police. We would have spent even more there. Also there was no point in getting our bikes broken. One was already broken. We decided to give them money. We gave them some Rs250 and left from there. Luckily there was no damage to the engine of the broken bike. It started and ran without any issue till home.

By the time we reached home it was 4 pm and I was very hungry. I ate lunner (lunch+dinner) together and slept at 5pm. I got up only on the next day to go to office.
Lessons learnt
1. Never ride on a holi day
2. Never argue with the locals
3. Never break the riding group unless it is absolutely necessary.

Bragging about the Fort Bragg ride!!!

2010-04-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

My darling motorcycle was angry with me and refused to start. Joy and I explored all possible blogs/forum about Honda VTX 1300 to go to the root cause. Tried all possible solutions like jump start, changing the spark plugs, push start etc etc but no luck. Finally Joy found that the vacuum line from the petcock had fallen off. We put it back and voila, it started again :) I think she was angry because I did not take her for ride during the week, so I decided to take her for a long ride on the weekend.

Joy/Priti and Piyush decided upon a place called, fort bragg around 200 miles from the bay area. We met at Joy's place on Saturday morning. Joy's friends Vaibhav/Pooja made awesome omlette and coffee for the breakfast. Unlike my earlier rides, this ride did not start at 6am so I was quite happy :) Finally we left home around 10:30 am. Vaibhav Pooja and their cute daughter Simi joined us in their car. Joy/Priti were on their honda Goldwing (1800cc), Piyush was on his honda VFR(800cc) and I was on my honda VTX 1300S (1300cc). It was a happy honda family :)

Ride on 101 was quite boring. Actually freeway rides are boring as there is nothing else to do than steering the handlebar. High speeds on freeway used to provide some thrill initially but not anymore. Now I was riding at 90 mph and not feeling anything. Because of the high speed riding, my spark plug compartment cover fell off and by the time I could ask the other riders to stop, we had already covered half a mile. Decided to ride like that.

Soon we ended our journey on 101. Had to take a lots of breaks due to the small capacity of my fuel tank :( I can go only about 150 miles on a full tank :( I was filling after every 70-80 miles as I wasnt sure if I ll find the gas station in ghat sections. We finished lunch and started our journey on twisties of hwy 128. Piyush decided to zoom past us and soon disappeared. We gathered at a point for a photoshoot. Here is the group shot taken. The earlier shot was taken at the same place.

After riding for about 240 miles we reached to the motel in fort bragg and checked in. The place did not appear great to me. Moreover Joy/Priti were not sure if she wanted to stay there, but finally we decided to check in there. The guy put a cross on $65/night and made it $45/night when Priti told him that the guy told $45 on phone when she had called previously:) Well even though there was nothing exciting in that motel, I still managed to find something interesting :) Here is the shot of the side stand of a harley davidson :)

We did go to the glass beach in the evening, but the only glass portion that we could find on the beach was in the form of a beer bottle. After a quick photoshoot we came back for dinner and crashed in our rooms. The rooms were quite comfortable but I still couldnt sleep, thanks to Joy's snoring machine :)

Next morning we decided to take a different route back home, but first it was time for some heavy breakfast. We hogged like anything and started back home. The new route was full of twisties. We rode for about 15-20 miles in the shade of tall pine trees. We stopped at a nice place for photoshoot. I checked for my tankbag to takeout the camera but it wasnt there. I had left it at the restaurant. :( Rather than going back on my bike I decided to go on twisty master Piyush's bike. Luckily I found back my camera in the restaurant but we wasted about 40 mins in the process of finding it :(

On our way back Vaibhav/Pooja decided to take the direct route home but we bikers decided to take different route to ride more :) On our way back we stopped at clear lake state park. After clear lake we swapped our bikes for next 60 miles till Napa. I was on 1800cc, Piyush was on 1300 cc and Joy was on 800 cc. We had fun riding each other's bike.

Ride after Napa was quite uneventful. There is nothing boring like riding motorcycle on freeway. Reached home about 8:30 pm.

I am yet to process the photos and dont know when I ll be able to do that as my laptop with photoshop is giving some problems :( Photo credit for these photos goes to Joy and Priti :)

Total distance covered was 525 miles over two days.

Pinnacles pinned down :)

2010-03-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

Pinnacles national monument was the venue decided by Joy and Priti. They were planning it on Saturday, but I had my carom practice session on Saturday. They decided to go on Sunday to accommodate me
It was decided to meet at their place at 7 am sharp, that means I needed to leave home at 6:15 am, that means getting up at 5:45 am at least, that means no sleep on weekend in short . I got up at 5:45 and exactly at 6:20 am left the house. I stopped at the gas station to fill up. I was filling up the gas and noticed that the gas tank was dusty. I had not washed her in a month . Suddenly petrol came out of the nozzle and tank. It had over flown at least by 0.5 gallon and washed the tank. It also washed the foot rest and some part of the engine. The nozzle did not stop automatically. Now I was too scared to start the engine. I got hold of a rough cloth and wiped every drop of the petrol. Waited for 10-15 mins to dry it. I was getting late, so decided to start it. I was still sh*t scared to start it. I prepared myself to jump off. Luckily nothing happened and I started cruising @90mph on 880. There was hardly anyone on the freeway. It was feeling like I had rented this freeway for myself for a day

I reached at Joy’s place at 7:15 am. One of their friend was supposed join us along with his family. We headed to his house. This person, Arup is an amazing photographer. For a change there were three people who were interested in photography and can go to any extent to get a good shot . We headed to Pinnacles around 8 am. Joy was leading the way, I was in between and Arup was following us in his van. After around 50 miles we took a break.

When we started again, Joy wanted to switch the bikes. He was kind enough to let me ride is goldwing aka airplane. Initially I was skeptical about its weight(450kgs) and its size, but then thought what the heck and decided to ride it. Mannn!!! it was an amazing experience. This was easily the best vehicle I had ever driven/ridden in past 11 yrs (before that I did not know driving/riding). It has amazing control over curves. It is much easier to ride compared to my 1300CC VTX. In-spite of having 1800CCs it is so silent that you can barely hear it. It has a reverse gear and a CD changer. Here is a beautiful picture of it.

After reaching the park, we had to park our bikes and van at the entrance as the parking near the trails was already full. Then we hiked about 2.5 miles, took lot of pictures. There were three camera enthu people so we stopped at every possible opportunity. I won't bore you by writing what we did there, instead just look at these pictures.

Ride back home was quite uneventful. Rode back home with couple of photoshoot stops. Here is one of the interesting shot on our way back. I know we should have removed our helmets but that's a big PITA. Need to remove the gloves, keep them somewhere, need to unbuckle the helmet, keep it somewhere, remove the skull cap keep it somewhere and while going repeat all that process again. Removing the entire gear just for the couple of shots is next to impossible. Now I know why Joy and Priti had their helmets on in most of the shots of their 30 days coast to coast and back trip :)

The total distance covered home to home was 220 miles. Here is the link to the other photographs of the trip. I will add the photographs as and when I process them :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pappupp/sets/72157623611887987/

Life at 150kmph

2010-03-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

Got up early on Saturday to cheer for Mumbai Indians. Rajasthan Royal and Kolkata Night Rider match was in progress. I got a ping from Joy about the Goldwinger's meet in next couple of hours. I was in double mind, whether to watch Sachin Tendulkar's batting or go for a ride. Sachin hit Stein for 3 consecutive boundaries and that made my choice more difficult, but Sachin himself made my choice easy by getting out soon :)

Wore my gear and got ready. Wifey was still sleeping, told her that I was going to leave the house for good and she said ok :) Started the motorcycle and zoooomed to the meeting venue. Parked my Honda VTX 1300 cc in between two 1800 cc goldwings. It was looking very tiny.

Joy and Priti were already there. After a brief round of introduction, we headed towards the Mt. Hamilton. The group was full of enthu people. Almost all goldwings were equipped with a CD changer and a GPS. Few of them had radio communicators integrated within the helmets. A lady called Susan had the most colorful goldwing on the planet earth. Here is her photo with her motorcycle. Kiran, now that's what I call a car on two wheels :)

It was an amazing sight to watch 10-12 goldwings crusing at almost 100 mph in staggered formation in a lane. I decided to stay in my limit and followed them at 90-95mph. Cars in our lane were making a way for us. After riding for about 10 miles on freeway, we started riding in mountains. That reminded me my Pune-Mumbai-Goa ride. The twisties were similar to Kashedi and Parshuram ghat. I had a lot of fun taking those turns on my 300+ kg motorcycle.

After about 25-30 miles, our leader stopped. We took a quick photo-break. There were a few horses around. Goldwingers started feeding the horses.

It was a funny sight to see the owners of 120 horsepower feeding 4 horses and 1 horse power was smiling :)

We started again. The road was getting narrower and there was a lot of loose gravel on the road. Everyone was crusing at 25-30 mph now. We rode for 25 more miles in the mountain. It was quite a beautiful sight to watch 10 riders taking turns in a line in front of you. We stopped near a restaurant. It was my first time to answer the nature's call with riding gear on. I unzipped my riding pants and started searchin for you know what;) Then realized that I need to unzip one more layer :)

I was wearing the bikenomads t-shirt (which was very tight for me). This photograph is for you my bikenomad friends :)

Joy and I started early from there to shoot the other bikers. We stopped at a place and clicked the bikers.

After riding for about 65 miles we reached at the top of mt. Hamilton. Clicked a group shot. Joy and I decided to part from the group to do some more photography.

Here are the some more photos from the trip
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pappupp/sets/72157623660591012/

The total ride for me was about 115 miles with over 80 miles in the mountains.

P.S. Even thought the previous post said last post, I decided to add posts related to my rides here, hope you enjoy it :)

Pitaare se!!!!

2009-06-10T18:41:00.000-07:00

When I dont have anything to post, I post from my Pitaare se :) These pics are taken @ Bushkill falls, PA :)

Location: Bushkill Falls, PA
Camera: Nikon D80

Grand Canyon Waste!!!

2009-05-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

Nope, thats not a typo. Grand Canyon West was a wasted trip. Perhaps this is the one place that I ve seen in USA where you can get cheated in broad daylight and that too officially. First of all the approach road of 14 miles to the canyon has nothing but the stones and sand. The car runs on the road as if it is running on the snow. In fact, we saw a car skidding. Luckily no one was injured. Then the parking lot is 2-3 miles away from the canyon. From there you need to take their bus for which they charge almost $50 per head (just for to and fro 4 miles). This is mandatory. The food is expensive. The helicopter ride (10 mins), boat ride and back will make your pocket lighter by $180. Thankfully it is optional. To go on the skywalk you need another $30. You can not carry your own camera and need to pay extra $20 to have your picture taken by them. In short, one photograph on the skywalk will cost you $100. There are no safety railings at the cliff. You can go till the edge of the cliff. It is too dangerous.
We reached there in the afternoon. The landscape was overexposed. They had native red indian dance show and red indian village nearby. Here are some photographs taken @ Grand Canyon West.

Location: Grand Canyon West, Arizona
Camera: Nikon D80

Murde ki Jaan khatare mein!!!!

2009-04-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

Well not trying to make fun of all those dead people with the title but wanted to give some chatpataa one to this post.

The initial plan was to visit Yosemite early in the morning but couldn't make it due to some reasons. I was too restless and wanted to click something. I pinged Joy and he was ready to accompany me. The initial plan was to have lunch in Annapurna restaurant and head towards SF for some street photography. While driving to SF, Joy suggested to visit Golden Gate Cemetery. I agreed.

We parked our car and started shooting. I liked this place (but I m in no hurry to go their permanently :)). I can shoot for hours at this place. There are so many permutations and combinations possible of those headstones to capture in the camera. You are sure of getting good pictures in any weather.

Here are some of the snaps that clicked that day.

BTW Chan, here is an life element as per your request. ZINDAA HOO MAIN...;)

Location: Golden Gate Cemetery, San Bruno, CA

Camera: Nikon D80

Berkley Botanical Garden and bird photography

2009-04-07T17:54:00.000-07:00

I knew that I was bad at macro photography (not that I am any better now) and wanted to improve my macro photography skills, so when Prakash asked me to join him at Berkley Botanical Garden, I decided to join him. Also I wanted to use the new tripod too :)

I got up at 6:45 am (that too on Sunday) and got ready. We reached the garden at 8:45 am and waited for the garden to open. It opens at 9:00 am. I was feeling sleepy. I wished I could have slept for those 15 mins at home. There are lots of phool paudhe in the garden. They have put a description for each phool paudha. In fact many places just the description was there but no phool paudha:)

It was quite disappointing trip though as there weren't lots of greenary and did not get any photographs the way I wanted them. Here are some of them.

This post was in saved state for a long time. I had been to Stevens Canyon Creek park in Cupertino for capturing a few birds in my lens after that. I did not get a good shot that time. Finally found this jodi on my patio only :)

Location: Berkley Botanical Garden and my patio, CA

Camera: Nikon D80

Pitaare se- Part II

2009-03-24T19:37:00.001-07:00

Continuous rains on weekends kept me away from the camera this month. Here are some of from my khajana :) Hoping to click some in the fool's month :) These are some of the pics taken during my first motorcycle trip in USA to halfmoon bay and Baker's beach.

BTW I am quite excited about my $200 tripod. Should be getting it soon :) I must exploit it to recover every penny spent on it :)
Location: Half moon bay, CA
Camera: Nikon D80

The Ghost Town!!!!

2009-03-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

A.k.a Bodie. W.S. Bodie discovered gold here back in 1859. Over the years, Bodie has seen numerous booms...and busts. There were some huge gold strikes here and, at one point, the town had nearly 10,000 residents. By 1882 though, the big strikes were mostly history and the folks began to go elsewhere. Gunshots and stabbing were everyday story. Check out the bullet marks

Today Bodie is one of the largest and best preserved ghost towns in the West. Over 170 buildings remain and what the California Department of Parks and Recreations calls a state of "arrested decay." It is, without a doubt, a photographer's paradise.

I first saw the photographs of bodie on Prakash's blog (http://passanha.com/home/gallery/Bodie/) when I was in India and I knew I had to capture this in my camera someday. I bought my SLR after coming to USA and I knew where to use it. It had to be Bodie. Nobody was interested in joining me. I was determined to go alone, but finally my wife, Neha, Sumit and Shivank decided to join me:) We hired an Impala LT, one of the worst cars ever. It did not even touch 90mph even after standing on the accelerator, But the decision turned out to be a good one when we hit the Bodie road. Actually there was no road at all. In fact in most rural parts of India there are better roads than this one. Had I brought my car here, I would not have forgiven myself for torturing it. BTW checkout the famous Bodie car.

Everybody was tired. We reached here in the afternoon around lunch time to find there is nothing to eat. Everyone was cursing me and I was in no mood to pay attention to them. I was seeing paradise in front of me. I immediately assembled my lenses and here are some of the pictures of the ghost town including a group picture (dont laugh at my shades) :)

Location: Bodie state historic park

Camera: Nikon D80

Gaadi bula rahi hai !!!!!!!

2009-02-16T22:10:00.000-08:00

I am too fascinated with the trains. I have travelled a lot in aamchi mumbai local trains, sometime standing at the train door hanging in there with just one finger and one toe (yes I am still alive :)). I always wanted to click train photographs but did not get any opportunity. Finally when I was exploring fremont, I found this Sunol-Nile tourist train. I decided to hop on it. When I enquired at their information centre (0.5 miles away from the train station), the train was about to leave. I told them that I want to get on the train. They immediately called the guard of the train over walkie-talkie and asked to hold on. I went to the station and parked my car right next to the train. The train was waiting just for me. As soon as I boarded the train, it moved. Woww, I loved that VVIP treatement :) Here are a couple of snaps of the train and the track.

There is one more steam train that I explored last Sunday, but it was raining cats and dogs so couldnt click good pictures. Here is one of the few shots. I hope to revisit the place on a bright Californian day and post part II of Gaadi bula rahi hai :)

Location: For the first two snaps, Sunol railway station, CA
For the last snap, Felton steam train station, CA
Camera: Nikon D80.

Take a look at my flickr stream for some additional pictures when you click on the images here.

Show me the way!!

2009-02-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

Finally I got the muhurta for my next photoshoot and this time I wasnt alone. Joy and Suyash were with me. We wanted to shoot some lighthouse at night. Joy finalized on pigeon point lighthouse.

We reached there around 5 pm. The weather was just perfect. We were happy about it, but we were so wrong. Soon it turned into bone chilling winter weather. My hands were freezing. I couldnt operate the tripod because of that and finally broke it :( And it was not even night yet! I was worried about the night shoot. Joy offered to share his tripod :)

Finally it was dark and we were waiting for the lighthouse to show us the way (basically to light up). waiting... waiting.... waiting.... and we found out that there wont be any light :( We learnt that they only turned on the lights on special occassions.

Here are some of the snaps from our photoshoot. I wish there was light to show me the way :(

Location: Pigeon point lighthouse, Hwy 1, California
Camera: Nikon D80

Pitaare se!!!!

2009-01-29T17:40:00.000-08:00

I could not click the snaps recently, so did not have anything to post. At the same time I did not want my blog to be a dead blog. Solution? Posting photos from my khajana :)

Following image was the first image from my Nikon d80. My wife thought I ve gone mad coz I was alone in dark bedroom with this candle lit and struggling to click this one with my (new) camera on tripod.

The next one was clicked somewhere in half moon bay.

This one was clicked near sausalito

Lake Elizabeth Explored!!!

2009-01-10T12:54:00.000-08:00

My photographic eye was itching for the past few days, however making exclusive photography trips to popular destinations was not an affordable option (that too in this recession). I decided to explore the areas around Fremont. I finalized on lake Elizabeth which was just 2 miles from my place.

Joy suggested that I try early morning photography. I got up at 6:30 am for this photoshoot to take advantage of early morning light (that too on Saturday where my usual wake time is somewhere around 12-1:00 pm). I really could not catch the early morning light though :-(

Lake Elizabeth is a beautiful place with a 3 mile jogging trail around the lake. It also has boating facility near the lake. This place is a treat for bird watchers (both 'flying' and 'jogging' birds ;))

Here are some of the photographs from this photo shoot. The first one below is of (flying) birds bathing on the shore. Sorry I am not really into watching flying birds so dont know their category:(

The second one is the reflection of the grass in the water (too informative, isnt it? :))

The next two are of people who are into fitness world. The bunch of chinki people were practising some kind of martial arts. I think it is 'Tai chi' based on my limited knowledge about martial arts. I was surprised to see only chinki people practising that, but when I went near I understood the reason for the same. The music and instructions were in their languague :)

Location: Lake Elizabeth, Fremont, CA
Camera: Nikon D80

Happy New Year!!!!

2009-01-01T13:20:00.001-08:00

Wish you all a very happy new year. I did not make any plans for the new year eve, but for sure I did not want to spend time at home. Wify wasnt ready to go out because of the possibility of rowdy public spoiling the fun. Finally I succefully managed to blackmail her emotionally and she was ready to go out :) We decided to head towards San Francisco. We took BART to reach SF. I was disappointed to see the wire fence along the shore which was 8 ft high. Finally I found a best place to set my tripod. Already 4-5 other photographers had put their tripods. Mine was the smallest tripod and the smallest camera around :(

Exactly at 12:00 am, the fireworks started. I tried my best to capture them but could not manage to click good ones :( I suck at fireworks photography big time. Anyways, these are some of the snaps clicked by me. May be I ll try once again on 4th July :)

Camera: Nikon D80
Place: San Francisco, Howard st,

Before and after!!!!!

2008-12-18T17:16:00.000-08:00

The title is about making the photographs look better and not about the results of loosing 50 pounds in a week. The two images above are the two versions of the same photograph. The second one looks better. The first image is the as-is image from the camera.

I just did the basic adjustments of brightness, contrast and saturation on the as-is image. That is called "applying make-up" to the photograph in photographer pappu's terminology.

I use Photoshop to do the same; however there are many other free tools are available. If your computer is running windows then it will probably have Microsoft office picture manager. Just open the image and play with different values of contrast, brightness and saturation till you are satisfied. Just make sure that your photograph doesn’t look unreal. Many more things are possible with Photoshop and you can turn an ordinary photograph into an extraordinary one.

Some people say that they like virgin images without any make up. Well, no one is virgin in this world, life screws everyone (I know a bit out of context, but felt like using it :)). Decide whether to live with the virgin boring images or turn them into WOWW ones. The choice is yours!!!

Camera: Nikon D80
Location: San Francisco Sky line

Golden grass and golden sunset

2008-12-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

The first one was clicked near 17 mile drive. People kept coming in between the lens and the object. When people werent there, my wife kept coming in between to disturb me. Finally I got what I wanted. I clicked three four shots from different angles.

The second one was clicked on the way to Vegas from LA. My wife clicked this one when I was driving. I am putting it on my blog (Copyright permissionss??? who cares!!! she says her money her money, my money her money. On similar lines I say my photos my photos, her photos my photos :) It was a different sunset angle and wasnt easy for her to focus from the running car, yet she managed to click this beauty. I wish the mirrors were cleaned properly though :(

चंदामामा!!!!!

2008-11-14T19:39:00.000-08:00

On the occasion of the Tiranga painted impact probe landing successfully on the lunar surface, I remembered one of the moon photograph that I had clicked in 2005. I decided to post it here.

Never imagined an Indian impact probe would land somewhere on that pic! It is the same moon that causes low/high tides and it is the same moon on which countless bollywood songs are written (chandamama so gaye, dum bhar jo edhar muh fere, dheere dheere chal, khoya khoya chand etc )

Clicking this snap was not easy. That was the first time I was experimenting with shutter speed and exposure compensation seriously. I had to struggle for half an hour before I got this one. Today I wish, I had not used the digital zoom :(

Camera: Minolta Dimage Z1

Location: Sky :)

The Running Train

2008-11-11T17:20:00.001-08:00

This is my first black and white post on the blog (The original pic was not B&W, I photoshopped it ). Many people have asked me about the way I clicked this pic without getting hit by the train. The first thing is that it is not an oncoming train, it was going away from the camera and the second thing is that I used the zoom lens. So even if it was an oncoming train, it would not have hit me.

This was one of the early images from my Nikon D80. I was very eager to click something with the camera, so we decided to head to Martinez to click something. Finally ended up clicking a few shots of Amtrak trains. I was not particularly happy with the original image, but after cropping a bit, modifying colors and making it B&W, I started liking it. Here is the final one.

Location: Martinez Amtrak station
Camera: Nikon D80
Click on the image for the best results.

Manhattan!!!!

2008-10-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

No tripod, heavy camera, intention of using the shutter speed of 6-8 seconds and the expectations of a steady, unshaken, sharp and beautiful picture. Howz that possible? Well that's when the outdoor dining tables came to my help. But the life wasn't simpler after that. Even though I got a steady surface but the angle wasn't covering the buildings. I was running out of ideas and suddenly I put my hands in my pocket. I found the lens caps there. I used them as packing to adjust the angle. Finally I could manage to get the proper angle and the result is in front of you :)

Location : Manhattan, NY

Camera: Nikon D80

Oregon fall 2008

2008-10-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

I always wanted to see the fall colors. I missed the opportunity in 2001 when just before fall I returned to India from Canada. In 2006 I landed in California but the state of California is not known for the bright fall colors. The nearest decent place for seeing the fall colors is the Oregon state. In 2007, we made plans to go to Oregon but for some reasons they were cancelled. 2008 plans were also following the footsteps of 2007 plan but I was determined to go this year. If required, I was ready to go alone.
Finally, Abhishek and Pranav decided to join me and we headed towards Portland, OR in my car. We left Fremont, CA on Friday evening and came on Monday early morning. These are some of the pics clicked in Oregon. Some quick facts on the trip:

Places Visited : Portland, Columbia river gorge, Mt. Hood river, Bend, Sea of lava, Scenic Hwy 126, McKenzie river, Oregon coast.

Total distance covered: 1771.2 miles = 2850.47 kms (Drove alone)

Camera used: Nikon D80

वो शाम कुछ अजीब थी !!!

2008-10-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

It was a winter evening, the sun had just set and the colors were spread all over the sky. Yes, they are natural colors, no photoshopping. Sometimes point n shoot cameras produce results that are better than a SLR. The only challenge in clicking the photograph was the low temperatures and chilly wind. That’s true, even though there was fire in the sky, the temperature was freezing. The location was Lake Tahoe that attracts tourists in all weather. Before I could click this one, I had to click many trial ones adjusting the shutter speed and exposure compensation in that cold weather. Finally I managed to strike the balance and the result is in front of you.
Location: S Lake Tahoe Camera: Canon powershot S3 IS

Son of a.....

2008-10-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

Do I need to write more??? ......

Taken with my mobile Motorola VE20

I feel I can fly

2008-09-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

There is a beautiful drive which is about 10-15 kms along the coast between Harihareshwar and Dive agar with a lots of photography opportunities।

My wife conceived the idea of this photograph and she wanted to click the photograph of me in that pose. Knowing the history of screwing good photographs of me because of the poses that could give a complex to Kishan Kumar (‘aaj hi hamne badle hai kapde, aaj hi hum nahaye hue hai’ fame in case you don’t know him) or Himalaya (Husband of Bhagyashree), I decided to stay behind the camera and asked her to become the model. The colors in the background were just perfect. This silhouette is the result of a great idea, the beautiful background, the perfect pose (and the perfect photography). However I do not have the high resolution picture of this one, else I would have surely enlarged and framed it.
Location: Somewhere between Harihareshwar & Dive agar, Maharashtra Camera: Minolta Dimage Z1

Ice Ice Baby!!!

2008-09-08T19:25:00.000-07:00

“At the count of three, you throw the snow into the air and I’ll capture it in the frame...” That’s what I told Sheetal before clicking this snap. Sounds so simple! Isn’t it? In reality, it was not that simple. Clicking exactly at the precise time in that cold weather was a challenge. Sometimes I clicked before she threw the snow and sometimes I clicked when the snow landed back on the ground.

Finally when I managed to hit the perfect timing, there were two a**holes in the background clicking the snap which I could not see from the viewfinder. We were not in a position to repeat the exercise again as it was freezing cold and both of us were standing in knee high snow. (Burrrrr...).

I could have photoshopped them but that was a very tedious task so I decided against it. Here is the result of our combined efforts.

Location: S Lake Tahoe, CA, USA

Camera: Canon powershot S3 IS

Click on the image for the best results.

Iron Butt Bikenomads

2008-09-08T19:16:00.000-07:00

That’s what bikenomad (a biking group in India) riders are called who manage to cover 1000 kms plus in 24 hrs on the bike. Well, the riders in these photographs and I are yet to achieve that milestone, but we are proud to be a part of such a fantabulous (Thanks to Suresh Wadkar ji for this word) group which has many iron butts within the group.

The first photograph is of nomad Capt. Nandu Chitnis on his first long bike ride from Pune to Goa. I was his riding partner for initial 100 kms before returning back home. I clicked this near Tamhini ghat near Mulshi. Well the photograph isn’t great from the photography point of view, but the effect that I gave in Photoshop is cool isn’t it?

The second photograph is of nomad Suyash (well he is young, in his early twenties) during a group ride to local destination Tamhini ghat near Mulshi (about 100 kms from Pune, bikenomads consider rides under 100kms as local rides). I like this photograph because of its composition and the beautiful background.

The sad part is I do not have the high-resolution original images of these photographs :-(

Location (both photos): Tamhani ghat, near Mulshi, Pune India

Camera: Minolta Dimage Z1

Click on the image for the best results.

Chi Chi....

2008-09-04T22:27:00.000-07:00

The title chi chi has no connection with Govinda. The testing was successful so decided to put my first post immediately. This photograph is very close to my heart. One fine day when we came back from the grocery store, we saw that this squirrel was posing on the bark. I had grocery bags in my hand instead of a camera. I cursed myself for not carrying the camera. My wife encouraged me to run and get the camera. I was not at all hopeful that I could click this picture as it involved climbing two floors, opening the camera, fixing the lens, run down two floors and click the snap. Inspite of that I did all that and to my surprise this squirrel was still there waiting to get clicked. It gave me 7-8 good snaps before running away and this one is best of the lot.

Thanks to my wife for encouraging me to get the camera and like an obedient husband I listened to her (as always). Both of us decided to name this squirrel Chi Chi :)

Location: Walnut Creek, CA

Camera: Nikon D80