Happy New Year

Here's to a better year ahead! Hope you all have the best year ever!
Happy New Year everyone! :)

In Memory

I just thought I would put up a picture that went with remembering stuff since this is the last day of the year.

This monument was built in memory of the brave soldiers who gave their life in battle.

As this year comes to a close I think we all have looked back at it and tried to remember every little detail. This has been a memorable year and I really can't thank God enough.

I must also thank all of you who have been visiting my blog and who have been part of my journey as a photography. Thank you for your encouragement and support.

Hope you had a great year and hope you have a great year ahead too :)

Have fun celebrating!

Surrounded By Light

So this is the second last day of the year. I honestly can't believe that an entire year has gone by so fast!

I would like to share one of my favourite light painting images. I've had this idea for quite a while but finally got round to creating it this year.

It was quite a challenge to balance the cards so I ended up using masking tape (not sure what it's actually called). I think I'll put up a tutorial on how to do this sometime next year.

The Rise

I'd almost forgotten that I had these pictures with me. Today was really cold which is kinda surprising because it was warm and sunny yesterday. The fog is thick and the mountains invisible.

This one is going to be added to my "The Tower On The Hill" series. I quite like this one because of the cloud that seems to be emanating from the tower itself.

I took this picture when I lost my way. Well not really lost because I know that area pretty well, it's just that I was supposed to meet a bunch of people who I thought were there but ended up being elsewhere. Not that they have magical powers or anything but they weren't specific as to where they would be.

Anyway the extra walk was worth it because I did get some really good pictures.

I almost forgot to mention that I will be releasing a "Best of 2013" slideshow during the first week of January on my Youtube channel so stay tuned for that.

Also I'm going to do my best to keep writing tutorials for this blog. The light painting tutorial I wrote (that's still there somewhere - click here) was well received so I plan to continue that. I might also start video tutorials again.

The Riverbed

We went out for a picnic a few days back and this is the view we had.

We couldn't go to our usual spot because a landslide had covered it up so we ended up going to the spot that the other people usually visit.

The Lights of Winter

I'm not much of a winter person. What I mean is I don't dislike the season per se. It's that it gets really cold and you have to wear so many layers that it kinda inhibits movement and doing stuff normally.

But there is one thing I just absolutely love about winter - the fog! Specifically how the lights look in the fog is just awesome.

Here is a quick picture I too today of the street outside my house. The different colours and then there is the light streak of a passing motorbike.

Follow The Path

Took this when we went to visit a few friends who live quite far away. This particular stretch of road was long and straight but full of potholes.

It was really tiring but worth it. The reason I'm saying that is because we went out for a picnic today and it was really tiring as well but fun. The place was beautiful and not too crowded.

Unfortunately I came back with a really bad headache which I can't seem to get rid of.

The Rolling Hills

On a recent trip we stopped at a place that had this amazing view. The last time I went there it was foggy and we couldn't even see more than a few feet in front of us but I did manage to get some good pictures. This picture was taken shortly after we reached this place.

You can see off into the distance at the never-ending hills. It is beautiful.

Getting rid of the lens flare was a pain. You can actually still see some artifacts there.

Hope you are all having great holidays :)

One Of The Last

This was one of the last beautiful sunsets we had here. Now it's overcast and foggy so we can't see the sun. It's cold too.

The last beautiful sunset we had was the yesterday but I couldn't take pictures of it because I was busy. Anyway this sunset was really amazing and it was sad to see that everyone didn't really seem to notice it.

I wonder what my life would be like if I didn't care for such things as amazing sunrises and sunsets, beauty in nature and just God's amazing creation in general. I hope I don't go down that path because it looks dull, gloomy and boring.

Hope you all have amazing holidays! :)

Steady Descent

This is one from my "Ball of Fire" series. Yes, I do have a series titled "Ball Of Fire" and I have been putting that in title in tags on certain blog posts.

Anyway enough of that. Getting this was a bit of a challenge really. First off was the bending down part - my back was aching by the time I was done. Then comes getting the positions correct. Getting everything to line up takes a lot of time.

But it's all worth it when you get a photograph you really like.

Heritage

Recently - maybe a few years back (so maybe not so recently) the toy train in Darjeeling was branded a National Heritage.

Which didn't really make much of a difference because it isn't maintained well anyway.

We were fortunate to catch the train as it switched engines. That smoke is from the steam engine that drives this train.

The Ring

So my sister recently got engaged and wanted some pictures of her ring. Now if you've been reading this blog for a while you know that I love light painting and so I decided to use light painting for that.

How often do you actually get a gorgeous ring to photograph? Not very. (At least in my case). So we had this bouquet of flowers at home and this one was the perfect fit.

I did a few with roses but this one was my favourite. It came out way better than what I'd expected.

Pink and Pretty

A day's break from landscape photographs  :D

Here is a pretty little pink flower that I saw a couple of weeks back. The was just one plant with pink flower - all the others had yellow flowers on them so these flowers really stood out.

Unfortunately they were all spread out and on uneven ground (it was a hill) so i couldn't really get them both in one picture but I was told they were all part of the same garden.

Fading Light

I'm going to get back into shooting timelapses. It can be tough to find a good location but that's something I'm working on right now. I don't have a camera with an intervalometer so I'm using CHDK. I'm guessing Canon users know what that is. If you don't I'd be happy to make a tutorial on that.

Anyway this is today's sunset. I tried to shoot a vertical panorama but it didn't come out perfect so had to fix a lot of things.

Photoshop's panorama feature hasn't failed me yet and I hope it never does.

The sunset was great today. It has been for the past couple of days and I hope it stays this way :)

Light Portrait

I had this idea a while back or doing a self-portrait with light painting but had to wait till I got some EL wire. Unfortunately you don't get that here and so I had to wait till someone was visiting from the UK and asked them to bring a pack.

Doing this was tricky. I had to first shoot just the light from the wire for the background and then put a torch behind me so that the camera would capture a silhouette. The torch was pretty powerful so it ended up getting a lot of light in the front as well.

Then I had to combine the two in Photoshop which is when I decided to take it a step further. I decided to make it look like a ghost of some sort. That's when I decided to do the red eyes and the hint of blue in the face - kinda like blue fire. It ended up reminding me of Ghost Rider :D

Anyway suggestions are always welcome :)

On a side note - I'm going to make a slight change to my posts on G+ since they think all my links to the blog are spam. I'll share each post as usual but will not be adding a link my posts as that gets flagged.

Also planning to revive my Youtube channel which I've been neglecting. It will start with a Best of 2013 video so stay tuned :)

Over The Edge

This is the first time I attempted stitching a panorama from RAW files. I usually just post process one and then apply it to the others, export them as jpegs and then stitch those. I've known about this method but never tried it before. It's basically the same - the only difference is that the files are bigger and you can get more out of the final panorama in post.

This method nearly crippled my computer so I don't think I'll be doing it again. I wish I had a more powerful computer that could handle this because I love doing it like this.

Anyway I walked right to the edge of the hill and took this panorama. The view was beautiful (as you can see). That's actually the border between India and Nepal.

I'm working on a few self-portraits with light painting now. Hope they come out ok.

Black Ibis

Yup, no cheesy title today. Just the name of the bird in today's picture - black ibis. Birds have really cool names!

I really like photographing birds but the bird population here has declined - that's probably because of the rapid rise in the number of new houses and buildings in this area.

It's sad but true. One afternoon I just happened to look out the window and imagine my surprise when I spotted these magnificent birds in the field. I didn't expect to ever see them again because they had been driven away by some people who apparently thought they were bad for this area. I have no idea how people get such weird ideas into their heads but somehow they do and the wildlife in this area has to suffer.

Reminds me of the time when a giant vulture landed on our roof. The entire village gathered outside our house and told us to kill it or drive it away because it was a bad bird that would kill us and whose feces was so toxic that it would literally burn though anything. I tried to stop them but I was just a little child and no one listens to children so I had to run and get my parents. They finally went away but some other boys came back with slingshots and started shooting at the bird. Before we could stop them the bird flew away and we never saw it again.

The reason I wrote that is because something similar happened to these beautiful black ibis. Some weirdo decided that these birds don't belong here and so every morning whenever they would alight on the fields some men (and women) would try and shoot them with slingshots and even set dogs on them.

I'm glad I got to see these birds again because I haven't seen them since.

Before The End

I was just going through my photo stream on Google+ and I realised that I've been sharing a landscape photograph almost every Sunday. Maybe I should just call it Landscape Sunday or something like that.

Well here is another landscape photograph. This one was taken last week a few minutes away from my house. Winter is here and so sunsets don't last very long. Those beautiful colours only last for about 15 minutes.

It's quite a challenge to get to the right place and then get the best pictures within that time. To get this picture I rushed home from class and grabbed the camera and went out into the field. The sun set less than a minute after this was taken.

This is a 3-shot HDR. I usually process them in Photomatix then bring the tonemapped image into Lightroom and see what I can do to make it better.

Hope you had a good weekend :)

Ready For Take Off

I can't remember when I last shared a picture of a dragonfly but it's been a while so here is one today.

These can sometimes be a real challenge to photograph and you have to go to great lengths to get a good shot but it's worth all the effort.

This dragonfly gave me a particularly difficult time. It wouldn't let me go near it and it just wouldn't stay still for more than a couple of seconds so by the time I'd framed my shot it would be somewhere else.

Finally I decided to just be very still and wait till it came and rested in front of the camera. I figured it wouldn't be very long since it kept moving around. It took a while but this is what I was able to get.

Stand Tall

A man recently told me that standing up to someone is the best option and always works. Now I agree with the fact that it is good to stand up for what for you believe in but what I don't agree with is his statement that it always work, because it doesn't. Taking a stand for something is great but don't always expect it to work like in the movies. Sorry for that, I just had to say it.

Anyway the reason I said that is because of today's picture. This particular plant has had to same flowers for months now and the flowers haven't shown any signs of fading. A storm knocked quite a few flower pots to the ground and even broke a few branches on a really tough tree but this plant seemed unfazed by it.

It's not kept in a flower pot and not given any special attention but it's strong - really strong!

A Memorial

Remember the picture of a path with shrubs on both sides? Well that leads up to this memorial
 in Darjeeling.

This is called Batasia Loop which you must visit if you come to this part of the world (Travel Tip :D )

Anyway everyone always takes pictures of this place so I wanted to take something a little different. There was no way of getting higher so I bent down, got close to the train tracks on the opposite end and grabbed this shot just as people started staring at me.

For some reason people always stare when I bend to to take a shot or when I'm at some awkward angle. It's very weird. When you go to a village with a camera it's only normal for the people there to stare but I don't get it when people with cameras in their own hands stare at someone trying to get a good, unique photograph.

Standing Out

It is important to stand out from the crowd at time and yet it is also important to blend it when necessary. Maintaining a balance can not only be tricky but also difficult.

Yup, I'm done with the philosophy stuff :P

This one was taken at a place on the way to Darjeeling (not sure of the exact name). It wasn't a village or anything. Just a lookout with this small bed of flowers near it. The flowers were beautiful (as you can probably tell).

This particular one caught my attention. Don't ask me why because I honestly don't know.

The Way Out

Just took this while walking home. Of course the iPhone 3GS doesn't capture images with a high dynamic range but thanks to Snapseed I was able to pull in a lot of details.

You should try the app if you haven't already. It's great 

Unsure

Titles can sometimes be strange. The reason I opt for weird/strange titles is because it gets people thinking and quite a few ask me for reasons.

So here is the reason behind today's title. This year has been unusually warm. One of the main reasons is because we've had perfectly clear skies.

Today, however, we had overcast weather and I didn't really know what to think. I hoped that it would clear but then I knew that clouds meant an epic sunset so I was unsure.

Sure enough, the sunset was epic but then I didn't know how to shoot it. I wanted to do something I hadn't done before so I went out for a walk into the fields to look for a way to hide all the buildings from view and just concentrate on the sunset.

Unfortunately that isn't really possible since houses are everywhere but it was a success nonetheless.

FYI this is processed from a single RAW file.

Dark And Light

On a recent visit to a hill station (seems like I say that a lot) the fog was thick and the clouds were dark. Not very dark but dark enough to tell us that it was going to rain.

We continued on till we came to a place with this view. Usually if it is clear you can see really far off into the distance and it is amazing.

Now I'm not saying that this in itself isn't beautiful because it is. What I mean is that, that is a different kind of beauty. One that amazes you. I think you'll have to see a picture to believe it.

The dark areas in the sky are clouds that were pretty low.

Guiding Light

This path was surprisingly isolated and we were the first ones there. The other people just stared at us as if we were criminals running off into the woods.

Soon after we walked down this path they followed us. Apparently they didn't know that we were allowed down this path.

Since it got crowded soon we turned right and walked up the hill following a tiny mud path. Those people watched us and then followed us. We gave up trying to find a quiet spot to rest because they followed us everywhere. So we turned back with quite a few good pictures.

Just Hanging

We saw these beautiful flower at a place called Batasia Loop in Darjeeling. That's a place that I've spoke of in one of my previous blog posts.

There are quite a few pictures from this place as it is really beautiful, specially when there are pretty flowers like this particular one.

Anyway the Auto Focus on the SX50 isn't particularly great when it comes to macro shots and even though I manually shifted the focus point it still didn't do a great job.

Sleepy Cat

This cat just wandered in when I was taking a few pictures of its owner at a Tibetan Refugee Center.

The lady was knitted some woolen caps and this cat just came there stared at her for a few minutes and probably decided that she was too busy to be disturbed.

It then went and lay down right in front of here and gave me a good opportunity :)

Bully

This is the picture I wanted to share yesterday. I like mixing things up a bit and of late I've been sharing quite a few landscape photographs - not that I don't like landscape photographs.

This is the Indian Bullfrog. It a big frog and my dog doesn't really like it but I think it's great.

If you remember I posted a picture a few months back of two eyes sticking out of a body of water. Well that was an Indian Bullfrog too. Not sure if it was the same as this but it was a bullfrog for sure.

Oh and recently I saw a Lesser Adjuant Stork in the field and it just poked its beak into the ground and pull out this massive frog, which I'm guessing was a bull frog. I did get a picture of it but it was too far off so is not really detailed.

The End

First off I must apologize because I wanted to share another picture today but my internet connection is acting up and it's not even letting me log in from my laptop.

So I'll be sharing an iPhone shot with you all. But it's not so bad after all as I quite like this shot from today.

Yellow Beauty

On a recent trip to a nearby hill-station we stopped at a watch-tower sort of place to take in the view. Although the fog was really thick and we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us, we weren't completely disappointed because of all the pretty flowers in that place.

While the others were busy trying to see how far off into the distance they could see, I decided to photograph there amazing flowers.

There were so many of them and they were just beautiful.

The SX50 HS isn't one for great bokeh so I had to improvise. After a few adjustment layers, I added the iris blur filter. If you don't have that in Photoshop then you should try out the lens blur filter.

Through The Foliage

Yup...another cheesy caption/title...I know. Kinda hit a block there with captions. Can't seem to come up with catchy non-cheesy ones.

Anyway back to the picture. I wouldn't have got this picture if I had lost my way. There was a football (soccer...for the others) match that I was supposed to by playing in and also take pictures when I wasn't and I didn't know where they'd gone to play.

I assumed they'd be at the usual place but when I got there they weren't there. Figuring I was too late to play anyway, I decided to take it slow and get some good landscape shots on the way to the place they were actually at.

I didn't get to play that day but I did get some good pictures.

Against The Setting Sun

Today was quite a good sunset. We had clouds after a very long time (the longest I can remember actually). I did get some cool pictures but that's for another day.

This picture is also from today just after the sun dipped below the clouds and just before it dipped below the horizon. It was definitely a sight to behold so I decided to take a short walk from home to see what I could get.

I would have loved to just go up to the terrace and take a few shots from there but these buildings get in the way now and ruin shots unfortunately so I had to go the fields. Unfortunately they've already harvested their crop so I just relied on the weeds growing there to provided for a interesting foreground subjects.

The Other Side

A while back I uploaded a picture of the front of my house. I think it's time people saw the view we have from the terrace.

It's amazing, I know but would you believe it if I told you that just two years ago there was not a single house in that direction. All that is new and I'm not sure I quite like it.

I know it's inevitable but we'll soon loose our view. We just lost out view of the sunrise and I'm afraid that withing the new few years we'll loose the sunset as well :(

The Sparkle

Bear with me for a bit because I'll be uploading quite a few pictures from our recent trip.

The sun was shining bright and warm that morning and that was more than welcome as it's getting cold so the warm sunlight is always welcome.

We were walking around this little man-made lake in a place called Mirik when I noticed the sun light sparkling on the water. It was beautiful...like something straight out of a poem :D

Missing A Piece

It's been a while since I last uploaded a picture of a dragonfly. One of the many reasons is that winter is coming and so we don't see dragonflies this time of the year.

Which is also why you'll see more landscape photographs from me now.

Anyway back to the dragonfly. This little beauty was having a feast that afternoon. It kept flying off and returning with something between it's feet and then eating that.

Somehow it managed to stay still for a minute which is when I was able to get close and take this photograph. I used the flash to darken the background. Unfortunately that caused a hard reflection in both its compound eyes. Note to self- build a diffuser for macro shots.

It was only when I was post processing this photograph that I noticed that it's right wing was torn.

The Path To History

So there is this war memorial at a place called Batasia Loop in Darjeeling and this the path that leads up to it. You can actually see the top of the memorial towards the bottom-right of the picture.

That's also where you'll get a great view of Kanchenjunga and also of the tiny little steam engine that operates in that area.

Little Wonder

If you'd pointed to this particular plant a month back and told me that it would flower soon I would have thought you'd gone bonkers because we've had it for many years without any flowers.

Surprisingly the day i decided to wander around the garden I came across this unassuming plant with these tiny flowers that were just stunning and I'm not in the least bit joking.

Dusty

So today was a tiring day. We went to a place about 3-4 hours away from where we live.

A nice place for sure but the roads were horrible. We were all sore by the time we reached back home.

High Alert

I came across this juvenile Oriental Garden Lizard and it was really shy. This meant that getting a picture was going to be a real challenge.

Surprisingly the more it tried to hide, the better photo opportunities it provided so that was really good.

I just thought I'd go with a lizard picture today as I hadn't uploaded one in a while.

Stay tuned for pictures from today. We went to Darjeeling and got some really nice pictures which I'll upload sometime soon - just as soon as I finish post-processing.

Shining Light

I really like these lamps. Whenever I see these lamps I always remember Bible verses.

Quite a few verses come to mind but on this particular occasion was Matthew 5:16 that says "Let your light so shine before me that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

Radiance

Got this picture just before the sun dipped behind the tree line.

The sunset was amazing that evening and instead of taking pictures of the football (soccer) match I'd gone to watch, I ended up taking more pictures of the sunset.

The lens flare came out quite well I think. Now I know a lot of people just hate lens flare but in this particular instance I actually like it.

Bed Of Flowers

We came across this bed of flowers and we just had to stop to take in the amazing view.

Of course the others where gazing at the mountains in the distance but I couldn't help but look down and take a few shots of these flowers.

They were just so pretty and there were hundreds of them. It was great!

Busy As A Bee

We'd gone sightseeing to a nearby hill-station called Darjeeling, perhaps you've heard of it or better still been there yourself.

There is this place where the "toy train" stops for a while and you can get a few good pictures. We didn't travel by train but we hoped we would be able to see it at the loop. The train, we were told, had left just a couple of minutes before we'd arrived there which was unfortunate.

Anyway what caught my eye was this lady there picking something off the sides of the wall (if you can call it that). She seemed like she'd been there for quite a while and so I wondered if she'd been working when the train passed behind here, which would have been dangerous, in my opinion. Then again, these people on the hills are sure-footed.

Clear View

Took this when I was bored in class. Honestly the only thing keeping me sane is this view. Thank God for this!

Rays Of Hope

This was taken a while back but today's amazing sunset reminded me of it.

From my previous blog post you'll know that the past few days have been cloudless so it was a bit of a surprise when we saw clouds today.

Frankly in winter I'd rather have a cloudless sky than a dramatic sunset.

Juxtaposition

Took this from the terrace one evening after the sun had set. The paddy fields against the background of the high-rise buildings made an interesting picture.

It's only a matter of time before these fields are gone and we have building instead.

Truth is, about 5 years back you wouldn't even see those electric poles. The buildings are taking over!

The Path To Follow

Another iPhone picture. This time of the road from out house to the main road.

One of the advantages of this clear weather is the colour in the sky at sunset. It's really beautiful. Like a gradient stretched across the sky.

Final Peek

I wanted to title this "wisps of darkness" but changed my mind. The reason I wanted to do that was because the branches look like a prefect holder for the red ball of fire.

Honestly, I've taken quite a few pictures of the sun just as it dips below the horizon but the colours that evening were just amazing.

We've had pretty good weather these past few days and that is probably why.

Evening Glow

These past few days have been great. The skies are clear and we can see the snow capped mountains in the distance.

As the sun sets you can see a gradient in the sky. It changes from an orange just above the horizon to a blue above your head.