Watchful

Another picture of an Indian Garden Lizard. Sorry if you are getting tired of these.

I was fortunate to get this picture because the lizard soon ran off and I didn't see it again. This really surprised me because there weren't many place for it to hide and I checked every one of those places so either this lizard had the power of invisibility or I'm losing my skills (which isn't a good thing).

Been a crazy day today because my laptop crashed for no reason at all. It was perfectly fine when I shut it down last night but it won't come on today. I hope I get it fixed because I have assignments to finish and also pictures to process (that is the only place I have Photoshop installed).

Ah, well! Why should I bother you with all that? I just said that because if I don't get it fixed soon I might not be able to post for a while.

Tomorrow (1st May) is a holiday here but I have to study for exams. Haven't been able to take pictures lately but I'll do that as soon as Dad returns from his trip.

Take care.
Remember to backup your data. Thankfully my pictures are on copied onto two drives so unless both drives crash, I won't be losing any.

Standing In The Rain

Today's picture is also of an Indian Garden Lizard. These are quite common in this area so it is easy to get a good picture if one is fast enough because these lizards will run at the smallest sign of trouble and they are really fast. They can really hide when required. Also they can change their skin colour to a certain extent.

This particular picture was taken on a rainy day. No, the camera wasn't damaged because I had an umbrella over my head and since there was no wind it was easy to protect the camera. The "dust" that you see towards the left of the frame are actually rain drops.

Now I'll get back to boring college assignments.

Hope you had a great weekend :)

Look Before You Leap

Another picture of an Indian Garden Lizard. These creatures really are fun to photograph. So many different angles and poses. Sometimes you can get really close too but that is a rare thing.

I was actually photographing some birds when I saw this lizard in this weird pose. I always try and capture as many poses as I can and this was the first time I saw this particular pose so I couldn't stop myself from taking a picture.

The lizard stayed on this twig for a pretty long time afterwards. I don't know when it got off because I had to leave for school but it didn't seem affected but the numerous birds around it.

Quick Tip - Always get the eyes in focus. Most of the time if the eyes aren't in focus the picture isn't going to be a good one.

Hope you had a good weekend :)

Curvy

I do like shooting Indian Garden Lizards or Oriental Garden Lizard as they are also known. I specially like the red headed males.

You can often see these lizards basking in the sun. They try and stay in the sunlight. The climb walls even if they have shards of glass on them and they are pretty fast too.

Another interesting fact is that they dig holes in the ground where they lay their eggs and they will guard it. They can also break their tails to escape from a predator's grasp.

As for the red headed males, they do this to attract the females.

That's it for now. I'm not going to write too much.

Have a great day :)

A Job Well Done

Finally a change from flowers. Today's picture is of a bird - more specifically, the black drongo. Sounds cool doesn't it? I really like that name. It just sounds so very cool!

I love nesting season because you get too see so many different kinds of nests and birds. Birds are so very hard working and creative. They work tirelessly to prepare the perfect abode for their eggs and then the chick when the eggs hatch.

I really like the cup shaped nest that this bird builds. It builds it quite high too. Thankfully the SX30 IS has a whooping 35x zoom so that helped a lot. I would have loved to get a better angle though.

That's it for now.
Hope you have a great weekend :)

Get In There

Another flower picture. I hope you are not getting tired of these pictures.
This is another flower that bloomed on the same plant yesterday's picture.

I choose this particular caption because of the inset on the flower. Yes! There is an insect there if you look closely. It's a tiny green one. If you didn't notice it the first time, you are not alone. Most people who saw the image never noticed the insect until I pointed it out. This to me is a little strange because the green really stands out from the pink of the flower.

If you look at the labels that I've assigned to this post you'll notice that this picture was taken using Canon's latest superzoom camera - the PowerShot SX50 HS. This is a pretty good camera but it doesn't have a wide aperture and so you can't really get a shallow depth of field. So, how did I get such a shallow depth of field in this picture? One word - Photoshop. I used the "lens blur" filter. If this spoils the image in your opinion then I'm fine with that because everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I respect that as well. I think it made this look better. The background was already blurred but certain stems near the petals of the flower weren't as blurred as you see them now so I think the filter enabled the flower to really stand out. This is another tip so you can try it out on some of your pictures. Don't overdo the blur though because it WILL ruin the picture and make it seem unrealistic.

That's it for today. Hope you liked the picture and learned something as well.

Take care :)

Something to Look Forward To

My mom loves flowers so it's no surprise that there are a variety of flowers in the garden. Today's picture is similar to yesterday's in that this is also a picture of a flower from the garden.

I choose this particular title because of the picture. There are flowers in full bloom and then there is this bud that has almost bloomed. It seems like it looks at the other flowers in full bloom and looks forward to the hour when it will also be as beautiful as those flowers :)

I'm sorry I posted this a little later than I usually do.

Remember any and all questions are entertained. Any feedback is appreciated :)

Take care!

Center of Focus

I'll be honest and tell you that I couldn't come up with a better title for today's post.

This is one of the more common flowers here. Before you ask me what this flower is called I'll tell you that I don't know. I really need to do more research, that I admit.

Anyway I really like the way these flowers bloom and they do stay open for a relatively long time thus presenting tons of photo opportunities. I shot this in bright sunlight which most people will say is not ideal for photography but I think the results are good enough.

That's it for today. Not too long and boring.

Hope you had/have a great day :)

Hello There

Have you ever come across tree frogs? If you haven't let me give you a very brief description. These are amazing creatures. They have the ability to climb anything and can climb really high at times. I get quite a few of these frogs in my room from time to time and my room isn't on the ground floor.

I've found that at times it is quite difficult to capture these wonderful creatures. Most of the time they might stay still but sometimes they just won't co-operate and it make it very difficult to get a good picture. This particular frog was in no mood to have its picture taken and kept jumping about. Finally it stopped for a few seconds on this leaf and I was able to get a quick shot.

Be warned: do not get too close. I once saw one of these frogs eating a grasshopper that it had caught and I wanted to get a good close up of it. I got a little too close because it urinated on my foot. Can't blame the poor creature though because it was purely my fault. I had a good laugh about it afterwards though :) I hope it enjoyed it's dinner.

Hope you had a great weekend. It's back to college for me now.

Just Resting

We have a lot of  bees and wasps here where I live and I quite enjoy them. Until I got into photography I never realised that there were so many varieties. They are beautiful if you look close enough.

I don't really know what kind of a bee this is but I see it quite often here and I've always wanted to get a good picture of it. This particular picture if the best I've gotten of this little beauty and it amazed me. Right from the eyes to the furry legs.

Bees and wasps wander into our house quite often and often can't find their way out and I have to pick them up (not bare handed...for obvious reasons) and let the out and it does make me smile when I see them fly away. I've taken quite a few pictures of this bee when it has wandered in but I was never able to capture it properly in its natural environment until I got this picture.

We had recently erected a bamboo fence to prevent people from treading on the small bushes and I was really happy to see this bee perched on it. Thankfully I also had my camera in hand and was able to get this shot before it flew away. I've noticed it never stays for more than a few seconds in one place which makes it difficult to capture properly.

I've never been able to get this close to it again and I'm hoping that I will someday get an even better shot :)

I hope you had a great Sunday and a great weekend (it's Sunday evening here so the end of the weekend).
Back to college tomorrow.

Always Caring

I love that time of the year when the birds set about building nests. It's just beautiful. They work together in perfect harmony, never getting in each others' way yet doing the job really fast too. You know what's better than that? The time when the eggs hatch and you see and/or hear the little baby birds. That is just lovely!

I try and capture moments beautiful moments in nature - God's awesome creation. It does involve a LOT of waiting but that one perfect shot is definitely worth it all. This is one such shot.

You can see the mother (or father...I'm not quite sure) in the nest and you can also see the tip of the chick's (is that what all baby birds are called?) beak. I watched as the bird flew off to get food for the baby and watched as it fed the newly hatched bird.

Of course the nest was really high up so I couldn't really choose my angle but I'm still happy with what I was able to get. This is where superzoom cameras come in real handy ;)

It is also moments like these that remind me of how amazing God's creation is and also how amazing God is. For example this particular picture reminds me of how God's love never falters :)

Twirls of Smoke

A while back I decided to experiment with photographing smoke. I had just seen some pictures online and I didn't know how to go about it. I didn't have a external flash or some other source of light so I decided to use the built-in flash from an old camera as the "external flash".

I tried various angles and was finally successful in getting in right. I have a few tips for you if you are planning to photograph smoke but before we go into that here is a picture from that shoot.

Remember this is NOT a tutorial. These are a few basic tips. I may work on a tutorial when I am able to purchase an external flash.

1. The external flash should be at a 90 degree angle to your camera.

2. Use a black background.

3. Your shutter speed doesn't really matter when you are using a flash. I use a shutter speed of 5 seconds to capture the above image so if you are looking for proof, this is it.

That's it. It's very easy but super cool.

I must go now as my battery is about to die.

Take care and have a great weekend :)

Handstand

Another one from my Dragonfly series. It's not officially a "series" but I still like to call it that. It will be a proper series when I am able to get pictures of different kinds of dragonflies.

I like the red dragonflies partly because they are less common where I live.

This particular dragonfly was quite the one for poses. It kept shifting its pose every few seconds. With this pose it seems to be saying "Don't mind me, I'm just working out." This is the perfect handstand. It held this pose for quite sometime and I'm glad I was able to get a picture of it.

I'm working on another self-portrait which is again one that has been on my "Photography Bucket List" for quite some time now. Honestly I never liked taking my own picture and I didn't like someone else taking it either so these self-portraits are like a breakthrough :P

Well I really went off topic with that. Anyway hope you enjoyed today's post :)

Upside Down

A few years back a small child brought a few flowers to the primary school that my parents run for the local village children. Those flowers grow wild here and so no one really paid attention until that child walked up to my mom and asked her to look at the flowers. Lo and behold! My mom was surprised because there were some small yet really really beautiful insects on those flowers. She brought one of those insects home and I saw them when I got back from school. Unfortunately at that time I didn't know how to use a camera so I couldn't get a good picture.

I didn't see these insects for years. Last year I went out into the garden to shoot a few flowers and I was surprised to see this insect under this leaf. I was really excited because I hadn't seen it in a very long time. The sun had already set so level of light was very low and I had to use a relatively slow shutter speed and the insect kept moving so that made it difficult but I was able to get this shot of it just before it flew off.

The colours on these insects are really vibrant. Could you help me identify this beautiful insect?

How is the weather where you are? It's quite cool here. The sky is overcast but we had a really amazing sunset today. Sadly, my Dad is out of town so I don't have access to a camera.

Have a good day folks :)

Clear View

So I was cycling down this path and I came across these tiny little man made ponds. These ponds are bone dry during the winters but fill up during the monsoons. Fortunately we had heavy rains the previous day and the ponds were half-full.

I noticed this little branch that jutted above the surface of the water. I just loved the reflection too because it was so clear. I just couldn't help myself and I stopped right in the middle of the road to take this picture.

I think I've mentioned this before that people in this area act really weird specially when someone has a camera. So needless to say when I lifted the camera to my eye a lot of people stared staring at me as if I was doing some recon work or something or taking pictures that would later be used to hatch a sinister plot against them.

I got of there as fast as I could.

You may have noticed that most of my work is in colour. I don't usually convert pictures to black and white but there is something about reflections that really pop in black and white pictures.

That's it for today. Have a good one and thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I really appreciate that :)

I Am My Own Worst Enemy

Today's picture is another self portrait. I worked on this a while back and just though I'd share it today.

Have you ever been so angry with yourself that you want to hit yourself real hard? Sometimes I feel like that. That's when I got the idea for this picture.

It took a while to get the positioning correct so I hope you like it.

One of my friends said that the one to the left has a "wolverine" like pose. Maybe he is right. If he is then Wolverine has to be really really thin :P

BTW if you want to see more self portraits just click on the "Self Portraits" link which should be under the categories tab to the left.

Enjoy!

Hope you had a great day! :)

Flypaper Tutorial

Alright! Here is the video tutorial for the image titled Flypaper. I uploaded this video to my Youtube Channel a few days back so you can check out my Youtube Channel and watch the other videos there and subscribe for more.

If you want a text (written) tutorial for this do let me know and I'll work on it.

I lay me down to sleep

Today's picture is of the sunset. You might have already guessed that from the title of the blog post.

The clouds were really amazing that day and I rushed up to shoot the sunset. Quite frankly I didn't expect there to be a spectacular sunset because the sky had been overcast the entire day but by God's goodness it cleared up just before the sun dipped below the horizon.

Initially I concentrated on capturing as much of the sky as I could in one single shot because to me it looked like a fire. The dark clouds reminded me of smoke and the red clouds below that reminded me of the fire itself. Then I decided to zoom in a bit and I was pretty excited because this looked even better!

The devil IS in the details :P

I hope you had a great weekend :)

Nature's Helicopters

Yes! You guessed it. Today's post is going to be about dragonflies.

I like dragonflies. I think they are pretty cool and I just love the way they are able to fly straight forward, hover and do all sorts of mid-air tricks - it boggles my mind!

I don't see red dragonflies very often so I was pretty excited when I saw this one after a really long time. It was sitting on this wire and didn't really move for quite a while thus presenting a great photo opportunity. I had to climb up high just to get level with this dragonfly and had to extend the camera with my hands quite a bit. My arms were aching afterwards but it was worth it.

Have a nice one folks :)

Flower "Bouquet"

Pun intended. Really. I'm just kidding about it being a whole bouquet of flowers because there aren't any bouquets in today's picture - nope...not a single one.

Then why the misleading title, you ask? Well, only because the words bokeh and bouquet sound so much alike also because today's picture has the bokeh effect in it. I like that effect. I think it's cool. Did you know it's a Japanese word?

Speaking of bokeh. Did you also know that you can make your own custom bokeh shapes? It is pretty easy. You could search on Youtube for videos - there are plenty. It may sound complicated but it is really easy. You can actually use any black sheet of paper - doesn't have to be thick as most videos will make you believe. I could make a video on that if you want - I'd be happy to.

Any check out the video I just uploaded yesterday on Youtube. My channel is youtube.com/user/psandrodan11

Basking in the Sun

I am really glad that the place where I live isn't a concrete jungle. There are farms and even though they are small ones they do make the place look good. Unfortunately all this is changing and loads of people are moving here and constructing their houses here.

More houses means more electric cables as people obviously need electricity nowadays. One advantage of having wires is that birds tend to rest there. Unfortunately they might get electrocuted sometimes which is very very sad but when they do perch on these wires it provides a really good photo op.

I wandered out one day just as the sun was setting. There were no clouds in the sky so the sunset wasn't dramatic but I noticed this kingfisher on this wire. It kept looking towards the sun for some reason. It was as if it could tell time based on the sun's position in the sky and was just waiting to return home at an appointed time after a long day of fishing :D

It stayed there for a really long time and it was still there when I went away.

In case you haven't been following me on Facebook, Twitter and of course Google+ you may have missed my recent update. I just uploaded another tutorial on my Youtube channel. You can check it out :)

Feedback is always appreciated - any kind.

Simple Elegance

Today's picture was taken on one of my bicycle rides. I love reflections and I just couldn't help myself.

The egret looked so elegant and beautiful. I think it was after fish but I'm not sure it was able to catch any as it soon flew off.

I read a quote somewhere, don't really remember where, which said "Simple elegance is something to strive for."
I think that is a really good quote and really relevant for today's world. A world where people go to extremes to look good or to impress someone else. All of which is really unnecessary which is why I think we have a lot to learn for God's creation. We have so much to learn from nature. You never see these birds doing something to look better yet they always look really beautiful and are really elegant.

Right Past Me

You know that moment when you are studying and you can't seem to get anything into your head. You might understand what you are studying but about a minute or two later you've forgotten everything? Well that happens to me A LOT! It all seems to blow right past me. Truth be told I do get frustrated sometimes and what better way to get your mind off something frustrating than something that actually interests you, right? Right? For me photography was a way to rid myself of frustrations.

Today's picture is a conceptual self-portrait from an idea that popped into my head when I was studying.

I couldn't begin working on this for quite a few months because I didn't think I had the right equipment. Finally, I decided to forget about the equipment and just try and improvise. Lets just say that I was successful :D I know it might look like I used an external flash and other "professional" equipment but honestly I didn't.

Again, if you have questions do leave a comment below or get in touch with me via email or through some other website and I'll be happy to answer them :)

Anyway have a great day folks...

Brown Shrike

I discovered...ok! I didn't "discover" this bird so much as notice it.
I noticed this bird last year near the place where I live. Now, I love nature and when I see a new bird I can't get it off my head until I have take a good picture of it and have identified it. After the first sighting I didn't see it for a very very long time which made me wonder whether I would ever see it again.

Thankfully I did see it again...and again...and again and I never get tired of this bird. It looks so elegant and poised. It is beautiful :)

Here is another picture of a brown shrike in some bushes.

Sadly, the bushes were cut down an burnt a few days after this picture was taken and now no birds visit this place because they have no resting place and have lost their home :'( Apparently the owner of that plot of land plans on selling it so he got it cleared.

I seem to be the only one who is saddened by this loss of greenery. Are people blind to such beautiful creatures and nature in general? Why doesn't anyone care?

Harmony

So my mom got a few a plants from my grandmother's place and planted them. One plant in particular had loads of thorns on it but it still looked really really nice as it had quite a few colours. The thorns were reddish and the leave were obviously green.

I didn't expect it to flower so I was surprised when I noticed one flower on the plant. I didn't have the camera at that moment so I couldn't take a good picture of it. I thought it looked really pretty.

The next day (I think it was only one day) another flower appeared right next to the previous one and they looked so happy together :P

Here is the picture of the two flowers :)

Btw the first picture I uploaded yesterday went on to become a "Popular" picture on 500px. I didn't really expect that to happen. So thanks to all of you who liked, favourited and commented on that pic.

I'm A Pretty Flower

Spring brings all sorts of new colours into the world. Colours that had been missed for a very long time.

One thing that adds a massive variety of colours to the environment are flowers. Here is a picture of a flower in our garden.

Now, I'm always looking at finding new angles to photograph flowers and anything else. So here is another angle of the same flower. Let me know which one you like better.

Have you watched the movie "Rio"? I got today's title from there...well, sort of. There is a bird in that movie that keeps says "I'm a pretty bird. I'm a pretty bird." So I just modified that line into today's title :)

Update on the tutorial - I'll finish recording tomorrow I think and then the editing process begins.

UPDATE - The first picture went on to become a "Popular" picture on 500px. Thanks to you guys :)

Sun Bathing

I like dragonflies. Not that I don't like other creatures. I like all creatures but dragonflies are pretty common here and do provide great picture opportunities.

Like this little fella here just perched on a twig under the mid-day sun. So happy :)

A little tip for those of you who want to get close to these insects while photographing them. Don't make any sudden movements. Approach them slowly. I've noticed it helps when you approach them from the back or side and then move to the front. Dragonflies will stay perched for quite a while in one place so you can take your time. Even if it does fly away it will come back to the same spot so just wait for a few seconds.

That's it for now. I'll now get back to recording a tutorial so stay tuned for that. I'll let you know as soon as it is done :)

Take care.

I'm Not Here

Have you ever heard that an ostrich puts its head in the sand when a predator approaches? I'm sure you have also heard and read people use that as an example but I'm not here to do that. I'm here to share pictures ;)

It almost looks like they are kissing underwater :P

This picture reminded me of an ostrich. Of course the ducks were not trying to hide but it did remind me of ostrich-like behaviour hence the title of the post.

These ducks go for a swim every day. They have no other work anyway. All they have to do in life is eat, sleep, lay eggs and enjoy. They are not in any grave danger around these parts because no one really eats ducks here so they can let their guards down.

Here is another picture of a lone wolf...sorry duck. This one was swimming seperately for some reason. I hope the others didn't kick it out of the group. That would be just sad.

I'm working on a couple of videos so stay tuned. Editing is a difficult task specially when you have a slow computer.

Have a nice day folks :)

Pretty Flowers

First off I am really sorry for posting this late. If you read my post yesterday you'll know that I had an exam today so I got back late. By God's grace it went well. I had to walk home for half an hour because I couldn't get transport after getting off the bus in which I had been travelling for an hour. I was out the entire day because the examination center was far away so needless to say I am really tired.

Again, I apologise for the delayed upload and what better way to say "sorry" than flowers, right? So here are pictures of flowers.

These flowers grow on water kinda like a lotus. I haven't seen many of these but I was pretty excited when I saw these growing in a little pond which was an after effect of the heavy rains we had the day before I took this picture.

I wanted to get up close but there were buffaloes there and I don't know how to swim so I didn't dare go close.

Anyway that's it. Hope you have a great one :)

An Unruly Moustache

Cormorants are sometimes difficult to capture around these parts because there aren't many water bodies nearby. The only water bodies are dirty, shallow streams that are surrounded by plants so you can't really photograph anything that is in the water which can be sometimes disappointing.

Don't mind me...I'm just the one with the white moustache.

As I was cycling along this stream this cormorant jumped out of the stream and it looked like it had a weird moustache. Turns out it had caught a rather large fish. I say large because it is relatively rare to find a fish of this size in water bodies here.

Anyway it went on to thrash the fish in the air and finally swallowed it whole before jumping back into the stream and completely immersing itself in the water.

I hope it had a nice feast that day and I hope you eat well today and have a great day as well :)

Tomorrow's post might come a little late because I have an exam in the evening but I will put it up so stay tuned.
I'm also working on a tutorial where I will show you how I created my "Flypaper" picture. If you haven't seen that picture yet then scroll down to the "Blog Archive" widget towards the left of this blog and you'll find a post title "Flypaper". Check that out.

In case you missed it, I've added a new page to this blog called "Personal Favourites". You might want to visit that page as well.

Thee Little Birds

As I was returning home one day on my bicycle I was a little disappointed because I couldn't take a picture of what I wanted. There is this path in between two tea plantations that is just amazing and I wanted to take another picture of it but I couldn't because there were people there and they crowded the frame thus spoiling any picture I would take. On the way back I happened to look up and I saw this...

Three birds sitting on a wire...nothing special right? I agree that it is a pretty common scene anywhere but this just looked really perfect for a photograph because the sun was setting and it fell together in on straight line.

Those birds are black drongos. They are pitch black and have tails like a fish's but look really elegant. I like the name "drongo" too. Makes them seem like something right out of a wrestling roster - "The Black Drongo!" :P Here is a close-up of one of the birds.

My exams start on Wednesday so please forgive me if I'm not able to post on time. I'm also working a short tutorial because I feel I have neglected my Youtube Channel for far too long now.

Anyway take care :)