The Cyprus Carnival Parade

The Annual carnival a big affair in Cyprus. It happens over a fortnight in Spring and ends with a long parade on the main road in Limassol, Makarios Avenue. The parade is a visual spectacle and is a good opportunity for photographers looking for colorful subjects!

For more photos from the carnival, check out the post on the Cyprus Blog.

Fun in the snow on Troodos

First trip to troodos this winter and it was great fun! It was too crowded, but we persisted and managed to find a parking place. Then, it was the usual dose of fooling around on the snow. This time, it was not just restricted to the sliding, but also a bit of target practice, reaching for the snowball with a kick!

See more pictures of even more crazy antics (and even a video) on the Cyprus Blog.

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Up, close and personal - Animal Photography

There are many who argue that collecting money to allow people to hold/pose with animals in zoos and other establishments is an unethical act. I have a divided opinion on this. Major zoos which advertise such things do collect the money for conservation purposes.

I also feel that allowing such interactions would help people understand the animals further thus increasing their love for them. I have tried using this line with Vidhya whenever there is an opportunity to hold snakes, but she has been relentless in her campaign of not allowing me to pose with snakes.

I am posting below all our "encounters" in different parts of the world. I love animals, i love photographing them. But the best thing is to be close to them and feel their wildness.

The next few photos are from our Singapore trip (which i am yet to write about). The first one is a with a California Seal taken after the "Splash Show" at the Singapore Zoo. For some reason, i was scared and my expression in the photo turned out to be a little silly!

That's me and my mom feeding the lories at the "Lory Loft" at the Jurong Bird Park. This was an excellent enclosure where the birds (hundreds of them) were flying around freely and you could feed them (some liquid). The ones Vidhya was feeding were more interested in her watch rather than the drink. One even landed on my dad's shoulder and he was more than happy to accommodate it.

The next photo is from Dubai. When you go for a Desert Safari which includes dune-bashing, your starting point would be a place where people can watch many "native" animals and interact with them. Unfortunately Vidhya's cousin, who was taking the photographs, took some time to understand the nuancies of a Digital SLR and many photos didn't turn out ok. But, he has improved a lot now and he is as good as any other amateur i know.

Thailand was one of the best vacation spots i have been to. We spent a month there and we had lot of fun. The photos are from a place called "Safari World" which is around an hours drive from Bangkok and a place in Pattaya called "Crocodile Park".

Like the bird in Jurong Bird park, this one too was very interested in the watch Vidhya was wearing.

The one below is called our "Family Snap" by my dad! The Orangutans were extremely friendly, sometime too friendly to feel comfortable.

The biggest tiger i have ever seen, it was trained to let out a huge roar whenever someone sits next to it for a photograph. The bear looks like it is showing the namaste sign, but it is actually holding a banana in its hands.

Vidhya at her bravest! Don't know what came over her, she readily volunteered to go over and take photographs with the elephant. Only the first photograph was part of the "posing plan". The second and the third were not informed to us at all and Vidhya, though appearing to be smiling" was shaking for quite some time after. The elephant, without any warning, lifted her with its trunk and Vidhya had to request the mahout to ask the elephant to put her down.

Saved the best for the last. The photos below seem to unnerve anyone who sees it, even us! Don't know whether , given an option, we would pose once again with a croccodile.

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Bird's-eye View

I have posted the below photo for possible inclusion in the JPG magazine for the theme "Bird's-eye View". In case you haven't heard of this magazine, check it out. JPG magazine is an excellent photo magazine which is made up entirely of contributions by amateur photographers. They also give away pdf versions of all issues of the magazines for free.

The photo was taken from a plane just before landing at Heathrow. Luckily, our plane had to wait in queue before landing hence treating us to beautiful aerial views of London. If you want to see more photos of London, vist the London page for lots of photos from our one week vacation in London.

Fun with sparklers during Diwali

The money i decided to buy crackers with wouldn't get me much more than a few packets of sparklers. Thankfully, it was Vidhya's brother's "thalai-Deepavali" (First Diwali after marriage) and he had purchased umpteen crackers to blast.

But, I had decided to put the sparklers i bought to good use, though i wasted many in the process. We tried many long exposure photographs using the sparklers. The one below was for a duration of 10 seconds, but it took few photos to get the J's orientation right.

Next, the duration was changed to 20 seconds and i tried to write Vidhya's and my name. I just managed it before the sparkler finished, though it was tough getting the H and Y right.

We did try a lot other tricks too, the heart shape being the most common attempt for any long exposure "light" snaps. The next one was done using the "sattai" or the rope which emits a streak of fire when lit at one end.

Diwali was fun. The view from the terrace was awesome. The photo below gives an idea of the number of rockets which can be seen at any instant.

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Dreaming about you

We had a photo competition here in amdocs (the results are not yet out) and one of the categories was "dreams". I did a lot of research on the net for an idea and one of the photographs which i found (actually on a photoshop site) was that of a guy appearing transparent in a photograph titled dreamy. I liked the concept and wanted to get something similar done without photoshop, as the competition had strict guidelines about the use of photoshop. Vidhya came up with the idea of "Dreaming about you" wherein she is seated appearing to be asleep and i appear in the photograph like a ghost which will give the indication that she is dreaming.

This is the final photograph which we came up with ...

Of course, many questioned the validity of this photo, as it looked "pretty obviously" a photoshopped one! But, this is the photo straight out of the camera (converted to black and white). So, here are the steps to duplicate this photo

• This was taken in a totally dark room (absolutely dark)
• The camera was put in Shutter-Priority mode i.e. a mode where you can control the shutter speed and the camera handles everything else.
• I used a shutter speed of 10 seconds. This can be anything based on the effect you want.
• When the room is dark, Vidhya goes and sits on the sofa. Then, i click the shutter-release button (basically, take the photograph).
• Then, a light (preferably a powerful one located such that it doesnt put Vidhya in a shadow) is switched on for a fraction of a second and immediately switched off. Because of this action, the room (including Vidhya) are exposed on the camera.
• Then, i go into the frame, position myself. Then, the light is switched on and off (like the first time).
• Here is the logic behind the photo: Since i and the background behind me got exposed during the 2 times the light was on, i appear to be transparent in the photograph.
• Few things to get this photo right: Vidhya had to be dead-still during the 10 seconds. Otherwise, her changed position would get exposed when the light is switched on the second time. Get a background which can covey the transparency well.

We took a lot of attempts to get this right. First, Vidhya was not happy with my position in the photograph and complained a lot about my posing skills. Then, we moved around the props in the room till we were satisfied with the overall composition.

Sometimes the switching-on-and-off action was too fast resulting in a dark picture. In other cases, the switching on happened a little earlier than expected resulting in my movements getting exposed in the photograph.

At one point i got bored with the same pose i was giving and we wanted a different look to the picture. Lokesh and Sarvesh posed for us and it turned out to be a great photograph. We wanted to submit this photograph calling it "Nightmare". It was a tough call for us deciding which one to submit for the competition.

This technique can be used to produce some very interesting pictures if you think out-of-the-box! Look at the picture below where Lokesh posed and then i went into the scene with a keychain light and drew the horns on him.

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How big are the stars and the planets in the Universe?

I got this interesting email-forward today showing the sizes of the planets in the Solar System compared with the Sun and other stars. We are indeed small and negligible compared to the other occupants of our universe.

Arcturus is third brightest star in the night sky after Sirius and Canopus. Pollux is also one of the brightest star. Antares (below) is the 16th brightest star in the night sky. Betelgeuse(below) is the ninth brightest star.

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6 tips to take great photographs at music concerts

The Bryan Adams concert here in Limassol was my first music concert ever. So, it is obvious that it was my first ever attempt at taking photographs at one. Prior to this, i had attempted to take photographs of musicians on dimly-lit stages during the various festivals which happen here in Cyprus and needless to say, the outcomes were not so good. So, this time, i did a lot of ground work and i was happy with the photographs of the concert. So, i decided to pen down few tips which might help anyone take good photographs at such concerts.

• Avoid using Compact Cameras, the point and shoot type. They are slow to start up, slow between photographs and have a shutter-lag. Even the latest point and shoot cameras suffer from these drawbacks. If you want good photographs, go the SLR way. Better still, go for a digital SLR so that you can immediately check whether the photo you captured is good enough for your liking.
• Use High ISO. Most of the concerts would have sections of the stage well-lit, but the rest of the area would be dark. There will always be some kind of a spotlight on the artistes on stage. But this light is not enough to get a good exposure. So, use a higher ISO to get a good picture in spite of the little light. Avoid ISO 1600 as it can get too grainy. But, take many practice shots to get the exposure you like. A high ISO would help you get photographs like the one below where you can see the lights from the all the mobile phone cameras in use.

  

• Use Shutter Priority Mode. I have had good success with Shutter Priority mode on many low-lit situations. You can customise the shutter speed based on your capability to hold the camera still. Using the program mode will make the camera try to get the best possible picture and in most cases (for concerts), the shutter will be opens for many seconds! Override this and use shutter priority. The Big Ben photo below was shot from a running open-top bus. I used a shutter speed of around 1/20s (don't remember exactly) and ISO 1200.

  

• Use a Zoom Lens, unless you are a good friend of the rockstar and manage to get a seat on the stage. Of course, not having a zoom lens would give a different perspective of the concert like the first photo below. I carried both the 18-70 and the 70-300 lenses with me and i switched them from time to time to take different views. From the first photo, you can kind-of guess where i was seated - far away from the stages and yet, with the zoom lens (and some cropping), I managed to get some decent close-ups of Bryan Adams.

  

• Don't use Matrix Metering. If you don't understand what I am saying, then it is time you take out your manual and look up on this. Matrix metering will work for many landscape shots but will mostly fail in concert shots where a small section is brightly lit and the rest are almost pitch-dark. Switch to Spot Metering and meter for the person whom you want to take (if you want to get the rockstar in focus).

  

• Obviously, Flash is useless. Ok, in some situations I am wrong. When you want to take a photo of yourself standing in front of the dimly-lit stage, you need to switch to the night-portrait mode or if you don't have one, manually enable the flash so that you are also well-lit. But, in other situations when you want to take the photo of a far-away rockstar on a stage, a flash is useless as it can light up, probably a few feet away from you. Worse still, if you have any object close to you, it will show up in your photograph in deathly-white. When i was in egypt, i had been to the sound-and-light show at the pyramids (first photo below). At that time, i had the "relatively ordinary" Nikon Coolpix 2500. I put in on a tripod, disabled the flash and let the camera decide its own exposure and I got pretty decent pictures. There were people around me pointing their cameras at the pyramids and shooting in auto mode with the flash. All they would have got is the chair in front of them with a white colouring!

  

Even if you follow these tips, you might not get it right the first time. So, practice a lot (another reason to move to Digital-SLR cameras) when the local artist comes on stage before the main act. Find the correct exposure (shutter speed/ISO) needed to get a decent image of the rockstar.

Hope you find these tips useful. Feel free to add more in the comments. Would also love to hear about your shooting experiences in music concerts.

Technorati Tags: music concerts rock concerts bryan adams photography low light photo digital SLR

A trip to the Shipwreck near Limassol

The most famous shipwreck in Cyprus is the Xenobia Shipwreck. You can take a submarine trip to see the Xenobia Shipwreck. But, this post is not about this shipwreck. It is about another small one located very close to Limassol off the coast of Akrotiri village. Below is one photo of the wreck. If you want to see more photos, go over to the Cyprus Blog.

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Kelefos Bridge in Cyprus

Kelefos Bridge is a medieval/venetian bridge by the Kelefos river located in the mountains of Pafos in Cyprus. This is a very scenic place ideal for an afternoon picnic. I went there last weekend. It was terribly hot in Limassol. So, i was more than ready when Puneeth asked us to accompany him on a drive to the mountains. In fact, it was also drizzling a bit in troodos and the nearby mountains, something unheard of, in the cyprus summers.

I took lot of photographs including, for the first time, photos of crabs and some insects floating on the water. To see more photographs of this beautiful place, go to my post on the Cyprus Blog.

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Surf's up - It's Wednesday - Edition 3

Again, missed the Wednesday. Maybe, i ought to change it to "Surf's Up - It's Thursday"!

• World's Brainiest - An Interesting site for quizzers and also those who want to soak up a daily dose of General Knowledge. They have loads of quizzes with the quickfire quiz of 5 questions just right for a break from work.
• Create you own Comic Strip - A very innovative site where you can create your own comic strip customising hundreds of options. If you ever want to insert jokes or punchlines in any of your web pages or newsletters, this site will help you a great deal "visualising" it. Based on an email-forward i received, i created a comic strip. Click on the pic for a better-resolution image.

• Bethann Frillman Photography: Bethann is a professional black-and-white children's photographer. She is the wife of a former Bitsian Subodh Karnik. I came across this link from the latest BITSAA (BITS Alumni Association) Summer 2007 edition of Sandpaper Magazine. The photos are amazing and i have saved many of them into my "inspire" folder hoping that, someday, i shall be able to take photographs like hers.

That's it for this week. Enjoy Surfing.

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Surf's up - It's Wednesday - Edition 2

Okay, its thursday this time. I started this post yesterday, but couldn't find time to complete and post it.

• Make Faces! Make a Flash Face by choosing various components of a face like head, hair, eyebrows, eyes, nose etc. Look below at the face i created. Not exactly a masterpiece, but a piece of work nevertheless! Have hours of fun making faces.

• Ok Tata Bye Bye: I love travelling and one way to vicariously enjoy the pleasure of travelling is by reading travelogues and this site has got loads of them. I particularly liked the travelogue of the 32 day solo ride through Ladakh called Freya's Diary.
• Smashing Magazine: This site is truly smashing, to say the least. This has to be the one-stop shop for any one involved with any aspect of website design or anything artistic on the web. Enjoy this site. There are hundreds of informative articles.

Some of the articles on this site which i found to be well-compiled:

1. 50 Beautiful web-designs
2. Freebies: Icons and Buttons
3. 21 Fresh and Usable Wordpress Themes

That's it for this Wedbesday's edition. Enjoy Surfing!

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Bryan Adams concert in Limassol, Cyprus

We are going to the Bryan Adams concert, supposed to be the biggest ever concert staged in Cyprus. The concert is being held tonight at the Tsirion Stadium near the Limassol Highway. This is my first ever live concert. Vidhya tells me that she is a big fan of his music and there is no way we could have missed this concert. The only time i have listened to live music was during the Rock Shows back in Pilani. I have never survived the loud music for more than 15 minutes. Lets see how this concert turns out. Hope to take some photos. If i do manage, i shall post them early next week.

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Volleyball Collage using the Burst Mode in Nikon D-70

The Volleyball event is currently going on. After having been eliminated in the first round, i had nothing else to do but to take photographs. Below is a collage (Not exactly a collage, but a layering of different photos) of photos taken with the burst mode. I put 5 photos on top of each other in photoshop and deleted sections of the them such they give a continuous feeling to the action. Wish i had captured one more in the sequence where the person takes the service. Today is the final and I am going to attempt to take a long sequence.

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Dogs, no sex please!

Sign posted outside a bakery in Limassol, Cyprus

The Cypriots love their cats. They are all over the place. The cats even have a monastery for themselves called the Cat Monastery. But, the poor dogs, they don't even have the basic rights! God save them!

Surf's up - It's Wednesday - Edition 1

Usually many bloggers do their weekly round-up of interesting links on a Sunday. It is difficult for me to do the same, as Sunday is probably one of the busiest days of the week for me, as i try to spend as much time as possible outside the house savouring the creations of nature. So, i have decided to share the interesting finds of the week on a Wednesday!

1. Point Blank by Vikram Nandwani. In Vikram's words, "I am doing custom caricatures to try & raise money for a Community Conservation Project in Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra". His caricatures are funny and thought provoking. I have posted two of them below. Go over to his site for many more.


2. Photos of Kaipu(Poras Chaudhary). Digital Camera Magazine's Photographer of the year 2006 winner, Poras' photos are a cut above the rest. The richness of the colours in his compositions have to be seen to be believed.
3. California Coastline Photos. Aerial photographs of the entire coastline of California. If you are planning a trip/trek to any of the coastal beaches/areas, then the photos on this site will help you evaluate the place before you actually visit.

That's it for this Wednesday. Happy Surfing!

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Extremecy - Cyprus x-games

Extremecy event happened over the weekend in Limassol. It included all kinds of shows and competitions for bikers, skateboarders and people attempting anything else which normally sane people wouldn't attempt. I somehow forgot about this event, as i had also last year and ended up watching only the closing stages yesterday where some skateboarders were fooling around on the ramp. Below are some photographs taken by Puneeth who had been there earlier in the day.

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Shooting of the movie Boomerang in Cyprus

First of all, why would someone come to Cyprus and shoot a movie? Unless they wanted to commit financial suicide, of course. So, i was surprised when i heard that 90 people had come over from India for a month-long for the movie Boomerang, based on the famous movie Charlie's Angels. A similar movie, Three Roses, made in Tamil based on Charlie's Angels was a miserable flop. It seems that this movie is a 50-50 venture between a Cypriot Producer and an Indian one. Lets hope that this movie turns out to be good, as it would serve as an easy reference for me to show someone about Cyprus. This move doesn't have a hero and stars Amrita Arora, Kim Sharma (ex-girlfriend of Yuvraj) and leher (a relatively new face). Btw, it didn't surprise any of us that Yuvraj had dumped Kim Sharma, judging by the way she was throwing her weight around on the sets(as informed by friends!).

Amrita Arora had given an interview to Mid-day on her return from Cyprus. I have taken some sections from her interview. Have a good laugh!!!

• "Amrita says she went to Cyprus in Greece to shoot for Boomerang". I wonder what the Cypriot producer will feel after seeing this. According to Amrita, Cyprus is in Greece! Amazing geography!


• "The Cyprians are family-oriented people like us". Just because we are Indians, Cypriots don't become Cyprians!

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UPDATE : Yesterday (June 6th), i received polite comments/emails from the producer of this movie threatening me with legal action if i didn't remove the photos, as the dress the heroines wore were made from his money and they were copyrighted with him. So, i have removed all the original photos. I have erased from my memory that i ever went to watch the shooting. and what i have written below are just accounts of the shooting which i heard from friends. None of the images in this post are photos taken during the shooting. But, to replace the original images, i went back to alassa park few days later, took some snaps and then used some images of bikes and dune buggys from the Internet and then merged them using photoshop to convey the message. I had also taken a photo of Kim Sharma from the Internet, cut out the face and then superimposed it on one such photo. I hope that she was wearing her own lipstick. I don't want another producer threatening me for owning that lipstick!

I am preparing a replacement post so that i don't infringe on any copyrights. Visit this page again in a few days to see the updated post!

Technorati Tags: boomerang movie shooting kim sharma amrita arora cyprus

Old habits die hard

Last weekend, we had the annual amdocs cricket tournament. Until last year, we used to play on a dusty school ground, but this year we shifted to a dried-up lake bed. In winter/spring, this becomes a salt lake and we have thousands of flamingos stopping here on the way to Africa. When the lake dries up, it becomes an ideal boundary-less ground for all kinds of sports. If Ravi Shastri had been here, he would have loved to try his key-into-the-pitch report here, for the key would have gone all the way in. Such is the moisture in the surface. A smooth and soft surface leads to a very even bounce and thus a good game of cricket. To make it even better, the teams in which i and vidhya played won the cup in the respective categories (Yes, we had women's cricket too!).

Anyway, back to the subject of habits, if you notice all the photos below, there is one common aspect which you should notice. No, not that i am in all of them, they are meant to be my pictures. One common thing which you should notice in all the pictures (apart from the grotesqueness of my face in the last one) is the way i am biting my tongue in the pics. This is a habit which has stuck with me for a long long time. I always do this when i am concentrating at any sport. I don't realise this and since many people ask me, no i don't feel it nor does it pain! The first photo is from last year's event (at the school ground) and I am at it then too. If you compare the first and the second photo (taken this year), I am surprised that i am amazingly consistent in my bowling action, right up to the position of the individual fingers on my hand!

Back in High School, i used to participate in the Long Jump Event. My trainer at that time used to be very concerned about this habit of mine. I later learnt from him that his concern was not for the well-being of my tongue, but for my performance in the long jump. If , in the process of taking a long jump, i bit my tongue too hard and it fell off (!) behind me, the place where the piece fell would be counted as the distance i have jumped, since technically it is a part of my body. This was the reason he was always warning me about this habit, it seems :-)

Technorati Tags: cricket cricket tournament habit

AdesClrPicker Color Picker - Simplicity at its best

There are hundreds of websites offering thousands of tools for webmasters and photography/photoshop enthusiasts. I download most of them and give them a try, to the extent that it is almost an impossible task trying to find on my PC the installer for "that" tool which i used many years ago.

But, it is not often you come across a tool, a simple and small one which proves to be invaluable to you and one that you feel was the missing one in your work flow all this while. It is the AdesClrPicker Color Picker by Ades Design. I was doing my usual wandering around in the blogosphere and landed on AdesBlog, where i found a link to this tool. Looking at the features, it seemed to be very simple, yet very powerful and after installation, i found that it is exactly what it promises to be.

Just a few hours back, i implemented the mybloglog sidebar on all the pages. I wanted to have the same colours for the background and the title bar as the rest of my sidebars. For this, i had two options. One was to take a screenshot and then open it in Photoshop and get the exact colours. Others was to do a "View Source" of my page to have a look at the template and get the colour. I chose the latter, but this too took some time and effort. If i had had this tool then, all it would have taken was two clicks to get the colors i wanted.

If you have faced similar issues in choosing the right color for your page, then this tool is a must. Go check out the tool - AdesClrPicker.

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View from my window photo contest

This is my entry for the "View from my window" photo contest at Fuelmyblog. This was taken from the flight minutes before landing at Heathrow. I couldn't have expected a better beginning to my vacation in London. The six days we spent in London was probably my best "photographically". More pictures from the London trip can be seen the London Photo Gallery.

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Self Portrait Category for Photofriday

Submitting to Photofriday after quite a break. The category is "Self Portrait 2007". This is technically not the original photograph as it was modified from the original one taken. I was holding few candles in my hand which lit the front of my face. I cropped out the candles from the photographs and converted the picture to black and white. I also selectively brightened my eyes to give the eerie look. Many, including Vidhya have been asking me to remove this photo from my website and other online accounts, but i have decided that this shall represent my online presence!

Technorati Tags: Self Portrait night photography high ISO Photofriday contest

New Year Party at Amdocs

It was end of January and time for the annual Amdocs New year Party. Amdocs' parties have grown bigger over the past year and like the Diwali party, this too was held at Monte Caputo just outside Limassol. The decorations were amazing, including the balloon decorations on each table resembling the Indian tricolor, as the party was on January 26th. I was compeering the show, so didn't get much of an opportunity to roam around and take some photographs. So, all the photos i have are from the events which happened after the time i finished compeering.

Well, can there be a new year party in amdocs without a Belly Dance Show? Of course not. Like the last year and every year before, Belly Dancing Show was the highlight towards the end of the party. This year we had an extra dose of dancing, a cabaret show. A cabaret show in India would have entirely different connotations, but this show was great, easily the best show of the evening with the performers doing a variety of sequences with extensive costume changes. The Belly dancing is always the last event of the evening and is used as a trigger to get people on stage to dance, as it seems that the success or failure of an amdocs party is determined by the duration and fervor of the dancing by the employees!

As is the tradition, the first song of the evening was the famous Punjabi Number and as expected, many employees including the punjabis ran onto the stage with their hands high up in the air. But, their enthusiasm was short lived. After this Punjabi number, the English songs came out and slowly turned into slow Cypriot numbers. The punjabis were outraged at this, left the stage, went to a corner of the hall and started playing with balloons in protest.

Once the Cypriot numbers started and kept on flowing, all the non-cypriots came off stage. So, the Cypriots went on stage and sat down. Yes, they sat down. No, they were not protesting like the Punjabis. That is their way of dancing. Whenever a Greek song starts playing, Greek people immediately sit down in a circle and start clapping. Usually, the person who accidentally slips while sitting down and comes into the circle has to dance round and round. Whenever he finds a vacant space in the circle, he discreetly dances towards that spot and sites down and starts clapping. Much like the musical chair game we used to play when we were kids. This cycle loops on and on until the wine gets to the head or the music stops.

It was a good, lavish party. The food was good, compared to the fiasco in the Diwali Party. Maybe our caterer wanted to make amends for that, this time. February is just around the corner and the Cyprus Carnival is about to start and guess what, we have the Carnival party coming up. Life is beautiful!

Technorati Tags: new year party new year 2007 Belly dancing Monte caputo Limassol Greek Traditional dance

Snow in Troodos

UPDATE(JAN 30th 2008): There is LOT of snow on troodos, to the extent that the sun-facing side of troodos (towards limassol) is full of snow. It is even visible from Limassol. Btw, it also snowed in limassol, something of a rarity!

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and lots of it! Nature sometimes plans things to perfection. Last week was sunny and pleasant throughout, it rained like crazy the entire day Saturday and it was a beautiful sunny day on Sunday. God is great!

Well, what happens because of this is that half of Cyprus is on Troodos! Nature had its solution for this overcrowding too. There were sections of the road to Troodos (which fall on the north side - behind the shade of the cliffs) which were almost impassable because of the frozen ice on the road. But, we had the usual bunch of smart and young Cypriot drivers with their girlfriends wanting to prove that their car could do anything and in the process providing entertainment to the onlookers as they skidded and got stuck in the snow.

Luckily, many of these treacherous stretches were between exits to the many mountain villages, so that you could always go into one of these exits and come out through another. We just wanted a place with fresh snow and lots of it. We didn't attempt to take our car to the very top i.e. Mount Olympus. We stopped at the Troodos Square and went to place which was away from the maddening crowds. We then started making a snowman. Not the usual two lumps of snow on top of each other and then naming it a snowman. We wanted to make a designer snowman complete with all the accessories. It is not often that you get so much snow in Cyprus and you have a sunny day to go along.

Well, all of us were from the software industry and any activity we do is likely to be influenced by the good or bad practices we learn at work. Rather than just start digging out the snow, we planned that we would build a snowman in two layers, with one group working on the face/top and another on the body. I was in the group building the body. The initial "agreed" plan was to make a circular bottom, but because of implementation issues, it started to resemble a cylinder and finally Vidhya changing her requirements and asking us to convert it into a rectangular base. Since our implementation methodology was, at best, haphazard, it was very easy to adapt to the change in requirements!

Vidhya was in the group making the head of the snowman. Their plan was to make a circular head with a conical hat on top. I don't know how they executed this plan, but when she presented the head, the hat was missing. Not only was the hat missing, the head looked like a big hat. Magically, the snowman's head became conical in shape.

Next came the process of "accessorising" the snowman. We faced a problem which we hadn't expected before. Well, if we start to expect problems, they won't be a problem anymore, right. Since we hadn't put a risk plan in place, the going started to become tough. This is where the tough guys came in. The ice/snow had hardened so much that we could not create sockets in the ice for the accessories like the eyes, nose and the mouth. So, we tried hard to push the eyes in and in the process almost beheading the snowman. This was where the innovativeness of the team shone. Since we could not make sockets for the mouth, we added lumps of snow at either end for the stick to stick. So, that is why you feel that the snowman has two lumps of gum in his mouth :-)

Finally, it was time for the grand release party of the making of the snowman. It was production time, time to take the photographs and celebrate. Just before the first photograph was about to be taken, a critical defect appeared in the snowman and the whole system was about to crash. With the timely intervention of Gigo, the system was saved and the process of working on the first patch was started. We wanted it to be a small patch along with the main release, but it turned out to be such a huge fix, that we had to call it Service Pack 1.

So, after all the hardwork, there was fun to be had. Some photos of the release party are shown below .

Technorati Tags: troodos cyprus snow making snowman winter snow snowman

Is it love or is it war ?

More of flamingo watching happened this weekend. It will continue in the coming weekends too until i get "the" perfect photograph capable of being used as my desktop wallpaper. I am far (literally far away from the flamingos) from such a photograph as of now!

This weekend, we noticed the flamingos going at each other with their beaks. This happened quite often between pairs of flamingos, always between a pink one and a white one. I dunno whether this is a courtship or a fight for a dominance of the dirty waters!

There were hundreds of seagulls too in the area. They were making trips from one pond to another and to the restaurant by the sea where they got free morsels of bread.

We saw two other birds too, but they were flying quite far and i couldn't get good enough photographs to identify them.

So, at the end of an adventurous three hours during which, our car was almost stuck in the slush two or three times, the car skidded for almost 4 to 5 metres sideways and the car ended up in tall grass (would like to call it drifting as they do it in the car rallies) and water got into the exhaust and my car was making sounds like a scooter, we managed to safely reach home after a good birding session and a really dirty car!

Technorati Tags: cyprus birding flamingo ladys mile akrotiri cyprus salt lake cyprus bird watching cyprus

Sister category for Photofriday

I am submitting this photo for the weekly photofriday contest. The category for this week is "Sister". I took this photo at Vidhya's uncle's place in Trichy when we had been there during our last vacation to India in June 2006. They are family friends of Vidhya's uncle. The sisters loved posing for the camera and this is one of the very few shots where i managed to get them without performing any antics.

Actually, the younger one, the one on the left is a mini-celebrity, having appeared in many movies and serials. Her biggest banner until now has been the appearance in the Tamil Movie Anniyan (starring Vikram) where she was the heroine Sadha's sister in one of the songs.

Technorati Tags: photofriday Photo Contest anniyan vikram sadha tamil movie sister

Best of 2006 category for Photofriday

Click on the picture for a higher resolution picture.

I took this picture from the top of a moving bus. It was late evening, when there was just enough light to make this picture possible. It was a open-top double-decker bus belonging to the "London-by-night" tour. If you are visiting London, I would strongly recommend you to do this tour on your first evening, because it would familiarise you with all the sights of central London.
When we turned onto the road from a side street, I noticed that we would be passing under this tree. I quickly increased the ISO to 1600 and put the camera to Shutter Priority at 1/20s. By trial and error, i have found out that 1/20s usually works at dusk. The light on the tree was from a street light.

Technorati Tags: london big ben night photography high ISO shutter priority

Flamingoes in flight

Taken near the Lady's mile beach in Limassol. If you want to see more flamingo photos, check out this post.

Birding in Cyprus - The Pink Flamingos

Cyprus is supposed to be a very good destination for bird watching, i.e the kind where people spend hours together to see a bird few inches long. I became an avid bird watcher only after my interest in photography developed. Well, i am not the kind who appreciates the fact that a particular bird species is rare or not. But, as long as i am able to get a good photograph of it, I am happy. I can vouch for the fact that a photograph of a "wild" bird definitely gives more satisfaction than one taken at the zoo.

Cyprus is probably most famous for the thousands of migratory flamingos which visit the larnaca and the akrotiri salt lakes every year. They come to cyprus just as winter starts, leave as it starts to rain and return in Spring. Thousands of them making a pink blanket over the lake is a sight beyond words. They are much closer at the larnaca salt lake, but since this is almost next door to the airport, the moment you take out a camera, a cop comes over and starts questioning you on everything ranging from the kind of camera to your religious inclinations. I have been "caught" like this quite a few times in larnaca, but the cops are usually very friendly and once they are convinced of your true intentions request you not to photograph there.

At Akrotiri, you either have to walk a lot or be stupid enough to take your vehicle close to the lake and then call rescue line. I find this place fascinating for watching birds. Apart from the flamingos, the approach to lady's mile from the new port has many small pools where you can find hundreds of ducks and sea gulls (I assume these are so, I am not an ornithologist!). There are two ways to approach the lake to watch the flamingos. One is to park anywhere on the lady's mile beach (closer to the end of the beach near the start of the akrotiri base) and walk north. After a walk of a few hundred metres, you should be close to the lake. The place can be pretty slushy and it would help if you had rubber boots. I would recommend at least a 200 mm lens if you intend to get decent photographs. Another approach would be to take the road from Limassol towards akrotiri and as you near akrotiri, you would see the Fassouri plantations on the left. Actually, it is more like a mini-forest, with dense growth and small forest tracks in between. Ordinary cars can go on these roads. Always try to proceed towards the right(south). At a point your cannot go any further, start walking in the same direction. This side is much closer to the flamingos and you also can see other big birds, but there are lot of insects and it can get pretty nasty towards the evenings.

Last weekend, i went to the pools close to the lady's mile beach to photographs some "ordinary" birds like ducks and gulls. I was surprised to find three flamingos in that pool. They are not often found in these pools. I took shots and then went back home to get my rubber boots and waded into the pools to get closer shots. Some of the photographs are below. All of them are grainy, as i had increased the ISO to 1600 the previous night and forgot to reset it!

Below are some of the photos of birds taken at the small pools on the side of the road on the way to lady's mile beach.

Last year, i and two other friends went to the akrotiri lake from the side of the phassouri plantations. We had to wade through lot of slush and mud and tall grass to reach the lake. Thankfully, i was properly "footed" for the occassion. Some of the photos from that trip. We didn't manage to get very good photos, as my lens is not so good at the longer end as it is the cheaper non-ED version of the Nikkor 70-300mm and it becomes really soft at the 300 mm end. Or, maybe i am doing something wrong :-). Btw, it is not me in the photographs below!

Technorati Tags: migratory birds flamingo seagull duck akrotiri ladys mile beach cyprus larnaca

Croc around the clock

Last weekend was full of crocodiles on Animal Planet, with it being the "Croc around the clock" weekend. Animal Planet is the most watched channel at my place i.e at the times when Vidhya is away from the television, as she has a morbid dislike of reptiles. I don't understand why she doesn't like watching a pride of lions tear apart a gazelle or crocs attacking wilderbeests. All they are doing is having their lunch, pretty much like the cookery shows we have on other channels.

My appetite for action on animal planet was more than sated over the weekend with dozens of the "late and great" Steve Irwin's shows and lots of action from the crocs in the Nile and the Amazon.

Not one of the shows showed a tame croc. There was a show with a guy (also from Australia like Steve) explaining about the psychology of crocs and how easy it would be to manage them if one understood their behaviour. He did some pretty crazy stunts with the crocs, all the while explaining the rationale behind the actions. But, none were even close to what i saw in the Crocodile farm in Pattaya in Thailand. In the croc show, one guy puts his head inside the mouth of the croc! He carries the croc around on his shoulder and then orders it around. The croc didn't look drugged as it displayed its jaws' power by snapping at stuff and then suddenly turned gentle when he put his head inside its mouth.

At the end of the show, you could even have your photo taken with the croc, not with the croc at a fair distance, but with you sitting on the croc! After deliberating a lot, i found the guts to go ahead and get the photograph taken. Vidhya was not even remotely interested in doing so. Finally, after seeing that i was having fun with the croc, she decided to join in. Check out more such photos of "animal encounters" in the Thailand Photo Gallery.

Technorati Tags: crocodile Animal Planet Pattaya Thailand Steve Irwin

How to take photographs of Fireworks

I have added another article in the Photography Tips and Tricks section. This time, it is about taking good photographs of fireworks. This article mentions all the things you need to get in place to get a good photograph. If your current photographs are like the one on the left, i hope that the article helps you to move to a photograph like the one on the right. Check out the article on how to take good photographs of fireworks displays.

Technorati Tags: good photography Photography tips tricks fireworks photograph Night photography

"Light" Category for Photofriday contest

I am entering the PhotoFriday contests after a long time. This week, the category is "Light" and I have chosen a photo with very little light in it :-) This photo was taken on a very cloudy day on the top of Stavravouni Monastery, here in Cyprus.

Technorati Tags: photofriday Photo Contest stavravouni cyprus

Diwali Party Tabblo

Do any of you use Tabblo to share your pictures ? If not, you should give it a try. I just realised that the previous two lines look like they are straight out of a spam mail ! They are not, don't worry !

I happened to come across Tabblo through some photography forum. Tabblo enables you to create a page with photos and descriptions. You can upload your photos to tabblo or even link to flickr accounts, so that photos are directly picked up from there. There are umpteen number of templates to choose from to display your photos. Probably you can do all this on flickr too, but i found it to be very easy to customise the look and feel of a page.

Tabblo is ideal for creating photo galleries and also for travelogues. Check out the sample Diwali Party Tabblo i created. Click on the picture below to go to my tabblo.

Technorati Tags: tabblo photo+gallery Diwali Cyprus travelogue

First snow in Troodos, Cyprus

UPDATE(JAN 30th 2008): There is LOT of snow on troodos, to the extent that the sun-facing side of troodos (towards limassol) is full of snow. It is even visible from Limassol. Btw, it also snowed in limassol, something of a rarity!

-----

and it is almost two months early! What's happening to the earth? Europe is getting flooded like crazy, with Cyprus recording the second wettest winter since 1901 and winter has just started!

Well, its good news for adventure enthusiasts and photographers. The wetter the better, for people who have an affinity for mountain biking or dune buggy driving. Cyprus really shows her best in winter and spring. Snow brings out the best of the mountains and I am looking forward to lot of snow this winter, so that i can do more of the snow treks rather than only the Kalidonia Falls trek which i do every winter. Below are some photos in Troodos over the weekend!

Technoratio Tags: cyprus troodos winter snow photography dune+buggy rain

Diwali Party in Cyprus

The party season has just begun in Amdocs. The End of Summer party happened early September and now we had the Diwali Party.The Romanian Party is planned next month and then we have the New Year Party. Looks like we have a busy few months ahead!

The Diwali Party this year was the biggest ever in amdocs in terms of the programmes and also in terms of the budget involved. This year, the party was help at Monte Caputo, the biggest and one of the best auditoriums in Cyprus. Monte Caputo is located at the top of a hillock by the sea. This is a professional auditorium known for hosting television events and other international music shows. Usually, our Diwali Party is held at a traditional hotel, where we had to get along with make-do stages and crappy lighting and audio systems. We were in for quite a shock, when we went for a dress rehearsal to Monte Caputo, for the lights/sounds guy gave us innumerable options for lighting during the various programmes and we left the decisions to him rather than get involved and get confused!

We usually have a fireworks show during the New Year Party. This was the first time we had one at the Diwali Party and what a show it was. Rumour is that the price tag went into thousands of dollars! The fireworks show went on for many minutes and it finished with a "Happy Diwali" banner made out of sparklers!

It was the biggest Diwali Party ever and i went without my camera! I still haven't got my camera's flash repaired after it fell and broke during the End of Summer Party. So, i am restricted to day-light photography until then. Of course, this doesn't prevent me from taking photos of fireworks and lightning, but i didn't want to carry it to the party just for this.All the photos in this post are from other amdocs' employees and i have tried to select a lot which shows the magnitude of the party. Click on the pictures to see a bigger resolution image. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: cyprus diwali+party amdocs monte+caputo fireworks New+Year+Party dance Happy+diwali

Onset of winter in Cyprus

Winter, followed by Spring, are the best times to be in Cyprus.Of course, the average Britisher might disagree as the best time for "them" to be in Cyprus is summer when the temperature is close to the 40s (Deg C) and they can roam around half-naked on the beaches.

Lets forget them and look at the rest of the world for a change. Cyprus winters are mild and you can even be out on the streets at midnight without the fear of getting frostbite. It rains and sometimes it pours. But, that is what adds to the beauty of Cyprus. Cyprus turns green during late winter and spring, when the troodos snow starts to melt and you have numerous streams in full flow. I don't know of many places where you can ski on the mountains and go for a dip in the sea on the same day. They are just 40 Kms apart.

For the amateur photographer, this is the best season in Cyprus. The Sun is not so bright, even at noon and with a "sky-blue" sky interspersed with clouds of different shapes, what more could one ask for. A rainbow sighting used to be a rare occasion for me back in India, but here, almost all showers are followed by a rainbow. Dark clouds always pose a good photo opportunity. Below are some if the photos taken by my colleagues from our office building yesterday and also some which i had taken over the past few years.

Technorati Tags: Cyprus Winter Spring Sunset Rainbow Yermasoyia

Filed Under: Photo Cyprus

End of Summer Party at Amdocs

Few weeks back, we had the End of Summer Party here in Amdocs. This party is usually scheduled around mid-September when the weather cools down a bit and all the drunken and semi-naked britishers start to leave the island. So, amdocs organises a party where all can get drunk!

This time, for a change, the party was held in a discotheque and not in a hotel. And the most surprising part, there were no belly dancers! The location was cool, with a pool in the middle. Luckily, in spite of the free flow of alcohol, no one managed to fall into the pool!

This time, we had organised a Fashion Show, done by only the managers. This was a big hit with the crowd, as the managers managed to enthrall the crowd with their antics in stage, much more than what was rehearsed! We had chosen the themes of Traditional, Formal, Casual, Sporty, Hawaiian, Hippie style and finally Men in Black. The most difficult part was to get 20 odd senior managers to come for rehearsals after office time for 3 consecutive days!

The "relatively" small discotheque location kind of forced everyone to dance and people were dancing until the wee hours of the morning. One of the best parties in amdocs i have attended until now !

Technorati Tags: amdocs party summer+party belly+dancer cyprus manager Fashion+show

"Bright" Theme for Photofriday contest

I have submitted this photo for the weekly Photofriday contest. The theme for this week is "Bright". This was taken at sunrise at the Salt lake at Larnaka. I asked my friend to hold a feather (that is a flamingo's feather!) against the sun. I went a long way back, kept my lens at 300 mm (effective 450 mm on 35 mm film) , focussed on the feather to get the "blurred" sun.

Technorati Tags: Sun Bright Photo Photography Photofriday Larnaka Cyprus Photo+Contest flamingo

Filed Under : Photo Cyprus

"Distance" Theme for Pxite Contest

I have submitted the above phtography for the weekly Pxite contest. The theme for this week is "distance". This photo was taken during the trek on the Curium Cliffs, here in Cyprus.

Technorati Tags: Trek Photo Photography Pxite Curium Cyprus Photo+Contest

Filed Under : Photo Cyprus

"Boy" theme for Photofriday contest

The above 3 photographs are the ones I have submitted for the weekly PhotoFriday contest. The theme for this week is "boy". I know that the first one looks better because of the good bokeh and ample lighting. But, the other too looked good to me because of the eye contact made by the kids.

Cheerleaders for my site

Through a friend living in the US of A, I managed to get a group of cheerleaders to support my website by displaying the letters on their t-shirts. Definitely a cool way to get noticed. There are others too who have made use of this promotional offer. Check out ganga at Dexterous Doings.

If you too want to do the same, head over here to contact them.

Submarine Trip to Xenobia Shipwreck

I must make a mention that the submarine I am talking about is the actual one which goes underwater, because in this part of the world, the mention of the word submarine/sub would conjure up images of mouth-watering footlongs and burgers.

I do not know to swim. I do not know even to float. I am not exactly hydrophobic, but I strongly believe a few feet of water is enough to drown me. So, when people go to bathe in the Mediterranean, here in Cyprus, I just about manage to step into the domain of the sea, maybe about a few feet inside, until i realise that I am far away (anything >5 feet) from the shore for anyone to come and rescue me, in case I start to drown. When Vidhya and I go for kayaking trips, a small wave (maybe a few cms high) is enough to rattle me and make me turn the kayak around and head for the shore. Even Vidhya pointing out that there are people standing next to me (while I am on the kayak) with water only until their tummys is not enough to convince me that I will not drown if the kayak overturns.

That pretty much sums up my experiences over-water. As regards underwater experiences, I have been brave enough on few occasions to try snorkeling. Unfortunately, since I limit my snorkeling experiences to a few feet from the shore, the only sights i have managed to see underwater are the legs of the bathers nearby and not any corals or other sea creatures!

This time, I decided to hand over my safety to a professional crew and went on a submarine excursion to the sunken shipwreck of Xenobia. This trip was from the coastal city of Larnaka and the wreck was at a distance of 2 kms from the shore. We were taken on a boat from the harbour and then were transferred to the submarine. When we first went into the submarine, the whole world looked upside down. We were looking at the surface of the sea above , from beneath its waters. This view took some time to "sink" in!

The sub started to descend to a depth of 12 meters, where the shipwreck was located. It looked like Titanic, straight out of the movie. The ruins of the ship, hundreds of fishes floating around and the divers exploring the wreck, the sight was awesome. At the end of the 45 minutes trip, i was very reluctant to leave the underwater world behind. Next time, I shall definitely try scuba diving to get a closer experience with the world underwater!

For more details and pictures of my submarine to the xenobia wreck, look here.

New Photoshop Collage

Gopal repatriated to India after 5 years at Amdocs, Cyprus. He was one of our steadfast trekking companions on many of the good and sometimes dangerously stupid treks we have attempted. I created a collage of many of the photos we had taken on our trips together along with some of his photos from his Egypt Trip. I framed the picture and presented it to him as his farewell gift. I have done many more such collages for friends. I have posted them on my Photoshop page.

My New PhotoBlog

I had maintained a photoblog at livejournal much before i registered this domain. It went defunct when i started working on this site. I have a gallery section here, but it contains themed photos i.e. photos from a trip, photos of a kind etc. Now, I have started a new section which is a typical photoblog. I plan to add photos on a frequent basis with some info about each of them. The photos would be randomly picked from the good ones in my archive of about 15000 photos. Now, i have more than one daily section to update, the crossword page and this photoblog. Lets see how long i can last!

Photographing the moon or the art of Mooning

The definition of "mooning" according to a wikipedia entry is

"The act of displaying one's bare buttocks by lowering the back side of one's trousers and underpants". But, do you need a tutorial to do that ?

This article will talk about a different mooning, that of photographing the moon.This article will be the first one to appear in the section "Photography tips and tricks". So, who needs to read this tutorial?

If your best shot of the moon looks like the first image on the right, you definitely need to. Most probably, many first timers' shot of the moon would look the same. Read the article on "Photographing the moon" to transform your shots to look like the second image.

Fun with Adobe Photoshop

After a long time, I am expanding my website. I am introducing a new section called "Photoshopped". This section is the result of my countless hours of playing with Adobe Photoshop. Adobe photoshop is pure magic, or at least at the hands of those who know a little about it. It is undoubtedly the leader amongst all the digital editing softwares.

This section would showcase all my photoshop works and eventually contain a step-by-step guide of how i created these images. If you are an adobe photoshop pro/guru, then this is not for you. This section is not for the professional image editing expert, but for a digital camera user, who wants more from his/her photos. I usually create images for fun or for use in greeting emails and also as personalised gifts.

Creating collages of a person's photos and presenting a framed image of the same would be a cherished gift. Rather than give the usual gift item, I have gifted framed collages to few of my friends and they loved it.

Enjoy the wonders of photoshop and if time permits, I can even create an image for you!

Dubai Trip Photos Uploaded

The Dubai Trip Photos have been uploaded in the gallery section. In the ten days I spent in Dubai, I took around 1700 photos (God Bless the Digital Camera). Of this huge number, I managed to select 45 photos, which i felt showed the various aspects of the city and also my trip and uploaded them in the Dubai Gallery. On the whole, I wasn't "photographically" satisfied with this trip because for most of the time, the sun was beating down strong resulting in harsh shadows and burnt-out photos. The late evenings were pretty ok for photography, but unfortunately, most of the evenings were spent on satisfying the gastronomic needs !

Almost Full

This is my entry for the PhotoFriday contest this week under the category "Full". Actually, I had another idea. When I was making coffee today morning, i had the idea of taking the snap of the boiling milk almost spilling out of the pan. But, i didn't manage to get an approval from my wife!

Grand Opening of the Gallery

Finally, I have posted some pictures to the gallery. So, the gallery is officially open! The first pictures to be posted are the ones from my London Trip, last Easter. The pictures on the main page are compressed ones, but good enough for the details to be seen. On clicking, a bigger picture (less than 50KB) would open up in a new window.

Since I am putting up the London pics first, I had invited Prince Charles and his two sons for the opening ceremony. I wanted Prince Charles to press the "Publish Post" for officially opening the gallery. Unfortunately, on the way to the Heathrow airport, they were caught in a traffic jam caused by paparazzis, who also wanted to tag along after they came to know the importance of the occasion. Anyway, its their bad luck that they missed out.

You can expect regular postings to the gallery. Sometime, in the near future, the travel and the Photography Tips & Tricks section would be cross-linked to the gallery section. So, enjoy the London Photos at the gallery.

Curvy Metal

Curvy
Originally uploaded by Rajaram S.

This is my first entry for "Photo Friday" and hopefully not my last :-).
This photo was taken on the Tower Bridge in London.

Troodos Trip - contd

More photos from the Troodos Trip. The photo on the right shows Vidhya showing off her "slippery-rock-climbing" skills. The pose she gave just after this moment was the one i missed capturing! The snap with the "log bridge" shows the kind of trekking terrain we had to endure.

Trekking in Troodos

There are many nature trails in Cyprus of varying difficulty. The main difference between the trails here and the ones in US is that there is no "authority" monitoring these trails and no matter, what the weather conditions are, the trails are always open. This makes some of the trails very interesting to attempt in winter because of the snowfall.
One such trail we go every year is the "kalidonia Falls" trail. This is a 2 km downhill trail in the middle of which is a waterfall. This trail is interesting for the fact that, there are numerous stream crossings and the whole trail is within the troodos forest. During winter, the entire trail is covered in snow and we have to find our own way through. This makes it pretty risky as well as interesting!
Last year was the best with almost a feet of snow on the entire trail and we literally slid down downhill sections of the trail. This year, there was not so much snow, but enough to keep the trek interesting. Below are some snaps from this year's trek. Just hover your mouse over the thumbnail to see a bigger version.

Each year we did this trek, we were with a different group with only me and vidhya being common for all the three years. This year, we had a large group, almost a dozen people. There is some amount of "car management" to be done here, because the start of trail is around 7 kms by road from the finish of the trail. So, we had to plan such that, we could leave a car at the finish of the trail and then fit into the rest of the cars, go to the start of the trail. Once we finish the trek, all the drivers use the car at the finish to goto the start to get the cars back to the finish to pick up the rest of the people ..confusing ?? It is.
There was a place in the middle of the trail, where greenish fungi like plants had grown on rocks. This place had an ethereal look with the green contrasting against the snow and the rocks. The pictures below don't do the place enough justification.
This year, i didn't take my heavy D-70 with me, because i wanted to enjoy the trek rather than spend the entire time clicking photos. But, the temptation still lingered and i took my much smaller coolpix 2500 with me.
I came to realise that this was the biggest mistake i did. I had kind of got used to the "technology" of a digital SLR and found it very difficult to adjust back to the "point-and-shoot system" of coolpix inspite of the fact that i had taken more than 10000 pics with it before it moved to a SLR. At the waterfall, Vidhya climbed on the rocks, got thoroughly wet in the process and gave a grinning pose from high up on the falls. I was supposed to capture this moment. On coming back home and transferring the pictures, i realised that this photo had turned out pretty bad. This was it, i got a big lecture on my inability to take good pictures even though i spend lot of money on photo magazines etc etc ...
On completing the trek, we went to the top of troodos. It was terribly cold, so cold that the bottom of my pants had frozen solid, the first time i had seen such a thing happening.

A small but interesting challenge : Try to save the enlarged picture to your local disk, without looking at the full path from the source of this page. i.e. Try to find a way to right-click and save the pic. I found a way, let me know if you know more ..

New Year Party 2006

The 2006 New Year Party was held last Saturday at the Hawaii Grand Hotel. The special attractions this year were the 30 Awards given out and the presence of Ron First, a magician from Israel. The usual lottery/raffles which happen every year were also there. Vidhya or I usually win a Liquor bottle, but that didn't happen this time and so i guess, we are going to have a "teetotaler" year, the year of row ditty!

The magician was awesome. There was a big difference from the many magic shows I have seen. This one had a few long tricks rather than the usual many small ones. His start was impressive with the "wine glass trick".

His best "trick" was at best, shocking. Two guys were called on stage and made to sit on chairs. It looked to be some innocent trick, but both were to be taken on the most shocking ride of their lives :)

Then, there were the Belly Dancers. They have become pretty much, a standard offering at all our parties.

Then, we had the highlight of the evening, the awards. I am highlighting this as the highlight, because i won two awards, one for oustanding excellence and the other for contribution to non-techie areas called the "Because-of-U" award.

On the whole, it was a very enjoyable party.

Fireworks

Fireworks
Originally uploaded by Rajaram S.

This is actually a test post from within Flickr. This was taken at the inauguration of Lemesia 2005. The photo was taken from the pier.