Xewali (Night Jasmine)

The 'Xewali' or 'Parijat' or The Night Jasmine... I wished I could write in Assamese to express the divine enchantment this fragrant flower brings with the onset of winter in Assam. The private ritual of the ladies of the household to pick up the dew soaked foliage and bringing then into the home in the morning for offering the deities or merely for the fragrance is something which, I am sure, every Assamese holds close to his/her heart.
Folklore and mythology has it that this is one the five divine flowers brought into the earth from the gardens of King Indra of the heavens and believed to be eternally so pure that it can be offered to the deities even if fallen to the grounds. No wonder, it has been inspiration to so many a poets and lyricists in Assam and around.

'Bokakhator Puri' - Simply Irresistible!

Any feeling of extreme urge to splurge on this exquisite cuisine (sic) is purely intentional. I am sure, dead sure that 90% of Assamese or residents of Assam simply cant resist this!
This 'puri' and watery potato curry served with a chilly chutney served in a particular non-descript restaurant on banana leaves in the town of Bokakhat in Assam is an irresistible favourite of any traveller passing by.

My Fender Stratocaster

The iconic Fender Stratocaster electric guitar. Signature companions of legends like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Mark Knopfler, Robert Cray, David Gilmour and so many others. A dream possession of every guitarist. I too have one. So what if it's just a miniature replica! Anyways, was never that good a guitarist to own one. Nor that rich to buy one just for the heck of it!

Lure of the Azure

The love of the seas is enduring in Kuwait. Pearl diving and sea trade with the ‘dhows’, as the traditional wooden ships are called here, were central to the Kuwaiti way of life. Those were the difficult yet adventurous ways of life here before oil. But the lure of marine life survives in the contemporary ways among the young Kuwaitis though not particularly for any commercial purposes.

Dashing young dudes with the coolest hairstyles and worked out bodies whizzing about in the seas on jet skis or sailing into the horizon on the snazzy modern yachts with all the paraphernalia like GPS navigation systems, entertainment gizmos, angling gear and other cool stuff I may not even have an inkling of!

And contrary to popular beliefs, you can even find girls speeding away on these mean jet skis.

The slightly older generations are ardent fishing aficionados and good at that too. Like, I saw this gentleman on the marina at the Khiran Resort waiting patiently with a bare fishing line (without a rod) and pulling out that wriggling silver prize, and the pride showed!

My Experiments with HDR

My first HDR images for you.

High Dynamic Range (HDR), as it is called, is a new technique in photography which can create outstanding images by merging multiple images of a photograph taken at different exposure settings. The resulting images reproduce a very high range of tonality and detail.
Generally while taking a picture with a very high range of lighting and illumination, it is extremely difficult to capture all the details as the highly illuminated highlights may get burnt out (washed out) due to over-exposure while the darker details of the shadows may remain under-exposed. So to get over this dilemma we can take the photograph with at least three different exposure settings to capture maximum illumination and lighting detail in three different images. These different images can then be merged with HDR software to create a resulting image reproducing maximum tonal range and detail.

The best thing about this technique is that we can create images closest to the resolution of the human eye in terms of response to light and may be even beyond. On the other side, with the liberties of creative expression of the modern day, one can take it to extremes and result in creations of very surreal and ‘ghostly’ images. Some artists also create images that have an interestingly peculiar painting-like effect.

"Camera Writing"

While sitting in a restaurant, waiting for the orders to arrive, I came upon this idea of writing and drawing with my camera. Set my camera to very low shutter speeds of 3-5 seconds and moved the camera in small shapes as I snapped away at the coloured lights on the ceiling of the restaurant. Frankly speaking, the results were pretty amusing! As I kept repeating the thing, I could already feel myself getting a better control on the images and even started writing words!

Till the time I have posted this on my blog I am not aware if anybody else has ever tried something like this anywhere else. Neither have I googled about it yet. Nonetheless, it feels pretty good to have ‘discovered’ such an amusing form of photography.

Simply put, the practice is quite like moving a plain paper against a stationary pen to draw or write. And interestingly enough, the results are actually inverted – you just need to rotate them 180 degrees around!

And mind you, just plain old photography here. No digital manipulation whatsoever!

Learning to 'Photoshop'

Images like this one always impressed me and often wondered how difficult it might be. But now that I have started exploring Photoshop, it all seems so easy and simple. Its amazing how the entire intensive concept of developing and processsing photographic films in darkrooms and labs have been simplified into one 'little' software. This indeed gives you an immense sense of freedom and control over your images.

The plethora of learning material on the internet and specially on the modern day cult of 'youtube' makes it possible to learn it all - sitting right here at home.

Picturesque Silk Shop

Here are a few images from a beautiful silk and souvenir shop in Bursa city of Turkey. The whole place is done up so quaintly and the colours were so pleasant that I had to share them with you.

The rooster and the hen pictures were an interesting way to mark the washrooms for gents and ladies!