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!

Turkish Delights

Istanbul… amazing Istanbul, erstwhile Constantinople. The colours, the sights and the people! Indeed a cauldron of cultural confluence. Crossroads of religions, continents and races. Capital of the Byzantine, then the Romans and then The Ottoman Turks. A confident civilization, teeming with national pride. Stylish beautiful people. Asian flavours in an European atmosphere.

The ‘Cay’ (Chai or Tea), Turkish Coffee, Kebabs, ‘Raki’ (local alcoholic beverage), ‘Mezze’ (Turkish appetizers). Turkish carpets (remember flying carpets?) and silk from Bursa. Beautiful, mesmerizing, graceful Turkish Belly Dancers. The legacy of the legendary ‘Rumi’ and the whirling Dervishes…and the list goes on.

The whitish beverage in the picture is ‘Raki’, the customary local alcoholic beverage, an anise-flavoured apéritif. (anise: Indian-‘saunf’). You can also see people holding little glasses of 'Cay' in the background.
This guy, a waiter in this hip ‘Turquoise’ restaurant, in serving a kebab dish prepared sealed in an earthen pot which is broken open in front of the diners and served. Mmmm...Delicious and spectacular!

Seagulls over the Bosphorus

The ferry boat ride to the Princess Islands from Istanbul through the Bosphorus Strait into the Sea of Marmara is a spectacular one. The sights of the Istanbul City and its major monuments from the sea and the beautiful views of the islands as you approach them is simply unforgettable. And the seagulls! They follow the ferryboats in huge droves! And the reason? Passengers of these ferries toss pieces of bread at them and enjoy watching them catch the pieces of bread mid-air.

It was exciting to watch these birds swoop down and catch the food mid-air and sometimes even picking them up from the open palms!




The Artificial Intelligence Focus system in my Canon EOS 400D did a real good job in keeping the focus steadfast and gave me unexpectedly good firm shots of the birds.

Contrail

Contrails or vapor trails are condensation trails and artificial cirrus clouds made by the exhaust of aircraft engines or wingtip vortices which precipitate a stream of tiny ice crystals in moist, frigid upper air. Being composed of water, the visible white streams are not, in and of themselves, air pollution. However, vapour trails or contrails generated by engine exhaust are inevitably linked with typical fuel combustion pollutants.

The main products of hydrocarbon fuel combustion are carbon dioxide and water vapor. At high altitudes this water vapor emerges into a cold environment, and the local increase in water vapor can push the water content of the air past saturation point. The vapor then condenses into tiny water droplets and/or deposits into ice. These millions of tiny water droplets and/or ice crystals form the vapour trail or contrails.
(courtesy: Wikipedia)

Was fortunate to capture this on a clear bue sky. When the trail is far away in the sky, can be mistaken for some kind of UFO stuff!