Photography blog..

After much deliberation, I have finally created a Photography blog and the address is http://arunsundarphotography.wordpress.com/

I might end up posting more often in the Photo blog (than here) from now on!

Romance with the lens

I was probably 4 or 5 years old when I held my first camera in hand. My dad being a professional photographer, there was absolutely no lack of access to the camera. And absolutely no dearth for our photographs at home too. I have wondered many a time if he practiced on my sister and I more than brides or models!

There would be a million of those photographs where my sister and I would have followed dad’s request and posed with our hands on the hips and smile on the lips! I wouldn’t be surprised if one was bewildered at the sheer number of similar photographs all with the same pose, just with the background/clothes changing! I have never understood how no one in the household ever got tired of that pose!

I hazily remember my first experience with the camera. We were at a park in Ooty and my dad was trying to photograph us in our famed pose. Legend says that I asked my dad if I can photograph and he said NO and as expected, that did not result in a very happy me. I walked away from the scene and I vaguely remember the drama that followed. Mom, dad and sister all had to run, chase me down and bring me back. The end result was I was given the camera to photograph.

I don't remember if I took a nice shot then (or even if I took a shot), but I can safely assume there sparked some sort of a passionate photographer in me. Or it clearly displayed the behavior of an annoying kid. I would like to safely assume the former.

For the next 20 years, the photographer in me would happily hibernate except for occasional moments of volunteering to photograph friends on a trip or people during occasions. Later, circa 2006, the photography desire arose and I bought myself my first Digital SLR camera. Just like most amateur photographers, I got myself an entry level Canon SLR with a kit lens (18-55mm). I was very happy and still remember the solo photo-walk I did around the block near my apartment and awed at the photographs myself. I was one happy camper then.

In a few years, thanks to this incident, I had to buy a new camera. And in the following year, thanks to my job and my spending abilities, I upgraded my camera yet again. I now have a Canon 7D which I think is probably the best money spent so far. And I have a series of 4 lenses, which I'm in the verge of converting to 5.

When I keep updating my equipment, my dad still has the same camera he used during our childhood (Yashica Electro 35). When I saw it during my last visit home, the camera brought back a sense of nostalgia like nothing ever has done before. Our household has a collection of at least 50 photo albums, most of them photographed through our childhood and almost every single photograph shot by my dad. There is even a picture of me running away in Ooty, as my sister was seen obediently posing.

Though I don’t have such a collection, thanks to my ever increasing interest for photography and travel, I have a decent repository of photographs in Flickr. When I sold my first photograph a few months ago, the feeling was unexpectedly rewarding. From that point, I have sold quite a few photographs. And thanks to my good friends, I recently sold a bunch of desk calendars too.

Though my photography has not matured to eke a comfortable living out of it, it makes me happier than anything else. Every time I go out in sub zero temperature or stand out in 30 mph wind or wait in one place for 3 hours just to get a neat picture of a lighthouse or a bridge or a waterfall – I realize I do it all for sheer pleasure of capturing the beauty of the moment.

One day I might go out and do something full time in photography. Till then, my camera would just be my good travel companion like it has been so far and an object of jealousy for my fiancé!

My tryst with the photographer!

I recently got engaged to the most beautiful girl in the world (yeah yeah, hate the game, not the player!). I had a very good time as part of the engagement function. Though I was a little speculative about this whole Hindu Engagement ceremony, I actually sort of enjoyed all the attention I got.

After the priest declared us engaged, with the kind of attention we were receiving, I wondered if we just achieved something that human kind has never achieved before. I was able to witness our guests becoming happier than us. The way we were wished by people, for a second, made me wonder if we got married already. The photographer was having a tough time trying to frame us all with at least one person not showing their back to the camera. The videographer laid two chairs and three stools, one on top of the other and balanced on one foot, just to get a glimpse of what the hell was going on.

Talking about photography, I know it’s all done for the remembrance sake. But should the groom definitely be smiling with his tooth shown always? During the initial photo shoot, after the first two pictures (where I thought I smiled my best smile by the way), the photographer gently asked me if I can smile a little more. I tried, this time, seeming like a guy who is happy that he is finally getting engaged. Photographer wasn't satisfied. He said ‘innum konjam saar’ ('little more sir'). I slightly got impatient and thinking of being a wise-guy, I mockingly showed my teeth and smiled. He said ‘avlo dhaan saar, hero maadhiri irukkeenga!’ ('thats it sir, you like a hero now!’). I had a brief Vivek’s "this piece?????!" moment and the photographer kept taking a few thousand shots. I wasn't sure if my attempted joke became one on myself or if I truly looked like my photographer's hero. When I came back to senses after being temporarily blinded from the zillion watts flash, I asked him to show me the photographs, which were not too bad after all.

Realizing I had to maintain the smile for the entire evening, (not that I had a choice, as the photographer was very conscious of how my smile varied with time - he must have had a mental graph with smile on Y-axis and time on X-axis!), I continued to do so effortlessly. After a few photographs, I slowly felt a pain in my jaws and realized it was not all that easy to fake a smile. To add to the complexity, my facial components are wired in such a way that if I maintain a fake smile for prolonged time, my eyes tend to close automatically. Awesome. Now the photographer got something else to point to. He said 'saar, kanna moodaatheenga saar' (‘sir, please don’t close your eyes, sir’). I nodded, made sure my eyes are wide open and continued the shoot. In a few seconds, my smile faded away. He stopped and pointed that my smile is missing. I realized, got back my signature smile and he fired a few shots, then requested to me not to close my eyes. My face did not seem to get the hang of the process.

Like a scientist, he suddenly exclaimed 'saar, neenga nallaa sirichaa unga kannu moodikkuthu saar! (‘If you smile hard, your eyes close automatically sir’). As a resort, I explained and later pleaded to the photographer about the "smile-eye" coordination problem I'm blessed with. He innovatively thought of a '1-2-3-ready' technique to make sure my eyes are open and the smile is retained at least for that one split second when the camera shutter opens.

That sort of helped, but not for long. The problem grew further when the bride joined. She knew what kind of a monkey face I can become while facing the camera (compare to behind being one). My open-smile-closed-eye-closed-smile-open-eye syndrome continued for a little while and the pressure was building, as the girl was quite comfortable smiling away to glory. The photographer can't help but compare me to her. He politely said 'avangala paarunga saar, andha maadhiri siringa saar' (‘ook at her sir, try to smile like her sir’). I looked at her. I know she has a Colgate smile and I would look like a happy buffalo if I tried that. I laughed aloud, almost uncontrollably. Looking at all the drama, she joined too. Photographer took that as a good opportunity and fired a few shots. He was either satisfied by then or I got better with time or he felt I was totally hopeless; he never complained about my smile that evening!

But I am definitely looking forward to working with him during my wedding, even if he is not.

Deer and the midnight drama!

On Friday evening I was browsing through Star trail pictures online and got all enthusiastic about it. So, I tried setting up my tripod and camera in my balcony and took a few test pictures (each exposed for about 10 minutes), even liked one of the pictures and uploaded in Flickr. But I was not hugely satisfied due to inherent light pollution in my area (due to shops and commercial establishments). I wanted to go a remote place that’s fairly dark. So, I went to Valley forge national park (though the website said they'll close at dark, I took my chances).

Once I reached there, I expected at least one cop car, but I saw none. So, I entered the park and as I drove very slowly through the park, I saw about 10 to 15 deer every few yards. It was slightly weird as I have never seen so many deer at one place. Most of them were asleep on the roads and got up to move on after staring at my headlights for a moment or two. There is this strange behavior in deer, they stare at you for a few seconds before they make up their mind. The problem is during those few seconds, you can’t say what they are thinking!

I reached the spot where the star trails photograph will be better (or at least so I thought to myself!). That particular spot had completely open skies and a soldier's hut in the foreground (which is important from a reference point perspective in star trails photography). I stopped the car, but was very reluctant to get off the car as there were deer everywhere. I contemplated for a while and then said to myself 'what the heck?! These are deer after all! It’s not like they will attack me!'. Still to be on the safer side, I left my headlights on and took my camera equipment and started walking towards the deer.

In about 5 seconds, my headlights went off (damn those auto off feature!) and I froze right there. Earlier when I mentioned that deer stare at you for a few seconds before they make up their mind, change it to minutes. I stood there and waited for the deer to move out of my way. So did the deer. I wouldn’t say it was pitch dark, but I could not see much except for hazy things (which I assumed were deer!). After a few minutes, I lost my patience and slowly started walking towards them. As I was walking, it dawned on me that deer can see very clearly in the dark. Yet those shitty creatures were staring at me without making any move. As I walked closer, I saw them getting up and slowly moving away from me. Good for me, I setup the tripod and spent the next one hour trying to take photos from different angles, lighting (or the lack of it), etc., It was quite silent and an eerie experience.

As I was taking pictures, I kept all my senses on high-alert observing any slightest movements in the bushes or any noise around. Though the deer pack never came back, it was quite a humbling experience.

A few lessons I learnt from this short adventure of mine:

1. Never try star trail pictures on the day next to a full moon day.
2. Start a little early rather than at midnight. I think around 10pm might be the right time.
3. Select a place which has zero light pollution.
4. If you can, try and stay away from the sleeping deer.

Anyways, this is the picture that turned out:

I most likely will try this again some time!

Excitement!

After a long time Kabali did not feel a thing when he shelled out a little more than 1500 bucks on an electronic item. He has always observed a behavior in himself that most people might consider a little strange: Whenever he spends more than a few hours browsing about a product online, it only means one thing: he will be ordering it very shortly. However, for this one, he took more than a few days to take a decision. Maybe he is growing up. Maybe he is becoming more responsible in life.

But the bottom line is he is pretty excited right now. After much of mental deliberations, he got himself a Canon 7D Digital SLR. Having been an ardent fan and an avid user of Canon cameras, he feels the need to upgrade, as his current camera is, well, not so current. Now that Canon 7D has arrived, nothing seems more important to him - not his Macbook, not his Wii, only his camera, not even TV.

He is all the more excited as he is leaving on a week's trip to Germany and Amsterdam where he thinks he can smoke weed all day and take as many pictures as he likes. He is not sure about one thing though, as to which will get him higher, the weed or his new camera. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

For a serious aspirer in him, one has to give some time and see if he becomes a professional in getting 'high'.

The Passion contnues...

My penchant for photography has increased tremendously in the recent past. Anything I do in the weekends (or at times in the weekdays), I try and associate it with photography. I plan trips only if the place I visit is worth photographing (in my perspective). For the past 4 months, I have been dragging my parents to various destinations (and not to forget all those gazillion places I visited with Kavitha before that) with photographic thoughts more than anything else.

I amaze myself at the amount of time I spend taking pictures. There have been times I have spent two hours or so photographing a simple bridge or a lighthouse. Every single time, I would be surprised at how fast the time flies. I seriously have to give it to people who accompany me in such trips, God must have blessed them with abundant patience! I'm not sure if I would be waiting so patiently if I were them!

For somebody in my stage, every single photograph is a learning experience. Each photo is a challenge. Every photo makes me understand the technology better. More than the photo, what fascinates me is the time I spend planning for the moment, researching, taking the picture, feeling satisfied or taking the picture again with different settings or try everything all over.

A small example is yesterday's lazy afternoon. I was absolutely bored as parents were asleep after a tiring trip to Cleveland Air show the previous day. I was doing vetti browsing and stumbled upon some water-splash shots in the internet. After a few minutes of reading/researching, I was at my bathroom, with my camera sitting on the tripod aiming at the wash basin. With a glass bowl, a red backpack and some water, I came with this shot:

I took over 120 pictures to get about 4 shots I liked. I was quite satisfied, yet exploring my areas of improvement. Here is the setup I used (in case anyone is curious, I used the comb as the point to focus, as I expected the water to splash at the precisely that height and there was no other way to focus the water droplet!):

The other day, I also happened to read at somebody's Flickr photograph that that was his best photo and he would have died to take that picture 6 months ago. He also said he isn't sure where to go next. I was thinking about what he wrote. After a discussion with Amar, the guy who inspired me into photography in the first place, I realized maybe, when one feels they are perfect in what they do (and attained a relative success), they may stop doing it completely.

Currently, I display interest in photography, because I have a zillion things to learn. One day, if I feel I have attained the stage where there is nothing left to learn, I may stop. Or I may redirect the interest to a whole new dimension. Or I may just continue to learn. I dont know. I see some very good photographers redirecting their interest towards writing a book or selling their photographs, making a good business model out of them. Others just continue to take pictures with unexplicable self-content. I guess it all depends on how one wants to realize happiness.

Not sure where my appetite for photography takes me to, but it makes me want to travel more. It makes me want to do things I wouldn't otherwise do. It makes me spend more money. It makes me spend more time. It keeps me busy. It makes me learn. And finally, it makes me happy. Very happy!

[P.S: My photographs: www.flickr.com/photos/arunsundar]

What I didn't want to happen...

Last saturday, for the first time in this country, I felt deprived. There are certain incidents in life that we hear about, but it never bothers us because we'll be certain that it'll never happen to us. But apparently, at times, it does.

As a welcome break from the winter, the recent weeks have been bright and sunny. Past saturday was no exception. I set off to Longwood gardens with Kavitha, had a great time clicking pictures of tulips and lillies in the 1200 acres of garden land. Some of the photos turned out quite well, made me one real glad dude.

I had planned to end the day watching the movie 'Soloist'. There I was at King of Prussia mall movie theatre for the 7.30pm show. Movie was very good. I came out of the theatre at around 9.40pm laughing away and cracking jokes, only to see glass pieces strewn around the sides of my car. A chill ran down my spine.

I rushed to the car and found that my rear window was broken open. My backpack with the camera was not seen. My heart almost stopped. My camera being taken away is the last thing I wished in my life. And there it had happened - I could do nothing. I felt a strange fear. And my friend's laptop bag was missing too (not with laptop, but with books et al).

I immediately called 911. Ten minutes later, a cop arrived, enquired about the theft, asked some basic questions, prepared a police report and gave it to me.

I asked her about the odds of getting my stuff back. She calmly replied that the closest surveilence camera was quite far from the place I parked my car and that it rotates, creating abundant blind spots. Also, such thefts happen in less than 30 seconds, making it impossible to capture clear evidence in the surveilence camera. In my mind, the answer translated to a 'You wont get the camera back'. That, from a cop in the second largest mall in US.

Of all my gadgets, there are two things I love the most - my camera and my phone. I would have given most of what I have to get my camera back. But at times, life appears to hit hard. Very hard. Along with the camera, I also lost my bluetooth headset (a gift), my iphone earphones, work ID card and such day-today stuffs. Hearty good bye to all of them.

I have applied for claim through my renter's insurance and hope I get some money back - keeping my fingers crossed.

And in parallel, I'm researching for my next camera, hopefully a better one! And I promise to myself that I'll never keep bags visible in my car.

All said and done, I just cant forget this day that easily. Life seems bitterly unfair.

Update: Couple of weeks later, I got a new camera and did a super cool trip this weekend. I'm feeling happy!

Showcase...

A blast of a weekend. Visit Philadelphia. Drive to NYC. Get to know new people. Dinner. Movie. Meet old friends. A new hi-zoom lens. A new tripod. A photo venture. Sleep drive back home. A blast of a weekend.

The intent of doing something is graduated to fulfillment only when sharing!

Mundane excitement!

To kill the afternoon boredom and to prolong the weekend feeling, one tries to enthusiastically attempt extempore-planned-long-drives after a dose of sumptuous self-made dosa. And the resultant would be arriving home late on sunday night, a confused feeling of vain-endeavor to forefend the weekday blues, a despairing hope to still procrastinate monday mornings and some self-satiating pictures. Kaapi keeps one awake at work the following day.

One totally wonders at the affairs that single people seek to move their mundane life on. Funny!

Rebel XTi...

...is God!

And my recently-found love:




Click here for some of the first few photos taken in my neighbourhood.

One only wonders how such temporal bliss interposes exuberance into one's life otherwise overwhelmed in modus operandi!

Change - That's the only thing that doesnt Change!

I just took this photograph(in my mobile) outside my apartment on Friday, 23rd Nov'07 :




And the very next day(Saturday 24th Nov'07), I took this photograph under similar conditions :



Just the number of leaves that had fallen off in a day made me think. I know its just the seasonal change, but somehow it appeared to me that there is a much-stronger inference than that! Can you identify with me here??