Before you start wondering if this is a photography blog or some philosophical one, let me just save you the time and tell you that this, indeed, is a photography blog. It's been a minute since I last wrote a blog. Too consumed, too lazy, too out of things to write, or at least, that's what I thought. But, I have tons to write about. Turns out I was just lazy. What makes us do or not do anything? What makes us wake up in the morning? Why did I start writing this blog that I had saved in drafts for over a year? The thought of doing something usually fills our head with a good feeling or a bad feeling. But the world as we know is not made of "Good or bad". It's normally the in-between. The world is filled with averages. "Average people are the most special people in the world. And that's why God made so many of them" -Michael Scott's Mom -Michael Scott [The Office] . I may leave you with more questions than answers by the end of this blog. I'

(Shallow Grasslands. Mi A3. 1/3200 sec. ISO 94)   Sometimes things can go wrong in so many ways yet the end result could turn out to be wonderful. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it is an amazing feeling. The first mistake was going on a bike with bad front brakes. More on that later. (Mountains of Western Ghats. Mi A3. 1/1513 sec. ISO 90)   Ballalarayana Durga is a fort built during the 12th century. All it remains are the ruins of the fort. The fee for the whole trek is Rs. 250. You can either just go to the fort or continue the trek to the Bandaje Falls. Going to the fort is easy. It takes only around 40 minutes. But to really enjoy the trek you need to go to the waterfalls. It takes around 2 hours from the fort. You get to enjoy the views of shallow grasslands. But there is no shade for resting. Most of the path is open grasslands. So, it might be difficult to trek during summer. We went in November, and still, it was very hot and sunny. We left Hassan at 6.30 and by

(A flower. Mi A2, with macro lens) How big is our world? Quite big, right? But how big are our gardens? Pretty small - for us, anyway. But in these gardens lie many tiny, micro creatures whose whole world is just the garden. The art (read 'patience') of capturing this micro-world is known as "Macro Photography". It's called so because the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life-size. I got into macro photography quite early on. It was something that I had liked even before starting my photography hobby. I bought a set of mobile lenses. It was exciting. I started taking macro pictures of everything. I mean, every single thing, from mud to carpets. They all looked so different in the pics. My very first pic in that lens was of a guava flower. (Honor 4X with a macro lens on) It's nothing, actually. But it was a start. There is always a learning curve. But the learning curve doesn't seem so tough when you're enjoying what you're doin

  What comes to your mind when you hear 'Biological Park', or 'National Park'? And what comes to your mind when you hear the word 'Zoo'? On the face of it, they might appear as different things. And most of the time, they are. But in Bannerughatta they are the same. While traditionally, a biological park is something of a conserved forest with the motive to protect animals in its natural habitat, it's not the case in Bannerughatta. There is a Zoo and a small forest where animals roam in a very limited boundary. Basically, they are just bigger cages. And who decides where these animals roam and what they eat? Yep, humans. Can we call this space a biological reserve then? I hardly think so. The very reason of these biological parks and zoos is to make money through visitors, and not the conservation of animals. Don't let their motto deceive you. There are way too many animals in there which don't need protection and can survive easily in the wild. And

(Vidhana Soudha. Mi A3) This post is more of a guide type of post. So, I'll try not to make it boring. I'm going to talk about a mode called Light Painting, which you might or might not have heard of, but you would have come across the pictures at least once. I'm doing this post because some people told me that it's not possible to take pictures like that after I posted a couple of these on Instagram. It's totally possible, and anyone can do it. It's simple by the core. The name says it all. You paint with the lights.  So, how do you paint with light? A: You keep the shutter open for a longer time. What's shutter, and how do you keep it open? A: Shutter is the door to the image sensor where the image gets recorded. The sensor is our eye, and the shutter is the eyelid. The longer the shutter stays open the more light gets captured. These are just basics, there is also aperture that needs to be taken into consideration. What is aperture, you ask? A: It, to

  The second and third days. It was just traveling that day. We had to climb to Tungnath peak the next day. So, we had to go and spend the night in a city closer to the mountain. There are camps and tents in places very close to the mountain but they are very pricey. And moreover, the demand was huge due to the holidays. So, we stayed in a lodge in Ukhimath. From Rishikesh, it took us almost 9 hours. And I got some good pics on the way. (River Mandakini. Canon 1500D. f/10. 1/400 s) (Somewhere near Rudraprayag. Canon 1500D. f/10. 1/400th s) (We also got to witness a nice sunset in Ukhimath. Canon 1500D. f/8. 1.3 s)     That night in the hotel we met a person with whom we had a nice, long conversation. He was so humble the whole time. He told us that he has traveled almost 90% of India. And he was talking about the dishes in Karnataka! Goes to show you that the more you see the modest you become. The next morning we left for Tungnath. The morning was nice. The first rays of the sun on th

(The Himalayas. Canon 1500D. f/10. ISO 400)   Day 1 - River Rafting Just wow! Never had I imagined that I would be traveling to Uttarakhand anytime soon. But we did go! And it was mesmerizing. We left Bangalore the previous night to Delhi. Traveling in flight at night was kinda fun. All the patches of light. The lights of civilization. The footprint we have left on this planet we call ours. Anyway, we reached Delhi at around midnight. We had booked a tempo traveller from Delhi for 4 days. We left Delhi right away to Rishikesh. The journey to Rishikesh from Delhi was a hell-ride. The road construction has been going on on the National Highway, and there was fog everywhere. Especially after 4 in the morning, the fog was so dense that the visibility was just 5 meters. We stopped at 5 near some dhaba, then left at 6.30. This delayed our river rafting. There was traffic all along the way. We reached Rishikesh at 10.30. From there we still had to travel for 35 km to reach the starting point

(Sunset over the city. Canon 1200D. 1/500. ISO 200) Mumbai Day 1  We reached Mumbai at around 9 pm. We stayed at my mom's friend's house. Their hospitality was so good that no hotel could beat that. It felt like we were in our own home. The next day we had planned to go to Elephanta Caves (UNESCO World Heritage Site) and some other places. But we ended up spending all of our time in just Elephanta Caves. It takes a lot of time just to get there on the boat. Also, we couldn't start early because we were all tired from the long journey. We left home at noon. (Gateway of India. Canon 1200D. 1/400. ISO 100) The boat ride starts from The Gateway of India. The boat left at 1:30 and reached the island at around 2:50. After de-boarding the boat we have to walk 2 km to reach the caves. After you reach there the whole thing seems like not worth the effort, especially when you are visiting Mumbai for the first time and there are a lot of other places you can visit. (Elephanta Caves. M

  From 23rd Nov to 27th Nov 2016 (Nikon S6500. 1/640. ISO 125)   Spoiler alert - this is gonna be a long series. But not to worry, I will break it down in parts and will try to make this as interesting as possible. So, shall we start? This was a family trip. This trip will remain in my fondest memory forever for so many reasons. One of those being this was the first time we went on a plane. In my personal opinion, there isn't anything special about traveling on a plane, except if it's a sunrise or a sunset. But we were all so excited to board a plane for the first time. We boarded in Bangalore and got off in Pune. From Pune, we went to Shirdi where we had rooms booked in Karnataka Bhavan. The rooms were cheaper and the food was nice. We reached Shirdi at around 8 pm. We checked in, had food, and went to the temple. The temple was surprisingly empty. We just walked and stood right in front of the idol. (A temple in Nashik. Canon 1200D. 1/400. ISO 200) The next day we went to Nas