Week 45 - Day Lilly

Week 44 - Pith

Week 43 - Happy Halloween

Taken at the Pumpkin carving festival, Boston. Around 30,000 pumpkins were carved and lit on that day.

Week 42 - New Hampshire

This week I am posting some photos taken during a trip to New Hampshire.

Week 38 - Wet foliage

Week 37 - RIP

Taken at Mount Auburn cemetery. This cemetery is a 175 year old 175 acre cemetery, famous for its historical importance and beautiful landscapes. Usually the word cemetery reminds us of a scary place only for the dead. But mount Auburn cemetery redefines cemetery. Mount Auburn is a beautifully landscaped place, with around 5000 trees belonging to 630 species, thousands of shrubs and herbaceous plants, weaving through 175 acres of hills, dells, ponds, woodlands and clearings.

One of the founders believed that burying and commemorating the dead was best done in a tranquil and beautiful natural setting.

Around 80,000 people are buried here and cremates around 900 people annually.

This cemetery is one place you would die to rest forever.

Week 36 - liliaceous

Week 35 - Birthday girl

Photo of a cute girl, taken on her birthday.

Week 34 - Ballet

Ballet dancers performing at Boston Arts festival.

Week 33 - Light house

A light house at Cape Cod.

Week 32 - Maya Ravan

Malayali Americans in the New England area celebrated Onam on 25-Aug-2007. (Actual Onam was on 27-Aug-2007). One of the events was Shobana's dance. Shobana and team presented a bharatanatyam dance ballet called "Maya Ravan". It is Shobana's own dance version of Ramayana.

Week 31 - Heavy wings

Photo taken from the Cambridge Caribbean Carnival. A carnival of African Americans in Boston.

Week 30 - Drop splash

I wish I had an assistant. It was very difficult for me to take this photo by myself. I kept the glass, filled with water, inside my lightbox. The light was kept behind the glass, pointing the background. A towel was kept around the glass to absorb the water which spills out during the photo shoot. I had another cup with water and a spoon, to drop the water droplets into the glass. In the camera, I used manual focus and a shutter speed of 1/500s. Held the camera in my right hand and kept the camera at a distance such that the glass was in focus. On my left hand, took the spoon with a little water and kept it above the glass. Pressed the shutter button halfway, dropped the water from the spoon and finally pressed the shutter in full at the instance the water from the spoon hit the water in the glass.

I could have taken it much better if there was someone to help me.

Week 29 - Caps and sunglasses

Caps and Sunglasses kept for sale on a pushcart shop in Boston. Two separate photos were combined into a single image. A dark red background was used and a white border was given to each photo.

Week 28 - A portrait

My roomate. (Can be seen in Week 23's photo also). I had another portrait session with him last weekend. Seems like he is really struggling to get a girl :-)

Week 27 - Pigeon

A guest on my apartment's balcony.

Week 26 - Refraction

Camera settings:
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter speed: 1/25s
ISO: 200

Bought a wine glass last week to try some glass photography. The investment turned out to be worthy. I am going to buy more glasses.

It was very difficult to setup everything. If I had my tripod with me, I would have taken a much sharper photo.

---

A photo of mine was published in a local newspaper of Boston (BostonNow) on 24-July-2007. The newspaper has a Readers' photo column. I sent my photo to them and they selected mine as the photo of 24th July. I was very happy when my photo got published. See the new clip below.

Week 25 - Lilly

I really liked the colors in this photo. Red and yellow colored Lilly in a greenish background, with the focus set on the stamens.

Week 24 - Ode to Joy

Boston Landmarks Orchestra opened a series of concerts at the Esplanade Hatch Shell. They would be performing on all wednesdays till September. On the inaugural day they played the "Symphony No. 9 in D minor", which is the last complete symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, it incorporates part of the Ode an die Freude ("Ode to Joy"), a poem by Friedrich Schiller, with text sung by soloists and a chorus in the last movement. This symphony is one of Beethoven's greatest masterpieces, composed while he was completely deaf.

Week 23 - Alliances invited

A lot of my friends and acquaintances have asked me to take their portraits to use for matrimonial purposes. Last week, I took some portraits for my roommate and his friend. It was a chance for me to test my 50mm f/1.8 lens. We went to our apartment's yard and took some photos. The photos came out really well and I was very impressed with my 50mm f/1.8 lens. The images were very sharp and the bokeh was awesome.

Seen in this photo is my roommate.

Some people for whom I took portraits for their matrimonial purposes are -
1) Nagesh
2) Abhinay
3) Sriprasad
4) Raghu
5) Dheeraj
6) Sandeep
7) Suresh

Week 22 - Violinist

A violinist performing on street at the Charles river festival. He was part of a group (probably Irish) who teach music and dance.


A collage, showing some of the events at the Charles river festival, Boston.

Week 21 - Team

Taken at the Hongkong dragon boat festival, Boston.

Week - 20 - Seagull

Week 19 - Waves of flowers

I went to California this weekend to see my friends. We went to Lake Tahoe, Reno, Yosemite and SFO. We had a really nice time.

Week 18 - Vanishing point

I returned my Tamron 24-135 lens and bought a Sigma 17-70mm lens and 50mm f/1.8 lens. The sigma lens seems to be much lighter than Tamron. I liked its wide angle capabilities too.

Week 17 - Pile of pier

Taken at George's island, Boston. My friend and his wife paid me a visit last weekend. We roamed around Boston. I took a lot of photos of them in my new SLR.
They got a lot of good photos of them and I was able to experiment my new camera and lens :-)

Week 16 - Solitary

Finally I bought a DSLR camera, Canon Rebel XTi (400D). It was not difficult to decide the SLR, but I had a tough time selecting the lens. I wanted a good walk around lens, but did not want the kit lens (18-55mm). Some of the lenses I considered are Canon 28-135, Tamron 24-135mm, canon 17-85 mm and Sigma 18-125mm. Finally I selected Tamron 24-135mm because I liked its focal range, its reivews were okay and it had macro capability. However, the initial tests with this lens disappointed me. The lens was too soft at f/3.5. The lens had to be stopped down to f/5.6 to f/8.0 to get sharp pictures. (But no lens is sharpest at its lowest aperture). I will be losing a lot of light if I have to shoot at f/8.0 always. So I might return this lens and get Sigma 17-70mm.



Other lenses I am planning to buy are Canon 50 f/1.8mm and Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro.

Week 15 - Weatherproof

Week 14 - Top of Prudential

This photo was taken from the 50th floor of the tallest building in Boston, the Prudential building. The view from there was awesome.

Posed in this photo are my roommates and a roommate's friend. I am glad that I am improving my skills to make people pose for my photos.

Edit: Here is a panorama taken from the top of that building. Three photo were merged into a single one. Since the camera was hand held (not in a tripod), the merge is not perfect. I initially tried to merge the photos using photoshop and found it to be difficult. But the canon's photostich software did that job very nicely.

Week 13 - Heaven

Week 12 - Pursuit in rain

Week 11 - Daisy

ഓര്‍മ്മതന്‍ വാസന്ത നന്ദനത്തോപ്പില്‍,
ഒരു പുഷ്പം മാത്രം,
ഒരു പുഷ്പം മാത്രം,
ഡെയ്‌സി....

Week 10 - Trumpet player

Taken at St.Patrick's day parade in Boston.

Week 9 - Montage of Orchids

Different species of Orchids. Taken at a flower show.

Week 8 - Symmetry

The river was frozen because of the cold weather.

Week 7 - Broken

Simple photo, but it was difficult to setup the background. (The background is actually a kitchen pan). I could have taken a better shot, but the egg slowly moved away from the initial place where it was broken and finally fell on the floor carpet :-( Then I had a tough time cleaning the carpet.

Week 6 - Marbles

How creative you can be with a few marbles and a light sourcce is limited only by the limit of your imagination.

Week 5 - Grim

The future looks grim.

Week 4 - Rejuvenation

I got an old rose and was thinking for about a week on how to take a good photo with it. First I tried with a white background. Then tried a black background. Black seemed to be much better. The sprayed water provided a good effect. But the real trick in this photo is the lighting. The reflections on the water drops have provided a very nice effect. The water drops and background take the attention slightly away from the rose. Nevertheless, this is one of the best photos I have ever taken.

Week 3

A panned shot of a skater.

Week 2

Week 1 (Even)

My first post in 2007. This is an apartment complex near my apartment. The sun was at a good position and provided a nice harsh light.