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.

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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.

Week 53 - Happy New Year

Congratulations to me for completing one year of 'A photo a week' blog. I feel proud. Thanks a lot to the people who supported me, especially Renjith John who has been my biggest fan ;-)

All the photos so far have been taken using Olympus C740.

How am I going to reward myself for this achievement?
May be with a DSLR and a few good lenses.

So what am I looking forward to in 2oo7?

1. Better photos


2. Better photoshop


3. Better imagination


4. Better indoor lighting setup


5. More participation in www.dpchallenge.com and www.betterphoto.com

I would be happy if more people post comments on my photos.

There are 52 weeks in a year. But 31-Dec-2006 was a sunday. Since I usually take the photos on weekends, I have a post for 'Week 53'.

Bond

Singing the Blues

Live music on New year's eve at Boston.


Fireworks, welcoming 2007

Week 52 - Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays

Week 51 - Tranquillity

Week 50 - Luminance

Week 49 - Nutcracker

Though he saw me taking his photos he didn't run away, but posed for the photo.


I have been posting a lot of sunset pictures. I think i should reduce them.

Week 48 - The other side

The other side of my guitar from a different perspective.

Week 47 - Nature's palette

Taken at Maine.

Week 46 - Autumn trail

Week 44 - Flowers and Shadow

Week 43 - Rays of hope

Week 42 - Orange Maple

The tree was at its peak fall colour.

Week 41 - Layers

I wanted to take a photo like this for a long time. There are multiple layers in this photo and each layer has a different brightness. The farther a layer is from the camera, the more faded it is. This photo was taken from the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

A maple leaf on a wood.

This one was taken near Flume George, NH. The fall foliage was at its peak during this week and it was really colourful everywhere in New Hampshire.

Week 40 - Start of Autumn