Travel and Photography in 2010

Its been a while since I updated this blog. Last photoblog was back from my bike ride in July. Lots of things have happened since then. I will try and squeeze in all of it in this blog and hopefully be regular this year.

Kabini: 26/8/2010
My 3rd trip to Kabini in the last three years, and each time has been brilliant. One of my favorite places to visit. This time I got lucky in spotting a Leopard. It was perched up on a tree and looking right at us. It was a surreal and a special moment, just like the one when I had spotted a Tiger a couple of years ago in the same wildlife reserve. Wildlife fascinates me and I hope to visit a few more places this year and improve my wildlife photography which is a complete different ball game to other kinds of photography, but it also gives me great pleasure in shooting wildlife.

 

Portrait Workshop: 18/9/2010

I attended my second workshop in 2010 organized by Prem Muthu. It was a good experience getting to learn the dynamics of studio portrait lighting. I still have a long way to go in understanding how the light setup works for different situations and various other facets of portrait photography.

More here: Flickr

Kodaikanal Road Trip: 30/10/2010

I’m always game for road trips, so when my friends wanted to goto Kodaikanal over a long weekend, I immediately volunteered to take my car so that I would get to drive. Kodai was cold and drizzly for the 2 days we were there, but driving through the clouds, quite literally, was amazing. Coakers walk, a little trek up the hill with the clouds all around you, sipping a hot cup of tea and eating hot dosas and spicy chicken curries in the cold weather was an experience.

 

Rajasthan Road trip: 17/11/2010 – 21/11/2010

After recuperating from the wedding and the week long partying, two of us headed out on a road trip to Rajasthan. We first went to Sariska Tiger Reserve. The early morning safari was quite blissful. Spotted quite a few animals. We then headed off to Ajmer and stayed at Mayo College. It was an interesting experience staying at a residential school, and eating with the students at the students mess. After a little tour of the school next morning, we then drove off to Pushkar. We had just missed the Camel fair, but the mela (fair) was still on, and there was considerable crowd (tourists) from outside. Herds of photographers, as expected!!! We walked around the mela, caught some interesting glimpses of village life and the typical village fair. It was a fun day and half. We returned to Jaipur the next day and I had to fly back home so other than a little bit of shopping didnt do much in Jaipur. But I must say the area around the Hawa Mahal is disgusting and filthy. Just as filthy as it was 10 years ago when I had visited with family.

 

 

Hyderabad trip (Kuchipudi International Dance Convention, Charminar): 26/12/2010-27/12/2010

A friend of mine, who is a Kuchipudi dancer, was performing at Hyderabad. And since I had never seen her perform, the idea of photographing an Indian classical dance was enticing. So off I went to Hyderabad on a night bus journey. The venue was an open air stadium(Gachibowli Stadium) on the outskirts (near Cyber City) which was a bit of a dampener since I was expecting an intimate setting like an auditorium. We were sitting in the stands which was quite far away from the stage and I could hardly see anything. But later on we managed to break the security cordon like most people there and got up real close to the stage. I managed to get some good shots with people jostling for space around the stage.

The next day we drove around Hyderabad and I was impressed with the wide roads and the huge bungalows in Banjara and Jubilee hills. We had a good authentic Hyderabadi lunch, and then drove into the old city market area to see Charminar and the Mecca Masjid.

 

Oh and did I mention that I lost all my post processed pictures from the second Delhi trip and some other albums too during a system reinstall. I’ve decided to follow a new workflow to ensure that such a thing never happens and have a copy of my photos in two different places at any given time.

I have some ideas and interesting projects I have thought off for this year and hopefully I will get around to doing all of them before the year ends. You will definitely get to see them here and on my Facebook page. For more photos from last year head to my Facebook page. (Link)

Adios for now!!

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