Winter trees, Doha, 2011.

The temperature keeps soaring along with the humidity. It has been hovering in the late 40’s for the past week. Can’t wait for winter.

The bright bunch, Qatar, May 2012.

Indulged in some flower photography last night. The flowers were lit with a small torch made by my daughter for her science experiment. Just a battery and a bulb connected with a thin copper wire. I had to handhold the three things in place. To get minimal shadows, I moved the light around. The exposure time was long (few seconds) since the light was pretty dim. It helped to spread the light around and get even illumination with minimal shadows. Conversion to bw was in Lightroom. I really like the tonal signature of the image. By the way, the image was shot using a Zeiss Contax G Sonnar 90/2.8 mounted on the Olympus OMD.

This is a macro view of one of the flowers. I used a macro extender to get the shot. The lens used was a Minolta Rokkor 50/1.4. On the OMD it becomes a 100mm/1.4. Great for portraits.

Waiting for the fans. April 2012, Doha, Qatar

Sadly, it is not 2022 and some of the stadiums would like to have a few more players and fans. This instagram look-alike was shot with my EM5 (yes, the EM5) and processed in Picasa. I like some of the new art plug-ins in Picasa, particularly the Holga-ish and Lomo-ish plug-ins. One of them boosted the red and added a strong vignette to create this image. And of course, the fans will have to wait until 2022 for some world-cup action.

The Garbage Can Cleaner, Qatar, April 2012

Today I found this moth trapped in my house and was having trouble getting out. Every time I opened the door it would be swept in by the breeze. I trapped this with the help of my son and let it out.

MIA, March 2012, Qatar.

As the last bits of rain fell one evening last week we all brace for another summer under the relentless Qatari sun. The temperatures have already begun to shoot up to the late 30’s. It just a matter of days before the 30’s give to the 40’s and ultimately the 50’s. Cool evenings are few and well spaced out. Enjoy them with a stroll over the new MIA park.

Race Day, Losail, Qatar 2012

The 2012 season of the MotoGP tour started in earnest last Sunday. The Losail track in Qatar has been hosting the ‘MotoGP of Qatar’ since 2004. For the last few years this race has been the inaugural race of the season. The tickets to the race was increased to QR 200 from the usual QR 100. The result was quite easy to see. Attendance was down and seating was available till the end of the race. Last year was an absolute sellout and standing space-only.

Jorge Lorenzo became only the forth man to win the Grand Prix. Except for the inaugural year in 2004, the race has been monopolized by Rossi and Stoner. Ever since Stoner hit the tracks, the Qatar GP has been dominated by him except for the one year when he crashed out in the lead. Even this year, he was in complete control until he developed arm pump and fell back, hanging on to 3rd place letting a dogged Lorenzo take the lead.

The race ended close to midnight and it was time to go home. By then the last man racing was neither Lorenzo nor Stoner. It was not even the dogged Rossi. Looks like a new champ is in the making and he is on the right track!!

Marina, March 2012, Chennai, India

One morning, during the recent visit to India I had the fortune of taking all the kids to the beach. It was six rowdy kids and one hapless uncle. The rules of engagement, for the trip, was that there was no dip in the water permitted. The beach in Chennai is notoriously dirty. The cool breeze and the inviting water was too much. The cleanliness of the beach has improved tremendously.

I remember one fateful evening, many many years ago. Some of my medicine classmates would remember that evening pretty well. The results of the ENT/Ophthalmology semester were out and the results were the worst our batch has ever seen. The failure rate was extremely high and many big heads rolled. The mood in the hostel was very somber and by evening we had to do something. The sight of growing-up men crying is not a great sight. We all went to the beach and had a fantastic evening. Everyone got in to the water and as it got late we were all shivering with cold. We didn’t want to get back to the hostel. Reluctantly we pulled ourselves out of the water and reached the hostel. Later, as the final semesters arrived, some of our batch mates would try to run away from the exams. We had to have a vigilante group manning the gates of the hostel to spot the guys who were trying to run away from the exams. Then a lightning squad would visit the hapless guy and get him out of the bus, back to the hostel, after a lot of cajoling. Then these guys would pass the final exams with such ease they would laugh wildly when someone reminds them of the incident.

Frolicking on the Marina, March 2012, Chennai, India

These kids were having a great time playing on the beach and after a while, seeing me busy taking pictures, wanted to have their photos taken. The kids in Chennai are very friendly and usually love to have their pictures taken. They then posed for me and I tried to capture an image while they were not posing!

The Little Red Car, Chennai, March 2012

Cool respite for the eyes in Chennai’s summer heat.

I started this blog just to post b&w images and my thoughts about those images. For a while I have been resisting requests from my friends to post some of my color images. Today I decided to do just that. From now on my blog will feature color images as well.

I am in Chennai and last weekend I ventured out to shoot some images from the streets. The summer is on and the temperatures soar to 35C during the day. It will soon soar to 40-45C in a month’s time. Add to that the omnipresent high humidity and you know how life is in this city. Chennai has always been the ‘intellectual capital’ of India and has been well industrialized, but it is no Mumbai. Thank God for that. The city was considered spacious mixing a little bit of modernity and history. Colonial history, that is. The explosion of industrialization in the last few decades has led to extreme congestion, power cuts, pollution, lack of quality water supply, and a rising sky line that is neither aesthetic nor functional. The city looks like one massive slum. Real estate rates are comparable to that of New York!! There should be some rationale when you plunk your money down an apartment. The system reeks of corruption, and you can get run over by cars and buses plying every other way irrespective of some of the avenues being open for one-way traffic only. And when you get run over, rest assured the offending vehicle will get away with just a slap on the wrist.

Annanagar, a suburban locality of Chennai, was conceived and developed in the 80’s as a modern township with large avenues and residential properties with some breathing space around. The locality became one of the most sought-after address in Chennai. Fast forward three decades and today it retains none of the advantages it used to have. Every avenue is a rolling stretch of shops. The roads are strewn with cars and bikes parked in haphazard manner. Every time I visit the city I cringe a little. Someone told me that new apartments cost $250 per sq. ft. For what?? For some white space in a cow-shed of a city?

With all this running amok in my brain I took a short morning walk and clicked this snap on 6th Avenue. It might be the only stretch in Annanagar with a semblance of an avenue.