The cross at the top of the hill

Model photography - HG 1/144 Gundam 00 Exia

I got lucky in Singapore and discovered the Gundam series of models. Now I’ve put together model aeroplanes in the ol’days which required glue and a paint job, but these Gundam models were interesting because they claimed to not use glue for assembly and also not require a paint job to complete. Anyways, I picked up one, assembled it (read my review of it here) and then, it was camera time!

Catch the whole set here.

The Devil’s Canyon

On the last Goa trip, we visited Mollem Wildlife Sanctuary (check out Giovi’s pics here). This was the first time we didn’t walk around a place, we drove around instead. This place is called the Devil’s Canyon. It was a dull day (We could already hear the thunder in the distance and it started pouring just minutes afterwards). While it was hard to make out what the bottom looked like, this HDR has managed to bring it out… and killed the mystery.

Esplanade skyline panorama

While this one looks good in the small size, it doesn’t stand up to closer scrutiny :-( Well, panoramas are not really my thing, but when you have a skyline that looks like this, its hard to resist… (check the full size here)

Singapore skyline at night

Well, that’s a tiny looking Merlion there right in front of the Fullerton. I know its tiny in this photo, so use this link to see the photo in its full size avatar…

Esplanade by night

Here’s a first in the series, this set is on the Esplanade in Singapore.

The Night Safari

The Night Safari is a really nice attraction at the Singapore Zoo. Great for viewing, not so great if you don’t have a fast lens and usable high-ISO on your camera. These pics are probably best enjoyed on a black background and in a darkened room.

View the rest of the photos here.

Into the Coolhouse

Here’s what the coolhouse looks like, and here are some of its inhabitants…

The flower show continues…

In continuation to yesterday’s post, here are some more orchids and all things botanical from the Singapore Botanical Garden and the Orchid Park.

For more photos, click here.

Walking around the Singapore Botanical Garden

The botanical gardens is a really nice place to stroll around and as a photographer, you’re not alone. Everyone from a pro taking pictures of a bride to seemingly random people pulling out a big canon with a L series lens (the most common one I saw was the 24-70 2.8 L). If you are into flower and plants, this is a ‘not-to-be-missed’ place to visit. For lovers of orchids, there’s an Orchid park (which you have to pay for entry, the botanical gardens entry is free) is much more scenic to look at and has a higher ‘concentration’ of flowers.

Mist in the Cooler room

The ‘coolest’ place in the Singapore Botanical Gardens, the combination of air conditioning, water spray and a greenhouse makes this room an interesting place to drop by. There greenery all around with the kind of morning dew / rainforest wet look on the foliage. Be careful if you have electronics though because of the fine spray that might be present. (observe the ‘mist’ effect on the far side)

The look

From the same Ajmal event as yesterday, today we have Fleur Xavier. This set of continuous photos reminded me of the movie Zoolander, namely, ‘The Look’. In the movie, everyone from the fashion industry thinks that Zoolander develops different looks, his ultimate being Magnum, his most powerful look till date. His way of “deploying” the look is to:

1. Face away from the audience
2. Swing around a quick 90 degs
3. when he has swung around, his face has “the look”

Fleur Xavier does it with a flick of the head…

Stuck in the wrong place?

This is an old one, from the Ajmal perfume launch about a year back. It was a fashion show held on a Kingfisher flight with models walking up and down the aisle as the ramp. After taking our seats, some photographers realised that they were way in front with the models actually stopping to pose with the Ajmal bottles halfway down the aisle. As you can see, there were a ‘wall of cameras’ to greet the models there with this one guy feeling like he missed the action.

Sitting on the fence

Spotted this fellow on the Sanjay Gandhi National Park walk back to the main gate. This was the closest I could get to him before he jumped onto the camera lens and began weaving his web. What followed was arachnid acrobatics…

Summer growth

The street was lined with these trees, and they all seemed to show fresh leaves at the end of every branch. A really nice sight.

A night with the Workshop

“In case any of the songs, jokes, or other repartee offends you, then that’s really not our problem. If you can’t take some jokes, then you really shouldn’t be here.” Following a warning that sounds something like that, the Workshop gets to work.


A little back-story first. I happened to read photocritic’s post on concert photography, and after seeing the photos on his website, I was itching to give it a shot.

When my brother told me that his friend’s band had recently got an album out and that they were performing in various places around the city, I decided to get out the camera and give it a whirl. After all, what better opportunity than this?

I’m not much of a rock buff, or even music buff for that matter, but what I heard on the album which bro purchased had a good ring to it. What particularly caught my eye was the use of our regular Indian dialogues and other fare as names for songs. So off it was concert.

The first thing that hits you when the workshop come on stage is that fact that they are dressed like they are at a workshop. Complete with overalls (please correct me if I got this term wrong) and bright yellow protective helmets. A few test shots at the venue to check for lighting (that was me testing btw, not the band, they did some sound checks).

If they sing a particular genre of rock, I wouldn’t really know, but if I had to give it a name, I’d call it humour rock. And attending the performance bought me back to my school days, with all the double entendre. They’ve got one album out, and all songs are right out of that one. A thing I liked was that they don’t do covers, only their stuff. Thumbs up there. The humour is not just in the songs, its on stage as well. In fact, you will be forgiven if you walked into a performance between songs and thought you walked into a stand-up comedy routine. Another thumbs up. They even had this part where each of them ’show-off’ their ‘instrumental’ skills with short solo performances. I liked that part too.

Now for the songs. Since their album has something for everyone, quite literally (there’s a song in the most popular Indian language, as well as the not so popular Indian language, aka english). Personal favourites include ‘Phude Sarka’ (inspired by the famous marathi dialogue, oft heard in buses as well as trains) and ‘She folked up my jazz’ (warning, singing this song near your current girlfriend could be hazardous to your health).

Other warnings: Do not attend their concert with your kids. Sure the ‘explicit content’ might be bad for your kids if you were a parent, but it would be even worse if your kids caught the ‘meanings’ before you did.

Verdict: Well, I’m not really qualified to talk about music, but I enjoyed the performance. Stay away if you are an uptight music person, or worse, an uptight rock person. As for me… \m/

Links to the band: Myspace, Facebook.

The three guitarists

Beating down the drums

Old skool guitaring

Into the song

Check out the rest of the set here.

Looking around Kanheri – Descent into greenery

Looking around Kanheri – Flame of the Forest

We visited Kanheri on an overcast day. The clouds loomed around, threatening to rain. In July or August, it would have meant that I was walking around with an umbrella in the hand, the camera carefully wrapped to avoid the stray rain drops or the sudden downpour.

One of the challenges of a bright, yet overcast sky is that any photo you take looks gloomy with a white sky, and no polariser can help you add some blue to the dull sky. You could use a graduated Neutral Density (ND) filter, but you need straight horizons for that, and I don’t have one to begin with. So instead, I opted to try High Dynamic Range (HDR) instead.

The Buddha at Kanheri Caves

Stepping out side the stupa of yesterday, is the Buddha of today. This statue towers over the entrance, and while there are other, more intricate sculptures around the place, this one takes the cake because of his sheer size.

The stupa at Kanheri Caves

I am a regular at the Stuck in Customs website, and one of his recent posts caught my eye. And so at the visit to Kanheri caves at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, I And that was the inspiration behind this attempt. There was hardly any light coming in, which became a bit of a challenge with me not carrying my tripod.

Just after cursing myself a couple of times, I thought that maybe its time to try out the bagpod. So I swung off the backpack, squished the top so that it got a depression, and then balanced the camera on it. The 2-second timer helped. That kept the camera steady enough for this picture. If I had carried the tripod, I think I would have ended up with a higher point-of-view, but I like this PoV’s effect.

Sunset in a bamboo grove

The Mumbai Port Trust garden, right opposite the Colaba bus depot is a nice place to visit. Sunday evenings means the place will usually have a lot of families there but not so many that you feel you are in a fish market. If you stay off the main garden area which has all the kids running loose, you can get some pretty interesting photos.

As I was loitering around, putting the 100mm to use, I saw the sun setting. So while everyone was making their way to the sea side seating area to catch the last rays, I noticed the rays on the bamboo. I did manage to get some curious and bemused looks from the people there because there was no apparent subject that I seemed to be pointing my camera towards.

A boat passing in the night

Back in the H2 days, I took a boat ride from the Gateway of India, Mumbai. As the lights of Mumbai shrank and grew dimmer in the distance, there were other boats which were well lit that we passed by on the way out, including the Indian Empress. While trying to take shots of it, every trick in the book could not get sort out the shaky, blurry photos. I ended up so annoyed with the camera (yes yes, blame the tools) that I increased the shutterspeed to the highest value (30 secs), pointed it in the direction of an incoming boat and fired. And the picture above is the result.

The light will shine on us

I’m not the evangelical sort, but that seemed like an appropriate name for this picture of the the cross at St Peter’s Church in Bandra. It was a late evening on Saturday with friends, sipping lemon ice tea at de Colombian Cafe, when I looked up at the sky and saw the cross shining out through the street lights and the backlit displays of shops and bus stands. hmmm… I am sounding evangelical now…

Festive traffic jam

Its not only the ‘no-traffic-sense’ that can cause chaos in the streets in Mumbai, its also the people dancing on the street. It was strange to see colours being used, colours that you normally only see during holi. Yesterday was the last day of the 6 days long celebration. I’ll miss the psychedelic lights that lit the whole street, but I will definitely not miss the ‘band-baaja‘.

Under a starry street one night

There’s a week-long celebration going on at the temple near here, and whole street had been lit by thousands of these little bulbs. Perfect for the star aperture of the lensbaby. I just wish I had come up with the idea in the first place…

Nature, pollution and urbanisation - Part 2

Lost at sea


In a strange quirk of fate, a dog finds itself in the middle of the water. How did he get there? Why did he get there? Will he get off? … is it even a ‘he’?!? Such were the questions that plague one’s mind when one observes such a sight. Which makes me wonder some more things… perhaps the dog had gone for an all-night drinking session only to wake up to find himself at sea, or rather the river adjacent the nature park. We do notice similar results in humans as well. I wish I could have hung around a little longer; but after watching the dog do nothing except bury his nose, and ignore the crows, it was time to move on…

How did I get here?

Saturday morning hangover

Nature, pollution and urbanisation - Part 1

Maharashtra Nature Park here in Mumbai presents a strange balance of nature, pollution and urbanisation, and it was this strange combination that I noticed everytime I released the shutter to capture some of the birds that call Mumbai their home… or their stop-over.

Beauty and the garbage

A gathering of birds

Morning walk

Stretching those wings