Heroes rise, heroes fall
Rise again, win it all
In your heart, can’t you feel the glory
Through our joy, through our pain
We can move worlds again
Take my hand, dance with me
I want to spend my lifetime loving you
If that is all in life I will ever do
I will want nothing else to see me through
If I can spend my lifetime loving you
Yesterday we were invited to a cocktail party which was supposed to have *the* who’s who of city’s business community. (Un)fortunately despite the best intentions of our gracious host at introductions most of the time we were kind of “Who?” but the food was very very nice and the service excellent. So sitting in relative anonymity we played our little impromptu game of “Which Matrix character is this person?” It was prompted by several young men attired in long front open dark sherwani. The funniest was all the waiters (in their similar double breasted suits) were “Agent Smith”, and yeah Trinity was FAT 🙂
We came back around midnight and watched “Chameli”, liked the movie – for once Kareena has acted rather than just looking pretty, having worked in Forensic medicine I could identify with the sob stories she feeds and the real pathos beneath that defiance of a street walker….
Aasim had opted to say with his Nani, in fact he stayed over for most of today as well…
Did a bit of photography in the morning. Have added some more lights to my collection of studio equipments for my white Bodyscapes basically tungsten bulbs of higher wattages. Need to start experimenting with more than one or two lights lighting a single scene. Also need to figure out a good way to hang the backdrops.
The afternoon was spent lazying around the house.
The evening was planned for visiting some heritage expo BUT we finally chickened out and spending the time home…
We have been unceremoniously kicked from the Information Super highway to the Information Footpath. As news tells it our ISP was illegally giving cable internet connections using a leased line from BSNL, their offices were raided by CBI yesterday and all the equipment seized.
So we are back to using dial-up and very high telephone bills… thankfully though the dial-up is very stable and gives a decent 56kbps. Hopefully there will be some alternative soon.
In other news the book “Building Custom PHP Extensions” arrived from Amazon. Yeah I know it is available in electronic format for free BUT I wanted a dead tree version which I can read to the point where I know everything even without looking at it 🙂 I somehow cannot do that with texts on CRT….
Maya Jaal Na toda Jaaye,
Loobhi mann mujh ko tarsaye
Mil Jaaye to rooG hai duniya,
Mil na sa ke to jee lalcha ye!
Mere Aainsoo, Un ka daman,
RaeT pe jharna sookha jaye.
Taash ke mahalon me hardum,
Kaanch ki choodi khanki jaye!
Pyaar, mohabbat, rishte naate
Sani kuch bhi kaam na aaye.
-Zarina Sani
This poem was in response to a quip by the poetess’s 14 year old son – “Why does profound poetry have to be complicated?”
22 years on this day God broke the Maya Jaal of this world for her… I still miss my mother.
Woke up checked mail saw that the sky had not fallen overnight…
Aasim woke up a little later and he wanted a game of frisbee. Its amazing how much fun you can have with a wobbly Rs35/- only toy given the right time and people.
Soon tired I settled Aasim to watch Disney special edition of Pinocchio. It was already 10:30. While he finished the movie me and Swati finished several chores around the house.
Then while Aasim again got me going with the frisbee Swati whipped up the most fabulous Prawn Pulao (Swati insists that it was Chinese Prawn Fried Rice) and Fruit Salad.
After lunch,we indulged in a failed photo shoot where I wanted to shoot a macro of an eye with a pencil point dangerously close – The photo was to be titled “View of Point”, after a few tries I realised that I just lack the lights needed.
Then before Aasim could hijack me again we blackmailed him into letting us watch the movie “Tahzeeb”, I really liked the movie, specially the editing and background score.
Somewhere in the middle a client half way across the world and half way into the night buzzed to let me know that someone messed up the install of our application – I duely apologised and opted to excercise the Sunday clause.
In short, the day, till now has been just like this picture – nothing too special but still with lots of color and a variety of tastes and there is still a bit of it left 🙂
Was getting bored so I hacked an RSS Feed generator for Coppermine. Turned out it needed just 20 lines of code… Made it a bit more user friendly, added frills and comments worth 50 more lines of code 😀
I am thankful to god for whatever treasured moments I can steal with my loved one over a cup of hot coffee drunk sitting in the warm winter sun.
The picture has no special lights or tricks – I just happen to have my camera in my hand the cups were on the table, rest I guess is just magic 🙂
While the desi IT press chooses to pointedly ignore and scorn the Coppermine Picture Gallery I was interviewed today about the same by Internet Magazine, UK. It is a print magazine, beyond that I don’t know anything about it – does anyone know?
I have also been pondering about an elitist Open Source event scheduled to happen in Delhi in Feb… more on that soon
As promised here are some more Bodyscapes.
This time the score is higher – I could get five displayable pictures. Though almost everyone will disagree, my fav, due to the fact how well my camera picked up the details is Goose Pimples. I will probably do one more with black background to complete this series. We all are very keen on trying out white backgrounds and b/w photography.
Several friends have asked several questions about use of pictures from my site. To make things simpler I have licensed all the pictures under a Creative Commons License and have also put a note at bottom of the site about the same.
The second question I am often asked is what manipulations I do to my photographs.
The short answer is only those alterations which are allowed by the DP Challenge are done. A bit longer answer…
#1 Absolutely no spot editing is done – that includes no spot increase or decrease in contrasts, sharpening, blurring.
#2 I do adjust color levels, brightness and contrast and at times un-sharpen mask filter.
#3 I use Neat Image for noise reduction.
#4 I also use Jhead to transfer the EXIF info to the final resized picture.
The last most recurring question is how to get a model.
The short answer to that is ask. Helpful tips include (but not limited to)
#1 Having known the model for some length of time, a spouse / girlfriend is an ideal candidate but if she is not the type you want or is reluctant…
#2 Having your spouse / girlfriend along when you ask and asking the model to get someone along if she wishes.
#3 Giving a clear-cut idea of what kind of pictures you wish to take by showing samples of your works OR work of photographers you like.
#4 Try not to offer money in return, unless you are into it commercially as well, I offer prints of their pictures in return.
#5 Your first few pictures should show her that she is more beautiful than what she pictures herself 🙂