Category: Live Journal Entries

We finally wrenched ourselves from the sentimental attachments and got rid of the 40 year old wooden sofa set which we had.

We have it with what is commonly known as “Ferro work” sofa, basically tubular iron with black powder coating. I know that this new one will not last as long as the older one did but right now it looks much better is lighter and occupies less space and has more seats…. If this looks like I am trying to get rid of my guilt pangs then you are right I have not really over come those till now.

Hopefully, as someone suggested, using the new sofa as a prop in one of my shoots will cure me.

Another thing which I had debated for long and often put off for another day was inserting Google Ads on my site. I definitely don’t need the money and I also know that given the keywords I have I will not make more than a few cents a week but the sheer relevancy of ads which Google serves makes it interesting to have them. do look at them if you happen to be at my site

All this came to light when we did some work on tracking Google ads in a client’s application.

Mind Maps and Javascripts

A client wants an on line Mind Mapping software, I had said that Java Applets / Flash + PHP was the way to go, however he wanted it using JS + PHP. I would have given up on the project had one of the specification not been – should run in Firefox 1.0 and above.

Planning to use a combination of three open source projects to achieve the end result

Vector drawings using Javascript
JP Span
and
QWAD Application Framework

This is only the second time that a client has specified Firefox as the common denominator for browsers.

Books and books

Yesterday myself and Swati hopped into a book exhibition though we had only 45 min we were able to get two books – An annotated guide published by DK for ARTS which has about 80 paintings by great masters explained. The second book I got is on Making Paper Airplanes which has 30 models (yeah all of them fly) once I master them I will know how to make more than 50 different types of paper airplanes which fly 🙂

However the thumb rule for paper airplanes is always holds – the simplest models fly the best.

Continuing about books I was pleasantly surprised today when I got two requests for permission to have my photographs included in books, no they are not photography books, two are on thermodynamics and the other is on social service.

Programming &stuff

Have started teaching Aasim Logo programming about a week ago, we started with KTurtle, Aasim also liked the very nice KDE interface but to my dismay it has a bug in displaying the correct line numbers when errors occur. While this is OK of now when I can tell Aasim which line he went wrong – it will soon hamper his experimentation besides it does not have bindings to any toolkit which means no Windowed application programming which he hopes to do.

Searching around I found MSWLogo and the more popular and commercial MicroWorlds EX. However I was horrified by the WYSIWYG style of MicroWorlds (it seems to be modeled after some M$ IDE ) and quickly rejected it.

So for now it will be MSWLogo which even though very plain looking fits the bill perfectly, best of all there is a wonderful free book called The Great Logo Adventure aimed at children which uses MSWLogo as the base.

Lets see how long Aasim’s interest lasts – more than teaching programming the idea is to give him logical and problem solving skill, but I do hope that he keeps at it and perhaps takes up C (with or without ++) in near future.

I guess I will have to learn a bit of teaching skills from his tabla teacher who has managed to enchant him into the world of music.

In the daily drudgery department – the painting of walls etc at home has been completed as has been the construction of my Studio, will have the electric wiring and the backdrop system in place the coming week. Hopefully next Sunday I will be able to have a shoot there.

Happy New Year!

Since I have not written much in this journal this year there is no nicely hyperlinked entry summarizing my life of past 365 days in a paragraph.

So nothing remarkable happened in 2004? hmmm… not sure except that it was the best year ever for SANIsoft.

I guess a new year resolution is indeed needed – “I will write at least twice a week in this journal” even if it is something as trivial as us getting a 29“ Sony WEGA or Nagpur now suffers 3 hours of load shedding despite the region producing 70% of the state’s requirement or Coppermine hitting 1 million downloads at SF.

How did we spend the eve?

Well nothing was planned as usual and we were going to sleep early to wake up fresh and energetic for the new year.

While coming back from Aasim’s tabla class Swati saw a group of local engineering college students on the road. Nothing unexpected as they are the ones who are reputed to party around the most, however this bunch was different they were all dressed in white standing silently in a neat line by the road side with placard and posters urging people to donate for the tsunami victims, they were alone so we decided to join them I took a couple of pictures, while Swati organised more posters with their help asking people to join the line if they felt the same, not surprisingly many did. Soon one of their professors who happened to pass by joined them, an air force pilot who was on holiday, other students for different colleges, sportsmen, lawyers, shopkeepers!!

Swati called up a couple of friends who in turn called up the press…

We returned when Aasim was no longer able to stand.

A happy, peaceful and safe new year to all of you

Merry Christmas to everyone


Fill in the balloon, what is the little girl saying to the boy – If you, like me are working today, here is a chance to….  😉

Overheard!

Swati: Aaaaasimmm….
No answer…
Swati: Aaaaasimmmmmmm

No answer! He is finally located sitting in his room busy with something arcane

Swati: Why don’t you reply?
Aasim: Sssh! don’t disturb me I am inside a (computer) game and someone else is controlling me

Yellow Planet Monster

Yellow planet monster

As Spaceman Spiff crash lands on the dreaded Yellow planet a monster arrives … Aasim’s response on seeing the picture 🙂

Yesterday was a bright winter afternoon ideal for lazing in the sun, however I did no such thing but I did discover that Nikon 5700 will give decent DoF in a brightly lit scene. Here is another shot of the monster bee which proves that.

I spent a large part of last Friday and Saturday at Vivek’s studio – he was trying to take pictures of flowers and Yellow / Red Capsicums, the idea was to have the subject submerged in a water tank with bubbles from the bottom as well as top, at the same time the flowers should not appear bent like having just been thrust forcefully but rather appear to be growing out of the water surface when the picture was flipped vertically… Thats the best I can describe it. The whole experience was a mixture of lots of experimentation, fun, frustration and education. After about 500+ shots there were enough perfect ones to satisfy Vivek.

Work has started on converting our aangan in a studio, It will not be big, about 10’x15’, but will serve well for whatever I do now.

Low-key photography.

For most photographers the term “low-key” is usually defined by photos that are

* Saturated colors at the bottom end of the tonal value scale,
* Deep shadows, and
* Few, but very high contrasts.

Also “low-key” usually conveys a mood of

* Serenity,
* Melancholy or
* Pathos.

However I somehow got the idea somewhere early on that “low-key” really meant that the entire tonal range in a low key photograph should be between 100% to 80% black with negligent or no high contrast points.

Since then I have countless times discovered that taking a photograph which is entirely in 100% to 80% black and at the same time not sad is a very very tough task.

Day before I once again revisited the theme – with some amount of success I would like to believe….

I was once again painfully reminded that my Nikon5700 is pathetic for the job 🙁