Category: Live Journal Entries

Highway to Footpath….

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

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.

Sunday Salad

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 😀

Hot Coffee in warm winter sun

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 🙂

Ghar ki murgi

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

More Bodyscapes

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.

Licenses and Limitations

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 🙂

Taaa Daaaaa – Highlights of 2003

Felt lost as to how the last year went, so started reading my own journal, Logjam makes it easy with neatly organized offline xml files, here are some random things which I would like to remember

Aasim started sleeping in his own room. All my original programmers left SANIsoft one by one. SANIsoft shifted to switched network and got cable Internet. Started photography as a serious hobby again, one of my articles was published in php|architect, I never wrote anything after that but did speak at IDRBT Hyderabad. Our marriage survived the 9th year and I slowly started to come out of my quarter life crisis. I started wishing for my new camera and finally got it. Aasim learned how to ride the bicycle and I was there the see it. Got involved with the development of Coppermine Picture Gallery. Aasim observed his first Roza. We attended and spoke at LB/2003. My photography has improved a lot.

Hmm…. all said and done a whole lot of insipid things

New Year?

Ekum January hai, naya saal hai!!
December maiN pooChoo ga kya Haal hai…
                                           Anon.

This cynical and mocking couplet roughly translates to

Its first of January, Its a new year (implying you are all thrilled about it)
Will ask in December how you are…

The eve was more or less a repeat of last year