Sunday, March 28, 2010

the best things in life are (....) ?



A free ride in the land of the free ..

One of the best attractions of NYC, there is nothing as grand as the approaching city's sky-scraper-line. Add the torquoise blue waters, the Statue of Liberty, and the Verrazano-Narrows bridge to complete a panorama that you just can't have enough of !

Thursday, March 25, 2010

a painted house

The Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park is a uniqueness. It runs along the length of the Delaware-Raritan canal for all of seventy miles. Also, in the matter of less than a century it has come full circle - once the highway for heavy river-traffic, now it is the sliver of calm running between major freeways. It is now in fact an unbroken trail on which you can cycle all day and more, or stop over for canoeing or fishing.

Tough job to cycle for any length of time though, with sights like these all along the way imploring you to stop and catch your breath, which you find being taken away from you at regular intervals !

Sunday, March 21, 2010

daffodils


Wordsworth was right.

I did not see an entire field of them, there was just this one plant.

But it did touch me in a way that the poet so beautifully put to words:

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee.
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company.

Company is just the little something that gives you the final push, making the difference between a day spent lolling in bed and a day out, soaking up the warm spring sun. I was lucky to get the second option !

Saturday, March 20, 2010

it's in the air


Friday was the first time this year that I managed a run outside. Ages of snow and rain, and then in a matter of a week suddenly everything has switched to warm and woozy. From a weekend spent being stuck in an icy flood to a picnic on the next one, its been a long journey in a short time ! Its terribly difficult to stay awake in office though :).

The trees are still bare, but nature is trying to catch up with a vengeance. The bulbs are opening up super-fast, and its like watching things on a slo-mo camera.

Friday, March 19, 2010

who wants them anyway ?


Its strange, but orange juice in the US tastes much, much better than the medicine that they dish out in India.

There was a scene in "To Sir with Love" in which Sidney Poitier declares that he would have an orange for lunch.

An orange !? Him not exactly being a crash-dieting bimbo, the concept was really hard for me to grasp at that time..

Till I came here and was faced with the option of sirloin steak or meatloaf for lunch. Or some crazy thing they label as calzone, which is in fact the most unwholesome combination of a pocket bread, lots of sticky cheese and tomato gravy, and stuffed with fried eggplant.

There's nothing like a foren-treep to open up your mind.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

NY, i ♥ u


There are situations where you fall in love at first sight...

Here's a city which I fell in love with even before I met her !

This place: Times Square, NY. Taken at a time when I had more reason than ever before to love the New York minute ..

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

in bullet points

. This place: Old man's cave trail, Ohio.

Most of the "treks" that I have been on around here, are more aptly, walks around the parks. Literally. Neat paths through national parks, offering picturesque views and solitude with nature; with none of the huff-puff of trekking.

Things that I found to be much better here:

> Well marked trails, with distance markers
> Dogs on leashes
> Benches, drinking water and toilets at regular intervals
> Joggers (inspirational !)
> Low humidity, mostly pleasant weather throughout the day.

Things that I miss from India:

> Neembu paani wala.

Monday, March 15, 2010

touristgiri

Tags:

#There are times when you simply have to pack the camera away and just imbibe the awesomeness.

#Continuously looking at the world through an eyepiece only narrows your vision

But then, #memories fade, photographs don't !

Golden rays of the setting sun on an overcast wintry day, highlighting a scene like this ? Lasts for all of twelve minutes. Make the most of it !



Sunday, March 14, 2010

alone ..


.. and startled. Click through to full size, and look into its eyes to see what I mean ..

I was debating over a write-up which included people while being part of a flock, getting too engrossed in their personal struggles and drifting away to a point where suddenly they look up and see they are alone, which is basically a non-likeable kind of suprise ...

But then I started thinking up of the effect that social groups have on your activities and interests, which are a big part of your life -certainly a very big part of the life that you control. (I will count the time that you spend poking at random keys in office outside the scope of that definition. Its a strange thing, this poking at keys. I keep doing that every day the way that I have done for five, six years now. Nothing's ever come out of it and I know probably nothing will, but I keep on slogging at it all the same. Maybe some mice somewhere are making an experiment to find out the point where people give up on the typing. That has not been determined yet, and I think that the study is going to be modified to be called "A Tribute to the Human Spirit")
Coming back, so - that is a big enough chunk of life to be defining what you were doing in a particular period of time, the winter of 2000, for example.

Or, the summer of 2008.

It was the time that I had discovered the pleasures of having a friend with a knack for cooking, a wide screen TV and an unlimited supply of movies in the heart of Mumbai, at a three-station distance ride from office. And said friend being a cricket junkie, I also discovered the thrills of IPL season one, which I would have otherwise kept track of through cursory glances at match reports in between random poking of keys. I - without a home team to root for, started cheering for the team of the city that we had begun to call home, escatic in its victories, crestfallen in its defeats, and generally super-optimistic about the prevalence of hopes and wishes over figures and probabilities. Unfortunately the celebrations were not many that year, but while we (WE!) did not win, that summer was the summer that we played cricket, each day for four hours after office, and then sometimes we played some replays too.

Switch to season three, away from appropriate society, I am back to glancing through match reports.

Err.. the thought of watching matches always makes me hungry for popcorn. Even though I am not really watching them. I think I will go fix something to eat. Stuck in a house alone over a weekend has a kind of non-constructive effect over regular eating habits..

Friday, March 12, 2010

boyz toyz


Notes to myself:
1) Need to add a reflector to minimise shadows, instead of having to dodge all over in post-processing
2) Use a tripod. For this shot with a convinient white background,the L lens does not have much advantage over the kit lens. Bokeh is not the point of every shot.

James Bond watches and Swiss Knives - the allure of these gadgets is in their versatility. The number of situations these can bail their owners out from. The sheer thrill of finding solution to something you need right there in your hands.

And where do you find these toys most ? Put up in glass showcases. Owners keeping them out of adverse "situations". :)

Monday, March 8, 2010

its coming !

I kept waiting for birdie to stand up and pose against the white background, but it did not oblige me for a long, long time.

Spring is coming, and it's putting a song on every lip and a dance on every step.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

looking back

When I look back on life, there are events I would like to forget, things that I would like to change - given another chance.
There are also things that I am thankful for, events whose memory leaves me with a warm afterglow each time I think of them. It is for these memories that I am a sucker, creating little bubbles of time in photographs, hoping to peep into these later a time when they would thrill me most.

Good or bad, these are the events that shaped my life. Would it be possible to take away the bad ones while leaving the good ones intact ? Maybe, or maybe not. Some of the events were good just because of the environment which they took place in. Others - are just so, neither good nor bad, but they mellow over time, ripening into what we call the good old times.

Life is just a tapestry. Trying to take out some of the things might make the whole thing fall apart. Or at least, introduce wrinkles in your beauty sleep.

On the whole, its been a fun thing.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

my way

There's a serene loop around the lake in Columbus Park: with rustic benches, fountains and wood-ducks for accompaniment , you start to think that the route for your morning run cant get any better than this.

Then comes the Fall and takes your breath away.

Monday, March 1, 2010

monday

Will Mondays ever be this ?

:)