Lemme start this phlog with a very well known phrase/ saying "An idle mind is a Devil's workshop"...Well for me...the combination of an Idle mind and all along loneliness works great as the Devil himself starts craving for some creative, crazy matter...and whats that crazy matter??? What else..."Photography"
Photography has been an intimate part of my life and am sure I have been in relation with it atleast for the past 4 years (with actual digital cameras), apart from all the naive but sometimes profound photography I had been doing using my mobile cam or the old and very unique film photography with my Dad's Yashica.
With the moving over to the urban jungle in Pune about 7-8 months back and upgrading self from Point and shoot to a Dslr bout 6 months back, my relationship with my love did take some beating. But none the less with less amount of exposure or easy availability of nature and my serious craze for nature photography had always forced/pushed me for trying out something that I probably would or could never do or imagine with the normal point and shoot small censor cams.
Like the telly character Dexter Morgan struggles through different ways to satisfy his Dark Passenger, I try several stuffs, wierd wierd stuffs, to satisfy the hunger for photography....
Well my plans of an outing to the 'Heaven of Photography' every month surely headed to a Boulder named 'socializing'...and ofcousre the biggest of all LAZINESS...but then when u get suffocated inside a pit, u surely try to digg out a way for some air, and so with all these hindrance I surely found out or rather tried out some unique form of photography, few of which I tried from what others photographers have been trying out and for some, due to some or the other restraints, found new ways to achieve the desired target. Well this quest surely helped me in satisfying the hunger and also helped in piling up collection for the 'Morning Mails' :)
So Below are the various Mad stuffs I had been Exploring in various forms of Experiments right in the place I call as the Hut of Solitude ;P, i.e., my room on rent in Pune
- The Long Exposure one
The Star Trails...Always curious bout such form of photography. It took a real hard research and self motivation due to the unanswered mails to real well known photographers to explore this un-travelled (for me) waters of capturing the star trails. The first image below is the very first attempt I tried pretty early in the morning of Diwali. Though by the time I could get the settings right the Sun had started releasing its energy and thats why u cud see the Blue background rather than the natural black sky that is expected, but getting this result after almost an hour long struggle, atleast for me, wasn't bad at all, but then realized its not easy to capture such beauty if u live in a city coz the stray unnecessary light and air pollution from everything that we use keeps the sky illuminated reducing the intensity of the light from the stars and also has a kind of reddish glow all around the horizon hampering a perfect capture
 |
| First attempt on Star Trails Location: Dombivli Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/16 Exp: 720sec(12 mins) ISO 100 Spot Metering |
 |
| Second Attempt Location: Baramati Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/9 Exp: 720sec(12 mins) ISO 100 Pattern Metering |
 | ||
| Third Attempt Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1260sec(21 mins) ISO 100 Pattern Metering |
Well though this experiment hasnt ended yet, might have halted but its not over...shall be getting back to this once I am in a proper spot with right equipement and perfect moment...Till that time 'Shall meet you back Star Trails' As the Bournvita ad's boy says...."Ab toh poori raat baaki hai...aur tu kahaan jaane wala hai " ;)
The Light Trails...
The next one had to be something different and after 'up above the sky' I ended up 'down on the earth'...i.e. trails on the highway. Staying pretty close to the highway I could explore a lot on these known grounds and so i did in various forms and below are the best of them...
 |
| The Chaos Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/22 Exp: 15secs ISO 100 Pattern Metering |
 |
| The traffic and the celebrations Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/22 Exp: 15secs ISO 100 Pattern Metering |
The above one has been a very special for me basically coz I could witness and capture two diverse moods, one the gushing thru chaotic traffic and on the other end the auspiciousness of some achievement thru the bursting of firecrackers. Captured just a few metres from Pimpri Chowk, near Kharelwadi, Pune.
The next pic comes from my uncle's neighbourhood, its a small fair that was brought up a local corporator for the Dassera celebration. The whole illume made my photographic keeda crazy and almost went breserk with variuos forms of capturing the moment and finally got one of the best frames captured by me, an partial aerial view of the whole visual delight.
 |
| The Green Ellipse Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/22 Exp: 15secs ISO 100 Pattern Metering |
Another wierd stuff that i had tried related to long exposure was an answer to a question that arised in my mind...'If I have a long exposure and the light is moving there are trails captured...but what if the subject is still but the cam moves...' And here's the result
 |
Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/7 Exp: 2.5secs ISO 200 Spot Metering |
 | |
|
The above clicks were taken pretty close to the Pune Airport and so my interest got caught onto the other thing that moves/flies from the Airport. Just a few weeks back had read an article about a photographer who has been doing research and extensive photography related to the light trails formed by the take-off and landing of the flights at a very busy international airport in the night time, this had brought some amount of curiosity in me, and thanks to the close proximity of my bro's apartment from the airport i could try out the same though I was still positioned few miles away from the take off point. Here are the few snaps I could capture sucessfully
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/6.3 Exp: 8secs ISO 100 Pattern Metering |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/6.3 Exp: 22secs ISO 100 Pattern Metering |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/10 Exp: 18secs ISO 100 Pattern Metering |
Last but not the least, sharing one more experiment or a resultant of an
experiment...my gift for all the Lovers and the Loved ones of the
world on the Valentine's Day...a combination image of 3-4 frames...I like to call it the Chaos of Valentine ;P
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/4 Exp: 30secs ISO 200 Pattern Metering |
There also was a thought 'What if I use long exposures in place where it shouldn't be used...What could be the result'...and so the following results. Can you guess what are these??? These are no photoshop tricks...rather, except for some tweaking in levels, pretty much unedited snaps...and these r probably never shared by me in any form onto the Social media...
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/32 Exp: 1/4secs ISO 100 Spot Metering |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/25 Exp: 1/4secs ISO 100 Spot Metering |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/20 Exp: 1/8secs ISO 100 Spot Metering |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/25 Exp: 1/4secs ISO 100 Spot Metering |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/25 Exp: 1/4secs ISO 100 Spot Metering |
- The High speed ones...
Lets start off with few snaps that probably implies me/my name
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/200secs ISO 400 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/500secs ISO 400 |
Smoke Photography is also a very interesting topic and the results really baffles out especially the amorphous and unpredictable forms that the camera tends to capture. But the whole 'ideal' process of capturing the interesting forms is a bit complicated and also a costly affair especially for a beginner like me. The basic setup consists of using a remote triggered flash which is not a usual stuff that u find in a beginner's kit. But still equipped with a basic mobile's LED light and few basic torch lights I tried to capture the form but unfortunately in the night and with low intensity light u dont tend to capture the dynamic smoke easily and end up capturing the blurred form generated due to longer exposure. The below image is one of the best result from the failed initial stage.
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/4 Exp: 1/15secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/200secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 18-55 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/200secs ISO 800 |
And so one fine day of a weekend after my bath and usual worship to the almighty I had kept the incense stick on to the window's frame. All of a sudden I realized that the cloth that I had kept for drying was perfectly working as a cover behind the incense stick and the side lighting was illuminating the smoke in a proper manner. So after setting up my cam and tripo started the explorations with much better results
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/160secs ISO 400 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/125secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/125secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/160secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/160secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens
EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/160secs ISO 800
|
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens
EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/160secs ISO 800
|
The next highspeed experiment was basically an extension of an accidentally captured frame right in the very early stage of my DSLR day's. The below image was captured on the first of September last year when it started raining while I was back at home. I myself Was astonished to see the frame captured by myself
 |
| Location: Dombivli Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/500secs ISO 200 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1000secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1000secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1000secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1250secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1250secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1250secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1250secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1250secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1250secs ISO 800 |
 |
| Location: Pune Canon EOS 550D Canon 55-250 IS lens EXIF: F/5.6 Exp: 1/1250secs ISO 800 |
Well time to say Bubye...Shall catch up after a moment with few more photos and few more thoughts, till then Wishing all my Photography friends...Happy Clicking and for all the readers, Thank you for your patience and Have a Great Day :)
P.S.: Critiques in any form highly appreciable.... :)
