short trip to Tech

Its a great feel to walk across those blue gates wearing a round neck t-shirt and jean. :) Also not with a dumb indentification card hanging around one's neck. This time the watchman didn't stop me! Its always said that Tech will grow only vertically, and they are keeping up their word. Lot of changes after the flyover across the NH.

• My favourite bike stand is removed and a 5 floor building is coming up. I will be the last one to run and hand over the token to the security and take my bike outside.
• Another 5 floor class rooms (F-block) are fully functional over the canteen.
• The production department industry is swept away and 4 floor class rooms are coming up. This means E-Block, M-Block (towards the far corner), J-Block, F-Block will be interconnected across in the 2nd floor.
• One more new block is coming up in the industry area adjacent to canteen.
• NMB has improved 3 folds and interesting you find girls inside. :P
• VG mess is renamed. Guess someone acquired it. ;)
• Roads are really spacious, but yeah no trees! :(
• Some kind of ID card reader is placed at the CC, OCL doors.
• More than all, a new arc has come up for the Management block. That will be the main entrance for PSG IMS and Hostel.
  

A locked HOD room, Green land, NMB tea and the Xerox shop are those that has not changed!

Long Exposure Photography

[Note: This post is on Photography, So it has few images and it might take some time to load in a slow Internet connection. Amen!]

Earlier this month I had mentioned something interesting in a post we tried out in the vacation and posted a random curved lines picture. Inspired by the latest Eveready battery ad, I decided to try something new with my photographer friend(Arun).

Have you heard of Long Exposure photography. To kiss, every camera has shutter that opens and lets light in inside the sensor (old days film) this is what defines the photograph. Controlling the amount of time the shutter is open is called Exposure. Now Long exposure should have made sense! Ideally your camera will have a mode in the dial called "Tv" which will help you control these settings. What Could one achieve with long exposure.

Know the rules and break it!

Motion Blur, Its a technique where a light source moves and shutter is kept long enough to produce a motion blur of the light source. Like a long trial of light. This is the exact same technique used in the Eveready add where a cat chases a mouse! Arun was skill full enough to write his name mirrored so it appears straight in front of the camera. Here is the out come.

Another frantic effort by me to write my name in-spite of my dyslexia to write things mirrored. Tip: Try it in dark room, we used a 15 second exposure and a Sony Ericson mobile torch light as the light trail. Tripod (or a fixed base is must) I will say again, Tripod a must.

Next we tried long exposure were I posed at different angles. The more the time you expose at the object at a point, more its embosses on the area. In the below photo the object was well palaces, but it got over exposed to light. Esp at the left top corner.

So, next was an interesting idea where the photo was taken using camera A and the light source was from camera B flash. So the image was not over exposed. Below is the outcome, and Arun being the Model after six months in gym.

and another...

Then things started to get bit haunting, We started posing for horror movie posters. Its fun once you learn the basics right. You can keep being creative from that. 

and me...

So, go take you camera! Be it an SLR, Point & Shoot or any compact camera with shutter speed adjusting settings. Keep it on a tripod, if not a chair, table try them out. You got any questions, write to us @kvijesh or @arun_ragh. Also send your feedback in the comments.

Bugzilla quote

The Six Phases of a Project: 1. Enthusiasm 2. Disillusionment 3. Panic 4. Search for the Guilty 5. Punishment of the Innocent 6. Praise for non participants --Anon

Untitled

Have you ever got this feeling that things will go wrong? Or is it just you who is over thinking about the whole situation? Or is it the mind that interprets things in a way it's not supposed to. Have you ever been precautionary in small things? Is it some kind of karma? Yeah Karma? Will things be fine?

I hope...

P.S. I'm sure I need some sleep.

TN 01

Few weeks back I tried the facebook app quiz "Are you fit to live in Chennai?" I fared moderately in it (Result: You will do better in coming days!). But only now I realise that reality is more traumatic.

We boarded the train to Chennai on a cool Tuesday evening. The train reached our destination at the unearthly hours of 4:10 AM. A sudden warmth in the air when it's supposed to be the coldest time of the day. Still keeping that aside we had a small nap after reaching home. A friend of mine texted me, "Welcome to singaara chennai" I didn't know it had to be read as "Welcome to sudaana chennai"

Couple during the wedding reception

After breakfast, I started alone to T-Nagar to meet a friend for a quick lunch. Boarded the local bus and I was warned it was going to be a one hour ride into the city. I got the window seat happily and started reading name boards to know which area I'm currently in. It was 12 noon and the heat wave started blowing .Sigh! After getting down in a wrong stop, I ran to a near by shop to get a cold water bottle and quench the thirst. (tip: Never travel across Chennai without a water bottle)


The Wedding. It was a beautiful wedding I should say! They took good care of the guests. A perfect setting for a wedding in Chennai summer. The food was excellent -a full 5/5 for the food. They were co-operative enough to pack the food for some of them who wanted to start early. Full recommendation for this caterer. Then later that night we decided to take a walk to Residency towers for podi dosa and coffee at 2 AM. As usual I understood less on the complex ceremonies in the wedding podium. I was along with Arun for the photo shoot and got some nice clicks. Then had to skip lunch for unforeseen reasons ;) to land at the movie "Pasanga".

Couple during the wedding (Photo credit: Arun)

A visit to Chennai is not fulfilled without a trip to its beaches and tasting the junk food there. So yeah next stop was Marina beach (Still they have not decided to sell it, Madhu). Nice breeze and few clicks here and there! Back to 21 degree Celsius at my friend's home.

It started getting hotter and hotter. We entered the third day of our vacation. The heat had not even reduced a bit. Next destination was Poonamallee for my senior's wedding. Christ it was so hot that I could not find a time when I stopped sweating. A friend of mine who was a resident from Ooty (Thuud!) woke up at 3 AM and decided to take a walk, unable to sleep. I got up at 5 AM and joined him. :)


Interestingly I took the last photo in the wedding hall. It was a idol placed in flowing water. A fat, dark gentleman came to me and started speaking in fast Tamil. I did not follow for few minutes until he asked if I have permission to take photos here. He introduced himself as special police security officer in charge for the wedding. He asked, "What if you keep a bomb and go?Show me your ID card, I'm showing mine right". So I did. I told him that I was a guest of the bridegroom, but he did not listen. Then he asked me to take some photos, telling that it should come in the press the next day. He posed with a Mickey Mouse mascot who was standing in the entrance. Only then I found he was under the influence of alcohol.

This was one interesting part of the trip. Two photographers left with nothing to do, can turn up such interesting stuff. Will write more about in the next post. Also below was an frantic effort to shoot a group of squirrel. Photographing squirrels was quite a challenge. I stripped them in a single collage.


After getting burnt, roasted for 4days and getting sun burns, I was very much unsure of how I'm carry myself again on the 5th day. Also I had plans to visit some of my friends, but then everyone are placed in corners of the city. So I had to skip them all and cut short my vacation by a day and boarded a volvo and reached Bangalore. (Reports said: It has rained heavily in Bangalore for the last 4 days :( ) Back in Bangalore a stranger asked us, "Are you guys back from chennai? Is it raining there, did you bring the umbrella back?". I looked at my friend and burst out laughing.

In simple I'm yet not ready for Chennai Summer!

What do you say?

Un

Unplanned, unorganized and unhealthy are the three tags I can quickly think of for my life. Bachelorhood is something that is so much fun in Bangalore, I don't think you get this liberty when you are married (unless you set the expectations right with your spouse). So when you get to enjoy this liberal life in Bangalore, things do not go as planned. It's too easy to spoil a good constitution.

They start right from the time one gets up, to eating habits and the kind of people you meet. Sleeping time and wake up routine goes haywire in Bangalore. Staying up late in office, or when a weekend arrives, there are plans for a late night movie or a night trek or a bike drive. Eating junk food is like an everyday activity in Bangalore. People pay so much to eat the burgers and roasted chicken. Hotels are overflowing on weekends. Do you brush two times a day? Should we, many might ask! Alcohol consumption should be the highest in these metros. There are lot of hotels that are open until 1 am in the morning.

Skewed prices in every step of your life. Auto rides cost you so much! Yesterday, I had been to MG Road for the movie and walked to a guy selling fried groundnut. I asked the price of this thin cone of groundnuts. He said 5 Rs, and the other fat cone costs 10 Rs. OMG, I guess he should pay more tax than me.

Not just you! You pass this way of life to your next generation of kids. A colleague had to admit his daughter to school for LKG. They paid tuition fee of 70,000 for an year for her LKG. They say it's so common to pay this much. S#&t,education has become so costly. In Chennai ,they pay around 50,000. Another colleague said, her daughter asks for a new bag for school every year. She claims, "Other kids bring new bags every term.. You are not getting me a new one at all!"

Let me know your views, take this short survey.

Disappointing Sunfeast photography Contest

Disappointing & Beware!

Photo contests that run on the Internet and the ones sponsored by other commercial brands are only bothered about marketing their brand using the photo contest. They really don't bother about the photographer or his work. Please take care next time before you submit a photo to an on-line contest or read the conditions & hold the rights of your work before signing the papers.

Actual incident here.

Angels & Daemons

The first Robert Langdon movie I watched after reading the book was Da Vinci code but then the movie did not meet the expectations. This time I tried the other way around for Angels & Daemons. After lot of "Go, No Go" meetings ,I watched the movie. two days back. Ah, I should say the movie was good. Well, one aspect I liked is the fast paced screen play. You'd need that pace to squeeze the book into a movie. But I got comments from my friends that the screen play is different from the storyline of the book.

Due to the recent misunderstanding between the producers and Multiplex owners, the movie was not screened in PVR or any other multiplexes in Bangalore. This landed us in a theatre called "Rex" Sigh! Such a poor poor poor theatre, with NO push back seats, NO good ac around the theatre and more than all the seats were arranged on the same height, which means you need to bend and watch the movie between two heads in front of you. :/ I had to pay 150+20(convenience charge) for this crap!

On the way to washroom, there was a coin condom booth installed. Drop coins and collect condoms. What an idea Sir'ji.