House rants

Abirami recently got her four wheeler drivers license after rigorous training at the driving school. So every time we loan the Zen from my inlaws place for a ride, I would ask her to drive. She would politely decline the offer by saying roads are too crowed or not in a mood to drive.

One day we were driving some where outside and I slowed down near a speed breaker. I asked,
Vijesh (Me): Abi, which gear would you goto to slow down at these speed breaker?
Abirami (She): Hmmm, First gear.
Me: You can slow down to second gear, that would be enough, I think.
She: Oh ok. Most of the times I drive in first gear.
Me: Ohhh! (I looked amused)
She: Then I will drive in second and third gear at times.
She: But will never goto fourth gear!
Me: Why is that?
She: I get confused. Instead of the fourth gear, I will put the reverse gear.
Me: Astonished I looked and said, "Abi, I will drive when we go out."

True - Its not his thing

There was a nice article [link] on Hindu's open page on August 14th. It reads, "Wife wins hands down". 

The columnist wrote precisely what was in my mind. Everyone knows who come out of home for work, who achieve, who get rewards. People write books about them! But no one really care about or even think about who was behind them. They don't even get recognized, with the opinion that its their daily duties. There are so many home heroines whose stories are untold. Have your ever recognized your Mother for sitting all the night & getting you hot tea on wee hours during your 12th grade? Married men - do we know how much is spent on getting milk for the family? I tried cooking one meal and cleaning them, sigh! I can't imagine how someone can do it, 1095 times a year. So don't wait and go tell the behind the scene achievers that how awesome they are! Don't just do it on mother's or wife's day that Hallmark and Archies invented as a marketing strategy. 

I humbled that the author mentioned his wife name (Griha Lakshmi), else I would have got him by his collar. :-)

End of Summer! Almost

My wife handed me the mobile, on the line is a common friend. After less than a minute in the conversation she asked, "Why no update in the blog? What are you doing these days!" I paused for a second to think, but was not able to make up a convincing answer. Yes gone are those days for active blogging. I just hopped the list in the blogroll to find almost 75% of them seldom write it anymore.

Myself, Getting into the groove of Chennai life. My first real summer in Chennai after I relocated. Few bike rides on the weekends can be more draining that work days. So I seldom take it on longer rides. Spending long hours with the O-General air conditioner is the only relief. Even my laptop reboots automatically after the cpu fan spinning its life out to keep the processor cool. Living on real fluids this time (yeah! I'm not in bangalore to have more than one meaning to it). Hopefully some showers come in soon or atleast I met dept should stop making predictions.

Otherwise, went to an IPL match, got a ManU jersey (courtesy: UK return Karthi), coding in Java after a break and no improvements in weight loss effort.

Oh yeah, I don know how I missed it - Light Story. Visit the facebook page too.

What can images do?

Great morning!

Just stumbled upon JR's video, he is a social artist from France. Yes, a "social artist". His project 28mm is an astounding collection of human emotions, portraits that were printed and displayed in the museum of streets. These subjects and their theme were for a social cause and were apt to the area it was shot. Photography & print were used as medium. He was also a speaker in TED 2011. His themes and the way he handled his subjects were inspiring. The video below is about his 28mm project.

Nadunisi Naaygal movie review

" Obsession - Sexual abuse - MPD "

Nadunisi Naaygal is a Photon Kathaas production from the director Gautham Menon. After success from romantic Vinnaithandi varuvaya, Gautham's attempt in an alternate genre is Nadunissi Naaygal which he tags as a psychological thriller.

The movie is about a psychotic man who has a dark childhood.  His obsession with a woman, sexual abuse in his past and his multiple personalities lead to the killing of many girls who come across in his life. The whole movie is a flashback narrated by Veera, the lead role in the movie. The first half is about what happens in his childhood and how he is rescued and is given a chance of new life through Meenakshi, a neighbor. Soon, memories of his childhood start haunting veera and he turns violent. He goes hunting for girls, abuses them sexually and eventually kills them. Sameera reddy aka Sukanya is the turning point in Veera's life and brings him to limelight. The story continues to end narrating how Sukanya's life changed because of the kidnap.

Technically there are no songs or BGM (that's what Gautham Menon claimed in an interview) in the movie. Many credits to the cameraman who has done a great job with unusual camera angles. Especially scenes within the car and some scenes where the camera acts a character's eye view. Sound engineering is another plus in the movie, but not great. Screenplay is like a sine curve, there are peaks where it moves fast and valleys where it is slow with repeated dialogues. I would say that dialogues are the drawback of this movie. "I love you Meenakshi amma, naan ungala nalla vechu pathukren", makes many from the audience giggle, since it sounds similar to "Chellam, I love you da" - from Prakash Raj. Another aspect that I felt missing in the movie was that the movie rarely was "thrilling", and only few scenes really gave goose bumps. With a storyline like that Gautham Menon could have made a great thriller, if the screenplay had been better.

It's a common sentiment that the movie is disturbing. How disturbing, that is left to one's tolerance. There was a moment in the first half when I felt "Can we leave the theatre?".

Overall, Watch the movie if you are inquisitive about the movie after watching the trailer. 

Takeaway from the movie:

• I don't think my wife will ever ask me to go and get popcorn while watching the movie.
• Never get a lift to home from an old friend.
• If my wife had used her own suggestion (in this discussion) she would have escaped the trauma and the other girl would have ran away in the middle of the movie.
• I lost my chance of suggesting a movie next time I go with my wife. :P
• I really liked the graphics in the movie title and the numerous posters that were created. :)

Puzzle: Help Jim

Lora and Jim agreed to play a number game, Lora comes up with a statement that “for any two prime numbers greater than 6 and whose difference is 2, the number between those two prime numbers is always divisible by 6”. How can Jim prove it?

Bokeh Experiments - How To

Seasons greetings everyone.

After my earlier post of Instant miniature studio many had left comments saying it was useful. Thanks for your comments and feedback. With Christmas and the new year aproaching, here is an interesting walk through to make your photographs more interesting this season. This time we are going to play around with the bokeh.

Its fairly simple to get a bokeh like the below one. You need to keep the lens in a low aperture like f/1.8 and with some back ground light. 

But what do to when you want to make it more interesting like the one below? 

Here is how to do it. You can easily try it at home. You will need:

1. Camera and a low aperture lens (50 mm f/1.8)

2. Chart paper, preferably black.

3. Compass and Scale.

4. Paper cutting knife and scissors. 

Measure the diameter of your lens or simply go with the measurement of your filter that you got for the lens. Use that measurement to make circular rings in the chart paper using the compass and scissors. Make sure the ring exactly fits in the lens (one would need to remove any lens filters attached, for this experiment). Now draw shapes(hearts, square, clove, anything) in the center of the circular paper ring and make sure the shapes are exactly at the center. Use the paper cutting knife to cut out the shape that was drawn.

Now it's almost done, fit the circular rings in front of your lens and start clicking. Enjoy the custom bokeh shapes. 

Technical mumbo-jumbo or How It Actually works:
Technically the shape of the bokeh is controlled by the shape of the aperture. Ideally the aperture is made of multiple blades to form a near circular shape. As the number of blades differ from lens to lens, by keeping a high f-number like f/5.6 the bokeh produced might be polygon in shape. Here since the light entering the lens is controlled by a custom shape which overrides the default circular ring of the aperture, it gives the bokeh a custom shape. This said, it is left to each one's creativity to decide the shape and the kind of picture to use these techniques on. 

P.S. It was fun to use the compass after eight years, last I used it was in the Engineering drawing class in the first semester of college.