Unedited picture, unhampered nature

These were the picturesque scenes caught on the way to Bhatkal from Jog-falls.

The nature provided perfect lighting, implied no editing. The nature was unhampered since its conserved forest under Sharavathi Valley Sanctuary. The area was shrouded with dense rainforest with tall pinnacles reaching the sky. All I could hear was the jumping waterfall and shrilling rainforest bugs. Despite receiving rains heavier than Coorg, we could hardly spot any landslides en-route. These tall pinnacles protected the hills from landslides with their strong roots. It is time to rebuild the natural treasure in Coorg to avoid further miseries. Here are few souvenirs from the journey along the rainforest.

Some pictures with minor edits

And finally, a list of hopes.

Hope the nature stays unhampered eternally like the unedited picture
Hope the natural watermarks are not overridden by human marks
Hope the euphony of rainforest is not muffled by bulldozers.
Hope the mountains remain as abode of rainforest trees than concrete structures
Hope the tranquility does not morph into resort culture
Hope the mountains be shrouded with natural rainforest pinnacles than constricted matchboxed concrete structures
Hope humans understand the dire need of rainforest sustenance

Flaming skies

12th Sep 2018

This is waffling sequel of previous posts. Today evening I.e. day after rains, the skies flamed portending yet another storm. But that did not conceive. The clouds were angry though. They fumed with bright orange color during the sundown. This gives rise to plethora of forecasts in terms of weather, but for photo hunter this is enchanting moment. The burning skies also reflect onto the lake providing ideal stage for snapping beautiful landscape images. I was there too hearing the rants of troposphere. In parallel, I clicked couple of pictures to quench my desire. Fortunately the clicks did not provoke them and I safely reached home.

Despite the heavy clouds and humid weather, it did not rain a drop though. Not even a distant roar/flash could be heard/seen. Probably the sky was just venting out at my sadist posts or heavily mocking at dismal predictions. With the perilous atmosphere, it was challenging me to predict another pattern but I refrained this time from doing so!

Scouting for midday perceptions

25 Aug 2018

It has been long time since visit to sowparnika banks. Today during mid day my self with family decided to have short journey towards river to enjoy the monsoon scenes. Yes it's already crossed 4000mm here and needless to mention the nature is at its best. Mid day poses heavy challenge to capture decent picture primarily due to presence of haze and harsh light. However, the situation is sometimes supportive especially when transiting clouds obstruct sun temporarily. Also the rains can bring down haze drastically paving way for clear pictures. A similar experience was in store today with hardly any haze in atmosphere and colorful landscape accentuating the charm of nature. Here are some pictures shot during brief visit

On the way back, paddy fields caught my eyes and shot here!

Know when to use HDR

May 29, 2018

What a rain in coast. A thunderous pre-monsoon rains morphed our village to river. An ideal time to be in village listening to blustering rains, beholding the roaring downpour with a sip of coffee & golibaje. After savaging the region for nearly 6hrs, the floods ensued. The fields were marooned. Hopefully the troposphere thaws in couple of days.

It has been unprecedented rains in coastal Karnataka with rain gauge crossing 350mm mark within a span of 12hrs. A well marked low-pressure area off the coast of Arabian sea resulted in heavy nimbus clouds barging into the land. In a jiffy the heavens roared with thick droplets of rain over the coastal regions swamping in matter of 3hrs. The unabated rains that lasted for nearly 9hrs inundated Mangalore & unabated like never before. The freakish clouds did not disappear until completely dissipated and deluged the region. The insatiable rains crumbled with mighty power morphing the cities to artificial rivers. Mangalore city was virtually hijacked for 5hrs by the roaring troposphere stalling the life of the citizens. When the troposphere thawed, city was in deep shambles mocking the incumbents.

Back to topic, here in Bangalore, it was all clear. The effect of rains could be felt by cool breeze, azure skies and intermittent moisture-less clouds. I was at Rachenahalli lake and the sky looked splendid. The Sunlight was perfect like studio setup to shoot landscape facing it. I shot couple of pictures to quench my photo hunt. Unfortunately, the pictures did not turn out good. Ironically, last time I lamented for not turning on HDR but this time its opposite. The HDR mode did not work out, Why? Look at the pictures :(. They are either blown out or had dull colors. The beauty was stunning, the exposure was perfect but the only mistake I did was turning on mobile camera HDR. There was no need for HDR when nature comes up with perfect crystal light. I did not realize while shooting but as I reached home, the picture did not impress me :(. I was late again. Mistakes are often great teachers. This time too I had a lesson. Even though, I did not shoot HDR off, from past experiences I am confident picture would have been perfect without any HDR settings.

All these are deliberately unedited to show how highlights are blown out and colors turned artificial. The actual colors were excellent but above ones bear vintage look. Rejigging the images will make them fine but that day exposure of Sun was perfect. A non-HDR shot would have done the job with couple of simple edits. The above image needs too many level/color corrections.

A day after lamenting

11 Sep 2018,

Something unusual happened after writing previous post. It rained like it is peak monsoon season in Bangalore. The rains rushed all of sudden during the evening time bringing a deserved relief to drying city. This evening we had chiming of thick droplets pounding heavily over the earth. Probably the heavens might have showered with anger or may be to prove me wrong. Positively, the skies rekindled hopes of more rains and more evening joys for photographers :-). A drastic change in climate, turned the table and poured for an hour. Yes it rained a lot and flooded the roads. The uncanny weather was finally broken with onset of September rains. While the thunder roared over troposphere, the rains roared over ground. This synergy, flooded the ground after spell of 30 minutes. Despite the torrential rains, the moisture over the ground dried relatively faster which indicates city had prolonged dry period. The rains are relief to city dwellers as well farmers. The heavy rains however could not bring down the humidity level!

And a 10sec feel of tropical storm is here!

Surprisingly, the rains were confined to region nearby to our area not extending beyond 2km radius. Hypothetically, the nature, just to  rebuke my conjecture, poured for an hour to highlight their presence. Furthermore these statements are just for humor and not to be taken for further analysis per-se :-)

Last days of Summer

10th September 2018

After ferocious rains, the monsoon is gradually terminating its presence over India. Yes it did not rain much in Bangalore this time. The weather is either cloudy or dry, but bereft of healthy rains. The excess monsoon rains last year would have slowed down the activity this year. Also Bangalore was gripped by nonseasonal rains which would have further weakened the monsoon rains in this region. To go on, lot of assumptions stem from brain but there is still hope. It is just September and October is yet to come. We still have hopes of getting normal rains during withdrawal phase of monsoon. As of now, it is dry out here with cooler nights which is indication of winter onset. Hope we see more rains!

Here are the pictures of fag end of summer. Only patch of clouds were hovering over Rachenahalli lake. These are not rain bearing clouds but added lot of glory to evening sky. It was simply Majestic to behold such a scene during our long walk along the promenade of lake. Hope you enjoy too!

On a crowded Sunday evening, the Skies also turned vociferous. Although not by sound but by its flaming colors. Hope this does not portend future miseries. The reflection on the lake was great which photographers always yearn for!

Winter means drier days, drier weather, drier skin, drier vegetation, and most unfortunately drier days for photographer. Rarely we see clouds but not guaranteed. Fog can add lot of drama in your shots but they are interesting only in countryside not in city. Consequently lethargic landscape enthusiasts in city have to contend with monotonous shots in coming days :-).

Sea Tides - Part 2

With prolific beauty all around the bay fostered by unprecedented rains, it was impossible to stick to one part of the shore. I walked all around lighthouse, backwaters, rocks before settling down nearby shore. The mighty waves creates beautiful silky effect for shutter speeds of 1/13s. The blue-hour was irresistible which resulted in series of shots crashing against the boulders and  splashing the waves high :).

Linked to Skywatch Friday

An evening in Jakkur Lake

This is an older post drafted well over 2 years. If I remember date, somewhere around 2015 June/July

A bunch of scattered clouds are hovering over the skies of Bangalore thanks to bleak monsoon. The monsoon is not showing up its energy which was visible during June and it's once again disappointing year. Even though there lies a hope, the expectation is still low. Back to Subject, the scattered clouds are creating spectacles over the Western horizon every evening. We wished to visit to lake bed to enjoy the golden reflections. Instant place that popped into my mind was the nearby Jakkur Lake. It was ride to Jakkur lake and we were there in 20 mins.

Jakkur lake is fed by water from water treatment plant which makes it near fresh water source. The presence of various birds suggests that water is manageable if not potable.

Here are pictures for you!

A great way to end the day with enticing blue hour

Festival of Lights

Shot during Deepavali festival

Slow FasTag

Recently I was conducting trials on newly recharged FastTag. En-route to Udupi, we stumble across 5 toll gates till hassan. Since, Shiradi Ghat repair is underway, 3 more toll gates were avoided.

My first encounter was at the 8th mile toll gate. Fortunately, I took the service road rather than main lane. You know right! It is one of the most tainted toll gate with vehicles lined up for almost 300mtrs all along the gates. It takes sometimes more than 15mins to cross this point. Assuming that a km can be covered in one minute, the stay in toll gate is darn waste Also I did not find any FastTag lane apparantely, ergo I was double fortunate!

Second encounter was at the nelamangala toll gate towards hassan. Yes, the fast tag was in place but Alas! There is gap of almost 3mins between vehicles. That is due to incapability of scanner to quickly dispatch the readings. I may be wrong as well. This may be due to server delays as well. It was obvious when I crossed Hassan toll gate. The accuracy of machine is problem. You need to move vehicle as close as possible with slow pace to enable the reader to scan your bar-code attached to windshield.

Due to the inevitable delay between vehicles, the FastTag was functioning slower than its intention. Suppose if most of the vehicles migrate to FastTag, the delay will accentuate and may be worse than manual operation. Hopefully, we would have better readers to dispense vehicles at faster rate.

The third toll gate, FastTag was not functioning and remaining two, it worked. The most incurred delay was at fifth toll gate where I had to move near to barrier for scanner to recognise the FastTag sticker. The delay was almost 20s which is way too high. The frustration was visible on vehicle owners which ensued perpetual honks. Moreover, I also observed non-fasttag enable vehicles entering the fasttag lane. The notice board clearly displays impeachment in form of fines for such an offense but the rules just remain in placard.

Non FastTag vehicles entering FasTag lane

The most discomforting part was the staff needs to manually let in the vehicles due to jitter caused by device. That's really pathetic than the manual receipt lending. Also, the staff needs to operate under rains or Sun for the so-called automated system.

I was happy to successfully operate my fast tag account but unhappy to see the lousy response of the equipment