Archive for ‘Travel’

October 9, 2012

Twilight Colors at Crater Lake

The collapse of the Mount Mazama around 7,700 years ago, led to the formation of the crater which is now famously known as the Crater Lake. If I had to encapsulate Crater lake in a single frame this would be it. The crater, the volcanic remains on the rim, wizard island, serene lake, the gnarled tree showing age – love it all. The sunset was behind me, but the twilight colors and its reflections on the lake was just mesmerizing. After couple of different composition ended up with this panorama of two horizontal shots. Thought the pseudo square composition would lend well to the scene. I loved this off road spot so much that I ended up spending the reminder of the evening out there :) Though this is not the classical cliché shot with deep blue colors of crater lake, something keeps pulling me back to this. How do u like it ?!!!

Camera : Canon 7D
Lens : Canon 10-22 mm
Filter : 3 Stop ND Filter
ISO 100 : 10 mm : f22 : 1.5 sec

Buy Print   Gnarled Tree
Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, USA
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October 1, 2012

Harvest Moon at Crater Lake

Camping out in the wilderness – it was such a cozy feeling, as I was lazing in the comfort of the sleeping bag with the pre dawn temperatures of 2oC. I was in no mood of getting out. Oh my, I was real glad I did push myself out eventually. Already short of time, I was driving a bit crazy to locate a spot for the sun rise along the rim of Crater Lake. To my left, glanced the reddish glow between the trees. My initial thoughts was -forest fire – as there was an high alert warning for the same. I stopped the car right on the middle of the road and set the tripod to get this shot. Luckily there was no car traffic to bother me, at the time of the hour :)

The Harvest Moon is usually the first full moon after the first frost or it is the full moon closest to Mabon. As MSN quoted, the harvest moon was extremely photogenic. Actually I was not even aware of the Harvest Moon until I read this article today. Now I know why the moon was so bold and red ! The Harvest moon appears larger and brighter due to its low position in the horizon, during the rise and set. The colors of this special moon – that yellow, gold and red is more an impact of the earth on the moon, than actually being a change in the moon. Autumn (Harvest) is the season when the focus is on the harvest of what has been worked on all year. Appreciation for what one had & has. As I enjoyed this scene, it definitely was a moment of contemplation …

I present to you The harvest Moon setting over the horizon, at the Crater Lake National Park Area. This shot is directly from the camera (RAW to JPEG converted for web display) with no post processing. I would have liked a closer crop, but did not do any processing, to highlight the colors as it existed. Where were u over the weekend, did u get a chance to enjoy the Harvest moon in person !!!

Camera : Canon 7D
Lens : Tamron 18-270mm
Filter : None
ISO 320 : 155 mm : f5.6 : 0.7 sec
Shot on : 09.30.2012 ; 6:39 AM

Buy Print   Harvest Moon
Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, USA
September 25, 2010

What a place to write ur thoughts out …

This one is from the Hampi trip. It is one awesome place. It really deserves to be called the playground of kings & gods.

As I were enjoying the subtle sunset, saw this girl, all by herself, lost in writing something on her diary – may be something for her beloved

Was about to set the tripod for a classical sunset shot, just then the security rushed to indicate that the tripod was not allowed (as always, wonder where they come from !!!), not very lucky with that. Realized would not be able to capture the dusk, as the light was getting low. Then decided to increase the ISO and try out a diff angle. To compensate for the little noise tried out the textures. Really love the way it adds to the mode of the photo and how it came out.

Flickr Page Hampi Ruins
Karnataka, India
May 30, 2010

Mahabalipuram – Panchapandava Rathas

The monolithic temples @ the Mahabalipuram are known as rathas as they resemble wooden chariot. It is an innovation of Pallava King Narasimhavarman-I (Mamalla) [AD 630-668]. A Huge rock sloping from south to north was utilized judiciously to cutout different forms of temple, besides few animal sculptures.

Though these monolithic temples are termed as panchapandava rathas, they have nothing to do with Mahabharatha. These rathas with their ekatala to tritala, vimanas and different in plan and elevation, exhibit splendid forms of south Indian art and architecture. The nakula-sahadeva ratha has apsidal vimana, a relief sculpture of ardhanariswara on the wall of Dharmaraja ratha, with perfect balancing of the masculine and feminine features. It is considered to be one of the finest specimen of the early Pallava art. The ratha also contains Pallava-Grantha, inscription recording the titles of Narasimavarman-I.

The group of the five rathas were executed as models of South Indian temples and were not consecrated as their stupas are still attached with the bed rock.

Buy Print Flickr Page

Pancha Pandava Rathas, Mahabalipuram
Chennai, India

April 25, 2010

You just can’t Fence Nature !

Horsley Hills, Sunrise
Horsley Hills
Karnataka, India

Horsley Hills – a unexplored hill station – is around 160 kms from Bangalore. This kind of was a good place for a weekend outing. The guest house was really neat, cost effective and you can generally get custom food made, if you get the required things (chicken etc) and provide sufficient time !

The sunset point was really good and easily accessible – thought we actually missed the sunset due to timing. This also had a lot of potential for star gazing and star trail photography – the point being walkable from the guest house [do remember to carry a torch].

There is no specific sun rise view point, but you could go up for a small hike adjacent to the holiday inn (or something named similar, close to the Governors’ Bungalow, if you are an early bird !!!

April 18, 2010

Painted Hills


Painted Hills, John Day Fossil Beds
Eastern Oregon, USA

What is it made of

Layers of hard claystones which include ancient soils (palesols) and lake beds. Recently the surface of the hills had weathered into softer clay. The claystones were formed by several geographic events in the past 33 million yrs. the volcanic activity of cascade mountains (some 100 miles west) deposited layers of cooled ash. The atmosphere with the help of the plants and animals oxidized the ash. Ground water feed’ed the varied minerals. And in due course today’s claybeds were formed (wow what an amount of structural and chemical changes would have happened !!!!)

 

Colors of the Painted Hills

Aluminum, Silicon, Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, Sodium, Calcium, Phosphorus, Titanium, Potassium, Oxygen, Hydrogen – All this above and some additional elements by a very special secret recipe forms the beautiful colors of this wonderful scenery. Depending on the amount of moisture and the light available , the shades keeps varying thru the day and all seasons.

 

How come there is not much of flora on the hill

Its a interesting to note that there is not much of flora on the painted hills. And the reason is more interesting  – The clay on the painted hills has a great ability to absorb water and swell. And most of the plant are not able to compete with the soil for water. And the once that do, u can see them in the crevices and gullies of the red hills (the yellow ones that blossoms during the spring are chaenactis and bee-plant.

For the Flowers view of the mountain check this out !!!

November 22, 2009

Mahabalipuram – Arjuna’s Penance


Arjuna’s Penance

Mahabalipuram, India

Arjuna’s Penance, as locally known as , is located in Mamallapuram or Mahaballipuram [???????????](60 kms from Chennai enroute to Pondicherry). It is believed to be from 7th century, measuring 96 feet long by 43 feet high.

Arjuna’s Penance, perhaps the world’s largest bas-relief, is the universe itself in stone, throbbing with a vastness of conception. Legend has it something close the tale of Noah, but differs in its cast of characters. It goes like that, King Bhagirath brought down the Ganges from Heaven to purify the souls of his ancestors. His plan went awry when he realized that the flood would inundate the earth, so he had to undergo a penance to convince Shiva to intervene, who came down to earth and let the flood trickle through his hair, dispersing the waters safely in innumerable streams all over the world.

 


Arjuna’s Penance
Mahabalipuram, India

Arjuna’s Penance has the magically sculpted scene, which opens the doors of cosmic imagination, it has over 100 figures of gods and celestial creatures, birds and beasts, man and saint.

Mamallapuram is 60 kms from Chennai and connected by a good road that runs along the coast. It a good one day trip, or probably a weekend drive if clubbed with Pondicherry from Chennai.

August 5, 2008

American Southwest – Monument Valley


Three Mittens, Monument Valley Navajo Park
UT , USA

 

Monument Valley is not really a valley, but an upwarp of sedimentary rock that is at least 260 million years old, surrounded by sentinels that have yet to fully erode. The floor itself is more than a mile high, part of the 130,000 square-mile Colorado Plateau. Sandstone is easily eroded, and the wind, rain, cycles of frost and heat have been at work, cracking and chiseling the valley to its present form.

June 11, 2008

Grand Canyon – The Making


Toroweep, Grand Canyon National Park
AZ, USA

While the Colorado river accounts for the canyon’s depth, its width and formations are the work of even greater forces. Wind rushing thru the canyon erodes the limestone and sandstone- a few grains at a time. Rain pouring over the rim cuts deep side canyons on the softer rock. Perhaps the greatest canyon building force is snow or ice ! Water from the snow melt and the rain work its way into the cracks on the rocks. When frozen, expands, forcing the rocks away from the canyon walls.

March 23, 2008

Rock-a-mania

 
Skyline Arch, Arches National Park
UT, USA

Click here for Slideshow of the whole trip.

February 20, 2008

Just Do it !


Enroute to Bryce Canyon
Bryce Canyon National Park, UT, USA

Thinking you need rest makes you restless.
Thinking you have to work hard makes you tired.
Thinking you have worked hard brings self pity.

Just Do It !!!

October 7, 2007

Fall in Love with Nature


Alpine Scenic Loop
Provo, UT, USA

For the full set check this out.

September 29, 2007

Ancient Drawing Board

Lower Calf Creek Trail
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Utah, USA

It was an amazing experience just walking between mineral-streaked cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, beaver ponds and pre-historic rock art sites en route to the 126-foot-high Lower Calf Creek Falls. The total roundtrip distance to the falls is 5-1/2 miles. Though the summer sun was above and my (a little over a year old) son was on the backpack, the hike was pretty enjoyable with very little elevation change. Most of the trail is sandy & that slows the pace, at times !

The most interesting part of the hike were the wall paintings and the Indian granaries (zoom in & zoom out) and of course the jewel of the crown being the lower falls itself.

On an entirely different perspective, we travel so far, hike so long to get a peek into the lives of the Anasazi Indians. These petroglyph on the walls of the canyons does provide the glimpse. But you know what, in most of these trails you see a notice that there are messages that indicate a heavy penalty if you make new makings (or painting) on these canyon walls (of course !!!)

We do have the technology to make new painting on these walls, that could last more the existing ones. If we are not allowed to make new paintings today how would people, 800 – 1000 years from get a glimpse onto ours lives …… right :-)

Wrong !!! As technology grows, live changes and so is the medium. Who knows even the blog(s) like these -yeah the same one u r reading now ;-) could serve the purpose of providing the window to our lives, in future. Time’s Person of the year , 2006 clearly indicated the significance of the user generated content (if you already don’t know Times Person of the year 2006 is YOU) .

The count of blogs, as of writing this post, just on WordPress.com alone is 1,562,804 blogs with 53,197 new posts today. Even after dropping off the test blogs and the inactive ones, it is still quiet a number – the point is there is a good amount of user content getting generated every day on the Internet.

What would happen to these valuable user generated content, once the user is no more ?Even if someone decides to manage and maintain a users content after user’s time, On what basis would the user account details be shared with the family or friends ? May be the blog or the site could be graciously closed, but what if the users demise is not expected ? Would these become asserts of the individuate and hence be part of his Will ? How would we differentiate between the valuable and junk out of these content ?

So many things to ponder about ….

August 29, 2007

The Earth is Cooking


Yellowstone National Park, WY, USA

This national park sits on 2000° lake of molten lava, an underground pressure cooker of 50 miles long and 30 miles wide. For atleast a few million years, since magma burned a hole under ancient Wyoming’s bedrock, yellow stone periodically disgorged a small ocean of lava in eruptions hundreds of times worse than any volcanic eruptions on earth.

Today, the volcanic action, heats the rocks below the surface, and this in turn creates all manner of spectacle in thousands of steaming hot springs and hundreds of geysers, plus bubbling mud-pots and fumaroles.

At Yellowstone, the earth is cooking – Life, Times Inc

October 30, 2006

Night Shoot – Mt Hood

Each time I drove through I84, when I see Mt Hood standing so majestic, I wish at the least, I was not in the driver seat and at the extreme, was tempted to pull over at the emergency shoulder on the side of the highway and shoot out to my fullest the snow covered Mt. Hood.

I had always seen Mt Hood when I was on the way to somewhere and wanted to spend some quality time enjoying the splendor of the same. Hence when I first saw the ‘call for night shoot’ @ Flickr in PDX Ground, I was all game for it.

So yesterday several of Flickrites (Redgum, cinnabear100, outre, chief_dawg, WolfMana & myself) got together for a night shoot of Mt Hood headed by Redgum (Thanks a lot Redgum for putting it together). We drove to Trillium lake around 5:30 PM. Though the morning was bit foggy , the afternoon turnout to be bit more brighter.

The 15 second exposure limit on my S2 was bit restrictive, but still some of the shots came out good. Click on the picks to see a larger version @ Flickr, and here for a slide show.

Mt Hood Mt Hood from US 26, Pulled the car over the shoulder , ran across the highway and shot this. This actually is a HDR and I pretty much like the results
Mt Hood as reflected on Trillium Lake. It was around 7 PM and was quiet dark. Long exposure do create wonders. For a HDR version of the same check this out Reflections
Sunset ! Sun set @ Trillium Lake

The best part is I have never met the folks I went with yesterday, but it was fun, was a good team. Learnt new things, met some aliens, froze cold and got some good shots of Mt Hood. Meeting new ppl, learning their view and ideas, thank you Flickr for bring us all together (it is just not technology at the end, but how to make ppl use it).

Click here to see a VR Panorama of the view from Trillium Lake during daytime.

With the winter fast approaching , not sure of the probabilities of having one, but looking out for the next shoot out :)

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