Flashback 9 of 365

Colors of Nature

Redding in California - 12/24/2007

My true inspiration for photography is, well, colors. Actually I love landscape photography more than anything else but only because it provides me the most gratification for looking at something natural and colorful in its purest form. So when I went to Redding in 2007 we were on our way to the Shasta Caverns where we entered their tour through the gift shop. I went straight to where these stones were arranged. Never have I seen such colorful arrangement before and so I had to capture these pictures.

First thing I thought to myself was "no distractions" in this image. So I zoomed right into the stones letting them gracefully cover my whole frame and I was happy to take them on. I love the way it came out. One day I'd want to print them big and hang it somewhere in my house. But that's yet to be done. Until then, I'll proudly blog about it.

Flashback 8 of 365

Sunset Glow

Santa Monica Pier - 3/25/2008

The way this shot turned out was actually amazing that I had thought while shooting the sunset. It was getting close to the sunset but there were too many clouds blocking the sun so I knew I wasn't getting one of those orange/red lit capture of the sunset landscape. Instead I waited few minutes for the clouds to move just enough so that the I could get the sun in my frame but not bright enough to over expose my composition.

Lesson I learned in this one was that you dont always have to have a landscape that we ideally see in lot of the images without distracting clouds and so on. I think that a sunrise or a sunset in any situation is just as perfect of a candidate for a landscape shot than it is for any other ideal climate.

Flashback 7 of 365

Light up the Night

Griffith Observatory - 03/15/2008

I was really looking forward to this shot. But setting up this shot was extremely challenging. I got it from the top of Griffith Observatory to get nicely lit Los Angeles downtown, the skies and the dome. However, it was so windy I would barely stand straight(not joking!). But I really wanted to get the shot as I was prepared with my tripod. To get a nice lit composition the exposure was set to 15sec. Believe it or not but I had to hold the tripod and the camera due to such long exposure with each hand to keep them from falling due to the wind. Think I managed to get what I wanted, that is the downtown, sky and the observatory dome. What do you think?

Flashback 6 of 365

Rising up to the Sky

Getty Center - 01/12/2008

Took this shot to experiment with an unusual angle. I was at the Getty Center last year where my wife and I had joined an audio tour of the museum where they were taking us down the stairs to see another beautiful view of the Getty Center garden. Saw these cactus plants and could not resist clicking. It was a beautiful sunny day so I had to somehow get the skies in the picture. Then I thought this is probably the best angle to show how tall these plants were and standing beautifully looking up to the sky.

Flashback 5 of 365

Desert and Water

Udaipur, Rajasthan - 01/09/2006

I have lot of memories in this place. Well, diving right into the angle of photography I love this shot for 2 reasons. One, if anyone who knows what Rajasthan is they know that water is scarce in this place. Rajasthan is a western state of India which is mostly desert. Finding such a beautiful uninterrupted landscape is rare here.

And second reason which is my favorite one is that this picture is not what came out of the camera. What came out of the camera were multiple shots I took by panning the camera to get complete landscape. Then I stitched them together using Photoshop Merge utility. This was my first successful merging of multiple shots into one to create a panoramic landscape.

I really love this photo because this is the result of a very planned shot which actually turned out to be much better than I had originally thought when I was taking this picture.