Prayer...

Prayer...robs your ego and drives you into meditation, a conscious state of existence. Put in other words, when you are experiencing latter, you are in a silent prayer. In this conscious state, your performance is at its fullest potential and tiredness is at bay and it benefits your surroundings as well. For many cooking is a daily prayer. Be it performing arts, or designing, or nurturing your pastime hobby. Such prayers bring in clarity of thought in the long-run.





I was stupefied seeing a middle-aged woman at the temple today drawing a 5mx5m kolam (paintings on sand using rice powder widely performed in Tamil Nadu). The way she deftly drew the kolam left me dazzled: she finished the whole drawing in less than twenty minutes. She was in fact praying...a silent prayer coordinating the mind and hand movement with the maths involved. She spread the virus of joy through this silent prayer.


If this is the case, then why have separate religious houses to pray? What I feel is that any religious-house is a congregation of the masses: we are bought-up in such a way that we pray when we enter such places thereby attaining the benefits of prayer.


There need not be any particular rules to pray and no one has the right to force people to pray in a specific manner. We pray for our own selves and not because people are watching us.

...of tapes, reels and spools...and of zeroes and ones...

Twenty years ago, having a tape-player / recorder at home was very rare. I still remember my early childhood days when we had a JVC player and a dozen cassettes. We still have 5-6 of those tapes (26th Grammy, 30th Grammy, two 90-min selectively recorded collection in Tamil and Hindi, Michael Jackson's thriller and one English rock) and hearing to them is a classical experience which any digital surround system cannot provide.

Anything materialistic in this world should wear off with time and so is our aging process and anything that is opposite to this rule is not relished to its core. Had we been youth all sixty-seventy years, life would be boring isn't it? Those that do not wear with time cannot have an emotional quotient attached to them: we all say 'sweet sixteen' as those days cannot be re-lived.

We are experience the digital-wave which empowers us to store huge chunks of data and provide easy and efficient access to them. In this era, we are surrounded by a wild stream of information that forces us to ignore and not to appreciate the real content. In fact, this wild data is hazardous. The computer monitor is ever bright, the FM stations are vibe with energy round the clock, the internet lines are buzzing with data streams but we should not forget that it is hazardous if we enslave ourselves to these.

Swelling in silence...

Nicely composed and timed, this frame is the recent portrait that I relished on. Be it the costumes, backdrop, lighting or the mood imparted by the actors is dazzling. Light yellow, grey and caramel-white and red on a dark wood backdrop is simply amazing. Side lighting gives reality to the frame. In a moving film, we tend to miss the finer details like the white sweater or the simple satin necklace.

This frame is a still photo frozen in time, yet it speaks...it speaks what the director wanted to convey. Kudos to the camera-team and the actors. I am not sure if this frame found a place in the movie 'Vinnai thandi varuvaaya', yet this expresses that one can communicate a lot in still photography. In a different perspective, a lot can be privately communicated in silence. (The path to silence)

PS: The make-up team could have put little more attention. The girls nail-colors were little bit out of sync not only in this frame but in the entire movie. The guy's make-up was a little bit heavy and the girl's make-up was very light and soggy in certain places and it felt in close-up shots; the movie deals with a lot with close-up-shots.

There is a mouse on my desk!

What is a mouse?…ask this question and I am sure that many will refer to the computer mouse. Today for a common man, whatever resembles a real mouse is a small rat and if it is a little bigger it is a rat The fact is that even taxonomists find it difficult to differentiate between the genus rattus and the genus mus just by its morphology; the reason being that both are from the same family of muroid / muridae which is very large and complex. (1)

The situation is worse if your workplace is inhabited by rats. A colleague of mine called upon the admin facility and told them that there is a mouse on her desk for which the janitor darted back saying that if there is an extra mouse, call the computer stores department. Disgusted by this response, she called upon the receptionist and told the situation; the receptionist added a bit of humor to the response claiming that there is a mouse in every other desk-space in the office. Hearing this, the real cause of confusion dawned and my colleague corrected the ‘mouse’ with a ‘rat’…

We have been using the word mouse over and over again in the computer’s context that the real ‘mouse’ has lost its real meaning. This is not only for ‘mouse’…we have been using certain phrases or doing certain actions so many times that the real part of the word/action has lost its purpose.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat

A different experience @ Auroville marathon 2010

It was a different experience running the Auroville marathon. Eerie silence of the forest trail made the falling dew drops to sound like falling stones. The marathon was more than a physical run…I ran through the forest , ran deep into my self and ran to the beat of my heart (the running bib mentioned this aptly as ‘run easy, run to the beat of your heart’!). As a bonus pack, my eyes spotted the red vented bulbul and a monitor lizard during the run. I felt refreshed completing the Auroville marathon.

I completed the half marathon in 3 hrs, 16 mins... eight minutes late than my previous timing. It is time to change my shoes and step up my practice as well :)

Gold on green...observations

I am posting my observations from 'Gold on green'.

Correct me if I am wrong...

1. More exposure needs to be set for yellow lighting when compared to white-fluorescent lighting.
2. The gold gets more predominant in yellow lighting.
3. So, if we are taking portraits, it is better to maintain fluorescent lighting
4. And in case of jewelery advertisements, it is good to give a yellow lighting like in GRT's ad (Golden girl)

I kept the exposure at f/2.6, macro-mode throughout the exercise.

P.S. Thank you friends for pointing out that observations should also be shared...

Gold on green...an experiment with photography

I shot few frames last week: the subjects were few bangles and a ring that my mom usually wears.

I considered two set of lighting for the shots.First, I considered white lighting and switched on all the fluorescent tune lights in the hall. For the yellow lighting, I switched on the lamps in the hall.

Few shots are listed below:
Exposure was set for 8 seconds for the first shot, 2.5 seconds for the next 2 shots and 5 seconds for the last 4 shots.

I hold the camera, I am wrapped by joy and a paradox...

I have been playing and experimenting with my camera for quite sometime, more precisely a little over two years. Viewing the world through the lenses for the first time was a different experience, I started clicking on frames just because I was enthralled by the way nature has composed itself so mathematically organized. Nature's quality is innate, the only change is the way I am experiencing it. Some more experimentation drove me mad to shoot macros (close-up shots). Be it flowers, beetles, jewelery or be it whatever, I started seeing the miniature world in them.

The same camera lenses evoked the paradox in me when I shot a portrait of a girl whom I then knew for more than six months. With whatever lighting was at hand, I shot my first portrait and I learned that each and everyone of us express intricate gestures that go unnoticed amidst our other businesses. I also experienced that a concentrated eye behind those camera lenses will never miss those intricacies. I started exhibiting the prophecy of a stock broker as to what will be her gesture next and I fell in love for her expressions noticed behind the lenses. Did I love her? Certainly not...but I loved her expressions behind the lenses.

The way I entertain myself watching a cinema has also changed in the past two years. Sitting in the theater hall, I carefully observe the lighting, costumes, colors and the background music. I would say that camera taught me to adore nature. It also taught me the fact that people are so varied in themselves. Now whenever I hold the camera in my hand, I am wrapped with joy...so immense that can be only felt.

from Denmark Christmas seals TO color symbolism TO album cover designs TO philately...A letter

From Denmark Christmas seals to color symbolism to album covers to philately...what was thought to be a mail sharing some good links ended up as a letter to my sis :)

http://grainedit.com/2009/12/22/denmark-christmas-seals-1962
I found the English terms for many skilled jobs :)

• Milliner – maker of hats
• Chandler – maker of candles / specific products
• Glazier – fitter of glass panes
• Cooper – repairer of wood barrel
• Wainwright – maker of Wagons

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2009/12/29/color-in-film-m-night-shyamalan/
This describes Color symbolism in films: Manoj.N.Shyamalan

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/04/09/grammy-award-winning-album-colors-2007
I loved the third cover among the listed ones.

http://grainedit.com/2007/12/20/israel-electronic-computer-stamp-1964/
We have evolved in length and breadth since 1964. But taking the next foot forward, what have we left behind and what we are leaving behind us??

http://grainedit.com/2008/05/20/modern-design-and-the-stamp-iain-folletts-stamp-collection/
Stamps teach different things for different people...role of colors for the graphic designer, marks the events for the historian, evoke the relevant thoughts of those interested, value of relation for the heart writing the letter and much more...

God created our eyes to perceive, our soul to feel and the whole human to adapt and live the life to the fullest.
Let's live it to our creator's wish :)

With lots of colors still unexplored...in us!!!
...Ck

It rained...

A sudden drop in the temperature this morning, I woke up at 4.00 am to a mild breathlessness in me. I thought of those two people whom I knew only by their names. My friend also woke up around that time hearing to my wheeze. He had the same thought running in his mind too. Surrounded by a pod of grave silence, our minds were wide awake with a cacophony of thoughts.

Suddenly the clouds rained with a roar, drenching the dew damp roads…no thunder, no lightning, it just rained its soul onto the earth. It rained its way into the gravity of the silence, roaring into our thoughts, shattering them and created a void within.

The rain not only penetrated the soil, it penetrated into me and restructured my priorities, my view of life and my love for it. Like a tap closing, the rains stopped in twenty minutes. An hour later the sun rays pierced and made itself felt through the fog. I know for sure that the Sun will shine…shine for me, my friend, and those two never met acquaintances.