The folks over at Smashing Magazine were kind enough to feature 3 of my wallpapers for their September Calender. Check them out here, and there are about 25 more really awesome wallpapers there. Thanks to Vitaly and Sven!

The Winning Shot.

And this photo of mine won the 2nd place in the August Hyderabad Photography Club (HPC) Contest. The theme was ‘Hyderabad at Night’ and I got 13 stars narrowly beating the 3rd place one which got 12 stars. Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

And Google has announced their new Open Source browser ‘Chrome’ which is supposed to improve stability and security and make it easier for the simple user. Lets how things unravel tomorrow.

I watched ‘Daniel Defoe’ Robinson Crusoe‘ today which is admittedly, overall a pretty average movie. What I really liked about the movie though is the way the complex relationship between Robin and Friday is portrayed. Some scenes are very heart rendering, especially the final scene when Robin holds Friday’s dying body in his arms and screams at the top of his voice. Good performance by Pierce Brosnan.

Today is also the first day of fasting of the holy month of Ramzan for Muslims. And with Ramzan comes the Hyderabadi Delicacy, Haleem which I happily gorged on.

And come nightfall, I spotted some beautiful stars in the clear sky tonight and hI eaded to the terrace with my trusty tripod. I got some decent shots of the stars and then I attempted to take some Star Trails. Note the word attempted because I hardly got anything worthwhile. I knew it was possible since I got a few potential shots but my China made remote had to mess around at that time thus making me annoyed and also lost the opportunity to capture more the shots. Maybe next time…

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‘Rock On’, possibly one of the first Hindi movie that I had hopes for and it did well to live up to the hopes. Ever since I bought the soundtrack a couple of weeks ago, I realized that the movie had potential to be one of the better Bollywood movies made. The songs were excellent and the very fact that I took efforts to buy a Hindi movie audio CD says a lot about it. Great job by Shankar Ehsaan Loy with the music, a good mix of 80’s style rock and harmonious songs. The lyrics (Javed Akhtar) were quite good too, not the usual meaningless stuff but rather words with some significance. It was the music that made me go to the theatre along with a few friends and watch the movie on the first day.

The movie features Farhan Akhtar, the director of the much famed movie ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ in his debut role as an actor along with Arjun Rampal who sports long hair throughout the movie and a couple of Channel V VJs as the main characters. Acting was good, not amazing, but good enough to keep the flow of the movie. The best performance, in my opinion, was by Arjun Rampal who managed to portray both sides of his life beautifully.

The story of the movie was solid and did a wonderful job of intertwining both the old and the new without leaving the viewer confused. It was well laid out and often left us waiting for the next scene eagerly, not nail biting eager, but just enough to keep you comfortable and not bored. It also did a good job at expressing several different types of emotions which made the audience laugh, cry, think and scream with joy, all in less than a span of 3 hours. Each individual band member’s life was looked into equally so as not to concentrate the movie completely on the main characters which dispersed the story over a wide range of topics.

The plot revolves around the band ‘Magik’ which was formed during their college days and seemed to be doing quite well. But incidents happen, and over the course of 10 years, the members lose touch with each other until one meeting by coincidence after which a whole lot of reminicising happens and brings the band back into the limelight. A simple but beautiful story very well executed with humour, emotion and the works.

Cinematography was superb using Hollywood-like camera angles and lighting. One feature which struck me in particular was the fact that all the bokeh in the movie was perfectly circular and the director must have known this because there was lots of it. Everywhere. And I’m not complaining, it only made the movie look better.

The seats were possibly not the best, being 3 rows from the front, but I was just happy watching the movie on the first day and fuelled by almost a litre of Coca Cola, the experience was enjoyable. And the fact that I had gone with 3 girls did much to make it a good movie overall. The other main influence of the movie was that it gave me some hope about Bollywood and that all of the new Hindi movies are not complete bullshit.

The movie had a nice message at the ending to not download the music but rather buy the CD which I thought was nice. Being anti piracy myself, I had already bought the audio CD sometime ago and you should probably do the same.

Definitely watch the movie if you have time and if you dont, make some and go watch the movie. A must for all musicians, upcoming or not, and music lovers in general.

If you have watched the movie, please give your opinion in the comments.

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More than a year ago, I remember submitting this post of mine to the ‘Top 5′ ProBlogger Group Writing Contest. It was the first time that I was entering such a contest and I really did hope to win the prize money of $1001. I did not win that time but I did get a hell a lot of traffic and met a lot of nice bloggers and those were enough to keep me happy.

This year, I was eagerly waiting for Darren to announce the next Group Writing Project and he did so about 4 days, this time with theme ‘Killer Titles‘. Since I had come back from Warangal the same day, I sat down and churned out a post about my time with the slightly risqué title “Sacrificing Goats and Eating Brains“. This time I submitted the post not to win the prize, infact I didnt even see what the prize was, but rather to interact and meet with other fellow bloggers through this and also get some extra traffic.

I cam back home today to see an email in my Inbox from Darren. Immediately, a part of me started to get excited hoping that I’d won the prize, whatever it may be, but there was another half saying that it was probably only Darren thanking everyone for participating in the project. About 5 seconds later, once I’d opened the email, a big grin spread across my face as I read that I had indeed won the contest and the prize was a logo designed by David Airey worth $2,000. I pinched myself and read the entire thing again to check I wasnt dreaming and sure enough, it wasnt. It was true. I had just two thousand united states dollars in the form of a logo.

This is probably the first time that I’ve won a proper contest in my life and I am very very excited about it. My sincere thanks to Darren Rowse for hosting the Group Writing Project and I look forward to participating in future ones. And thanks to David Airey as well, who will be designing the logo for me. Lots of thanks to the Bhascker family as well, without whom I would’ve never been able to have this remarkable experience. And last but not the least, thanks to all the participants of the project for making this a unforgettable experience in my life.

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Monday, 20th August 2007

Canon announced two brand new dSLRs, the Canon 40D with a 6.5fps burst and 3″ Live View LCD and the Canon 1Ds Mark III with a whopping 21 Megapixel Full Frame Sensor. The 40D is acknowledged by the photography world as the true successor to the 20D since the 30D wasnt very revolutionary. With a 10 Megapixel sensor, it was only a small leap from the 8 Megapixel sensor of the 30D but it included several additional features such as DIGIC III processor and 6.5fps burst capable of shooting 75jpgs, which earned it some nods of approval from the photography world.

The Canon 1Ds Mark - III

The 1Ds Mark III naturally stunned everyone with its large megapixel count, something only earlier achievable by medium format digital cameras and to this day, remains the dSLR with the highest megapixel count. It had a burst rate of 5fps, admittedly slower than the 40D but at capable of recording 56 21Megapixels RAW, one cant really complain. It also boasted of Dual DIGIC III processors to process the 185MB of data every second produced at full burst. It had a decent ISO range from ISO 50 to ISO 3200 and a 19 point autofocus sensor. A $8,000, it was expensive but there were probably a lot of people willing to spent that much of money for the megapixels.

Thursday, 23rd August 2007

Nikon retaliated with its two latest offerings, the Nikon D300 with a 51-point autofocus sensor and an impressive 922,000 pixel 3″ LCD with Live View and autofocus, and the Nikon D3 with a mindblowing ISO of 25,600 and a Full Frame 12 Megapixel sensor capable of 11fps burst. The D300 is probably not directly comparable with the 40D since it falls in a higher price bracket (the D300 cost $1,800 opposed to the $1,300 of the 40D) but the mind tends to compare things and since both of them were announced within 3 days of each other, people started saying how the D300 was so much more awesome than the 40D which was true.

The Nikon D3

As for the D3, it was a reason to rejoice for Nikonians all over the world since it was their first full frame dSLR and came with features that would make some Canonians burn with jealousy. Even though it only had a 12 Megapixel Sensor, the fact that it could shoot at 25,600 ISO, the highest in the world even today, was a huge selling point. It had a screen similar to the D300 and a Virtual Horizon feature and even HDMI output. At $5,000, it was also noticeably cheaper than the Canon equivalent.The 1Ds Mark III did have its advantage when it came to megapixels but the D3’s ISO and autofocus tempted several sports photographs to switch sides as was visible in the Beijing Olympics with a marked decrease in white lenses.

Tuesday, 1st July 2008

Nikon officially announced the much rumoured about Nikon D700, a camera with the guts of the D3 and the body of the D300. It was in direct competition with the Canon 5D which was a highly successful full frame camera. The D700 would also prove to be popular among the people since one could have the essential features of the D3 minus the fast burst rate and could carry around a much more portable camera. Costing $3,000, it was well worth it.

The Nikon D700

Tuesday, 20th August 2008

Canon announces the much anticipated successor to the 40D, the Canon 50D. With a remarkable 15Megapixels of resolution and 12,800 ISO, it sounds like a clear winner. In addition to that, it will be the first camera to sport the new DIGIC 4 processor. Learned from Nikon, it now boasts of a sparkling 3″ VGA LCD with Live View and 3 modes of autofocus and also HDMI output. The LCD is supposed to be superior to that of the Nikon D3 which is good news. Priced reasonably at $1,400, it almost looks like Canon is making a comeback against Nikon.

Wednesday, 21st August 2008

Nikon announces the successor to the hugely popular D80, the Nikon D90. With a 12Megapixel sensor and a maximum ISO of 6400, it doesnt sound like a worthy opposition to the Canon 50D. It also has the same screen as the D3 with Live View and a 4.5fps burst. But the magic feature of the D90 is its ability to record movies. Yes, Nikon has just released the world’s first dSLR with video recording capabilities. This is sure to create a lot of buzz among everyone and since its priced at $1,300, it’s going to be very tempting for some potential 50D buyers.

Canon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

Along the the 50D, Canon has also announced its newest superzoom lens, the Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.5 IS for use the with crop sensor cameras. It was about time that Canon annouced a superzoom lens since Nikon had already done so a long time ago. However, the leader in the world superzooms is Tamron with its newest offering having an impressive range of 15x with a focal length of 18-270mm with VC which is Tamron’s version of IS. Once again, consumers will have a choice of Canon’s higher priced lower focal length offering or Tamron’s lower priced higher focal length solution. The difference in quality can only be determined once they have been released and one has to see whether there will be remarkable differences which would make the Canon worth the money.

In the world of flashes, Nikon seems to be leading as well with the new Nikon SB-900 which is Nikon’s top of the line flash and definitely trumps Canon’s top of the line 580EX-II. The SB-900 comes with some world’s first features such as a flash zoom range of 17-200mm and three different illumination patterns. Sony is making a revolution in its own world with the first flash in the world with a vertical swivel. The HVL-F58AM from Sony has a very innovative “Quick Shift Bounce” system also makes it a must have for many photographers.

Sony will also be entering the Full Frame with the announcement of its much anticipated new Pro level dSLR which is touted to have a 24Megapixel sensor and will effectively become the dSLR with the highest megapixel count. And since Sony supplies the sensors for Nikon, it shouldnt be too much of a surprise if Nikon announces a D3X with a 24Megapixel sensor as well. This would be a huge blow to Canon which needs to get its show together at Photokina this year. Photokina starts on the 23rd of September at Germany and almost every photographer is eagerly awaiting the announcement of the Canon 5D’s successor. Several rumours have been all around the internet but we wont know for sure until Canon announces it officially. I sincerely do hope that Canon have something mindblowing and revolutionary in store for everyone because if they dont, Nikon is going to slowly start taking the lead…

Disclaimer - I own a Canon 40D which I bought around a year ago.

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Update - This post won the Killer Titles Project at ProBlogger. Many thanks to Darren for hosting the contest and also to all the readers. This is possibly the first time I’ve ever won something meaningful.

Waddepalli.

No, I didnt make that word up. Waddepalli is a place in Warangal and I had pleasure of visiting the place on Sunday along with a few friends. We went there to witness the yearly local festival along with several other age old traditions. At 6:30 AM, we left from Hyderabad in a taxi and sped towards Warangal where we reached at around 10 AM after having stopped at a restaurant for (a sad) breakfast.

The festival had already kicked off by the time we reached there and people were thronging the small temple. Chicken sacrifices were abound with an average of one chicken losing its life every couple of minutes. You can see a photo of the chicken sacrifice here, but be warned, it is of a very graphic nature and I advise you to avoid it if you are easily offended by such things. After a quick refresh, we met the members of the Bhascker family who were kind enough to put up with us. Soon, we walked through the crowds for a what one could call a “VIP Darshan” and stood by the side taking photos of the beheading of the chickens.

They had a goat sacrifice occasionally of which I got some photos which you can see here, it is also of a very graphic nature, even more than the chicken one. After this, we got slightly bored of watching people walk in a line and decided to go visit the 1000 Pillar Temple.

Quite evidently, there werent actually 1000 visible pillars in the temple and it probably was a slight disappointment considering its impressive name. We then went to the Bhadrakali temple which was, in my opinion, much better than ol’ 1000 pillar. We prayed to a few gods there, had some Prasadam and walked across the landscape there. I wanted to stay for some more time but some members of our group for hungry and had to leave to get some lunch.

We went back to the Bhascker’s for lunch where were served freshly cooked spicy mutton curry with rice. I say ‘freshly cooked’ because the goat which was used for the curry was most probably alive a few hours before our meal. In that weather, you always feeling like having a nap after a meal like that but we stayed awake with the help of some playing cards and sheer stupidity in playing some card games. This did a good job of keeping us awake since we either laughing or cursing each other during most of the game.

The game soon got monotonous and the heat seemed to cool down as well so went for a walk guided by a local man. The local man was very enthusiastic to show us around the place and took us to the lake. The walk to the lake was filled with lots of interesting characters which kept us from getting bored. We found a nice tree and spent a lot of time sitting by the lake in the shade of the tree. And even though we wished to see sunset by the lake, we had to go back to the house for some more night time festivities.

I changed my lens, from the 18-250mm to the classic 50mm 1.8, since the light was continuously decreasing. A couple of shots later, I recalled how much I’d loved the lens and had forgotten about its amazing capabilities.

As the sun slowly disappeared, a high powered halogen lamp and lots of multi colored chain lights were put up. All this provided excellent lighting and bokeh for the night shots which turned out much better than I expected. The colors of the saris, the gentle flame on the pots, and the kids running around, made for a nice atmosphere.

The flow of people finally died down after having gone on for more than 12 hours. We took this break as a chance and had some pretty good Ice Cream at a place called ‘Softy Don’. Soon after wolfing down the Ice Cream, we headed back home for dinner. Dinner consisted of some more mutton curry but the Pièce de résistance was the goat brain curry which not only tasted good but is also supposed to be very nutritious.

We decided to end the day with a second show movie but due to lack of choice, we went for ‘God Tussi Great Ho’ which turned to be a bad decision because it has to be the single worst Hindi movie I’ve ever seen. Salman Khan’s overaction, his brother’s even more overaction were too powerful to be overcome by Priyanka Chopra and her moves. The only partially good part of the movie were the songs, kudos to Sajid-Wajid. I slept through a good amount of the movie and by the time we got home after the movie was done, it was 2 AM.

Next day morning, we are up again at 5:30 AM getting ready to come back to Hyderabad. The journey back took 3 hours and we were back here by 10 after a wonderful and unique experience at Warangal. To see things which you dont really see everyday, and be in a place completely different from this world was bliss.

Photos are being slowly uploaded onto this set on Flickr, make sure you check back often for updates or subscribe to this RSS Feed to be notified when a new photo is uploaded into the set.

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I have to admit that I am sometimes completely out of ideas for the 365 Day Project and this is usually at around 9 at night when I only have 3 more hours to get an idea for a decent photo of the day. And then I try one of the following tips to manage a last minute good photo.

1. Look around you.

Some of the most impressive photographs that I’ve seen are of things that we use in our daily life taken from a different perspective. Going down to macro level on random things lying on your table can make them look surprisingly good. Try and get some sort of symmetry/perspective with the object and there is a high possibility of getting a good shot from a simple object. Most Point ‘n’ Shoot cameras have a macro mode with a minimum focus distance ranging from 0cm to 5cm. It is usually denoted by a flower symbol and can be enabled either by a button on the body or in the menu depending upon your model.

For dSLRs, you can either get a dedicated Macro lens like the Canon Macro EF 100m f2.8 or Nikkor Micro 105mm f/2.8 VR or alternatively, you can get a lens which can deliver results close to a true macro. A dedicated macro lens like the ones mentioned can give level of 1:1 magnification which means that the size of the image on a full frame sensor will be equal to the size of the object. Lenses like the Sigma 70 - 300mm Macro f/4-5.6 can give you a ratio of 1:2 which means the size of the image will be half of what it is in real life. This ratio is probably enough for most users and the lens also doubles as a telephoto zoom lens.

For people who dont wish to buy a new lens for macro, you can get some extension tubes which are placed between the lens and camera. Since they move the lens away from the sensor plane, it increases the size of the image, thereby creating a pseudo macro lens. The downside is that you cannot focus on infinity with the extension tubes in place and it also reduces the amount of light hitting the sensor so it would be advisable to use a tripod for the resulting long exposures. The 50mm f/1.8 is the recommended lens for using extension tubes but you can also try it with other lenses that you already own. You can also get some close up filters which can be fit on the end of the lens and they reduce the minimum focusing distance of the lens. For the more adventurous, you can try a reversed lens technique which involves reversing a lens and placing it infront of another lens which is on the camera body. Personally, I’ve never tried it but it apparently results in some interesting macros with a magnification higher than 1:1.

Here are a couple of shots that I took of my speakers and a pound coin, both were impromptu and turned out better than I expected.

2. Go for a walk

A short walk around the neighbourhood with the prime objective of taking photographs can yield good results and make you notice new things. You’ll look at the same place that you see everyday with a different eye and observe small details that you may missed earlier. These small details can possibly make a nice photo, either in macro or just as a landscape shot with unique aspect.

Go to the local park and you can get some nature shots of flowers, trees and the greenery there. You can also probably spot some kids playing in the playground and get a few playful photos of them. However, make sure you ask their parents for permission or they might get offended by this stranger with a camera snapping photos of their children.

You can get the best landscape shots at twilight so depending on your location, start off from home about 30 minutes before the sun starts to set and you should be able to take some nice landscape photographs of your locality. You can use your kit lens but if you do have another walkaround lens or all purpose zoom lens, take that one with you, just to be ready for all types of opportunities.

I got this shot at a stroll in the evening and this one at a walk in the night.

3. Browse Flickr.

Flickr is one of the largest photo sharing websites used extensively by many photographers, both professionals and amateurs. Due to its huge popularity, you can find thousands of photographs on any subject that you like. You can find a lot of shots which will inspire you and give you ideas to recreate the shot and maybe modify it to your liking.

You can start off by going to ‘Explore‘ which is a day-by-day catalogue of Flickr’s most popular photos for that specific date. You can choose to surf to a specific date of the year and see the popular photos for that date, I usually start by going to the date of my birthday but you can always chose any date that you wish. You can also select a ‘tag’ that you find interesting and it will show all the popular photos with that tag. Another new option is to surf the geo-tagged photos, so for example, you can see all the geo-tagged photos which have been taken at the a specific street in Paris, etc.

Another thing which I like to do is to go through the photo pools of several groups. You can search for a group and most of the time, there always exists a group filled with similar ideologies like you. You can then surf through the various photos in the group and try and find something interesting. You can also go through the photostream of the individual photographer who took a photo that you liked to see more of his work.

All of the photos that you find interesting can serve as inspiration to you and give you new and fresh ideas for photos that you may not have thought of by yourself.

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These are 6 photographs that I really like, handpicked from over 150 photographs from my favorites on Flickr.

Copyright of p0cket-paul.

The above photograph has a special significance to me since it was the first image that I added as a favorite on Flickr more than a year ago. Other than the obvious reasons of why one would like this photo, it was taken by a Film Camera (Canon A-1) which gives it a nice grainy black and white effect which I love. And the pure candid feeling of the photo puts it above many others and the fact that it looks like the photographer is grinning broadly adds to the mood.

Copyright of Ronald Suello.

I loved this shot the moment I saw it. It was the shot that inspired me to take up Strobist style of photography seriously and invest in new lighting equipment. It is also the single shot that inspired this entire set of mine on Flickr. This shoot has a ‘coolness’ factor to it which sets it apart from other alcohol bottle shots. And the motion of the water frozen forever simply makes it one of the best alcohol based shots I have ever seen.

Copyright of Eldad Hagar.

The expression on the face of the tiger, the ripples in the water and the grabbing paw make this an amazing wildlife/action shot. The shot is action packed and the motion blur created by the tiger as it burst into the water give it a sense of motion. The fierce and hungry look on the face is priceless and it probably would take a lot of effort to recreate this awesome moment.

Copyright of Matt Cohen.

Do I really need to explain why this photo is amazing? The timing, the action captured, the amazing glass used (Nikkor 70-200 2.8 VR) and the high ISO (2500) come together to create what can possibly be named as one of the greatest rodeo shots ever. I was simply awestruck by this photo and its my dream to capture a similar shot before I die.

Copyright of Tom Atwell.

I could’ve never imagined that one drop of water could be made to look so beautiful and artistic. And what makes this photo one my favorites is not only the fact that it looks spectacular but also the way it was taken. As said in the comments by the photographer Tim Atwell himself, he used a sound activated time delay circuit to activate the flash for this photo. Pure genius.

Copyright of Trey Ratcliff.

Two reasons why this I love this photo, number one, it is of India and number two, it was taken by HDR Guru Stuck in Customs. High Dynamic Range, more popularity know as HDR is a type of photography where 3 or more bracketed exposures are merged to form one photo. Its a tricky procedure and there are thousands of bad HDRs out there but few people like Trey have managed to master the process and produce wonderful images like the one above. If you want give a try at HDR, make sure you read his tutorial here.

I hope everyone like this post, I plan to make this a regular post like this, maybe every month, so please leave some feedback which will help me improve my posts.

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61 Years.

India is getting old. Almost as old my grandmother infact, who has been 65 for the past 10 years.

I wont lie and say they’ve been a fabulous 61 years filled with fame and fortune because they havent. India has had its share of ups and downs, booms and recessions and here we are today, with an inflation rate of 12.44% and more than a billion similing citizens.

Some citizens are smiling much more than the others, and possibly grinning broadly. And this would obviously include the newest citizen to make India proud, Abhinav Bindra who won India a Gold Medal at the Beijing Olympics. And according to news sources, it is India’s first individual Gold Medal since forever. Thats is quite surprising news and also an impressive feat and for this very feat, the government has kindly volunetereed to give him 1.82 Crore Rupees as a prize along with a lifetime of free travel in 2 Tier A/C Trains. Well, thats good for the reputation of the country and definitely good for him, he’s done his part for the country and now his name will go down in history.

As for the rest 999 Million people like me who still have to do our part for country, unless we become Politicians, hope is quite bleak to affect and inspire the country as much as Bindra has. However, the Indian football did their part as well by winning the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup against Tajikistan with a final score of 4-1. Well done to them, I did watch the match live and cheered for my country with all my heart.

Over the course of the 18 years of my life, I have read about many people who seemed determined to “change India” and “modernize it” only to be eventually faced with failure and blame the country for refusing to change. You cannot simply change a country in the blink of an eye, it takes lot of time, effort and evolution to take place. You can contribute to this process and maybe increase its speed by a tiny margin but thats about as much as the average man can do.

But why do you want to change the country? Is it to make it like UK or US or one of these apparently developed western countries? After having spent approximately a year in England, I have to conclude that even though life there is good and decent, its nothing quite as nice as India with the genuinely friendly people and the small things here which make life worth living. I believe that, with change, we may lose a part of these things that make India the great place that it is. I also believe that change is inevitable and it may be for the better or the worse and that can only be proven with time. Change cannot be forced, it must take its natural course and its own time to be efficient. People will grow up, and slowly, the entire nation will move onto a new path, in a different way and everyone will be happy with the direction of movement. And thats when the change will be deemed to be successful.

I remember my Politics lecturer at university saying that how he has no idea how democracy successfully runs in India because it defies every single defined condition necessary for a democracy and yet manages to maintain the world’s largest democracy. But he also mentioned some small points here and there and even though they seemed to be insignificant, they are the things that keep the country running. And those small things are some of the reasons why I love my country.

Nothing in the world except for death can seperate me permanently from my country, my motherland, my India. Mera Bharat Mahaan.

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Its been about 45 days since I’ve come down to good ol’ Hyderabad and I’ll be going back to University in just over a month. I’ve done a lot over the past month or so and there still remains a lot to get done before I head back to Essex.

Driving lessons have been going on well, I’ve had about a week’s worth of classes so far and I’m finding slightly difficult to coordinate all my limbs to do different things while still looking at the road but I’m sure it’ll become second nature eventually.

I was also accepted by Visage Images to publish photos on their website for sale. I still havent put up any photos yet as the agreement is still being processed but I’m sure they’ll go up within the next fortnight.

And yesterday, I had what was probably one of the best photoshoots ever at the local basketball court with a few friends. Two of them, Chris and Tharun were very helpful with the lights and all. Our main man, Ranjith was the model, and also did an excellent job. I’ve uploaded the photos from shoot on Flickr and you can see the set here.

And I’ve got a chunk of stuff to get done before I get back to Uni, which I’m trying to do little by little everyday so that I dont get a shock on the day before I go.

I’ve been following the Olympics with some interest, esp. after seeing the photography gear that they use to shoot the Olympics. Its very impressive, I highly recommend that you check it out.

Olympics Gear. Copyright of Vincent LaForet.

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The Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was one of the most impressive ceremonies that I’ve ever witnessed in my life. Everything about it was simply spectacular and I didnt even feel the 2 hours fly while watching it. Infact, it was so amazing that the former Mayor of London, Mr.Ken Livingston who was at Beijing went as far to say that it was “the greatest show ever put on in the history of mankind”. I wont disagree with him and you probably wont if you watched the ceremony. I sincerely hope that you did watch the ceremony and if you didnt, shame on you, because even my driver watched it. Anyways, dont lose hope, you can see the photographs from the ceremony here.

The Ceremony kicked off at 8:00 PM on the 8th of August 2008 at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing with around 2,000 drummers playing their ‘Fou’ drums in Rhythm. I thought this was highly impressive and would’ve been content with just the drumming but there were still scores of more amazing displays to come. The huge LED Paper Scroll was perhaps one of the most beautiful and accurate display that anyone has ever seen. Another part, which was my personal favourite, was the movable blocks which moved in tune to each other and created some pretty darn spectacular movements. All through this display, I thought that the blocks were controlled by machines but at the end, the blocks opened up to reveal hundreds of grinning men waving to the crowd. I could go on and on about magnificent performances but am going to stop here since you can read about that at hundreds of other blogs. The pyrotechnics were very grand and striking and included some unique ones like smiley faces. You can see the photographs of the fireworks here.

Copyright of Clive Rose/Getty Images

Credit must be given to the Chinese Filmmaker Zhang Yimou who directed the entire show and all the participants who had practiced for over a thousand days. The management of the entire ceremony must also be applauded for pulling off the entire ceremony without any visible problems whatsoever. Also, to ensure that the ceremony would not be ruined by rain, extensive measures were taken to avoid any remote chance of a downpour. You can view a visual representation of these measures here.

The show was apparently attended by over 100 heads of state, the most ever, including our very own Sonia Gandhi, who I spotted smiling and waving, when the Indian team marched into the stadium. I felt a sense of pride and patriotism when the Indian marched across the stadium proudly waving the Indian flag and I truly wished that they would win some medals this year. The sight of 10,500 participants marching in the opening ceremony was formidable and comprised of countries that I had never heard of before.

What this means for the future of China

As can be expected from a show of such a large scale, it would brought in a humongous amount of tourists to the country. And when the number of people in the country increases, all the services catering to them would have to be multiplied as well. This would’ve meant more hotels, more restaurants, more taxis, more shops, and more money circulating in the economy. This itself would have been a good boost to the economy which will be kept busy over the next 2 weeks to cater to the various needs of the visitors.

The reputation of China in the public eye will also be heightened now that we have seen their might and what they are capable of. This is probably the best PR any country could ever get since it applies universally to all realms of life. People wont think too much before buying Chinese products, Chinese businessmen will find it easier to makes sales to other countries, and overall, Chinese people will be respected more in the international community. Minor mistakes made by China will be forgiven thanks to those 2 powerful hours of the opening ceremony which was watched by 4 Billion people across the world.

I imagine the Chinese leaders would be sitting together right now and congratulating each other on the awesome job they did to show the rest of the world what they can do and that they can make a difference in the world.

What this means for the future of England

Just like the Chinese leaders would be discussing the success of the opening ceremony, I presume the heads of England would be trying to come up with ideas for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics which are to be held in London.

The Chinese have definitely set a striking impression on the minds of everyone and London will have to do an exquisite job to trump Beijing. And even if they dont plan to outshine the Chinese, they will still have to do a pretty good job just because everyone will be expecting something big after having seen this.

And doing something better is going to require a large amount of manpower, something which is not cheap in a developed country like England. People will have to dragged out from regular jobs to contribute to the Olympics, and many people wont appreciate that. And since England is a democracy, people will have the freedom to do as they please unlike communist China where people would either have the choice to participate in the Olympics or spend the rest of their life in jail.

A considerable amount of resources will have to be invested in R&D to come up with some new technology which the world has never seen before. Money will also have to be spent in acquiring manpower and that will take a big chunk out of the entire budget. I also hope that they manage to sort our all their transportation problems by 2012. Heathrow’s Terminal 5 may not even come close to the size and capacity of Beijing Airport’s Terminal 3 but it does have enough problems to cause headaches to 28,000 passengers whose baggage went missing during its month of operation.

Ideally, all the problems currently existing will be eventually dealt with and by 2012, there should be a grand perfomance awaiting us, or atleast I hope so.

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