For my 18th Birthday, I shall be giving away 6 free photography wallpapers which were taken by me in the wonderful city of London. I hope you like them!

London Underground

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Lloyds Building

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London Eye

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St.Pauls Cathedral

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The Streets of London

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Millennium Bridge

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You can see more of my photography work at my Flickr Photostream.

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Its been just over an hour of being 18 years old, and similar to last year, it doesnt feel much different. However, I do realise that I am legally responsible for my actions now, and I can vote, get a license, sign contracts, drink alcohol, get a proper bank account and lots more things, or atleast I hope so. They disadvantages of being 18 are not too much I suppose, I can be sent to prison and will no longer be able to get away with things as easily since I’m not a ‘kid’ anymore. I’m still one of the youngest people in my friends circle so I can somewhat continue to  have the benefits of being the youngest.

I’ve got about 3 texts, 2 calls, 3 online and 3 real life wishes for my birthday so far, my thanks to all of them for remembering my birthday and dutifully wishing me on time.

The last week has been good fun, I’ve been showing Hyderabad around to one of my good friends from England which has also given me the opportunity to see various places in the city which I otherwise would not have seen. The city has certainly changed for the better over the course of the year but not too drastically, which is good since I like it the way it is. Some places that I quite enjoyed going include the Chowmahalla Palace and Ramoji FIlm City. I also met up with the Photography Club a couple of times and got some pretty good shots, all of which I have/shall be uploading on Flickr. The more eventful of the meetings being the time when we went to the newly opened Panjagutta flyover the night before it was inaugrated to get some shots of the flyover which we probably wont be ever able to get again since it’ll never be completely empty ever again.

My sincere apologies for not having posted on the site for over a week and in order to compensate for this absence, I have a surprise in store for everyone tomorrow so make sure you visit the site sometime late on the 15th of July!

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After having settled in the hot and humid weather of Hyderabad, I met up with some old friends from the Hyderabad Photography Club and we decided to go to Charminar for some street photography. We walked around the streets, as one does for street photography, after which we proceeded to have some classic Irani Chai and Osmania Biscuit at a local cafe. The Irani tasted better than ever and it also came in cups which looked like they hadnt been washed since the time of Nizams. Its small things like that which make Hyderabad the place it is. We also went up to the top level of Charminar which provided some great views of the surrounding areas. The one that intrigued me was the lack of fences around the level which is a serious safety threat and if anyone trips, it is highly possible that they’ll down a good 75ft before they hit the ground. Regardless of the safety issue, it feels nice to be up there at that height and admire the view.

Today, we went to the Villart Photography Expo at People’s Plaza in Necklace road. It was an okay show with about 4 stalls being really good out of about 25. It was definitely worth going, not only for those 4 good stalls but also to get a general feel of what is going on in the Indian photography market. One of the 4 stalls which I liked was the Canon stall, simply because I got to handle a Canon 5D w/ 70-200 f/2.8 L IS USM with a 580EX II. It was very heavy initially but the lens was quite awesome and I toyed around with it for a while before having to hand it back to the people there. There was also a stall which had some movie cranes for demo and one my friends got to play around with the cranes for sometime. They seemed pretty cool and innovative. The Elinchrom stand was amazing too, the man was kind enough to give us a demo of the remote system of their line of Studio flashes and also allow us to have a go at it. The whole expo was a pretty good experience and we finished it off with a casual talk with some more friends at a coffee shop.

I have been uploading all my new photographs solely on Flickr and you can see the latest photos at my photostream here.

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I got back to good ol’ Hyderabad early Sunday morning and had Biryani for the lunch on the same day without wasting any time. It feels good to be back home where I belong with the various elements that make Hyderabad what it is.

I had an interesting experience near Heathrow airport where I was spending a night before catching my early plane on Saturday morning. I was happily taking photographs with my Carl Zeiss 135mm f/3.5 when I was approached politely by a police office who wished to know whether I had permission to take photographs there. As expected, I replied ‘no’ and then he requested to see the photographs that I’d taken which I promptly did. He asked for some to be deleted which I also promptly did and once that was done, he talked to me about how taking photographs near the airport is illegal without permission and that I shouldnt have done so. I plead ignorance since I knew of no such law and there were no boards pointing that out. He was kind enough to let me go off with a “friendly warning” to quote him, and said he would have to arrest me if I continued to take photographs. Following this, I thanked him and left back to my hotel counting my blessings for having gotten off, thanks to the friendly cop.

And in other photography related news, I have fallen in love with both my Carl Zeiss lenses which are just insanely sharp beyond belief. The 135mm is sharper than the 35mm and these have become my favourite lenses now. The 35mm is my walkaround lens now, replacing the 18-250mm which I use solely for wide-angle and sports now. My 50mm had the misfortune of being dropped once and now has problems in manual focus but auto focus seems to function perfectly well.

I met with some friends today and a couple of days ago and have been catching up on things that I missed over the past 6 months. It felt nice to meet them after a somewhat long time and socialise once again like the good ol’ days.

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Its been a splendid year at Essex but its now time to go home for the summer. About this time next week, I’ll be home, most probably enjoying a meal of Paradise Biryani with my family and friends. I do look forward to go home but I will sorely miss my friends here for the 3 months back in Hyderabad.

Its been a boring yet busy week. I’ve had various things to get done regarding the various societies that I’m part of. I’ve finished a majority of these things but a few still remain which I plan to get done in the following week.

I’ve also finally sorted out my accommodation for next year and will be living in a beautiful house with 3 of my friends very close to the University.

Over the past week, I discovered that the photography society had a darkroom which hadnt been used for over a year. I, being the president of the society for the next year, opened up the room and realized that it was a fully equipped darkroom. I’ve been messing around there for sometime and tried out different things. I havent been able to process a photo yet due to the fact that I do not own a film camera but its been very interesting to understand how film processing works.

I’ve also been cooking quite ardently simply due to the fact that I want to try and finish most of the food that I have before I leave.

Blackadder has been another great source of passing the time. Every episode is just so witty and amusing, I can never get enough of Blackadder and Baldrick.

Life over the past year has certainly affected me as a man. I have changed for the better, by life in a different country, away from home…

I shall most probably be back in Hyderabad the next time I post here, so good bye till then!

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On Tuesday Night, I had the chance to go and watch the filming of the Graham Norton Show live in London, thanks to a friend who managed to get 4 tickets.

The show started at about 1845 but we had to get there by 1800 so that we could seated in time. We had priority tickets which allowed us to jump a majority of the queue. The show kicked off on time with a warm up presenter who was quite funny and introduced us to the various elements of the filming of the show. After his brief talk, Graham Norton himself came onto the stage and went on about this slightly disgusting but funny story of his previous weekend. With that story done, the main show was about to start, the title music started playing and we saw Norton come to the stage again but with much more of a spin and style to his walk this time.

The filming of the show lasted for 2 hours but we didnt even feel the time pass by. The guests of the show were Oscar winning French actress Juliette Binoche and chef extraordinaire Gordon Ramsay. The entire show was hilarious had the whole audience laughing their hearts out. The fact that the show is based, not on just interviewing the guests but several different elements as well, makes it very humorous and doesnt get boring. At the beginning of the show, Juliette seemed a bit lost and Gordon seemed to enjoy discreetly making fun of the French which she didnt understand. But over the course of the show, she realised that it wasnt a straightforward interview show and joined in on the fun which made it even more enjoyable.

One of the first things that struck me when I walked into the studio, was the lighting system. There were about 100 different lights hanging from the ceiling, each affecting the overall lighting of the show a little. I was overwhelmed by these spectacular and spent a good amount of time simple examining them and the accessories they had. The cameras used were very impressive as well. They had around 5 cameras on the ground and one camera on the crane. Watching all the crew do their job made me realise that Graham Norton is only a small part of the show and that a huge amount of effort goes into making each episode.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience which we finished off with a great meal at Chinatown.

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Following several weeks of lusting after Biryani and curries with my English friends, we finally decided to go for an Indian meal a couple of days ago. The restaurant we decided to go to was aptly named ‘Curry India’ and was located at Crouch St. in Colchester. The first impression of the restaurant was good, it had good ambiance, a delicious smelling aroma greeting us and seemed posh.

There were 8 of us, and funnily enough, I was the only Indian in this gathering. The restaurant had a set dinner meal which the waiter tried to market to us but I wasnt falling for his tactics, we said we would order from the menu instead of this so-called “set dinner meal”. The menu was extensive with several obvious spelling mistakes, some of the more prominent ones were Masala being spelled Mosalla and Biryani spelt as Biriany. It did annoy me slightly but I thought it was permissible since they were about 5000 miles from India.

I did lower my expectations before ordering so that I would not be disappointed with the meal. Being the Hyderabadi that I am, I ordered Persian Chicken Biryani since I thought it would bear the closest resemblance to Hyderabad Biryani. My friends were a bit more adventurous ordering things varying from Mushroom Biryani to Gammon Steak.

The ambiance of the restaurant was pretty good, there was old Hindi music playing away in the background as we have in the Dhabas by the highways. The lighting was dim but yet not too dark which allowed me to have proper conversations with my friends across the table without having to squint to see who I was talking to.

The service was decent with seemingly enthusiastic waiters although we did have to wait for an unusually long time for the second round drinks that we had ordered and had to remind them before the got us the drinks.

The food arrived fairly quickly, it looked and smelled wonderful and all of us couldnt wait to start munching. As for my Biryani, it was quite disappointing because it wasnt even Biryani. It was what I would called fried rice by Indian standards. I did eat all of it, mainly because I was quite hungry.

What I expected -

Hyderabadi Biryani from Paradise by jennn

What I got -

Okay, maybe the pile of rubbish is probably exaggerating it but the meal definitely wasnt the authentic Indian food that I had come for. It could probably pass off as Indian food to the English but they werent going to fool me. Of course, I do have to consider the fact that the majority of the people in the restaurant were English and believed that this was real Indian food and appeared to be quite satisfied by it. They also probably dont have the same ingredients as one would get in India but whatever be the reason, I wasnt pleased. If it wasnt for the great company provided by my friends, the entire night could’ve been ruined. I definitely had a good time, but mainly due to the social factor and slightly due to the food. However, I have to say that the social factor was also probably influenced by the good ambiance so the restaurant did provide to the good evening if not directly.

Final ratings -

Ambiance - 7/10
Food - 4/10
Service - 7/10

Overall rating - 6/10

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I went Gliding yesterday after more than a month. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to glide and had some very enjoyable flights yesterday. The weather has improved which made the whole experience more pleasurable and we had a great day out at the airfield.

GTA IV comes out in less than 2 days. I wasnt really anticipating the release of the game that much since I’m not as interested in games as I was 2 years ago when San Andreas came out. However, I did want to try out the game just once to see how it is and if there is enough improvement as has been publicised. And yesterday, I read IGN’s review of the game and they gave it a perfect score of 10 and called it ‘One of the best games ever’. I also watched the gameplay videos which are totally awesome. And some of my friends over at GTAGaming got invited for all expenses paid trip to New York by Rockstar Games to have a sneak preview of GTA IV, you can read about their exciting experience here. These events have reinstated my interest in the game and I look forward to release. You can see a countdown to the release of the game here.

I got a PC Sync Extension cable for my cameras flash so that I can fire both of my flash simultaneously indoors, I have taken some exciting photos with some new techniques and you can view some of these on my Flickr Stream and my 365 Day Project. I can also use my flash outdoors now, using the cable and I’ve been experimenting to get unique shots which can be seen in the links above.

I had an Economics Test a couple of days which went fairly well. My exams start on May 12th and ending on May 30th. I also got the result of my Politics Essay and I was quite happy with it as was my teacher.

In order to make my domain more ‘UK-friendly’, I have now redirected my previous derelict website and domain name - Cozmonite.com, to this site so that now anyone who visits that domain can click a link to visit this site which is my primary website.

And I have some big plans about the photo gallery which I shall try and implement soon so that it will be easier to view photos here.

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After 3 weeks of traveling, I am finally back at University. It feels pretty good to be back at a place which I can call home for the time being.

I spent the last day at Oxford walking around the city and visiting several places. I went to the University Church and climbed up to the tower from where I had a great view of the spires of the city. Apart from that, I visited many colleges including Trinity College, Magdalen College and walked around their campus and got a feel of their atmospheres. I also went for a very informative visit to the Bodleian Library which is one of the biggest libraries in England receiving about 5000 new publications every week! The library also happened to be used for some scenes in the Harry Potter movies and the ground floor was used as the infirmary in the movies.

Blackwells was my next stop, being one of the largest bookshops I’ve ever been too. Its pretty huge and has every book you can think of. I spent a good amount of time pondering over random books there. I went to the Ashmolean Museum after that, and it had free entry which was a good thing. However, as with all museums, it had boring parts and exciting parts. Unfortunately for me, about half of the museum was shut due to renovation work being carried out and I have reason to believe that the sections that were closed would’ve had the interesting bits since the rest of the museum was relatively boring. It was filled with the usual Egyptian relics, Italian statues, etc, etc and honestly, I’ve had enough of these.

I spent less than 24 hours in Nottingham but managed to get across to the main places even though it was raining and hailing on and off throughout the day. I visited the caves of Nottingham which was quite interesting and presented in an excellent manner by a man who dressed up in costumes pertaining to the time period of the caves. The Nottingham Castle, although not very big, was a nice place. It had a really good museum, which was definitely better than the Ashmolean even though a lot smaller. I spent a lot more time in there looking at things which were displayed in innovative way designed to catch the attention of the viewer. They also had a special Robin Hood exhibition which was once again, very well exhibited in new and interesting ways.

I got back to Essex yesterday evening and it felt great to get back. I have one week of relative freedom ahead. I have updated the 365 Day Project so make sure you take a look through the album. And after this great trip, I have decided that my favourite holidays are ones by the sea or ocean. Listening to the sea and watching the waves is something I can sit and so forever. I shall upload the photos of the trip soon!

Update - I have uploaded photos from the vacation onto my Flickr page. You can check them out here. I shall be adding more soon.

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I got back from Seaton last Sunday and have been able to access the internet on my laptop today only. Seaton was great, we walked to several places around the coast including Sidmouth, Beer, Lyme Regis, etc. Got lots of great photographs which I shall upload once I get back to University. I spent the last 4 days in North Dorset visting several historic locations. We went to the Stonehenge which was not as impressive as I expected it to be although it was still quite nice. We went for a nice long walk in the Stourhead Gardens which were very beautiful and had a great time with my friends there. We also saw one of the locations for a scene in the movie ‘Pride and Prejudice’ there. We visited Old Wardour castle after that which was a lot better inside than it appeared from the outside. It was also one of the locations for the movie ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’. We spent a considerable amount of time looking around the place and had a lot of fun.

I spent my first April Fools Day away from my family, it probably sounds funny to you but was quite emotional for me since my dad always used to fool me on the morning of every single April Fools day, and I really missed him.

I arrived in Oxford today morning and I went for a tour bus ride to get a general idea of the whole place. After that, I got off the bus and walked around half the city and it took lesser time than I imagined. The city is very beautiful and has a very authentic English feel to it. It has a lot of people wandering around, a majority of who appeared to be students of the University. I saw most of the important places to visit in the city today and will probably visit the rest tomorrow which will be my last day here.

I will be able to update the 365 Day Project only after I get back to University due to various technical problems. I sincerely apologize for the delay caused.

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