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!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

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.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

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.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

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!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Term starts tomorrow, the past literally whizzed past me. I didnt do anything majorly productive over the last week although I did manage to get some stuff done which I had been wanting to do for a long time.

My dad came to visit me over the weekend which was great, I got to spend some quality time with him, talk about random stuff like the good ol’ days, it was felt nice to meet him after 4 months. Today’s photo of the 365 Day Project is a dedication to him.

I went to London on Thursday and spent about 12 hours there, taking some photos a majority of the time. I was helping a friend out with her project. The photos came out amazing and I shall be uploading them very soon.

International Shutdown Day is back with a bang this year, and it is the 3rd of May 2008 which will be the day that people all over the world shutdown their computers. It is an optional event, as always but I hope there will be more participation this year. I successfully managed it last year and it was quite refreshing to see how many things one can achieve sans the computer. I personally feel that its something everyone should atleast try to see whether they can achieve it or not. Getting addicted to computers is probably not the best thing that can happen to you and this is like a simple sort of test for that.

Some interesting news around the world,

A mouse at the University of Iowa successfully managed to navigate a maze in less than 30 seconds, on which scientists had spent more than a year to construct. I have to say that I were one of those scientists, I would pissed as hell right now.

And some good news for all bloggers, Britannica has said that it will offer its online version for free to anyone who can prove that they publish regularly on the internet and this includes bloggers, webmasters and writers. If you are one of the above, you can submit this form to them and if approved, you can avail this free service for a year.

For all of those who have struggled to solve the Rubik’s cube, fear not for Gizmodo has put up up a 6 step (yes, you read that right, only 6 steps) guide to solving the Rubik’s cube. Take a look at it here.

The most anticipated game of the year, GTA IV, has gone gold and the copies of the game have started shipping to retailers. The game releases on the 29th of April for the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Sony always manages to make innovative and unique ads and they’ve proved their skill once again by making an ad in Miami by filling the city with foam. They had to custom make the world’s largest foam machine for this advertisement for their line of digital cameras. You can watch the ad and its making here.

And in somewhat sad news, the Aston Martin used by James Bond in the 007 movies has crashed into a lake by accident after the driver lost control in the rain while delivering it to the shooting area.

And thats it for now, more photos coming up soon!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

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.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

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.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The last few days have been relatively uneventful when compared to the first few days here.  We walked to Old Harry’s Rocks a couple of days ago. It was a very tiring walk over extremely steep cliffs and hills and by the time we got to the top, we were really exhausted. It took us a good 15 minutes of lying in the grass before we could start walking again. While walking, I took some occasional pauses and during these pauses, it felt like time had stopped. With the wind blowing through my hair and having absolutely no sound except for the whoosing of the wind, I found out what the sound of silence is like. We had to walk for another 30 minutes before got to the tip of the rocks. The view from there was quite nice and I spent a little while taking lots of photographs.We went down to the South Beach after that and had a late lunch at a small open air cafe there. After the meal, we spent about 45 minutes playing around as we waited for the bus back.

We went to the lighthouse near Durlston yesterday and several places along the way. It was raining every now and then and was quite windy and wasnt the best weather for a walk but we still had fun. The sea was wild and we couldnt feel the time fly while watching the waves thrashing and smashing  against the rocks.

I bought 2 cameras yesterday, both of them were a bargain so I grabbed the offers. One of them is a 110 film camera called ‘Hanimex Loadmatic’. I’ve managed to find some online sellers of the 110 Film cartridges but they seem to be more expensive than what I paid for the camera. The other one, is a Cosina CSM with a Cosinon 50mm f/1.7 M42 Mount Lens. It has a split image focusing screen and is completely manual with a manual aperture ring and provides for a totally new and interesting experience. I plan on processing the film tomorrow to see how the images have turned out and I hope they come out alright.

I went to Wareham today and spent a couple of hours randomly walking around town and taking photographs as usual. I sat by the river for a considerable amount of time watching the ducks swim by and people fishing. There was a calm breeze and it felt like bliss to sit there and enjoy the atmosphere. I couldnt feel the time pass by, but the bus screeching next to me reminded me that it was time to get home. Once I got back, I sat by the beach for sometime enjoying the cool breeze and slowly realized that it was 7pm but still bright due to the Daylight Savings time change today.

We’ll be leaving tomorrow for Seaton and will be staying in a Caravan. We most probably will not have any internet connectivity there and therefore, I shall update my 365 Day Project only after I get back which is next Sunday.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I got up for sunrise for the past 2 days so that I could get some photos of the sun by the sea. The sunrise day before yesterday was not that great since it was cloudy but I managed to get some good long exposure shots of the rocks on the beach. Yesterday’s sunrise was simply spectacular and I had a couple of friends who accompanied me so it was a fun experience and I also managed to get several great photographs.

Day before yesterday, we had a nice long walk to Durlston through Townsend which had a wonderful view of the town and its surroundings. We had lunch at ‘The Lookout Cafe‘ and enjoyed the panoramic view of the sea it offered. After this, there was a slight drizzle but we walked on and continued to Peveril Point which literally stretches out into the sea and is the farthest point you can go out towards the sea. We spent a considerable amount of time there walking over the rocks and by the cliffs. Following this, we had fish and chips by the seaside and then had fun at the local arcade playing 4-player Air Hockey after which we walked home.

Yesterday, we sat around for a few hours at Peveril Point watching the sunrise. We felt hungry on the way back home so we stopped for breakfast at the only cafe that was open at 8 in the morning. In the afternoon, we had a slightly tiring but fun 2 hour walk to Corfe Castle. Before going to the castle, we had 3 course lunch at a tea room next to the castle. We went for a easter egg hunt at The Model Village after lunch where we managed to find 9 eggs out of a total of 11 but still got a cream egg each as a reward.

The Model Village had a 1:20 scale model of the entire village of Corfe including the castle and all the models were very precise and exquisite. It was so detailed that it had a model of the model of the castle. We spent a bit too much time at the model village since we didnt have time to get a good look at the Corfe Castle but can probably go there another time. After that, we got the Swanage Railway Steam Train back home and was quite fun. The journey was about 20 minutes to our station and once we got out, we played with an Aerobie (a Frisbee-like ring) all the way home across several fields and it felt great to play like a kid again.

The trip has been great so far and we’ve got lots of exciting things planned for the upcoming week.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

We arrived at Bournemouth Station at about 4 yesterday evening, we then had a 40 minute drive to Swanage. The most exciting part of the drive was the fact that it snowed for about 10 minutes. I was quite satisfied with witnessing this brief but heavy snow but I recently got news that there was heavy snow at the University which makes me slightly bad that I left there early and also slightly envious of the people who were there. I saw some photographs of the snow there, and it looks like that they’ve had plenty of snow.

Coming back to local news, we went to a local pub last night to watch a band called ‘Lady Winwoods Maggots‘ who did covers of classic rock songs and were quite good. And even though the place was small, it had a nice atmosphere and we could enjoy the music.

I got my first proper view of the sea today morning from my windows and it looked absolutely fantastic! We spent most of morning lazing around and went out to a pub for lunch. After lunch, we had a long walk by the beach. The sky was great and I got some really good photographs but I shall be uploading them only after I get back to Essex.

The place is really beautiful and I could spend hours sitting and admiring the various sights. It has a certain charm to it that Essex lacks. I’ve fallen in love Dorset and its going to take a 100 wild horses to drag me to back to University from this beautiful abode. We still have a lot more sightseeing to do in the coming week and I think it would be safe to assume that all of them will be equally, if not more beautiful.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!