SenK – Page 10 – TRAVELOGUES AND TREASURES

TTL: Alwar: City Palace

It had been a hectic week for me. Shifting to a new city, Mumbai, finding a suitable place to stay, joining my job at L&T Realty, etc. But finally, tonight, I can catch up and continue.
So, after roaming about in Delhi for a couple of days, we booked a car, and were on our way to Alwar, Rajasthan.
Alwar, like most of the cities in Rajasthan, has a fort and a palace and a lake too. The city is famous for the City Palace, the cenotaph of Musi Maharani, Bala Qila ( a fort on top of a hill). Nearby places include the Sariska Tiger Reserve and a little further is India’s and Asia’s most haunted and the world’s 4th most haunted place, Bhangarh Fort.

We had a limited time and range, so we hit the city palace and on our way back, the idea was to go to the Neemrana Fort.

The following are some of the photos from the trip.

I must say, Tuhina, in her neo-ethnic dress fit in marvellously and looked stunning. I’ll admit, I must have missed a couple of amazing shots because I was too busy admiring her :p

The next photo, is one of my favourite photos. As she descended down the stairs, I called out to her, she turned, and smiled! Such beauty!!

On the way back, we did go to the Neemrana Fort, to find it closed. It stays open from 1000h to 1300h on the days of operation. The minimum expense that one has to bear is ₹1900. Probably it would have been amazing inside, but all we managed to see was this.

By this time, we were tired and exhausted and still had another 100kms of drive ahead of us. So, we turned and came back to Delhi.

The route to Alwar is pretty decent, with the roads in the Gurgaon area being quite amazing. The drive is a comfortable one in general.

We still had a few places to visit in Delhi, coming up real soon.

Cheers!!

April 5, 2017 by SenK Categories: TravellingTags: Alwar, Alwar Fort, Bala Quilla, City Palace, Delhi, Neemrana, Neemrana Fort, Rajasthan, Travelling 8 Comments

Safdarjung's Tomb in silhouette, Delhi, India

TTL: Delhi: Tomb of Safdarjung

After being done with the Red Fort and the Lotus Temple on the previous day, the second day began with a visit to a old friend of mine. We had brunch and soon it was time to meet up with Tuhina, who would be my tour guide and model for the rest of my stay.

After meeting up with her, we made our way to the Safdarjung’s Tomb. Located on the Safdarjung Road, this is a sandstone domed structure erected in 1750s in honor of Safdarjung. The architecture is quite mesmerizing and within the walls, it is quite peaceful. The mausoleum has four water chambers on each side, which were sadly dry. There are arabic inscriptions on the doorway. There are lawns ideal for people to laze. There are at least a couple of peacocks in the premises too.

Nearest metro station would be Jor Bagh on the Yellow Line. The Safdarjung Tomb is right opposite to the Lodi Gardens, which I visited on a later date. The monument remains open from 0700-1900h all round the week. There is, most probably, a ticket of ₹30 per head, kindly confirm on site. Expect a crowd and you may often find people strategically lazying to ruin your perfect shot.

Here goes…Safdarjung’s Tomb!

We visited the Delhi Haat next to buy a couple of stuffs mum asked me to get for her, with expert help from Tuhina, that assignment was completed. We followed it with dinner and retired, for the next day, we were going Alwar, Rajasthan.

Cheers!!

March 29, 2017March 29, 2017 by SenK Categories: TravellingTags: Architecture, Delhi, History, Mausoleum, Mughals, Photoshoot, Safdarjung's Tomb, Silhouette, Travel, Travelling, Wide angle photos 12 Comments

TTL: Delhi: The Lotus Temple

Post my visit to the Red Fort, I made my way to the Lotus Temple, on the other side of the town, using the metro. Well, I am all praises for the metro, for it is highly convenient and economic many times over than a cab or even the buses.
The Lotus Temple is a Baha’i House of Worship, which, being in line with the code, is a temple which welcomes people, irrespective of religion, sex or any other distinctions to worship at the giant hall. The only request they make, please be quite. It is considered to be one of the most visited building in the world.
Architecturally, it is a marvel, being a 9 sided marble lotus flower, along with 9 pools on the sides. The hall can house 2500 people at a time.
Nearest metro station is the Kalkaji Temple Road on the Violet line, which can be tapped on to at the Central Secretariat. It stays closed on the Mondays, while being open 0900h-1900h, rest six days. No entry charges are levied. There is a strict prohibition on carrying food inside the premises.

I was tad hurt to see that a huge chunk of the people who come at this place, have no idea of what they are visiting and also, why they are doing so. There are men screaming from one corner of the yard to the other, ladies cutting lines feeling entitled, kids running around, complete pandemonium. Also, once you reach the hall, you have tourists, not just Indian, but also foreign ones blatantly disregarding the request to not shoot indoors.
In my opinion, a ticket system must be put to place. Tickets for the ones who want to visit the inner sanctum, sit and pray, and tickets for the ones who would want to roam about in the open, take the photos and be done. It should also be made very clear that within the hall, there is absolutely nothing to gaze and marvel at, so that there is an auto filtration. I had been to the Lotus Temple, when I was about 3 years old. I remember sitting on the hall, and contemplating at the silence and peace. I had gone to revisit the place, after about 22 years, to find a similar peace, and all I found chaos.

With a heavy heart and irritated head, I boarded the metro back. My mood was improved soon for I met with my dearest muse, Tuhina shortly for dinner.

Next day, would be fun. Keep an eye out.

Cheers!!

March 27, 2017 by SenK Categories: TravellingTags: 18-55mm, Architecture, Bahai Temple of Worship, Delhi, India, Lotus Temple, Marvel, Nikon D3100, Peace, Religion, Travelling Leave a comment

TTL: Delhi : The Red Fort

Last week, I was at New Delhi, the capital city of India.
It is an old city and has been a seat of power for various rulers over the history of India, most significantly, the Mughals.

The first place I visited, was the Red Fort. Made using red sandstone by the emperor Shah Jahan, this majestic fort, currently serves as a frequented tourist spot. It has a museum, used to be a garrison for Indian Army and also features serves as a ceremonial and political centre in the modern times.
The nearest metro station is Chandni Chowk, which is almost a kilometre away. The distance is very much walkable. If not, take cycle rickshaws, but do bargain hard with them.
There are ticket charges. ₹35 for Indians (including the museum pass) and ₹200 for foreigners (kindly confirm). No extra charges for cameras though.

One enters the fort by the Lahori Darwaza.

The gate opens to a small courtyard, following which one enters the Chatta Chowk. In the ancient times, this place would sell gold, silk and other items for the imperial household, today, there are shops which sell souvenirs.

Crossing the Chatta Chowk, one should find themselves in front of the Naubat Khana and the house of the commons, the Diwan-e-Aam.

Moving on, one gets to see the quite magnificent Diwan-e-Khaas, which was the house of the lords, as one may say. The walls are quite intricately carved and they have paintings, which look marvellous even now.

Beside the Diwan-e-Khaas, the Khaas Mahal is located, which would serve as the emperor’s chambers and is made in white marble. It is indeed a sight to behold.

Moving on, one finds a dried out reservoir with a red sandstone structure in its centre, this is the Zafar Mahal, added by and named after Bahadur Shah Zafar. On either side of the Zafar Mahal, one can see pavallions, Sawan and Bhadon, named after the Indian seasons.

With this, my tour ended within the Red Fort. I took nearly 45 minutes for the round. I didn’t visit the museums, which I would have, had there been some more time. I would recommend it be checked out.

There are pay per use toilet facilities available outside as well as inside the fort premises, which are maintained by Sulabh, hence they ought to be clean.

Once I was done with the Red Fort, I took the metro, from Chandni Chowk station, changed at the Central Secretariat, and went on towards the Kalkaji Temple Road, to visit the Lotus Temple.

Stay tuned, for the Lotus Temple post.

Feel free to reach out for further information.

Cheers!!

March 24, 2017March 27, 2017 by SenK Categories: TravellingTags: 18-55mm, Delhi, Diwan e Aam, Diwan e Khaas, History, India, Mughals, Nikon D3100, Red Fort, Shah Jehan, Travelling, Zafar Mahal 1 Comment

Macro Shots

Today, as I sit to type down this post, my bags are packed and ready to leave. I leave NICMAR, Pune in less than 6 hours and will be on my way to my home first, then to much bigger adventures. Last night while packing, I stumbled across two very prized possessions of mine, my self made reverse lens adapter and a pair o kerosene lighters.
Flipped it open, spun the wheel, the sparks erupted, felt good.
At around 0100h, I felt a tiny bit creative. So, here is what I did, past mid night, using the reverse lens adapter. Lens used, my trusted Nikon 50mm F1.8D, and the camera, Nikon D3100.

The following images are shot using the Tamron 70-300mm F4-5.6 macro lens, in the macro mode as control shots.

I ll infer that unless one is dedicated to shooting macros, the need for a macro lens, is quite limited. Often, a reverse mounted lens shall do the trick. Adding on, it is always much easier to use a full manual lens for reverse mounting because you can control the aperture ring and decide on the depth of field.

With this, I sign off from NICMAR, Pune. I shall be travelling for the next few days and shall also be visiting Delhi for almost a week, so that should make for a nice post.

Till then,
Cheers!!

March 11, 2017 by SenK Categories: Photography, TechnicalTags: 50mm f1.8, Diamond Ring, Flower, Kerosene Lighter, Lens Reversal, Macro, Nikon D3100, Reverse Lens Mount, SD Card, Zippo Lighter 5 Comments

En route Lavasa

The plan was made on an impulse, so the three of us, Mahajan, Jobin and I, we grabbed helmets, managed a couple of bullets and we were on our way to Lavasa.
Lavasa is a cool place to be, nice lake town, planned and built nestled within the ghats. True! The flip side is, they charge ₹200 per person as an entry fee to the town, and somehow, the minute they see a DSLR, they assume the owner to be on a professional shoot, and they charge you ₹5000 for a day’s pass (unless it has changed recently).
Now, our agenda was clear, to get some cool photos of us, on bikes. So, again, why Lavasa?
For, the road to Lavasa, offers amazing curves, and is not very crowded. Here are what we shot 🙂

Mahajan came charging round the corner, I turned back on the bike, and click and click!

We stopped to shoot 🙂

Even I got a shot of mine. Loads of thanks to Mahajan for the shot 🙂

Spotted this yet to be launched Tata Nexon test driving around.

With mission accomplished, we turned back. Since all three had been to Lavasa earlier, we didn’t miss it at all. The trip was fun, the ride was awesome.

Till the next post…

Cheers!!

March 1, 2017 by SenK Categories: PhotographyTags: Bike, Bullet, Bullet Classic, Bullet Standard, Friends, Lavasa, Photography, Pune, Road, Royal Enfield, Travel, Trip 3 Comments

A day with the Beagles

Recently, an adoption drive by the ResQ Charitable Trust was concluded here at Pune. Me and a friend of mine, we went there to have a look at how things occur.
ResQ CT is a not-for-profit organization which works towards rescuing and rehabilitating the injured and sick animals. They have general wards, intensive care wards, pediatric wards and trained individuals to take care of the animals in their care. They also indulge in awareness programs for the same.
Up for adoption were numerous Beagles, of different age and gender. In all, they were quite playful and here’s to hoping they find loving homes.

Here are some of the scenes from the day

There were dogs who had cancer and/or paralysis on some parts of their bodies. Buffalo calfs who think themselves to be dogs, three legged dog, etc. What felt amazing was that they have all being taken care of and the men and women at the charity ensure that ResQ lives up to the tag line of being the halfway home.

I hope the animals find the love that they deserve and the charity the recognition.

Cheers!!

February 21, 2017 by SenK Categories: PhotographyTags: Adoption, Beagles, Cats, Dogs, Great Dane, Injure, Labrador, love, Rescue, ResQ 2 Comments

Repurpose – Flash Diffuser

Photographers, both, budding and experienced, have faced the issue of flash whiteout quite often. Sometimes it can be handled by varying the settings and we immediately realize the importance of a flash diffuser.
Like the name suggests, it is used to diffuse the harsh light from the flash and make it more soft and soothing, while still lighting up the subject. It is useful as it does not produce harsh shadows and lights up more area, albeit in a little less intensity.
One can get clip on diffusers for the on board pop up flash, while the external flashes generally come with a diffuser flap. Here is a method of repurposing a used cigarette packet as a flash diffuser in a hurry.

Get a white pack, rip off the bottom of it carefully and pull out the silver or golden foil from inside, carefully so as not to tear it away.

Reverse the foil so that the shiny bit will be facing inwards.

Push it to till the head, in such a way that light doesn’t escape and is rather reflected and the head behaves as the flash.

Clip it on your camera’s pop up flash. It may need a little tweaking here and there for it to be set correctly.

Results:

Brain coral, loses detail due to white out by direct flash — Normal flash

Brain coral, much more detailed due to diffused light — Same settings, with the diffuser

I hope you have found this useful. This is quick fix solution, a typical Jugaad 🙂

Cheers!!

February 15, 2017 by SenK Categories: Photography, TechnicalTags: Brain Coral, Cigarettes, Details, DIY, Flash Diffuser, Hard Light, Jugaad, Nikon D5200, Recycle, Repupose, Soft Light, weekly challenge 6 Comments

Wedding Bells : Raveena and Amiy

Am at an age, where, slowly and surely my friends are getting married. Some are having kids too though :p It has been about a couple of years since I quit my previous job, and I missed my friends. So, when one fine day, Raveena, one of the first friends at CapGemini, let me know that she was getting married, I was happy. Happy that she’s getting settled with someone she loves and also that I’ll get to meet with my old friends after quite some time. So, I packed my bag, along with the camera…and I was off to meet my friends, and the bride to be.

Amid all the fun and frolic that followed, as all of us decked up and ready for the events, I went ahead with what I do best.

Without further ado, I’ll let my photos take you on a tour of the wonderful wedding.

Here’s wishing Raveena and Amiy a very happy married life.

Cheers!!

February 8, 2017February 8, 2017 by SenK Categories: OCOL, PhotographyTags: bride, family, Friends, groom, indian wedding, OCOL, Pretty People, raveekishaadi, wedding Leave a comment

Star Trails: What is and how to..

Shooting at night, and in long exposure is quite fun, one must agree. With a little tweak, the night can be turned into dusk, if not bright day.
This shot, 0230 h. 30 seconds of exposure does this trick.

We get enamoured by the photos of trails of lights across the sky, often in round or elliptical patterns about a stunning landscape. Some of my readers may already know what it is. What you have seen, is a star trail.
What is it? Well, as the earth rotates, from our point of view, fixed on the earth, we find the stars shifting. If we capture this shift, over considerable span of time, we shall get the path traced by the star. That illuminated trail, is the star trail.

Things we need are quite minimal. We need a tripod, a camera with a means to take a certain number of shots over a period of time, a landscape and a starry night.

Set the camera appropriately on the tripod. In the settings menu, make it take photos till the battery runs out or at least 8gb worth of photos are captured. For the exposure settings, you ll have to take a couple of cold shots. Try with the minimum ISO and shutter speed at about 15 seconds. Take a shot and inspect it, if you can see at least one star in your display screen. A few trial and errors and you shall get the exposure right. Once done, set the camera on the interval shooting mode, and wait.

Now, what you shall get out of the shots is a series, where the only movement, preferably, will be of the stars. Get hold of the software, StarStaX, and load up the images. Follow the instructions and let the software process the photos. If done correctly, you should get yourself a beautiful star trail photo.

If you have reached till here, you have definitely earned the right to know what may go wrong. Take a look at the photo above, once more. Zoom it. Do you notice that there are tiny gaps between each trail. That gap is what 5 seconds looks like. Between each of my exposure, I had set a gap of 5 seconds. If you want a continuous trail, ensure, no gaps. You may have to shoot on JPEG for that, turn noise reduction off, so that as soon as the camera shoots one image, it can continue to the next one. You have got to ensure that there are no movements on your end. Before you put the photo into StarStax, it is advisable to convert them in JPEG, if you have shot in RAW. And while you are at it, make the uniform changes in all the photos using sync (Lightroom) or similar functions.

My exposure is about 120 photos, half an hour long. This was a proof of concept shot, to try out whats and hows. Now that I know, in near future, better, seamless shots should be expected.

Till the next post.
Cheers!!

January 21, 2017 by SenK Categories: TechnicalTags: 18-55mm, experiment, Learning, Long Exposure, Night, Nikon D5200, Panshet Lake, Proofofconcept, Pune, Star Trail, StarStax, Tripod 7 Comments

The ones that didn’t win – III

Here is one from Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India.

During my trip to the desert the last year, I was there in June, peak summer, hence off season.

So, for a camel ride that costs about ₹1200 normally, I got it in ₹400. They posed too 🙂

The series continues, rest can be found here.

Cheers!!

January 11, 2017January 10, 2017 by SenK Categories: PhotographyTags: Camel, Desert, India, master, Rajasthan, Ship of Desert, Silhouette, Sunset, Thar Desert, theonesthatdidntwin, Travelling 4 Comments

New year…new targets

It has been ten days into the new year. Had this been a few years back, you would have found me going all bat shit crazy with photos of new year celebrations and fireworks and what not….guess I kinda became lazy 😛

Anyway, my dear readers, Happy New Year! Happy, for the fact that we are having a home to live in, we have clothes to wear, food to eat, some money to spend and internet to blog 🙂

On this first post of the year, I would like to share some stats with you.
My blog started in the late 2014. That year, I posted 33 posts. In 2015, I posted 142 and in 2016, 54. The viewership increased at 1064% in 2015 and 154% in 2016. Now, the numbers may seem deceptive, but when you compare it against the number of posts, one thing becomes very evident, you, my dear readers, have liked my content. You have followed me, and you have come back for more. This, makes me happy. Thank you to all of you.

I have tried out a few themes, made some variations, clubbed categories, made new ones…now its time to evolve one more bit…to get a new domain. The steps towards the same are being taken and finalized as you read this post and hopefully, by the end of the first fortnight of the year, you shall see a new domain.

It is, with your continuous support and immense love, that I find the impetus to carry on. Thank you again.

Since, you read through the entire post, here are couple of pictures of a Golbat, which has kindly agreed to be my model for a few shots.

Cheers!

January 10, 2017 by SenK Categories: PersonalsTags: 2017, Car, Coffee, Golbat, New Year, Noise, Pokemon, Shadow, Sunlight 3 Comments

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