Some more of my hobby

The Winter Experiments...

Winter, is one of my favorite seaons (yea, I know, I've been told that I'm a weirdo, especially for someone who came from Chennai, where the average temperature must be around 90 'F, and I'm not including summer). And winter shots, was an experiment I had to conduct. This year more than most, since a friend of work, convinced me to enter the photography competition, at the Iowa State Fair next year, whose theme is Winter.

For some weird, unexplained reason, I woke up at 6.30 am, this Saturday, and couldnt laze around more, than my usual, until 7.30. It had snowed the previous day, and it was quite cold at that time of the day (around 24 F winchill), when my photography desires came calling. A short drive to Gray's Lake, and I had started my winter collection.

This set of trees caught my attention, and something about them, made me stop the car, and see if I could get some good angles. I did, and I also immediately started my experiments with B&W. The angles were just right to get the reflection of the trees on the water. I consider it a shame, if a photographer couldnt capture the reflection of his subject, in a water body, and include the whole as the subject in its entirety. I think, these came out pretty well.




I couldnt decide between the black and white pic of the two trees, and the color one.
love them both, and they are so different, even though the subject is the same. Just the angles and the color level were different. I decided to keep both. If you happen to see these two, do drop in a note, to say which of these two you like the most. It'll be interesting to see where the popular vote goes....

A hobby.....

The Friendly Hitchhiker
I have never seen a Praying Mantis before in my life. I have only heard about them. So, I was quite taken aback one morning, when I saw this huge insect, sitting on the hood of my car. But, it's sheer size, and the size of it's eyes were fascinating. After appreciating it's beauty (from a safe distance ofcourse, I had no idea, what these mini monsters could do!), I dropped my cricket kit into the trunk, hopped in my car, and drove to my cricket ground. I thought, this little critter would fly away, when I picked up speed. Nay, I think my new friend, wanted a ride to the cricket ground. It just wouldnt fly away, even when I was doing about 40 mph. Luckily, I had my camera in my kit bag, and I was compelled to capture this fascinating hitchhiker, up close an personal. I rate this among my best pictures so far.

A hobby.....

Some pictures from my collection...

The Wet Crab Apples
These were taken outside a buddy's house, right after it had rained. Water droplets or dew drops have always fascinated me in pictures, and this was something, I had to take. Out came the camera, and the result wasnt too bad, after quite a few agonizing moments of macro photography.