They say "Work expands to fill in the time at hand". I agree with that. And I also know that I'm loaded with work these days. Or so I would like to believe. And this belief has led me to drop things that I always wanted to do by the side, so that I could focus on the work at hand. But that doesn't help. Fatigue sets in sooner or later and my efficiency gets affected. What I feel should have taken a couple of hours to complete, stretches on indefinitely. So I've decided to take a contrarian approach to the entire matter. I'm going to increase the number of items on my plate, with the hope that the lesser time I have forces me to be efficient with it.
I started my day by going to the gym - on a day when I'm inundated with work, assignments and deadlines. I'm already feel a lot fresher and ready to plough through the day. Wish me luck!
I realized the depth and profoundness of this statement today. When I had seen the movie, it had seemed like a nice quote, but I hadn't really paid much attention to it. You might feel the same way today but some where, at some time, you'll be reminded of it, when you actually experience it. I did today. And I feel exactly the way it is shown in the alongside image.
It's not walls that make a prison. It's the despair and fear that holds one down. And a faint ray of hope can change that. Even before being actually free, just the hope of being free one day kept Andy alive. He was free even within the walls of the prison and that hope translated into reality in the course of time.
So despair not, keep the hope alive. Keep working on your Rita Hayworth.
I can tell you - I am.
Film poster for the 1994 American film, The Shawshank Redemption.
Fair use rationale
Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
It is a low resolution copy of a video cover.
The image is only a small portion of the commercial product.
The use of the poster will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original video.
It illustrates educational articles about the film from which the cover illustration was taken.
The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of topics in the article
It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value.
I've been looking for this lens all over, but just can't seem to find it anywhere. I've heard Nikon is releasing this lens to commemorate Henri Cartier Bresson. And ever since I saw his photo of the kid smiling with 2 wine bottles walking down the road, I've been impressed! I'm planning to start street photography as soon as I lay my hands on it...
But I dunno when I'll get it :(... I've already placed an order with Amazon and Adorama as well. But no one seems to have it in stock...
It's been quite sometime since I last posted below. Well, I've been shooting a lot these days, so much so that my photo developing, posting and blogging activities are finding it hard keep up with the pace. So I decided to plug in a couple of shots on this page...
Few weeks back, I had been to Pittsburgh. Below is a shot from top of Mt Washington (think that's the name) of the Pittsburgh skyline.
On the way back, we stopped over at DC where the Cherry blossoms were in full bloom. So here's a pic from there...Btw, this looks much better full-size.
I think it was the week after Pitts trip, that we went to Belle Isles during sunset. So far, it has been the best place I've seen in Richmond to shoot sunset pics. On the west end of the island, there's a beautiful unobstructed view of the sunset over the James river and on the eastern end, you can see the Richmond skyline bathed in the light of the setting sun. Ironically, I haven't developed either of these snaps, so here are some spring blossoms from the same trip
Another interesting event from this trip was the photog. There was a professional photographer on the island with a very beautiful model, a big camera, huge lens and a speed-light with diffusers. We saw them shooting some cool snaps using the setting sunlight on the model and the speedlight probably providing some fill light. Neither did I have a big camera, lens or a speedlight. But I did want to take something similar. So I asked my friend to stand against a formidable backdrop of rocks which contrasts well with the attitude reflected on his tee-shirt and the smile of confidence on his face.
I'll post the skyline and sunset snaps as well... hopefully soon
Yesterday, I did finally go down Broad Street into Goochland once again. This time it was in the evening, very close to the 'golden' hour, but since it has been raining since the last couple of days, there was hardly any sunlight to boast about.
My target was the 'Tack Shop' that I wanted to shoot and I know will look great in B/W, but before I could take those snaps it started raining. I guess I'll need to make another sojourn into Goochland to capture that Tack shop.
Meanwhile, though it started raining, I was able to capture a couple of shots - nothing great, but nice. Almost in the middle of nowhere, there is a clearance in the woods, and someone has planted grass all around. It might not have been grass but that's what it seemed like. I tried a couple of cross cropped grassland shots, a lone shot of an electric pole, some shots almost lying on the ground. The greens from the grass were refreshing after a long winter. We were about to leave, when I got a brilliant idea. I decided to place the grass as a background for my magenta colored car. The snap came out quite good and I liked the contrast in the picture. (I should have fixed the wheel cap on the rear tire though...)
Spring was just breaking through last week, and it seemed like the last vestiges of winter were fading away. I had been reading so much about the 'golden' hours of twilight in Bryan Peterson's book, that I really wanted to capture some magical shots of this hour.
Weather.com told me the sunrise was slated for 7.11 am on Sunday. I remember the last time I had been to the James River, it was around this time and it was actually too close to sunrise. The darkness before the sunrise, had already been lost that day. So I was determined to atleast an hour earlier to catch the first rays of the sun. I hadn't originally planned to go to James river again. In fact, I was planning to drive down Broad Street, cross ShortPump and go into Goochland County. I had once strayed into this area and found that right after Short Pump, the country side began with rolling green pastures everywhere. I was thinking that these pastures would nice to look at in the morning sun. But on the other hand, I didn't want to capture a lot of barren trees in my shots. Since it's not quite spring yet, most of the trees are still quite barren.
So I woke up at 5 and was out in my car by 5:30 am in search of the perfect spot to catch the morning rays on a pasture. But I wasn't very lucky since it was pitch dark and I could make out the shadows of the barren trees almost everywhere. Secondly in the darkness, most of the houses in the countryside were bleak and dark and on second thoughts quite foreboding. It definitely didn't look welcoming enough to wait for an hour for the sun to rise.
I guess I wasn't very happy by the way things were turning out so I decided to go back to the James River. If I'm lucky I would catch the early-morning mist and at least it was in a part of town that I was more familiar with. And I was lucky... as you can see in the shot above. I quickly assembled my tripod and camera and started shooting. During those days, the days were quite warm but it grew quite chilly in the night. I guess that's why the fog was almost everywhere. The river was literally smoking. I've captured so many snaps from that morning and stopped only when my fingers were numb from the cold.
Some more snaps below.
When I started out shooting, the moon was high in the sky, but before I could change my camera settings to take a good shot, the sunrise had almost started so I decided to the ditch the moon. This is the only moon shot that I captured, that too restored mostly from RAW
I'm recently into Photography. It's a new hobby I developed since I landed myself my first DSLR Nikon D40 with two lenses 18-55mm and 55-200mm during Thanksgiving'08. I guess I'm in for the long haul, since it's been more than a couple of months and my enthusiasm is anything but sagging.
I've been carrying my camera to places I never thought about before. I've going around just to get my next best shot. And I've been gobbling up books by Bryan Peterson and Joe McNally like I've never eaten for years...
So... I've decided to write about it too... That way I get back to writing and also share my photography experiences.
It all started off from a client appreciation email asking all associates to enjoy their time off during the Christmas break. What struck me in the message was phoniness in the way it was addressed to a specific group first and then forwarded onto us, as if on second thought, to pass the cheer along. Anyways, that’s a separate story and I didn’t pay much attention to it.
I was thinking about how I used to celebrate Christmas back when I was a kid in school and it reminded me of my school. It brought back memories of running down hall-ways during the breaks, occasionally slipping and mostly sliding on the polished floors. I used to like the old school building much more than the new one because it was made of blocks of stone on the exterior. The interiors were pretty much like any other building but from the outside, it looked like a castle to me back then. And that’s probably one of the reasons I remember it most. The class that comes first to my mind was the Std IV class, which was on the ground floor. Maybe I remember it because it was closest to the exit and farthest from the principal’s chamber. There was a beautiful church attached to the school, and it also had a spooky castle-like look with all the trees surrounding it. If it hadn’t been for the big school grounds in front of it and flanked by the busy SV road on the other side, it could have been straight out of a medieval story. I never liked the new school building much. It was way too normal and contemporary to be of any interest.
As I sit here in my cubicle with my friend in the cubicle behind me, drowsy from a heavy lunch and lurching from side to side, I wonder if I ever had a clue that this was where I would be so many years down the line. I guess not. I did a Google on my school name and found that Santa Cruz means ‘Holy Cross’ in Portuguese and the place was named after an old church located at the very same location where the school stands today. Interesting piece of historical trivia.
Coming back to Christmas, I and my friends used to go down to Akbarally’s at Santacruz on Christmas eve. Neither were we big shopping aficionados back then, nor we had the means to be. But we went there because there used to a big Santa sitting outside the shop distributing free gifts. It used to be so exciting back then. It wasn’t anything great but it used to be fun to get gifts. And the place wasn’t too close. I and my friends had to walk at least a couple of miles (something that would take lot of persuasion for me to do today) down to the school and then from there on to Akbarallys. Unlike in the US, late nights never felt like late nights back in Mumbai. Everything was so lit-up and there used to be so much life around, people walking about, traffic still on the streets, though no more clogging it. And as far as security was concerned, it never crossed any of our minds. I wonder how it is these days. Do kids (or their parents) back in Mumbai, think twice before venturing out anywhere. I hope they don’t have to but I guess I don’t know.
As I look back from my seat, I still see my friend dozing off. And it doesn’t look like he’s drowsy anymore. He has dozed off for good. I couldn’t recollect the Akbarallys name at first so I did a Google on ‘Mumbai Santacruz department stores’ and it appeared as the first entry. It also looks like it has closed down as well. It wasn’t doing too good once all the shopping malls started cropping up in Mumbai and I had heard that those free Christmas gifts had stopped long back. But the closing of the store was news to me. And it seems it closed in Jun ’06, more than two years back.
It would be nice to back to the school some time. When I was kid studying there and these old alums used to drop by once in a while, the teacher in class would stop teaching for some time and let the alum address the class. I used to like it because at the very least, it was a much wanted reprieve from the teacher’s lecture. Back then, I used to think that when I grow up and become someone ‘big’, I would come back to the school and off course get chocolates for everybody apart from the speech. I would then deliver an inspirational speech telling them how I started like one of them. Do I have that speech ready yet?
Some higher-ups just came by my friend’s cubicle and the poor guy had to wake up quick. I guess I’ll also need to get back to work. Maybe I’ll work on the speech sometime later. Getting chocolates would be the easiest bit. And what about the inspiration in the speech? That's something that needs more working on - sleeping colleagues and dull work environments are hardly anything to talk about.
I plan to write an auto-biography and hence I blog...
I blog about all the incidents, the rises and the falls and all other nuances that go into making ME - a peek into the life of a computer engineer, an artist, an investor, an entreprenuer, a trekker, a writer, a poet and a lot that wont fit in this box
