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Brand Building

2008-11-10T19:01:00.000-08:00

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design brand)

Came across this interesting presentation on slideshare today.

Having a design Philosophy

2008-11-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

In order to do any project, one of the things that an expert designer tries to do is to look into their set of repertoires to find for solutions, based on past experiences. Over the times, I think that this leads to the development of ones own design philosophy. This is also something that Donald Schon mentions in his writings about a designer being able to identity a problem and look at the experiences gathered from the reflection-on-actions and reflection-in-actions over projects.

The design philosophy can be developed over time, or over multiple projects. One of the things that a professor mentioned in one of the classes I took was that there is a difference in being an experienced designer and a expert designer. One can be doing design for many years, but that does not guarantee that the person is an expert in the matter. This I think is a good analogy to look at the job market, where by default the person with more years of experience are wrongly thought of as being experts. If that was the case and was always true, then people would be CEOs at the end of their job life. However that is not the case and we have people becoming CEOs at 45 also.

So finally, what is my Design Philosophy? I think I am still in a nascent stage to have one that is very stringent and that it is truly applicable to all projects. But I do hope that with the years to come, I do have one. The way I see it, my design philosophy is based on strong design rationale, the ability to enhance user experience and a solid return of investment for the stakeholders.

Thus this becomes the three prime areas of focus as a designer for me. One is the user's experience, the other is the stakeholder's value and then my own personal design thinking.

Semiotic Theory application in Graphic Design Critique

2008-11-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

I think that understanding of the sender / recipient , addresser/ addressee is really important as a designer. Just like we discussed in one of our class with the case of the User Research, I think that using this understanding is really important while doing brand identity and logo design. Here is a case of Bharti , one of India’s industrial powerhouse. The context being discussed here is the company changing their logo recently.

Old Logo

So when a company goes in for a change in their brand identity, in most cases they they get it done by a different design company (or individual at times). So we have a change in the sender. For the designer doing the design, the recipient of the design is the client. But the final addresser perhaps would be the entire company and the addressee the audience to which the design is presented (the you and me). Thus one can see how they are all different in this case.

New Logo

The sender (the actual person) here would be the person who designed the logo in the design team (which one is not sure, as many times groups in India have it done by non-designers), the actual addresser in this case is the company, Bharti (group of companies rather). This is not the same as , the founder / owner of the company speaking through the design. It’s a non human that we are being spoken by. In this case one does not even think that its Sunil Mittal the CMD, who is speaking to the addressee.

When the client (addresser) has a vision , then does it hold the same for the designer (sender) as well? While designing a logo for a company with any own vision, a designer’s vision requires to understand this, in a short span of time. This also has to be informed by the existing situations within the company and also the company profile in the real world. The designer (sender) also has to understand the recipient (the contact person in the client’s side) and also the addressees (the company and the final audience who view the design).

When trying to understand the semiotics behind the logos, one can see that the referential function (the content) has not changed much. In terms of the content, it is still composed of the two texts. However as signifiers, the two forms signify two completely different things.

The old one signifies stability, a company that is firm in its intentions and is built on a strong foundation. Hence the usage of the bold black fonts to make the logo. It is all about the establishing the company’s presence, by the addresser; till this point. The dynamic nature of the company that is still expanding in new horizons, but has its focus on establishing itself first, it signified by the yellow curve that allows itself to blend into the addresser’s intentions.

The new one signifies the a modern, new, dynamic approach that the company is adopting. The interplay of the formal content (form) in terms of a bold and the curved forms within the individual letters is interesting. It did exist in the previous form also, but it is very prominent in the new logo. It is a signifier of the company looking into different, and newer opportunities. From the company’s press releases it is understood that they are now looking into a stronger presence in rural areas of the country. This representation using the curved with the bold vertical strokes (which are really contrasting elements to each other) in the new logo, signifies the rather risky task that the company vision’s itself into. With their presence they seek out to bridge out the gap between the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural India. This; for any company is a highly risky business. But Bharti with it’s new dynamic logo wants to put it out in the open for the addressees. The addresser’s intention here is to make it clear of what they want.

The metalingual function that would be provided here is different than what held true for the previous one. Based on the understanding of expressive typography and basic color theory, one would interpret the two logos in a different way. The new one oozes with confidence and with dynamism. It is futuristic and also looking with hope into the future. This is also stressed upon by the yellow triangle. The use of two triangles and one out of its boundaries, signifies the company’s intention of expanding into the unknown territories. This same element in the initial logo was in the form of a yellow square that rested on the company’s initial policies. With the company’s vision changing, the subtle change in the orientation signifies exactly what the addresser wants the addresee to understand.

The redesign in my opinion is a sincere attempt to put into; a simple yet highly valuable form, the company’s vision that it has; setting into the next few years. The re-design of the Bharti logo, should be understood in this semiotic approach to get a better understanding of the company’s history, its current situation and its brand value that has been built. It is only then that one would get out of the superficial criticisms based on one’s personal judgment which are often I like it and I don’t like it.

The need for a cinephile league in Indian Cinema

2008-11-05T12:28:00.001-08:00

On response from this post by a friend of mine, Nitesh Rohit, who does Film Criticism.
http://windsfromtheeast.blogspot.com/2008/10/cinephilia-in-india-search-for-love-and.html

Thanks Nitesh for this wonderful writeup. It's oozing with tons of information and points that can be further discussed. Being a photographer, I have always been interested in studying culture. This also led me me developing an interest in viewing films from different cultures. So in the name of foreign cinema, I went about watching Latin American, Middle east, the Japanese, and the Soviet union films.

What is really interesting is that of late I have been watching a lot of movies from the point of view of understanding Indian Cinema. The context that you have established is very nice.

Just the other day I was reading about this other professor in an American University, Rashna Wadia Richards who is writing a book on rethinking cinephilia as a critical approach to classic Hollywood Cinema.I would try to read more on that definitely.
But why I think this is important is because the usage of a similar approach would do wonders for the analysis of Indian Cinema. And I personally like to call it Indian Cinema and not restrict it to Bollywood cinema.

If one were to analyze the most basic of the mise-en-scenes criteria (namely production, colour, lighting, actor's personality, diegetic sound, framing {depth of field, aspect ratio etc}) the definitions on which the movies were initially conceived,one can understand the dominance of one quality over the other has been hugely responsible in the vanishing of the cinephile in the context of Indian Cinema.
I think in the times of the original cinephiles in Indian Cinema, like Satyajit Ray were constantly focusing on all aspects of these parameters.
Whereas in today's context one would think that it does not happen to that extent. In the transitory period where there was the transformation from the pure cinema (the ones inspired by the cinephile philosophy) there were still a few directors who aimed at celebrating Indian culture and Indian values. Gulzar and Hrishikesh Mukherjee would fall into this I feel. The one contemporary filmmaker that I can think of who would still be using some form of cinephile is Shyam Benegal.

What also needs to be done is the establishment of something like the Photo League (artists like Sid Grossman, Lou Bernstein, that happened in the area of documentary photography in the 1930s. This emphasized on using the medium of the photographs to allow the artist for a critical approach to representing the issues, in their own style, with their own personal interpretation on the American Society. Their photographs moved from the initial aim of documentary photography (which was a great medium to capture the great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s.) to a more contemporary understanding of the American culture and the lifestyle.
This similar kind of an establishment of a cinephile league in the context of revival of Indian Cinema would be truly worthwhile.
India as a society has so much to offer in terms of its rich heritage. The understandings of the lifeworlds as created by people from the gamut of cultures within the country would make a good basis for this league. Contemporary film critics like you with a firm understanding of the theories and history of film should definitely team up.

As Lou Bernstein said, (paraphrased) : Pictures often reveal motives we don't even know about ourselves in our relationships with people. It's for each viewer to decide for himself.

In the end it's all about gaining the sympathetic interest of the viewer in the subject.

I think in early(till the vanishing of the cinephiles, as mentioned here) Indian Cinema, it allowed to do this.

My two cents.

Design For Social Impact

2008-10-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

I think that this is the next big thing in Design.
Its heartening to see the efforts by different foundations and also leading consultanting firms like IDEO and Continuum, being actively involved in this.

Here is a link to their website.

https://client.ideo.com/socialimpact/

Understanding Realism in Photography and film

2008-10-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

I have always considered myself a realist. As mentioned earlier, I have been inspired by Bresson, who is considered to be the father of Photojournalism (which I believe will always remain an example of realism) and is the inventor of the term “the decisive moment” in photography.

Bresson mentions in his books and in interviews that it was never the photography that he was passionate about. What interested him was life as it unfolded to him. His photography was an attempt to capture the experiences over time; in a fraction of a second, of the lifeworld as experienced by him.

“For me the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to “give a meaning” to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry - it is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression. One must always take photographs with the respect for the subject and for oneself. “

He goes on to say this,
“I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to “trap” life- to preserve life in act of living. Above all I craved to seize, in the confines of one single photograph, the whole essence of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.”

It is not completely evident whether Bresson adopted a very phenomenological approach to clicking his photographs or a structuralist one. When he talks about the composition it almost appears that there is the structuralist approach, whereas when he talks about the entire experience that he wishes to capture in the photograph, it is a phenomenological approach.

There are far more challenges being a realist, as a photographer than a film maker. With a photograph (and I am not talking about a photo-story comprised of multiple photographs) you have to create a story out of that situation you are in and in which you had an embodied interaction; to the outside world. Then you leave it for interpretation to the viewer. This is another difficult part. It is just one photograph. There is no music to lay the emphasis and neither any cut shots. There is no timeline and no other cues in the later frames to lay significance to a particular metaphor used in the frame. Thus in this frame it is equally challenging to know what signifier to not put in the frame. To do photography based in realism, is all the more challenging as the real world is changing all the time. The challenge is to perceive this reality, almost simultaneously recording in the sketchbook (camera).

Another misconception that I generally had was that Realism always meant something that was in black and white. While on one hand it is true that it prohibits us from seeing the distractions and that the essence of a composition (be it of a real life as Bresson , or of the real Nature as Ansel Adams would like to) is brought about only when looking at the images in its Black and White form.

I have nothing against color photography, and perhaps I do propagate the usage of it when necessary. Bresson however himself was not too inclined towards using color.
He mentions:
“I am half afraid that this complex new element may tend to prejudice the achievement of life and movement which is often caught by black and white.”

I do think that realism is not in the medium of the black and white or the color. As, how can one think in black and white, when they are viewing the world in its true color. Its kind of a paradox, of having to deliberately having a mismatch in the real and the perception. It is just that the interpretation of the cultural expression changes.

In order to illustrate the point above, while in the black and white one, my focus is on the abandoned house and a photographer on an abandoned path; which is situated in a hilly area. My interpretation says that the photographer is perhaps lost or is going to unfamiliar territories.
This same artifact when viewed in color, creates a different impression. Apart from the above, the presence of the color enhances the other things like essence of nature, the time of the day, the season of the year and hence results in a more complete understanding of the situation.

My understanding of reality in both these situations seems to be different, even though the subject is the same.

I am not propagating that Realism (in color or in b/w) is good or bad. In the end its all about the technique. Technique is important insofar as one must master it in order to communicate what one sees. Thus in the case of Bresson, it happened to be those decisive moments. In the case of Kieslowski it was the longing and the grief which he was trying to convey.

Experiencing Experiences...

2008-10-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

I have often heard the expression that the movie was not as good as the book and vice versa. I have not seen /read many movies /books of the same title and hence I would not be in a position to critique on it. But that was till today. I witnessed an amazing spectacle. This was a musical Sweeny Todd in the auditorium. I had seen the movie back in January this year.

This is the trailer of the movie.

This is the poster of the musical.

What surprised me was that inspite of knowing the tone of the expression here and the storyline, I still enjoyed it to the core. Also, because I was aware of the story line, I had the freedom to actually reflect on what I was witnessing in respect to the class. On trying to understand the experience that I was having, with a more phenomenological and / or structuralist understanding of the interactions that I was having here. This one would call the Stage-Audience Interaction. This interaction was not at the visible or tangible level, but at the conscious level. On further analysis I noticed that I was constantly making comparisons with the image of the movie that had been implanted in my mind. Since I knew the story, the interpretation of the story was devoid of the surprise element. However the brilliant usage of music, acting and lights made this experience a totally unforgettable one.

In order to start off the presentation I was analyzing the signs and the units of meanings that were there for the stage performance. Here the meanings were created by multiple ways. At the lowest levels we had the
ambiance lights, the music played by the characters (which again was further broken down into the various instruments), who also were acting out the play, and the songs that were actually the conversations that they were having. Here the actors were also the signs.

What was interesting here that when seeing a theater performance I thought about the on stage actors as elements that add meaning to the piece. Whereas the same was not in the case of the movie.

Maybe this was a result a phenomenological impression of a movie that I had in mind, the whole notion of it not being there, as compared to the notion of the actors in front my eyes and everything being said / done / sung/ acted was happening in front of me in reality. The reviews that I had read, the trailers that I had seen had helped me form an interpretation of the movie much before I actually went and saw it.

It was interesting that in case of the movie, now if I recall, it was a phenomenological approach to understanding of my experience, where I was going in with a previous notion of the movie and the actor Johnny Depp. In the case of the actors of the theatrical performance, since I did not know the cast, and had no idea absolutely about what this was going to be like, I did not have any pre-conceived notion of the thing I was going to see.

What I am trying to say here is that for the same artifact, presented in two different ways, I felt that I was adopting different approaches to understanding the experience. And I find that really fascinating!

Oh btw, watching a show in the auditorium sitting in the center and in the second row from the stage.. totally rocks!! Thanks to a friend who got me the tickets that close to stage!

Definitely Male : A structuralist approach to understanding brand identity

2008-10-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

A bit of a background, Bajaj Automobiles is one of India's industrial powerhouses. In the 1980 and the 1990's their flagship product was a scooter.Their advertisements were targeted at the general Indian public and were only showing a scooter. Till this time I am sure hardly people in India would have known that the scooter was associated with a female following and that it stood for what we read in the Barnard book and also seen in this ad.

This is the ad that appeared in 1989 and aired for a few years.
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Instead of focusing on the usage of the metaphor of a feminism with scooters, Bajaj here was trying to capture the attention of a nation with something more important to people in this lifeworlds. So they promote the issue of Indianism and being a proud Indian and how that a Bajaj scooter defines being Indian. The signifiers that is used in this ad above were that which were very traditional. So we have the person meditating, the family values, the emphasing on social interactions, the pride in owing a scooter, the worshiping of the vehicle and the rural roads that signified that the scooter was all about being proud Indian. It signified that the scooter was ruggid, was able to resist to harsh conditions and still be a loving commodity in the lives of the people.

In 1984, the Hero Group, then the world’s largest manufacturers of bicycles, entered into a joint venture with Honda Motors of Japan to create Hero Honda Motors Ltd, which has gone on to become the world’s largest manufacturer of two wheelers. In the 1990s Hero Honda starting to eat the scooter market. There was a strong emphasis on fuel efficiency and mileage. Bajaj Motors too entered this segment, in partership with Japanese giant Kawasaki. Hero Honda with its focus on the middle class became the household name for motorcycles in India. There was no mention about the bike being a male dominated commodity or otherwise.

Come to Bajaj Pulsar in 2001. This was perhaps one of India's most successful campaigns. Notice the emphasis on "Definitely Male".

What's more surprising is that the campaign was done by a Tokyo based firm called O&M. Which I think were trying to understand the lifeworlds of Indians, which were culturally so different than that of the Japanese.
According to agencyfaqs, the birth of the "Definitely Male " campaign is interesting. The creative honchos found the new product from Bajaj distinctly different. It was Bajaj's first bike without Kawasaki label. The new bike was an R&D and design marvel.Pulsar was designed by the renowned design house Tokyo R&D. O&M knew that the communication of this brand should also be different.Starting with lot of ideas, O&M stuck upon the Big Idea of India's He-Bike. Although lot of bike take the persona of Macho bikes it was more oriented towards being "sexy". The Big Idea was to position the bike as World's first bike endowed with a Sex ( Gender).Thus born the classic campaign of all times " Definitely Male".
(this part is an excerpt from this post
http://marketingpractice.blogspot.com/2007/04/bajaj-pulsar-definitely-male.html)

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Note this ad till 0:55 timeline mark.
So here we se how the signifiers for the same brand was changed. Here we have more of a flirtatious nature of the ad with the Bike signifying the male population. The approach to target the audience to the youth in particular is also interesting. This is a time where globalization is making big in India and the youth is all about western attributes and modernization.
And now with the bike having captured a decent market share, the "definitely male" campaign has been dropped and others taken their place.

What is interesting to note is how the brand has built itself from being associated with scooters to motorcyles. The journey from what one may call as being Feminine to Definitely Male.

Form Follows Function?

2008-09-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

I was going through some readings a couple of days ago in trying to understand visual culture. One thing that I have come to think of is whether the Bauhaus (and later by Modernists) notion of the “Form Follows Function” and that “Ornament is a crime” would apply to Interaction Design. When we are looking for a language for Interaction Design, are we only looking at the processes or also the final outcome of the process (the interactive application/art).

Would this also mean that having a more rationalistic approach to the designs would suffice better as compared to having to make an artifact that would look (read immediate attention) aesthetically pleasing. As Interaction design is a lot about the process and as discussed in classes, the moment a process comes into the frame, its a rationalistic approach.

I feel that Neilsen bases his heuristics and also the argument to his site with this notion in mind.
Often at times I think if we are applying the same well to the current situation of Web 2.0 standards when dealing with interaction/interface design.

With interfaces becoming simpler and less cluttered and very well defined for the task it is supposed to be doing, are we again going back to this classic theory?

Sustainability and Indian Design industry

2008-07-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

I recently came across this article in the Pratt's institute magazine. Its called "Design: A Green Collar Job" by Debera Johnson. We as designers are responsible for the creation of the products,
clothings, publications, advertisements, buildings, interiors, information systems etc.
The list is huge.

Each of us are to play a vital role in the society. One of the most hot topics of conferences happens to be about saving the planet. So there are conferences on Global Warming, climate change and also it also gets a mention in other design conferences like CHI and
TED.

One thing that I have noticed is the lack of participation from the Indian Design Industry on the topic of Sustainability.
India, I feel is witnessing the changes that the western world witnessed quite some years back. As we continuously strive to creating better systems, and all things for a better lifestyle, each of
us play a vital role. As the world becomes more complex, and unordered, it will look to
designers to find solutions. With the economic progress that our beloved country is making on many grounds, it is but high time that we start thinking Green on a much larger scale and not just confined to the metros and the big offices.

I am wondering if there is any such data for India, as done by Photographer Chris Jordan's "Running the Number" series. Some of them strikes you in the face.
For Example, In the US, there are two million plastic beverages are discarded every five minutes. And this, one million plastic cups are used on airline flights in the US
every six hours.

With the increase in the affluent middle class in India, the changing cultures and also a lack of proper system for many things, the days ahead do seem to worry many.

In another article that I read, sustainability is based on the three R's. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. I believe we as Indians are good in at-least one of these R's.
Reusing. Remember you having to wear the same clothes that your brother / sister wore when he/she was the same age. Also the same bottles being re-used in journeys to avoid buying new bottles of water? There is no place in India, where you would not see reuse of artifacts. It's there in homes, in shops, and on the streets. I did capture a lot of them while doing photography in India.

The rich tradition of handicrafts and using natural products, has indeed been a good component to thinking Recycling ways, but that just is not enough.

In the school (HCID program) where I go, there is a strong research group on Sustainability and people have been indeed bringing up points that are indeed a concern to the world today. One of the things I was talking there was the sustainability in the developing
nations and what better than India. I am sure and confident that designers can create a bigger impact in the industry than it already is.

I would love to get in touch with Indian Designers looking at Sustainability in an Indian context and work more closely towards some research on this.

Experience Prototyping

2008-06-09T21:26:00.000-07:00

The above is a outcome of the project for out Experience Design Class, where the task was to design a museum installation art, taking into insights from what it feels like a disabled person.
We had each member in the team enact out and experience a disability. These could be either physical, visual , or cognitive disability.

While its not possible to exactly replicate those disabilities, and also at the back of our minds we do know that we are not in that state actually, we have tried to come as close possible to experience it.

The concept, here tries to take the insights from these disabilities and then has been prototyped. The concept was fully built with actual props and tested on three different users.

In the end its all about giving the museum goes an authentic experience.

Getting attached to ideas

2008-04-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I seek to do in projects is generate hundred of concepts over brainstorming sessions. This is something I have not been able to do. The maximum I would have reached is 20-30. And being a designer, I know that, it is a very small number.

Starting to love your idea, just results in the designer not being able to think beyond that one idea.

For one of the projects, that I am doing currently, I mentioned to my team that we should have at-least a hundred ideas and the white boards needs to be full. A fellow team mate stops us at 10 ideas.

Also by ideas I mean concrete ideas. I feel important
By stating anything generic like the idea should do this and should do that, it does not really solve the purpose. However if we adopt the attitude that the idea "will" do this rather than "should" do this, makes a huge difference.

Experiencing Disability

2008-04-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

In one of the assignments, that we are doing, one of the task is to experience a disability. We are trying to do whats called an Experience Prototype.(1)

The task here was very simple. I had to write my first name and last name.
The only constraint was that I had to hold the mouse upside down.
This way the mouse now worked was in order to go up, I had to move the mouse down, and the same for the left and right.

In case you have still not figured out, I have written Kshitiz Anand.

I was trying to experience a person with dyslexia. One of the conditions identified with people with this is to see things inversely. So the idea here was to experience a similar condition.
We designed a task that would enable me to experience it.

Conclusion: It is not easy to do tasks that we consider are easy if we have a disability.
For a better web and user experience, it becomes essential to take into consideration the factors that allow acceptance with a wider audience.

1) Experience Prototyping is a method of user research proposed and propagated by the design firm IDEO.

***** Centered Design

2008-03-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

The ***** in the above title is based on the numerous centered designs that we come across.

There is User Centered Design - this is perhaps the most famous and widely used. You are supposed to be the designer who takes care of the user at all times. Considering what the user says is right and try to incorporate in the design.

The Human Centered Design - This is an offshoot of the above. Just that here we are replacing the user word with human. After all human sounds so much more caring. The personal touch here is much more just by using the human word.

The Technology Centered Design - This is something that is of prime importance in the engineering schools where there exist a design school. Examples could be MIT, IITG, etc. Here I feel the design revolves around the technology. This really gets exciting when we are looking at research labs and places where they are coming up with innovative use of technology for a better design. The iPhone, Microsoft Surface could be an example of starting of with this type of design, but later becoming a user centered one. After all they are looking at making things more intuitive for the user and more exciting.

Of late my research interests has been in studying the use of technology in emerging market, and rural population. This I feel is directly related to this centered design.

The Activity Centered Design - This is taken from the Activity Theory, and bases its premise on activities being performed in the course of a task. This is also promoted by Don Norman. The activity theory is a theory in Psychology, that emphasizes understanding who people are by understanding how they interact with the world. This has also been widely used by Bonnie Nardi from U C Irvine.

Then there this Goal-Centered Design. This is proposed b Alan Cooper and his team in the book About Face 3. I have become a fan of this of late. In trying to find the tasks that the users want to do, we often fail to recognize the goal behind the task. This process focuses on the design being three-tiered. The first is to identify the goal. The second the activities and then the third is the tasks. So for example, if i had to send mail to my friend, the goal is to communicate with my friend. The activities would be the finding a computer, looking up the site and opening it, and then the tasks would be typing the address, moving the mouse to the appropriate level, typing the mail and sending it.

Looking at a goal based approach, enables us to take care of the motivations and the intentions that users/ humans would have in order to use the appropriate technology to perform those tasks.

User Experience Design and Research

2008-03-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

I was preparing for an interview for internship and was brushing upon my theory on HCI and stuff.
Initially I was surprised to find that there were two separate positions in large companies, meaning companies where they invest a lot in User Experience and Usability. These two positions are that of a User Experience Researcher(UER) and User Experience Designer(UED). This set me thinking. What are the roles of a UER versus a UED. In the book About Face 3, Cooper and his team writes about an interesting thing. They mention how a designer need to be good at research. A few years ago this was not seen as very reasonable thing to do and hence we had the market researchers doing the research and passing on the findings to the designers. In most of the cases there would be a mismatch between what the users actually did, what the market researchers saw and what was reported and interpreted by the designers.

Taking this argument further, we find a UER's role to be extremely crucial in a project. They are supposed to be interacting closely with the UEDs. The UER is now a days supposed to give their input in a project at two phases of the software development life cycle. One is initially inoder to get a better understanding of the user's environments, the situations in which they are living and performing the tasks, the UER adopts methods like Ethnography, Contextual Inquiry and Fly-on-the wall Observations techniques, to get a better understanding. A noticable thing these days is the urgency in trying to capture the empathic needs of the user. This could be things like, I feel hot when I sit in the computer room, or something like, this just does not "feel" good. In the 3rd wave of HCI, this has been an area of research that is exciting. How do we collect and use the empathic inputs which result in a lot of qualitative data, into the design. How can the UED folks interpret and extract this information and use it as a valuable design input.

Once this is done, and the UEDs are set to work, the UER's role comes back when the product's prototypes are built. So then starts the other phase of the experience research. This does sound a lot like performing the Usability testing. But it is not likely so. The measure of experience needs to be defined based on the units of experience that the UERs would have defined initially.
A usability professional would more likely be dealing with only the final deliverable and whether it delivered on what it promised. They adopt a more quantitative approach to finding an answer to whether a design is successful. UERs on the other hands take into consideration the empathic issues equally.

In any user-centric design, the inputs of the UER at both these stages become really essential, and thats why companies that are clear on this differentiation of roles, have an edge.

The Dying Art of Sketching

2008-03-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

There were two incidences that inspired me to write this blog.
1) I was flipping through my sketchbook and to my surprise I found that around 80% of the pages in it was filled with text. This is good as it was a good compilation of my ideas and my thoughts while working on different projects. But on the other hand I find the absence of visuals and doodles and sketches. The number of sketches that I did for a project seemed to be very less. It was definitely less than the amount I had though, when I first bought the sketch book.

2) I got my copy of the ACM Interactions Magazine today and the cover article called Pencils before Pixels , by Prof Mark Baskinger from the CMU School of Design, set me thinking.

I realized a lot of things. It was alarming to me to a large extent. I realized how much of a
sad situation it was. The skill level of designers in sketching definitely seems to be on the downfall. It could be a reason, that Interaction design as a field attracts people from many fields, but that should not be an excuse to not sketch out the ideas before. This as Mark points out could be a reason why the industrial designers who enter the field of Interaction Design, are at such an advantage.

Being a designer is a lot about being to think visually. And being a photographer, it become all the more important to do so. I tend to think in pictures and images. I remember a time, when I used to sketch out a frame that I want to shoot, before actually going out and shooting. I guess the advent of the Digital Camera has been the reason.

I would also like to add here that diagrams on the other hand do not count as sketches. They can be at max an attempt to represent things visually. I have been doing this of late a lot. But they are just not as informative as a sketch.
Over the years, progressing as a designer I have developed this interest in starting any discussion with a brainstorming session. We start from the centre and progressively branch outwards, depending on how the session progresses. This is been a great tool, but the point is that I tend to stop there.

The sketches still happen, but the number is less. And this definitely has had me in situations where the ideas stop coming. I have read lots about success stories where the idea of a business was thought about over lunch over a tissue. These ideas are furthered debated and thought upon and the birth of a success story takes place.

So, what do we do. A lot of this can be blamed to the carrying the computer with me phenomenon. I often feel paralysed when I do not have an access to a laptop for a couple of days. This as McCarthy and Wright in their book "Technology as Experience", discuss that we are becoming slaves to the machine. The fact that a rationalist approach to HCI, tends to inform us that whats there on the Photoshop, Powerpoint interface is the only way we can think. Its like the machine is guiding us in our thinking process.

Buxton in his book Sketching User Experiences deals with using sketching as a means to convey ideas, start discussions. This is a must read for all those getting or are in the field of Interaction Design.

To end, we all loved to draw, sketch when we were kids. Remember those dirty walls, and pages of the copy! What happens to us when we grow up? Perhaps its the feeling that I am no Michaelangelo, and hence I should not draw. Its important to understand that one does not need to be a great artist to convey ideas and thoughts. Its only with practice that we improve the level of sketching.

So, what are you waiting for! Grab that pencil and the sketchbook and revive the artist in you!

Why Critiquing is Subjective?

2008-02-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

This is one of the things that I have been wanting to find an answer to since long.
Being a photographer and designer is all about subjectivity.

When we view an art / design we start with an impression of it. Over a time we start to develop an opinion about it. And these opinions over a period turn into judgments.
These judgments are what we call critiques. Thus if we analyze, any judgment is therefore ultimately what is what the judge thinks about it. And these jugdments are subjective. Thus criticism is a subjective act.
A critic is a judge of a piece of art, who gives his or her subjective judgments based on the opinions formulated after the impression of the artwork.

Any design we do, any photograph we take is all about "one's own" ideas. Thus we have the option to believe these subjective opinions for getting an idea of the showcased piece.
So from the above example and from the comments over time that I have received on it, an impression would be "beautiful shot!".
An opinion would be, "great shot!! a little dark but very nice"
A judgment (critic) would be something like "An over all brightening of the shadows would bring this boy out from the shadows, isolating him and transforming this from a cute picture to a WOW picture. He is hard to focus on because of the aforementioned darkness."

Over a long period of time a debate has been going on in my mind about, we as designers having to create for objectivity. However, I understand that, there is subjectivity all around. As discussed in one of my class, a critique is an entirely subjective opinion.
When the judgment is passed, by these critics or rather subject experts, (which again are subjective) we tend to believe them more than we would to a classmate or any other person (not a subject expert).

So ultimately we are designing for a subjective opinion, with the hope that the critic’s subjective opinion matches ours. This would lead to a larger audience believing the subjective opinions of the critics (as they are the subject exerts) and over a period of time, spanning across many people, the design becomes objective.

Similarly for a photograph. There will always be difference in an opinion if different people are to see one same photograph. No photograph will appeal to all. Or in other words, everyone WILL NOT agree on the same points.
Being a designer and a photographer enables one to take criticism positively. This is one thing I have really tried to learn.

Inspiration de' Henri.

2008-02-04T12:06:00.000-08:00

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 --2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism.

He is one of my idols !

Rhythmic Dance of Aesthetic Expression

2008-02-01T22:47:00.000-08:00

Reflections from McCarthy and Wright: Technology as Experience.
Have you ever felt the adrenaline rushing through you in a movie.. or the sound of silence falling into the valley.. onto to rise into a crescendo, only to fall back into an inquisitiveness... that slowly slowly catches you.. comforts you.. and then .. then there is the sudden jerk of emotion again .. and the cycle keeps repeating itself again and again... You keep moving from one an experiences to another... In the end you say .. What an amazing Experience! Movies after movies , roller coaster rides after rides... and photo exhibitions after exhibitions..

Here we talk about the Rhythmic Dance of an aesthetic expression. Dewey previously mentions about the rhythms of life, tensions and releases of engagement, and feelings of vulnerability in the face of our own needs and desires. Thus "rhythmic flow of life is the basis of our experience of meaning and value in the world."
Basically there are four components to it. It has an internal, dynamic structure. Its called the Cumulation, the Conservation, the Tension and the Anticipation.

Roughly Cumulation is the build up of the experience in the absence of a priori information about the experience. This is a build up over time. The human capacity of deriving meanings over things increases in a temporal flow. Cumulation is a thing of the past, leading to the present. Without such a build-up there is no fulfillment and without fulfillment there is no aesthetic experience.

Conservation is the tendency to hold onto the some of what one has gone through before, in-order to make sense and a better experience of what is in present. Conservation is in the present. This takes cues from the past and is creating the experience along the present. An example for this could be you enjoy a particular kind of music more, if you have listened to that music before. Like say Jazz music.

Tension is where the fun begins! This is where movie makers make most of their money! Music invariably plays an important role in the tension. Tension refers to both the opposition of energies within the experience and between the people involved in the experience. Any resistance prevents immediate discharge and accumulates tension that renders energy intense.
Thus tension appears from this compressed energy that is seeking release. And when they try to do it, another form tries to block it. This struggle is the cause of tension. Analyze it this way, say in a movie, you are in a state of conservation.. enjoying the experience of the plot, and suddenly there is a gun shot. For a moment, you freeze.... its may be instantaneous, that time may be in milliseconds, but for that instant the hard pounds an extra beat. This creates that struggle within the energies that were already there with the experience you were having.

Then comes the anticipation. As one would guess, this is for the future with the knowledge of the present and the future. This thus occurs in two temporal phases. The first one occurs before the aesthetic experience is taken pace, and the other during the aesthetic experience taking place. Thus there is an expectation build up in this. When that expectation is met, the past is conserved as if the anticipation is molded into the experience itself. When it is not met, the conservation is breached. Often this would also lead to tension and then further lead back to conservation.

Thus, as Dewey says, a rhythmic dance connects aesthetic experience to its history and circumstances. This dance involves a continuous interplay between the past, present and future, each shaping and renewing the others.

Analysing Photographs

2008-01-29T19:22:00.000-08:00

One of the things I have often wanted to during a photo-shoot is analyze why I enjoy doing it. After the past few readings on experience, I definitely feel I have some answer to it.
Now, I have traveled wide across India doing photography and had similar interesting experiences over and over again. One of the shoots that I recall well is the street photography on the streets of Kolkata, India. I had always wanted to find an answer as to why they call Kolkata the "City of Joy." This album resulting from the photo-shoot is a result of that quest.

Kolkata 2007

Everywhere around me when I am clicking I am seeking to get a good experience of doing the act. I try to capture the elements that would at a later stage give me as close to the same experience I had while clicking it.

There were many factors that lead to the overall experience. Each moment that was experienced was expressed in the form of a photograph that can be said as an expression of that instantaneous experience. Today whenever I re-look at that photo album I am able to relate to the time I had, and the experience I had. For every shot I took there was a story associated with it and it was these individual stories or expressions that made up the entire experience a memorable one. These stories which are culturally constructed expressions, would be beneficial in a person recalling the experience, as well as to the people who are not familiar with the culture.

These photographs allow me to make a better sense of experience by virtue of connecting of the cognition (of what's there in the mind from the past), the feelings associated with it (the present) and also the expectations (the future).
After analyzing each photograph in the album, one is transcending the narrow sphere of experience by interpreting the expressions, as Dilthey would put it. These expressions (photographs) consummate to the overall experience of the city, as seen by the outer self and perceived by the conscious or the inner self. Here each photograph is a story that has a beginning and an end. These multiple expressions transcends together, in a temporal flow to give us the experience.

These stories presented in the photographs touched the heart, and hence we could call it of an inner felt experience. It is a testimony to the lived experience, as Dilthey would put it. The elements in the frames, the aesthetics associated with each frame compel us to have the “an experiences” in a similar manner across viewers. In most of the cases the expressions here would be the same.

The ability of photographs to be more powerful than a narrative, results in we being able to identify the context better. Photographs do a better job in trying to re-showcase the reality and an indication of the experience had. The elements in the photographs allow one to interpret the experience in a similar manner by different subjects. (I am actually trying this experiment with the online group of photographers I interact with.)

Thus the photographs here are the reminiscence of the existing conditions in the city. Kolkata is also known as the City of Joy, but when one visits there it’s hard to find the joy in the experience of visiting that place. Through these told expressions (the photographs) we are trying to present a reality (of what is there) of the situation as was experienced by the photographer.

Bloomington Startup Weekend

2008-01-28T23:02:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting concept that has had me amazed recently. A group of people, get together over a weekend and build a company from the scratch, and launch it by the night before the weekend ends.
The one in Bloomington is to be held on the Feb 8-10th Weekend.

Read more about this here. Bloomington Startup Weekend
The idea is catching up and there are many places in the US and also in the other parts of the world where this is taking place.
The crowd composes of many kinds of people from business to technical to design background and I am so excited about it.
This is a unique three-day experience, Startup Weekend brings the best and brightest people together in a local office space to select the concept, break into teams, and develop the product, marketing and revenue model.

There are a few tickets left. They cost only 20$ and is definitely worth the experience!
You can purchase them here

This would also be a good way to put into the knowledge gained in the Entrepreneurship in Informatics class.

Aesthetics

2008-01-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

We all have a general conception about aesthetics.
In common terms, it is something that is appealing, an epitome of beauty, a piece of art, or more broadly something that gives us joy.
It is contextual. It deals with balance and co-ordination, it is a consummation or a closure.
Aesthetics is a subjective responses to the things we consider beautiful.

Wikipedia defines it as :
Aesthetics is commonly perceived as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as "critical reflection on art, culture and nature."Aesthetics is a subdiscipline of axiology, a branch of philosophy, and is closely associated with the philosophy of art. Aesthetics studies new ways of seeing and of perceiving the world.

So anyone would agree to this.
Now we know that there are some things that give us joy and that is not visible. There are somethings in life that makes us smile. Thus, can we classify these things as aesthetic?

Do things that are unpleasing to us not have aesthetics? What about a photograph of a war?
Is there a thing called the negative aesthetics?
Negative aesthetics are those that evoke negative emotions amongst us. This could be sorrow, pain, disarray, hatred, grimace etc.

Also there is something called the anti-aesthetics. Now this is something that is not aesthetical, but neither negatively aesthetical.

So when we talk about experience, we generally talk about the pleasurable experiences and hence the events are remembered for long. However, a nightmare, is equally reminiscence of the experience. An accident in an event that would have otherwise lead to a pleasant experience. The mind constantly aims to forget these things, but the very sight of any connecting element, reminds one of the bad experiences had.

Happens in movies.. You let out "an experience"s every-time you see them again and again. These incidents happens frequently in life as well. One small incident in childhood leaves a mark that haunts for life.

So when we think about experience, why do we always think of only a positive experience? As experience designers we are constantly trying to design for the positive expressions.
Is there a way in which using negative aesthetics, one could build up to a positive aesthetics and in the end result in a positive experience (suspense movies, horror flicks) .
Does a roller coaster evoke a negative emotion in course of its travel, and then when one has completed it, the overall feeling is of accomplishment, which is again a positive experience.

How the balance is reached between the two is important. It is imperative for the designer to be able to create the positive experiences in the end. After all who would not like to see more smiles on faces!

Genuine Compassion vs Personal Ambition

2008-01-24T20:52:00.000-08:00

One of my photographer friend asked this question: "I have noticed many many photographers after a point seem to be sticking to some basic themes." like
Old people, people in old age homes , dying people, AIDS patients, child workers etc .
It seems to me that to be considered as a 'serious photographer' you need to touch upon this syllabus at least.

Is the above statement true? I personally don't think so.

Being a photojournalist is not easy ... Its a lot about being involved in the things you see around you....This involvement could lead to disturbing thoughts at times.. I had this feeling once when I had shot this image

and every-time i see it.. I have the same haunting feeling.. I remember not shooting for days after that ... Many lives are changed because of the photograph. That one shot could give a photographer his stardom, but at the same time it also could end up in getting help for the subject and the surroundings. More often than not, its that one photograph or one shoot that changes ones life forever.

I have been so influenced by this person James Natchwey.. that I am again bringing his name up.. have a look at this TED talk
from the timeline 00:48 to 02:53 especially.

In another of his talks, he says this
The worst thing is to feel is that as a photographer I am benefiting from someone else's tragedy. This idea haunts me. Its something I have to reckon with everyday because I know, that if i ever really allow our genuine compassion to be overtaken by personal ambition; I will have sold my soul. The only way I can justify my role is to have respect for the other person's predicament. The extent to which I do that is the extent to which I become accepted by the other and to that extent I can accept myself."

The one thing that I really like about being a photographer is the fact that your vision changes. This could be for the good things, but could be the sad things as well.
You tend to become aware of your surroundings. There is certain level of association that you develop with the things around you. Being a photographer I feel its important to be aware / good at both extremes of things around us...

Any art form is known to generate a expression in a viewer, as discussed in the previous blogs... and numerous of those expressions combine together to form experience. Many a time we often tend to denote the beautiful things as being aesthetical and we tend to enjoy viewing it. Thus aesthetics becomes a parameter that invokes a positive feeling. However what about a war photograph / aids/ street children? Does it not evoke a feeling? There is .. only that in this case its more of a negative feeling.. feelings of sorrow, remorse, pity and a sense of feeling bad.
This feeling also cannot be neglected and one cannot capture any of those essence if one is not prepared to undergo those feelings.
So are these photographs not aesthetical ?
A photograph of a flower is aesthetical but so is a photograph of a Afghan girl and equally aesthetical is a street photo by Henri.

I like what James Natchwey mentions in his site called Witness
"I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated."

Being a photojournalist is not easy. Its a way of life. Being able to feel the same pain is an essential entity. Thousands of photographers attempt the themes as mentioned by Vinayak, but i am sure most drop out.

There is another aspect to it. There are many who would argue... that in those places there could be an atmosphere of positivity, and one could try capturing that. Its like trying to find the smiles in the sad faces...But we all know... as photographers we tend to bring in exactly what is mentioned above...i.e. ..the whole debate in our minds about the genuine compassion versus the personal ambition.

Photographers who go on to become world know would have perhaps put their genuine compassion over personal ambition. Again its important to mention that its not that only the war / aids/ poverty etc photographers become famous. We all quote Ansel Adams frequently, wonder how many pictures of sorrow he took in-order to become famous? And do we know him by that ...

This "genuine compassion" can be for flowers or people or war photographs.

In the end Photography, as all agree is that its subjective.
The human psyche is such that it tends to develop an interest in unfamiliar things. What slowly starts as a inquisitiveness to capture the world we are unfamiliar of, becomes a thing that could end up changing out lives.
This develops into a compassion and then into a determination to show to the world a thing that we feel and showcase our felt experiences through the medium of photography.

The point I am trying to make it, as long as that compassion is maintained, I think its SERIOUS enough.

Photographs have the power to change human lives. I am sure it would have done to many of us already. Photographers have this unique vision within them to show to the world something that they are not aware of...

Kinds of Experience

2008-01-20T16:25:00.000-08:00

Analysing Bruner's Anthropology of Experience.
So, which was the last movie that made you go wow! That was an amazing experience! For me it was "Taare Zameen Par", directed by Aamir Khan.

Which was the last photograph that you saw and made you go wow! This is great photograph. This was a series of photographs that I saw from the movie War-Photographer.

When was the last narrative that you read , that made you have a good experience?

Well... i am sure you would agree that the degree of experience is not the same in all of these. Most of the people would say that the movie watching is perhaps the best experience amongst all. I agree to that as well.

So getting a bit more into the anthropology of experience, we try to analyze why this is the case. Why a movie makes me go more wow as compared to a novel?
The answer lies in the way we define reality (what is there is there... ), expressions (how individual experience is framed and articulated) and experience (how the reality presents itself to the consciousness).
Experience is valuable only if its affecting the inner consciousness and that affect stays with us for long. Expressions or an experiences are short lived and we tend to get over it soon.

We know as discussed, that experience is a collection of a group of expressions or the "an experiences". Anthropologists and ethnographers aim at experiencing the cultures and look at retelling in their words. This often leads us to believing what they say. However,
there is a difference in the life lived ( the reality) , the life experienced (the felt) and the life expressed (the told).

Now there are two kinds of experiences. Felt experience and the Told Experience. More often than not, these two fail to match up. This thus, results in the an indifference in the way we interpret the experience and the way the person narrating the experience tells it. As Kapferer puts it, "I do not experience your experience, I experience my experience of you." This means that the actual experience of the thing is lost.
There are also some inexperiences that are called the inchoate experiences i.e. the experiences that we are unable to understand. Like many a times we say, I feel good, but don't really know why we are feeling good. These experiences are the ones that are the most often left out in the process of retelling and narration.

Quite often we tend to confuse between the experience and behavior. Experience is more personal, whereas behavior is what some outsider describes. Experience thus is more self referential. Therefore it is concluded that experience is also subjective.

Which brings me to my question!
How can we as designers of user experience, create designs that are objective in experience? How can we remove the element of subjectivity and try to look into a common thing amongst mind of users across a demographic, who will experience the design in the same manner in which I as a designer am experiencing?

There have been different ways of conveying experiences. The oldest way was perhaps Narratives. (Rosaldo, Bruner) This was often in the form of speech or written text. Story telling also forms a part of the narrative. However, if an incident has occured to the narrator, there is often a case of over emphasizing a certain chapter / portion in order to enhance the experience while saying it.
However, the narrator fails to understand that in the absence of an imagery, there is a picture in the mind of the listener that is constantly changing. Thus, the felt experience of the listener and the told experience of the narrator is not the same.

However if the context has been set, if the images (Fernandez, Kapferer) are used to give a clear indication of the culture in which the enactment had taken place, the listener (user in case of a design) is more likely to develop a better picture of what is being said.

And when this is attached to a movie, where we not only have a cultural context prior set, but also some parameters that help in increasing that experience. There is an enactment (Stewart, Babcock, Schechner) A movie is composed of those numerous expressions or say numerous moments of an experience. A movie makes us go wow, because these expressions are not just a collection, but a proper connected timeline of whats going on. This consummation of experiences over a period of time when presented to us, increases the felt experience thing and hence we get a better experience.
In a movie the reflexivity (Gorfain, Boon, Myeroff) factor also plays an important role. Here we couple the frames with our reflection with our own interpretation and hence the experience is enhanced.

As Kapferer puts it, we transcends individual experiences through the participation in the cultural expressions. While watching a movie, we are so deeply engrossed and our mind is full of these expressions, that we forget completely what is outside. This engrossment further enhances the overall experience.

Movies are thus, a field where the art of creating experience has been perfected!
It is now completely understandable why I watch so many movies!

Its for the experience!

Expressions and Experience

2008-01-17T19:53:00.000-08:00

Readings from Dewey's Art as an Experience and Bruner's Anthropology of Experience.
One of the things that is really important and perhaps necessary for us to understand is the theory behind creating an experience. As interaction designers we are constantly seeking to create designs that are going to give our users (humans) a better user experience. This thus means that everything needs to be joyous. Experience has a aesthetic quality and when we say a good experience, we mean a good aesthetic value to it.
There is a difference between the experience and "an experience". When we say an experience, its the significance of an instance of time when we felt that way. Experience however is
For example if we say that this lady in this picture:

On interacting with a person, when you say a joke, or say give a momentary joy, its called "An experience". Its a function of time. It has a beginning, a maxima and an end. It is very mechanical.
Experience on the other hand is a consummation of multiple "an experience"s.
Thus when we see a movie we are able to remember of "an experience". These "an experience"s are called expressions. In-order to have an experience its important that there is a satisfying emotional quality because it possesses an internal integration and fulfillment reached through ordered and organized movement.

Being creators of experience we often tend to design taking into consideration our experience. This is highly mistaking as experience is a subjective thing and varies from one person to the other. However, on the other hand we should be trying to design in a manner that the experience of the users will be the same as the felt experience of the designers.

Photography as Information Visualizations

2008-01-15T22:20:00.000-08:00

When you look at Photography, do you see a transfer of information? Like you being the story teller trying to convey a story or a piece of information to an audience. How about thinking of your photographs as a source of data. Scientific photographers constantly try to achieve this by virtue of photographing things at the minutest levels, where they try to surpass information.

The following talk is by a Scientific Photographer,
Felice Frankel's Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science Image who on a grant from the National Science Foundation, did a book that the slides are now made up of.
Its a long talk, but quite interesting. I was glued to it!
This was a part of a talk that we saw for my Info Viz class here. I love it when she ends the talk on :
"Picture Making should be a part of the Vocabulary." Think about it!

Also today, I was doing an exercise on how we can use photographs to show valuable information.

I would like to showcase is this photograph of the Chicago city along the Lake Michigan. The roads that are more lit have more traffic over it. All portions of the photograph have been exposed for the same time. Thus the more conglomeration of spots on the left indicate the high traffic zone. There is an area on the right, which is completely dark. This indicates the absence of any people / traffic there hence showing an uninhabited land. The left portion of the image, where there is more light spots show the areas where there is inhabitation. This kind of visualization would be extremely helpful for flights, which are crossing the area. An indication of a water body is further enhanced by the reflection along the pier.

Similarly thinking of photography as a tool to represent data can be exciting. What we see in the talk is the use in the case of a scientific context, however I feel the same can be applied to other fields. Some of the fields that i find this being applicable is the street photography (showing patterns in crowd movements, traffic snarls, busy locations) and then in nature photography (showing the patterns in nature).

A pretty exciting field when I think about it this way.

Apple and Design

2008-01-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

I recently came across this post... And I found it well written and perhaps an answer to why Apple products sell well! A very well written article and worth pondering over.

10 things to learn from Apple

Excerpts from the article...
There’s no need to restate the high reverence (or pangs of envy, depending on where your loyalty lies) of Apple. They have innovated, floundered, and in recent years, risen from the ashes to make one hell of a run in computing and electronics devices. Love them or hate them, you can’t deny that they are adored by their fans. Their brand has reached that highly sought-after place in the world of marketing: they can do no wrong.

So how did they get there? Is it dumb luck? Or are they just much smarter than the rest of us? The most common reason given is Apple’s rabid devotion to design. That is, without a doubt, a key component of Apple’s success. But I think there’s more to it than that. Here are ten reasons why I think Apple is so successful today, and what we can learn from them

.
..
Now I love Apple products but not necessarily that I find them the most usable, but they have something more to them than just design.
It's a lot to do with the three kinds of design that Don Norman talks in his book Emotional Deisgn, namely the Visceral Design, Behavioral Design and Reflective Design.
One interesting example that Norman gives in his book is about the not-so-usable kettle for his morning tea, but still prefer to use it because of its form and other features.
The chapter where he discusses these three kinds of design is a must read! I find it so true with the facts that he mentions in the chapter and what is applied at Apple.

Recently I shifted from Windows to Apple. Initially I was pretty uncomfortable with the usage but now it seems set. I guess here it is more of being used to the system and creating a mental model of the softwares that one uses. Over a period of time a design pattern is set on the user's mind. If we go by this argument then all design will be a success over a period of time. But this is not the case.

One of the things that I recently am having trouble in using is the Master lock, that opens with a number combination in a particular order, through a combination of clockwise and anti-clockwise rotation.

I have nothing against it but yesterday I spent almost 30 minutes trying to open it and still I find it difficult to use it. This product definitely over a period of time is not going to give me better user experience. However, there are people who open it in seconds!
Perhaps I will get used to it someday soon!

Waves of HCI

2008-01-11T07:58:00.000-08:00

This is perhaps one of the important things that we need to know as an Interaction designer. The waves of Human Computer Interaction.
This is a precis and some of my understanding from the paper "When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges" by Susanne Bødker .
Roughly classified as the 1980s-first wave, 1990s-second wave and the 2000s-third wave and possibly a 4th wave in the 2010s.

So the first wave HCI dealt a lot with rigid guidelines, the testing of the guidelines against the products. There was a strong focus on the user and the user dimensions. Thus the fields like Human Factors and Ergonomics were the guiding forces. There was a notion of uniting everything on the desktop. The notion that the desktop is where all the work takes place and that everything on the desktop needs to be for the person using it. The machine centered notion was in place and almost everything was defined in this context. Things like usability testing and experimental psychology came into the picture where the emphasis was on the ways in which the users were able to complete tasks and what were the cognitive aspects behind performing each task.

The second wave turned out to be more context specific. The context played a huge role in the design of things. This was where the focus shifted from the desktop to the workspace. The office and the places around where the people did all the interactions with the computers. The focus also started to shift towards computers that were not a part of the desktop interactions.
The focus was now on "Humans" rather than "Users". The stringent boundaries between the workspace and the non-workspace started being discussed in circles and also emphasis on trying to design for the workspace. These boundaries were later to be broken in the third wave.
Here we also see the emergence of the design-as-a-science paradigm. The focus here was on methods too but it was too much rationality oriented. There was a seeking for a proper rationality behind everything that was done. Participatory Design became famous owing to its involving the users in the design process so that the contexts could be well defined.

In the third wave, the current wave, there are a lot of challenges. One of the most important of those is the role of the user, the humans or better to call the Actors. The roles that the humans now play in the design process is more than what it used to be ever. There is an emergence of the design-as-an-art initiative. But on the downside of it, many fear that this may well lead to design becoming too art oriented. Or as is mentioned in the paper, artsy-fartsy.
The focus in the third wave seems to revolve around cultures and ethnography. There is a non-rationale approach to design being adopted at times. The domain of looking is now expanded to a wider area that now covers homes, leisure places, homes. The whole aspect of tying emotions to design is really hot and forms a major chunk of the research.
interaction design is now no more seen for a single mediator (like the desktop as seen in the 1st wave) but as from multiple mediators. This I believe has a lot to do with the expansion of computers to a wider range of applications. The context is not so well defined in this wave, because it is not sure in what form the user will be interacting with the interface.
As a designer, it now becomes imperative to focus on the "lifeworld" and the gamut of our design space is large. Now everything around us revolves around design.

A possibly 4th wave could be coming where the user has completely different says in the whole design space. The whole aspect of the users defining the content like the Facebook, the Flickr, etc could form a major part of what would be termed as the 4th wave.

In the end as a designer, we should all remember and constantly try to answer the question, how is my design going to change people's lives. Is it going to be better? Or worse? Ultimately, we should ask ourselves... will the design bring about a smile to the people who will use it.

A tribute to Sir Edmund Hillary

2008-01-10T20:58:00.000-08:00

Just heard news about the death of Sir Edmund Hillary today. He was the first person to climb the Mount Everest along with Tenzing Norgey.

(Photo Courtesy: The Auckland Museum website)
I remember meeting him in 1997, back in Darjeeling when I was a student at St Joseph's, North Point in class 10.

(Photo Courtesy: The BBC Website)

He was perhaps one of the first world famous personalities that I had seen and shook hands with. We as class ten students were given this privilege that we called the "Tenners Privilege" to greet and welcome him to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling, where the body and soul of his partner, Tenzing Norgey resides.

I remember standing along side the roads, waving the flags, and he walking to the gates greeting all students and people along the way.

A very humble man who of all things respected other cultures values and traditions.

May his soul rest in peace.
Amen.

Taking Joy in what you do...

2008-01-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

One of the things that I truly believe is being a designer is about being passionate about life the way it is.. and also the things around us.. This all boils down to taking pleasures and joy in what we do... and this will only come if we are passionate about what we do..

One thing i really like is traveling and i was recently at the Grand Canyon...
Oh Boy! What an experience! There I stood against one of nature's most amazing wonders.. The millions of years of wind-work.. the rains.. the snow.. the forces of nature showing its prowess...
The breathtaking view that it provides is a sight to cherish all through life.. Its one of those places that you would want to go again and again if possible...

This is one place where you could realize in a single moment how small we as humans are ...
What helplessness could mean if one were to get lost in here...Suddenly a thought strikes that no matter how much advancements we make in technology... mother nature is watching us.. and we can be reduced to dust in just one blow....

The ride on the Pacific Highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles was nothing short of inexplicable..
The blue ocean on your side as you make your progress on the roads.. is wonderful.
The miles of visibility of the winding roads making you wanna reach out.. making you want to go on it forever and ever..

The sunset is one of the best I have seen... the wonderful sky.. the lovely waters..

There have been more places and sunsets that I have covered as a photographer... but this time I felt I was more trying to enjoy the places that I was visiting.
The number of shots that i took were fewer... perhaps this time I was happier taking photographs with my eyes!

The Rise of the Pro-Ams

2008-01-08T18:43:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting talk about the value of communities in today's innovation. The whole talk about the communities and the users being the content creators and the ideas that they generate and execute! Interesting to hear!

About me...How much do u think is true?

2008-01-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

What Kshitiz Means

You are a seeker of knowledge, and you have learned many things in your life.

You are also a keeper of knowledge - meaning you don't spill secrets or spread gossip.

People sometimes think you're snobby or aloof, but you're just too deep in thought to pay attention to them.

You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong.

You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know.

You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do.

You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out.

Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia.

Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person.

You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing.

You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.

You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life.

You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home.

You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble.

You are incredibly wise and perceptive. You have a lot of life experience.

You are a natural peacemaker, and you are especially good at helping others get along.

But keeping the peace in your own life is not easy. You see things very differently, and it's hard to get you to budge.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

David Kelly on Human Centered Design

2007-12-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

The future of Design is Human Centered Design...
A talk by David Kelly.. Truly inspiring.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/122

The habits of happiness

2007-12-11T14:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes called the "happiest man in the world," Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk, author and photographer.
This is an interesting talk that I came across released by TED this November. Though a bit philosophical at times, it makes a lot of sense.

I seek Inspiration from these...

2007-12-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

An ideal venture that I would like to have one day of my own would be comprised of these components.

Its never too late to do anything. If one has the determination, one is able to do what he/she wishes. One of the things that has had an inspiration on me is the Lines of Grey Project.
Initiated by Suchitra Vijayan, this is truly a kind of work that I would be wanting to do someday.

I volunteer for the Empowerment International Organization in Nicaragua as a Graphic Designer, and they deal with Poor Children education. Kathy Adams, the director got in touch with me over Flickr, for a video work, but due to some delay this happened. Their style of working is truly novel and a definite inspiration for me.

As I have blogged earlier as well, Children Education happens to be an area that I am deeply concerned about and I feel this is truly is a solution to the economic conditions of many countries.

I had come across this talk by Sir Ken Robinson, where he talks about "Do Schools today Kill creativity?", and how we in today's world are not giving the child the freedom to be creative. In the process how we are actually reducing the creative population.

Ideally I would like to open up something on the grounds of what Suchitra has done, on the lines of what Kathy is doing, and what Sir Ken is talking about!

Designing Games for Rural Population

2007-12-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

One of my interest lately has been designing for the rural population.
By rural population I mean the rural population in third world countries like India, and Africa. I believe that there is a whole lot of challenges involved in this and many a times the tried and tested methods and design patterns do not work in these cases.
I came across this paper today that deals with designing games for the children in rural India.
The paper titled: "Mobile Gaming with Children in Rural India: Contextual Factors in the Use of Game Design Patterns."

This is really interesting as in the paper its discussed that the general design patterns, become not so useful, as the context varies from one culture to the other. Similarly the cognitive understanding of games are completely different for children across cultures.

Using of identified game design patterns for expert game designers, the novice designers and the developers who are not designers is important to know. Many a times the standard design patterns do not work and its nothing short of suicidal to blindly follow them.

One of the things that i seek to find out is the parameters on which the design for games, and entertainment for that matter , are dependent on. This could also mean a design pattern of the rural population. How children interpret symbols, graphics, based on myths, based on society's superstitions...

The whole thing is proposed to be a part of the framework that I call the Rural Interaction Design framework.

Mind Retention Software

2007-12-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

Designing for emotions are difficult.
It really drains you out. It kind of makes you really emotionless at times.
One of the toughest things in a design is to have a proper concept , that is researched upon, and is supported by an argument when one is involving non-tangible things like motivation and feel good, and things like increasing the experience in a design.
Measuring these things are too subjective, I feel and a lot has to do with the users
personal views.

One of the things that we as designers tend to try doing these days is increase this emotional factor in our designs. There are numerous examples of technology trying to attain that. While I felt hat that there can be no substitute for a human-human interaction, I do hope that Human - Computer Interaction is able to do that to a large extent. This i feel is an attainable goal, owing to the fact the amount of association with technology that we have these days. Pervasive and Ubiquitous computing are these days more used and its hard to ignore technology as we look into replicating these emotions.

These days, there are numerous examples of a wide range of software applications that are being developed by people across and one thing I did come across was the Motivation tool Software.

I often wish that someone came up with a Mind Retention Software , that could track based on the brain waves, the feelings of a person and give proper signals to the person for which it is mapped, so that the person can control himself/herself better.

Memories

2007-12-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

This pic was taken in 1994, almost 13 years ago from today.

Sitting L-R,
Amit J Kachap, ?? Bansal (dont know his first name), Avishmaran Basnet, Deependra Darnal, Pema Wangchuck Bhutia, Sarovar Ghising, Mr Timothy Lepcha (class teacher), Jalandip Lepcha, Manoj Kumar, Ankit Lamba, Anis Gurung, Aditya Gupta, Bineet Jain

Middle row Standing L-R,
Ankesh Anupam, Kunal Basak, Ashish Kujur, Manish Agarwal, Joseph Hsu, Amit Gupta, Vishal Gurung, Deepesh Kumar, Praveen Garg, Suman Ghosh, ??? , Saurab Dhakal, Kshitiz Anand,

Top row L-R
???, Prashant , Sanjay Kumar, , Pradeepto Chandra, Uttam Jhawar, Subhajit Bhattarcharya, Nazish Alam, Akhilesh Choudhary, Sushant

Trying to remember the names of all the folks in the class..

I am looking for the contact details of most of the people here. highlighted ones are with whom I am still in contact with either in person, through phone or over Orkut /other communities.

Please let me know if you know any of them! A North Pointer wishing to get in touch with fellow North Pointers.

Inspiration Africa

2007-12-01T00:23:00.000-08:00

I am Speechless.

The art of critique!

2007-11-30T21:43:00.000-08:00

As a photographer everyone of us has a vision. A style that we at the back of our minds follow and most (not all) of the photographs are actually in that style. The content matter can change from nature to portraits to landscape, but there is definitely a style that one would have developed.

There are different ways of critiquing... and being a designer and a photographer I am at the receiving end many a times! One of the things that we are actually taught here how to give and take critiques.
Critiquing is an art in itself, and people have careers out of it.

So
Art of giving a critique:
1) Start with a positive thing about the creation. This helps the designer / photographer to have more confidence in their work. There will definitely be something in the artwork that you as a critic like. For example after a presentation the first thing we say is the good things in the design / presentation etc.

2) Then point out one thing that you think is really bugging you and you do not agree to. Explain clearly but be short and sweet.. like KISS. (Keep it short and Simple)
If you have two or more comments make it known in the beginning. Like I have three comments to make. This keeps the artist alert to be awake till the end of the comments. Knowing that there is more to come.

3) Have a proper rationale as to why that thing is not appealing to you, and what you think is wrong. Its not OK to just say, I Dont like it. You have to say, I don't like it because xxxxxxxxxxx.

As an artist taking critiques:
1) SMILE throughout the Q/A . (often referred to as the critique section)

2) Appreciate the critics first, and only then put forward your argument, whether you agree or do not agree to that critique given to you. If your thoughts behind an artwork are not being put forward to a critic, go back to that artwork, reference it and state what you are trying to say. Opinions do change once things are made more clear.

In the end, its the artist's call. Picasso did not change his style just because some critiques thought it was crap!

Remember .. critiquing is most of the times THOUGHT TO BE a negative action. But not always is... I have attended presentations where the condition was that you are not allowed to make a negative comment! thats interesting.. isn't it!

Experience Design : Drinking Tea!

2007-11-20T20:21:00.000-08:00

One of the things that I really miss from India is the presence of small shops along side a street. The concept of a market is completely different as compared to here. The one reason why the streets look barren here are the absence of these shops.
The experience of going through different shops, finding about different prices and discounts is something that often I miss. Bargaining, which is perhaps very common in India is unheard of here. Atleast I never think of bargaining in Marsh or Kroger or any store for that matter.

In the Monsoon Wedding there is this one scene where the to-be bride and groom go outside the groom’s college tea stall and ask for tea. That set me nostalgic. How I miss having tea at those stalls. I often wonder, what takes us there? The hygiene levels are not at all commendable, but there is something in the stall, or perhaps in the tea that one gets there that makes the experience so wonderful. This is an experience that cannot be found in any Starbucks, or Barista or any coffee shop. For college students, especially back in India, these small tea stalls, have a multi-purpose fucntionality. They are often used for team meetings, sometimes to get stuff, most of the time to just chit chat over one thing and everything under the sun over glasses after glasses of tea and cigarettes.

So coming back to the point of experience design. What is the element that is creating this experience? Is is the tea in the glass? Is it the tea stall location, which is under a tree often? Is it the behavior of the teamaker? The way he presents the tea? The retro music that plays from the old radio..

Of late there has a been a huge rise in the usage of mobile phones across India. And technology is becoming more and more accessible to this class of people. So the point is, how do we as interaction designers, help in creating the same experience and give to these users, in return of the experience of the drinking of tea in his/her stall?

I believe as an interaction designer, now the focus if more experience of an entire system and not just a product or a interface. Its equally important for the designer to know the conditions in which the design will be working.

Oh and by the way, if you are ever visiting India, do make a trip to these stalls, (along with someone reliable of course) and ask for special tea. I am sure you will cherish the experience!

Teaching Computer Skills

2007-11-04T08:35:00.001-08:00

I come from a remote area in Rural India.
The first internet connection came there just last year. In all there are just five houses that have internet in the whole town. Mine happens to be one of them.
Now that I am here, I had tried to teaching the basic usage of computers to my parents, so that they could be in touch with me over emails! This was seen as a “strategy” to save some cash over the phone. (Its a different thing that we talk on phone more and the phone bills have not really stopped)
I remember trying to teach my parents about the internet, and how it could help them find “ANY” information that they wan, thanks to Google, (which they confused for goggles! :P).

I thus was happy that I had made my parents “Computer Literate” which happens to be more important these days than the normal literacy programs run by the governments back home.

One day, my mom called and said .. Son , we want to see you! and how you look? and if you are well, whether you have put on weight thanks to American cheese.. or lost weight… thanks to the demanding graduate School!
Also, “email” us a recent photograph of yours.

So one fine day i said.. ok.. i will teach how to use SKYPE so that they could see their darling son! I tried for almost 30 minutes to explain them… And yes. u guessed it.. I failed. I could not teach my parents, both of who are doctors, how to use a simple program. This was also because of the fact that we both are on different platforms, XP vs Tiger.

The point is ..does the standard methods of teaching hold good in imparting computer literacy? Do the rules change? What kind of basics are stressed upon here?

I also happen to have a strong interest in rural education and whenever i am home, i spend hours with children from local school, answering their questions, watching them smile, hearing them shout.

One question that a child had heard a new word somewhere and had asked me was “What is a computer?”. I was dumb. I had no answer in which I could explain that to that kid. I tried… The kid believed me.. But I think i had failed.

Today I was reading Neilsen’s post on Life Long Computer Skills in this article http://www.useit.com/alertbox/computer-skills.html

The points mentioned are really interesting and I do see a clear connection in what Marty said in class.

While I found it interesting, i was shocked at the fact that kids in America are taught how to use Excel sheets in grade 3!!!!

What are other people’s thoughts on this?

Madhushaala

2007-10-15T22:23:00.000-07:00

Finally was able to upload my graduation project Online.

Madhushaala is a poem written in Hindi by the Late Harivansh Rai Bacchan, father of Superstar Amitabh Bacchan.

This poem has had a huge influence on my life. My perspective about life has changed immensely.

The style...

2007-10-10T06:59:00.000-07:00

Over the years that I have been shooting... I strive to come close to getting that perfection in my frames...
One thing that I have constantly striven to achieve is a style of my own. Almost all photographers have a unique style of their own and they follow that throughout their life.
Thus Ansel Adams has his own, and so doesHenri Cartier Bresson and also does Steve McCurry . Why I mention these three photographers? Well they happen to be the photographers I admire the most and seek inspiration from. After analyzing many photographers I found that my style tries to follows these photographers. One excels in Nature , the other in street life and the third in Portraits and capturing life.

The irony is that most amateurs like us strive to get it and spend hours, days, months, and at times years and still don't end up having a style of our own.

Over a couple of years I shot mostly people and I was labeled the portrait photographer. This was the time when the works of Steve were the most aspiring to me. Unknowingly in the back of my mind I found myself following their works and trying to emulate their frames in my photographs. After a while I found that I was able to get similar frames even without actually looking at similar frames of Steve. This was specially true of a series on that I had done.

Time moved on, and now I am concentrating on understanding nature more closely... and hence my current focus has shifted from people to nature.
In the mean time, the strive towards attaining a style of own has somewhere fallen behind...
But the goal is not lost.. and I will get back to it ..
soon...
someday soon...

Time Lapsed Photography

2007-10-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Have a look!

Another year passes by...

2007-09-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

Today was three of my friend's birthday. Actually four.
One was my junior at college.
Two are my classmates here and
The fourth was my classmate in 11-12 but we never spoke.

Its another year that has passed by for them .. and pretty soon it will be the same for me.
After every year that passes by I often wonder what all i achieved, what all i lost, what i could have achieved and what all I could have lost, what all I have, what all I could have.... I ts just a small introspection that is done once a year.

I dont say that i end up doing all things that I plan for the next year, but atleast I try. And thats what matters. In the end its all about whether I was "Happy" in the past year. Happiness comes only in bits and happiness will always be followed by sadness in some way. The sooner we get out of this, the better and the more beneficial for us.

There is just so much to explore that I often wished I had done more in the past year... but on the other hand its saying that what I did was perhaps the best for that particular situation!

There is this small poem I wrote for my friends whose birthday it was today and it goes like this with this photograph.

The entire earth is your canvas..
Paint it with the colors of bliss..
Let the shapes confuse you..
Let the shadows amuse you..

Go paint the world green..
Go paint like it has never been...

Go Paint the world with your colors!

Meditation...

2007-09-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

Is it necessary to close eyes to meditate?

Do designers meditate? Do we have our ideas come in complete silence or in a crowded place. At a serene location or at a place buzzing with activities? Can someone meditate in a crowded place? Ok , so basic question.. What is meditation? I am no saint, neither do I evangelize anything on this, but this small piece from the book “The Tibetan book of Living and Dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche, did make lot of sense . As we all embark on our journey towards another projects and another after that, I found this will definitely help.

The purpose of meditation is to awaken us in the sky-like nature of the mind, and to introduce us to that which we really are, our unchanging pure awareness, which underlies the whole of life and death.
In the stillness and silence of meditation, we glimpse and return to that deep inner nature that we have so long ago lost sight of amid the busyness and distractions of our minds. Isn’t it extraordinary that our minds cannot stay long for longer than a few moments without grasping after distraction; they are so restless and preoccupied that sometimes I think that, living in a city in the modern world, we are already like the tormented beings in the intermediate state after death, where the consciousness is said to be agonizingly restless.
We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don’t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions leaving nobody at home.

Meditation, then is the bringing the mind home.

If your mind is able to settle naturally of its own accord, and if you are inspired simply to rest in its pure awareness, then you do not need any method of meditation. In fact it might even be unskillful when you’re in such a state to tray and emply one. However, the vast majority of us find it difficult to arrive at that state straight away.

I feel that meditation has a lot to do with letting things go, being just able to relax, of being to be in a fresh state f mind before starting onto another project. Doing whatever please the soul is perhaps the best way to relax.
In his book Emotional Design, Don Norman mentions, “We have long known that when people are anxious they tend to narrow their thought processes, concentrating upon aspects directly relevant to a problem. This is a useful strategy in escaping from danger, but not in thinking of imaginative new approaches to a problem. Results from experiments show that when people are relaxed and happy, their thought processes expand, becoming more creative, more imaginative.”

Whom do I fear ?

2007-09-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

I just read another blog post and I often ask myself this question. Why do i Fear? And do i fear? Its a natural instinct and everyone faces in in some form or the other at some point in Life. You love someone, there is the fear of loosing him/her. You put in a lot of hard work in something and there is the fear of failing. You aspire to reach a goal and there is the fear of loosing track and reaching somewhere else…You want to learn swimming, but there is the fear of drowning even in three feet of water.. You are out in the woods and fear the trees would eat you up or the cliffs engulf you… There is fear all around.

I remember this description about Fear in one of my favorite book “The life of Pi” by Yann Martel. It is definitely worth pondering over the words here.

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

Oh lord, help me remove all the fear and be a brave soul that I have always been.

The only I fear is you.

Missing you ...

2007-09-03T00:03:00.000-07:00

... i saw the moon
...how beautifully it shown.

... i saw the stars and the sky..
...and wished for the wings to fly..

... i saw the trickling rains..
... i felt the receding pains..

...i saw the flowers blue...
... and just how much i missed you.

Equality...

2007-08-26T21:06:00.001-07:00

August 27th , Home , BLM

...in education ..
and beyond.

Food for thought:
According to the 2001 census, the literacy rate in Bihar was 47.53%. That is way below the national literacy rate of 65.38%.
In the district (Saharsa) that this photograph was taken, the male literacy % was 52.04 and the female was a mere 25.31.

Support Equality in Child education.

..the start of a new journey..

2007-08-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

Its the feeling before the first class...
The day that you have been waiting for all these days...
Of wanting to share your ideas.. and wanting to do what you really want to do..
There would be difference in viewpoints.. and then there would be a difference in opinions..
But in the end its always one's own interest that matters and not what the others want you to believe.
The journey to this place has been exciting and I really want this to continue.
There are people all around who are willing to help... There are friends... old and new..
There are seniors.. and juniors.. and then there are the relatives.. the cousins and the uncles.. and not to forget the faculty and the staff .. who are more like friends and least to be scared of...

All he best in this new journey!

Is my love sleeping?

2007-08-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I went out and did some photography that is near to my heart. To be precise its almost 3 weeks.
The reason would be that I have come to this amazing place, where things are so nice that I dont really know what to shoot. In some time I am sure that I will be doing some fair amount of shooting though.
I often feel that it is important to detach oneself from what really liked doing, for some time. This way one is able to associate oneself more with that thing of liking and as a result gets better rewards. This is also essential to avoid getting bored with the thing you like doing the best. Its like saying that when you have a plate of dishes, you should eat the least preferred one first. This way you would finish whats on the plate. As no matter how full you get eating the least preferred stuf, you would always have the stuff that you like. This was also a technique that was applied by my teacher back in Delhi.
Its going to be hectic weeks after weeks starting monday. The teaching will start and then I will also be having my own classes to attend.

I hope that my camera is making the full use of this break and relaxing a lot. I miss her a lot, but its ok. Perhaps i should let her rest. That way I will be able to love her more when I am back using her.

Homesick

2007-08-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

This boy was at a residential school far from his home. The expression caught my attention. And I was reminded of my childhood. His parents are not so rich but they still managed to see that their child gets an education, even if that meant sending him to another place to study. It is heartening to see cases like these but at the same time disheartening to know that there are no good or for that matter schools in so many Villages across Bihar.
I was 5 when I moved out of home to study in a boarding school. perhaps about the same age as this boy who was from a neighbouring village. I remember being in a similar situation .. with there being no schools in my area..

I was 25 when i decided to move to US for further studies and the memories just come back. The similar feelings of leaving home.. the faces of hopeful and proud parents... the wishes of all.

Memories of Childhood..

How Photography Can Make You a Better Designer

2007-08-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

I have often come across this question by many ...
How does being a photographer help in becoming a designer or how does photography relate to the design activities that i do?
I have believed that both are related in some way or the other and that the theory of one does hold good for the other too. The principles of symmetry, balance, harmony and contrast are applicable fully to design as equally as in photography.
I believe in keeping things simple and like to see my photographs and design follow the principle of Simplicity. I feel that each element in my frame are equally responsible for the overall impact of the photograph/design and that they all are coherently involved in creating what one would call a better User Experience.

I recently came across this article where many designers across the world have their say on this very question.
Some excerpts:
"I like to think of design as my bread and butter while photography is the chocolate pudding." -Steph Goralnick, graphic designer.

"What you don't show is even more important than what you do. The mind is fertile territory and it must be left free to imagine and fill in the blanks." -Eric G, architect/interior designer.

Read on more in the link below.

http://jpgmag.com/blog/2007/08/how_photography_can_make_you_a.html

Free Hugs...

2007-08-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

Wow! This is just so superb! I am in love with this song!
**********************************************
I don't mind where you come from
As long as you come to me
I don't like illusions I can't see
Them clearly

I don't care no I wouldn't dare
To fix the twist in you
You've shown me eventually
What you'll do

I don't mind…
I don't care…
As long are you're here

Go ahead tell me you'll leave again
You'll just come back running
Holding your scarred heart in hand
It's all the same
And I'll take you for who you are
If you take me for everything
Do it all over again
It's all the same

Hours slide and days go by
Till you decide to come
And in between it always seems too long
All of a sudden

And I have the skill, yeah I have the will
To breathe you in while I can
However long you stay
Is all that I am

I don't mind…
I don't care…
As long are you're here

Go ahead tell me you'll leave again
You'll just come back running
Holding your scarred heart in hand
It's all the same
And I'll take you for who you are
If you take me for everything
Do it all over again
It's always the same

Wrong or right
Black or white
If I close my eyes
I's all the same

In my life
The compromise
I close my eyes
It's all the same

Go ahead say it you're leaving
You'll just come back running
Holding your scarred heart in hand
It's all the same
And I'll take you for who you are
If you take me for everything
Do it all over again
It's all the same.

Back to School...

2007-08-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

Oh that feeling is back again...
How i longed to be here again...

The noisy classrooms...
The teachers..The good mornings..the tiffins...and the pranks...

Oh I wished to be a student again..

The memories come back fast and slow..
I wish to see the sun just glow...
never should there be darkness...
I see through the window of brightness..

I embark on a new chapter in my life..attending graduate school in US..
I hope to continue on my photography though...

Thanks all for your good wishes.

What a wonderful world...

2007-06-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

This song is truly wonderful. I just love everything about it! One of my favorite songs...
Too good lyrics.. and the way that Louis Armstrong has sung it.. Just beautiful.
Hope you like it too!

Lyrics:
I see trees of green........ red roses too
I see em bloom..... for me and for you
And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue..... clouds of white
Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are also on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do
Theyre really sayin......i love you.

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
Theyll learn much more.....than Ill never know
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world

(instrumental break)

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are there on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do
Theyre really sayin...*spoken*(I ....love....you).

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
*spoken*(you know their gonna learn
A whole lot more than Ill never know)
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself .......what a wonderful world.

Enjoy!

Which Digital Camera Is Best?

2007-06-13T03:17:00.000-07:00

I recently came across this article..

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131098/article.html?tk=nl_dfxcol

Excerpts from the article:
Folks are always asking me, "Which is better, the Nikon or the Canon?" Sometimes it's "should I buy the new Sony or the Olympus?" Occasionally, someone will go all out and ask, "What's the best camera on the market?" or "What's the best camera for action photography?"

Where the author argues about which digital camera is the best.
This is often been a question posed to me also. Many a times we are lured to believing that the higher the megapixel number of the camera, the better it is.
Which i am afraid is not true always. The megapixels factor comes into the picture only when one is looking at really taking big prints of the image or using it at a very high resolution. This factor is hardly been a concern for me since i use a 6.1 MP camera.
I have often believed that its the mind composes the photograph, its the eye that takes a photograph... the camera is just a medium to capture the photograph for future reference.

I have personally seen many photographs that have been taken by the simplest of cameras and still stand out amongst the rest. The reason being a clear thought behind the photograph and the perfectness in the composition and the lightings.

I do however do agree that the using a SLR camera gives you more features and more options at hand. But the only concern is that one has to be strong fundamentally in terms of composition, understanding the light around and the behavior of subjects before actually pressing the shutter release button. I do take photographs with a Digital SLR.

I moved from a Kodak Kb12 -->Yashica MF 10 --> Vivitar 3800N --> Nikon D70s. The journey has been exciting. Each day is a new learning experience and each day the knowledge is added.

I still have not known all the features of my D70s and will perhaps know it someday.
Hopefully then I will be able to take "good" photographs!

Till then I am happy shooting these!

Hampi... a photographer's journey.

2007-06-07T02:44:00.001-07:00

Hampi | North Karnataka | India

Kolkata photostory

2007-06-06T05:59:00.000-07:00

Was trying out a new software.

2007 TED Prize Winner James Nachtway

2007-06-05T22:31:00.001-07:00

This is one of the most inspiring videos that I have seen in a long time!
Very inspiring.. a must watch for every documentary photographer.

To the master...

2007-05-24T04:21:00.000-07:00

I dedicate this blog to the great director Satyajit Ray.. whose movies have inspired me each day.
I recently watched a movie titled "Aparajita". I had watched the "Pather Panchali" and "Charulata" way back in college but at that time I was not much into shooting. It was only when I had got a lot involve din photography and have been lately posting a lot of pictures in the B/W medium that my interest rose.

Every frame of his has had me thinking and has left me spell bound. The simplicity of his frames have been the most powerful element in it.

I could see where my inspiration had come from. I would be thrilled to come even 20% close to what he has achieved in terms of photographic excellence.

I would suggest that to anyone who is really interested in black and white medium and pure unadulterated photography. The purity of the frames are identified by the usage of only human elements. The subtle eye movements the minimalistic frames, the soothing indian classical music in the background.. The entire movie is filled with moments that you would want to see again and again.

A sudden urge to know more about him.. to watch all his films.. and to learn about his thought process has filled me. I am glad its come at the right time. Just when I am togo for my further studies. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise!

Shooting on weekends...

2007-05-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

I switched off my alarm ringing mobile in hope to catch a few extra minutes of sleep... When my eyes finally opened it said 6:10 am!
Jumped out of my bed.. the talk between myself and Vishwaas still reverberating in my ears..."...kal aa rahe ho na... we meet at 6:30 .. same palce.... c u tomorrow then.. good night..."
Hurriedly did my morning rituals.. and rushed to Woody's..our meeting place.. I was there by 6:40... No sign of Mr Vishwaas.. or Ajay... or anyone else who would be joining the shoot.. befuddled; i waited.. hoping that someone would call up.. or someone would drop a msg..
Finally Vishwaas called up at around 7 stating that he would be there in 5 minutes.. Trust me.. i felt that it was the longest 5 minutes that i had experienced!

Reached Kalasipalyam market at around 7:30...Its such a pleasure to ride a bike in the early mornings.. no traffic hassles..
There were no familiar faces in sight...
Wanted to have tea.. ended up having coconut water ... The day was just setting in.. but not in that part of the city.. already buzzing with activities.. the buses from the neighbouring state.. the traffic already at its peak that we wondered what it would be like in the other time of the day..

I had read that the people would be at near the flyover.. was it that the others could be there?
I was just sipping the coconut drink .. when i remembered,, someone was trying to call me when i was driving... dialled the number..
It was Greeshma.. was near the Chandru Bhavan restaurant.... So we had two choices.. myself and Vishwaas walk down.. or ask her to come to our place.. we decided the later.
Our faces lit up seeing the group grow.. now we were three.. good enough to shoot...!
Waited some more time.. dialled some more numbers.. no one turned up.. no one answered the phone.. dropped a msg to Doctor to let people know that we three souls are here.. shooting.. if anyone decided to comeby later...

The Kalasipalyam Market is like no other market that I and maybe Vishwaas or Greeshma has shot before.. the brightly colored walls in the background .. with mostly dark skinned people in the midground the brightly colored vegetables in the foreground.... the scene was perfect for another exciting day of photography... they did make interesting compositions.. the roads by the way were bright too.. And did i mention Spongy? oh yes.. there was a whole layer of leaves and vegetables and fruits and what not underneath our feet... Our only thought that time... Just stay cautious.. and not Slip.. as although we would not be hurt.. we would be badly messed up.... This was going to be one interesting shoot!
The aroma of the market was a bit pungent.. mostly due to what lay beneath... the crowd over there was a bit cautious i would say.. The stares that we got said it all..
It was then that I heard the other two discuss.. are we going to shoot? Is it safe? well .... thats what we were there for... we decided to stay at a place together.. someplace where we could stand together.. which we had a hard time to find... after analysing the situation.. i decided to go first..... i took out my camera.. and started shooting without looking through the view finder.... something that I have lately got interested in.. Perhaps due to the surprise element that comes after the shot and some offbeat compositions!
We decided to stay together..

Every step of ours was greeted by a blurt of questions.. More shouts of Madam... and less of Sir.. perhaps the presence of a female in the group was making a difference.. We then realised that we are going to have a good time shooting... and that was the way it turned out to be...I was missing my 50mm... for the lovely portraits that the makrket provied... We mostly shot portraits.... some also used the wide angles to get some interesting compositions...

At around 9 we decided to call it a day.. headed to breakfast at Kamath .. and then back...

One interesting shoot this was.. The activities in the market was really interesting and I must admit.. it is a market that one could do shoots after shoots..

Lost ...

2007-05-10T06:14:00.000-07:00

Came across this interesting piece from Kabir.

A diamond is lost in the mud;
all are seeking it.
Some go to the East-or to the west,
Wishing to find it.
Is it lost in the river?
Or in the rocks?
Kabir, your servant, appreciates it
for its just value.
He will take away,
warmly sheltered
in a corner of his heart.

Quit my job. Hope to be relieved by end of June.
Just feeling a bit relaxed, but at the same time a bit lost.
So looking up to the almighty.
He has been there always and
I am sure is that at this moment also.

A year of shooting..

2007-05-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today I reached a milestone. Its a small one but pretty large for me when i look back at the days.
last year at this time I had just finished my first shooting with my Nikon D70s. I had just got from camera a couple of weeks ago and had been transferred to Bhubaneshwar on duty.
I remember the 1st of May last year was a Monday and I had ventured out to Kolkata on the extended weekend. And what an amazing trip it was! Unplanned.. Not knowing where to go in Kolkata.
Just outside the railway station I saw this beggar who was just finishing his nap for the night.

I headed to the flower market first and did get some interesting shots there.

There were many firsts. I was on the metro for the first time. Kolkata as a city has always had me spellbound and it was just amazing experience there inspite of the heat.
In my previous blog i had mentioned about the infinite possibilities that the city provides to shoot.
The best part was that there was a couple of shots that i shot from the heart and were well recieved.
I love shooting children and was really thrilled at one moment clicking them,

but at the next moment I was sad at the conditions in which many of these children live and survive.

I just remember each moment of that shoot!

Temporary Darkness...

2007-04-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

i stare at it,
at the darkness that surrounds me,
temporarily cutting away all light i know...
i stare long, long enough till i realize
the wonderful magic i'd been missing all along,
the more i looked,
the more forms i could identify,
forms ready to cast a spell on my soul,
yearning for more,
aspiring me to reach for my goal,
and not be shown down by the sorrow .

When in such darkness,
i find the truth,
I know for sure,
that the brightness will prevail..
and Success for sure I will avail..
and no longer do i fear to dream of reaching the faraway suns..
and no longer i care,
as i embark on a journey to find Happy Horizons.

Selective coloring

2007-04-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

How i wish we could all do it... Selective coloring.
Remove the colors of sorrow in life and fill it only with those colors that give us joy and unending
happiness.
I do remember while interacting with a senior person that Life itself is a Photoshop document. You keep making the actions and the canvas is filled with the events. The only difference is that in Life you do not have the option of Undo (CTRL+Z).

One would argue what are the colors that one can associate happiness with?
Whats a color of happiness in one culture may not be in another. As a designer do we need to be sensitive to such things? Many people say that India is a land of color ! and that its a photographer's paradise. But still we associate the black and white medium to sadness and mourning...
The conception generally is that Joy is present only when there is color. This may be true in most of the cases not all though!

Doing this Selective coloring is really simple.
1) Open the image on Photoshop. This is the 'Background Layer' in the opened document.
2) Copy the image layer onto another layer (this is the "Background Copy layer") so that both the layers are coinciding, and the images are just one below the other.
3) Convert this copy layer into Black and white. Using Image> Adjustment > Gradient Map. ( make sure that the image pallete in the menu toolbar has the colors Black in foreground and White in background.
4) Select the eraser tool and erase those parts of the image which you want in color from the Copied layer. Since the image on the lower layer still has the colored image, the desired effect is easily attained.

I just truly wish that i could do this with Life also!
Enjoy!

Light Painting Workshop

2007-04-09T06:21:00.000-07:00

Recently I had conducted a photography workshop titled "Light painting Workshop" for the fellow employees in my department in the company.
The response was good and we had around 20 enthusiastic people participating.
April 6th 2007 3-4 PM.

What is Light Painting?
Light painting is a technique in which light sources are projected or "painted" in selective areas during the camera exposure. All work is done in camera, no computer manipulation occurs. Exposures can range from 20 seconds upwards to an entire evening to achieve.
Light painting opens up a world of possibilities that are not available in the world of near-instant exposure. For example, for infinite depth of field, simply keep refocusing the camera as you light parts of the subject that are at different distances from the lens. To make just a portion of the subject diffuse, put a stocking over the lens while you're painting that part.

The interesting part was that many of the folks had not handled a SLR camera ever. So the workshop also involved giving insights into the way the Bulb mode in the camera functions.

The whole team was divided into two and each team had one Torch, a colored cellophene paper as their props. Each teams were provided a Digital SLR set on a tripod. The idea was to unleash the creativity and also put on the thinking caps and come up with interesting themes for the paintings.

The themes were pretty interesting with people doing the Matrix, Bharatnatyam Dance, the Symbol Om, other body postures etc. Here are some of the shots that were taken from the participants of the workshop.

Know your Soul..

2007-04-05T00:55:00.000-07:00

I have always read that of the three things that a human being is composed of; namely the body, mind and the soul, and it is the Soul that should be pleased the most. Only then can the other two remain happy. If the soul is happy, the others are bound to be happy. It is perhaps the reason why the happiness in children are most explained. Having the freedom to do what they please and also do things they like.
"Know your soul" is what the gurus keep saying. So thats what I have been trying to do in the past few days... knowing myself better... and it has been helping me in taking decisions.

So this is what i did... one day.. or rather one night!

I had this strong urge of going for a long drive on my bike... convinced my roommate to accompany me and then we were speeding on the National Highway # 7 that connects Bangalore to Chennai in a short while.
The initial plan was to drive, take a few shots of the sunset and be back in an hour's time.
The weather was nice.. and the breeze blowing on my face on the speeding bike just added to the pleasure.
Though could not capture the sunrise, owing to the clouds that played spoilsport, we decided to extend our drive and what a good decision that was!
Decided to hit Hosur, have a cup of coffee and come back.

Once we reached Hosur, we decided to roam the bylanes of the city and get a feel and smell of a small city. In the yonder we spotted a hill atop which was a temple while doing so. And at that moment the only thought that came to our mind simultaneously was to go there!

The Chandrachoodeshwar temple climb was steep and glad that we had a bike to take us there!
And man.. what a sight from that hill!
The city below just beginning to rest for the night...only to wake up to another busy day the next..

And with the number of lights that one could spot.. the skies felt lonely. It appeared that the world had turned upside down and I was seeing stars on the ground rather than the sky!

It's very rare that I don't carry my camera along to the places i visit. Thus there too i had to take some shots of the breathtaking views below.
So i tried some long exposure shots.
Some may wonder how i did this without a tripod... the rocks and the trees served as a perfect tripod to me and i made the full use of it!

Hosur City in the Yonder at Night

The entrance to the Chandrachoodeshwar Temple, outskirts of Hosur.

Hosur at Night

Light streaks across the road

Hoping to make more such trips in the near future!

What is loneliness?

2007-03-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

"The worst loneliness is when, you are not able to be comfortable with yourself" - Mark Twain.

Loneliness is an emotional state in which a person experiences a powerful feeling of emptiness and isolation. Loneliness is more than just the feeling of wanting company or wanting to do something with another person. Loneliness is a feeling of being cut off, disconnected from, and alienated towards, other people.

Loneliness is not the same as being alone. Everyone has times when they are alone through circumstances or choice. Being alone can be experienced as positive, pleasurable, and emotionally refreshing if it is under the individual's control. Solitude is the state of being alone and secluded from other people, and often implies having made a conscious choice to be alone. Loneliness is therefore unwilling solitude.

Kolkata is incomplete without...

2007-03-15T02:26:00.000-07:00

The trams

A photographer's paradise... One place where one can never get tired of shooting! Its a wonder as to how long will these trams remain in function! They are very much in function and is jam packed at times! Even though its slow, one wonders what makes it the preferred mode of transport for the hundreds of people daily..

The Hand Pulled Rickshaws

These hand pulled rickshaws have been the face of Kolkata for long... the very sight of this reminds one of the novel City of Joy... Of late the government has issued an order to ban these hand pulled rickshaws. There are a group of people who are against this mainly for the reason that it will cause mass unemployment... currently there are around 10 thousand such rickshaw pullers there... Some also feel that this is actually a good thing in the crowded city of Kolkata and a welcome thing from the pollution that has been a characteristic of the city.

The street children

There are so many children like these on the streets of Kolkata... they are indeed nice as subjects to shoot and perhaps the most easily available.. but after a while they start to haunt you.. the poverty.. the conditions in which they live... they things they do .. like begging.. looking for food.. not knowing when their next meals would come from.. or perhaps just sleep on the pavements.. hoping for a better tomorrow...

The footpath dwellers

The number of families stranded on the footpaths of Kolkata is just uncountable... There are always so many of them on the streets.. and it appears that their drawing , study, bed room are all on the footpath. The number of such families keep increasing due to people flocking to the city from nearby towns, villages and states.

The earners of the footpath

On the footpath, its their office. They sit there whole day.. wait for customers.. eye each person passing by .. and then leave for the day.. to come back the next day....

The Yellow Taxis

This is one thing that you can never miss in Kolkata. They are everywhere...! The Ambassadors taxis! One of the most comfortable vehicles to travel by! And with the FM radio on full swing, no ride across the city seems to be boring!

The Tea with the daily News

When was the last time you actually saw the newspapers on the walls for a community... when was the last time you actually sat with friends at a chai stall reading and discussing about the latest news... politics.. cricket.. unions..

The Howrah Bridge

The symbol of Old Kolkata...

The Street side Chowmein and Roll stalls

Its a wonder as to how the stomach never gets spoilt! These stalls are there at almost all areas of the city! Oh BTW the rolls and Chowmeins and the chicken chillies here are very tasty and cheap too!

The Victoria Memorial

In houses one of the largest painting exhibitions of the Indian History with artifacts from the historical India. The architecture is indeed marvelous and amazing!

And above all.. Cricket!

Where else but in Kolkata! The Cricket fever is always at a high here! No matter how the country's team performs... the streets have always been and will be a playground to millions!

Well.. This is one place where I could go on and on shooting.. and run out of films/ memory but never out of subjects!
An ancient city with a touch of modernity! I just love the place!
I have more pictures at this location My Kolkata Pictures

Do comment on the pics! I look forward to your comments and feedback!

Shooting birds

2007-01-17T00:32:00.000-08:00

This is one thing that i have always wanted to try, but somehow it never materialized...
Had my friend's Sigma 70-300mm, f4-5.6 lens with me... and my Nikon D70s with me..
Finally managed to go to this Rangantittu Bird Sanctuary near Mysore and shot a few shots of birds. Mainly Egrets, Painted Storks and Spoonbills.

These birds happen to be one of the most difficult subjects to shoot..
I wish i had a better lens to take better pictures.. but i still feel that the pics have come out good for a first timer!

Here are some shots from the shoot

The challenge is to click at the right moment.... get the compositions right..
since everything is against the favorable conditions..
The boat is moving.. the birds are flying.. and the light keeps getting lesser and lesser.. every second.. therefore its really a challenge to shoot on the fly....
Moreover with the low end lenses not giving much of an aperture setting.. u have to be really stable.. even the slight shake gets noticed and the picture get blurred..

Live upto the challenge!
Just getting some variety in my work!

Comments welcome!

Keep Smiling

2006-12-25T01:01:00.000-08:00

Smile: A facial expression characterized by turning up the corners of the mouth; usually shows pleasure or amusement.

Celebrating christmas with Smiles all around. Wishing all my friends and well wishers a very Merry Christmas and a fruitful new year ahead.

“You haven't lost your smile at all, it's right under your nose. You just forgot it was there.”

“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”

“Smile, even if it's a sad smile, because sadder than a sad smile is the sadness of not knowing how to smile.”

Currently doing a series of High Key images for a wallpaper series on Smile.
Here's shown above is a sample of the same.
Comments welcome.

Venture into Fashion and Glamour Photography

2006-12-21T21:35:00.000-08:00

I have always want to do some Fashion photography. Have always been in love with glamour.. though its a different story that I myself don't do much of it.
A venture into this domain was always round the corner. So i did get a chance to do some Fashion show shoots and grabbed the opportunity..!

These shots were shot at a Prasad Bidappa and Hemant Trivedi Show at the Bangalore Habba held on 10th December at palace Grounds.
Well the first impression.. Man its tough to shoot during live shows!

Am now on the lookout for shooting glamour...This will mainly be studio or set shots .. mostly trying to understand the human form.

Any models interested please contact me.

Shooting on Indian Streets

2006-12-03T18:51:00.000-08:00

Its been over a year since i started shooting on Indian Streets. The gamut of subjects that i come across makes it all the more interesting... and thus trying out indoor photography has taken a backseat. I am a big fan of Nature and hence I shoot almost 99% of my shots with Natural light.
I am overwhelmed when people ask me how do i go about shooting on the Indian streets!
I can speak only Hindi and English and hence its not really possible for me to speak to the local people on the streets who speak a different language altogether. This is also important keeping in mind that I interact with people from different states and different cultures almost every month.

I go in groups but then the group does not shoot together. We reach a common place in the market and then branch off; each one shooting what they like shooting. I like shooting portraits and hence one would have seen it in my photo stream.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/happyhorizons

However taking that is not easy, as i said i don't speak their language. So if i approach a vendor, and just shoot, they may get offended. So what I do is first I try and adjust to the situation.
Will go there and even without thinking of shooting my main subject, I will shoot around 4-5 snaps of his/her surroundings. It could be flowers, vegetables or just the street ans as abstract as shooting pillars...
By this time the curiosity in my main subject has arisen and they are ready to get shot.
But I still will not take "the" picture that i am thinking of or have in mind. I will then show them the photographs that I have just taken and then will probably point the camera to them. If they agree then they will get alert and their shots don't look candid.
Thus I will shoot them and show them that posed photo of them and pretending to go... while on my way out when their attention is not on me.. but the joy that they have received on seeing photographs on the camera, I will then shoot the photograph that I had pictured in my mind.
It takes time and patience, but 8 out of 10 time i would come back really satisfied! I just follow the instinct and speak the universal language of smile!

Some really nice Candid shots that I took

Have a nice day!

What's a "Good Photograph"?

2006-11-30T19:01:00.000-08:00

Quite often i have been affronted with this question.. What is a good photograph and how does one judge a photograph?
I recently came across this article which i believe summarizes the points involved pretty well.

The following is a list of basic judging and critiquing criteria for photographs, compiled by George Kalem III, Manchester, New Hampshire. The items are given in descending order of importance.

Impact - what you see first; first impression; strong feeling of power; hold your eye.

Creativity - use of imagination; freshness of approach; unusual cropping/use of subject matter; invention, design, feeling and imagination that lifts the work into the realm of art; could be abstract.

Style - part that sets the work apart from others; different but consistent way of seeing; different approach; real, not contrived; experimental; individual.

Composition - good placement of subject; successful arrangement; harmonious proportions; use dynamic symmetry in placing the most important objects; good rhythm in repetition; color, spaces, moods, divisions of photograph.

Print Presentation - does presentation enhance the photograph?; good cropping; good color for matting or mounting; using something dynamic or very traditional; creative mounting.

Color Balance - good technique; good selection of color for subject matter; using very interpretive color (maybe not normal); creative use of color (complementary colors, dark against light, strong against weak)

Center of Interest - dominance of subject matter; grouping of subject and arrangement of objects so one center of interest prevails, subject hold the eye without distractions; mood or misty; strength and definition gives center of interest; secondary subjects don't overpower main subject.

Lighting - good statement of light; good portrait lighting; dynamic lighting pattern of light can enhance, create strong mood.

Subject Matter - outstanding interpretation for the subject matter; good camera angle; good selection of photographic model or object; contrast can be very creative in selection (old and young, warm and cold).

Print Quality - strong contrast; middle tones; good color balance; expressions and artistic lighting; simple statements are strongest; good angle on buildings; backgrounds in harmony with subject matter.

Technique - different technique for subject matter; technique is foundation of photography but knowledge of art principles are very necessary; using creativity and abstraction can help; design brings abstract ideas into concrete form.

Story Telling - complete story within photograph; successful presentation; achievement of purpose; complete meeting at first glance; strong mood or emotion using strong complementary colors next to each other; strong mood builds emotional response challenging your imagination.

Thats a long post! But definitely worth pondering over when I try to look for images that satisfy these criteria. Do let me know what you think.

Stop..Look..Go

2006-11-19T18:28:00.000-08:00

I just realized that I have finished a quarter century of my existence on this planet.
I think its just the right moment to stop.. look at the years past by.. experience it..learn from it..
Dare to look through the window of opportunities.. to the hope that exists..

Hope..

I seek to fly.. I wanna be a free bird...

Freedom..

I wish to conquer all horizons...

Retrospection

2006-11-02T19:29:00.000-08:00

Today I just came back from IIT Guwahati .. I had a short but interesting visit to my alma mater..
There are quite a few changes that have happened.. some for the better and some definitely for the worse... I felt its time for some retrospection...
Also in the meantime I have complete a year and quarter with my job.
Got a new camera with a couple of new lenses. This has made me roam places.
Covered many states across India. Traveled far and wide.
The soul however still seeks for that satisfaction which i see on the children's faces. This is perhaps going to keep me going all my life and I may still land up not finding an answer to it. Thats life i guess!

Retrospection

The looks

2006-10-24T03:22:00.000-07:00

I have been shooting on the streets for quite some time now... I really find it amusing when at the end of the day I see the gamut of expressions that I have managed to capture. Perhaps the most interesting thing is the way the kids stare and look at you... What is it that they are mainly interested in ? The big black object that the unknown person is carrying...

Sometimes they stare...

Sometimes just peep and try to get a look...

and sometimes just dont care...

Some have got used to the fact they are photographed by so many photographers all around the year... some just dont like getting exposed...

Abolish Child labour

2006-09-07T23:50:00.000-07:00

I came across this article today in the Hindu that says that the government has put an imperative to prohibit rastaurants / dhabas / shops etc to emply children below the age of 14.
The article reminded me of the many instances when one has to take services from these young kids.
Be it the railway stations, thebus stands, the hotels, restaurants, the cleaners, the grocery delivery kids etc etc ...

What does one do about the multitude of street children across India who are not employed by any body but tak up selling artifacts at streets, fairs etc..
Of the rag pickers...

There needs to be more work done for sure.

Work Spaces...

2006-08-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

As I sit in my Air conditioned Glass-Pyramid Office space... I reflect upon the work space of the less fortunate ones...of the many unfortunate street children across India who work in restaurants / hotels/ dhabas to earn a living...

My work space (I sit in the Pyramid)

Their Work Space

Have you ever looked into their lives?
Their style of working..
They work in the worst of the conditions... but they still keep going..
Never failing to pass a smile when you smile at them...
They work in the darkest of corners.. in the shabbiest of places...
The only source of light being the window..
Is it a window to their life? A Source of Light into their dark worlds?
Or merely a source of hope.. to someday comeout of the dark world and relish the bright world outside..
When .. when .. when will that happen ??

With not enough shelter.. not enough clothes...many a times they are forced to take shelter in whatever they find...

Shelter

.....I think .. just keep thinking .....

Two worlds..

2006-07-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

In my quest to finding a reason behind their (the street children) happiness i find that there are innumerable reasons for them to be happy .. evne though there may be innumerable+1 reasons for them to be sad..
I as a photographer try to capture their happiness...unlike the myriad photographers around the world who aim at capturing the sufferings... the mishaps.. the dirty environments....

Here's a discussion i was having with a few photographers with respect to an image of mine..
I find it so surprising why the foreigners connect street children with being sad.. being hopeless...
************************************************************************
[Photographer 1]
How can children be so full of joy when they are "in prison" like here? If you want to tell a story by this image which one is it? It's not clear to me.

[My reply to above]
Hi ****** I appreciate it...As a photographer i have failed as i have not been able to bring out what i wanted you to percieve ..There was no story that was meant to be told regardin this pic.. the kids are not in a prison.. just that these kids have so many dreams.. but most of their dreams are just left in dreams and nthing is really achieved.. Thats the thing that I had wanted to show.. Just my two cents on this..Regards

[Photographer 1 replies to me]
Hello,Thank you for your message. We are living in two different worlds. In my world i cannot imagine that children "in a cage" are having so much fun. On the other hand it is just human to have dreams of better worlds in a material or an immaterial way. Thats universal.I looked at a few other photos you made and i must say that there are some very interesting pictures amongst them. See you,Pieter007

[Photographer 2]
I disagree with [photographer 1] ... I think it is a believable story that those who have the least stuff have more hope and look forward to using what they have ... I really like the story told here ... I like the capture of the look of hope in the kids eyes and the colors work ....

I must say .. I was impressed by the way [photographer 2] replied back.. and i find it just fitting to my findings..

One night @ The Commercial Street

2006-06-26T22:46:00.000-07:00

With the desire of exploring some more low light and slow shutter shots; we decided to "Shoot"; the commercial street last saturday.

Reached Woody's at around 5:30 pm and waited for others to join in.The question in our minds were what were we going to shoot!!People there were in plenty, but one wondered if they would get offended at we "shooting" them.It was an exciting shoot as shooting in flower or vegetable market the people are just too happy to pose for you or give a smile. So the challenge was there.We were joined in by a few senior members it was nice interacting with them.

The subjects were varied, with street and people forming majority of t them. There were jewellery, people, roadside vendors, vehicles, kids (my favourite), the beggars, the Bright lights and the awesome sky to choose from!

It was a great exploration! with all shots hand held. The few small altercations and the interactions with the vendors made things really interesting!! :P

Thank God it did not rain!!!

Some snapshots of the shoot:
Psychedelic

Another Face of India

Indian Essence

Locked Dreams..

2006-06-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

Dreams..
Of making it big..
Of surviving..
Of being happy..
Of remaining loyal and faithful to family..
Of a better tomorrow..

What does it take??

With barely a meal a day...
The smile remains..

The hope loiters..
Hard work...?
Dedication in what one does...?
Faith ?

Too many questions..
What do they do?
What do they become?
The innumerable street children across India...
The homeless...

.
..
....
the answers haunts the soul..

...there I was; spending some time with them.

2006-06-19T20:37:00.000-07:00

What is it that connects me so much with these street kids...?
I am game to go and spend some time with them any time...
their smiles makes me forget my sorrows... the situations that i have landed myself in seems futile...

it gives me hope to survive... and survive smilingly ... taking each day as it comes...
without worries...
a stranger to them i am .. and they to me...
one line that i recent read..
"If everyone is a stranger, then everyone is free" this line in the article makes so much sense...
Isn't that what the world today is becoming..full of strangers??
people disowning families...
forgetting relationships... just to FREE...
and hence becoming a stranger to all...and above all a Stranger to Oneself...

Am I also ?
Yes I would say...
running away from the situation is no way to handle the situation...

Help me o lord...
Show me the light...

Lemme be like the street kids...
Carefree.. Happy.. Satisfied..

Time

2006-06-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

How time flies by...

I arrived here in Bangalore just exactly a year ago..
Landed here at the so called Silicon Valley of India..
The land of opportunities in India..

How the year has been.. ??
Full of anguish...
Some joy..
Some pain..
Lost Hope...
Old Dreams shattered..New ones built...
Broke for a while...
Hope re-ignited... Passion rebuilt..

I am...

2006-06-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

I am the horizon..
the nearer to me you come.. the farther i go...
catch me not...

I shoot..
Come close to me..
and I will shoot..

Bare foot...
on the sands of time..
i walk into myself..

walking...
in hope of a better tomorrow...

Photoshoot of NRN

2006-05-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

Not many times does one get to meet an idol .. or better still shake hands with them..
but this one happened just yesterday ..
I was invited/asked to do a photoshoot during an interview that NRN was giving..!
I must say .. i was simply thrilled at listening to him...

The down to earth personality that NRN our boss is made me realize one thing for sure...
Dream!! The world is waiting with its arms open to listen to your ideas...provided that you stick to the values and the honesty and hardwork in whatever one does..
A small shoot.. but definitely enough to leave impressions.. that will take a good time to fade away...

In love with Flowers

2006-05-24T05:43:00.000-07:00

The freshness that these flowers emit are a welcome sight anytime!

Child Relief and You

2006-05-23T06:05:00.000-07:00

Just recently with these discussions about this reservations and all.. there was a nice thing that i came across..
This was one of my friend contributing some part of his basic salary as a donation to CRY ( Child relief and You) .. I did feel a bit ashamed at not having done something similar..
and will probably will do it for sure in the near future..

However.. my connection with the children goes back long.. probably right from the day i started photographing...
The look on the kids faces, their innocence, their carefree laughter just fills my heart with joy...

They have become a favourite subject of shooting for me...

The expressions that these kids give simply amazing and at many times they do touch the heart and makes you want to do something for them...

Who doesn't want a Happily married life...

2006-05-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

Leading a happily married life....

Red color significance in Indian marriages.... do u picturise a marriage without this?
do u picturise an indian wedding ceremony without the color red cloth?? or do you visualise a Indian marriage without the Bangles??

Bangles a necessary paraphenelia of the married women in India...

remember the familiar sight in yester year movies when the "indian" bride would invariably break her "red" bangles at the news of the death of the husband followed by a shreik "nahiiiiiiiiii...."

************************************************************************************

Adieu East India.. Will be back soon!!

2006-05-19T04:49:00.000-07:00

I write this .. on my last day in Bhubaneshwar on this current...
Sometimes i wonder if I will ever be back to this place.. but i have to be here... someday soon.. as I will be definitely be going to the Konark and Puri temples again.
Currently had a chance to go to Kolkata and i simply was amazed at the photographic opportunities that the place provides.

The Victoria memorial at Sunset...An architectural marvel!!!

Its been a great one month here...but at the same time it also fills the heart with grief seeing the poverty around...
I covered some parts of West Bengal and also roamed the areas in and around Bhubaneshwar. Wish I could spend more time with the people here and the kids on the streets.. Orissa being one of the poverty struck state with the natural wrath troubling it all times of the year.. the cyclones, the drought, the floods are really a sorrow site to witness.

3 Kalis and a Shiva!

I will be back Orissa and West bengal!

Express Yourself

2006-05-18T03:02:00.000-07:00

Laugh!!

Tease!!

Scare!!

or

Blush!!

But,
EXPRESS YOURSELF!!!

All over India before I turn 30

2006-04-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

With dreams of joining Lonely Planet or National Geographic sometime in my life i took this rather challenging job of roaming all around India before I turn 30.
Now thats a tough call...
Tough I say because India as one may say is so diverse? And how does one know when they have travelled wide and far across India? After all what comprises of India?
The metros only? or the towns and villages included?
Having gone around south ( Done with Karnataka, TamilNadu, Kerela ) and the East (Bihar, WB, Assam, NE, Sikkim, Orissa) of India...
Me just dying to head Northwards (J&K, Himachal, Punjab, Haryana) and the West ( Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra) ...
Wish me luck..!

Divine Presence

2006-02-08T06:13:00.000-08:00

Just yesterday.. or was it today.. i read an article in the TOI in the speaking tree section if i remember well saying that there was this guy who had a dream about god inviting him to dinner the next day. Thus he goes for dinner without informing anyone where he is going and to meet whom; at the predecided hotel and waits and waits from 8 PM onwards. However God does not turn up and his uncle does. So finally feeling very low at not having met God he tells everything to his dad and his dad explains about the omnipresent God.

The day i shifted to my new house that was in August 2005... I was awestruck with this coconut groove that was there just in front...If there was one thing that i always wanted to do with this groove was this.. take a picture with the sun rays..

Every Morning during the winters I would wake up and see this sight just outside my house...thinking that ok.. tomorrow I am going to take "the picture" and the very sight would fill me enthusiasm...days passed... so did weeks.. untill i realised that the days will pass by and I may have to wait another year for this to re-happen...So finally one fine morning.. with intentions of finishing the loaded roll in my Vivitar .. i shot a couple if these shots...and i could not help but Thank the lord for his presence in the snap...!

Probably this was God's way on entering my heart which did seem as complicated as the coconut groove that lay there.

And this was just in front of my house in Bangalore!!
Its really sad that I have to relocate to some other locality and the one thing that I am gonna miss about my current house is this.

The world as I see it

2005-12-21T04:53:00.000-08:00

Following is an essay that I came across while surfing the net... made an interesting read...
***************************************
The world as I see it - Albert Einstein
"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...
"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.
"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
**************************************

Wonder how much of it is actually true even in my case. I have been reading the similar thoughts in the book "Five people you meet in heaven.." and the question keeps strinking my mind... and the thoughts start to play crazy games in my mind... wonder when I will find an answer to these questions...
Philosophy... spirituality... there has to be a common platform for all.. some say all philiosophy is spirituality and some vice versa... which to go with ?? the mind flickers from one end to the other... in search of the perfect answer...

Ten Rules for Being Human

2005-12-15T19:29:00.000-08:00

Just stumbled across this article...!
Wonder how much of it we follow!!
**************************
Ten Rules for Being Human by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."

4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."

7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

Darjeeling memories...

2005-12-15T01:12:00.000-08:00

The following piece is a advice to anyone who is planning to visit Darjeeling.
********************************************************
If u reach Bagdogra by 2 pm you can go and hire a taxi and reach Darjeeling the same day.
It takes around 3 hours by taxi from Bagdogra. Try avoiding traveling on the hills in the evenings and the night especially in the month of February as there is always thick fog and the visibility is not very good. The drivers are real experts though.
If u leave from Bagdogra in the morning u can leave by around 7 am. This way you will get enough time to visit some places in Darjeeling the same day.

Is Darjeeling hotels are easy to find and u can find them in almost all gullies. Hovever for your trip to be more exotic I would suggest this.

Staying in Darjeeling.
Try finding a hotel from whose windows you can get a clear view of the mighty Himalayas. The sunrise over the Kanchenjungha mountains is simply splendid and what can be a better way to start holiday morning with the picturesque view of the mighty mountains. Therefore the very first question you should ask a person when you reach the reception is whether the window gives a view of the mountains? Our dormitory used to have such a view and lemme tell you … right from 4 in the morning to 7 in the morning there is a very unique thing that one gets to witness. Its this .. in the moonlight you can see the mountains in the yellowish color and as the morning makes it way into our lives you will find the color change from yellow to purple to red to orange to golden to white…!!
It leaves you mesmerized and the beauty thrilled. Hotels near “The Mall” are nice and good. So u can try that. There were no five star hotels there till we were there so I don’t know if one has come up recently.

Places to go.
There are quite a few places that you would want to go to depending on what excites you.
You will not find discotheques or pubs .., but what you will get is your full of Nature…
And it’s the best thing to enjoy there…

You can go to the main points namely the
Botanical Garden ( it has a huge and awesome collection of Orchids and the flora of the Himalayas )
The Zoo (There are some nice species there.. The Himalayan Bear, Pandas, Snow Leopards, Siberian Tigers to name a few)
Make sure you visit the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. Here u can get the actual view of the paraphernalia that were used by Tenzing Norway in his Everest Expedition. This place also has an indoor rock climbing place where you can try your hands.
If you want to try rock climbing or rock rappling on the real rocks then you can try them at the Tenzing Rock and Gombu Rock.

U can also go to the Rock Garden and a Ganga Maiya park which is quite beautiful as it in the valley between pine trees...very picturesque environment. There are regular taxis that take you there. U go to the base of the hills so it’s a nice drive with tea gardens on the hill slopes.
On the way you might as well go and see inside the tea factory and get urself surrounded by tea leaves in the plantations… with ladies plucking the tea leaves.
Of course when you come back … do get some of the world famous Darjeeling tea… Nathmull’s is a good place to buy the right choice of tea. Very aromatic and sure to please ur senses…

When you go towards Northpoint you will come to the Rope-way to a tea estate below... It’s a wonderful ride as it takes you over the tea gardens… and it’s a beautiful experience…
Of course... just beside the ropeway is my School St Joseph’s College, North Point. If you happen then do get some snaps of my alma mater and send them over to me...

Inside and around Darjeeling there are other attractions like the Batasia Loop, just before the Ghoom Railway Station . If you have hired a taxi from Bagdogra, one can stop over and have a look at the amazing omega shaped railway track that the toy train takes on its way to Darjeeling. You also get a very pleasant view of the mighty mountains from here.

If the toy train is running still you can take a ride on it and imagine yourself like Saif Ali Khan in Parineeta!!!

Thupten Sangag Choling (Dali) and Yiga - Choling(Ghoom) - the Buddhist monasteries of Bhutan Busty and the Japanese Peace Pagoda are also nice places to visit.

Inside Darjeeling the best way to travel is on foot. Checking out the local cuisines and the Local handicrafts. There is a huge Tibetan community there who sell some really nice handicrafts. The momos are a delicacy there and you will find them almost everywhere.

Is you want to do shopping the best place is the Chowrasta and the Mahakal Market. U can even go to the Chowrasta for a evening walk or a horse ride. The Oxford book store and the Amigoz restaurant at the Chowrasta are impressive. There are a lot of foreign goods that are available there on the streets and in the shops…

While going towards the Chowrasta comes an old hotel by the name Glenary’s where you get one of the best Bakery stuff. A hot cup of coffee in the cafeteria there, on a cold February day overlooking the Himalayas pure bliss!!!! If you want to try burgers and hotdogs try some at the Keventer’s.

From the Chowrasta there is a way that goes to the North point (the place of the ropeway and my school ) that is around 2.5 kms and the Zoo, the Mountaineering Institute come in the way. Therefore I suggest to walk this small distance.

The taxi wallahs do charge exorbitant rates especially for tourists.
Darjeeling is not so big a town, and one can cover it by foot.

If you have a spare day after roaming the places in Darjeeling you can go for White Water Rafting in the Teesta river. The drive down to the river is around 2 hours through pine forests and Tea gardens. And the water of the mountain river is chilly but its fun…! I had gone there some 3 years ago and it was an awesome experience…!

Although it has been quite a while since I went to Darjeeling but the memories still is afresh and will be there all life long.

The other option that most tourists do is to hire a guide and they take you to some 5 or 6 points and say that’s it all is there in Darjeeling; which I don’t quite agree.

If you have any doubt ever in your stay in Darjeeling, Contact the DGHC (Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council) offices that is situated at quite a few places there. They will be able to guide you.

If you need anything else .. Just feel free to bug me .. I will answer it if I can!!!

living on the edge....

2005-12-06T18:34:00.000-08:00

...For the past few days I have been down.. really down ..
depression..
frustation..
anger..
regret ...
Have landed myself in a horrendous situation.. a situation where one feels like just running away...far away from the crowd.. far away from everyone...and just be with yourself...

Have been reading "the five people you meet in Heaven" by Mitch Albom.
Some excerpts from it...
"No life is a waste...The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone..."
"It is because the human spirits knows, deep down that lives intersect. That death does not take someone... it just misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed"

The book is a nice small cute book.. with some nice insights into domains that we are unaware of...
Its a story of a person named Eddie who dies on his 83rd birthday in trying to save a small girl...
So in one way.. the book starts with a person dying and his new birth in heaven. Interesting read...

Set me thinking....
In the mean time... I am seeing my dreams being shattered...of not being able to do what the heart desires... What does one choose...Its a difficult situation this one... and I have absolutely no clue of how to get out of it ...seems like am trapped deep in the dark forest ... waiting for that one ray of light to set things going...

The question that arises is till when.. till when should one wait...

Finished "Chasing the Monsoon" and "The Class"...
Went to the book fair and got a couple of new books .. "The Sound of paper" and "The IITians"

My Camera finally got repaired.. so thats a bit of joy in the bleak life that I am currently experiencing..
Had gone to do some volunteering work as a Photographer for an NGO called "iVolunteer"
The dream of a Digital SLR however still seems distant...
The confusion a Nikon D70S and a Canon 20D is still lingering !

in a mess...

2005-12-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

I have made this mess myself...
and it seems have to stick in it..
nothing doing about it..
lekin mess kya hai yeh batoge
having to do something u dont like ..
and not being able to do what u like.
what do u do ..
when u see all your dreams wiped out in a ziffy..
and suddenly you are made to realise that
all that u dreamt/ are dreaming is something illusional
and that there can never be a steady effort to see you trying to attain that goal

..so here I am..
stuck up in a rather good place..
with good people..
but still cribbing..
getting ready to face the harsh realities...
of doing this same thing for all time of life..
and having to part with my dreams for once and for all..
with no more enthusiasm for life..
and no more passion for doing anything..

loosing faith in myself..
the thing that has kept me going ..
the confidence that I had seems to be draining away
with each and every passing moment..
the expectations of the entire society
being thrown down the cliff in order to satisfy one person..

What do you do ?
run away or face it?
start something that you hated doing ...
start indulging yourself in doing things that you once loathed...

Try to forget everything and start afresh...
What is the solution??
Where does principles fit in...??
All for one person??
Is it worth it?