Yep!!! Its the crater on top of Mt Rainier

Continuing with my posts on Seattle area.
On the flight back home around late afternoon. A few minutes after take off. Guess what!!! The flight path was over Mt Rainier. I caught a glimpse of the dormant volcanic crater on the mountain. Lucky had my camera in hand to squeeze this shot of the crater. It was so easy sitting in an airplane window seat looking down on this crater from 30000 ft. It takes a great effort to hike up to this crater. It must be worth the effort hope I get to do it some day.

Seattle's view of a Mt Ranier Alpenglow

To most Seattle residents "the mountain" is a part of their natural background . At over 14000 ft Mt Rainier is an imposing feature and a reminder of reach of the awesome volcano to the surrounding metropolitan area.
Given the weather of Seattle and its surrounding areas, clear days are something to cherish for. It is on clear days that one can see the looming mountain appear majestically in the background.

I took a short walk down the space needle towards alaskan way to check out location of victoria clipper ferry to Victoria Canada on pier 69. It was late afternoon right around dusk. Having checked out the area i headed towards Myrtle Edwards Park along the shoreline of the sound and not too far from the pier. Along the rocky shores I had settled down with my camera fitted with a zoom lens and was looking through the view finder to perhaps shoot the port area. I was really lucky to see Mt Rainier catch an alpenglow. Not wanting to waste the opportunity I squeezed a couple of shots before the magic light faded away. Having been to Mt Rainier National Park and the surrounding area one can only admire the mountain in awe. It would give an immense perspective of the power of a volcano, if one were to visit Mt St Helens national park.

Going to the Movies

There was a time when I was quite regular going to the movies. Of late, there are not many movies that pull me into a movie theater. Hence I have settled for the comfort of my home theater. However, there still lingers the irreplaceable charm of going to the movies to watch a movie.
So, whenever I head out to this movie theater in my neighborhood, I stand back and watch the life outside the theater, which could be interesting in itself.
The interesting element of this movie theater is the smokestack on top of the box office with its neon lights accentuating it like glass of soda with a straw sticking out. I exposed this shot for a few seconds to capture the light trails of a few passing cars. If you like this shot dont hesitate to leave your comments.

Houston!! "the autorickshaw" has finally arrived.

Stumbled upon this sight yesterday around Hillcroft area of India town right here in Houston. It is the most common means of conveyance in India. The ubiquitous auto rickshaw.

This vehicle out numbers conventional taxi's in countries such as India. This particular auto rickshaw put a smile on the curious around the location. It was used as a promotion gig by music masala a local radio station in Houston. Bajaj Auto is the leading manufacturer of many falvors of this three wheeled beauty in India.

Contrastingly, it was parked next to a Hummer baring the radio stations Logo. Someone out there definitely has some sense of humor.
The only thing that deterred the general public from spending a lot of time admiring this vehicle was the garishly blaring hindi music enough to put a hole in the ear of any bystanders. Still a few of us braved the experience.

Think about it, if only someone would make this into a four wheeler instead of three it would be a cheaper alternative to the worlds cheapest car the Tata Nano.

Incidentally, this is not the first appearance of an auto rickshaw in Houston. It appears that there is a loyal user of this form of transportation in the city for over an year. As reported on Xnomad's
blog .

If this is fit for James bond in 1983 movie Octopussy, It's surely a chic magnet!!! Its time for auto rickshaw limo to make its appearance some time in the future. Right here in Houston.

Tarmac Watching

It happens to all of us some time or another. we are stuck in the airport and the flight is not scheduled for another 2 hrs. It happened to us at Houston Hobbby airport on this day. If you don't have anything to read or have no one to talk to. you settle down to an entertainment of people watching. I on the other hand am fascinated by life as such on the tarmac. It is more entertaining to watch what goes on there than anything else. On the other hand it is a tough job for the ground crew and the flight crew. I was lucky to have a telephoto lens on my nikon and waited to capture at least one take off or landing. After missing a few landings, I was lucky to shoot a landing. In the meantime I shot anything that moved and out there and the shot above is that of a tractor hauling luggage and the other where one flight is helped by the tug for taxing while another approaches a nearby gate. Pretty soon it was time for us to head towards our gate. In the end, Tarmac watching turned out to be more relaxing than sitting down with a book or talking to some one or watching people.

Foggy Night

Continuing on from yesterday's post this is yet another scene of a foggy night at La Centerra retail center in Katy TX.
This picture is an HDR merge of 5 shots taken at +_1ev +-2 ev and 0ev.
I had the flower pot in the foreground left and the wall to the right illuminated by my car's headlight to add some shine to it. It funny how the street lights have weired flares. It was a chilly night almost drained the juice in the camera battery.

Christmas lighting in HDR

Yeah I know, its a little too late to be posting pictures related to Christmas in Jan. Still better late than never. Not too long ago I stumbled upon the whole phenomenon of HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography. It was a huge discovery for me.
If I were to explain HDR to a layman, I would say with a it comes close to resembling the nuances in shades of light that we see with our naked eyes. Where as a single photograph reproduced by a camera can see a small range of shade.
HDR Photograph is a result of digital post processing using a photo editing software such as photomatix or adobe photoshop cs2 or cs3.
In a nutshell (slightly bigger nutshell, bare with me), The process of producing a HDR image from any conventional camera involves merging a series of pictures shot in different exposures (preferably raw) or using a single raw image saved in different exposures using a photo editing program and merging them using blending modes in any software that supports an HDR merge.
Here is an article that explains how such a merge could be performed using photoshop CS2 or higher. Check out some cool HDR pictures in Trey Ratcliff's site.

To try out my first experiment with shooting a high contrast scene in HDR, I headed to La Centerra a retail shopping center in the quaint neighborhood of Cinco Ranch. Christmas decoration were pretty decent and not overly done. Since it was a cold foggy night there was hardly anybody around.

The two pictures above show the opposite end of the perspective in each. The picture with the tree in the foreground reveals all the lights including the bright light on the bow from a powerful overhead light while revealing the fog in the background. Such a contrast tends to be blown out or underexposed in any conventional photograph.
I shot a total of 5 exposures of each scene above at exposures 0ev +1ev +2ev -1ev -2ev. Merged them in Photoshop CS2 as explained in luminous light website.

Runway in the Valley

This runway does look like a ski ramp from where I shot this picture. It was late summer and I was driving through Telluride CO. Decided to stop and have a quick look see. The free cable car ride from the town of Telluride to the Mountain village was well worth the effort. In between you can get down mid way atop a mountain at a scheduled stop. if you do get off at this stop, You can then absorb the alpine scenery at a local restaurant or hike around or start on one of the many ski trails during winter. We love the place so much and wanted to spend more time around. Guess what, the hotels were all booked and what was available was way beyond our meager budget. The locals said that during ski season this town is packed and the rental real estate is booming and availability scarce.
However, there was plenty to shoot around ( pictures I mean).

Telluride Regional Airport, located only seven miles from the Towns of Telluride and Mountain Village. That late sunset provided some interesting color for me to choose this shot for this post.

Abstract Art In Glass

It has been said that this is one of the most commonly shot subject at the lobby of The Bellagio, Las Vegas NV, besides the "Fountains at Bellagio" in front of the hotel.
This beautiful work of art was created by Dale Chihuly

On a recent visit to Las vegas, I was sitting at the lobby of the Bellagio. When I turned my head up to the ceiling, i intuitively wanted to squeeze a shot or two of the famous glass flowers like most others present there.
Then i wondered, if i could shoot it any different. so I set up my tripod at the lowest spread and adjusted my slr on the ball head so that the lens was parallel to the ceiling and staring at it.
I then fired of a few shots at different apertures to get the well defined edges of the glass in good depth. It was then that it occurred to me to rotate the camera around its
axis during the exposure (about 10 secs) so that the center was in focus while all around would be colorful blurry motion.
You can view the results of both these shots. The final shot that I choose was post processed in photoshop elements with one picture on top of the other using a blending mode that
would not cloud the glass completely yet give it a hint of the spin. This is most definitely an abstract. However, I've been told that it looks colorful on a wall inside the frame.