Bolt

Please allow me to present another of my favourite shots from around the apartment. For me, the charm of the shot lies in the excellent exposure I somehow managed to get. Through the gap between the door and the frame you can look at the terrace, which was where I found the clips waiting to be shot. I had just bought a gray card for correct light metering, and this was the first shot to benefit from it. If you are a serious photography enthusiast and like still life or portrait photography, I strongly recommend investing in a gray card.

PS. Nope, no almonds yet. :(

The old reliables

Since I am not eating the required amount of almonds these days, and since I am not listening to Mozart at all (two things which are supposed to make you smarter), my intelligence has gone back to its natural below average state. Therefore, no new posts.

Q. What does a blogger do when he can not come up with new material?
A. He posts pictures.

Senthil, in one of those rare moments showcasing his infinite wisdom, suggested that I upload the shot of shoes, so that people can compare it with the shot of laces and decide which one they like more. So, here it is, my other decent shot from the insomniac series.

PS. Normal service will be resumed the moment I get paid for this month and buy some almonds.

Will I? Won't I? I don't know...

I have been reading a lot about the Blank Noise Project lately. Makes me think. Really think hard...

I think about why men harass women so much, and why it is such a pervasive phenomenon in India, and whether it would ever change, and what it would take for the change to be brought about. I don't think I know the answers to these questions.

All I know is that I would like to be able to listen to Gina tell me some day that she really enjoyed her evening walk, and that nobody troubled her, and that no middle aged men followed her around on motorbikes.

I would like not to have to hear how a man threatened to hit her when she confronted him about some lewd comments he passed. On frigging M G Road! I would like to hear that people actually came to her defence.

I would like not to have to read about Hemangini Gupta wishing about being able to enjoy walking through the streets of Indian cities.

But the thing I would really like to be able to do is to stand up and help a woman who needs help, if and when the time comes. I would like not to have to get into a situation like that as I don't condone violence and also because I am very short tempered, but I know it is inevitable. I hope that I am able to do what I want to be able to do when the time comes, and not chicken out.

If you, dear reader, would also like to make a change, you could. Help someone in need of help. Somone else may help someone you care for, in turn. It will definitely not solve the problem, but it will be a start.

Old apartment

Here's a shot from my old apartment. I was quite fond of it. It was a small two room apartment, with a balcony that was always home to a huge honeybee hive. I tried to remove it twice, but ended up killing a lot of bees in the process, so decided to let it be.

I lived in the apartment for almost four years and six months. It was very interesting to see how I built up a collection of belongings over the years. I started with a suitcase full of clothes and a box full of books. By the end of my stay there, I had a whole house full of stuff. The picture is from the second month of my stay there, when I just had a study table, a rickety old folding chair, and a bicycle. I used to love the bike and used to commute to the office on it very often. It was 10 kms each way, but I had to stop it since Pune traffic is not biker friendly at all. One night, while coming back from the office, a car doing close to 90 kmph went by so close to me that I actually picked up some speed due to the wake. That was probably one of the last times I biked in Pune after dark.

Anyway, when I first bought the bike, I used to haul it up to my apartment every evening. Towards the end of my stay, I used to leave it downstairs, unlocked and waiting to be stolen. It never did, and I finally gave it to the watchman of my apartment complex (the one where I used to live prior to my current residence) because I was sort of sick of it getting punctured every other day.

Still, the bike served me well for all that time. So did the shoes in the shot. They were the first expensive shoes I bought with my own salary and I really used them till they were reduced to a mere protection for the top of my feet.

This shot is very evocative for me. This is a shot of my life when I was an angry young man, restless, drifting, dissatisfied with life. Life then was a complete contrast of what it is today. So was I. Time goes by so slowly, but time can do so much...

Everyday art - II

Here is a picture of a pair of old shoes I used to have. Once, I couldn't sleep at night, so I went out but couldn't find anything interesting to shoot on the streets. When I came back to the apartment and took off my boots, I noticed how beautiful the criss cross pattern of laces looked. I set up the shoes near a table lamp and shot away. This is one of my favourites from the lot.

In and out