Into The Wild & Secret Valley

From Into The Wild with i10

Amol Waghmare (we call him "Waghya") bought his brand new Hyundai i10. We decided to hunt for the so called "Secret Lake". Birjoo (FF - Federer fan), Nikhil ("Chalo" personality) joined. It was an early morning trip. We started around 5AM. As expected we took a wrong turn after Mulshi lake and ended up at a dead end. Road construction workers told us there is no lake nearby. We still rode ahead after coming back at the wrong turn point. It took us another hour before we could locate the lake. It turned out to be on the same route which I already knew. It was the same route where i did my Ladakh test ride. Well, I didn't find the lake as beautiful as it was described to me. May be we reached too late. Anyways, we actually discovered another spot.

There is a deadly deep valley very close to that lake. You have to see it to believe. The trip was not a waste at all. After doing some photo shooting. My friend "Waghya" - big fan of Into The Wild - told me how he wanted to have a photo similar to Alex's on the movie poster.

It would have been really tough to stop buses passing by so we decided to use i10. A location just before Mulshi lake was ideal to get blue sky in the background. I got the shot. Worked for some time in Photoshop, and this is what I could do. Not a perfect shot but I guess it should make him happy :)

From Into The Wild with i10

Biker Nirvana at Pawana Backwaters

I had visited Pawana Dam quite a few number of times but never had a chance to see it in the evening. With the Tung fort standing right in the center of the whole landscape, I had always thought that Sunset would be worth a repeat visit.

Weather was fantastic on Saturday as light cloud cover was accompanying sunshine making the breeze cooler. One friend called up for the ride, 2 more joined in and we were off to Pawana by 4.30 PM.

We could see some parachutes floating slowly in the evening sky as we climbed to the top of a hill on the southern side of the Pawna Dam. Pawana dam backwaters is in the middle of a hilly area with some nice wind making it as a favorite place for para gliders. We took our bikes off the road to reach our usual vista point. The sun was well above the hills meaning we had reached there in time. I managed to take some snaps as the sky was increasingly getting filled with shades of orange and those floating parachuted were adding even more drama.



After the sunset, sky filled with even more colors making an ideal condition for silhouette shots. I couldn't use tripod because only low angle shots were providing enough sky in the photograph. For these shots I had to literally lay on the ground with camera in hand. Available shutter speed was also not so high and I didn't want increase ISO by much. Many shots were blurred but these came out exactly as I wanted. One more wish fulfilled!



See the whole Pawana set on Flickr.

Panning Life

Capt. Nandu Chitnis first introduced me to this technique. It is quite simple to understand but requires a lot of patience and control to get a satisfactory shot. On the first day of our experiment at Lavasa, I could find only one worthwhile picture in my first 100 clicks. Came to know that a professional motor sport photographer has to click 300-400 for every good shot he takes. Being a beginner, it seemed nice to have better success ratio but later I realized that it is the difference between my and his in definition of "one good shot"! :)

While Nandu has clicked a lot of bikers, he always wanted to have one of his own pan shot. And who else could better help him ;). Fortunately, one of my click on our second shoot at NDA road got explored! on flickr!. Sounds like a good omen! Here are some more interesting ones that we clicked during this panning experiment.

The Dock on Fire

This Sunday, finally, we found time to grab our BN calendar. Pravin's wife accompanied us for the first time and we happended to reach Rucha's place in San Francisco by evening. We had a chat over quick round of tea and delicious homemade pizza. Then come Sai's suggestion - a walk to Marina near golden gate bridge. My decision to carry camera and the new 10-22mm lens, even though no shoot was planned, turned out to be wise.



This particular photo was an accident. I changed the shutter speed from 15 to 30 sec and mistakenly moved the camera thinking it was still 30!

Here is the pic without fire.

Lighthouse Blues

Its early Saturday morning and I see a missed call from Pravin. I callback. Plan is a dusk photoshoot near Santa Cruz, Joy is also coming. How can I say no?

Flickr Set