A Tribute to HCL, Organisers and the great JBU enthusiasts...

What a wonderful trip and what a wonderful place with what a wonderful company!

Its my third or probably the fourth time visit to Kodai. But still I could smell the freshness of the places. Kodai never bored me and it never failed my expectations.

It all started with a train journey when myself and Ratheesh boarded the last but one compartment. I quickly identified that the compartment is full of girls. Not even one brave boy(except us). I asked ratheesh to backup, but ratheesh wouldn't budge, he said, it may not be like that and urged me to find two seats. While I was in a hurry to get down, he was actually pushing me forward. I somehow managed to get down with a thinking nudging back of my mind - What the hell, smells like a school camp. We both safely got two seats in boy flooded compartment only to find there is a good mix awaiting us. The Grind started 30 past 8. First it was Balaji if I remember well. The dance movements kick started a train within train, the antakshari, cards, whistles, dances again and what not!

The first site itself was refreshing silvery water fall. The highlight was the wonderful sweet and sour and spicy mango cut in a very peculiar fashion that Anupam San and Chinna San captured them in thier Digi SLRs. Wit my ISO 100 loaded film SLR I had to reserve every shot for those best shots I like most. So didn't have the sophistication to click all those that looked nice!

This one deserved a shot. Set the aperture as much as I could to get a wide macro shot and lengthened the exposure to get the spongy look of the silvery water.

The next shot I composed long lingered in my mind. When I asked my teammates to guess what does it tell them, someone came-up with Adam and Eve, while others made satirical comments, one person was close enough to what I percieved. A young well built man, trying to cover his love girl with his robe from the heavy storm that whirls around them in a no man's land. There is nobody or nowhere they are looking at. Thier intimacy and the need for each other to be together to face the storm told me stories that men and women have travelled together setting pace against dinosoures and judgement days. And here we are, like this statue together seeking help from each other to win the race of Survival of the Fittest.

I used to start my clicks with Ganesha, if there is one in my way and there was. In the drawing room of the first floor, there was this Mr Nice guy carved out of wood.

Instead of settling with a flash, which used to spoil the natural colors and over expose white light, I tried not to shake as much as possible as I had to take this snap indoor with low light. I think I took it with 10 millisecond exposure. As it was a portrait I settled with low aperture in my canon, though there was nothing to blurr in the background.

The next thing that captured my eyes was a beautiful well groomed garden. I took as much as possible, but only from my mobile camera. The pictures were decent, but what one would always miss in the point and shoots is the freedom to select your shot - composition & exposure! And what I hated with the is the fraction of seconds they take before capturing the moment. When I press it I want that moment frozen, not a millisecond before or after! I think this is something that is not possible with any of the point and shoot DigiCams, the DigiSLR has it anyway.

When I had to select the shots between fragile magnanimity of nature and strong reality of humans, I always included innocents, like these. Innocent minds like these, captures peaks. In other words the peaks are there to be captured by these innocents! Its a long wait for the peaks. Peaks are fragile. They dont grow in leaps like these innocents. I always wanted to capture them un-aware, like a professional would. But I never had the patience that those professionals had to choose shoot the only best shots. Niether me, nor the vans that took us all to places around could get our sweet time to stand still and relish these moments of joy the innocents shared with each other when they played with thier only bicycle.

The rest of the journey for the day, I clicked more of fellow men and women than of composing the shots I liked. I think I got carried away by the crowd around. I was never alone after this shot. It was mostly people people people, running around singing, clapping, whistling and enjoying the togetherness.

I wanted to jog around the lake Sunday early morning. With the muscle crumps and the exchaustive camp-fire we had on Saturday night, I decided to settle with a cycling and horse riding, it was then I composed these three shots.

This guy was aware that there is a camera shooting him beside. He was tight, he was not free and he was unable to control his emotions overcoming his otherwise let loose posture. But when I see the picture now, its not that bad as I thought it would be when I compose it.

Hope you would have understood the composition. I kept the hot chocolate in the steps desending down to the lake from the Kodai Boat Club Canteen and lay flat to get the above picture. In the morning the wind was less and I was lucky enough to get this shot. Thanks to suresh who accompanied early morning. It would have been better if I reached this scene an hour earlier, where I could have expected a near to still water with minimum distortion in the reflection of the tower. There is one more I saw amidst mist when we trekked on Sunday. I cannot explain it in words now, neither I could click it as I never had a chance to get the tripod Chinna San had. It was like an antenna stretching out from am english castle rock amidst the strong mist that engulfed it when I was watching it spell bound. I wanted to fly to it as close as possible without disturbing the mist in a chopper and shoot it horizontally with a Nat Geo quality camcorder!!! Phew, I would die for a minute of that shot! To be exact, it was the point where the PWD was constructing the path. The path was thin that the jeep could not pass-by and stopped before that.

The Red jerkin the fisherman wore was so colorful and complemented the whole scene. I took permission from the fishermen and composed the picture. Onething that disturbs my shots is the need to take permission from the subject. This is one reason why I hate to shoot humans. When I had to take permission, the need to capture them un-aware, I mean the need to capture that moment, is far gone from my reach. Afterall I am not working with models, to re-create emotions with snap of my finger. It gives me great pleasure when I can freeze a moment of joy, anger, denial, blush, in-difference...

Following are couple of shots I liked so very much. I dont know why. But I liked them both.

The story is endless. The time is too short. Signing off for today. Vaazhka Vallamudan!!!

(I am not sure, but I'll try to add more, when time permits!)