No thank you

Yesterday we went to a friends house for lunch. I dozed off on the couch in the middle of a conversation and while it is a big "no no" they understood that yours truly had a hectic work week and they let me stay in that state till the snoring got to disturb the conversation (or so I am told). One is lucky to have friends who will let you doze off like that...

Then my friend tells me when I wake up

"When I saw your head after your dozed off, realized that you are balding rapidly. Two months ago at my sons birthday party you had more hair!"

Me : I am not the same guy from 15 years ago when we met.. things are different. Age has caught up with me..or at least my hair. Well, don't care anymore!

Then we come home.. kids go to a birthday party and when they come home the little one does her usual lovey dovey cozying up with daddy who happens to be wearing his white baniyan only and says

"Daddy you have more hair in your kashki(armpit) than your head! Wish you could take some of that hair and put it on your head!"

Me : No thanks. Why are you so worried about my hair when I myself am not?

LO : I am used to seeing you with hair and now it is going away. How come thatha(grandpa) has more hair than you?

Me : Well Thatha was a difficult man to deal with when he was my age. So all the people who dealt with Thatha lost their hair from the stress. That is how Thatha still has his hair and I don't.

Now of course grandma hears this and is caught between defending her hubby or her son. So I quickly divert the conversation to the one topic that is worse than Thatha's hair.. my own hair.

It is only a question of time before I am going to start growing it long and put a pony tail with what is left on what will be called the "ring of fire" a narrow band that goes from ear to ear on the back which is the only area with any reasonable density of hair.

It is just hair..instead of saying "Please let it grow!" telling my inner self something different.

It is just hair..Let it go Sundar.. Let it go!

Call me obsessive..

It has been a hectic week at work but the good news is the cold is gone in spite of skipping Yoga the entire week. Finally managed to go back to Yoga today after an entire week of long distance driving, 18 hour work days and beating a cold.

The kids have recovered completely as well and that is good. 

In the middle of all this, dedicated 90 minutes every night to parallel process work and Photoshop to get 70+ HDR images of the Joshua Tree National Park trip. That was 210+ images condensed into 70 images. Most of the images are a composite of 3 images (a normal, over exposed and underexposed image) to grab component details in bright areas from underexposed image and details in the dark areas from the overexposed image!

Are you with me so far? No?

See the picture below the way PHotoshop does it. I give it three images with -2, 0 and +2 eV and it does the initial superposition. Then I get to work with the slider bars to create the right image, i.e., the way I thought my eye saw it at that time!

Do you see how the sky details are clear in the darker picture, the tree details are clearer in the brighter picture and they have to be ported over into the picture in the middle? 

That way you can see it the way your eye sees it!

Finally the photos are done and have been uploaded into two Galleries. One is the HDR Gallery and the other one is the people photos. 

Have not found a way to get comments into the individual photos yet. Will work on that tomorrow!

The little one who sits on my lap during the editing process encourages me to go overboard on the synthetic HDR look. That is why the previous post had an artificial look for the trees. Guess she wants every thing to look like Dr. Seuss land in Universal studios.. psychedelic colors, too much vibrance, over saturation, less detail.. etc.

Daddy is more into photorealistic HDR. So most of the snaps fall into that category!

Hope all of you enjoy the Photos.

Joshua Trees

We spent the long weekend at Joshua Tree National Park. Why would the weary Narayanan family to to a desert in 100 degree heat? Well, we have seen most of the other parks and the one park which is new to the family and to the parents is this one. 

So off we went and spent almost two full days there. The flora and fauna in this place is unique and so are the rock formations. 

Walking around Joshua Tree national park is like walking around Jurassic park! So surreal that the Photoshop HDR pluggin actually does justice to what it really looks like. 

The tips of the cactus glow in the morning and evening sunlight. The rocks and boulders seem to have been picked and placed to perfection. The Joshua trees seem planted in formation and do not look very natural. There is an eerie lifelessness and the occasional movement of a desert squirrel or lizard that reminds you of the hidden life in this unique desert forest. 

We made it to a few hikes and made it back in one piece without the parents or kids going through any major events! That was a big plus. 

There are more than 500 photos (all combo photos in HDR) which need a lot of processing time. After driving for a good 8 hours this is what I could manage to post tonight as a sample.. 

Yes! Did shoot the caterpillar in with exposure bracketing using a feature that comes in handy on the Manfrotto tripod (widen the legs to make the camera come real close to the ground.. you can even put the camera upside down on this tripod) using the 50mm Macro lens. The real caterpillar is 1 inch long! The kids spotted a whole bunch of caterpillars on the ground when we went to take photos at one of the scenic spots and it turned into a HDR attempt.. 

Seriously, this is how this place really looks as the sun casts shadows on the trees and cactus on the floor. The rocks actually look like this as well in the setting sun! 

More to come in the next few days as more editing time is found.

We had a great time with the parents, kids and cousins. The trip was not without its nervous and lucky moments. I got a cactus ball between my heel and sandals and it was a painful experience extracting the thorns out. We very near ran out of gas and did not notice trying to chase the sun as it set through the mountain ranges and barely made it out to the park entrance before the reserve ran out! 

Strongly recommend this place to photo enthusiasts. Please do try to go in April when the oasis have water in them and the cactus and Joshua trees are blooming!