Kathakali in Singapore

I couldn't believe it when my friend called me yesterday and asked if I want to Photograph Kathakali.
Kathakali ? Right here in Singapore? It is a rare event even in it's motherland Kerala, let alone Singapore.

But this one was for real. Looks like someone started resurrecting the old and forgotten to bring it to the homesick audiences across the globe. Thanks to the people who is behind all this. It is very refreshing to experience what we thought we lost somewhere in the past. Here is a proof that we didn't loose everything in our journey.
The show was performed by Mudra Cultural Society at Chong Pang Comunity Club in Singapore.















I went 3 hours early to catch them doing their make up. I really liked the whole thing, right from the make-up to the show. Click here for more photos from the show

In-case if you haven't seen one before, here is a video clip from the show, to give you an idea on how it really was.

Firework Abstracts

Like in every year, there was a firework show last night at Vivocity. Since I had no energy to go there and wait, I skipped it as usual. I live about 2 kilometers away from Vivocity. So when I heard the familiar series bursts at around 9pm, I came out of my apartment to see if I can see it. Well I could, but not close enough to get good shot, not in such a way that I can fill the frame with the shot, not in the way that I liked it because It was a view from a distance.



Even though there is not much scope for photography from such a distance, I took my camera to cure the itch in my fingers. While aiming at the faraway fireworks I thought of abstracts. Tried moving the camera in some patterns while the shutter is open, so that I can fill the frame with just the fireworks. I guess that worked to an extent and I liked what I got.



So when odds are against a concrete shot, try abstract.

For more abstract shots see my abstract gallary

Problems with Red

Shooting Red flowers always gave me problems. Most of the time, what I get out of the camera is a bleeding blotchy red. At first I was thinking that it could be a problem with my display calibration, but the problem remained even after I calibrated my display with an "Eye One Display 2" calibrator. I searched the internet and also read few books on colour management to find a possible solution but failed find a very satisfying one. Even though I couldn't get a straightforward solution I could conclude what my problem might be and one possible work around as follows.

The DSLR sees everything in monochrome. It is the 3 sensors, one for each primary color that are making it to reproduce the colours in the scene. Each sensor has one filter in front of it, which filters away other colours and pass in only the primary colour that it is meant to record. So the Red, Green and Blue are recorded separately by three different sensors and later combined in the camera software to reproduce the colour. The problem here is that the sensor has different sensitivities for each colour wavelength and also the response graph is not linear. Camera manufacturers may makeup for that either in the filters they use or in the software, but still there will be an imbalance in the way each colour is recorded.

The problem with the Red here is manifold

1. The red might be getting clipped in the luminance channel.
2. The red may be over saturated.
3. Our display colour space or the monitor is insufficient to show the color information that the file has.

In the first case if you look at the colour histogram in the camera you will see that the red is moving past the right end of the X-axis and getting clipped there while the green and blue are well within range. In the second case you see the red is shooting up on the Y-axis and getting clipped there (not shown in the figure). In the third case if you take a printout of the file, it might show all the details that you are not able to see in the monitor. Most of the time printers can reproduce what your monitors can't. You will notice this if you print the RAW file from Lightroom directly.

The photo of the Red Ginger Flower that is shown above is the result of a bit of post processing. The original is as shown on the left below. As you can see the red is bleeding. The photo shown on the right-side below is the result of the saturation adjustment in Lightroom.






















The best way to get these flowers properly is to check histogram while shooting and if the red is getting clipped then under-expose by one stop or so to get the details. Then adjust the saturation of each colour separately in Lightroom or what ever software that is used for post processing. It is very easy to do that in LR because we can directly select the area in the photo where we want to reduce the saturation and that will automatically bring down the saturation of the associated colours also. To do this just click on the small circle below the Hue tab on the left side of the "HSL/Color/Grayscale" panel while the the Luminance tab is selected and then click and drag down on the respective area in the photo. You can see the respective colour sliders moving to the left side. Do this in both Saturation and Luminance tab, till you are happy with the results. Though it lost a bit of colour after reducing the saturation the resulting photo has more details in it. This technique works well for some photos and not as much for others. At the end it's a compromise and that's exactly why camera makers don't include this kind logic in their camera. They leave it to us to tweak it according to our taste.

The histogram that we see in the Camera is a JPEG histogram. It doesn't consider the possible dynamic range hiding in the RAW data. So do not trust your histogram completely. If you compare, you see there is a difference between what the histogram in the Camera is showing and what Adobe Lightroom is showing. Sometimes what shows as clipped and lost in the camera histogram is not so when it comes to LR.

The stuff that goes behind reproducing colour is more complex than it looks, and it is made even more complex by the manufacturers adopting to different standards. My problem with shooting red is not completely solved yet. As the time goes by, I hope manufacturer will come up with better devices to handle these issues. Till then I will be working-around it.

By the way I am not a digital imaging expert. I am just trying to put pieces together from what ever I have read and experienced so far. Your suggestions and corrections are much appreciated.

Catching the Moon

When kids refuse to eat, parents take them outside and and show Ambili maman (moon) and promise that they will catch that moon for them if they eat. Even though our parents never kept this promise, we all ate like that and grew big. Big enough to try it on our kids. 3 years back when I pulled the same trick on my son, I didn't know that I would be able to keep it, and I did it in my own way yesterday.

I went out last night with my son, taking along with me my rarely used 500 mm Tamron lens and a tripod to give a try at shooting Moon. Even though this lens is not sufficient to reach the moon, (you will need a telescope) I could get a not-so-bad image of the moon, thanks to the pixel power of Canon 5D MK2.

I would like to shoot the moon again with a tele converter attached to the lens to make it 1000 mm and I hope that it will have more details, but for the time being my son is happy with what we got.

( For a larger view of the image, Click Here )

Giving it up

For the first time in my life I shaved my head today. At the salon I was a bit nervous while watching my hair falling off ,leaving a shining Motte. I saw a smile waking up on the hairdresser's face as I was loosing the final strands of my hair and that reminded me of the embarrassment that I am going to face when I get back home.

If you ask me the reason why I did it, I will blame it on the dandruff or the summer heat, but the main reason was that I wanted to be a Motte at least once in my life. So long I did not have the courage to do that. I still do not know where I got the courage but I couldn't believe it even at the very moment that I was getting it done.

Why do we need hair? Long back in school, biology teacher told us that it is to protect our skin, but I don't really believe it because of the following reasons

• Men have beard, why not women? don't they want to protect their face? If ever Women's Lib comes to know about this vulnerability, they will sue God for sure.
• We start having hair in the wilderness along the geography of our body only in our teens. Does that mean kids do not need protection in those odd places? You must be kidding!
• One of my neighbor is completely bald for past 30-years and I do not see any problem with his scalp. It is as shiny as ever and you will need a polarizer filter when you photograph him to reduce reflection.

I believe that the fact that we are having hair has to do with the aesthetic aspects of our body including the human chemistry.

Why do we always worry about losing our hair?

Most of us including me are very particular about the way we look. We do not gain anything in particular if we look really good or lose anything if we look awkward, unless off-course if we are working in the entertainment industry, yet for some unknown reason we want to impress the people around us by looking good and by doing what they expect us to do. That is what is holding us from doing something as simple as shaving our head.

A Sannyasin normally shave his head as part of giving up his material life. Sannyasins renounce all the external beauties to concentrate on their inner-self. They do not worry about what others think about them. They do not have time to appreciate someone else's beauty too. For them beauty is just a distraction. But the modern Sannyasins you see nowadays do not give up their hair, as they have other things in mind and also a lot things to worry about.

My wife had a problem in registering my new face. She sometimes stare at me and takes a while to recall that it is her own newly shaved husband. I myself had a problem recognizing me at times. At a shopping complex when I saw a remotely familiar face looking at me, I smiled back and almost said a "hello" before it struck me that it is my own reflection in the mirror.

Apart from these little funny inconveniences, sporting a shaven head has it advantages too. Taking a bath was never easier and I don't need to comb my hair any more. No need to worry about the hair-fall as there is no hair to fall

Why don't you too try it out today? After-all, there is nothing to lose other than the hair itself. If at all you face any problems, I promise you that it will grow back in just 3 weeks. Money-back guaranteed.

Be A Motte, Be Happy

Happy Vishu

One year has gone so fast and again it is Vishu today. A festival in Kerala that I used to look forward to more than any other festivals back in those school days. It was the fireworks that kept me waiting for it the entire year. Firecrackers every where in different sizes, shapes and colours. The ones that role on the ground and those small rockets that shoot up at the sky. The bomb-shaped ones that explodes so loudly to remind you the location of your eardrums once in a while. Many more exciting verities such as the flowerpots, fire wheels and sparklers.

When the winter is over and harvesting is finished, the konna trees (golden shower trees) start to bloom and we would know that Vishu is around the corner. Then small shops selling fire crackers spring up everywhere. Those shops held my fascination so much that I knew about all types of products they have. I even experimented with mixing the powder and making my own stuff. Sitting here in Singapore on a day like this thinking of my options to celebrate a Vishu the way I used to, I end up reminiscing my childhood.... Sweet pain of nostalgia.

Early morning at around 4 AM Mom comes to wake me up, blind fold me with her fragile hands and walk me to the pooja room where the Vishukkani is ready. In front of the Kani she would take her hands off. After staring at that blinding light for sometime I start seeing things. A Ramayana book ,some raw rice, a fresh linen cloth, a golden cucumber, few betel leaves, arecanut , a vaalkannaadi ( metal mirror) , a bunch of konna flowers, some coins and a pair of halved coconuts filled with coconut oil and burning cotton wicks dipped in it. All this arranged in a big otturuli (a bronze vessel ) and beside that a Nilavilakku (a bell metal lamp) with five wicks glowing around it. This Vishukkani is a wish list that marks the start our astrological new year. It screams Wish you a happy and prosperous new year.

After seeing the Vishukkani we rush to open the firecracker boxes. My sisters wouldn't touch the explosive items, they are happy with the sparklers. After finishing my stock of fireworks I would start listening to the sound of the crackers from neighborhood. A few explosions from Kuttan's house then some loud thuds from Srini's place followed by a series of bombings from the Chandran family. Always there would be continuous background score from all the far away families. Sometimes they compete. When Kuttan once set off a chain of crackers that lasted 2 minutes , I had to join two such chains to make it last 4 minutes. Sometimes there would be crackers going off from all the families together reaching a crescendo. Boom, vroom, bang and finally there is the smell of sulphur everywhere. It's bliss.

For many of them the most attractive thing about Vishu is the Kynettam. The elder ones in the family distribute money to the younger ones. It's our pocket money for the next few months.

In Singapore we didn't have the luxury of celebrating a Vishu like the way we used to. Yet we could pull together a small version of it. A Malayalee shop in Little India gave most of the ingredients including the Konna flowers. We had an old stock of sparklers too. A Kani in the late morning , a nice lunch at noon, some sparklers in the evening and we declared Vishu as celebrated.

Now we are looking forward to getting together in Kerala for the next Vishu.

Switching to MAC

My Windows laptop was taking forever to boot up and once booted, logging in was another long wait. The the Virus scanner starts afterward and before I can start working on it , a frustrating half an hour would have passed. So I decided to upgrade to something more powerful and reliable. That's when I thought of an iMAC.

Since I am a unix guy by profession, I had an inclination to unix based O/S than the messy windows. The timing was right. Apple released it's new range of iMACs and it was available at the IT SHOW in Singapore (March 12 -14). I went and ordered one - a 24 inch iMAC.

After using it for a while now I feel home with it. OS X is a decent OS. Simple and efficient. Setting it up was so easy and It recognized my wireless network with out any configuration.

The first thing I tried on it was "Time machine", the backup software that comes with OS X Leopard. It is the easiest backup software I have ever seen and quite efficient too. Almost nothing to configure to enable the backup. When you attach a new external Harddisk OS X will ask you if you want to use it for "Time machine". Say yes and your backup is configured. After that it will back up the files every hour. Restoring is also very easy. Click on the "Time machine" and it will hide all other open windows and bring up a new window where you can select the date of the backup that you want to restore and then search in the "Finder to locate the file you want restored. Click restore and if the file already exists at the destination it prompts you to give a new name for the restored file. How cool !!! probably this will take care of all my backup requirements.

So far I am happy with my purchase and still exploring the possibilities of OS X Leopard.