Rain means water droplets..

Took this shot this afternoon after a heavy drizzle..

Very happy with the end result. When it is drizzling and the sky is overcast, the colors come alive!

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High key Yogagraphy..

For those who asked, there is no Photoshopping or background editing involved in those yoga photos in the previous post..

The trick was in setting it up and taking trial shots with Jr. and then switching places where all she had to do was click.

The no flash photos are shown here. . .

Dhotis (Veshti's) make amazing and easy backgrounds. Foam boards which come with TV packaging make great reflectors. A diffuse flash bounced on the opposite wall makes the background white enough that you can make it look like the subject is floating in space..

Easy to set up if you want great portrait shots of kids.. It is also easier to get them to pose. They think they are going into some kind of den when they walk into this all white setup!

Of course, if you have done this too many times, your kids will act like .......

THIS !

My local friends, we should try a portrait shoot at our place with the kids.. planning to construct a giant Dhotibox (lightbox equivalent) in our living room next weekend.

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Negative tide day

Friends notified us that yesterday was "negative tide day" and a rare occurrence that coincided with sunset time!

The weather was perfect and there were more than 2000 people in Half moon bay to walk the tide pools and show kids the little critters that are found in the few hours where the water recedes far back (things which were 6 feet underwater come to within a foot of water levels during a 2 hour period)..

We walked 2+ miles with the kids on slippery sea weed, kelp, gravel and barnacle covered rocks to see some amazing little ecosystems!

Here are some photographs..

The pelicans and gulls were enjoying the critters as well, albeit differently! They celebrated tide pool day as early dinner day!

When the water receded there was a 500 feet stretch of sand that was almost a marsh glistening in the sunlight..

Snails and mollusks everywhere in all kinds of colors, trying to hide under the rocks, but not fast enough.

This fish was well camouflaged in a very small tide pool. An older experienced tide pooler?! pointed it out to us as we were asking him "there is nothing there! what are you photographing?"

What looks like an ugly bag is a living creature which shrinks to the touch and supports a zillion other organisms that are piggy back riding on it..

We saw four different starfish, a chocolate brown starfish..

A red and gray softer starfish (softer to touch)..

An orange starfish

and a pink starfish

We also saw some sea anemones that were simply gorgeous!

We made our way back out of the tidepools towards the rocks to enjoy what was definitely  one of our best sunsets to date!

When you have a whole bunch of kids on a beach all excited and hyper the energy level of the place is up a few notches and that adds to the experience.

Just wished that the tripod which was in the van had also been lugged around to capture the colors post sunset. Another day, another time!

This is the best I could get with a high ISO sin tripod.. It was too wet and slushy with kids and dogs running around to place camera on anything and try a timer shot.

The time spent at the beach and the tide pools was worth it. It took us an extra hour to get to the beach because of traffic and we also spent one hour getting out of the parking lot to the freeway! So if you do plan on doing this next year (or the next negative tide day), get there at least two hours before the low tide starts and make dinner plans in one of those beach side restaurants and drive home with less traffic later.

If you have kids in the under ten age group, the tide walk is strongly recommended!

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Three days in Paradise

The pictures say it all..

Unique flora and fauna, waterfalls galore, pristine beaches, lava everywhere, active volcano within sight...

A long weekend well spent with the family of 10 people including a personalized snorkeling trip at Kealakekua bay (gateway to the gods)!

This trip will be cherished for a long time to come. We celebrated Jr. and the FIL's birthday in Hawaii's big island.

More later. For now it is time to catch up on the routine!

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Pumpkinography continues..

This year the Halloween weekend has been a hectic affair with Grandma traveling, an exam week at Tamil school and Jr. having her annual day function at her music school.

Got together with the cousins for a couple of hours as the weekend got to a close and carved a pumpkin.

It has become an annual event since BB started this as a tradition of sorts in 2005!

This years effort..

and the lineup photo!

Work is hectic but interesting and the busy schedules have kept me from doing a lot of things like Blog at least twice a week, call family members on phone more regularly, take more photographs, check out DPS etc. In a few weeks will get used to the new routines and will get back to these missed things more frequently.

One thing though that has changed is that I am not checking facebook status anymore. So much that Facebook sent me an email saying "Hi Sundar, here is some activity you may have missed on facebook"... Guess when you are trying to find time to go take a bio break every now and then, Facebook activity is not going to be on the priority list!

On the bright side, back in the Yoga room. Was sitting out a few poses the first few classes post surgery, but yesterday tried the entire sequence. There is great progress with the hand. Has been one month since the surgery as of today and managed a locust pose today without any pain!

The festival and birthday season is here and things seem to be on the right track. What more can one ask for?

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