Black and white

The girls now have matching black and white dresses (Courtesy of Pondy Bazaar shopping).

We did the usual photo shoot..

Jr. personally requested that these pictures go in the blog, so she can see the pictures after she grows older! Read a recent disturbing article that regular data CD's dont last long. They degrade over 12-15 years.. All of Jr.'s baby photos are already on CD's for the last 6 years. Not a bad idea to put these on blogger, huh?

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Pigeon Point and Gazos Creek

A photoblog of the recent trip to Pigeon point lighthouse and Gazos Creek.

Two more spots on California State Route 1, that made our hearts lighter. Thanks to the cousins for pointing us to the lighthouse!

The kids really enjoyed the walk around the lighthouse, because it was extremely windy. They also loved playing in the creek where the water was warmer than the ocean water just a few feet away. But the tide comes in very fast and before you knew it, we had to make a retreat to the restaurant.

Taking pictures of the lighthouse with the fog definitely requires a tripod, so the pictures shown here are not exactly great. There will be another attempt, hopefully soon.

Also, the stitch shot of Gazos Creek from the parking lot has exposed another weakness of this method. A constant setting for exposure results in an over exposed picture on one side of the ocean and an underexposed picture on the other side. Might possibly need some software trick to adjust the pictures individually before stitching them! You can see the fog rolling in towards us, the creek going into the ocean, the restaurant on the other side of the road, all in one shot. You can even see the lighthouse on the right side, if you squint a little. Just that the light was not captured right across the 20 shots from left to right. Better luck next time, I guess..

Would definitely recommend these places for a day trip, if you are in the bay area.

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Dress up with Bombay

Bombay paati(grandma) taught the girls to play dress up.

This game is always concluded with a photoshoot by daddy.

Here are a couple of good ones..

Gives us a preview of things to come, doesn't it?

A conversation between the little one and Grandma.

LO : You will give all the jewels to me ?
Bombay: Yes da Chellam. After me, I am going to give you all my jewels!
LO : Then dont wear them all the time. Or they will get dirty when you give them to me.
Bombay: !!!!!!!

San is going to have a very tough time when the two grow up. Thank god daddy does not wear jewels and the girls don't care much for electronic equipment.

ps. they have already divvied up grandma and mommy's jewelry.

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The tourguide becomes the tourist ?!

One of the books that stuck to my memory from the college library reading days is "The Stone Leopard" by Collin Forbes. In that book, the line that stood out was "The hunter became the hunted!".

Along similar lines, someday I plan to become a tourist for the very same places I take visiting relatives, in my role as the family tourguide.

San's uncle was here this weekend, after attending a conference in the east coast and on his way back to India.

"Two and a half days in the bay area, maximum coverage!" declared the wife. I took up the challenge and inspite of one of the worst wheezing attacks in recent memory on Friday night, went on to drive to the following places:

The livermore temple (this was not a tourguide thing, just the usual drive and back)
The Mystery spot (my 8th visit to the place, 4th on the tour)
Santa Cruz boardwalk
Route 1 from Santa Cruz to Golden gate bridge with stops on the beaches.. (yes, we ate the packed Tamarind rice and curd rice on the beach, and yes yes, it was delicious, as usual!)
The golden gate bridge (somewhere in the 25-30 range on this vista point)
Crooked street (same thing.. and not once have I actually managed to take in the beauty of this street because as the driver I am always hanging on the steering wheel for dear life on the way up)
The chocolate factory (this, like the temple is just plain fun)
Carmel by the Sea (6th trip)
Monterey Bay aquarium (4th trip)

400 miles of local driving with lots of help from my friends Pseudoephidrine Hydrochloride, Azelastine Hydrochloride, Loratadine and of course Salbuterol who came through and helped me in some tough spots!

There will be some detailed posts with pictures of this hectic travel experience.. but leave you here with the customary stitch shots of the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is one tough place for a merge shot but is also a good candidate for the shot. Even if you have a lens that goes to 18mm, you cannot capture the panorama from the vista point. That said, you need multiple shots.

Let me explain why is it a difficult place for stitch photos. Too many moving things, the water, the boats, yachts, the vehicles on the bridge, not to mention you and the camera (it is very windy at the vista point). You are better off trying this when :

a. there is good visibility

b. there are not that many vehicles on the bridge (at least avoid the huge trucks which move bigtime between your continuous shots)

c. avoid big barges on the water which also move perpendicular to the bridge. If they move parallel to the bridge, it does not matter much.

d. Use a tripod and swivel the camera across

e. The biggest thing I realized...do not do this in AUTO mode.

Go focus on the bridge in auto mode,
find out what the camera thinks is the best aperture and shutter speed,
then go to manual mode,
reduce the aperture by one stop to allow more light in (go to a smaller number),
decrease the shutter speed by one (ie., if auto says do 1/250, then do 1/400th of a second)
and then sweep the camera and shoot in manual mode.

f. Do NOT change the zoom throughout this sweep. That messes things up big time.

g. If you are worried about barelling (when you stitch a photo panorama, you get a barrel shaped composite picture, with the ends becoming short and the center long), shoot with the camera rotated 90 degrees. Take more shots, vertically and stitch them!

Now, hope all that advice works for you. I plan to take my own advice next time (there will definitely be another next time) and do all of the above instead of just some of the above.

ps. Don't try to upload them in blogger with the original size. You will probably get an internal error! Resize and then upload, save yourself some pain.

Now, my dear friends are inviting me to a party. Got to run. Ciao!

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Mt. Shasta and Lassen National Park

Another long weekend. Another drive to a national park.

This time, we went to Mt. Shasta and the Lassen Volcanic park area. It was a really great trip. We went with the cousins and as an added treat, my brother happened to land here the previous week for a business trip and my brother in law drove down from Seattle! We were met a bunch of familiar faces at the hotel where we stayed and the kids thought we were going to a wedding in Shasta!

We pretty much covered a lot of places and saw what we could, given the rain, snow and the hiking trails being closed.

Shasta Dam, Lake Shasta, Burney falls, Mt. Shasta, Turtle bay museum, Sundial Bridge in Redding, The arboretum in Redding, Shasta Caverns (which included a boat ride, bus ride up the mountains, a descent into the caverns and another descent on a mountain wall after we exit the caverns!), the Waterhead of the sacramento river where all the underground water channels come out of the mountain wall (which incidentally is where Evian water is bottled) and the entire loop on Lassen national park!

An amazing trip, with harrowing moments when it suddenly rained, and the rain instantly turned to ice on the just plowed highway at 8000 feet with daddy trying to steer a van full of people around a sharp bend. People started reciting whatever slokas they remembered and many "kalpoorams" will be purchased on the next India trip. Daddy is just praying that no "vendudhals" have been made to some remote deity in India like Hairpinbendkaapaathamman which involve tonsuring his head! These days, you never know!

Without further ado, here are the "stitch shots" made of anything from 6 to 21 photos.

Burney falls, wide, majestic, crystal clear waters, it was really beautiful.

Considering that the images are 30 to 51 MB, blogger is not allowing me to upload those the way they are. The remaining pictures are resized to 3k pixels.

This was taken from a boat, as we crossed the Shasta Lake to see the caverns.

Lake Britton, on route 89 from Burney falls to McCloud. The place had an eerie tranquility to it.

Just past the Summit lake trails on Lassen, a little creek that cuts through a field of snow. Did not venture too close to the creek because we could see the ice was too thin and slippery.

Bunny flat, 6950 feet, as far as the road would take us on Mt. Shasta.

Bumpass Hell, a solitary boulder on a ledge, an amazing view of the snow covered hills and the valley below.

We will definitely visit this place again when the sky is clear and we get some contrast between the sky and the snow.

There are always the pictures of the little ones spicing up the landscape. Those come later!

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