Halloween is here already!
As is now a family custom, we carved pumpkin at the cousins place. The men did one pumpkin and the kids in each family did one by themselves.
Here is our creation for this year.. Drac and a Mummy..
and here is the entire lineup including the skull and moonwalking cat from BB and family!
The kids have to get creative this year for costumes!
I know it is a bit late given that Navarathri came and went almost two weeks ago! Halloween is already here..
This year, yours truly did not make it to all the golus. We visited around 8 golus as a family over the first weekend. The second weekend was interesting this year.
After watching Sadhguru explain things on Youtube over the last few months, decided to go listen to him talk for an entire weekend and go through his meditation class as well. Friday evening and all of Saturday and Sunday went to that. For the first time in as long as I can remember, there was no Saraswati pooja or Vijayadasami pooja in the house. I did get to learn something very important with respect to meditation on Vijayadasami day!
Most of these photos were taken using my iPhone. The quality of pictures suggests that the 4 should be replaced with a 5S!
The doll displays are getting better and better.. you can go through Golu pictures from previous years from some of the same households and you see that 3 steps became 5 and five became seven! A five feet wide step became a 10 feet wide step!
The dolls are also very different from the usual ones. This year we saw some unique sets.
The kids are getting creative with a side "golu" of sorts near the big displays. Just felt bad that I could not visit every golu we were invited to. Next year I should train Jr. or the little one to go take pictures with a point and shoot to cover the golus that I miss!
Next stop.. Deepavali!
It has always been a wish list item : Get a nice photograph of the Milky way..
As it so happened we were out in the woods on saturday at Sugarloaf Ridge State park in a campground. It was a new moon day! The sky was spectacular. There was minimal light pollution.
This was a trip I almost backed out of thanks to the face ache. The kids went on a strike of sorts and forced me to come.
I did have the right lens and settings for this. 70-200L @2.8 and 30 second exposure on a good tripod.. but, was taking the shots at 11PM. Should have done it an hour after sunset to get the entire thing.
There is always a next time. Happy with these shots for a first attempt.
The belt was actually on the other side..
Think a 50mm f1.8 at 30seconds would have given me better results. That lens was in the bag. Don't know why I didn't think of it at that time.
BB took some great shots of the campfire side with airplane trails. Next time we go camping we will not only apply the lessons on "how to prepare for camping?" but also "how to take great milky way photographs?"
On a side note, the tooth is out as of yesterday and right now going through a cocktail of antibiotics and pain killers. Do say a prayer for me so that this thing ends once the gum heals!
Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.