In and around the house.

Two photos to share from today..

Both show the need for perfection and ideas for improvement..

The first one with the Photography

The second with the subject.. should have been able to hold this pose without moving. Was having Jr. click the shutter button once (had set it to continuous shooting mode with a self timer). The 2 second timer delay kept throwing me off. One thing we don't do in Yoga is open our mouth and talk. That is forbidden in the Yoga room. So it was odd for me to get into the pose and let Jr. know to hit the shutter release. My fingers practically look like they are coming out of the screen simply because we are able to see the detail in the shadow. There was not much editing in this one.. simply merged three images taken in succession!

Both will be improved, starting tomrrow!

My parents really like the way the HDR images are created and sit with me and watch my photoshopping experiments. They have started being vocal critics as well, which is good and bad! 

My mother had the same request as my MIL.. Both were private requests but so identical in choice of words, it is too hilarious not to share.

"You are really amazing at this photo editing thing! Can you not do something to make me look thinner? Your photographs make me look too big. Know that it will only show what is there.. still a guy with your ability has to be able to do something, no?!"

If I quit my day job, trust me, the first thing on my "to do list" is to develop a "Thin Plugin" for Photoshop which selectively takes any shape and converts it to the closest 36-24-36 (if those are still numbers today's women are shooting for!).. May be way off as yours truly is still living in the past...

Here to having grandparents around! It is very precious..

Happy weekend everyone!

More HDR

Two key players in the house were not captured in HDR yesterday.. so they got their chance today during the feeding time. 

San will not pose.. So the plan for tomorrow ? Self Portrait in HDR. Hopefully the Yoga will help me take a deep breath and stay absolutely still.. who knows, maybe go +/- 3 or 4 eV bracketing?!

We saw a gorgeous sunset today with some amazing clouds. Will try to capture that tomorrow. Looks like this weeks pet project to take my mind off things is HDR.

A weekend in Pictures

This weekend saw a lot of activity in spite of me being down Friday and Saturday. 

Everything that happened in and out of the house was a cheerful experience.

We did the Varalakshmi pooja dinner Friday and the whole house was full of people, standing room only at one point. It was great to see the smiling faces in huddled conversations and the kids running around gleefully (if there is such a word).

Then we attended a surprise birthday party for my friend who turned 40. Yes, this year is "no one escapes the big Four O" year for our batch. There are only 4 guys I know from our batch who are waiting to celebrate within the next few months. The cake.. Oh What a cake! We have seen a lot of unique cakes over the years but this cake takes the cake!

Came home for some rest and took my parents to Shoreline park so they could watch the geese, pelicans, etc. and get some sun. It was good to get some fresh air and sit on a park bench and get more grounded with the thought processes. Kind of like going into your hard drive and killing all those threads that are running in the background!

After a long time we skipped Yoga entirely on the weekend. The body needed a lot more water and rebalancing before being confident that there wont be any dizziness once in the room. Sometimes, got to give a break when a break is due!

This morning we went and attended a "Kalyana Utsavam" at a friends house. It is a function where they conduct a marriage ceremony for the god and goddess just like the real wedding ceremony for the bride and groom. It is kind of like the "wedding rehearsal" that people conduct in marriages here which gives a "what to expect when your kids get married" before the actual wedding. The priest did a good job of explaining what was being done in a step by step way, something that more priests need to do to set the context for today's generation so they appreciate the reasoning behind the customs.

My parents enjoyed it thoroughly because they don't get to attend outside functions during their visit here but in India they are going to some function or other on a weekly basis. For me, it was great attending a function after a long time where I was not the one doing the prayer! Sometimes it is good to be in the audience.

Then more rest after some heavy food and off we went to get haircuts, an activity that was postponed by the parents demand that it wait till all the functions were done..

Both the kids now sport short hair. A big help once school starts in a few weeks as we will be going crazy with the post swim class hair dry routine and the early morning "combing" ritual which will take an extra 5 minutes.

Now an eventful weekend comes to a close and we begin yet another busy week for everyone in the family!

Happy Monday, here we come!