The post Yoga Rose.. and a recreated photo

Ever since I started picking up a rose after doing Yoga on Fathers day (Bikram Yoga San Jose gives out roses to dads on Fathers day when they come out of class.. I love this!), we started taking a picture in our yard with the kids and me.

Did this in 2015 and 2016. Last year Jr. was in India with my parents and I was travelling and we missed this.

This year we were all under one roof. Happy that I did not fly out this Sunday and my trip was pushed out. 

Given busy schedules my MIL rushed out and we took the picture on my iPhone. Last two attempts she took the picture on my Canon 5D. (you can tell the difference)

you can see how fast the little one is growing.. those old clothes are all gone. 

It was fun to do this.. 

Jr. barely fits into that jeans and net shirt. My hair still ebbs and flows.. the good thing is that we are all doing well and are having fun.

A big thanks to BYSJ for the nice thought. Keep them coming!

Holi hai!

This year we knew that if we did celebrate, we would go to Foster city for a repeat of last years celebration. This event is very well organized with a nice DJ, great music and a lively crowd. We were not sure if the weather would co-operate. Even though it was raining in Cupertino when we left, it was nice and pleasant in Foster City. 

A sea of people celbrating and dancing together to music.. 

and the colors! 

did I say "sea of people" ?

although I pulled off this shot, the idea to make her lie down on the floor full of color was not mine. It was her friend Anika's. Any good photographer should always copy compositional ideas.. with pride! 

I have one child that co-operates for photos and another one that does not even show up to the celebration because she is going through a "photo-aversion" phase of life! It was heart breaking for me to miss the little one this Holi. Will wait for her to turn around.. 

My 5D Mark ii saw its toughest time today in the park, with fine color powder flying everywhere.. some kid threw powder directly into my lens. Still managed a lot of good pictures for the day (some of which will be shared in the events FB page). Spent a good 30 minutes cleaning the camera after coming home. It was a good thing that the 70-200 never even came out of the bag. Took everything with the 24-105mm.

The iPhone never came out, but wanted to try the portrait mode and got this shot in the parking lot.

Not happy with the way it defined the edge to cut portrait. Had a shot with the 5D that Jr. took just before we exit the park..

Used refine edge (to be fair spent 20 minutes on this image) but the end result is way better than the iPhoneX. Apple has to improve on the Refine edge algorithm to get smooth edges for shirts and sharp edges for hair sticking out..

There is no family portrait this year, but there is always next year...

Wishing everyone a happy Holi! May your life be filled with joy and color!

If it does not serve you, let it go!

Heard this once too often at the beginning of yoga class. Take a deep breath, and when you exale let go of anything that does not serve you... all your negative thoughts.. etc. etc. 

I let go of shaving, just to see if I could grow a beard for 40 days. Given there was no travel in February thanks to Chinese New Year, thought I could pull it off.

In spite of looking a good 20 years older than San, was still smiling.. 

It was coming along nicely to a point where I could pass for "his holiness, the beanie baba".. even the family got used to it as did my co-workers. 

Then the beard turned into a nightmare. It started itching. You try doing a 90 minute yoga class or stay in a 3 hour meeting without constantly trying to scratch your beard ! This beard experiment has been tried before, but never did it reach this critical point..

Then I heard the teacher say yet again "if it does not serve you, let it go!" and decided to let the beard go..

As usual, there are before and after pictures for this social experiment.. 

The itching and scratcing is now over! Funny thing was that after I shaved, it took the kids sometime to even realize the change. 

There is a blatant double standard in the house. I am supposed to notice tiny changes in them.. (refer to this post) and they can't notice the change in the photos above for a good 30 mintues!