Old times, how have you been?
I miss you now, and all that you’ve seen.
I know things will never be the same,
I yearn to go back from whence we came.

Many times I turn my gaze to the now,
To all the things that make me feel proud.
None of this is a gift from father to son,
But the only one who asked, has now faded into oblivion.

Legacy is not to be measured in past, present or future tense,
Are lessons I learnt while she was still sitting on the fence.
I thought we were friends, but she only shifted the order of things,
And somewhere in between I forgot my dying kin, and how it all came to this.

Sometimes it is easy to get sold,
To sad stories that are being told, but add to nothing,
To hidden possibilities of replacing old memories with new ones,
And giving up some.
I know in distant lands childhood friends celebrate life in careless laughter,
While I can never claim to have known her, or my father.

I was sitting with her by the stream
Along came drifting a paper boat
Suddenly she remembered him from last night’s dream
And promises in a letter that he wrote

She bid goodbye and crossed the bridge in haste
I didn’t understand why she so suddenly departed
In rage, I wanted to set fire to this place
But the river changed its course and things were sorted

These days I sometimes walk by the stream to reflect on her pride and my prejudice
I think about how she said things would be simple, but yet that wasn’t it
I wonder if it would have been different if even I had made a promise
For I miss the loving and caring; it is but an addictive habit

They broke away in the dead of the night
They returned in the morning light
They covered my eyes when I wasn’t sleeping
They veiled visions of you with heavy breathing

Come, let us  break away too
Let us escape into where we always wanted truth
A house in the hills, a river that softens the despair of memory
I am waiting for the next sunrise to add a new chapter to this story

To be strong, there are walls to every house
To be young, there is rebirth and love
I am young and strong, within and without
You are the love in every battle I fought

I can almost smell the dust
that ‘nowhere’ feeling
A hot sun beating down to the brow
A searching mind dissecting itself

Darkness measured by starlight
Time lived up to in silence
The winds always brought more laughter
The road always lead to revelation

Sometimes the photographs tell a tale
Sometimes the words trace old patterns
Sometimes the gaze shows desire
Reverse the spinning earth and it’s broken phrase

I wonder if I will ever feel the same
The eveness of feeling has long gone
Time now is just a habit
I still yearn for days of moonlight rituals & dusty games

I am fluid and flowing like this recollection
Skipping lifetimes faster than the half-times of the sun
Through the oblivious and blood in a slit vein
Into a dark night like enchanted moonlight
Spreading wildfire one bush a time and blazing

Delusion cannot past this test of awakening
Parallel and directly above the path of my thoughts
Is there any magic where you and I meet tonight
Fleeting moments of awarness drunk in one shot
White and dripping aftermath matching this moonlight

Come, kiss, arouse and stab
We are possessed one limb at a time
Show me the way to let go, to flow
Faster than the blood in my heart already is
My wrist is slit, my craving lit, this ending a pointless habit

I have been really traveling over the past couple of months. It started after I joined my new job. First it was Silent Valley. I took 2 weeks to recover from a 4 day trip. It was like touching my purest and deepest self within and then letting go to come back to this impersonal, mechanical and polluted world. Thats what being in nature, and away from humans generally, does to me. Thats how I felt staying in Kemmanu during my college days and I missed that so much after coming to Bangalore. The fact that I missed city life when I was actually in college is a different story, but the point is, I have lived that life of silence. That silence has enabled me to hear myself, my faintest whispers, the pulsations of the umbical chord to my higher self, the time between the blink of an eye and the spaces between the past, present and future. I have felt so connected that everything these days doesn’t get me any higher than I have been. And Silent Valley was like a mental refresher in drowning within. Within, without….actually makes no difference when you are so surrounded by nature. But that apart, I have really been wandering – and as some might say, living it up.

After Silent Valley, Hampi happened. And that was a totally different trip. Those 200 rupee cottages overlooking the river. The great food, the ruins….those efforts to shoot starry long exposures….all magical and one of its kind. Of course that trip also meant that Sandeep, Rajith, Kien and myself somewhere had the same chromosome in our blood – the one that makes you want to get out of the mundane and feel new places. Many a times I have wondered what kind of escapism it is to always looking around from the eyes of a traveler – distanced from the actual boredom, misery and drudgery of the lives we see through our cameras and by referring to our guide books. Its like the movie The Notebook I watched and felt so much in love with. I know I can never have a house over looking the lake with no one for miles around. I know I can never go on a boat ride with someone I love truly – but its so nice to watch it when projected on a screen – its so nice even though its distant. And this distance is what makes traveling so very appealing. The real distance covered by road v/s the distances between people. Between people you see around you everyday. Everyday – what a boring word. Its like prison. And the prison need not only have four walls. The prison can be because its the same people you see, the same distances that only seem to grow between you and them and the loss of wonder, curiosity, beauty, creativity. Familiarity breeds contempt.

After Hampi, we did couple of small trips – Mysore, Auroville, Jog….and next week I am off to Mumbai. All by myself. And I wonder – compared to my previous trips, whom am I really going to have for company on that trip? I am going to be on my own after a long time. Thats something I haven’t done in ages. Actually thats something I was so comfortable many years ago and which has changed with circumstances over time. Circumstances that make you want, but not get. The chasm of desire to connect that grows deeper. The connection you confuse with other connections….glimpses of which I have had in places like Silent Valley and before that in Kemmanu…The connection and the disconnect lived in one life time….

This desire to connect…this reason for hope…this hope that makes you get out of bed each morning…this pacemaker that ticks an ailing heart and make people confuse things that are with that which is not….these are the malaises of our times…and somewhere what I really need to build immunity against. But oh, time….its not on my side because I procrastinate…and I procrastinate because my eyes really open only when on a trip….rest of the time its just half open….another disease of the times….we have too much electric light…too much caffeine….information overload…and we don’t even notice our lives go overboard…

Ok, I suppose you get the drift.

One day the wind will change and blow away your wonderland
Blue skies will soon be overcast
One day the tide will turn and wash away your castles in the sand
And you’ll find peace ¡­ at last 

Alan Parsons Project – Ignorance Is Bliss

Wow, its been so long since I blogged. And so much has happened meanwhile. Let me summarize (in no particular order):

• I finally built a successful Hackintosh. From wanting a real Mac to building my own Mac. Went through lot of troubled times but victory tastes sweet now. OS X just rocks. Can’t imagine going back to Windoze. All I need is to get Leopard working. Meanwhile also upgraded to a Core2Duo, P35 chipset based board and Viewsonic 2025wm LCD monitor. My computing experience is nirvana now. And oh yea, the computer gallops.
• Successfully WiFi-ed my  house. So let me just say that my computing experience is pure nirvana. All I need now is a Macbook Pro.
• Visited Silent Valley and Hampi. Both trips were extremely satisfying, soul-wise and photography-wise. Updated Pixelshooter.net with photos and travelogues. Now my website has significant content. That is satisfying too.
• Won a photography competition at work. Stood first in fact. Got a lousy gift (a magnetic dart game in which the darts don’t stick), but felt good nevertheless, thanks to all the visibility winning the competition gave me.
• Sold my Tamron 28-75mm and monopod and got a new 35mm f/2 and OC-E3 (Off camera shoe chord) as recent as yesterday. The 35mm f/2 is simply awesome.
• Repaid a huge portion of my credit card debit. But have an equal portion that I recently piled up.
• Planned to get a 40D but ditched the idea because of the above point.
• Crashed my (office) laptop’s hard disk. Dell replaced it within a day. Dell is good.
• Four months into my new  work and I really enjoying it. Looking back, I wonder if I made a mistake of sticking on to my earlier work place for4 years. But as they say, hindsight is always 20/20. Which reminds me…
• Changed my spectacles. My power has increased too. And the best part – I have Nikon lenses in front of my eyes now

I have been hearing a lot about phishing lately. From an attacker’s point of view, it is quite a concept, and I reckon a very successful one. You can have the best antivirus software, but you cannot be protected from phishing. Only common sense can protect you. And as phisher’s get more sophisticated, it is hard to tell the legitimate from the fake. Of course, there are some common thumb rules to follow, but before all, you, as internet user, has to be aware of what is phishing.

I remember the first time I got a suspicious link. It was not in my inbox, but as an offline in Yahoo messenger. The offline asked me to click on a link and read Yahoo’s updated TOS. I clicked on the link rather unsuspectingly, but was taken to a page that looked a lot like Yahoo’s login page, but not quite authentic. I could make out in an instant that this was some kind of a joke. So as a simple test, I purposely gave a wrong password while logging in. Just out of curiosity. Two interesting things happened. Firstly, as expected, the page did not give me a ‘wrong password’ message. Of course, how would it know, when it isn’t a real Yahoo page? So I beat the phishers. Secondly, after signing in, I was taken to Yahoo’s own TOS page. Now that was a nice touch of authenticity. An unsuspecting user wouldn’t have a clue that s/he has just been tricked! I am sure the phishers obtained a lot of Yahoo logins and passwords this way.

Basically, common sense saved me in this situation. I was suspicious and I tested the system out by trying something out of the ordinary – purposely entering a wrong password. I think this is something which any of you can do, when logging in to a suspicious looking page. Another thing you can do is change your DNS servers to that of OpenDNS. I am not sure how effective they are in stopping phishing attacks, but there’s no harm in using their service. Thirdly, email services these days have become smarter at detecting phished links. So always be attentive and don’t click on every link that comes into your mailbox. And whenever in doubt, don’t forget my little trick

…when Canon and Nikon announce their new camera models. And boy, do the discussions on forums get heated or what. Checkout this and this out. Bottom line is that Nikon has not just caught up, but zoomed far ahead of Canon in the DSLR segment. The D300 has amazing specs compared to the 40D no doubt. And it does come at a price – $500 more to be precise. But Nikon’s still got the D200, which it intends to continue. So basically Nikon’s got a killer lineup – starting from the D40x – D40 – D80 – D200- D300- D3H. On the other hand, Canon’s line up has gaps, because I don’t think the 30D is worth purchasing after the 40D has come out. So you only have 400D – 40D – Mark 1D III – Mark 1Ds III. For someone like me whose two years into serious photography, the 400D, and the Mark 1D series are out of question, so I have only the 40D as choice. Whereas, if I were a Nikon shooter who has been shooting with a D70 for the past 2 years, I have the D200, D300 (after inheriting some rich uncle’s property of course) or even the D80 to consider. (For argument’s sake, we are assuming the 40D and D300 will deliver good IQ).

When the Rebel XTi came out and disappointed me, I was asking Canon for a camera with a clear bright viewfinder (like in the D80). The 30D was not an option then but with the new 40D, reasons to upgrade are very compelling. The Rebel XT had been a great way to get into serious photography but I have outgrown it. The dim viewfinder is the sole reason for that. But am I complaining? No, I appreciate Canon for their new cameras and I totally respect Nikon for doing their homework and getting their engineering and marketing bang-on. But the way many of us see it, the customer’s got nothing to lose.

All this aside, IMO, what is really going to hit Canon hard, are issues like the poor auto focus on the EOS-1D Mark III, roof hitting pricing of the EOS-1Ds Mark III, lack of a 5D upgrade (which, if they have done their homework, can be positioned as a strong competitor for the D300), and lack of new consumer grade lenses. And to be hard on Canon, let us look at the highlights of the 40D and see if there is anything ground breaking about them:

• 10.1 Megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor – Nope, they already had in the 400D.
• 6.5 fps continuous shooting, max. burst 75 JPEGs – Not an engineering marvel. With the marketing department’s permission, they could have put more.
• New AF system with 9 cross-type sensors – Hmm…somewhat good, but how did the Nikon engineers do better? So this is not the best yet.
• DIGIC III processor – Again, nothing new.
• 3.0” LCD with Live View mode – The logical next step. What made them think Nikon wouldn’t do the same? If you know your competition, then you will not just give the same feature, but make it better! Thats what Nikon did by offering 922,000 pixels on the LCD. I know it comes at a premium, but hey, you need to be competitive!
• EOS Integrated Cleaning System – Again, taken from the 400D and a very logical next step.
• Clear and bright viewfinder – Nothing great here.
• Customisable Picture Style processing parameters – This is a software upgrade and very so-so.

Don’t get me wrong. I think all these new features are great and was initially very euphoric about them. My only point is that Canon should have seen it coming – the D300 I mean. For their own good. Canon already had great high ISO IQ, but now Nikon has the same and they are even. And it works good for Nikon cos everyone’s now talking, “Nikon engineers have really worked hard on the drawback of high ISO noise and achieved something.” Likewise, if Canon had worked on their drawback, like poor ergonomics and come up with a totally revamped design for the 40D, it would have been something. Or for that matter putting a Flash commander mode into the body. Sure, they listened to their customers and gave many new features in the 40D, but did they watch the competition? No, they didn’t. And they are going to pay for that. (Of course, I am being very, very critical here).

But lets look at things little more realistically. Is there anything on the new D300, which is not on the 40D, that would suddenly make us all better photographers ? I don’t think so. As a working pro, I may have advantages of higher buffer capacity, faster auto focus etc. But I doubt if I would be complaining or comparing cameras if I were a working pro. The ones who complain and compare are the ones for whom the camera has become just another premium commodity – like an expensive car. These people get angry with companies when they don’t deliver as per their expectations or if the competition gets ahead, and they live under the false notion of ‘faster is better’. I know this is just an opinion and I have no concrete proof to substantiate it, but from my own experience, I can tell that all those bells and whistles in the new cameras will be used more to show off than to take better pictures in the hands of these people who whine on the forums. And it is no surprise that Canon has the majority of whiners. After all, if I were rich and wanted the best, I would go for a Canon cos they are the biggest name in the photography industry. Only a person who is more interested in photography as a creative experience would weigh the pros and cons and choose a camera based on his/her needs. And the Nikon hits a sweet spot here. It is strongly engineering oriented, focuses on the photographer (and photography) and makes slicker, classier promos. (See this).

So to Canon -

• Listen to your audience better. Get that Direct Print Button off your cameras!
• Listen to your competition.
• Work on your drawbacks. Focus on the photographer.
• Give us more lenses (like a 100mm IS Macro).

And now lets all get back to shooting photographs