Blogophile: Digital Photography

Hi guys!

As promised, I'm back with the continuation of my Photo Journal. Those who haven't read the first part can go to my post titled 'Photo Journal, Part 1'.

A quick recap: In part 1, I showed you some of my favourite photographs, divided into 2 groups: Group 1 on the photos I took during my road trip in the Himalayas, and Group 2 containing my best wildlife photographs. I had left Group 2 unfinished, which I shall be finishing in this post.

So, here goes:

Group 2 - Wildlife (Continued):

4) Brahminy Kite, taken in Shoja, Himachal Pradesh, India.

5) Shoe-Billed Stork, taken in Jurong Bird Park, Singapore. This one's a real angry bird!

6) Eye of the Peacock - taken in Dapoli village, Maharashtra, India.

7) I really don't know the name of this moth/butterfly, but it looks magnificent. Taken in Spiti Valley. Himachal Pradesh, India.

8) This is a photo of a Glassy Lizard, taken in a forest in Goa, India. It is probably my most prized photograph - I love the effect created by the interplay of light and shadows!

Anyway, that concludes my photo journal.

Hope you liked it!

Signing off,
Pratik.

Apparently, a picture says a thousand words. If so, then this blog post contains more than seventeen thousand words - quite a staggering number, isn't it? Read on if this has piqued your curiosity......

My interest in digital photography grew exponentially around the time I was in the 7th grade. Maybe it was because of my father, who has always been somewhat of a camera buff himself. Maybe it was because of my uncle, who had just bought a brand-new, awesome camera back then. I don't really know. What I do know is that I have loved photography ever since, and given the chance, I am more than willing to spend hours with my camera.

I love being able to capture the memorable moments of my life and the lives of those around me - some of them sad moments, some happy, some just plain hilarious, and some which induce introspect. Every time that I go back to a photograph that I have clicked, I see it in a new light; I see another aspect, another dimension to it. To me, photography is a way of immortalising a beautiful vista, or an inexpressible emotion.

Nature photography is something that I thoroughly enjoy and is very close to my heart (wildlife and environmental conservation is something that I care deeply about). Nothing matches the glory and beauty of a photograph of a massive, ancient Banyan tree, or a snap of a hawk soaring high. For me, part of the fun lies in the actual process of obtaining the picture - chasing a frisky woodpecker through a forest, or waiting in dead silence to photograph a timid Chital deer.

As the title suggests, this post is a photo journal of some of my favourite snaps out of all the photos I have ever clicked. Each one is special to me for a reason - because of the colours and clarity of the picture, the significance of the moment, or simply the overall effect of the photograph. I have divided the pictures into two main groups: Group 1 contains pictures I took on my 15 day road trip with my family in the Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti regions of the Himalayas (in Himachal Pradesh, India) during the summer of 2010, a journey that is one of the most memorable ones I have been on. Group 2 is a collection of my best (according to me) wildlife photos. I took all of these photographs with a Canon SX 10 Ultrazoom camera.

I guess I'll just get started with the photos now:

Group 1 - Himalayan Odyssey:

1) A beautiful snowdrift on a distant peak that I managed to capture while camping in Sangla village, Kinnaur:

2) Three adorable kids in a small hamlet in Hamchal Pradesh. You can't but help marvel at their expressions!

3) During the last 8 days of the trip, we were surrounded by dry ravines, barren, snowcapped mountains, and azure skies, with hardly any vegetation in sight, as we journeyed in the Spiti valley. Albeit a non-conventional kind of beauty, but beauty nonetheless!