The bragging game of cricket...

Posted: Thursday, March 31, 2011 by Stained in Labels: , , , ,
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India vs Pakistan meet in the semi final of the world cup. Nothing could be bigger than this (apart from them meeting in the final obviously), a cricket freaks wet dream coming true which meant people from India and Pakistan had lost it. Both the countries came to a halt at around 9am GMT with plenty of other countries including UAE affected with their huge sub continent contingent.

I was thrown out of my house by my beloved sister as her friends were coming over to watch the match. I ended up watching the match at ‘Fruit shop at Greams road’ to find some peace (which luckily I did) from all the madness that ensued around me that I mildly witnessed when I did drop by at B&B sports (non-alcoholic) bar nearby where the Pakistani crowd were busy doing their usual chants with ‘Allahu akbar’ thrown into the mix because they can and because they’re idiots (I have a certain dislike towards people who mix religion and sports). Pakistani people can be quite patriotic, but that’s usually booked for matches with arch rivals India and nothing else seeing what state the country is in today. Indians usually (from my experience) are a little subdued (must be the lack of meat in their diets) in comparison unless they’re drunk, then they’d give hooligans a run for their money which is what happened last night after India won that meant someone today in the municipality had a really bad morning cleaning up the mess.

Sports were created to keep the Men busy from killing each other because they always need to vent out their aggression either on their spouse or on each other due to their obvious need to be the Alpha male; we are animals in the end however civilized we may pretend to be. Yesterday was an explicit display of this trait but not by the 22 or so men on the field competing who honestly won a few praises for their sportsmanship but by the millions around the world who will brag about doing nothing because their country won?

Somewhere last night; a father must have beaten his kids, a kid abused by some teenagers, a drunken driving accidents, a suicide, a rape…in the name of jubilation or sorrow. I know it’s been statistically stated that all of these things happen on a daily basis but I wonder if there is a slight spike in it after such epic (?) events. And I am not just talking about people doing stupid things in the moment of it because the next day and possibly the whole next week, thousands of people will be subject to taunts bordering onto abuse in schools, work places and anywhere else that they might meet irrespective of their social or educational background. ‘Its fun’ would be the perfect justification but how often is it fun when you’re on the receiving end…it breaks your heart, doesn’t it?

In the end, it’s not about the sport; it’s about the bragging right which in this case is by pretending to be patriotic. And yes I am being judgmental because that is what I saw, in person or online and WYSIWYG. There might be a few exceptions, but I failed to see any yesterday.

I love cricket, but this is why I prefer playing it and not watching it….

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Cricket World Cup 2011

Posted: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 by Stained in Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Like most Indians, my Dad is a colossal cricket fan. He loved playing the game (when younger) and loves watching it especially if it has anything to do with the Indian national cricket team. As some of you may not know, the Cricket World cup started last month with a lot of publicity with some nail bitingly close initial matches that made my dad’s heart beat and interest skyrocket (not that it wasn’t already up there somewhere).

Then in the beginning of this month, my parents decided to take a trip to India for a month where we don’t have a TV which meant missing out on the World Cup. Now you need to remember that my dad’s very passionate about cricket; so much that he bought a Sony bravia LCD to take with him. He got a cable connection in 3 days and now is apparently spending most of his lazy hours in front of the box while I’m here watching the matches on our ancient (read: 9 years old) unknown brand Flat Screen CRT TV. So not fair.... -_-

To add to my annoyance, my dad tried to get tickets to the final as he’d be in the same city (read: Bombay) as the venue for the final but the mighty useless BCCI failed him by only selling 4,000 tickets to the general public which seem to be sold out or in access to people with sufficient contacts. Putting all that aside, I think this might possibly be my dad’s favorite India trip and for that I’m glad.... ^_^

Talking about the World Cup, we have now reached the Quarter Final stage with Pakistan thrashing West Indies in the first one today. Pakistan propelled by the success of their bowlers (specifically Shahid Afridi) has become one of the favorites to lift the cup. To commemorate that, here’s Humungousaur doing the Afridi pose after he takes a wicket.
Camera Model : Canon EOS 7D
Shooting Date/Time : 23/03/2011 04:47:42 PM
Tv(Shutter Speed) : 1/250
Av(Aperture Value) : f13
Metering Mode : Spot
ISO Speed : 100
Lens : Sigma 24mm f1.8
Focal Length : 24mm

For the people unfamiliar, Humungousaur is a Ben 10: Alien force character. This is my first major Lego purchase to basically make my niece happy because she adores the Ben 10 cartoon a lot. Being the bullying niece she is, she wants the whole range now which is going to burn a huge hole in my pocket cause the local prices for Lego toys is three times the prices in the US. I’m trying to get the toys shipped now, let’s see how that works out for me. -_-

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Super full moon....not!!

Posted: by Stained in Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Quoting NASA
On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It's a super "perigee moon", the biggest in almost 20 years....
(click here to read more)

An opportunity not to be missed but with the weight of work, a photo trip on the 19th seemed unlikely so instead me and SJ headed out on the 20th. Even though it wouldn't be a full moon and possibly not super sized either didn't bother us because we were armed with a Canon EF 600mm f4 L IS lens to play with.

Now envisage a guy trying to mount a 5.26kgs heavy lens on an almost broken tripod. It was beyond scary cause this beauty of a lens costs a monstrous.......wait for it.......AED32,000. Something I can certainly not afford.

In the end,  love the images we captured with it and undoubtedly we’ll be shooting the moon again but instead with my camera (read : 1.6x crop factor * 600mm lens = 960mm of awe). My wish list just got an extension; a costly one that is… ^_^
Camera Model : Canon EOS 5D MKII
Shooting Date/Time : 20/03/2011 11:22:35
Tv(Shutter Speed) : 1/250
Av(Aperture Value) : f8
Metering Mode : Spot
ISO Speed : 200
Lens : EF 600mm F4 IS L
Focal Length : 600mm

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Weight issues...

Posted: Sunday, March 20, 2011 by Stained in Labels: ,
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Roughly one year back, I weighed ten kilograms less. I’m shocked not because of the numerical increase in my weight but the lack of visual (appearance) difference. In fact my size is precisely the same apart from being slightly more muscular now. But the muscle mass has surely not increased by such a large numerical figure. The only major difference in me visually is my longish hair (haven’t had a hair cut this year) which also can’t validate the numerical increase either. I’m completely bowled over and quite anxious. I’ve procrastinated enough and it’s time to take control of my weight issue which is paradoxical cause people all around me think I’m…….wait for it………thin. {O_O}

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Mowgli...

Posted: Friday, March 18, 2011 by Stained in Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Today a new chapter of my life begins; we shall call it “The Lego”. High hopes for a celebratory beginning is dashed when I end up with “Gorilla suit Guy” as my first ever Lego. Not the prettiest one though rather ironic cause I’m called Mowgli by my best friend for my hyper monkey (read: parkour) behavior. If you didn’t know, Mowgli is a human child character that first made its appearance in Rudyard Kipling’s short story “In the Rukh” but made famous by Disney’s animated film “The jungle book”.

Oh and to add more to it, I’m also called “Bandar” by a few other friends which in monkey in Hindi. So seeing that it just makes perfect sense; this Lego minifigure shall be called Mowgli. Time to hand him over to my niece to fiddle with before she gets her hands on the real Lego toy…. ^_^
Camera Model : Canon EOS 5D MKII
Shooting Date/Time : 18/03/2011 00:17:15
Tv(Shutter Speed) : 1/100
Av(Aperture Value) : f2.8
Metering Mode : Spot
ISO Speed : 800
Lens : Sigma 105mm macro
Focal Length : 105mm

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The Next Step...

Posted: Thursday, March 17, 2011 by Stained in Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

The modeling light shining on the models face; a fine profile shot. With the borrowed Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS II L mounted on my camera, I decided to snap up a shot just to see what the image looked like through the camera with its smaller dynamic range.
Camera Model : Canon EOS 7D
Shooting Date/Time : 08/03/2011 14:12:55 PM
Tv(Shutter Speed) : 1/250
Av(Aperture Value) : f2.8
Metering Mode : Spot
ISO Speed : 1600
Lens : EF 70-200mm f2.8 II IS L
Focal Length : 125mm

The light source was from a beauty dish about 45cms away at a 60’ angle on the left of the model. This angle is the reason for this rather harsh light fall off (transition from light to dark) when viewed from this angle while the quality of light the beauty dish creates results in this rather contrasty look to the image. Love it.

A shot of the setup with Gregory Heisler taking a light reading with a light meter which comes to why the title of this blog post is 'The Next Step' which is what his workshop at GPP2011 (organized by Gulf Photo Plus) is called. I was assisting at the event yet again (blog post long over due) and somewhere in the middle I managed to sneak into Gregory Heisler's class. More on that later.

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Honda Civic Type-R video

Posted: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 by Stained in Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,
2

Something I shot for DriveArabia almost a year back (April 10th 2010 to be exact). Most of the footage and editing is mine apart from the initial camel section. Not the best of efforts but this was officially my first try at shooting a car video and I kinda like it because I had to do a lot of audio manipulation and video synchronization.

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Perfect...

Posted: Sunday, March 13, 2011 by Stained in Labels: , ,
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Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss 'No way, it's all good', it didn't slow me down
Mistaken, always second guessing, underestimated
Look, I'm still around

Filled with so much hatred...such a tired game
It's enough! I've done all I can think of
Chased down all my demons, I've seen you do the same

Oh, pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than less than perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
You're perfect to me!

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D-touring through the north...

Posted: Monday, March 07, 2011 by Stained in Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

The day started at 7:45am as me and SJ made our way to the other side of town i.e. Barsha to pick up WS, sad and wifey (faz). WS was asleep while the couple was delayed (they were coming from Al Ain) so we detoured to a car wash to clean the dusty X-trail that we’d borrowed from SJ’s uncle the previous night from Abu Dhabi. We headed out at 9am to the Ras Al Khaimah – Musandam border via Emirates road. We got there at 11am after a tedious drive on the supposedly new highway through the desert without getting lost even though we didn’t have a map.

At the UAE side of the border, we were informed that SJ couldn’t travel into Oman because she wasn’t with her sponsor i.e. her dad even though we had a NOC letter just in case such a situation popped up. Slightly dejected, we decided to check out the breakwater near the border because we’d seen relatively large (compared to Dubai) waves crashing into it. We snapped pictures, got wet, relaxed and basically had a nice time on the rocks enjoying the beautiful weather and view.
We left at 1pm after SJ was done chasing a cow and a goat and entered RAK to have lunch i.e. KFC as demanded by everyone because once upon a time my parents used to drive all the way to RAK to have KFC because it was the only one in the UAE or something like that. Unhealthy lunch done with, after a vote between mountains or water with water winning, we drove back towards Dubai via the old more scenic highway looking for a patch of beach to chill on. Instead I decided to look for Jazirat Al Hamra (click here for more information) which I conveniently found. This is supposedly a photographer’s paradise which obviously led to me and SJ going a little mad.
Spent an hour or so there as the others got a little tired of walking around. Back on the highway in search of water, we ended up on the beach right at the border between RAK and Umm Al Quwain. Saved two starfish (hopefully), squished squishy looking watery things, SJ got very wet, took funny pictures, walked some more and made a happy face.
On to the marsh land somewhere near Ajman where a draft of cold wind made it uncomfortable for everyone else (I had my trusted sweater) which left me disappointed as I wanted to stick around there for sunset. Then into Ajman city where being the tourist guide I am, I took the winding city route via the corniche where on the Sharjah side we saw the boats (click here for more information). Weaving through Sharjah traffic on a squealing happy X-trail was a bit of a challenge but we managed to get back to the other side of town to drop the others without much car drama. It was 8pm by then which was earlier then we’d expected so SJ and I decided to drive to Abu Dhabi to give the X-trail back. We got back home at 12pm with me snoozing in the passenger seat. ^_^

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Sometimes...

Posted: Saturday, March 05, 2011 by Stained in Labels:
1

Sometimes it's scary to recognize that someone is perhaps living because of you...
Sometimes you're breathing because of that person...
Sometimes is more than just a love story...
Sometimes me and you...

One hop around a fire ball; a faithful leap over the edge. An eternity to hit the end but for now I feel like I can soar.

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File# 85240 : Lost

Posted: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 by Stained in Labels: ,
0

*Static*
.
.
Log 85240, Gregorian date 020311

It haz been lost. It walkz out of the shields into the universe beyond, unchartered, cold and megalomaniac. The disease ensues, they callz it tension. Frantic search - shrill voices…Panic.
.
.
.
*Static*
.
It’s been 3 hours. Efforts to make contact have been fruitless. Back up has arrived.
.
.
*Static*
.
*Somewhere a heart breaks*
.
*A tear rolls down a cheek*
.
.
*Static*
.
.
Something dazzles in the night; a reflection from the beam of light. Hope.
.
Bells of celebration are ringing. Back up was spot on. A crowning jewel…an adventure; a story to be told.
.
.
.
This……
*Static*
.
is a special *static*
.
Wish you were...
*Connection lost*
.
.
*Static*


-end of transmission-

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