Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

It’s been some time since our last blog post and it has not been because of the lack of important events in our lives. On the contrary, so much has been happening that we hardly have enough time to write about it! In the past 2 years we have gone through the trauma of losing loved ones, achieved several personal goals and we welcomed a new member of the family.

Richelle Arya born on 9^th November 2011

Parenthood has been more exhilarating and more challenging than we ever dreamed was possible. Every day we learn something new about her as well as ourselves and it’s amazing how fast she is growing up. And she is a great model for me to practice photography on.

Olympics 2012

Laundry Day

Going out

Want an apple?

Hopefully will be doing more posts in the future, so stay tuned.

All the very best for 2013! 

City of Love

After much thought over our choice of holiday destinations which included Galapogos, Amazon and South Africa, we decided to venture to the City of Lights, mainly due to the zillion ‘Oh you must go to Paris’ responses we got.

Rest assured that Paris is still an European city and one of the main tourist destinations in the world, though you might not think so after reading the rest of the blog.

The train ride from London to Paris was lovely. The arrival at Gare du Nord, considered to be the busiest railway station in Europe, was a SHOCK! The unbearable smell of urine was overwhelming, the bird poo, the cigarette butts, the dirty stained glass, the little food outlets which offered seats covered in bird poo, the lack of information and the lack of proper sign posts, was not what I expected to see in Paris.

Transport

Though old, dirty and smelling of pee, the Metro in Paris is still better than the Underground in London. The Metro runs on time and is regular and costs less than half the price for what seemed like a much better service. However, all signage was in French and there was no clear indication on how to use or buy tickets.There are a few sign boards in English placed at random intervals which I am sure an Englishman planted on the sly and the French would remove if they ever discovered them! Also God help you if you are obese or even slightly chubby  because you will not get through some of the Metro gates, which seemed to have been designed for stick insects. Any kind of luggage, dogs, goats or cattle will most definitely have to be left out as not all stations  provide luggage exits!

Food

The very picky DH (Dear Husband) booked a lovely hotel in what seemed like a nice part of town. With kids dropping their ice creams in wonder at the sight of me clinging to what must have seemed a crossbreed of a Frenchman in his hat, I wandered the streets looking for a café that had an impressive menu. Cafes were aplenty; food was not. All cafes seem to serve the same 5 main courses. Very little choice, very bland food and yes, they speak only French in France. 

Once upon a time...

The 26th of December is a memorable day for both of us..... 

If ever there was a true story that was stranger than fiction, we think you will find this is it. From the bride’s dress to the groom’s shoes, from the facial to the flowers ... it seemed like everything that could go wrong WOULD go wrong … but as all of you who attended our wedding would know … we made it ... and yes, we loved every minute of it!

The Decision…

After contemplating over it for many many months and going through what seemed like a million arguments, we decided to celebrate our love in front of family and friends. We both agreed we wanted a small but very special wedding where we could just have fun with our loved ones.  Little did we know that planning the dream wedding … especially planning one in Sri Lanka, while you are in the UK is much easier said than done.

The Dress…

Amboseli National Park, Kenya

There are several great national parks in Kenya but we didn’t want to spend too much time on the road going from park to park. However, we decided that we HAD to go to Amboseli just to get some shots of Elephants against a Mount Kilimanjaro background. But being the “lucky” couple  that we are, we found the mountain engulfed in  thick dark clouds from the time we got there. For the whole 2 days that we were doing safaris, the clouds opened up only for 15 mts!!! Yes, just 15 mts! Fortunately, we were around some elephants when that happened and were able to get a few shots. Not the composition I wanted but at least it was better than nothing.

Petting Rhinos and Cheetahs

Our next destination, after our 4 days at Masai Mara (2 days at Nyumbu Camp and 2 days at Serena Lodge), was Amboseli. It would have been too tiring to drive there directly so we decided to do a stay-over in Nairobi.

On our way out of Masai Mara, we came across this Southern Ground Hornbill who seemed very willing to pose for us. I swear she batted her eyelids at me as well but when she saw Michelle, she backed off!

Since it was a black bird being shot against a very bright background with very harsh lighting (mid day sun), it was difficult to get the full dynamic range in camera. So, for the first image  I created 3 images from a single raw file to create an HDR image. The 2nd image is a single shot and you can see the colour and impact is much less than the first one - though there was quite a bit of dodge/burn to bring out the details in that one. 

Masai Mara - Day 3 & 4 - Serena Lodge

After two unforgettable nights at Nuyumbu Camp, we headed to the other side of the Mara. Here we were going to stay at the Mara Serena Lodge.

Located within the park, the Lodge offered great views of the plains and contained plenty of bird life, which almost made us not want to go on the game drives. We were greeted at the entrance to the lodge by this large colourful Red Headed Rock Agama

We had heard that the ‘Mara never disappoints’ and it didn’t! But we had to forgo many photo opportunities because they were “off track” and we were not allowed to stray away from the official roads. One of those missed opportunities was the only sighting of a leopard during the whole trip. We heard that a leopard and her cub were resting in a tree but since there were no pathways to it, we could not get close enough for a proper view. We parked ourselves as close to it as possible and waited very patiently for a couple of hours. However, all we could see was the tail and this is the best shot we got.

Ironically, the next day we heard that as soon after we left the spot the mother and cub had come down for a stroll and waited for awhile, right next to the vehicle that was parked there!

Having the cake and eating it.....

Another year has passed by and as I grow older, my birthdays just become better :D 

  

You may already know how my wife makes my birthday truly special – with lots of yummy food, delicious cake and loads of prezzies – this year was no exception!

  

It all started out with a lot of “secret” shopping on Friday, which Mich did all by herself. On Saturday, she had to work and then we went to Pioshy/Lionel’s place for a dinner (Pioshy’s bday was on the 6th) getting back at about 11pm. Since there was a lot to do, she started prepping stuff that night itself and went to sleep at 4am! I was banned from entering the kitchen so could not help out in anyway as she wanted it to be a surprise. Sunday, she woke up at  7.00am and went straight in to the kitchen to start all the cooking for the special bday dinner – to which she had invited Pioshy/Lionel as well as Lasa/Imal.

  

A lot of effort and time went into preparing a fantastic Caribbean + Sri Lankan   menu. Being a hot summer day we started off with a Caribbean style cantaloupe drink (bits of cantaloupe mixed with sweetened milk and topped off with pomegranate slush, almond flakes and pomegranate seeds). The starter was a ‘Coconut shredded shrimp’ with yoghurt and coriander sauce which was absolutely delicious.

Masai Mara - Day 1 & 2 - Nyumbu Camp

The Masai Mara is what people say it is – a miracle! They say the Mara never disappoints and even during the off-peak season, it didn't disappoint us. 

Mara is a large game reserve in south-western Kenya and is the northern continuation of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. It is named after the Masai people, the traditional inhabitants of the area, who we could see grazing their cattle in the outskirts of the park. It is famous for its exceptional population of Big Cats and the annual migration of zebra, Thomson's gazelle and wildebeest from the Serengeti.

The road to Mara

We were lucky to have gone with one of the best Safari companies in Kenya - As You Like It Safaris which is run by the charming Vivien Prince. We were not sure about staying in tented accommodation as April was supposed to be the rainy season so opted for Lodges for most of the trip. However, Vivien advised us to stay at Nyumbu Camp for the first two nights at Mara to get the real "African Experience". And we are sure glad we took her advice because that turned out to be the best place we stayed at during the whole trip! 

Lake Nakuru, Kenya

From Lake Naivasha we headed for a 2 day trip to Lake Nakuru.

Accommodation was at Nakuru Lodge which was very good. The rooms were large with a good view of the plains and there were long winding walks to the restaurant which was quiet nice at night.

Of all the parks we had been to, we liked Nakuru the best – yes even more than the Mara. This might have been because it was small and it was very, very green! Lake Nakuru National Park is a bird sanctuary. The park is situated outside Nakuru Township in Kenya, which is part of the Great Rift Valley with its alkaline and fresh water lakes, within easy reach of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. The park comprises of a large lake which is surrounded by a beautiful landscape of sedge, marsh, vast grasslands, rocky cliffs, outcrops, stretches of yellow-barked acacia woodlands, plus a large forest of Euphorbia trees (unique on such a large scale to Kenya).

The main reason to go to Nakuru was to see the flamingos. Ideally we would have liked to get some sunset shots of them but were not allowed to be in the park at that time.

There is the constant ‘clickin’ of the birds beaks as they feed – which, strangely, is a comforting sound.

Kenya - Lake Naivasha

The Trip

Even though we are clearly blessed in many ways, my husband and I always feel we are equally cursed in other ways. There is not a single thing we have done together without having to overcome a catastrophic event or two. After all these years, we have now learnt to prepare for the inevitable and expect the worse.

So when we decided to go to Kenya, we did expect bad things to happen – to get sick, get malaria, purge every day, rain, lose camera, get kidnapped etc. Well none of those things happened – but something worse did – we got to fly KENYA AIRLINES!!!

Why Kenya? 

Well other than for the fact that we met two wonderfully helpful people, Raabia and Abdul through FB– Kenya had always intrigued us. Contrary to what most people think – Kenya is NOT a dry barren land with no water and poor people running about. Even though Nairobi is a bit chaotic the rest of the areas are full of greenery and wonderfully polite, well clothed, well educated  people.

The planning

Health - We needed to get four jabs for seven different diseases + take malaria tablets – and yes they are VERY IMPORTANT

Safety - The most important thing is not to attempt to do the whole backpacker thing on your own – the country is too big, the facilities are few and there are far too many scams going on to attempt this. It is best to go with a reputed travel agent and we cannot recommend ‘As you Like it Safaris Ltd’ enough. It also seems like a lot of crime takes place in the city. Driving is chaotic and dangerous.

Accommodation - The lodges are similar to our Habarana Lodge but most are maintained at a higher quality. They offer Wifi, laundry, extensive buffets, comfortable, clean, spacious  rooms and pool (listed in order of importance).

We stayed mainly in lodges and the only tented accommodation was at Nyumbu camp – which for me, was the best experience. Details and pictures are to follow. When you say ‘tents’ in Kenya it does not mean little ones we put up and creep into – they are massive tents which are divided with  cloth screens, have their own shower cubicle and toilet with hot water, double beds, clean linen and clothes storage. The wind sweeps through the tent at night and the birds wake you in the morning – it is an experience in itself.

Attire - Cotton, Cotton, Cotton – no, it is not hot its actually chilly in the morning and evening but cotton will keep you comfortable and a sweater or light jacket is a must for the early mornings or late evenings.

We don’t want to go on and on as there is far too much information here already so if you are thinking of going to Kenya – get in touch and we will share all our information with you. 

Now for more interesting things…

Day 1 – was spent in Nairobi with wonderful Raabia and her family. We were too tired to take shots but had a good time going to the Masai Market and just chilling with her and her cats.

Day 2 of 12 – Lake Naivasha

From Nairobi we were headed to Lake Nakuru with a one day stop over at Lake Naivasha. Accommodation – Naivasha Country Club.

Rating – Average.

Lovely garden, small rooms, good food but bad service. 

On the way - The Rift Valley

Learning to see creatively - book review

A friend recently told my wife that creativity is not something that could be learnt, it’s something that’s within you and that you are born with! (unfortunately, I was not around at that time). The ironic thing is that the statement was made about the book “Learning to See Creatively” by Bryan Peterson – the very book that has dispelled this misconception quite effectively. In his own words, the reason he first wrote the book was “to dispel the myth that the art of image making was for the chosen few”. After selling hundreds of thousand copies, the book being in existence for the past 20 years (original version was published in 1988) and going through so many reprints and revised editions, we can safely assume that he has been successful in doing this at least for those capable of grasping it.

Whilst I can admit that people are born with talent and creativity, to say that another person cannot “learn” to see creativity is very…. well…. silly! Do all those who are successful in art, fashion, design, etc inbuilt with talent only? Do they not go and “learn” their craft from schools, institutes and colleges? Even those who claim to have made it on their own talent are actually “self-taught” – they look at their idols and mentors, “learn” from their style and keep improving based on the feedback they get. This is true for any of the art forms out there. Yes there are people born creative – but the majority of the successful artists (be it art, photography, design, etc) have “learnt” to be creative. The fact is that in order to make a “creative” composition of a painting or photograph, you need to follow several rules (or you need to break the rules…. and to do that you need to know what the rules are…). These rules have been developed over centuries and even artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo have used these rules in their paintings – does that mean that “they” were not creative?

Well having got that out of the way, let’s get down to the review. For those who do not know who Bryan Peterson is (and if you are photographer you surely should know him) – he is a very successful photographer with a highly profitable image stock library, some of which have been sold for thousands of dollars on a repetitive basis. He has been photographing for over 30 years and has been teaching photography for over 20 years. He is also the author of several highly successful books including “Understanding Exposure”, which many consider to be the “bible” of photography (I have this book as well but it does not need a separate review – just a single sentence – “If you want to understand photography, just get Understanding Exposure”).

“Learning to see creatively” has the very laid back and easy to understand style that Bryan used in “Understanding Exposure”. He quickly puts us at ease that we CAN learn to see creatively and then explains how to do this by changing the way we see things around us and expanding our vision. He then discusses the elements of design (line, shape, form, texture, pattern and colour) in detail and then goes on to give the rules like the Golden section, rule of thirds, etc and explains how all these elements come together to make a creative composition. Photography is all about light and a separate chapter has been dedicated to show how light affects composition.

The book is an excellent read and I highly recommend it. Its easy to understand and you quickly grasp the essentials. Design and rules of composition can be highly technical (as shown in Michael Freeman’s book The Photographer’s Eye) but Bryan has kept it all simple so that any beginner or amateur photographer reading it is able to understand. He uses a lot of examples and his own images to illustrate the point. To me, Bryan is like the cool high school teacher who makes things very interesting without trying too hard, so you end up learning without really knowing it. 

Dancing Damsels

Some of the pictures from this shoot were featured in the Sunday Observer Magazine on 1^st November 2009 (online version here and here).

One of our dear friends, Chathu, is a dancer of extra ordinary talent and experience. She has been dancing professionally for more than 14 years and has performed in over 20 countries worldwide. She has her own dance troupe, Ethnic Dance Studio, who perform at corporate events and shows but this year she wanted to do her own show to showcase the troupe’s talents. 

As part of the promotional material for the event, she wanted a few shots to be taken of troupe and herself and as luck would have it, I was in Sri Lanka at that time to help out. I was quite nervous about doing a “professional” shoot – it would be the first time that I will be “directing” live models (other than for my wife) and I had to ensure that I had at least a few “winners” that they can use for their newspaper articles, promotional leaflets, souvenirs and website. So the pressure was on - I was not sure whether I was going to be able to do it but I was sure going to try.

The shoot was challenging for me on many fronts

1)     There were 5 dancers for the group shots and I had to ensure that ALL their faces could be seen properly. This was a bit difficult with all the arms and heads twisting around the frame while they went in to their dance poses! More often then not, by the time I had positioned them and taken a shot, the models would have moved ever so slightly to a position where the face was in shadow or was covered by another hand. So I had to take several frames quite quickly and I had to keep moving around or moving them around to get the proper shot

2)     As you can see from the pictures, the poses were not the “run of the mill” ones you get in normal portraits. In order to show them in their element, they had to be in certain dance poses which required quite an effort on their part. It was quite difficult for them to stand still when they were half bent or had one leg in the air and I had to take my shots quickly before the moment was lost or one of the dancers moved.

3)     Even though I had read up quite a bit on lighting, it’s altogether a different ball game when it comes to doing it for real!!! The shoot was done at the Hilton Hotel and balancing the lighting in some of the indoor shots was a pretty big challenge. Even trying to get the out door lighting, especially the ones against the sun, were quite difficult.

As stated above lighting was a pretty big challenge and even though I was using a shoot through umbrella and a voice activated light stand (my wife Michelle) it was quite difficult to get some of the shots without hard shadows which I really hated doing.

The final part of the shoot was this particular dancer in a peacock costume. After taking some shots to be used for the promotion, I used a nearby chair to give a bit of a different “fashion shoot” look to the image.

With all the challenges, the whole shoot turned out to be quite fun. Highlight for my wife was when I lay down on the ground near the stairs to try and get a shot with a different view point – she found that quite hilarious. We had a few strange looks from the guests and one of the guests actually wanted to take a shot with the dancers :D We also came across another photographer (together with 3 – yes three – voice activated stands and full bridal retinue) doing a wedding shoot.

Had good fun doing it and it was a good learning experience. 


These and a few other pics of  the shoot can be found here 

Yala Safari – everything other than the leopard

The previous post was all about our primary objective in going to Yala -  to photograph leopards. In pursuing this objective, we saw a lot of other interesting sights and had a few "adventures" along the way. 

The first “adventure” was trying to do two things in one trip with two completely different people

1) to have a serious educational wildlife trip - with Jerome, our wildlife expert and guru

2) to have fun - with Damith, our dear friend and clown whom we always take on our trips

Having these two conflicting personalities in the same vehicle was not pleasant at the best of times even though they got on better than we expected. Right in the middle was the calm, reflective personality of Rajive, providing a balance between the two.

We made use of a Montero to make the trip as we did not want to hire open vehicles to go in to the park. The Montero was quite comfortable and there was an endless stream of banter and jokes from Jerome and Damith until we got to our destination. One eventful incident on the way was when we were overtaken by a TATA jeep which was going at breakneck speed around the curved roads (quite a considerable speed as we were going pretty fast as well). After overtaking us, the jeep stopped quite suddenly by the side of the road a hundred metres ahead of us.  Without warning, out popped a skinny guy with long hair from the driver’s side and without looking to check for any vehicles, crossed the main Kataragama road quite casually. I had to brake quite hard to avoid hitting him but what was more shocking was that he jumped from my side of the road to the path of an oncoming bus which barely missed him. It was amazing that he didn’t get knocked down by either the bus or our vehicle. He quickly disappeared inside a house and even though we felt like giving the guy a good talking to, we continued our journey without any further incident.

Yala is a hot, dry, dusty and a tiring place during the drought season. We arrived in the afternoon and settled ourselves in a little place that Rajive had booked for us. The meals were fantastic here and we thoroughly enjoyed the food. Living quarters were not great but for that price and time frame it was the best we could do. The best times to see animals and birds are at dawn (the few hours after sunrise) and dusk (the few hours before sunset). However, getting away at the “crack of dawn” was inevitably delayed as we had to get the “baby” of our group (Damith) out of bed, in to the shower and to the vehicle as he was incapable of doing it by himself.

The park, especially the main visitor center, is full of Gray Langurs. It is quite interesting to see how much they look like humans. This guy was trying to relax and tried out many positions similar to us.

One of the highlights of the trip was being able to see a bask (group) of crocodiles feasting on a buffalo carcass in the water. They were too far to capture while doing this but these were the participants of this spectacle

Pic by Rajive 

Bee-eaters and deer were quite common as well and we saw plenty of these

Elephants are of course a favourite of any safari trip in Yala and we had our fair share of adventures with them. We had a good sighting of a large bull elephant which is supposedly rare in Yala. We were making our way to another leopard stop, when we saw some vehicles parked on the road and a lot of rustling noise from our left. We stopped for a couple of minutes and out walked a massive elephant with very long tusks. He walked right in front of our vehicle as he crossed the road and made his way in to the thick jungle on the other side

We also witnessed how protective elephants are of their young. We came upon a water hole where a group of  elephants had come to drink. Among them was a very young one, maybe about 3 months or so who seemed to be wanting to get in to the water. The adults of the group were very protective especially when several other jeeps came to look at them. All the little one wanted to do was get in the water and play but the adults kept pushing him between their legs to keep him protected. It was quite a sight. Once they had finished drinking their fill, they left with plenty of protecting adults around the little guy, with one of the elephants turning to give a warning trumpet as if ordering us not to follow them.

We came across another family of elephants which were in the undergrowth. Our presence made the head female nervous and she made a warning charge towards us. We decided not to disturb them further and went on our way.

The best elephant “adventure” of the trip was when Jerome decided to educate our young guide on the “Elephant Graveyard” myth. The myth is that all elephants of a group go to one particular place near a water hole to die because of sentimental reasons. This is not the case – as explained by Jerome, when an elephant becomes old, he finds it harder and harder to find food which he can chew on. So he makes his way to river banks where the plants are more succulent and easier to eat. At this point, since the elephant does not travel much due to its ill health, he dies around the same area. As time goes on, other elephants do the same thing and try to find areas where there is food which is easier to eat. They are eventually led to the same place and they too pass away in that area. So it is not a matter of these elephants finding a place to die – it’s a case of them finding food and dying due to old age. Of course, Damith couldn’t keep his mouth shut while Jerome was narrating this in all seriousness and he made a joke that Jerome should tell the story properly. This angered Jerome and led to an argument. Damith as usual had to  listen to a lot of harsh words. 

We were also amazed by the vehicles that came to Yala - one of which was a huge, old TATA bus full of people. They complained about not seeing a single animal and this did not surprise us the animals would have run away from the park itself with all the noise the bus and the crowd in it were making. Jerome narrated the funny story of how one group which had come to Yala in a bus had stopped off in the middle of the park to plant wickets and play a game of cricket - this was right in the middle of area where wild elephants and leopards roam :D 

The jeep all dusty and dirty, working its way across the rocks

The "kolla" Jerome - looking quite "elegant" 

Rajive - the "normal" one of the group

I got some very funny shots of Damith bathing in his underwear - unfortunately he found out about them and was rude enough to delete them from the camera. As revenge, I am not including any of his shots here :D

This is a huge rock that we saw near the beach area 

A Ruddy Mongoose drinking at the waterhole 

Found a great spot for dragonflies near the lunch area - but unfortunately, even though I had the necessary patience to photograph them, I was constantly disturbed by the impatience of the others in the group who were keen to move on 

 

A Serpent Eagle - I tracked this guy to another tree which gave me a clear shot but just as soon as I had set the camera and was about to press the shutter button he flew off 

Crocodile lunch? Not really - the heron is actually a bit further away from the croc. It looks like they are very close here because of the forced perspective

And finally, a very rare sighting of the endemic Sri Lankan River Hippopotamus :D

All these shots and a few more can be found in this album

Yala

Another funny story towards the end of the trip was when I our wildlife expert and tracker was unable to "track" the route back to his own house and we had to find it for him 

Overall a fun trip even though it had its moments!