Cloud Splitter

Cloud Splitter, originally uploaded by vskiran.

This is the landing spot off the gondola at the top of little whiteface mountain. You could easily see why this place is called as the cloud splitter. It was quite an interesting moment. On this side of the mountain, the sky was a clear blue while the other side was quite hazy and dull.

It was so beautiful at this spot that I just kept clicking. When I got back to review my images, I kept wondering about the missing gondola in the shot. Then I realized that it's behind the fence. You could also see a bunch of skiiers checking out the trail map. It's so important to know the map. You dont want to end up infront of a double diamond trail when you are not yet ready for it. I hope to be good enouth to safely ride most slopes by next year :). But for now I stayed on the blue ones.

There was one surprise at this spot, my cell phone coverage was perfect. I wonder if there was a cell phone base station hanging around closeby.

snowboarder on little whiteface

snowboarder on little whiteface, originally uploaded by vskiran.

This is the view of whiteface mountain from little whiteface. It was a hazy day and the peak is completley shrouded in clouds. Incidentally the ski resort names this spot as cloud splitter.

You could literally see the clouds seated right next to you at this elevation. Thats for another picture.

I really wanted to ski down the peak shown in the picture but it was closed by the time I felt confident to go up there. Thats definitely where I would be my next time.

Lake Placid view from Whiteface Ski Resprt

Lake Placid view from Whiteface Ski Resprt, originally uploaded by vskiran.

This is an observation spot situated at the top of little whiteface mountain within the ski resort. This day was very cloudy windy and snowing a bit. One can get to this spot using the gondola from the foot of the ski resort. It serves access to a blue and couple of black diamond ski slopes. This was my first time skiing down from these heights. If one does not want to ski down, the resort does allow one to use the gondola back down the hill.

I must say that it is quite a bit of fun to ski when its snowing a bit. Fresh snow is so soft, i didnt even mind falling down a few times. Its definitely one of the best times I had on a ski slope. I will be uploading more pics from this spot soon.

Lake Placid from Whiteface Mountain

Lake Placid from Whiteface Mountain, originally uploaded by vskiran.

I shot this while climbing the final steps to the whiteface summit. It was just a gorgeous view of lake placid from this vantage point. The lake itself was completley forzen. This lake is quite huge and has three islands in between it. Everytime I imagine this view, it fills my heart with awe and wonder. I cant wait to get here in summer.

Even though the sun was bright and it was a clear day, the view was quite hazy. The sun was located right above our head, making it difficult to make a picture with lot of detail. All I had to do was to pull out my polarizer out of my bag and slap it infront of my lens. But it never occured to me then. I was definitely overwhelmed by the beauty of the surroundings, my photographic instincts were definitely subdued a little bit. Further the extremely cold winds along with my frozen hands made my mind quite numb. At times I really had to tell myself to think. No wonder many people behave a little crazy when they try to climb peaks like the Mount everest. This hike has definitely taught me a lot about hiking in dead winter.

Whiteface Castle

Whiteface Castle, originally uploaded by vskiran.

The whiteface castle is about 4600Ft above sea level. I shot this picture when we were about 1.5 miles below the summit. As we got to the top, the wind was literally blowing us away. The final turn completely changed the circumstances. It was icy and we were struggling to hold our grip because of the gushing winds. At times the sound of the wind was deafening. Our heads were cold and we were holding it tight to keep it warm. We never hiked at these temperatures and our inexperience really showed up. We had lots of water, but it was of no use because it was completely frozen. We did keep the bottles close to our chest to keep them warm, but that didnt help. Supposedlly salty drinks like Gatorade would freeze slower, but even this drink was frozen at this temp. I just wanted sip but couldnt get it. Fortunately my friend brought a few choclate cookies, they really helped bring our energies back up. By this time my hands were frozen too. My fifty dollar ski gloves with two layers caught ice at the finger tips and started tearing apart. This is the reason why I got sore finger tips. I wonder if this is because of the sun. Even though the sun is nice it can hurt you at times. The little ice it melts at times can get into your shoes and gloves and eventually it gets frozen. At times I didnt know weather to feel happy about the bright sun or sad. Fortunately I had a second pair of gloves (normal fleece ones) that helped me while getting down the hill.
I would say that it was purely our mental energies that helped us scale this mountain on this day. I definitely wished it was warmer than -30/-40 degrees Celcius.

Getting to the castle was where the hike would end for many but there were some more steps to climb to get to the upper dome, which is like 300 feet above the castle. Next we pushed to walk up these steps.

View of Whiteface Castle at the summit

View of Whiteface Castle at the summit, originally uploaded by vskiran.

We were about 2/3rds of our way up when we stopped at lake placid turn along the toll road. Once again the vistas were just gorgeous. Here you could see the whiteface castle in distance.

We were hiking this mountain using snow shoes (the fancy orange ones), which provide strong grip on snow and ice when hiking a rough terrain. We loved these shoes on our hike up the marble mountain the day before (more about it later). Given that the toll road is not very steep, it turned out to be a bad idea. They really slowed us down. However they were definitely better than just using our hiking shoes. We had water proof hiking shoes that were rated to work upto -20F, but they were no match to the cold weather on this day. Even though they stayed relatively dry, our toes felt really painful and frozen at times. Fortunately we had a few chemical warmers, which made a whole world of difference. I put on the warmers under my wollen socks below my toes after hiking for about 2 miles. It had an immediate effect and my toes felt much better. I would definitely recommend carrying a lots of these on every winter hike. Without the warmers our hike would definitely have ended prematurely.

Later on we came to know from the other hikers that cross country ski's are the best way to go up this route. They not only speed up your hike , its a lot of fun coming down the hill with those on. Of course one better be good with their ski's, or else he/she might end up seriously hurting themselves. The valley is definitely not that friendly.

It was really cold and this was one of the very few moments that I took the face mask out for the picture. It was quite icy at this elevation and I took the opportunity to lie down a sec with the castle in the background.

We went Hiking in Snow

We went Hiking in Snow, originally uploaded by vskiran.

Me and a good friend of mine went hiking up the Whiteface mountain in Adirondacks New York. The mountain is about 4900 Feet above sea level. The snow was just fantastic. This particular day the weather was extremely cold. I was told that the wind chill was about -30 to -40 degrees celcius at the top of the mountain. The good news was the sun, it was bright and the vistas were beautiful and clear. This is my first time hiking in dead winter at such temperatures. I dont think we were quite prepared for the extreme weather but our common sense did provide us with good guidance. We not only got to the top of the mountain, we are still in one piece. It was one fantastic hike. I have a lot to say but my finger tips are still sore from the trip and my body would love a nice knead. Fortunately I captured some nice pictures along my hike. More pictures and experiences to follow.

Yes, thats my friend in the picture. He kept hiking and I kept taking pictures on the way. We both hiked it at our own pace, taking breaks at every beautiful spot.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day, originally uploaded by vskiran.

On this occasion I plucked this flower from my photo garden.

Wishing you all the longing souls a happy valentine's day. In reality probably every day could be a valentine's day.. I guess it depends on how long one has been with their beloved :).

Sunset view through an aeroplane window

Sunset view though an aeroplane window, originally uploaded by vskiran.

I saw this beautiful view while travelling from New Delhi (India) to Bhopal on my way to attend a friends wedding.

Given the low light, I shot this wide open at f2 and the focus set to infinity. Looks like the dirty window also made it into the shot ;)

Snow board in action

Snow board in action, originally uploaded by vskiran.

always wanted to make some action shots of skiing and snow boarding. Given my skiing skills are still in their infancy, I never dared to carry my DSLR up the slopes. Further, I do enjoy falling down the slopes (not intentional) and you never know what could happen to the expensive piece of equipment on you. This time, I carried my film camera with a 50mm lens in my jacket. I did take a few nasty tumbles down the hill, but it was all worth it. I just loved the challenge of keeping my camera safe while rolling down the hill. But for the few falls, I did fairly well on the slopes. I guess little bit of responsibility made me a better skiier on this particular day.

I chose a relatively slow shutter speed to capture some motion in the shot. I dont remember the exact exposure but it was somewhere around f8/f11 with +1 exposure bias.

The snow boarder is taking a nice smooth turn down the hill. How I wish that I could do that with such ease.

Living by the cold and icy river

Living by the cold and icy river, originally uploaded by vskiran.

Once again I braved myself in the cold weather to try some sunset pictures. This time I headed towards one of the beaches in New Jersey. Actually, I was trying to get to a lighthouse by the atlantic ocean. By the time got to the ocean front, it was fairly dark and quite cold (-10C/14F). I abandoned my search for the light house and decided to keep driving. The strip I was driving on happens to be sandwiched between this river and the atlantic ocean. There were many huge houses that were completely vacant along the way. I wonder if they are only used during summer for recreation purposes.

While driving, I spotted this icy river and a few bright lit houses by its side. I chose a long exposure to convey the feeling of the flowing river. One could see thick ice floating on the other side of the river. Also the little pieces of ice flowing in the river appear as blurred lines along the river. Once again its nice to have a sunset in the background.

Vase in Sunlight

Vase in Sunlight, originally uploaded by vskiran.

I made this shot at one of my friends house warming party. The vase was naturally lit by bright sunlight through the window. The setting was perfect and I didnt have to touch a thing. The photograph was just there to be made.

I metered the exposure for the vase and every thing in the backkground naturally turned dark. Converting the shot into Black and White was a piece of cake in Photoshop.

The light didn't stay like this for very long, probably for just about 5 minutes. I am so glad that I had an opportunity to take this shot.

Color Contrast

Color Contrast, originally uploaded by vskiran.

This shot was made at longwood gardens, my evergreen favourite botanical gardens. It's huge and they have a variety of tropical plants in a beautiful tropical environment.

I was quickly attracted to the color contrast and the symmetry of these leaves. It's like the little fellow is showing off before the big one.

This marks my 50th photograph on flickr.

Let's go Home

Let's go Home, originally uploaded by vskiran.

I always seem to be surprised by the wide gamut of colors during sunset. This day was no different. It was about half hour after sunset and the sky was dramatically changing colors from orange to pink and then to blue. There wan't much time to work with as it turned pretty dark within 5 minutes after taking this shot.

It's sunset and it's time for the birds to go home. I was lucky to find a small flock of birds silhouetted against the beautiful sunset colors.

It was a cold day and I wasn't completely prepared for the wind ( wind chill -10C/14F). It's one thing to spend a few minutes outside in the cold and a completely different affair to spend an hour or two taking pictures. I was well covered with three layers of clothing but it's always the little things that bite you in the end. I chose a thin pair of hand gloves for ease of handling the camera controls. It turned out to be a bad idea. I had to split my time between taking pictures and staying in the car :). It was funny.. but I need to get a good pair of gloves that allow me to handle my camera controls easily. Nevertheless, I am very glad to have obtained this picture. Taking good pictures demands a lot of patience and sometimes you are rewarded too.

Ghost Tree

Ghost Tree, originally uploaded by vskiran.

Who says image noise is bad. I just love it in this picture. It gave an interesting texture to the picture. The original picture was about 1.5 stops underexposed. Correcting that in photoshop added the extra noise to the image. The background of the original color image was a quite blue. I reduced the amount of blue in the gray channel mixer to make the background darker. It definitely helped the picture by increasing its contrast.
This is one of my experiments with long exposure (over 10 minutes ) on a full moon day. You could find my other picture with a long exposure at
eerie house

The tree looks a little surreal agains the house with a white wall. You could also see little bit of star trails in the image.

Another beach view from atop the Montauk Lighthouse

Another beach view from atop the Montauk Lighthouse, originally uploaded by vskiran.

Once again a bit of photoshop magic and I was able to convert a below average Color image to a decent B/W picture. This definitely makes me think that there is always some opportunity to take a picture. Just that they seem to show up in quite unexpected and surprising ways.

As I was saying in my previous blog, in this picture you could see the land slowly falling into the ocean along the coast.

Montauk Point Light House

Montauk Point Light House, originally uploaded by vskiran.

This is the historic light house at Mountauk point built in circa 1796. This shot was made at around 5:30 in the morning. You could see that the lighthouse is still beaming light at this hour. In the good old days around mid 1800 they used to use lamps powered by kerosene. I wonder what they had before that ! They also used to have something called a 5th order frenel lens to focus the light beam over long distances.

Apprently this lighthouse used to be managed by only one person at any given point of time. The stairwell is so small that only one person could climb up or down the steps. I wonder how he used to manage going up and down with kerosene lamps throughout the night.

Once could get a glimpse of the history of the lighthouse for a small fee. It is well preserved in the house next to the lighthouse.

In reality, the weather was quite cloudy and the color and contrast were fairly average in the orginal picture. I had to bring up the contrast/fill light and remove the strong blue color cast to get it to this shape. I am still quite new to photoshopping but I am really happy to be able to successfully bring out what I saw through my eyes in this picture.

Continuing the same gripe from my previous blog entry, the weather was so cloudy and gloomy the whole weekend that I couldn't get any good sunrise/sunset pictures. Thanks to photoshop, I am able to revover this particular one. I spent quite a bit of time sitting on the rocks waiting for the sun to rise. But the clouds seem to have gobbled him on this day. I later came to know that the rocks were laid out to prevent the land from sliding into the ocean. Historic pictures of this site show significantly larger distance between the light house and the ocean. In fact the soil appears quite loose around this area and I did encounter quite a lot of billboards warning about land slides into the ocean.

When I was all set to drive back home, I noticed that this place attracts quite a lot of birds. Then I came to know that this place has lots of nice hiking trails to explore the landscape. Next time I definitely know what to do. If not the sun, i should be able to get some nice bird shots.

Mountauk point beach view

Mountauk point beach view, originally uploaded by vskiran.

This is the northern view of the ocean from Montauk Light house. The is the first light house in New york and the fourth oldest in USA. It was constructed by 1796 by George Washington.
This place also happens to be the north eastern most tip of United states situated in long island. Since its on an island, you could watch both the sunrise and the sunset. I spent nearly two days at the beach rising early in the morning at 4:30a. Alas bad cloudy weather prevented any good sunrise/sunset photographs. Well there is always next time. Nevertheless, I was able to observe this beautiful view from the top of the lighthouse.

Yes this is where the Hamptons are.. so called the summer playground of the riches. This place has its style of it own, it's shopping, food could remind you of the olden times. Historic grandeur and riches blended with numerous private beaches and golf courses.

I still remember driving 40 miles back just to find a vacany in a motel. Still cant believe that so many hotels/motels were completely occupied for the long weekend.

Sunset at La Jolla

Sunset at La Jolla, originally uploaded by vskiran.

This picture was made on my first visit to San Deigo. Unfortunatley, i was not at the best of my health, had a viral fever etc etc.
A good friend of mine decided that this place would be perfect to make me feel better. It did the trick, I definitely had a memorable time up there. We spent some time playing with water and the huge boulders by the beach listening to the waves.

We took turns to capture the sunset. I made sure I ditched his and kept mine :).

La jolla is definitely the place to be. If only the real estate was not so expensive!

Sunset at Getty Museum Los Angeles

Sunset at Getty Museum Los Angeles, originally uploaded by vskiran.

While making a visit to the famous Getty Art Museum at Los Angeles, I was greeted with this wonderful sunset. You could also watch the magnificent pacific ocean in the background.

Its always wonderful to watch a sunset by the ocean side. How much I envy the Californian's.

Are you looking at me

Are you looking at me, originally uploaded by vskiran.

This is one brave kid who always has an unflinching gaze at people around him.

It's a lot of fun to play with him.

Happy Birthday Jerome

Happy Birthday Jerome, originally uploaded by vskiran.

There is always something magical when two babies are together. They seem to have the most interesting conversation in the world without a single word being spoken.

Here's one little girl showing her affection with a gentle touch at Jerome's birthday party.

Train Station in the night

Train Station in the night, originally uploaded by vskiran.

We were taking a stroll in the night and decided to go to the local train station (india). There was a gentle breeze out there and we certainly enjoyed our munches (mirchi bonda etc).

Given the extremely low light, I had stretched the limits of my camera to make this shot. I held myself tightly to a pole and tried many shot to get a decent one.

Flower Blossom

Flower Blossom, originally uploaded by vskiran.

I photographed this flower on my trip to tirumala India. In was a rainy day and the whole mountain was filled with these bright orange flowers. It was just beautiful to watch.

black bird in rain ( Oriental Male Magpie Robin ?? )

black bird in rain, originally uploaded by vskiran.

I found this bird on my hike up the tirumala mountains in India. I was fortunate to find it seated very close to me under a tree on a rainy day. I am curious to find the name of this bird.

On this rainy day I found lots of different kinds of birds flying around the tree I was seated under. Never before have I seen such a variety of birds at a single place. I was already lagging my friends on the hike up the hill. I wish I had more time to capture more moments in my camera.
Update: I wonder if it's an Oriental Male Magpie Robin