Nanda Devi

Every time I get a fat courier delivered home, I get curious. It is usually a copy of a mag where I have written in, or something equally exciting. Yesterday was one such day. When I came home in the evening, I saw a copy of a travel catalog and a cheque! The good folks at Mountain Travel Sobek had decided to use my image of Nanda Devi below, for their 2008 catalog to promote this tour.

Fungus Woes

I had written earlier about having found fungus on my expensive 100-400L. I contained it from growing further for a year with regular use and occasional deliberate exposure to sunlight. I had even setup a tungsten bulb in the cupboard to light the lens and warm it up once in a while. But over days, I threw caution into winds and I let go of these efforts. And in the damp days of this year's monsoons, the lens did not get used, and fungus had it's revenge by growing all over the place inside the barrel.

I have given it for cleaning with a Canon authorized service center now, and it is going to cost me as much as INR 6,800(approx USD160). Besides having to let go of some $$, I am still worried if the lens would come back to me intact.

A BW Image

My past attempts at making B&W images has largely been unsuccessful, but here is one I made recently that made me happy.

I did not think any thing special about this original color image first, but after a second look, felt that there is some appeal in the image. I decided to convert to BW and see how it would look. It had to go through several trial and errors before I finally created the version below.


Original image in color

Steps for conversion

* Slightly cropped the left side
* Levels adjusted to increase contrast
* Channel Mixer for converting to BW image
* Local contrast enhancement
* Sharpening


Black and White version

October 2007 Desktop Calendar Wallpaper

For this month's calendar, I am trying to break off from the usual pattern of posting landscapes, and posting something new instead. I am not sure how good does it look, and design is never really my strength. Any comments would definitely help. Thanks!



The image was made at Gokarna Beach in Karnataka, India.