My First Wed Anniversary@ Second Honeymoon

[Bibudesh]

My better half- "Honey wat are we going to do for our 'first' anniversary?"

Myself (Yawning)- "Aw wow one year done. BTW when was that 22 or 23rd Nov (I m serious). How about a candle lit Dinner?"

My Better half- "Ok stop kidding now(though I was serious about the dates). And I can see u are becoming boring day after day. :-( .. Never knew u'll be like this only in 1 year "

Myself - "I think my frends at thephotographer also think the same. I am becoming boring ..hmm, think I need LMN drink"

This discussion happened 3 months back.Later I put my resignation blaming my company to be reason for me becoming like this, I was never like 'that' ..

After lots of arguments (sometimes romantic, sometimes heated), we zeroed on Munnar. My wife smartly researched the review and I blindly trusted her, so much that I did not care to ask what Munnar is famous for. It was after I reached Munnar I came to know its not the backwater spot in Kerala. Also on the way I even got confused thinking which state Munnar belongs to- Tamil Nadu or Kerala.
Fortunately I can identify the Tamil and Malayalam scripts, I read the sign board at Munnar and came to know- whoops its kerala, Gods Own Country.

Thank God.

End of Prologue.

There are two ways to reach Munnar from Bangalore- 1. Catch a flight from Blore to Cochin, and take a cab from Cochin to Munar. 2. Take a direct Bus from blore to Munnar.
Option-2 sounds easy, convenient, cheap and attractive.
But How attractive, convenient and attractive is that??? Follow this thread to know more...


Man I forgot, this is thePHOTOGRAPHER.in , gotta share the photographs also ..

The scoop ..
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0231.jpg

To Be Cont...

[KrishnenduKes]

Nice Prologue. And a Superb shot.

Waiting for the continuation.

Approved

[Vicky]

Finally, we have something from your side:p

BTW when was that 22 or 23rd Nov?

Man, you must have guts of steel to be able to ask that question! *bowing down*

Nice write up.

Beautiful shot.

Waiting for more..

[Nakul]

Munnar.. Been there a couple of times.. But through your lens it looks way too beautiful i must admit..

[Bibudesh]

Nice Prologue. And a Superb shot.

Waiting for the continuation.

Approved

Finally, we have something from your side:p



Man, you must have guts of steel to be able to ask that question! *bowing down*

Nice write up.

Beautiful shot.

Waiting for more..
Munnar.. Been there a couple of times.. But through your lens it looks way too beautiful i must admit..

Thanks guys. Munnar is a place where if you are without a tripod then u'll not get sharp photos. he he Kidding since I did not carry mine and screwed up many photos.

Ok here is the log .

So, everyone has clue about the level of miser I am. Naturally and certainly I had to opt for Bus. To and fro 2250 bucks for 2 adults . This is called as saving.

The only hick-up is I am a little phobic when it comes to travelling in a Bus. No, I dont get nausea, but its the uncertain, untimely and irregular calls from nature I may get. So it was high time I had to prepare myself mentally and physically. Nausea? yes it is but from the outlet and not from the inlet.

I went to the KPN travels counter to get the tickets. After a short chat with the counter fellow I called my wife
Myself- "Honey there is no Volvo Ac or sleeper operating in that route,there is only something called as Semi-Sleeper non-AC. what to do"
(Expecting my wife to say "then leave it")..
My wife- "Then kya karen, no other option also, get the tickets, we'll manage." (she meant she'll manage)

I paid the amount to the ticket guy, did not care to check the change he returned. I was on high, little outta senses, highly worried. The journey was going be my longest ones in a Bus- 14 hours. I prayed,"God grant me extra control for the calls, at least temporarily". By calls I meant the natural ones.

And God heard.

Came the D-day. Bags packed, batteries charged and we reached the Bus station (believe me) 2 hours before departure time. Maybe we had exaggerated and overestimated the travel time during peak hours from East to South bangalore.

I was nervous, trying to take very less amount of water. Having more water can fasten digestion. I was recalling any tablet which can cause constipation. There were none.

10.15 PM the bus came half an hour behind schedule. I saw the bus and took some time to make my mind up that THIS is the bus. It was a little better than the local BMTC. So in addition to the nervousness I was facing, the sight of this bus was an icing over cake.

The Bus was a "Semi-Sleeper" which means neither u can sleep, nor sit and worse you cannot stand. Now u can imagine how a person will look like in that posture. I travelled for 14 hours like that.

Morning 7 AM we reached Udumalpet. From here the Annamalai Tiger reserve starts and we'll be crossing the Chinnar wildlife sanctuary in a semi sleep-sit-stand position. Distance to cover- 88kms on the hills.

After around 20kms the dense forest and hill climb started. The 55 seater Bus had 50 vacant seats with 5 passengers, struggling to climb the hills throughout in first gear. The road was steep and even steeper at the curves with very sharp turns. The Bus use to negotiate the curve in 3 points turns, My palio would have easily made it in 2 points LOL, ouch an i-10 can do the same in single. Hero-majestic cannot climb.

To add to the horror, there were no barricades on the road-sides, only half mtrs of gravel and then nothing other than more than 100ft deep hill. Sometimes the Bus shifted to second gear and scene use to get scary when he tried to overspeed (>25kmph). And even worse it was a 1.5 lane road, so overtaking was like stunting.

Journey went on and we reached Marayur. This is where the forest ends and tea plantations start. There is a sudden drop in temperature. So much that we had to take the jackets out. U gotta be there to feel it, its quite surprising and different.

The sight of lush fresh green hills full of tea plantations was mesmerizing. With a very pleasant weather it was even more beautiful. We are 35 kms away from Munnar yippee !......

Pictures to follow-

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0117.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0558.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0469.jpg


More to come ......

[Xavier]

Looking good, Rohit. Nice write up. Looking forward to updates :)

p.s : Is it just me or do is the white balance a bit off in the last photograph?

[surya@64]

The all in one-Man Show, Bibudesh the...Director, cameraman, story, narration....!!!

Superb job till the interval....!!!! Excellent camera work...except for a frame where saturation can be taken care off....

I am not booking a ticket at PVR...this weekend...I'd rather log in for this thread at TPIN...:):):):)

[Aryan]

Nice, interesting conversation there, followed by some beautiful shots there Bibu. :) Share some more of such photographs (and conversations!), if you can. Please. :D ;)

[Bibudesh]

Looking good, Rohit. Nice write up. Looking forward to updates :)

p.s : Is it just me or do is the white balance a bit off in the last photograph?
Now its three of us who can see the screwed WB. I was lazy to work on that, I thought I am the smartest and no-one will make it. But there are two more chaps smarter than me( Xavier and Surya.)

The all in one-Man Show, Bibudesh the...Director, cameraman, story, narration....!!!

Superb job till the interval....!!!! Excellent camera work...except for a frame where saturation can be taken care off....

I am not booking a ticket at PVR...this weekend...I'd rather log in for this thread at TPIN...:):):):)
O..O.. Expectations are high, hope I am doing well like karan Johar. I hope I dont follow Ram Gopal Verma's way later .. No I wont.

I am kinda understanding the limitations of my Camera now :(

Nice, interesting conversation there, followed by some beautiful shots there Bibu. :) Share some more of such photographs (and conversations!), if you can. Please. :D ;)

o sure why not!. A husband-wife conversation is like wine. Older its gets, interesting it becomes !.
Right now I am going out on a Booze party with my Bosses (Man I love my new Organization).. So if I am in a good shape till I reach home then surely I'll write up something today.
Have many more shots to be shared.

[anvancy-(macro analyst)]

will be waiting for those more.it seems you both had a GALA TIME!!;)

in the mean time i couldnt resist:p checking and editing your teaser shot.



since now YOU are in THE PIN..and the trip was your vital one..keep the shots beautiful.your andamans were beautiful.like i said..take some time out and edit your shots..see taking your teaser as example,the cloud at corner above had full potential..and the ones besides it.you edit those and you get the cloud reflection properly in the water also.
the second thing was about the grasslands pastures..in your shot,its exposed a little bit more..

so a quick flow in LR and PS improves the potential of your own shot.

http://i50.tinypic.com/2n14z8p.jpg

give your photos multiple edit rounds..i m not saying in any way that your editing is bad..its that your shots have so much to tell..so bring out that.

if you are uncomfortable do tell..ill delete the shot.:)

Anvancy

[hitanshu]

you are fugging brilliant dude!

I am buying you a swig of whatever favorite poison of yours when you turn up for auto expo!

[KrishnenduKes]

I have seen the shots. I think now this thread is due for some more!

[synn]

Excellent narration and pictures, SP. Loving every bit of it. I kick myself to this day for not visiting Munnar during my India trip last month.

One minor suggestion though. Your teaser pic is wallpaper stuff, but (If it's a cropped version), I'd like to see more of the sky and less of the foliage in the foreground (Which is distracting and doesn't really add to the composition). If that's the whole frame, why not try a square crop?

Oh well, I'll stop blabbing now and let Delta, the munnar expert step in :D

[amvj]

Pictures to follow-

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0117.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0558.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0469.jpg


More to come ......[/QUOTE]

the 2nd pic lacks contrast while the 3rd is having too much

[Bibudesh]

will be waiting for those more.it seems you both had a GALA TIME!!;)

in the mean time i couldnt resist:p checking and editing your teaser shot.



since now YOU are in THE PIN..and the trip was your vital one..keep the shots beautiful.your andamans were beautiful.like i said..take some time out and edit your shots..see taking your teaser as example,the cloud at corner above had full potential..and the ones besides it.you edit those and you get the cloud reflection properly in the water also.
the second thing was about the grasslands pastures..in your shot,its exposed a little bit more..

so a quick flow in LR and PS improves the potential of your own shot.

give your photos multiple edit rounds..i m not saying in any way that your editing is bad..its that your shots have so much to tell..so bring out that.

if you are uncomfortable do tell..ill delete the shot.:)

Anvancy

Nice work Anvay. I somehow dont know the protocol for clouds. Need to do some googling. And all the editing was done when I was in no mood for editing. Mood was more set for talking ;)....
Ok check more of them in thread.

you are fugging brilliant dude!

I am buying you a swig of whatever favorite poison of yours when you turn up for auto expo!

Two large smirnoff with 250ml of Real orange juice each. This is enough for me to start blabbering and get sentimental my friend.

I have seen the shots. I think now this thread is due for some more!

Shots as in??? Seen or drank?
....
I presume u are talking about the ones u see.

All right where was I? ...

Rest 35kms to Munnar from Malayur was covered in 5 minutes, well ahem!, that's what I felt. I reached Munnar, checked the watched and came to know it took us nearly 2 hours to reach from malayur.

OK FYI, I checked into Hotel Westwood Munnar which is good in terms of room quality. Service is okayish as in the ones u can expect in 3k per day types hotels. Nothing great. Food was one word- Pathetic. But the Hotel was at a scenic location. The scoop shot was taken from the Hotel backyard.

This is the restaurant-
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0163.jpg


First thing I thought of doing was to take shower. I jumped off to the bath room, released my nervousness, and off to beneath the shower. I did not check the water, just went to the shower and rotated the lever on.!. Water came out, it splashed over me, and.. for 30 sec I was in coma. It seems the hoteliers have wrongly fitted their refrigeration unit to the utility water tank. I thought of referring them to Anvancy who can give them some mechanical engg. consultancy.

Anyways, its good to have such experiences.

We booked a cab, and I left it to the cabbie whichever place he wants he wantr to show us. So wrong I was in doing that.

-----
While on the way to Munnar you get to see many waterfalls, some of them are very near to the road. If you have your own car then u cna stop by and enjoy the water-falls .. I think from Malayur to Munnar we saw as many as 15 water falls. Come on, here in blore we have to travel 150 odd kms to see a hot humid and rushy water fall.
---

Now the cabbie, he took us to show the Athirampally water falls which is in Munnar-Cochin route. After seeing countless number of waterfalls on the way few hours back, this was just another sight. So apparently I made a mistake trusting this cabbie.
Next spot was the flower garden. This is like a nursery and a heaven for macro shooters. I tried something but due to absence of tripod things went terribly wrong. Some of the best shots from there-

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0426-1.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0321-1.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0415.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0325.jpg

[Bibudesh]

The photo mostly in question is this-
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0469_orig.jpg

I tried again but dont know how to enhance. Any takers?

[anvancy-(macro analyst)]

@Bibudesh: one correction mate..i have Bcom..not engg.:p
the spray part was best.

in your latest series,1 2 and 4 have come out beautiful.specially 1.the rectangle crop is doing great for that particular shot.if you can just select only the flower and sharpen it then it will additionally boost the shot..

no 3 has gone a little too bright..

Anvancy

[Deltaone]

Munnar, brings back fond memories :D. Been there a couple of hundred times at the very least :D. Although, it would seem to me the cabbie ripped you off. Athirapilly is nowhere near munnar. And if you wanted waterfalls, there were a dozen within walking range of where you are. Not to mention a hell of a lot more scenic places to go and see around there :D. It was the one place i wanted to go to when i got my dslr, but was too damn busy and wasn't able to go there before i came here :D.

In the future, if you plan to go someplace like munnar, let me know. I can recommend a whole lot of places to go to to say the very least :D.

[anvancy-(macro analyst)]

The restaurant shot is perfect for sepia or BW..i thought you will do HDR for that particular area..;)

Hey..I need to pass Time..so thought of checking your shots..:)


so your restaurant shot..it also had details.the beauty was those curtains..the curtains and the wooden chairs make it perfect for antique shots..
so a quick edit..

http://i47.tinypic.com/kbc0b7.jpg

there will be noise since i have few pixels to work upon..

just when you get free time sit again with your shots and give round 2 edit to them..you will find more!!

Anvancy

[Bibudesh]

@Bibudesh: one correction mate..i have Bcom..not engg.:p
the spray part was best.

in your latest series,1 2 and 4 have come out beautiful.specially 1.the rectangle crop is doing great for that particular shot.if you can just select only the flower and sharpen it then it will additionally boost the shot..

no 3 has gone a little too bright..

Anvancy
Thanks dude. Maybe with such a level of hangover I guessed from your industrial visit that u r mechanic types :D ...
No.3 I had similar thoughts but I wanted to maintain near SOOC. Its the the way it has come and the graph was proper. Clipping did not show any over exposure. But good that u also felt in similar line about the brightness.

I am trying to get more SOOC type images to improvise my original skills. Inspired by Ken maybe.

Munnar, brings back fond memories :D. Been there a couple of hundred times at the very least :D. Although, it would seem to me the cabbie ripped you off. Athirapilly is nowhere near munnar. And if you wanted waterfalls, there were a dozen within walking range of where you are. Not to mention a hell of a lot more scenic places to go and see around there :D. It was the one place i wanted to go to when i got my dslr, but was too damn busy and wasn't able to go there before i came here :D.

In the future, if you plan to go someplace like munnar, let me know. I can recommend a whole lot of places to go to to say the very least :D.

Where were u when I was going. My bad, I did not inform anyone. But in near future I am not going to any cold,waterfall type places. Next trip is going to be something different.

The restaurant shot is perfect for sepia or BW..i thought you will do HDR for that particular area..;)

Hey..I need to pass Time..so thought of checking your shots..:)


so your restaurant shot..it also had details.the beauty was those curtains..the curtains and the wooden chairs make it perfect for antique shots..
so a quick edit..

http://i47.tinypic.com/kbc0b7.jpg

there will be noise since i have few pixels to work upon..

just when you get free time sit again with your shots and give round 2 edit to them..you will find more!!

Anvancy

Hey i dunno what is happening buddy. I am unable to edit any shot right. your version look good.
Is it ok if I send u couple of RAWs which u can work on and share it here if U are free?


OK so from now on no log, since nothing special happened after that.

The shots-

One from Hydel Park-
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0056_01.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0121.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0580.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0055.jpg

[Bibudesh]

Excellent narration and pictures, SP. Loving every bit of it. I kick myself to this day for not visiting Munnar during my India trip last month.

Thanks Synn. I should say one 'MUST' see the places in India. Munnar is one very good spot, but there are many destinations in India which I can rate No.1 in world. Andamans is one of them.


One minor suggestion though. Your teaser pic is wallpaper stuff, but (If it's a cropped version), I'd like to see more of the sky and less of the foliage in the foreground (Which is distracting and doesn't really add to the composition). If that's the whole frame, why not try a square crop?

Oh well, I'll stop blabbing now and let Delta, the munnar expert step in :D

:-D.. I have got lots more to work on. Will take care of these tips in the ones I m working on right now.


the 2nd pic lacks contrast while the 3rd is having too much
Still working on the algo, maybe learning. This is happening due to the misty haziness in original shots.

[anvancy-(macro analyst)]

Hey i dunno what is happening buddy. I am unable to edit any shot right. your version look good.
Is it ok if I send u couple of RAWs which u can work on and share it here if U are free?

send them..ill see what i can do.




OK so from now on no log, since nothing special happened after that.

The shots-

One from Hydel Park-
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0056_01.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0121.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0580.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/bibudesh/DSC_0055.jpg2 3 4 are nice..

anvancy

[Bibudesh]

send them..ill see what i can do.


2 3 4 are nice..

anvancy

Thanks buddy. Wil do that shortly.