Skywatch Friday: Beyond The Horizon

Recently I had been to hometown. Whenever I get an opportunity, I love to visit beautiful shorelines of Kaup beach which is mere 6kms from my village. The light house, the dazzling sun, gorgeous backwaters, the distant horizon, compels me to visit as frequently as possible. Here are some pictures shot during the visit. There was colorful sunset in between strip of stratocumulous clouds which illuminated the atmosphere with spectacular patterns :-). Every beach visit has been unique for me with mother nature showing up with vivid patterns.

KAUP BEACH SHORE LINE WITH GORGEOUS BACKWATERS

THE MAJESTIC SHORE-LINE FROM TOP OF LIGHT HOUSE

LOOK INTO THE SKY!

Last but not the least, the visit is never completed without a dose of tasty churumuri :-). But as always there are candidates for it beyond human race :-(.

THE CURIOUS GUEST :D

This guy is owned by some beach worker was lethargically resting on dunes. As soon as he saw my churumuri, he slowly woke up and sat in front of me :-). Since everyone had finished their part and I was the last to finish, I was the only choice for him :-(. I had kept camera for short timelapse and had to drive him away from tripod so that he does not get lured by pole of tripod :D. Also, if I don't feed him, there was chances of taking revenge on me nearby tripod :-). Eventually we fed him with some snacks not because of revenge but his innocent face compelled us to feed some food.

Back to title, I was excited after seeing the dead straight horizon at far end. Looking at the panoramic view of Kaup beach, the title flashed on to my mind. We never know what is in store Beyond Horizon of our life. Just enjoy what is present and what is within the horizon. Don't confuse your life having expectations beyond horizon. Keep yourself busy (ex: nurturing your hobbies) so that you don't program your mind to have nasty expectations. What lies beyond horizon is only imagination and do not expect to happen your way. You can only hope for best. Whatever happens, accept it gracefully and  enjoy the journey. Yes, these things are difficult to follow yet we can achieve to certain extent. I am practicing it gradually :-) and as first step, I saw lot beauty in my backyard which I have shared above ;-). Beyond horizon, I don't know to swim and hence settled within horizon ;-).

Also within the horizon enjoy the beautiful composition of British musician Cymatics - Beyond Horizon. He is producing new songs with code name "Innersync". The exciting part of music is the orchestral breakdown. It has heart breaking melody with soothing sound of piano! 20% of blog posts arise out of such compelling music which communicate deep emotions in their chords. If you admire uplifting trance music do listen to music here.

Innersync - Beyond The Horizon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCikrEZ_QxY

If you wish to participate in weekly skywatch theme and join people beyond your horizon, create a blogpost with self-clicked picture containing sky and link blog URL here. Do not miss to visit other people's page and appreciate their efforts too!

Skywatch Friday: Boundless light

Nature always inspires me to take my camera, lens and finally the blogs :-). It is because of such beautiful setup by mother nature which inspired me to dwell into photography. As always been murmuring in blog posts, my main interests are in landscape and timelapse photography however nowadays I am also lured towards HDR and architecture photography. These were some of the HDR shots composed during my recent visit to Kaup beach. Nowadays I love composing HDR shots after I switched to RAW from JPEG. I even wish to capture normal shots in RAW but honestly hard disks are getting exhausted :-(. Consequently for single exposures, I shoot RAW which I find interesting.

One of my favorite hobby is to stare at the sky :D especially during monsoon season to understand the formation of clouds and the storm build ups. Others include watching those glorious rays of Sun sinking down the horizon during golden hour with vivid patterns. Consequently, whenever I travel to hometown, I don't miss a chance to visit Kaup beach or Kudremukh rainforests during monsoon season. While the seascape filled with yellow shines the lovely Kudremukh forests would be painted green with pristine water flowing along brimming streams and thundering waterfalls :-).

The day, there was beautiful golden hour Sun piercing through stratocumulous clouds illuminating the sky with dramatic patterns of orange-yellow colors. That tempted me to grab the HDR shots basically to have the land, sea, clouds and sky and sun exposed in image. The shots are blend of 5 RAW images with exposures from -2 to 2 (except for second one which is 7 [-3 to 3]). Since the SUN was less intense than usual, even shooting towards SUN with 5 expsoures were enough. Usually shooting towards SUN requires 7 exposures. The images were blended and tonemapped with Luminance HDR (Fatal operator) and final touch-up with dark table. For some images, beta value of fatal operator was reduced to expose the shadows well. For second image, I was just hoping for scooter boat to remain steady and fortunately it remained so :-). Later the mighty sea tides turned it 90 degrees towards right. By then, my HDR composition was completed :-). Especially I love the first two images :-). I can use them as wallpapers from now onwards with special tag as self composed ;-).

Boundless scattered light ;-)

Boundless light behind the rocks

Today's theme for Skywatch is boundless light. Now for title, after watching those glorious rays of Sun, this title flashed on to my mind. Boundless light with bountiful colors :D. It seems like the sky is spraying colorful light on earth :D. The SUN obviously has boundless light and energy. It is also star twinkling in distant world! Let our life be filled with bountiful of light amidst darkness. Even if darkness galore, lets make sure we find little light in there.

Finally hear one of beautiful Music from Mr.Gordon codenamed New World from US, "Boundless light". I describe him as musical genius. He was just 21 when he composed such an outstanding music :-). He is right example for enthusiasm and passion. His hard work and passion in musical instruments has drawn such magical talent in him at a tender age. His unique style of crafting uplifting music (especially a brief melody at end of music without bass) has elevated him to epitome of music.  Whenever new music roles out of his talent, he is champ! The melodious lead riffs, scintillating orchestral melody are his specials :D. They are absolutely stunning :-). I have to learn lot from this young guy's passion which helped him to achieve such musical loftiness. He has been one of my favorite music producers since introduction from "Rise Above". Even though I have not found like minded people who admire such music, I am inclined to this genre which are filled with boundless emotions and energy, despite the absence of vocal. It has been more than 3 years of journey into Uplifting trance music and chillout music for me and my interest towards it keeps elevating with introduction of such musical talents :-).

As far as this music, the emotions start at 1:50, later with boundless orchestral melody at 3:00, with outset of spectacular breakdown at 4:01 and finally the light arrives with blazing speed at 4:52 :-). 

Enough said, hear it here!

New World : Boundless Light(Emotional mix):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y95CW5KnlaI

Also do not miss equally beautiful remix of the same by TouchStone:

New World - Boundless Light (Touchstone Remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uLfMrIHzRI 

Finally if you wish to participate in skywatch theme and share with boundless world, create a blog post with a picture (self-owned) inclusive of sky and link your blogpost here (skyle). Note that text is not mandatory! Also do not forget to visit related posts from other member's too!

Skywatch Friday: Into the Sky

Never knew there was a place to share common theme in a blogpost. Recently I stumbled upon this site which lets you to add your blog post pertaining to a theme each day. For Friday, it is Skywatch :-).

Skywatch should have blog post with a photograph inclusive of sky. For this theme for this Friday, here is HDR of Kaup beach light house shot few weeks back. I just love the colors :-). It seems like lighthouse is ready to launch itself to sky :D. The final image was brutally tweaked to obtain the desired effects (name it white-balance, shadows&highlight correction, sharpness, contrast, saturation, level etc.. etc..)

KAUP BEACH LIGHTHOUSE

Despite brutally tweaked, the image is devoid of any noise or distortion. Thats major advantage of shooting in RAW and compose HDR. I am enjoying the workflow right from start of Luminance HDR till the end of dark table. Dark table is too cool :-) gives fantastic results and its open source too!

Nowadays its difficult to find time for myself to elaborate a topic and hence nothing much detailed post. When I am free, will try to share my workflow so that people can comment on improvements.

Into the Sky, hear beautiful music by Afternova one of my favorite music producer and fly into the sky. It has one of the finest orchestral melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbaz9eWw6i8

Arisen

Early morning around 5:30AM, we woke up to a snippy weather at Kodachadri with stormy breeze challenging the mighty hillocks and tall trees with powerful gusts. We refreshed ourselves and ready to start to Sunrise point which requires a hike of 800m along narrow ridge. Since the SUN was not yet out, we had to bank upon torch light to follow the trail properly. Half way along the hike, the trail gets very narrow and gusty winds tend to push us down to the valley. After cautiously passing along this path, we reached the Sunrise point. The powerful wind was pushing us very hard and cold weather requires everyone to cover body with winter wear.

The time was 6:50AM. We were foreseeing a dazzling sunrise in few moments shimmering the beautiful Sharavati river back waters. I had kept camera for sunrise timelapse and turned out be nice too ;-). Few minutes later, there goes the initial appearance of shy Sun piercing through clouds at the distant horizon sparkling the Sharavati river backwaters with orange spectacle. We cheered with enthusiasm and welcomed the Sun of the day :-). Of-course, the red carpet for the Sun's arrival was laid by Sun itself ;-). After few more minutes, the Sun was completely "Arisen" and it was time to take the picture of blazing Sun of golden hour! Here is the picture of "Arisen" Sun. Later on we stayed for some more time to garner Vitamin D.

ARISEN SUN!

Not to miss our lovely guide to Sunrise view point :D. He was little bit ahead of us and followed the trail providing us direction. Whenever we stopped to rest, he also rested and as we moved on, he was guiding us :-). For some more time, he enjoyed the Vitamin D before reaching base camp!

OUR GUIDE :-)

Do here magnificent music "Arisen" by British musician Laurence Rapaccioli codenamed Arksun on this occasion flavored with wonderful breakdown!

Arksun - Arisen (Original mix): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIA2fFiy9ac


If you wish to hear only breakdown, hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKf7r6j5bwc

Also do not miss the beautiful chilldown remix of Magdelyana of the same

Arksun - Arisen (magdelyana Chill mix): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxQi3RO_znU

Sunset and Sunrise at Kodachadri Peak - A short timelapse

Here is one more timelapse from Kodachadri Peak. This is 12th timelapse video in my youtube channel :-).

It was 5:30PM on bright Saturday when we reached Kodachadri peak after trek from Santosh hotel for about 5kms. We were sweating vigorously following long hike. After seeking blessings of Lord Shiva at Sarvajna Peetha, it was time to rest on one of the rocks awaiting sunset. In between casual chat, Rajesh pestered me to start a timelapse. I was bit lethargic but he was persistent :D. Finally, I started the intervalometer for 2images a minute. As a result it turned out to be wonderful fast setting sun ;-). Since there was an hour of time for complete sunset, I kept interval for 30s capture. I did not use manual mode since wanted to grab bright Sun always. The problem with Manual mode is it turns out quite darker gradually as sun loses intensity. As you know, the disadvantage of using Av is variation in lighting which can be corrected with software approaches. I did not carry tripod and consequently mounted camera on rocky surface for interval shots.

Next is sunrise timelapse. I realised a bit late there was only few time left for sunrise and hence tuned intervalometer to grab a shot per 10 second. The mode is Av mode due to said reason as mentioned above. Even this capture was based on Rajesh's input. I was bit skeptical that heavy breeze would shake camera which may result in out of frame pictures. However, the camera stood upright ;-). This time also I placed it on one of the rocks in sunrise point. Once Sun was arisen with golden colors, I could not resist and turned off intervalometer :-). The timelapse of Sunrise was achieved though ;-) however with less interval. Combining both the timelapses, here is a video. I thought of combining these with the already pending ones to form a bigger one. However, demand from boys and draining disk space forced me to compose the video and share. Hope you enjoy the same.

Settings:

I do not remember exactly. Both scenes were shot in Av mode. The video is rendered in KDENLIVE 1080p 25fps and 2pass encoding MPEG4/MP3.

Music: After lot of internal tussle, I settled for the Simon O Shine's musical brilliance - Your Distant World. Other options considered were excerpts from Sunset-Beautiful Life (Vol Deeman Remix) and SoundLift - Horizonte (Andy Blueman Intro mix). All of them matched well for video however could not resist the fabulous orchestral breakdown and eventually applied for the timelapse. It did fit too ;-).

Composing timelapses makes me exhilarated. Ever since I stumbled upon timelapse photography from internet sources, it has been one of my favorite hobbies. I enjoy composing timelapse despite requiring longer time. From my experience, timelapse requires persistence, perception, a bit of intuition and lot of patience more than camera techniques. To some extent few video editing techniques help a lot too! In order to bring up my mood (when I am down) and also since my disk space is exhausting at faster pace, I hope to upload more pending timelapses in coming days :-)

Ashutosh also pulled a wonderful timelapse and here it is. He has also some collection of star trail timelapse which he might share in his channel.

The Wondrous Aghanaashini River, Kumta, UttaraKannada District

The stretch from Mangalore to Goa is great place for drive as well as Konkan Railway journey. The region is spectacular during monsoon season painted with lush greenery, brimming rivulets and of-course torrential monsoon rains. Recently during my visit to Yana, I stopped one of those beautiful river along this stretch which is one and only Aghanaashini river of Kumta for 15 minutes. It is exhilarating to feel this magnificent river and has been one of my hotspots from past 3 years along Mangalore-Karwar belt. Its breath-taking landscape decorated with tiny boats, hills, coconut trees and blue water makes me stunned every time I visit. I did hire an auto to visit Yana however if I had my own arrangements, I would have driven to Divgi where we can enjoy the river basin closely. Also this river is flows along many beautiful waterfalls nearby Siddapur before reaching Kumta and merging with Arabian sea. I took some shots and videos for my archive. Enjoy the pictures and a short video compilation shot from National Highway. During next visit, I hope to grab some footages from Divgi region.

RIVER WITH BEAUTIFUL HILLOCKS

FROM MIDDLE OF BRIDGE

WEST SIDE CAPTURE

And a short video!

Shri Vishwanatham Bhajeham

Shiva is sign of energy, simplicity and unpredictability. One needs energy to move on during unpredictable times and simplicity to lead peaceful life. These are  qualities which I learnt from the almighty. Today on auspicious day of Mahashivaratri I would like to share some of HDR and panoramic pictures from Yana visit known for surreal rocky landscapes. I wanted to write detailed blog on Yana but due to lack of time could not commit. This is the only day wherein devotees are allowed to enter sanctum sanctorum of temple. The place will be heavily crowded today with myriad of pilgrims visiting to have darshan of Lord Bhairaveshwara. The post is dedicated Lord Bhairaveshwara of Yana who is residing deity of the place.

Yana is one of those beautiful treasures of coastal Karnataka located in between spectacular rainforests of Uttara Kannada district. One needs to travel in order to feel region shrouded under dense canopy of western ghats. Amidst this magnificent nature lies Yana which has almost 61 limestone rocks stamped on its surface. Of them, the prominent are the two large peaks namely Mohini Shikara and Bhairaveshwara shikara. Lord shiva is self formed under Bhairaveshwara shikara and water drips from top of shivalinga all through year. Precisely the Lord is described as "Ganga Chandika Bhairaveshwara". The reason behind such a name will be described in my detailed blog (or you can google it!). The environment beneath the monolithic rock is natural AC :-). It is so cool under the natural air cooler of western ghats! There are plethora of streams which run besides thick tall woods finally merging with Aghanaashini river near Kumta. If you ever visit Gokarna or Kumta, don't ever miss to visit this alluring natural splendor. Here are pictures after boring narration ;-).

PANORAMIC GLOWING PICTURE :-)

CLOSE UP PANORAMA

 This one is not so well composed. Just posted for archive.

PANORAMA WITH TEMPLE

The below picture is not composed with RAW files. Nowadays I compose HDR in RAW and I can see difference from JPG files. One can tweak resulting image to vast extent without losing quality or infusing noise. Eventually I have corrected myself :-).

MOHINI SHIKARA IN HDR

Even though trajectory of Sun starts to change around Makara Sankranthi, Shivaratri signifies the end of winter and beginning of spring. Usually a week or two before Shivaratri, strong breeze pervade the region signifying end of winter. It is also period of sickness too due to significant transition in weather!

On this day, I would like to share one of my favorite composition "Sri Vishwanatham Bhajeham" by Shri Muthuswamy Deekshitar, a Sanskrit rendetion with blend of 14 raagas. The beauty of Shri Deekshitar composition is the aligning tint of raaga with song literature. He describes the majestic shiva in 14 raagas with fabulous literature. The song starts with "Shri" raaga and ends with "Bhoopala". The song is divided into two sections. The first section comprises of Shri, Aarabhi, Gowri, Gowla, Naata, Mohana and later follows the reverse path. The second section comprises of Saama, Lalita, Bhairava, Saranga, Shankarabharanam, Kambodhi, Devakriya, Bhoopalam and later goes all the way reverse path of 14 raagas with spectacular progression :-). The depth of Shri Deekshitar's scholarship is evident from this  masterpiece.

If you admire carnatic classical music, do hear this bautiful music sung in chorus in two parts.  The delightful rendition is of this song goes to Smt. M L Vasanthakumari however not finding link anywhere :-(.

1) Sri Vishwanatham Bhajeham Part-1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73BKPMkNWgg
2) Sri Vishwanatham Bhajeham Part-2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxS9uMP1T3g