A session with Chameleon

I got a call early this morning from arun, the reptile guy of my college . He asked me to come immediately to photograph a chameleon that he caught this morning when he was searching for snakes.taking my macro lens out i rushed to college to photograph it. It just stopped raining and the sky was overcast with the first ray of light coming out. I got some good shots of this guy and was very happy as i wanted to photograph a chameleon many years back n it came true today. check out the pics.








cheers,

ram

BEGGING ECONOMICS IN TRAINS

I travel by train everyday to attend college for attendance :) it takes me 40 minutes to reach my college which is 30 kms from my place. i usually spend the time in train reading newspapers. today as i was late i couldn get the newspaper from the stall. the compartment was full and few beggars were playing some instruments asking money. A thought struck my mind.
usually a local train makes 20 trips from egmore to tambaram. from morning 9 AM to 12 AM and from 4 PM to 8 PM train will be packed with people shuttling here and there. The beggars throng the compartments everytime using all innovative methods to collect money.i have seen beggars with debit cards!
In a compartment 100 people can sit. there r totally 8 compartments normal in the local train and many times a day 12 car shuttles between stations in peak hours of traffic. in a compartment of 100 people if 10 people offer 1 rupee each the beggars can collect 80 rupees from 8 compartments in a trip from egmore to tambaram. in 20 trips a day they collect money ranging from 1500-2000 per day and in a month( 30 days) they earn from 45000 to 60000 per months.
now 60000 is a lot more honey than what many IT people with a little experience get paid these days. Beggars don have to worry about all taxes.
Now,people, r u gonna try ur hands on begging ;) keep me posted :)

current mood::-O

cheers,

ram

FINALLY A LEOPARD SIGHTING AFTER 4 YEARS

I made a quick trip to mudumalai hoping to see a big cat with my friend Avinash( software engineer and mountaineer and nature lover) and ' the snake catcher' arun kumar. we found the jeep and started to mudumalai from banglore. Reaching mudumalai by 7 PM in the evening we were driving to our friend John's place at masinagudi.
It start to drizzling. we could hear only the sound of water droplets and the cool gentle wind was blowing silently. it was very pleasant. as we moved further we could see a spotted animal near the tree. " leopard....leopard" was my call and avinash came to a screaching halt. we searched for the leopard in that place and we should see it neat the tree. it should be a 1 1/2 year old leopard cub. i couldn believe my eyes. i am not always lucky with big cats or even lesser cats. visiting BR hills( one of the highest densities of leopard population) sround 15 times i could spot the leopard. This is my first sighting of a leopard in four years. unfortunately i packed my 200-400 as it was late in the night. i managed to get a record shot with my 70-200. though its not a good picture the sight is always amazing.



the cub was watching the jeep light for nearly 3 minutes and another cub was calling up the hill. alarm call echoed across mudumalai wildlife sanctuary as the elusive and charming big cat was on prowl. a sambhar deer was very close to us. it was very disturbed and scared. the deer was surrounded by 2 cubs and its mother and the jeep on the other side. it just couldn move anywhere. we were expecting the leopard some forest guards came and make a big fuss for parking the vehicle off the road. finally we had to leave.
we marked the place where we spotted it so that we can search the next day morning. the whole night i was dreaming about my first leopard sighting and was hoping to see it in day light to make some good pictures. as usual i was unlucky the next day. It was raning the whole morning and i couldn take my camera out. on my way back i stayed in mysore for a day to do some bird photography in the lakes of mysore with my friend Mr.Kulashekara. i will write about the superb lake and the birds in the next post.


cheers,

ram

current mood: happy :)

FROM THE PRESS

An article about me was published last week in a leading tamil magazine 'ananda vigadan' on the teen acheivers category. here is the write up. have a look



cheers,

ram

DISPLAY OF IMAGES TANGERINE

a display of 10 images of birds captured by me is at tangerine from august 19th to august 31st... the theme is wings,pictures costing Rs.2000 each..off the sales 25% will be given to periyar foundation(part of periyar tiger reserve) which is working on bio-diversity conservation, research and tribal welfare.

tangerine:- 5,murrays gate road,
alwarpet
chennai-18
ph:044-24355834

if u r in chennai do have a look at my images. if u have fat wallet u can order for the pictures by contacting me.

current mood:- happy :)

cheers,
ram

AT 3.50 AM

i totally didnt get any sleep today. i am completely disturbed and pre occupied. thought of posting some of my pics here but totally no mood rite now. by the way tamil weekly magazine "ananda vigadan" interviewed me a week back to write an article.they did some funny artificial photo shoot last week. i guess it will be published today. check out in the nearby book stalls.heading back to sleep.........

current mood: awake

cheers,

ram

WATER EVERYWHERE BUT LESS BIRDS

i made a quick weekend trip to wetlands and lakes near pondhichery in search of birds. the day was dull and cloudy in osteri lake, a huge lake 10 kms from pondhichery wer lot of migratory and resident birds come here after rains. i guess its because of the delayed monsoons that i couldn sight much birds. far away i saw lots of common coots, purple swamp hen and dab chicks. i am yet to process those images. a dull weekend in terms of photography :) i came home and fell sick. hope i will be get some time to post process images.
btw i was reading an article written by nature photographer ganesh HS on post processing. i love his way of work and he is simply amazing in making images and writting articles. i thought i can share this article with u.http://www.naturelyrics.com/articles/process_feelings/process_feel.html . his works can be seen at www.naturelyrics.com

current mood: sick

cheers,

ram.