Digital Photography

My brought up is in a city.  I have visited my uncle’s village just twice in my childhood.  Those days were spent mostly roaming about to relatives in the village and playing with cousins.  I have never been to any forest.  The only place I visited to see animals is Nehru Zoological park in Hyderabad and Tarapur acquarium, Tarapur in Maharashtra in my teens.  I remember the beings seen here vaguely.  In my childhood days we would regularly see sparrows, crows and pigeons regularly around our home.  Now I rarely see sparrows.   I read that they have become almost extinct.  Even crows have become a rare sight in the place I live. 

For the past 3 – 4 years I am having more leisure time.  This time I spend either reading books or roaming around my home, watching plants and trees and the beings that are sheltered by the trees.  As I was gifted a digital camera (Kodak easy share M753) by my daughter it has become my habit to photograph things I found interesting.  I love to take photos as I feel that it is a way of keeping pleasurable memories treasured.  My brother-in-law, who knew my interest in photography had presented me a camera in 2002.  But then I had to spend money for the film, I had to be choosy in taking pictures.  But owning a digital camera made me click whatever I wanted without restraint and programming.  It costs me nothing, and I can take and delete pictures as many as I want to.  The disadvantage with digital camera was I had very few prints of the pictures, just stored them in CDs, few posted online in my blogs.  With the old camera every picture that was good was printed out in the studio and I have an album of those events.

Since two years I have become a bit serious about pursuing photography as a hobby.  Two years ago my other half has presented me with Samsung galaxy camera EK-GC 100.   This is a tiny beautiful camera with good picture quality and multiple options.  I experiment all the stuff I learn in digital photography lessons.  Capable of capturing few awesome pictures (as per my standards) I became more passionate to capture photos every day. I keep my camera handy always.  If I have no other work and lighting is good I try to click everything interesting in different modes. Then one day I sit and load them into my computer and edit.  I have very few options to edit, MS photo editor and picasa.  I used photostage for some time.  Now I am trying online editor, Pixlr.  Next I should try Adobe photo shop. 

My interest in photography had led me to capture few birds that would perch on the trees around my house.  These I posted in my blogs “Beings around my home”.  My interest led me to always have a keen eye on my surroundings (at home).  I was lucky to catch glimpse of birds which I have not seen previously and do not know the names. 

Last month with rains plants have grown in the open plot beside my house.  The flowers attracted butterflies of different colors and sizes.  I have become obsessed with photographing as many pictures of these beautiful creatures and could obtain a few good one.  I would sit watching their flight and behavior. That made me interested to know more about these lively creatures.  Wikipedia has given details of different stages of butterfly and its life style. 

In childhood I remember reading the life cycle of butterfly.  Then I remember reading that a butterfly in its final form will live for 24 hours only.  I used to feel bad that such beauty of nature had such short life.  Now I came to know that depending on species a butterfly in its adult form will live from a week to a year.  It is also surprising to know that Monarch butterflies live for more than a year and they migrate from Canada to Mexico (about 2000 miles).  It is believed that direction of sun rays will lead its way to Mexico.  The sense of taste is 200 times stronger than that of human.  Many species of butterflies maintain territories and actively chase other species, individuals that may stray into them.  Each group will have its own host plant range, some restrict to just one species while few others use a range of plant species. As I was watching butterflies for the past few days I could observe this behavior, but I was doubtful.  Wikipedia had confirmed my observation.

I used to sit for hours (when possible) focusing one area where I thought certain butterflies frequented.  The moment I want to click they would fly off.  But still my perseverance gifted me  few good pictures of butterflies. 

Now and then I would suddenly find a bird or any other being and if I am lucky I would get a picture or two of the same.

I have seen this bird first time in my life.  I have checked the web for images of similar bird, couldn't find one.  I think it could be a species of  heron.  May be it is a migratory bird.

Digital camera had sparked my interest in photography as I can experiment a lot without spending much money.  In fact digital photography is making everybody to treasure their all special moments and share with world.

 

I have seen only the pictures of owl.  The common picture we see is different.  But this is also owl.  Again it was a surprise sight and chance click.