Day 19 - Return of the Squeegee Man

I was at my computer while the window cleaner lowered his lift to my window. For a few seconds I pretended to be busy, staring at my computer, not sure if I should acknowledge his presence. Then from the corner of my eye I saw that he had soaped the glass and it looked wonderful. By instinct I grabbed the camera and clicked a picture. It was like he was in and out in under 60 seconds, not actually in per se, but you know what I mean. 

In those 60 seconds I wondered if he could see the mess my house was in and was judging me by the half eaten piece of bread lying desolately on the dining table. Oh well, in the next 60 seconds some rapid tidying up took place and the bread in question binned. 

Day 18 - Put Your Feet Up

Didn't have to step out of the house for this one. But these feet could do with a good scrub and polish.

Day 17 - Peek a Boo

On day 17 we were at the park because it was such a lovely day; bright and sunny with no risk of getting a sunburn. Decided to take some portraits and who better than family to pose for you eh? I am not sure if strangers will be that obliging, will probably have to ask the next time. 

Anyway, Santhosh and Kicky had no choice but to be my subjects. Though I did get some good shots of Santhosh, Kicky won hands down; kids are way cuter aren't they? Contrary to her demure poses she surprised me with this one by jumping in front of my camera. I think this makes a wonderful portrait.

Day 16 - How To Catch Butterflies

Was experimenting with custom bokeh's on Day 16. As always loads of tips available on the net to achieve custom bokeh effects, look it up. 

I actually made three shapes, a heart, butterfly and star. But decided to go with the butterflies since hearts and stars have been clicked in plenty. The images had a lot of noise though, which I tried rather unsuccessfully to remove during post processing. Not sure if it was because of my camera or whether the paper I used for the bokeh shape was not black; probably both.

Have to try this technique again with better drawn shapes. This butterfly of mine looks like the result of a genetic experiment in a lepidopetra lab seriously gone wrong.

Day 15 - Purple Haze

Tried some smoke photography today, at the risk of burning the house down. Candles are rubbish for this kind of photography, so don't use them. Incense sticks are apparently the best, but if you don't have them then we've got to improvise. Presenting the humble cotton bud. This effect was achieved with about 4 cotton buds lit both ends, talk about your rear being on fire.

I had fun doing this. You can google and you'll get loads of tips on how to do this. It's best done with a black background. So I propped Santhosh's black t-shirt on a a laptop bag, so that it could stand on it's own, lit the cotton buds, laid them on a metal plate and clicked away. Have your flash on when clicking the photographs. If you want to come up with this  effect you have to post process a bit. I used lightroom. Darken the background, tint the photograph and you can have any colour smoke you want.

Btw, what do you think this looks like?

Day 14 - Ghost Tram

On day 14 I was at the tram station playing around with slow shutter speed. I wish I had a tripod for this one. My hands are not the steadiest. However, the result was not too bad, though maybe I could use a little more creativity.

Why didn't I post this yesterday? Well, yesterday was I-wont-startup-the-laptop day. Yup, every morning after I slide off the bed, I move towards the laptop in a sleepwalking motion and start it up. Coffee and breakfast is usually consumed hunched over the machine and so are other beverages and eatables. So I decided to get out, breathe some fresh air, catch up on my reading and thought that this post could definitely wait a day. I did click this photograph yesterday though, no cheating on my project.

Day 13 - Run With The Wind

It was quite a blustery day today; bright, sunny and blustery. The leaves were swirling around in mini-hurricane like motions which was reminiscent of autumn, but no it's spring. So I was trying to get a picture of the swirling leaves from my window and this runner lady zooms past. This is also a reminder for me to put on my running shoes and get out in the sun.

Day 12 - Old Faithful

I spend hours crouched behind this machine. This which has no battery back up, can suddenly throw up the fatal blue screen, has undergone one operation and had new parts put in. We probably should've dumped this thing years ago, but I guess we've grown fond of it and though we hate it we still love it.

Day 11 - Winter Postcard

None of us wanted to leave Hafjell. We had a lovely time talking, playing, reading, sometimes doing nothing and the place was just amazing. Now doesn't this look like postcard material?

Day 10 - I heart Rundstykker

Those who love freshly baked bread, please raise your hands! Rani,my friend, bless her, woke up early on Saturday morning to make these Rundstykker (bread rolls) for us. The whole cabin had that heavenly smell of bread. And when she gave me one straight out of the oven, I greedily scooped butter on top of it and saw it melt right through the roll. I love bread. If you've known me long enough I have probably told you that too many times.

Day 9 - Snowball fight

There's still snow up in the hills. Remember I told you we drove till Hafjell, to a cabin? We got there on Thursday night. On Friday morning we walked around, actually more than walking someone or the other would keep falling almost waist deep in snow and we (I was more of a bystander) would have to dig the snow around them to get them out. But we also had time for a snowball fight. Fun, fun, fun!

Day 8 - Cake Time

Thought I had abandoned this project? Nah, not just yet. On Day 8 I was busy making a birthday cake for a friend's daughter. And that same evening we went to Hafjell, up to a cabin where I had no access to internet. So I had to wait until today to update the blog. 

The cake was not as perfect as I'd wanted it to be, but I was pleased with the result. It was a chocolate cake (quite sinful) covered with Marzipan; yeah not fondant, and it was a little tricky to work with. Everything was made by hand, though the butterflies and teeny flowers were from a cutter (so I didn't have to actually model it). The books and flowers were made using Kicky's play dough tools. She was not very pleased that I had used them, maybe time to get my own tools.

Day 7 - Reading List

My "To Read" list. Most of them were bought this time in India, this despite the fact that I decided not to buy any more books until I had finished reading the ones on my bookshelf. Oh well, old habits die hard. 

Day 6 - Walk On

I was at the tram stop today with the intention of photographing a tram. Of course many came along, but for lack of creativity I couldn't get any decent shots. So I decided to focus on the footpath instead. Aren't shoes in motion fun to photograph?!

Day 5 - 'C' Season

Spring is here, apparently. The weather is actually no proof of that, what with light snow, heavy rain and blustering cold winds doing the rounds.

But the Oslo Bysykkel (Oslo Bicycles) have started locking and stocking their bicycles for this season, which starts in Spring and ends beginning of Winter. Once you become a member, you can borrow a cycle from any station for about 3 hours, return it to any other station after 3 hours and then pick up another cycle for another 3 hours; and you can keep doing this until midnight. A truck usually does rounds to replenish cycles at the stations; also these stations are almost everywhere. 

Last season, an ambitious lad (my husband), bought the cycle card, confident that he would cycle around the whole season; actual number of cycle trips...3. Maybe this season he'll beat that record.

Day 4 - The Inverted Photographer

We were at a friend's place to celebrate the Vishu, the Malayalam New Year. And though I intended to include a photo of the Vishu Kani as today's subject, this seemed to be a far more interesting picture. My friend's daughter was fooling around with a telescope while I was clicking away. And as I was looking through today's bunch of pictures I found an inverted me on the telescope lens. Interesting eh?

Day 3 - Run Grete Run

The Bislett Stadion, one of the sights to visit in Oslo and a stone's throw away from my neighbour's apartment; (if I threw a stone from my apartment it would hit the sushi place across). This stadium has hosted a Winter Olympics, weathered renovations and last year had Usain Bolt setting its tracks on fire at the annual Bislett Games. 

This was also the place where I received distinct messages from my brain that what I thought was "running" was in fact "jogging", that too in slow motion.

I decided to make this the subject of my project today since I have used its services (probably slightly cracked it too) and also see it almost everyday.

Outside the Bislett Stadion is the statue of Grete Waitz, an accomplished Norwegian Marathon runner. For more details look up wikipedia or click here. This is a shot of her legs (the statue's of course) with the Bislett Stadion in the background.

Day 2 - The Face in the Tree

4 degrees will take some getting used to when you've just seen 5 weeks of scorching sun and sweltering heat. So I was not very motivated to go out in the cold (this coming from a person who a couple of months said, "It's warm today, it's only -4") for my project. 

But then I didn't want to let this project to die an early death; so after picking up Kicky from the barnehage (kindergarten) I played around with the camera.

Though the kindergarten is just about 5 mins away, we take about 30-40 mins to get home. There is a small park on the way home where we always make a pit stop. I noticed this tree around the park which looked like it had a face popping out of it. So I decided to put  it's picture on the blog.

Day 1 - Olympus Has Fallen

Kicky was gifted a box of novelty crayons, which came all the way from Turkey and this is the fate it met. I chose to compose my first picture at home, coz it was a tad nippy outside. Hopefully my 50mm will be outside tomorrow.

My 50mm World

You will be surprised at how many people in this world think alike. Now I thought that a 50 day project with my 50mm lens would probably be an un-thought of, genius, original idea. Anyway, this goes to show that my wave length and genius quotient probably matches with about 30% of the world; this is based on the number of 50mm 50day projects I came across. 
I am going to go ahead with this project anyway, since I need a project to keep me busy and out of the bag of chips. Oh, and did I mention that my 50mm lens in brand new? Yeah its new and needs to be taken for a walk every once in a while. 

So welcome to my 50mm world.