Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Nanmangalam Forest Walk

It was yet another initiative by CTC-Photographers. The first Photography trip was to Pondicherry which was a great time for all of the participants. This one was planned as a trip to Nanmangalam. Our main idea was to head towards Nanmangalam for photography. Nanmangalam was not the destination, but Photography was our vision.

We had 5 seats vacant for this trip and we got 4 registrations ( Rithwik, Shubhra, Aditya & John ). Since it was raining very bad on the previous day, Shubhra and Aditya had a little of making up this trip. With more energy we were able to convince them that what ever be the case, we would head towards Nanmangalam, and if it rains, we would go elsewhere and do some rain photography in the busy streets of chennai.

With all set, John and Aditya reached Koyambedu busstop to meet Rithwik at 6.20am. Parked their bike and boarded into Rithwiks car and headed towards Velachery and picked Shubhra on the way at Vadapalani.

The climate appeared to change and it favoured the team a lot. We headed to Velachery and took the Tambaram highway and reached Quagid-e-Millat college canteen and started our trip/trek into the Nanmangalam reserve forest.

We started the day with Rithwik clicking a few shots of the local village boys, and it became a menace for the team in the later part. The kids were actually alerting the birds with their shouting and talking, ans so we somehow left them behind before entering into the forest.

We started climbing the small hillock and were able to click some butterflies on the top of the hill. We climbed down through the other side of hill throught the dense bushy forest. Within half an hour we reached the stagnant water reservoir and clicked more pictures. Those who participated in this trip, made use of all the opportunities and clicked more pictures and added more life to the pictures with their different styles.

We were able to learn and explore a lot from each other. At the end of the day, we had the satisfaction that we have learned some basic lessons Practically, which we would not forget for our life time.

Stay tuned for a more detailed writeup by Shubhra.



" Rithwik taking a small nap in front of the quary after a long photo session "




" The Nanmangalam abandonded Quary "




" The Big Bug "




" The Little Flutter-by "




" A Catterpillar "




" A well cameflauged Spider "




" Photographers lost in the forest "




" The hunter and the Hunted "




" A well cameflauged Spider-2 "




" Water Reflections "




" Dragonfly in flight "




" A Test shot with back-light "




" The stagnant water in front of the Quary "




" The Butterfly " ( Actually it is called Flutter-by, and as time passed by, people started calling it butterfly - funny is it.. )




" People in action "




" The morning dew on the grass "




" Rithwik in action "




" Adams ladder "




" The little Rock agama "







" Colourful Spiders "




" Gloriosa Superba "




" The Little Flutter-by "

23 comments:

Sheetal said...

Great snaps..You always rock...No one can beat you...just Superb

Shubhro said...

Excellent snaps John... happy to have seen you in action..

adityam said...

John superb man.....looking forward for next trip.

Unknown said...

John... that lens and your awesome talent make these photos really outstanding!!! I am very impressed!!!

Donna said...

John I think I need to come there and borrow that lens....next time take me with you guys..:)

Lilford said...

Wow.. Those shots are just amazing. AMAZING!!!!

Jass said...

Amazing shots! :)

Babu Ramalingam said...

Excellent snaps John...That test shot with the back light is superb...

Unknown said...

WOW....no words to comment.

gowtham said...

In-Flight shots are too good, last open winged butterfly is rare to catch-good timing.

Prashant said...

awesome snaps John. What lens do you use?

Srivatsan Gopinath said...

great shots John! The quarry look like an amazing place!!
The flying bug is awesome! Great timing!
Love the DOF in the first caterpillar pic and the backlighting was a nice touch. The details on the spider are stunning! How'd you get that close to the insects?
The shot of the sky looks like it was shot from underwater..........
A few pictures look like very grainy. Think you might have used high ISO accidentally for landscapes.....

Unknown said...

super Work john...wanna see you make it big time in wild life photography

Ramkumar said...

Amazing snaps..!! :) Great work!

Anonymous said...

Excellent Work...Keep it up

Shrinidhi Hande said...

Amazing set of photos- Had I not registered for another trek on same day I WOULD have joined for this

Anonymous said...

pretty gud timing on some of the pics :) nice shots

i guess u do a lot of post processing and saturation ... colors are sometimes too bright on ur pics. and yeah ... some noice for some of the pics. did u use higher ISO or too much crop? or may be its a result of resize

Anonymous said...

Hi

I am an avid birdwatcher, ur snaps are very nice. Kindly continue this journey.

Viki said...

I don't need to say that these photos are good. It goes without saying!

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I liked the pictures. Have you tried hosting them on Photo.net and try for ratings? My friends do it.
Shall join in one of these photo treks. I have to learn to use my D80
ramani

John Immanual said...

Hi to Sheetal, Shubhro, Aditya, Dreamer, Jaskirat, babu, pavalan, Gowtham, Prashant, Ramkumar, Ravikumar, Shrinidhi, Amalan, Viki and anonymous. I am happy that you liked my clicks. I make sure i would continue my photo journey by learning from my mistakes.

@ Donna, Come to India, and we would definitely take you to the Indian wild.

@ Srivatasan - Use the kit lens at 55mm, and you can get close focus for sure.
I was concentrating more on freezing actions of insects, so used higher ISO and forgot to reduce it for landscape pictures. That was actually my mistake. I am happy that you watched each picture so minutely.thanks Watsie.

@ Prasanna Venkat - When your wishes come true, I would come in search of u with one kg of sugar for sure :-)

@ Sandeep - I do accept that i do post processing, but only on the Levels ( Adobe PS7 ). The noise is because of the Higher ISO. I need to buy a spare battery to correct that mistake of higher ISO. since i didnt have a spare battery, I was more conscious to keep my camera alive than looking at the ISO during each click. I am awaiting for a good sponsor for a long time, and the wait has not come to an end yet :-(

Unknown said...

amazing clicks john..

keep clicking

Ramjee said...

Great work! Catches the very essence of the serene sylvan...