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 "

Photography trip to Pondy

This was not a trek, But a simple enjoyable trip.

Since it was not a trek, we didn't follow any plans or guidelines to carry forward. The initial spark came from Yaseen, which ignited the spirit in the photographers who were interested to travel till pondy to visit the Photo exhibition of Rajib Ghose on his Himalayan expedition. We didnt have a fixed itinerary for this trip, We started the planning on Friday eveving and executed on Saturday.

Since i was joining CTC on their trip after a very long gap after Ombattu Gudda, It was totally a new crowd for me. A few were known by mails and chats and not by face.
Viki picked me up from Guindy and we reached Tidel park at 6. Samyak and Yaseen joined us after 15 minutes, and then Kaushik and then Rithwik.

We parked our extra bikes in the parking lot and 4 got into Rithwik's car and 2 in Samyaks bike, So 6 CTC-ians started our trip from Tidel park at 6.30+ am. It was then we realised that the exhibition is opened only at 4pm to 7 pm. The next halt was at Mahabalipuram, It was a little cloudy and the lighting was so cool. I believe we were one among the first entrants into the Mahabalipuram shore temple. It was then high time that we took all our weapons and were ready for the planned battle. In no time, each one went in different directions to click and which showed our diversity in photography. Each one had a different taste to click and this showed our "Unity in Diversity" as a CTC-ian.

After many clicks, we headed towards the restaurant where we filled our bowels till the brim. After which we had some rest at the premises of the near by temple pond. After some time we went to the butter rock temple. We saw a young girl posing as if she was holding the butter rock without rolling. But our instincts showed us something that was very near to us. It was none other than the Green vine snake. It was so camouflaged that we couldn't identify it when seen through the camera. When we saw the snake, the entire crew took turns to fire many rounds.On our way, we were invited by a CTC member and we visited the house of Tarannum and Tabassum where we were served with ginger lime juice by their mother. After which we moved towards the ruined fort suggested by Viki. It was really hot by that time of the day, but came across some cool views from top of the fort.Then we moved towards Pondicherry to look at Rajib's exhibit. On looking at the invitation of the Photography exhibition, We made a wrong decision that we should spend only 10 minutes inside to look at all the photos and rust out to go for the Crocodile Night Safari. We were lucky to have Rajib in that place to tell us his experience of his 30+ days trek in Himalayas and his experience in his landscape photography sessions in Himalayas. It was a great learning experience to me as well as the others. We saw all the splendid photos and stepped out of the exhibition to realise that we spend around 2 hours inside and also wanted to go for another round to look at his photos, but time was not sufficient for us as we need to return to Chennai the same day itself. With all the experience shared by Rajib, we felt like that we were actually in Himalayas with him during those clicks. When we stepped out of the exhibition hall, we were literally tired due to the virtual travel to Himalayas through Rajib photos. and Rajib was very much excited to have members from a trekking club who travelled all the way from Chennai to Pondy to visit his exhibition.We headed towards chennai and settled our expenses the same day itself before the split up of the group. For the money that was spend ( 300 Rs each ) the cost efficiency factor was more than 500%. Yet another rememberable trip along with CTC.