Artechknowhow

Moonrise on New year's eve

2010-01-10T15:05:00.001-08:00

Moonrise, originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

New year's eve was fun for me! Chugging long the D3s and a tripod, along with my 24-70 f2.8 lens, I was somewhere along the shorelines of Monterey bay. I jhad no clue where exactly it was though. Some location between Big Sur and Monterey is just about the closest I can guess. The reason for this act of crazziness was a desire to capture the blue moon rise, which happens only once every 3 years. It truly was worth all the hiking, when I witnessed this cosmic marvel. Posting the pic for you folks to enjoy.
Signing off,
Mukul Soman.

Nikon D3S review

2009-12-10T05:35:00.001-08:00

Nikon D3S review, originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

Ever since Nikon entered the full frame game with the D3, low light photography took a different turn, now with the introduction of the D3S, Nikon claims to have provided "Night Vision" to their flagship model, the new D3S with an unbelievable ISO range of upto 12800, extendable to ISO 102,400. But does the camera truly live upto the hype that surrounds it?

Lets find out.

The body of the D3S is built like a tank, very sturdy, weather sealed and also quite lighter than what I expected. My D700 with a battery pack weighed more than the D3S's bigger body. Well a lot of that can be attributed to the extra battery that the D3s doesn't have to deal with. Yet the battery life of the D3S is a little over an amazing, 4000 photographs.

The buttons are well spaced and I tested the camera in very cold weather here, about 3 degrees, so had to use it while wearing thick gloves. Well, I must praise Nikon for the button alignment and size since I was comfortably able to use it wearing my gloves on, which is quite painstaking with many other cameras I have tried before, a pointer to the fact that this body is targeted towards professionals who might take it to extreme conditions.. The dedicated buttons, and battery opening knobs are all noticeably larger as.

Picture quality is immaculate, thanks to the re-engineered full frame sensor(12.1MP). Nikon has been quite clear in their approach of keeping pixels larger in size rather than larger in number, which I believe is a very smart decision. Their show stealing headline of ISO 12800 is amazingly noiseless at higher ISOs and at 12800,the camera truly lives up to all the hype surrounding it. This takes indoor event photography, night snaps at higher shutter speeds and action photography to new heights of convenience. A very usable image at ISO 12800 means, much more usable images at all ISOs lesser than it. Check out the sample test shots, click on them to get more info on the EXIF.
ISO 12800

ISO 12800

ISO 6400

Speed has been one of the highest points of the Nikon D3. The D3S is no exception. It can shoot at 9fps, and when in crop mode can go upto 11fps. Very handy for action work and wildlife. The D3s has seriously expanded the buffer size as compared to the D3, with twice the capacity of the D3. Now, 36 14bit Raw files can be shot consecutively with no delay, and 124 Jpegs in the same way. The super-quick MultiCAM-3500 AF system seems to have minor tweak as well, allegedly. The 51 point auto focusing system is precisely responsive and nails focus so fast that its quite impossible to miss your moving subject.

Nikon's proprietary D-Movie mode which is a major addition in this model, captures smooth 24fps video at 720P and saves files up to 5minutes long/2GB in size, as Motion-Jpegs (MJPEG) format. The inbuilt microphone is excellent though only mono, it might catch focusing noise given out by certain lenses, so an external mike attachable to the hotshoe will be a good idea for stereo sound recording. Also, it's possible to pull still images back out from these movie files too, though only at their native 1280x720 resolution of course. I wish this camera had Full HD 1080 though 720 P is perfectly usable HD footage. Nikon's argument is that that this was all down to file size. At 720p, with the compression the camera is using you will get five-minute bursts out of the allocated 2GB continuous shooting space. If the camera were to shoot Full HD then this would be significantly less.So in essence, the D3S is a stills camera that is to be the very best at ISO, and the movie feature is an extra functionality. But there has been some impressible upgrades as well. the much criticized rolling shutter issue is better controlled. Looks like the built in rolling shutter correction algorithm is doing its job, but yet the issue has not vanished.

What is impressive though is the 24 fps smooth playback and auto-focus feature that works while filming. That is a very useful feature. The D3S uses contrast detecting to ensure that the auto-focusing while shooting actually works. The dedicated Live video button is a blessing. Also, for those shooting under incandescent light there is also a flicker reduction mode, to reduce the irritating ‘flicker'.

The quiet shutter mode is an excellent add-on and a nice touch, especially useful to the wildlife photographer, to not break peace with a loud clank of the shutter.

At $5200, Nikon's flagship model is a very well engineered, well thought out, smart camera. A 4.8/5. If it had 1080p video(Yes I am greedy), the its a 5/5 from me! No regrets though

Exposure Blending

2009-10-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, wassup? My lovely friend, wanted to know about exposure blending...and I thought, why not make it my blog post for the month..So here is a quick look at how to do basic exposure blending. I am held up with midterms...so a more elaborate post will be coming soon!

Black and white conversion

2009-08-25T05:15:00.000-07:00

Yo! Wassup buddz? So this time I am in for something new! I have put together a tutorial that shows how to convert color images to black and white, in my typical dramatic, mystic style. Many of of my friends have been asking for this for quite some time. So here goes! Have fun trying this out!

Thats it from me for now, Signing off.
Mukul Soman.

Portrait stuff.

2009-07-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Wassup buddz? Ok its time for a little bit of info on how to shoot decent portraits, with err…well any camera! And I can guarantee you that you will end up with better shots of your friends, family and yeah that special someone( In case your life doesn’t suck as much as mine in that area…)

Just follow these few points that I have observed over a few years.

1)Choose the right background: A portrait photo is all about the object’s face. The most important part of the photo is the face. Choosing the right background can make sure the viewer is focused on the face. Pick a neutral background that does not attract attention. For example a soft solid color background is better than a busy street background. Avoid having people or moving objects in the background. For this image i chose a background that gives a sense of depth, with the road winding away into infinity and the diagonal lines on the road seem to lend some interest into the composition as well...almost make you wonder if there is a story behind the kid being there. By the way she's my niece, a lovely bubbly lil cutie pie!

And here is an example of a selectively colored photograph, note the busy background, and how the subject still retains attention.

2)Blur the background: In addition to choosing a neutral background you should further blur it. This will put even more emphasis on the object instead of its surroundings.
Blurring the background is best achieved by taking a photo using a shallow depth of field. This can be accomplished by using a zoom lens and shooting from a short distance or with a wide aperture manual setting. If your camera does not allow you to blur the photo by setting a shallow depth of field (for example it is hard to achieve such a depth of field with simple pocket cameras) you can always blur the background later using photo processing software on your computer.
In this image thats exactly what I have done. I chose an aperture of 1.8 on my 50mm prime lens and blurred out the background, laying focus on the subject. And by the way this too is my niece, the elder one of the two. But equally adorable!

3)Focus on the eyes: The center of a good portrait should be the object’s eyes. Before taking the photo look at the object eyes and try to figure out what story they tell. Depending on what you would like to capture in the portrait guide the object to look straight to the camera or maybe sideways focusing on some object. Adding a smile is also recommended unless you specifically want a face that does not smile in order to send some message to the viewer. This captures the innerness of the person. This is one example of the effect of a shot perfectly focused in the eye.

4)Use natural lighting: Natural lighting is necessary in order to capture the full color range and warmth of the skin. It is best to take portrait photos outdoors during the day. When shooting outdoors position the object in a way that the sun light hits it from the side. Never take a photo with the sun behind the object – results in shading – or right in front of the object – results in over exposing the face and distorting its natural colors. I love the evening light since thats when you get the best side on light and it is not too bright as well. On a bright afternoon, the shade is an awesome place to shoot, making the person face the bright side while standing in the shade.If some shades appear on the face use a soft fill-in flash to get rid of them. If you have to shoot indoors and use artificial lighting always use indirect light sources such as bounce flash or lights that illuminate the room instead of directly shining on the object.
A couple of evening light shots.
One o my friend Maira.

And another of my buddy Tomas.

Also here is an example of a shot taken at mid day, but in the shade with the subjects facing the light, but not in direct path of it.

4)Take many photos and experiment: I Now this the single most important bit. In the digital era the cost of taking another photo is zero. One of the best ways to shoot a great photo is simply by shooting many photos. In fact all professional photographers do that they keep on shooting more and more photos so don’t be shy about it. Experiment with different settings – lighting, object position, white balancing settings to get different color temperatures, exposures, depth of field and more. When you are done sit down and sort the photos until you choose the one that you like the best. It is common sense that the chances of finding that one great photo are much higher if you tried 500 photos than if you just shot a few.

Hope this really helps you all. Thats it for now, signing off!

I exist.

2009-06-30T16:52:00.001-07:00

I exist., originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

This is my friend EC. EC came to the west coast with high hopes like many of us. But sadly life was not kind enough to him, and today he is on the streets of San Francisco....yes he is homeless. Every day when I walk on the streets of this city I see many people like EC who are less fortunate than us. When I look at them, I realize how selfish we all are. Walking besides these beings without even caring if they exist or not. After speaking with Ec for about 15 minutes, I bought him some lunch..and this photograph was taken right after that. He was confused and thankful, at the same time. He was really glad that I stopped by to ask him how he was doing and spent some time and gave him some attention. With tearful eyes he wished me a great day ahead and thanked me for giving him a bit of my time, and for the lunch.

Clicked the image with a 50mm prime lens. But what I again experienced was a sort of intense connection between me, the photographer and he my subject. The fact that I was in his space, and the fact that I interacted with him on a personal level brought out the much needed emotion entrapped between us into this image. An amazing learning curve my friends, an amazing learning curve.

Signing off,
Mukul.

Sharing energy space

2009-05-22T00:43:00.001-07:00

Bird n grass, originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

Hey, wassup buddz? I have been really held up with my last week of the semester...so classes and exams kept me so busy! I had not touched my camera for over 2 weeks! Damn!

OK, I am now back taking pictures and also, back to my blogging ways. So what I want to share with all of you is, some thing that I learnt from one of the world's best documentary photographers, Colin Finlay, the joy of sharing energy space with your subject...be it an animal, a person or an inanimate object. Well after listening to his super charged talk at my university, thanks to BADA, I realized that it's a myth that only a long zoom lens can get you close ups of your subjects, the above pic is taken with nothing more than my 50mm prime lens which to me, was very satisfying. For those of you who are not too sure of what is a prime lens, well it is a lens that has no zoom. The only way to zoom in is..err move closer to your subject and to zoom out ..yeah you guessed it right, move back! OK brilliant, read on!
So when using a lens like the 50mm prime, which is so restrictive, it pushes me further and compels me to move in closer and closer to my subject, like how I shot the bird you saw in the above shot. I was at San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf, just lying down on the grass, relaxing. That's when i noticed this little bird walking on the grass, looking for grub. I just slowly got up on my knees, reached out for my camera and started moving close to it. I was very slow and calm in my movement, which probably made the little bird realize i was not out there to eat him or create trouble! I could feel the pleasure of it letting me share its energy space with me! And that positive energy has such an influence on the bird and on me - A while later the bird was literally on my hand...and mind you I had no food on me to attract it. The bird just did not seem to mind my presence at all, and once our energies were so positive, it felt so comfortable and even came and check out my camera! As a result I ended up with some really close shots with nothing more than my prime lens.

Now this is not just a one off incident. I have had a similar interactions with some other chaps as well. For instance, take this shot of a crab i clicked while i was lying on the rocky shoreline of the San Francisco pier...almost nosing the crab.

This crab image was also taken with nothing more than my 50mm prime lens. Usually crabs are very shy animals that quickly scamper across and hide into crevices once they sense human presence. I followed my same slow approach to get close to this guy and check out the results!

Also, this ground squirrel and the butterfly shot below it was shot with a lens with even shorter focal length! The 14-24mm wide lens.

This was clicked with my 50mm prime lens, i got incredibly close to the peacock, almost a meter away!!! Was amazing! It took time, almost an hour to get that close...i really now feel that the intensity of a shot is more when u r in the energy aura of your subject...rather than always rely on long zooms. In this case i entered the cage of the peacocks personal space and it let me too!(thanks to Finlay)

Here, this one with the mouth open, was giving out the famous loud peacock call when i took this shot inches away from it.

The experience of getting so close to these animals and taking these shots, just redefined photography for me. Its no more a "stay far and click close" game for me!

Well if its a tiger or a salt water crocodile that's my subject...err I would not be trying this out ..hehe, you see i need the most valuable asset of my camera in tact, yes you guessed it right, I cannot risk my head :) But I know one person who can come up with an incredible close up of either of these animals, Mr. Finlay. No wonder he inspires me.

Signing off,
Mukul Soman.

Clone you!

2009-04-15T15:34:00.001-07:00

Hey buddz, wassup? So here goes a very interesting bit of photo manip!

Many of my friends keep asking me "How the hell did you do that!" whenever they see the above image, which essentially has many "Mukuls" doing all sorts of crazy things!
So here goes the recipe that made it. And like all my tuts, its pretty simple you know. I used my lovely little point and shoot Sony H50 for this one.

1) Find a place where you can get an interesting composition, I chose the park. Make sure that the light doesn't constantly vary, find such a place. Well when I did this, i had a little trouble with this part since I was out shooting in the evening , when light fades away fast. Well my mess is your bless! Learn form my blunder here!

2) Set up tripod: Very important, fix your tripod with camera on it of course!! And either set up a timer so that you can go back to the shot and pose, or use a remote control to trigger of the shutter, once you are in your desired pose. Clear? I hope so. I set up a 10 second timer for each of these shots.

3) Click away the pictures: This is the fun bit man! Your composition matters, so get some really cool and interesting shots going! Make sure that the tripod position is not altered one bit, which is why i feel a remote control solution's the best. That way you can trigger off the shutter without even touching the camera!

4) Lets clone : Fire up Photoshop and place each photo in a new layer. Starting from the topmost layer, erase the portion of the layer which hides the character on the layer below it. You should now start seeing a clone! Repeat for all the layers. Tweak the clones further by cleaning them up well. Now your cloned image should be ready. If you have the characters overlap each other, it can get a little tiresome like how it was for me, but it gives your shot much more dynamism!!! Work tediously at the overlapping areas to do as clean a job as possible, so that your image can make any one go - "What? How the hell did you do that!!!???".

Signing off,
Mukul Soman.

Motion blur? How the?

2009-04-15T02:41:00.001-07:00

Yo! Wassup?

So what I am going to explain today is how I managed to get this shot , where the car is in perfect focus and the background appears blurred. Such shots require you to move your camera along with the subject, hence you are "panning" the camera along with it, thus it is called, a panning shot! Simple isnt it? Well not quite.

While making a panning shot, we must take a few things into consideration.
1)Slow shutter speed
By slowing down shutter speed, moving objects appear blurred. By churning it up, movement freezes. Simple enough right? Here, blur is an important part of our picture, so we select a slow shutter speed of say 40.
2)Aperture
Now, when our shutter speed is low, the camera sensor soaks up too much light. This is so because the shutter is open for a longer period of time, allowing more light to come in. So we will end up with an over exposed picture...which clearly isn't our goal. Well if it is. Go ahead.

Otherwise, set the aperture narrow. that means increase the f value. Remember, higher the f value means narrower the aperture. letting in as much less light. Also reducing Depth of focus, which here is perfectly fine, since we are going to have the background blurred anyways.

I clicked this picture on an overcast day, so i could manage to get my exposure just right by going for an aperture of f/16. On a brighter day, I might have had to crank it to even f/22.

The idea is increase f value = cut down light.

3) ISO
Now ISO setting can be left at auto if you want, I chose 200( I hate Auto!!!) The whole point is, that if despite the settings u tried with the low shutter speed and high aperture value that you had set, still if the light is too bad, bump up your ISO till you get enough exposure.

4) Moving the camera along with the subject
This is the fun part. Set your camera/lens to autofocus and try to follow the subject as it is moving. Avoid any kind of vertical shake, just pan your camera horizontally along with the car.Follow it for a second and click! Thats all!

Now what happens here is that, with respect to your camera since it is moving along with the car, the car is stationary. But since you are moving the camera the background is moving. SO the car stays in focus, while the background gets blurred! Wow! Exciting! Well ok, I found it quite exciting alright.

A few more tips that I find very useful:

Many people use tripods for panning, but I dont use them, I feel more comfortable doing it hand held. But choose what you find better! Anyways lots of practice is essential.You will suck a lot, don't get frustrated like me, you might end up with a bad headache..haha.

Position your body with your feet pointing in the direction of travel, feet together, and twist at the hips toward the oncoming object you want to pan on. As it comes towards you (or rather across the front of you), twist at the hips in the direction of travel. This way, you won't have to move your feet and you will get a nice smooth panning motion.

Tuck your elbows into your sides. This will surely help you keep your camera shake free getting better focus.

You can try slower shutterspeeds for more blurry effects.

Look for backgrounds that are not plain. A busy background will add more blur.

Here are a few more examples, al clicked with my D700 and 50mm f1.8 Lens.

Alright folks, so get out there and capture a few panning shots!

Signing off,
Mukul Soman.

Freedom...to be.

2009-04-02T11:14:00.001-07:00

Ok folks, a bit of chicken soup for the soul, served straight from my heart kitchen!!!

Thought for the day is Freedom.

What is it about this word that rings bells in my head? Well its something my father taught me. He always stressed on the importance of me taking my own decisions and instilled the decision taking ability in my blood by giving me my freedom, right from when I was a kid(ok I am still one at times :P).

In the words of Optimus Prime, "Freedom is the birth right of all sentient beings". A lot is expressed in this one line form the movie Transformers. I believe that the most essential factor for one to live a happy life is freedom. Being free, evokes the Hero in us. It allows us to think endlessly and achieve whatever it is that we seek, but sadly, this factor is often overlooked. I know many a soul whose lives are confined by the false beliefs and selfish thoughts of society and sadly sometimes even family,and to an extend that they are so used to this lack of freedom that they think it is a way of life; this oppressed way of growing up that is, and it becomes a vicious cycle. All this does is, smother a person's intellectual development. It is when we are given all possible resources to choose from, shielding the negatives, of course and then when we are let free, that we truly reach our potential. We are all here for a purpose...lets go out there and find out our purpose of life. Lets live it with freedom to explore ourselves and take decisions to move forward and accomplish our goals.

We are like these pigeons I shot recently with the Nikon D700 and a 50mm F1.8 prime lens. I was walking around at union square, just enjoying the breeze, enjoying the freedom I have in life to do what I am passionate about, I thank my parents for this, they took care of me as I grew up, conditioned me into an adult and now they let me fly into the world to explore it and some day settle with a mate. Saw the pigeons doing the same, flying off to wherever they want, sharing the joy with a mate forever and to me, they symbolize the joy of freedom...to be.

PS: Should I have the freedom to
*Enter your house and steal money?
* Smoke marijuana or inject heroin?
* Drive at 150 km per hour?
* Say anything I like?
* Kill someone, if they ask me to?

The answer is NO. Come on , you know what i mean right :)

Signing off,
Mukul Soman.

Macro? Micro? What the?

2009-03-26T00:16:00.001-07:00

Hi budds, wassup? Alright so, I have been clicking macros for a long time with my Sony DSC H50 point and shoot. And numerous people have asked me how come I manage such close shots with a point and shoot, with no special lenses and stuff. So here goes today's post.

How to click good macro shots?

Well as a matter of fact let me tell you, most point and shoots are excellent at taking close ups, even my puny little mobile phone had a decent macro capability. "Macro"...now that's just another one of those funny things about photography, macro is the name used to describe photos of micro subjects :) Ironic? Well life is, so better move on.

So what you need to look for in your camera is this symbol

Rotate the camera dial till this symbol is selected or press the button on the navigation button panel with this picture on it. Yes, that's it, you are in macro mode now. Ok so that was the easy bit. Now comes the tricky part. I have listed out a few things here to make life easy while clicking our micro pals.

1) Don't get too close to the subject, if you get too close, the auto focus will not function, so be close but keep a good 10 cm from our subject, so the auto focus can lock on. Also getting too close may disturb the insect( or any live being, oh cmon!!!) and it might make a quick getaway denying you your shot.

2) Try and avoid direct sunlight on the subject, in "auto" + "macro", mode this will surely blow up the highlights on the subject thus killing all the precious detailing. If you want to shoot in direct heavy light, put the camera in manual mode with the macro feature still on( most cameras have this feature, well at least my DSC H50 does, and if your camera doesn't have it, just accept it and read on..knowledge always comes in handy) and increase the shutter speed to cut off the light, also this helps in freezing motion, in case the subject is a little too shaky. Stop at a shutter speed where you get enough exposure as you look into your point and shoot screen.

3) From experience, i feel that the evening and early morning sunlight is just perfect for macros.

4) Keep your eyes open to spot interesting insects, flowers etc for your macro subjects..I love clicking macros of water droplets. You can get some pretty cool refractions through them.

5)Few things that makes a good image are a combination of: something that the viewer gets pleasure from viewing (aesthetically), something that excites the viewer's curiosity and makes him wonder, something that makes him see things in a way that he has never looked at them before, something that encourages him to make up a story about the setting of that click, something he can empathize with.

Make your macros slightly different from the conventional macros you see around, and to me they must tell a bit more of a story than "Hi, i am a fly on a flower" or "I am a beautiful pink flower and you are looking at me realllllly close, infact parts of me are out of focus". - These words were said by my good friend Rehaan, and I so agree with him.

6) Most importantly, be patient and enjoy the time you spend clicking macros, you will never get it right in one go, that's the rule! I have been through it, you have been through it and we all will again go through it. Just a learning curve.

This click for instance has been a testimony to the fact that being patient can pay rich dividends!

All clear for landing., originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

This one is one of my favs, I was waiting for the train at the Downtown Mountain View railway station, expecting a phone call form a lovely friend from Bangalore who that day also didnt call me, when i heard that the trains late by an hour! Frustrated, I cursed the Caltrain guys for the delay and while I was walking here and there near the railway station since my lovely friend had also not called up as usual, i noticed these bee like flies( Horseflies I guess) all over the place. Didn't waste any time :) took my cam out and was determined to get a shot of one of them in the air,i tried i think over a hundred clicks and almost gave up.... and lo it happened, i got the click i wanted!!!!! ..and in no time the train came as well....that's when i realized, I had been at it for an hour! And my lovely friend still didnt call up.

For more macros, visit my Big Small things collection in Flickr.

Signing off,

Mukul.

Does the camera really matter?

2009-03-24T00:06:00.001-07:00

Just the other day I was chatting with my good friend Unni, who incidentally is an awesome photo journalist who has some phenomenal work under his belt. And guess what, he uses a normal film camera. No high-fi equipment, nothing. Just basic black and white stuff is what he mostly shoots. But yeah he does own a pretty cool canon digital camera as well. Check out his site: http://www.unniphotography.com

Ok so back to what I was saying, yeah, we were talking of how most of us think, getting a better camera can get us better clicks. Well, let me get this straight, the best camera out there is your eye. See things through the eyes and store images in your brain. That's what we have been doing ever since we are born! And its this eye of ours that decides what to click and what not to, how to click and how not to. So developing your eye is what photography is all about. Train your eye to spot interesting subjects, beautiful colors, striking compositions then will be just a matter of time. Watch and learn the best lighting situations that work best for your camera, through trial and error .And yeah I hate blabbering about lens and camera technologies, because ultimately it is you that matters above all...not the cam, not the technology and not the mindless tech talk.

So, I started my passion for photography, by clicking with my old Sony Ericsson K810i Cell phone camera. Many have asked me how the hell do I click pretty decent shots with it. Well I would like to share a few points to take care of when you use a basic camera like this mobile phone camera, or any other point and shoot:

1) Never click with the sun in the background unless it is the setting or rising sun.
2) Always make sure that light falls on you subject, try and avoid very dark and shady places.
3)Make sure that you switch to various modes like landscape, portrait, macro etc according to the composition you shoot. If you shot a flower in landscape you would get a poor result but if you do the same with a macro mode, results can be quite awesome.
4)Use exposure compensation function of your camera. In my mobile phone, i just needed to make sure that my ev value is more towards the negative side in bright light and more to the positive side in dark conditions. I do this by moving the joystick up or down while the camera is on, this adjusts exposure.

5)Read the manual always before you start clicking!
6)Open up your image in some image editing software and adjust the brightness, contrast, curves etc to make your photo better. To hell with those who say, they dont use Photoshop, thats because they dont know how to use software for post processing :P

Just follow these tips and you can also end up with some pretty cool pictures from you mobile phone. Here are a few that came from my beloved K810i mobile phone.

Heaven's on earth, just look around to see it., originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

A ray of light, originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

I10, originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

Signing off,
Mukul.

Life

2009-03-21T21:20:00.001-07:00

Life, originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

I was walking along the streets of San Francisco, along Market street to be precise, enjoying the cold breeze and the spring sun, looking for interesting subjects to click. That when i saw this guy. He makes his livelihood by playing drums and entertaining people. Well his drums are nothing but disposed water cans. A rather crude way of making music one might think, but dont be mistaken, he is a master of his art. His sense of beats and timing is impeccable, so is his passion. Passion, the very essence of living. Have you ever felt doing something that never tires you out? Have you ever craved to do more some activity again and again? Have you worked all night with just one focus, to finish off what you set out to do? Do you sit back and take a deep breath and smile at the end of what you started out with? If you don't, well you haven't discovered passion yet. If you do, then well you are alive and kicking! Enjoying life to the fullest, radiating positivity and realizing what is the true meaning of satisfaction, this man plays his drums and the passion with which he plays is an inspiration, to me, to you and to the world...he doesn't have material wealth , he doesn't have a home but he has a burning love for music inside of him, a flame that keeps him going, while hoping that a few more alms come in so he can have his next meal.

He inspires me, he should inspire each one of us. Do what what you love to do for a living my friends. If you can manage that, you are truly living!

Life = Passion. Peace out.