Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Celebrations

We’ve switched to celebrating quieter Diwalis for a while now, and only light diyas (earthen lamps) and paper lanterns, but I do miss capturing pictures of the sparklers. 🙂

For Lens Artists Photo Challenge #23: Celebrations, hosted by Amy this week.

Peek

With a gleeful breeze around, it’s fun to watch light peeking out from a swaying paper lamp, but a tedious job to capture it.

Happy Diwali!

So far, I’ve been able to enjoy the warm glow of diyas without the ear-splitting din of firecrackers. I hope the rest of this Diwali follows suit, and that all Diwalis end up like today.

It’s Diwali!

A damp and windy Diwali, though. It’s been raining and blowing a gale for the last couple of days, so the loud noise and heavy smoke that invariably accompanies Diwali is missing this year. (Yay! 🙂 ) We realized we couldn’t place diyas outside either because they would go out, so we made do with just the (waterproof) paper lanterns outside, and only a few diyas at important spots. A very subdued affair, indeed.

As usual, I tried clicking pictures, but there was really nothing new to capture this time. The paper lanterns just wouldn’t stay still, so I ended up making a oil-painting-like composite from the blurry paper lantern and a diya.

Happy Diwali! 🙂

Blurry

Not all blurry photographs, even if unintended, are eligible for the trash can. They actually look beautiful sometimes! This one, for instance —

I’d been aiming for this lamp, adjusting my settings, when ‘click!’ I pressed the shutter button without thinking. Needless to say, I was happy when I saw the result of this accident. 😉 I see it as an abstract representation of the Diwali festival — the flame, its reflection, the vague outline of the earthen lamp in the background…

I now try unfocused clicks more often. (Although what comes out of it isn’t always great.) That just goes to show that there is always some takeaway from any incident, doesn’t it?

Twinkling lights

Since I still think of Diwali occasionally even though the year is about to end, I went back to browse through my latest Diwali photographs. And found this one photograph that I think makes me recall the weather during Diwali of this year — it has nice little starbursts from the twinkling diya lights.

Twinkling diya lights

It was very windy during the festivities, and I remember how many tweaks I had to apply to my camera settings and how many unsuccessful results I ended up with before finally finishing the season with a good little bunch of photographs. (Persistence is the key, right? 🙂 )

Lantern from Diwali

Lantern as Diwali decor

Since we’re still basking in the afterglow of Diwali — here’s one of the lanterns that we hung on the balcony.

Diwali

A Diya (earthen lamp) as Diwali decor

Diwali is officially over, though it doesn’t feel like it — firecrackers are still being burst outside. Though it is meant to be the festival of lights, it has been the festival of noise for a few years now. 🙂 But it still remains one of the most widely celebrated festivals in the extremely diverse India. If there’s a book on festivals of India, a diya (earthen lamp) symbolizing Diwali would make for  an apt cover picture.

Now that would be a thick book… or maybe it would be a series, since that’s the fashion these days! 😉