What’s around the bend?

… More trees, hopefully. 🙂 Isn’t a tree-lined road perfect for a long drive?

For themed Monochrome Madness: Road. Some painterly effect added in.

Waves

This picture is from one of my attempts at long exposure photography without a tripod, especially when there was no elbow support to keep my arms steady. 😀 Not deterred by the initial blurred results with longer exposures, I was able to manage this fairly good picture with an exposure time of slightly more than half a second. (Hurrah!)

Clicked at Tanah Lot, Bali during a sunset.

For themed Monochrome Madness: Movement.

Contrails

Another picture I came across while going through my photographs for my previous post.

Clicked while roaming in the gardens surrounding the Irish Museum of Modern Art at Dublin.

For this week’s Monochrome Madness.

Ain’t no mountain…

This one’s high enough, I think! Look at those giant rocks and puny trees…

For this month’s themed Monochrome Madness: High.

What’s inside?

It’s almost themed-MM time again, and this month, Leanne has given us the word ‘Closed’. For this theme, I clicked a macro shot of this small container that lies in my cupboard. Extremely glittery and adorned all around with glassy / plasticky trinkets, my mom received this along with a gift that is usually given to guests at some kinds of religious ceremonies in India.

Wonder what’s inside?

It contains kumkuma (kumkum), a powder that is applied on the forehead. Because the container catches the light and glitters when I open my cupboard, I end up using the powder now and then. Maybe that was my mom’s intention when she placed this garish piece in my room. 🙂

A view of Dublin

… from the Guinness Storehouse.

I used to draw and sketch many years ago, and I’ve been missing it recently. I have some paper out, and there’s a half-formed idea in my head that I’m not able to realize on the paper, and I’ve just nudged it aside until inspiration strikes.

So during post-processing of this photograph, I think I still had it on my mind, and I may have unconsciously veered towards this look. I do like how it looks like a sketch with some watercolors mixed in. I might just leave my original idea be and copy this picture onto paper instead… 🙂

For Monochrome Madness: City.

Gerbera duality

Coincidentally, this week’s Monochrome Madness is both a 2-year anniversary and a theme — Closeup. Congratulations to Leanne, and a big thank you as well for hosting it for so long. I don’t participate every week, but in the weeks when I don’t submit anything, I still don’t miss out on looking at everyone else’s submissions. 😉

So for this momentous week, Leanne suggested we try combining the two occasions in our submissions, and incorporating ‘two’ somewhere in them. While I wondered what to click for this dual theme, I decided to go through my old pictures as well. I came across another macro shot of the Gerbera that I loved photographing a while ago, and had an idea. Most of the lower part of the picture was in shadow, so I rotated a copy of the image and overlaid it on the original. Kinda like the face cards in a deck of playing cards. The overlay, with some playing around with the masking and shading in the layers, makes the picture look like a reflection, but also not a reflection. I love, love this duality! ❤ I’m waiting to see the other MM submissions — Leanne will publish them all on Thursday.

This picture is an addition to my Flowers series as well.

Beside the Door of the Prince

At the Seville Cathedral, Seville, Spain.

This cathedral has multiple entrances, and the one we (all tourists, really) went through was the Door of the Prince. While I stood just outside the entrance, I looked up and clicked a quick few shots. I turned those photos into a monochrome HDR, but kept the upper part slightly blurred to emphasize the height of the structure. Some split-toning brought out the contrast between the higher, brightly lit sections and the lower, shaded parts.

For themed Monochrome Madness: Straight.

The face of Nandi

On our visit to Lepakshi a few months ago, my friends and I stopped at a sculpture of Nandi on the way. Nandi is the bull that serves as the mount of Lord Shiva. Usually, temples dedicated to Shiva have a statue of Nandi as well in them; there are also sites dedicated solely to Nandi. This is one such monolithic sculpture. I’m impressed with how the curves and contours of the bull’s face are carved in the stone, not to mention the repetitive details in his adornments and ornaments. Though I love the colored original, I’m (as usual) partial to this more contrasty monochrome version.

I’ve submitted this one to the themed Monochrome Madness of this month, ‘Curves‘. I did feel uncertain about this picture at first and wondered if I should look for a different one, but on second thought, I did (and still do) appreciate how many curves there are in this statue, so I just hit ‘Send’ in the end. 🙂

Do head over to Leanne Cole’s post for more submissions!

Reflected

Another beautiful sight of reflected greenery on the backwaters of Kerala. I love this higher-contrast, vignetted, monochrome version of the photograph, so it goes as a submission to this week’s Monochrome Madness. (Yes, I remembered to send my submission to Leanne this week! 😀 )

Houseboat

Houseboats are a common sight along the backwaters of Kerala. Though I’ve not been in one, I had plenty of opportunities to click them. This one’s a houseboat amongst houses — like it’s trying to blend in or camouflage itself, albeit unsuccessfully. 🙂

I post-processed this picture to make it feel vintage and nostalgic, and am pleased with how it turned out.

I’d thought of submitting this to the Monochrome Madness series hosted by Leanne Cole, but after I skipped the series for a couple of months, I keep forgetting and missing the deadline every time. I know, I can set a reminder, but reminders make things feel like chores… 😉

Clouds

Clouds! I love them because of their sheer variety. Though I don’t generally prefer clicking the darker rain clouds by themselves, I admit they add the perfect atmosphere for certain compositions.

I clicked these fluffy ones on a recent day trip, and thought I should submit this photograph for the once-a-month Monochrome Madness theme of this time – Clouds. When I converted the picture to monochrome, I darkened the sky to make the clouds more visible. I also like the trees here since they provide a reference point and make a mundane cloud-filled view more interesting. 🙂

For more clouds, please visit Leanne’s Monochrome Madness post! (Thank you, Leanne, for this theme!)