Lomo is the shizzz!

Lomography is the commercial trademark of Lomographische AG, Austria for products and services catering to the Global Modern art community of Lomographic photography. The name is inspired by the former state-run optics manufacturer LOMO PLC of Saint Petersburg, Russia. LOMO PLC created and produced the 35 mm LOMO LC-A Compact Automat camera — which became the centerpiece of Lomography's marketing and sales activities. This camera was loosely based upon the Cosina CX-1 and introduced in the early 1980s.

Ten golden rules of LOMOGRAPHY

1. Take your camera everywhere you go.
2. Use it any time – day and night.
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it.
4. Try the shot from the hip.
5. Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible.
6. Don't think. (William Firebrace)
7. Be fast.
8. You don't have to know beforehand what you captured on film.
9. Afterwards either.
10. Don't worry about any rules.

Lomography caught my attention because it was something totally different. The exposure of colors, lens flares and all that good old vintage look looks so different and progressive. Its hard to define and you can come up with something unique every time. So thats a new on my wish list. A lomography camera. Yeah. :P 

:D

Some Lyrics, Thoughts

Some lyrics which I have written over the past couple of months for my band (Penguin Park). These  lyrics are for our second song that we are working on (Working title Poptarts aka Song 2). 

I took the inspiration of writing these vocals from the point of view of Genocide and basic suffering any man can face in his lifetime. It starts of with him explaining his situation, trying to fight while constantly being suppressed by the ones who inflict pain upon him. He prays for god to take away all his pain and misery because he has already lost a lot and wants to be free and live a new life. After a ruthless struggle, he loses his patience and in the end resorts to his faith and says that there is nothing he can do to defeat fate, but he is in content that he tried his level best to survive and fight back. 

Verse 1 :- 

(War) Take me to die in this war of hate 

(Fate) Deliver unto my sins 

Forget the past, you may just not last 

(Forced) I am forced to kill the very thing I love 

(Lust) Fall to the hands of this sacrifice 

Lose it all

Chorus :- 

Take away, this misery

What Ive lost cannot be found

We disciples will slowly fall

From the skies where we once belonged

OR (last 2 lines)

Resurrected, your god is safe

But you're the one who has to fall

Verse 2 :- 

Face the pain, cross the bridge of light 

Fall face first, die of your thirst

Forgive your old sins, crawl to reimburse 

For life and embrace 

The greatest battle of this age

Dark and Grey, the mask hides your face

Fall to the grace, of the fallen slaves   

Ghosts of this land, take over your head

Crush you within, you crumble - YOU'RE DEAD

Chorus 2 :-

Take from me, these memories

Now I now where I went wrong

Its time to rise, in mutiny

Against the darkness of our fate

Ending Vocals :- 

Follow the path, Of Destruction

Silence beckons, feel your infections 

You torture my soul, You destroy my race

You kill the very sense of pain

Please comment and tell me how you feel about them. 

And October comes to an end

A look back at October :-

- Went to Maldives. Amazing time

- Had my first gig with my band (Penguin Park) 

- Got my exam results. Not good. :/

- Diwali wasn't that good compared to last year. Yes, burnt crackers but didn't have that much fun

- Waited in anticipation for Metallica to come to Delhi

- Memorable night stay at Sidharth's house. Highlight being when we sang Nothing Else Matters. Around 14 guys singing together to the live version of the song. Almost cried. 

- 28th October. A date that I will never forget. Reached the Metallica venue at 8:30 in the morning. Stood in line for more than 4 hours, just to see a bunch of cunts destroy my dreams along with the ones of 25000 others.

- Someone surprisingly, unworkably became really close to someone

- Wept for 3 days continuously after the madness at the Metallica concert in Gurgaon

- Sent a letter to Metallica, got a reply. Best feeling ever since the concert.

Overall. October was neutral, started off amazingly but almost ended in a disaster. Though, 28th October will always be remembered as the worst day of my life. 

6th November 2011 - Is this really happening?

Yesterday has to undoubtedly be the scariest night ever. Ive never gone through anything like this. I have been a huge fan of the horror movie genre, and well you always get the chills when you watch horror movies at night and its considered to be an accomplishment or something like that - more like "You have the balls" shit. I would generally get scared at night thinking of classics like The Exorcist and new interesting ones like The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, Grave Encounters, Paranormal Activity etc. I would have dreams as well. They were quite scary, but very superficial. They never felt real. Suddenly, I stopped having dreams for a long time. I don't remember when I last had a dream. This was till yesterday. So after studying, being online, watching videos on youtube and talking to people on the phone, I finally decided to sleep around 2:15-2:30. I put on my new playlist that I made recently and went of to sleep. After sometime I was woken up by a sort of disturbance in my headphones. The candle was still on, I forgot to blow it off before sleeping, thus the room looked kind of creepy. I decided to stop the music (now that I was actually quite sleepy) and just put the headphones and the laptop aside. After a short period of time, I started hearing weird noises. It wasn't the usual sound of the fan. No it wasn't the windows making noise because of the wind like every other night. It was as if I was hearing sounds which you would rather hear in a Porcupine Tree song with a dark and heavy feel. Somewhat like Deadwing mixed with Halo and So Called Friend. 

It was scary. And suddenly, it was as if I heard someone scream from a distance. I tried to get up, but my body won't move. It was as if there was a huge boulder above my body and It was getting hard to remove it. Finally I moved my body, or basically got up. I checked the time, It was 2:28. I thought as if more than 30 minutes passed by, but it was just a matter of 5-10 minutes. I was like, man I'm dreaming again. Phew, I have to go to sleep. After sometime, I heard the scream again. That was when I got scared. I rushed to remove my blanket and just step out of my room, but the blanket would just never end. I kept pulling it, and it would never end. Confused, I let it be. It was still pulling towards my direction. I chose to ignore it and tried sleeping. Then suddenly the Tv opened on its own. As far as I remember, it was a medieval themed surrounding, knights, war, long and dark colonies at night. Again my body won't move. The candle was still illuminated. Finally I got up. I was really scared. But then, something scared my even more. When I eventually got up, the candle was blown off. I grabbed my blanket and pillow and ran out of my room. I went and banged my parents' room and ultimately slept there (Im not ashamed of it, I was scared - that was the safest place that came into my mind). I kept hearing things while leaving the room also. Im really scared of sleeping today. Really really scared. I have no idea how Im going to sleep tonight. Man. 

11th October 2011 - Maldives (Summing up)

For the last 5 days, Ive been in a small country comprised of a group of islands in the Indian Ocean known as Maldives. There isn't a direct flight from India to Maldives, so you have to go through Sri Lanka (Colombo) and then Maldives. My hotel was 32 kms away from the capital city of Male (by water). My hotel was situated on a single island, nothing else on it - Just surrounded by blue/green water on all sides. Ive never been in such a silent place ever in my life. All you can hear is the sound of ocean waves when you get up in the morning, and when you sleep at night. Everything was almost bliss. The amazing sunrise and sunsets, the amazing water, the animals, the underwater world. It was something I've never seen before. The best moments were when I would just go into the sea snorkeling, and see the vast species of fishes and corals. I saw almost all kinds of fish there could be, and of most sizes as well. And another thing was, no noise. Nothing. You could just hear yourself breathing, see the mighty sun above you and rejoice the moment. 

This vacation was totally a stress reliever. It was like a much needed escape from "everything" so to say. I had enough time to do whatever I wanted. I edited and worked on various songs of mine. I even made a vocal line for my bands' song. :P Thats the amount of time and freedom I had. Even after all the snorkeling, the scuba diving, the photography and all that stuff. This time, I also feel I really let out a lot in my photography. My mind was so relaxed and calm, that I actually had a vision of what I wanted before I took it, and most of the times. I got it. At some moments, I shocked myself also - because the photo turned out to be better than what I expected. It was more of going back to basics. Not clicking every photo on 1600 ISO, editing all modes once again. Setting up the camera once again. I wanted that the picture should be that good that there should be no post processing. And yes, there was very little processing I did this time on photos. Except for some where I added the HDR look and some experimentation and improvisation touches here and there. Then there was the occasion when I went scuba diving. I had always been dying to go for scuba diving since I visited Mauritius back in 2007. I was so fascinated by the underwater world that I just wanted to grab onto the first chance I got to explore it. So finally after 4 years, my parents agreed to send me for scuba diving. I had this english instructor named Frank. Amazing guy, helped me out a lot and he had quite a sense of humor. He first gave a sort of a theory lesson about the basic concept of scuba diving, to-do's and what to be careful of when inside the water. Then he took me in the pool for some practicing, and finally into the sea. Ohh my fucking god! What an experience it was. I went down till about 12 metres. I saw hundred kinds of fish and corals. I saw a shipwreck too. I guess it was a very old ship considering that it was quite small. The whole experience gave me this feeling of freedom which I may never get. I guess the closest thing to this would be going and performing on stage. Im in the water, swimming like a fish. Fearless, glancing through the vast ocean not caring about anything. The only thing that was bothering me was the ear pressure. My ear was just not willing to co-operate with me. :P Except for that, It was magical. I actually cant describe the whole experience so to say. :P After all that, the only thing I could think of was, how cool would be the life of my instructor. He may have swam in so many seas, seen so many things inside the water. Its almost astonishing. 

The other things I kind of drifted towards this holiday were Lomography and well, the National Geographic Chanel. :P Well Lomography is basically a form of photography where the effect is sort of which makes the picture look image/old. Basically, less saturation then todays high quality pictures. I spent a lot of time on the internet checking out lomography lenses, lomography videos on youtube etc etc. Its actually fun. Id like to give credit to my best friends sister for that. Thanks Ridhii Di for using that effect in your android phone and educating me about lomography. :D The other thing, well Nat geo. :P If I recollect. Its been ages since I saw National Geographic. As a kid, I really liked it because it had various shows on the universe, space, oceans, etc etc. All the stuff that basically had thousands of questions and answers. I watched more of National Geographic Adventure. This channel had shows telling stuff about various countries, cultures and that stuff. Quite interesting and knowledgable. A show about secret CIA operations in Pakistan after the September 11 attacks in US just ended. So yeah, interesting stuff. :P But yeah, this is my last night here. I have to get up at 4:15 in the morning tomorrow. :/ Early flight, the fact that it takes one hour from the hotel to the airport and that you have to reach 2 hours prior to flying time because Maldives is a muslim country. Sort of lame. I have to get back to normal life - school, the fast paced city life. Yeah, all sounds huge and clichéd, but its true. This place has made me feel so basic and yet so important at the same time. This has truly been one of the best holidays I've ever had, and I guess its the most significant one. :) 

PS :- My band goes live this Thursday @ Manajsa in Hauz Khaz. Please come! xD

7th October 2011 - Day 2 at Maldives

Today was SOO much better than yesterday. Well I didn't get up for the sunrise, its like at 6 in the morning here. Really difficult task. :P Ill try that tomorrow or on Sunday. I had an omelet with shrimps, ham and bacon for breakfast! Yeah, NEVER imagined an omelet with shrimps in it. :P Well, then I went and got the snorkeling kit from the diving centre, and went in to the water. The other side of the sea was amazing! Though the water kept changing in temperature, the fishes were amazing! I really had fun today, compared to yesterday. I mostly clicked pictures today. Loads of them. There were these cranes that were flying around the resort. Then I saw dolphins today also. :P I guess it was a couple moving together. I missed todays sunset by merely 2 minutes. Well then I roamed around the resort, clicking more pictures. Saw people feeding Manta Ray's, so started clicking them. I guess imma feed em tomorrow. They really looked amazing. Moving swiftly through the water. I had this beef stake for dinner. AMAZING! Like its my first time I've ever had a beef stake, and it was perfect. Soft, tender - along with some sautéed vegetables and bbq sauce. The day could NOT have been better! :D 

Pictures of Day 2 :- 

6th October 2011 - Day 1 at Maldives

October 6th - First day at Maldives

I arrived yesterday with my family to maldives at around 2 o clock (Indian Time). I left at 6 o clock from Delhi. From Delhi, I went on a three and a half hour flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka. From there, another 1 hour flight to Male, the capital of Maldives. From the airport, We went in a motorboat to the hotel which was around 30 kms away. That took another 45 mins to an hour. The journey was quite tiresome, so as soon as we reached the room, we slept. When we got up in the morning, we ran to eat breakfast as it was already 9:30, and the breakfast was till 10. I had this amazing Egg Benedict, this was Fried egg, on top of 2 buns with ham. I was too sleepy in the morning, so I didn't take the photo. :P But it really looked and was delicious. :D 

Then I came back to the room, and well - slept. :P I had to cover up for my sleep. I got up around 4 o clock and actually started looking around the room,  to see what all was actually there. :P As soon as you stepped out of the room, you had 2 sun beds and then was the sea. So it is actually like a private beach that you're living on. 

So then I decided to go into the water. The water isn't that nice. :/ There are rocks EVERYWHERE. Its not even that deep, and when you go way ahead, thats when It sort of starts getting deep. Though the temperature was nice, I didn't enjoy that much. My hand got cut by a rock while coming out so that was kind of not expected. :/ Well then I picked up my camera, and started clicking pictures. It was about 6 so the sun was setting. BEAUTIFUL! 

Then I went for dinner, ordered this chinese meal. AMAZING! And well, clicked a picture of that. :P And then I went into what they call the "relaxing room" and starting using the internet and played the guitar for sometime. Yes, surprisingly my hotel has a guitar, well actually it has two guitars. :P And now I've just come back to my room, and Im going to upload this. And go off to sleep. Got to get up early tomorrow for the Sunset. (Thisisactuallybliss) :D