Was cleaning out old photos… and found this pic. I am not a fan of the Clone Tool and I like to leave my images the way they were taken, except for the minimal processing that I do.

Need to clean up all the photos and upgrade to Snow Leopard…

I attended the INW meet which was organized in mysore yesterday.  Thanks to deponti , I didn’t have to take a bus to mysore and thanks to Rajni who I friended during the meet I got a comfortable ride back to bangalore. It was really nice to meet people from INW who have been giving us such wonderful images of the wildlife in our country.  I got to meet Sudhir Shivram, Kalyan Varma, Giri Kavale, Kulashekar, Sainath among others. 
I also got to know that a lot of people stay quite close to where I live and this can be very useful in the future when planning birding / widlife trips.
After morning coffee , we settled down at the Rangayana where we had all assembled and introduced ourselves to the rest of the group. 
Later Ganesh gave a talk on creative photography. After which Sudhir Shivram gave us a basic work flow of post processing images. 
After lunch, we headed to Karanji lake for some photography. I got to see and use some really high end equipment. There was Sudhir’s new 800mm lens which people have been in awe every since he started posting pictures from it and a lot of other photographic equipment as well.
At Karanji lake, I saw a baby crocodile about 5 feet away. It was basking in the sun on a log of wood. Have yet to see if I have any decent photos to post.
Later in the evening, I headed back to bangalore.

It was a very productive day in meeting new people, sharing their views and experiences and learning a lot of things related to photography and nature. I probably can’t attend the all india meet which may happen later in the year in north india so I was glad I didn’t miss this opportunity.

I was actually planning on having a quiet Friday evening yesterday… but in the morning my friend Bharath had planned a bike trip. Later in the day, things became more feasible for me to join him. Another friend Vijay also joined in on the plan.
Oh by the way, this was a road trip to Mysore.. AT NIGHT. I had never done this before, and since the opportunity came by, I didn’t want to miss it.
So I was .. on my sweetheart.. 200cc Pulsar and my friend Bharath was on his 350cc Bullet with Vijay as the pillion rider. We were supposed to start at 8, but finally got going at 8:30. We only stopped for petrol and we were on the fringes of Mysore city by around 10:50.. not bad I would think. We went to the road that connects to Ranganthittu to find a particular eat out but sadly, it was closed by the time we reached there. There was no cause for concern as there were a lot of 24 hr dhabas in close proximity. And so after a good meal, we decided to head back at around 00:30. On the way, we stopped to have tea at a local shop, then spent an hr at a Coffee Day. Not surprised to find a lot of people there even at 2:00 AM. Then finally we ripped our bikes all the way, and I was back home by 3:30 AM.
Then my body, well and truly shutdown!

Woke up at around 9:30, went out..came back slept some more and now blogged about it.

It is quite dangerous to ride at night as the glare from other vehicles can be quite difficult on your ride. Also, its easy to trip over roadkill. When your bike is doing 100-110, the last thing you want is to skid!. The barracades setup by the poilce to stop drunk drivers is a nightmare, as it lacks any reflector of sorts and a few times, I had a close call because I only spotted it when I was 5 ft away and was grateful to my reflexes.
Its an experience I wanted to have, and now that I have had it… I think i’ll stick to day light when planning future road trips.

The Pulsar 200cc and the Bullet 350cc both rock! My average speed was around 70 I think. We covered approx 240kms between 8PM and 3:30 AM.

I DO FEEL LIKE GOD!