mundane monday - # 5

india is a tropical country and mosquitoes are a big part of  life here. and so are the various anti-mosquito tools to tackle them. other countries maybe content with developing technology for, say, telecommunications or space research - but in india, significant developments are constantly made in the field of mosquito repellant technology. one of the earliest non-electric, non-chemical options was to sleep under a mosquito net. yep, each person slept inside a net that hung over and covered their beds, like a big white canopy. since then battling the mosquito menace has taken every form imaginable, from creams for direct application on skin, mosquito repellant household sprays, chemical coils(that are burnt like incense), to mats & liquid vaporisers which are electrically warmed to release the repellant chemicals.
if you are the kind who gets satisfaction from giving instant capital punishment to the mozzies, you could even use an electric 'mosquito bat', like my friend here :)

while all the above are 'localised' solutions, the one thing that will give a 'whole house' protection is the mosquito screen, which is fixed on the windows (and usually comes with velcro so that it can be removed if needed).

so yeah, after all this beating about the bush, i just intend to say that today's picture is of one such mosquito screen :) a part of the screen, to be precise.

From mundane monday

this is a very close up macro shot - keep in mind that every square in the net/screen is smaller than the average mosquito, to keep them out !

doesnt it look nice when zoomed in, like lattice work on a fence or window ?

edits to the original pic : a little cropping, slight adjustments to brightness and shadows, and finally 'cinemascope' effect in picasa - it makes the photo look kind of wide-screen like, and adds a black strip above and below. i dont normally like the letterbox (the black strips), but in this particular pic, it does look nice.

have a nice week, and keep visiting ! and for those who will be celebrating, wish you a very happy diwali - hope you enjoy all the food, fun and festivities !

mundane monday - # 4

hi,
how did the last week treat you ? i had a week that left me kind of emotionally and physically drained, with travel and relocation. i ended up sleeping off a good part of the week and fighting off a 13.5 hr jet-lag .

but let's cut to the chase. this week's picture is a soap. yup, a round bar of soap from some hotel visit long ago (las vegas, i think). if i have barely used bars of soap in hotels, i generally bring them back with me since i'd hate to see them tossed in the trash. (and the small tubes of lotion are so handy when you are travelling.)

apart from the waste factor, this particular soap also looked and smelt good, so i had carried it and eventually forgot about it too, till recently. when i stumbled upon it in the middle of a cleaning spree, i thought it'd make a good prop for the monday pics...

the soap is from a brand called 'gilchrist & soames' (who supply to many big hotels). it is a very soft pistachio green colour and it looked good against a white background in natural light.

i was playing around with the edits and i tried the 'holga' effect in picasa - i thought it looked very different and 'artsy'. but i do like softness of the original colour version too, and cant really decide which one looks nicer. so including both versions in the post this week. (only the b&w links to the picasa album.)

this is the site of gilchrist&soames soaps...

i wanted to find out more about this holga effect, so on googling found that the holga camera is a film camera from the 80's which produces effects of vignetting and blurring of photographs... more about the holga in the wiki here.

have a nice week ahead, and thanks for stopping by !

From mundane monday

mundane monday - # 3

anyone who knows me well knows that i have a big crush on ikea :)

so its only natural that my 'props' from ikea should figure in the mundane mondays sooner or later... this week it is the set of 'kalas' kids bowls. though these plastic bowls are meant for kids, they add such a cheerful burst of colour that you can be excused for having them even if you dont have kids around :)

i knew the kalas bowls would make a good subject and it had been on my mind for a long time now, and finally got down to it this week. i just placed them on my window sill just as the light was fading towards the end of the day. i have got surprisingly good results many times from such end-of-the-day light, more than the bright sunshine in the afternoons. i placed a translucent white sheet behind the bowls which diffused the light as well as hid the insect screen in the window. the results were so nice that it needed no retouching, it just looked beautiful as such.

the light coming through the bowls gives them a nice pearly glow and the white background just makes the colours pop all the more, doesnt it ?

From mundane monday

fall flavours - chai spice shortbread cookies...

fall...


days getting shorter..

leaves turning...

temperatures dipping...


soft autumn rains falling...

its such a beautiful time of the year... i think autumn brings out a yearning in everyone for earthy tones and warm spices...

i tried making some chai-spice shortbread and its just a medley of flavours in your mouth... 

i love shortbread since its a very basic and versatile canvas to start with and you can make easy modifications to suit your taste. you can see the chocolate dipped shortbreads i make earlier, here.

this time i took the shortbread dough (1 cup all-purpose flour/maida, 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup sugar) and added a couple of spoons of chai-spice or tea-masala that i always have in my spice rack, along with a spoon of vanilla extract and some powdered cardamom... (about 2 spoons of tea masala to a cup of all purpose flour should be fine, but you could reduce it if you want it milder) tea masala will be readily available anywhere indian spices are sold, but if you cant find it, try making your own chai-spice blend by taking some cinnamon, nutmeg,dry ginger,cardamom pods,cloves, a few black peppercorns and powdering them in a blender or spice grinder...

make small balls from the dough and place them on baking sheet. to get the small squares like above, take a fork and press on the dough ball, horizontally once and vertically once. or just make any shapes you want. give each one a small prick with a fork, and chill them in the fridge for at least half an hour so that they retain their shape while baking.

bake at 180C/350F for 15-20 mins till the bottoms and edges start to brown. remove from oven and allow to cool before eating, or taking pretty pictures :)

mundane monday - #2

a big hi and a thanks for stopping by ! hope you had a good weekend and a nice start to the week...

i'm posting the second of the mundane monday series today, and if you just stepped in here, you can read a little intro about it in last week's post...

this week's pic is one of my fridge magnets - i bought it on my first visit to san francisco, in 2008. SFO is such a beautiful city, and it was love at first sight for me. trust me, its one of those cities which immediately makes you want to find a place and move there right away :)

about the magnet - its a replica of san francisco's iconic trams or cable cars, as those who've visited there would no doubt know.
SFO's cable car (or street car or tram) was first established in 1873. today it is the only moving national monument in the world, and is a very popular tourist attraction. it will find a place in any movie or tv show set in san fran.

sometimes its surprising how something is so close by at hand and yet you overlook the obvious. this magnet has been on my fridge for 4 years now, and god knows how many times a day i open my fridge. only when i took this photo from up close, i realised i hadn't paid attention to the 'meet me at the st.francis' sign on it. i felt it must be having some significance, and immediately googled it up. i found this piece of info which said that it is a reference to the historic St.Francis hotel opened in 1904, which became the hub of the city's elite.

read more about SFO's cable cars here and here.

editing made to the photo : usual adjustments for brightness,contrast and saturation, and the 'warmify' effect in picasa.

have a nice week, and keep visiting !

From mundane monday

starting a new weekly series - 'mundane monday'

some months ago i started a weekly routine of taking a photo every monday. not that i dont take pics on other days, but to give myself a specific task, i decided on a 'mundane monday' theme. i decided that these would be photos to capture the everyday things that i see around me, around the house. no nature photos, no  outdoor locations. it is just an exercise that serves as a reminder of the fact that even the most mundane objects look beautiful when viewed from a different perspective.

and today, i realise i have reached 25 weeks of photos. there are some weeks left out in between when i have been travelling or sick, but there are 25 photos as of today, and i hope i shall be able to continue it for a long time to come. there have been weeks where i would have no clue of what i was going to photograph, till the evening, but somehow something would present itself before me and inspiration would spring from nowhere.

so far i have posted these pics on picasa web albums, but starting today i've decided that i will also post it on the blog here, with a link to the picasa web album.

today's picture is that of my measuring cups. i have used the 'focal b&w' option in picasa so that only the markings appear in colour, on the white cups.

see my previous photos of mundane mondays so far, on my picasa album here

p.s : i realised i posted this on photo finish just as the clock struck 12, so it ended up becoming tuesday :)

finding the perfect handbag....

... is like finding the perfect man. not easy. why, you ask ?

       

this is why -

• its going to stay with you for a long time, be of considerable importance in your life, and go with you to most places you go.
• there is no standard, one-size-fits-all solution. 
• you need a lot of patience and invest a lot of time before settling on one.
• your choice is a reflection on your taste.
• has to be functional and do its job well, yet look good enough to flaunt around in public.
• must be strong enough to handle pressure and abuse well.
• must have easy access when you need your money quickly.
• must be easy to maintain.
• must hold your secrets well.
• should be flexible enough to adapt, because your needs and preferences will change with time.
• the right one should make other girls envious, but it shouldn't be easy for them to find a similar one :)