Walkabout shoot 28/06/06

Romped around parts of the city hall area... Walked along the backlanes near the philatelic (I think it spells this way) museum near wesley methodist, back down to the central fire station...

An Angel Landed...



Shot at the Armenian Church, from a rear gate looking into the courtyard... Decided to put it in Sepia =)
Canon300D, F/16, Ex 1/50, Iso200, 28-135mm IS USM

Masonic Bouquet...



Canon300D, F/4, Ex 1/800, Iso200, 28-135mm IS USM
I walked past the masonic lodge, (into it actually) and shot this at their restaurant. Cool. Never knew they had a restaurant... Mrph. At least those freemasons didn't have security or stuff like that. Very foreboding place.

Arrowed Door...



Canon300D, F8, Ex 1/320, Iso200, 28-135 IS USM
Thought this door looked interesting... Shot it off one of the backlanes across from SMU near the cheers store...

More to come =) All photos linked to my Flickr Page

Flowers...

This post will be entirely on flowers from my flickr page... =)
All shots were taken in India, Nagaland, Kohima...



I don't know the name of this flower... -_-
Canon 300D, F/8, Ex 1/640, Iso400, 28-135mm IS USM




Red Roses ! Canon 300D, F/8, Ex 1/200, Iso 400, 28-135mm IS USM



Morning light... Canon 300D, F/9, Ex 1/800, Iso400, 28-135mm IS USM



Its one of my favourites =) Its a shot worth seeing in its full size, which wont really fit here... Dropped the Iso down so there's alot less noise then the rest of the shots... Like the early morning light on this cap...
Canon 300D, F/8, Ex 1/160, Iso100, 28-135mm IS USM



Shot in the rain... Canon 300D, F/6.3, Ex 1/250, Iso200, 28-135mm IS USM

that's it for now... Will post more once I grab time to process the rest... They're available in different sizes on my flickr page... =)

Kohima War Cemetery... Flowers, graves, and memories...

Kohima lies in the highlands of Nagaland, India, at an elevation of approximately 1444m (1.4km or 4738ft.) above sea level... and unknown to many its a turning point in the Burma campaign during WWII, alongside with another battle occuring at Imphal, many gave their lives to prevent the Japanese from establishing a foothold into India from Burma, being outgunned and outnumbered.

It's interesting to note that at the memorial, the allied soldiers were a mixed multitude of nations, cultures and religion. Amongst them were Indians, Sikhs, Gurkhas, Brits, Aussies, Scots, Irish, NewZealanders, Muslims, and Jews even. The site is still maintained by the commonwealth, and its a yearly affair for survivors and relatives to fly in to remember the day.

Another piece of forgotten history would be the Kohima poem, inscribed on this memorial...

When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,

For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today

It's attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds (1875-1958) and it is thought to have been inspired by Simonides' Epitaph which bears similar resemblance... (okay, if you've watched Frank Miller's 300 you'll get the idea)

Ὦ ξεῖν’, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε

κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti têde

keimetha tois keinon rhémasi peithomenoi.

which may be translated as:

Tell the Spartans, passer-by,

here, obediently, we lie.

(From wikipedia.com)

Interesting =) Simonides' epitaph is attributed to the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 spartans and other greeks stood against the full might of the Persian forces... Which is sort of similar to the situation at Kohima then...
The cemetery's located at what used to be the governor's tennis court (its still there)... where intense fighting took place.... All in all, its a peaceful place as most memorials are, and the gardens are well kept with lots of flowers... Went down in a heavy downpour, but managed to grab some pretty decent shots...
















The entire memorial has multiple terraces...








An Unknown Soldier.











Rows of Plaques and the Tennis Court...




I'll put up the flowers on the next post... =)

Kitten Pillow- On TheKittenChannel.com

Kitten Pillow- Catnapping, originally uploaded by jamestraceur.

Shot at India, Nagaland- Canon 300D, f/8, Ex 1/80, Iso100, 28-135mm IS USM

Made it onto The Kitten Channel's Blog just two days ago ! Heh, sweet =)

Check it out on www.thekittenchannel.com/blog/

Will be posting more articles tomorrow morning, time for bed after a long day running down to Canon's service centre. "zhnged" my Cam's firmware and ended up with a continuously blinking red-eye reduction icon on my info screen, which they can't remove, but said it would not affect photos in any way. The only solution is to replace the entire circuit board which is totally not worth it... Nights =)

Apertural...

Chose apertural as the name for the photojournal due to the vast amounts of illustrations/allegories I could use with the term and its meaning...

Technically its an area which I'm currently endeavouring to control, and yups, I like photos that feature Bokeh (check out wikipedia on what it means) and depth of field...

I sort of figured that it'll be a good name since in a sense, photography is an aperture into the lives of people, culture, places, and it preserves a slice of time, a moment itself at a place, where it could be shared with other people... It is able to shed light on situations or places, and provide perspectives that others might miss... I could go on writing pages on it, and in the process quote cliche phrases like "a picture tells a thousand words", as well as possibly incurring flaming comments from others on certain controversial aspects... but I'd rather not... I'll let the articles, photos and writing speak for themselves...

Okay, I'm quoting from dictionary.com here...

ap·er·ture (āp'ər-chər) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. An opening, such as a hole, gap, or slit.
2. 1. A usually adjustable opening in an optical instrument, such as a camera or telescope, that limits the amount of light passing through a lens or onto a mirror.
   2. The diameter of such an opening, often expressed as an f-number.
   3. The diameter of the objective of a telescope.

[Middle English, from Latin apertūra, from apertus, past participle of aperīre, to open; see wer-⁴ in Indo-European roots.]

ap'er·tur'al adj.
(Download Now or Buy the Book) The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

BeSwitched !

I've finally decided to create a seperate blog, apart from my journal @ deadjournal.com/users/deivorytower
Its still tempting to make a complete switch, but I'll rather not, despite my recent year's laziness to update my journal, I still wish to keep a journal as it is. I'll write (or rant) more about it on my journal about it...

This blog is meant more for photos, where I'll have a chance to put up shots and write stuff on them...

I've been on flickr for quite some time, but there's little place for others to freely give opinions and comment, where its restricted to flickr members (Amongst my friends, I've only known 1 person using flickr.). Its a hope that this photojournal/blog would provide that bit of liberty to comment and describe...

Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing a meditation. -Henri Cartier-Bresson