Antelope Canyons in Arizona

Its been a really long time since I posted something on my blog. Now when I notice, this is my first post in 2011! Yes, its been that long.

This year, I can say that I have traveled a lot. I moved from Chicago to Denver. Denver has a few interesting places nearby, and this gave me a lot of opportunities to visit new places.

In the month of July, I made a trip to Utah and Arizona - a trip lasting 3 days, and covered places from Bryce Canyon in Utah to Grand Canyon in Arizona. Here is a photo which I shot during my recent trip to Upper Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona.

"Lights and Shadows"

Upper Antelope Canyon (and lower Antelope Canyon) are slot canyons made of Navajo sandstone, and are considered one of the most photographed slot canyons in the world. These canyons are named because when they were discovered, herds of antelopes roamed the area.

I was awestruck by the beauty of these canyons. With narrow passages, and sunlight flowing through small slits, it was really a remarkable place. You can read more about the Antelope Canyons in the Wikipedia page here.

This photograph was shot in one of the darker areas. Set on a tripod, with an exposure of 1.3 sec, I was able to get good amount of detail without any flash.

Panoramas

For the past couple of months, I took the effort of shooting some panoramic views of Chicago. Now, what motivated me was a free software called Hugin, which creates such perfect stitched views. With some HDR processing, this is what the images look like. All I can say is - "Summers bring out Chicago's real beauty!!"

The Giant Eyeball at Pritzker Park, Chicago

Michigan Lake and south Loop, Chicago

View of downtown Chicago from Millennium Park - with the Cloud Gate at the center

Another view of the Cloud Gate, at downtown Chicago

Sunset and clouds, as viewed from my apartment window

My Experiments with Macro

Water Drops 1, originally uploaded by abhishekontheweb.

Macro, or, as some may prefer - micro photography, is all about taking pictures of small objects. Full frame DSLRs have 35mm sensors (36 × 24 mm) and the less expensive ones have a cropped sensor size, so with a macro lens, ideally, an object as small as the sensor size can be captured without any reduction in size. This creates immense number of possibilities, making simple and small objects blow up on a computer screen or on a printed paper, and is ideal for taking photos of insects and flowers.

Washing tomatoes

Washing tomatoes, originally uploaded by abhishekontheweb.

Another photo blog - shows how bored I get sometimes in the evening, after a busy day at work. Thats what I have been upto in the kitchen tonight - clicking photos instead of cooking. At least the tomatoes are thoroughly washed now!! :)

Water Bubbles (Photo Blog)

Water Bubbles, originally uploaded by abhishekontheweb.

The bowl was filled with water, and it was made to overflow by placing it under flowing tap water. As the tap water hit the surface of the water in the bowl, I was able to shoot these random shapes of the froth generated. Shot at 1/200th second with flash on. (Looks like cells under a microscope, doesn't it?)