Bali the Beautiful

Bali the Beautiful

This is a travelogue of my two day trip to Bali on August 29 & 30, 2008.

There are many facets of Bali. There are the beautiful beaches. Bali has wild-life parks, has beautiful birds. There are also interesting landscapes from paddy fields to beaches with black sand to beautiful lakes to volcanos. Then you can look at Bali from the perspective of a culturally rich Hindu island with lots of connections to India. Two days are inadequate to enjoy all this even though Bali is perhaps about 250 Kms x 120 Kms.

In this travelogue, I have tried to capture a bit of landscape and a bit of culture. It will be interesting to know that I had not spent even an hour at the beach. I could not even find time to enjoy the Sunset at beach that I really wanted to see. Hope there is another time.

Bali Landscapes

Bali has immensely beautiful tropical

landscape. Sizeable part of Bali lives in villages and are dependent on agriculture ranging from rice to spices to fruits. Since Bali does not have a flat landscape in most places, one will get to see Paddy being farmed in stepped fields. For us in India, this may not be new. I was lucky to get a good evening back light on this field. You can also find plenty of coconuts and banana being grown throughout Bali. Much of the agricultural fields are in the center of bali towards the South.

Most of the north is full of hills followed by a drop to sea level in the north.

Paddy fields require lots of water. Bali

seems to have abundance of water

resources. There are many large lakes

that provide good drinking water and

water for farming. Here is a beautiful lake

that you must include in your itinerary

when you are visiting Bali. This called

Bedugul Lake. This is a beautiful large lake

with a beautiful lush green mountain. This

looks beautiful in every season. The

monsoon clouds seem to be enhancing the

beauty of the lake. Blue skies behind the

mountain during winter (March-May) should

equally be enticing. Locals spend a whole

day here.

Of course, it is impossible to return from

Bali without seeing the Mount Batur,

an active volcano that had erupted thrice

in the past 50 years. You can get a

beautiful view of the mountain from the

crowded Kintamani village and even better

views from the road to the north of

Kintamani village. The black patches towards

the foot of the mountain are really lava. This sand

is mined to be used for construction of buildings

that adds black/brown color to most ancient

buildings in Bali.

If you have time you can also visit "Git Git" the only

water falls on Bali. A bit of walking must be done

to reach the top of Git Git. If you have time to kill,

you can walk all the way down to the foot of the water

fall and even take a dip in the water. With such a

height, it should definitely offer an interesting

experience to take bath under the water fall.

Bali Culture

Bali seems to have a magical connection with India.

70% of the population in Bali follow Hinduism. Lots of

names are similar to Indian names. Our driver has

named his son Vishnuwardana. There are palaces of

Kalingas. We met Vermas, the blacksmiths in Bali.

Gajah Muha (Ganesha) is worshipped to remove all

obstacles. Names like Goa (pronounced as Gua)

means cave. They chant Sanskrit slokas.

I was lucky to be in Bali during the 10 day festival

at Bali much similar to the Dasserah festival in

India. The 10th day marks the win of good over

evil and on the 10th day all Hindus visit temples and

offer prayer to the Gods. The 10th day is called

Kalungan.

Bali has an interesting way of owning temples. Bali

has a joint family system and each family lives in a

common compound. Each compound has a temple

complex that is owned by the family. The big

temples were owned and run by families of Kings.

The biggest temple complex in Bali is at Besakih.

Visitors are not allowed in most of the temples.

You will hardly find deities in Baisaki temples. They

worship the Mummorthies (three Gods) Brahma,

Vishnu and Shiva. All are depicted as lingas or cones

and you will find the three cones in every temple

in the open. When we went to Besakih,

Kalungan celebration was in progress.

People at Bali

People at Bali, though Hindus have shadows of the

Mangolian race. White dress is the predominant color

during festive seasons. Here are some pictures of the

people taken at Bali. Bali is famous for wooden masks.

I cannot think of a use fior it, but they can be found

everywhere. I shot the picture of the Mask seller with

a similar face at Goa Gajah. The snake charmer below

his picture was also shot at the same place.

Next to the mask vendor is a village boy from Bangli, a

model village tourists visit. The other pictures were shot

at Taman Ayun, one of the best looking temples in Bali.

More pictures on my Picasa Album:

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/mettursmurali/BaliSingaporeAug2008#

- Murali Santhanam

Make your own Cable Release in 5 minutes

Make your own Cable Release in 5 minutes

I have been scouting around for a Cable Release for my Pentax *istD for a long time in India with no success. So I decided to make one. I was successful in making a simple cable release in 10 minutes at a cost of les than 2$. I have tested this by taking pictures in Bulb Mode and other exposure modes. I am excited at the prospects of using this cable release and thought of sharing this with you.


Here is how you construct a cable release. (See the picture attached)

1. Buy a simple hands-free for mobile with 2.5mm stereo connector. In my case I bought a LG hands-free (see the picture)

2. I cut off the earphone, opened the cable and separated the core cable and the shield so that they do not touch each other.

3. I then opened the box containing the switch and condenser microphone. I removed the microphone and assembled the microphone box back. In some phone cables there could also be a capacitor attached to the bubble switch. If there is one, remove that as well

4. The button in the microphone box now acts as release button.

The cable release is now ready. Here is how I use it.

I connect the cable release to *istD. I use the focus switch on the camera to focus and set exposures. I then use the cable release button to open the shutter.

The Cable Release never failed me even once.

Getting Closer to Birds

Getting Closer to Birds

A year and a half back when I started learning photography, I used to wonder how the Nature Photographers are able to get such lovely pictures of birds. On 1st November, 2006, myself and Amar Bhaskar decided that we should put our photographic talents to test. Just during that week, we read that Egrets had been spotted at Hebbal Lake. First, we did not even know how to get to Hebbal Lake. We also had no prior experience of photographing birds. After a couple of rounds around Hebbal Fly-over, we spotted some egrets in a field close to the fly-over. We parked the car near the fly-over and walked down a track to reach the field. As we went down, we noticed many Small Egrets picking up insects from the field. We stopped at a spot close to the field and unpacked our camera and lenses. Having satisfied ourselves with the settings, we turned around to start shooting pictures. To our surprise, we could find NOT A SINGLE EGRET ! They all flew away.

That is the moment I realized that taking good pictures is all about being at the right place, at the right time of day with right equipment. Well, it was not our day. We had to return without a single frame.

Birds especially present a challenge. Birds by nature are pretty sensitive and do not like to be approached by human beings. Different birds have different levels of sensitivity to human beings. For example, Kingfishers do not allow you to get closer than 100 feet. Then how does one take good pictures of birds?

Photographers use different techniques for approaching birds. Most techniques require photographers to use some form of camouflage to cover oneself before approaching the bird.

One of the easiest techniques is to shoot from the car. While birds are averse to human beings, they do not mind sitting close to a car. They do not seem to notice the human beings inside the car. There are occasions when we could get so close to the bird that the bird was within minimum focusing distance of the lens. Here is an example of shoot-out session at Mavathur where we were photographing Indian Roller. My friend Goutham could navigate the car to within 4 feet of this bird. Most birds do not let you get this close even by using the car. Some techniques I learned from Satish are:

1. Try and figure out the minimum distance the bird will allow you. Start with longer distance and keep getting closer.
2. Allow the bird to get comfortable with your car. Generally birds start ignoring you after a few attempts to get closer.
3. Try to keep the camera out even as you approach the bird. Extending the camera out of the window after you got closer to the bird may frighten the bird.
   

If you are able to locate a spot to which a bird keeps coming to very often, then you can try using a "Hide". This typically happens when the bird is raising chicks in its nest. The chicks are voracious eaters. Mother and father birds typically keep coming back to the nest with insects or other food to feed the chicks. A hide is nothing but a small tent with holes for extending the lens out. We have used Gunny (Jute) Bags draped over a few sticks as a hide in the past. You can also get sophisticated hide frame and camouflage clothes to build a hide.

After spotting the bird's nest, the Photographer typically chooses a suitable spot closer to the nest from where he can take pictures with a good background and lighting direction. The next step is to set up a perch on which the bird can come and sit. Before entering the nest, the bird typically sits on a perch close to the nest to survey the environment and then enters the nest. The perch is typically a broken twig that provides the required hight from the ground. Then you enter into the hide and wait for the bird to get used to the perch and the hide. You can shoot the bird as and when it comes and rests on a perch. You can typically produce great pictures using the Hide technique.

Here is a hide constructed out of gunny clothes. We shot pictures of Red Munia at Omkar Hills using this hide. We fastened the sides of the Gunny with safety pin and tied the bag to some nearby branches. A hole in the front for the lens and you are ready to go. We sat in this Gunny bag for 8 hours to shoot 10 pictures of Red Munia.

Enjoy bird photography..... It is exciting and rewarding...

- Murali Santhanam