Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Jet Bƒlew, Ready To Land In Air, ƒLowering Landing Gear

It was an extremely bright afternoon in early Summer 2010, It was taken on the same day as the very popular Pink Flood picture of a different bush.

The previous day I had noticed these flowers (name, anyone?) at the front of my neighbor's home to the East of my house. I made it a point to step out and take a few shots on this day.

Even though this is just a 5MB JPG from a 14MB RAW image, shot at 1/500 seconds, ISO 200 at 450 mm equivalent zoom. No cropping, no color boosting. In taking the picture I had accidentally set exposure to −1eV so I had to brighten it to fix that mistake. Sorry, can't claim SOOC on this one.

I am still stunned by the texture details the Nikon D300 captured on the flowers. It is pretty amazing for a handheld shot at that zoom level (even though I say so myself :) ).

The pink specks, the almost paper/fabric faux-flower like edges, the serrations on the leaves and the gold and white stamens on white and pink petals.

The bee appears frozen in time, stopped in mid-air. As it gets ready to lower it's "landing gear", almost like landing on a flower in the air, you can see the sharp upward hooks of its feet.

It contrasts perfectly with the crisp flowers in the foreground and the softly luscious bokeh of pink and green the Nikon and Nikkor lenses do such a great job of capturing on command.

I hope you enjoy the textures and details of this as much as I do.

© 2010 IMRAN
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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Grass Bokeh Chloride, Fluoride Toned Bee Rides, Purple Butterfly Bush New York Summer Morning - IMRAN™

The grass in my backyard provided the ideal nearly uniform green backdrop.

The interesting thing was the way a growing patch of drying grass (the sprinkler guy needs to adjust the way they distribute water) makes the background look like a fake gradient fill in Photoshop! It is not. It's, sadly, a patch of dry grass I need to manually water soon but looks great in this photo!

Against this really natural gradient of a somewhat chloride tinged backdrop, a fluoride tinged yellow bee, made more bright by the rising sun's rays from the left, savored the glowing purple flowers on the butterfly bush on my back deck.

This shot was taken with a NIkon D300 on a (by my standards) early morning of this Long Island, New York, summer of 2010.

I actually had to reduce the saturation on this photo or you would have thought the original photo was a fake colored image.

This 2' tall bush I planted has now grown to 10-12' and hosts a flood of butterflies in the summer months.

Enjoy the rest of summer.

© 2010 IMRAN
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Sun Day Fire Sail. Fiery Red Sky Silhouettes Sailboat Masts

SOOC Image Straight Out Of Camera!! NO editing, tweaking, or color processing of ANY kind. Only framed & titled in Photoshop..

The stunning sky on fire was ringing in the end of the day with the ring of the massive fiery sun cradled by tiny dark tree branches. It silhouetted my neighbor's home and the trees around our property. The masts of sailboats in the marina stood silent, in awe of the patterns in the fire-lit sky, but ready to sail.

As the tired sun melted into the puffy pillows of billowy clouds underneath, it reminded me of Sunday Sales or SunDay Fire Sales on bedding, mattresses and furnishings. Hence the title, Sun, Day, Fire, Sail.

The Nikon D300 captured this unedited, unprocessed, JPG at 1/1250 second f/18.0 ISO 200 and exposure bias of -1.33 for the pure darkness of the silhouettes but still managing to capture the tree branch crossing in front of the sun. A part of the branches seems to crown the sun even as it bows out for the night.

© 2010 IMRAN
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Friday, August 13, 2010

Bird House, Home By The Sea

I took this photo YWM. Yachting While Mesmerized.

I idled the twin 8.1 liter Mercruisers of the Sea Ray Sundancer 360. Their roaring energy turned into a rippling purr of silent power, awaiting my further commands.

The Nikon D300 shutter snapped to attention, as if clicking heels at the snap of my finger.

I was in command of my life, my camera, my ship, my ship of life. The world lay before me, and the waves danced at my feet. I'd been everywhere, and I was going anywhere I chose.

This 11MB JPG is from the 35MB TIFF Nikon D300 image from that moment. The painting-like photograph was captured at a stunning sunset on my last day of yachting in Miami, Florida, before many challenging times came into my life.

As the sun sets on many aspects of a life in turmoil, and I lose, one after the other, many homes, possessions, properties, rewards of my life's work, I shed not a tear, which would be lost in the oceans on which I am yet to sail to brighter tomorrows.

Good or bad, I have no regrets about any choices I have made in life. Nor would I trade any of the experiences, or people, I have been blessed by having in my life, for anyone else's life and experiences.

As the winter sun set to my right, over Coral Gables in Florida, the silky textures it painted on the sky set this Stiltsville home in dramatic contrasts of dark and light.

The condemned golden wood, the inviting pink railing. The pelican, like a sentinel, a "SUNtinel", keeping watch over the sun signing out from the hot non-tin roof, another stretching time it could stretch its wings to catch the breeze and warmth for life, while sitting on a dead piling.

The deepening blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean at Biscayne Bay Channel had a mild chop, but it too was dying down with the setting sun. Over the silent din of the chop, the reflection of the bird possessed house, unlike the possessed creatures of Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds, still made itself known to the spinning, yet not aimless, electrons of the camera sensor.

Just like the memories and reflections of this magical life shine bright in my soul, deep into the darkest nights, long after the life giving sun is gone and the passing birds of shared nests have disappeared into the tide of time ebbing, receding into history.

But the best is still ahead. The best of love. The best of Life. The best of Times. The best News' weeks. The best, of everything, I am yet to Discover.

Goodnight, Night.

Come Tomorrow, for I humbly but confidently await you. Come Sailmate, future Soulmate, adrift alone on the ocean of life tonight, flying solo on some other horizon today.

My eyes peel the horizons, of the seven seas and seasonal skies, for your sight. My fingers yearn for your future touch.

Come take my hand as I take you, on board, for the incredible journey that lies ahead, for us.

The ship under my command, I will now captain as our love boat, where your wish, my love, is my command!

© 2010 IMRAN
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Saturday, August 07, 2010

Lily Gene IS My Love

A Tribute to Living Lovers & Michael Jackson, RIP

Bille Jean, the song by the late pop idol Michael Jackson, has to be one of the most popular, interesting, memorable and enjoyable songs of all times. It also resonates with me in ways that I cannot go into detail here, at least not without ensuring the end of any future political career, in Pakistan or America. LOL.

Liliy, gene king, (sorry, couldn't resist the reference to Bille Jean King, the Tennis star), almost as much as roses, are also always among the most enjoyable, popular, colorful and delightful flowers around.

I do not know the name of this exact variety that my wonderful next door neighbors, Mrs. & Mr. M, recently planted, in the area in front of our homes. But, even as I took this photo, I had NO idea how stunned even I would be, when I saw it as a desktop picture on my 27" iMac.

What was stunning in impact was the explosively subtle range of colors along the length of even one single petal. (Go ahead, click on the photo for larger view, or see below how to get it as a screensaver/desktop picture from me).

Maybe it's me. Maybe I am too romantic, too passionate, too filled with lust for love, and love for lust...

Or, maybe it IS in the air, all around, if only we would open our eyes and see, our loves, our beloved lovers, lying waiting in front of us.....

The luscious pink petal's furled edges welcoming the eye and caressing looks deep into its folds, of delectable vanilla milky smooth skin, with stamens rising up on dimpled skin to welcome loving carriers of life, to enter, and meld in eternity, softly entwined in the embrace of tendrils, on a soft dark and light bokeh bed.

Lily gene, IS my love(r), but was not in MY (flower)bed ;) ... and I hope it's "child" grows in the sun, in coming years... while coming generations of secret lovers smile openly secretly at what the words of the song mean to them.

Long live love, long live lovers, long live children created in love. Rest in peace, Michael Jackson.


© 2010 IMRAN
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In Explore! August 6, 2010. My 20th Explore. SOOC Image Straight Out Of Camera!! NO editing, tweaking, of ANY kind. Only framed in Photoshop & saved ~15MB RAW image as an under 5MB JPG.

I invite friends to connect at facebook.com/IMRAN.TV . Please message me and I will gladly email a 1.1MB version for your pleasure to use as a PC or Mac (or Linux of course LOL) desktop screen.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Fire(f)Light: Light Colored Fireworks, Like Airborne Sea Anemones, Take Flight

As the light colored fireworks' light took flight, the set of fireworks on the right had the shades and shape of some creatures in nature.

I'm not sure if I am remembering my (forced) study of Biology in school at Karachi, and at Aitchison College, Lahore, but my first thought was of giant airborne sea anemones softly lighting the sky with their light tentacles of light.

It's another set from the 4th of July 2010 photos taken at my beach at home. Besides the soft anemones' shades, this set of fireworks had subtle traffic light red, yellow and green colors too.

I especially liked how the "stems" of the set on the left also had a brushed light effect. (Click to the see the larger view for that amazingly fine detail). The ones just starting to explode on the left and just dying after exploding on the right have almost nebula like shapes and colors one sees in NASA photos of outer space from Hubble.

© 2010 IMRAN
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PS I had 7-hours of a 3-flights Sunday trip, an all-nighter to finish up some work, then all day of meetings on Monday and 3-flights for 7 hours back on Tuesday night. So I did not get a chance to post anything since Friday. Hope you all have a great week ahead, and I always appreciate your prayers.