The city beyond its malls.

A lot of times, when I have talked with a lot of my friends about the big cities here in India, one of the main topics have been their malls. I had a question, guys, isn't there a lot more about a city, big or small, beyond malls?

Well, there's a lot more to a city than just glass and concrete structures called malls.

Some cities have the delights that are called beaches, both sandy ones and rocky ones, clean ones and dirty ones, teeming with people and vendors, especially corn-sellers whose stoves let out sparks that attract every budding photographer :P .

Some cities simply have amazing weather, and pretty places to see around them, and hang out there.

 Some cities have beautiful monuments, some of whose interiors have the finest works of art inside them, some of which are a result of some good engineering and kickass architecture, and some whose ruins have a tell us the story of a glorious past.

Some cities have most charming dialects, which are a delight to the ears. Arey chicha, ye ek dum kiraak hai.. (Hyderabadi for "Hey dude, this is awesome..").

Some cities have the most kickass or kiraak(as we say in Hyderabadi Urdu) food you can get on the planet, the thought makes me crave for some biryani and kebabs.

Some cities have the good old local trains, which come in several colours, white and violet, red and yellow, green and yellow, blue and white, colourful as they are, and they are delight to travel in, despite the fact that they get quite crowded at peak hours.

Some cities have the prettiest streets ever, with vendors selling things ranging from roasted snacks to plastic toys, and the colourful little edifices, old and new, on either side of the street. Added to that the general hustle and bustle, around the shops, bus stops, stations etc.

Chennai, as I see it.

 I have spent several weekend evenings or full Sundays, going to various places in Chennai for photography. I've been capturing the quirky colourful streets, the local trains, the greens of IIT M, the beaches, and the hustle and bustle in general of the city. A part of me loves this city.

Crowds at Marina

The popular Schmidt Memorial in Besant Nagar beach.

Kalikundram Road

4th Cross CIT Campus on Bhogi morning

Covelong Beach, Kovalam

Besant Nagar Bus Stop.

A scene from Tharamani Bus stop.

 After all, there is a lot, a lot more to any city than just those big glass and concrete structures which we call malls.

At Mylapore

Hustle and bustle at Marina

Napier Bridge.

The Velachery local.

Macro-mania

Off late, I have been doing some macro photography with simple subjects like chalks, a flower bud, pages of a book etc. Taking these extreme close ups of these tiny objects has been a lot of fun.

I used the reverse lens method to take these extreme close ups of small objects. In the reverse lens method, as most photography lovers know, we attach the lens to the camera body in the reverse direction using an attaching tool called the reversing ring. I used 18-55mm lens in reverse to click some of the shots that I took. Some macro photos that I have taken are shown below:

Macro shots of chalk-pieces.

Shown below are extreme close ups of cross-sections of some chalk pieces.

Macro of Pages of a book.

Extreme close ups of the stack of pages of a novel that was lying on my table.

Macro of buds of the lantana flower.

These tiny little things grow to become very pretty florets of the lantana infloresence.

Macro of the tip of  the refill of a blue ball-point pen.

Capturing this was the most difficult of all the macro shots that I had taken.

Ennore

Ennore is an industrial locality around 18 KMs north of Chennai Central station, it has a big Thermal Power plant and has the factory of the commercial vehicle giant, Ashok Leyland. In between all these is a fishing hamlet called Thazhankuppam, which has a clean beautiful beach and a broken pier. A great place for photography isn't it. I made two trips to that place.

This place has been featured in several movies(Tamil and non Tamil movies). The climax scene of the 2003 Blockbuster "Kaakha Kaakha" starring Suriya was shot here. More recently, a few scenes from the 2014 Hindi movie "2 States" were shot here.

First Trip, September, 2013

This was my first trip. In this trip, I could walk towards the pier, under it and take some shots.

A close look at one of the broken pillars of the old pier

An array of pillars under the main pier

On top of the pier

 After capturing the shots above, I decided to have some fun ;) by going under the pier, putting my camera on the tripod to get this shot of the sea-water gushing through those pillars.

Gushing water under the pier

Second Trip, March 2014

I enjoyed my first trip to Ennore so much that I decided to go there again. But this time, the water had swollen up and thus the pier was surrounded completely by the water and became inaccessible. I then decided to just enjoy the sea breeze and the water hitting my feet. But I took these:

The full pier with the beach.

The full pier with the beach again, but a closer view.

Pillars, pillars and more pillars

Little rocks at the beach with their reflections.

Clicking long exposure photos

I take photos in my free time, which is during weekends. I always enjoyed taking long exposure shots(with a shutter closing time of 1 second and more) at night time, to get those beautiful light trails of vehicles and starry street lights and smooth clouds at night.
After joining 500px.com, I had seen some amazing pictures of the seas captured in long exposure. After seeing those pictures, I too felt like capturing some long exposure shots at the beaches in Chennai and it was fun :-).

Here are some long exposure images captured at various parts of Chennai.

Note: 

• To get shots like these, you will need to use a shutter speed of at-least 5 seconds. 
• Which means you have to use a tripod to keep the camera still.
• Now, even if the camera is on the tripod, the camera will shake when you press your camera's click button. Which will lead to slight blurring. Even the minutest of shakes can lead to blurring of some object in your photo. So use a cable release for a shake-free shot. It is a wired remote, which has a click button. A DSLR camera has slot to attach the cable of this remote to the camera. 
• These cable releases are available in any shop which specializes in cameras

Long Exposure Shots of Streets

6th Avenue, Besant Nagar, Chennai, India

Rajaji Bhavan Bus Stop, Chennai

Long Exposures at Beaches

Marina Beach

Marina Beach, as most of you know is the longest beach in India. 

Rocks at Marina Beach, Chennai

Covelong Beach, Chennai

Covelong is situated at Kovalam off the East Coast Road in Chennai. It is 20 Kilometers South of Chennai.

Uthandi Beach.

Uthandi, is situated on the East Coast road, but it is 7 kilometres north of Covelong. The beach there is one of the nicest beaches of Chennai

Uthandi Beach, Chennai