Smile

Quote: Never frown, you never know who is falling in love with your smile
Photographer: Dheepak Ra

I was browsing through my personal album when I stumbled across this. This was shot in my sister's house in Chandigarh. It was shot in the balcony with the light coming in from the north east quadrant.

It took me ages to make up my mind as to how to compose this post. The color version of this snap has lots of details and feels rich whereas B&W also has its own charm. Similarly I didnt know whether to use B&W fonts (like i finally did) or use yellow font (they make a nice contrast with grey scale pictures) Finally I decided to be selfish and restrict the color snap for my personal collection alone.

To be frank I had cropped out lot of stuff which is the reason it lacks clarity at this size. I had to zoom in to make sure that quote doenst overwhelm the picture. But I would love to view the same snap after zooming out. Thereby providing it with enough resolution.

Did you notice that the focus was on the hand instead of the face. If only I had been more careful.......

I have come across several variants of this quote before but couldnt locate the original source. I will place this quote among the top 5% of my collection.

I never got the Model Relase Form signed. I hope these kids wont sue me after a decade or two ;)

Last but not the least, sorry sis for having cropped you out of the snap. Official reason is to respect your privacy but to be honest I had to maintain the theme of the kid's innocent smile.

Pride

Quote: It is better to lose our pride with someone we love rather than to lose that someone we love with our useless pride.
Photographer: Ramya Balaji

Thanks Ramya for the snap. If only couples realized this, marriage wouldnt feel like a journey over Bangalore roads. How often, have we seen couples fighting over petty issues just bcoz they dont want to be the first one to admit that they were wrong.

I bought my camera only after 10 days or so since I started this blog. So during the initial week or two, I used free images from the internet. And a peacock snap was my second post.

Though I sometimes wonder whether it is right to associate pride with Peacock. I havent read any paper on Animal Behavior. So I shouldnt be crucifying this poor bird. After all didnt Blake say "The pride of the peacock is the glory of God".

Wish you all a beautiful week ahead.

Regards
Dheepak Ra

Purpose

Quote: If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there
Author: Proverb
Photographer: Vikas Y. V.

Here is a snap of a village street in Switzerland by Vikas. I was guilty of having this snap with me for ages bcoz my blog went into hibernation. So finally I am resurrecting his beautiful photograph for the series.

Regards
Dheepak Ra

Serenity

Quote: Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm
Author: Unknown
Photographer: Krishan Kant

Jeeva sent me this snap today. Krishan had taken this in Greece in a beautiful island called as Santorini. The photograph's filename had serenity in it. So I am using the same theme for the quote and thereby in the post too.

For those new to this series, Krishan had previously posted one snap here.

I was stuck in some consultancy work, so the post has to wait till the evening. But then its Krishan's birthday today and so better late than never.

Wish you a beautiful birthday Krishan from Jeeva, me and everyone else.

Regards
Dheepak RA

Experience

Quote: The stars the moon and the sun...so old, so wise. Think of what they've seen
Author: E. Paluszak
Photographer: Dheepak Ra

This was shot on the way to the Airport. I was to join my relatives for Pongal Celebrations in the middle of the Jan when I feasted on this. At first glance, it stumped most people as to how I shot this :)

Wish you a beautiful and bright week ahead.

Regards
Dheepak Ra

Imagination

Quote: The quality of the imagination is to flow and not to freeze
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Photographer: Shripriya Raghunathan

The few days of break is partly bcoz of work load and mainly to maintain my posting rate of 3 per week (typically for mon, wed and fri morning)

And my sad posting elicited the most viewership I have ever had this year - 240 unique visitors on 14th Feb alone. Hey folks, do let me know whether you prefer to see such posts. I am pretty bad in understanding my visitor's tastes.

Cheers
Dheepak Ra

Love

Quote: True Love burns the brightest, But the brightest flames leave the deepest scars
Author: Unknown
Photographer: Dheepak Ra

For the very first time, I have recycled an image which I had posted earlier. But then for a change, I started with a quote instead of picture.

I shouldnt have sounded so pesimistic on Valentine's day. But this is just one side of the coin. There is another beautiful face to it. After all Love is like a flame, it all depends on how we handle it. May be I will make up with a cheerful one soon.

Wish you all a lovely valentine's day.

Cheers
Dheepak Ra

Rang De Mehndi

Photograph: Vijayalakshmi Rajendran

Thanks viji for the beautiful snap. I am guilty of slightly editing it to concentrate on the theme of the post but I am sure you will forgive me.

I am sure all of you know where this title was lifted from. I watched the movie without even knowing the meaning of "Rang De Basanti". Infact I was surprised when even my colleagues admitted that they weren't sure about the exact meaning. Only later on I figured it as "Paint it Yellow" where Basanti is the yello color due to the mustard's flower blooming in full swing.

Anyway here Mehndi is applied to a bride for marriage. Isn't it amazing as to how a properly designed mehndi, can enhance the grandeur and elegance of the bride? I know it is supposed to be feminine but as a kid, I used to say fight for equality - literally. Which meant that I sported mehndi once in a while. Though no one had the patience for such intricate patterns - it was more of few circles, blocks etc on my hand. One can compare it to the cave paintings :)

Now I am restricting to applying mehndi for others. Anyone with a scissor can cut an hair, yet everyone goes to saloons. Similarly any one can do this, but for best results come to me for Kolam and Mehndis (or "marudhani" as it is called in Tamil). Satisfaction guaranteed :)

And if you are sudasudacoffee reader, I will offer special discounts. Just quote "ssc-a12c" as offer code at the time of billing......

Flock

Quote: Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.
Author: Richard Whately
Photographer: Charlie Zhang

My colleague from Shanghai shared this snap for the series. Unfortunately I had to crop the clouds a bit since the ratio wasnt sufficient to squeeze in a horizontal quote.

How many of you believe this quote? I would have prefered to add "some" to the begining of the quote. But then left it after seeing the way our stock market is moving. Eventhough the fundamentals are reasonably strong (as long as you ignore the oil prices and the possibility of confrontation between US and a host of countries like Iraq, Iran, Palesting, N.Korea) still it doesnt warrant the way some of the stocks have appreciated recently. I think most of the stocks are over valued and they deserve a correction.

Regards
Dheepak Ra

Fishing

Quote: Many men go fishing their entire lives without knowing it is not fish they are after
Author: Henry David Thoreau
Photographer: Arun Ramachandra

I was just browsing through my hard disk when I noticed this nice snap sent by Arun last year. That reminded me that there are quite a few snaps contributed by visitors and colleagues which I havent posted yet. So let me start with this.

Thanks Arun for the snap.

Regards
Dheepak Ra

Roses

Quote: I'd rather have roses on this table than diamonds around my neck.
Author: Emma Goldman
Photographer: Dheepak Ra

I used this slightly modified version of Emma's quote for this snap of a Goan evening.

What a wonderful place to sit and sip a cup of coffee.

I am waiting for my company to start a branch there......

Regards
Dheepak Ra