Another thousand words

The last time I published my photographs was way back last year when on a whim I decided to post a new post everyday for a week, ensuring that the genre of each one of them was different. Those were fun days. :-)
Photography for me has been mostly a side effect of my travels. The last time I went out for a photo shoot (and I recall this just as I am writing) was while preparing for the Feb 2006 issue of Alvibest (and had my car run into by a girl who was learning to drive on the Marina beach). Yesterday was different.
Bangalore Weekend Shooters is this very interesting club of people who go out nearly every weekend to different places and... shoot. There are over a hundred members and they usually go to places over the weekend in small groups (which may vary in size, but I believe stay well under 15 or so). I have been a member over past month or so, but never got to join them. Yesterday was different.
A good bunch of us decided to hit Nandi Hills (outside Bangalore) and shoot (starting 5:30 in the morning). Most of the people were meeting up at M.G.Road but a couple of us met up near Hebbal. The minute I got into L's car, all three of us (P, L and I; no, these people are real and not the ones in this post) started chatting and sharing information about the club's activities. I was mostly doing the listening. While we were waiting for the rest of the gang to join us at Hebbal, P took out his camera and decided to shoot the flyover in the mist (with headlights punching the air and wiggling their fingers while coming over the bridge). I bravely took out mine. One look at his camera, and I shoved mine (no, it doesn't have all those colourful things as in the link) back into my pocket!! These guys had huge cameras with lenses which were huger still. They actually had a bag to carry their equipment; I simply stuffed mine in my pocket!
When we rode off towards Nandi Hills we stopped for diesel and shot a bit. P saw me clicking and asked, "What are you doing on auto-focus mode? Get to manual!" I had to console myself that once I used to be a manual-focus-only guy before I got a digital camera!! Digital cameras spoil you. You needn't worry about focusing, wasting shots or even waiting for the picture to develop. I quickly turned the dial to manual and managed to escaped his look with a sheepish grin.
The guys in the club are quite serious about photography. The average cost of equipment in the group was about Rs. 25,000 (and here I was carrying a camera worth 11K). They had tripods and filters and polarisers while I had a bulging pocket. They spoke about 24mm and 3-by-2 and USM while I just listened. Man, it felt great being in their midst!! Honestly! There is so much to know about cameras and photography.
Then we started shooting and no one disturbed the other person. Often we would share what we had shot and the settings that enabled such a shot, but that was mostly it. Once we stopped shooting, we were back to chatting, joking and having fun. I was so happy when I kept asking them, "What is HDR?" or "Why shouldn't I shoot in sepia?" or "What's so good about that lens? Firstly, what is it called?". We also stopped at vineyards and bought freshly plucked grapes. It was amazing...
Here are about a dozen or so images from there, enjoy. For more, you can check out the BWS website.