Leaning

Leaning, a photo by MINT ICETEA on Flickr.

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.
- William Butler Yeats

I don’t know if I have become suddenly bold, creative or just shameless. Today I clicked this and one more story SPs in an open restaurant setting while quite a few people not only passed by but were sitting, chatting and having coffee. First trial was awkward, but then I got lost into adjusting the camera setting and regular “running to pose” routine. A couple of happy and friendly fellas also joined the madness and gave funny poses for me to click. May be they found the whole thing very amusing ;D.

Here -

Happy People of Munchen

Brave New World

I am tired of listening to and giving advises like – Try and be happy… Fight this sad feelings … life is still good – kind of BS. Let’s try something new.

Don’t fight your depression. Instead, welcome it with a warm hug. Eat all the comfort food without counting calories. Crib and complain and rant about everything as much as you can. Be miserable. You have a right to be sad if you are feeling sad. Cry and scream and beat the pillow. Feel free to express yourself.

A time will come when you will get tired of being upset… sick of being what you are not. There – that’s the day when you will walk out of  this comforting but lonely darkness and decide to rebuild yourself.  Now first thing first – Start running. Gotta burn all those extra calories that have been consumed in the name of “comfort”

(Errr… this is only for what I call “daily life miseries” – like break ups, bad interviews, lost toys and occasion gloomy feelings. People going through serious depression and feeling suicidal, please don’t even read this post and straight away go get profession help without hesitation.)

 

by Purvi Joshi (MINT ICETEA)

Shamelessly Selfish

Yup I am selfish. Don’t twist your face in disgust now… selfish doesn’t always mean being bad and cruel.

I will help you if I can but won’t go out of my way and compromise my happiness for your sake. I won’t step over your head but you will be stupid to stand in my way. Now this part might sound little bitter but I will take advantage of you if that seems to be harmless. Don’t tell me you’ve never ever …ever done that :O . I understand that probably universe will or already have made me pay for it but that keeps happening anyway so why feel shy now

Get the picture? I am no Saint. Just another human being like you.  Let’s learn to co-exist

Pink Eyes by Mint Icetea

Waiting for the Spring

Waiting for the Spring, a photo by MINT ICETEA on Flickr.

Yup ! My first outdoor SP. I hope I can continue this and get out of my shy shell

Well… Yes it was cold and the idea seemed insane at first but I did it anyway… and it wasn’t so bad. All one needs is some courage, some craziness and some stamina to bear the initial discomfort To be honest, till last moment the little inner voice kept saying – “this is stupid… let’s not do this” but the crazy part of me still went on ;D The original idea was to cuddle up in snow (Yup! really) but then I though it might be too much for the first time.. so changed the idea and decide to go for a standing pose.

Apart from the cold, I was also worried about neighbors and passers-by. Luckily, I didn’t find anyone picking from the windows or balcony and it being the afternoon time there were no passers-by either.

Here is the first shot -

But you see the problem. Its too bright and so out of focus. Generally I would take my time to fiddle around with camera settings and would use something as dummy focus point (putting something in place where I am suppose to be so that I can fix the focus point accordingly). But since I wanted to get over with this shoot ASAP… I didn’t do all that and the result was nothing but a disaster

Anyway.. lesson learnt. After that I decided to forget about cold and slippery snow for a while and concentrate on doing the process right way. So as you can see here, Candle stand became my dummy focus point. Not the most idea object since it couldn’t provide much contrast with the background …but I couldn’t find anything sturdy and still light enough for me to carry till the destination point and this did the job anyway.

After the set up … next difficult became – Posing. Try it. Step out in cold weather just wearing a cotton dress and you’ll realize that your limbs have a mind of their own and will immediately protest against your mad ideas. Mine defiantly did. Anyway, I somehow managed to force them my way and got one good shot finally…. and then I clicked three more shots ;D … just for the “did it” record

So that’s story of my today’s craziness.

About the backdrop change… originally that wasn’t part of the plan but while editing the image I decided to do that and see it worked out. The umbrellas also have their own story .. but may be some other time … another post

How I did it ? Errr… that would require a really really long tutorial and I am so not good at creating one Sorry! But I can tell you where you will find many good tutorials – Google … and if you are really serious about it – Go to Phlearn.com

Have a happy and fun long weekend everyone

“Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience.”

“Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience.”, a photo by MINT ICETEA on Flickr.

- Margaret Fuller

This is more like a by product of being addicted to this song – Demons by Imagine Dragons.

Although “Vampire Diaries” might be just a show biz series, I found a particular dialogue by Klaus’s character very interesting – “Don’t underestimate the allure of Darkness. Even the purest hearts are drawn to it.”

Scary ? But its true. The more we try and run from our weaknesses, the stronger they grow. The first step is always the acceptance. How can you fight something which you believe doesn’t exist ?

Extra shots from today’s shoot -

Behind the scenes

Top 5 things I use my phone for..

1) Whatsapp – Of course! I do believe that its as addictive as facebook.  At times I find myself opening and closing the app just for the sake of it… even if there is no message :O

2) Alarm Clock – Yes… this one comes second because I am obsessed with setting up alarms.My natural sense of time is as crewed up as my sense of direction… So I use it more like a timer + reminder. Hubby wonders why I don’t use the actual reminder facility. Eh.. no explanation. That’s just me.

3) Walkman – One of the biggest reason why I prefer Sony phone over any other. Not that other phones don’t have media player, I just like Walkman better.

4) Games – Another obvious one… isn’t it? Recent addiction is Solitaire. Before that it was Sudoku. Concentrating my energy on trying to solve something of absolute no importance is my favorite activity when I am trying to distract my mind from being stuck to thoughts I don’t like … or just killing time

5) Camera – For photography I prefer my D90 and if that’s not available for some reason, I will go for the point-n-shoot. Phone Camera has a very different usage for me, like – alternate option for scanning, capturing something to later search about on google and/or creating a visual reference for friend’s opinion about which dress I should buy

 

Errr… I do receive or make an occasional phone call, too.

 

 

“Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average.”

“Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average.”, a photo by MINT ICETEA on Flickr.

- quote by Arthur Helps

I specially like the part – Refuse to be average
Why do we care so much about being “normal” anyway ??

Cheers!