Picture perfect winter comp. # 1 ....archi -texture ~

I don't know if any of you know that feeling...
the feeling of standing at a point in a certain place...certain spot...watching the light slant across  in that precise manner....shooting off motes of dust particles....drawing the eye more towards the shadows and crevices...
a not so exact sense of deja vu but ..
but wondering rather ,
if someone at some point of time ...has stood or will stand ... ever... at this exact place and spot and see what you see....feel what you feel....
and more importantly
if they will wonder about the exact same thing....

this is what i remember ...above all , about the moment of making this photograph . Taken at the qutub minar delhi...

“I have buried you in every place I’ve been. You keep ending up in my shaking hands.” —Bon Iver 


~o0o~

a sincere sort of disarray

i rambled on and on today
like it was something
i just had to say
sharing wilted anticipation
unsure expectations
hidden neath' the syntax
whence in truth
all my mind did
was circle back


to the shape of your mouth
       when you leaned up close
                and angled it against my nose
                         the spiraling thump, deep
                                     deep in the pit of of my stomach


the tranquility of closed eye lids
    and your ever so little parted lips


 what does your tongue taste like?... i mumble
like yours, you reply
what does mine taste like ?
heaven
tu hamesha sahi baat bol deta hai jaaneman

still part shy and part overwhelmed
i bury my head in my arms
whilst needy fingers
ache to push your hair back
like daylight savings time


             exposed

this is where i ought to insert
..............*.case foreclosed *



and then
        morning after
zero fluidity
             of
               sleep
                     drunk
                            muscles
               dark emotions akin
to moles on skin
 that won't get rubbed off


in this sincere disarray
i wonder some more
remember ?
the month of june
on the phone,
the song i belted out totally out of tune

pausing the stirring of spoon
                                                i
                                                stare
                                                   at the glint of honey in my tea
                                                                           muse.....
                                                                                if its still me ?


.
© Sonny



 another wonderful night of poetry at dVerse,

~o0o~

Picture perfect ...weather ~

 “Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

I came across this quote a few days ago and for some inane  reason it filled me with such joy and energy , that is so raring to get unleashed , i wanted to bottle it up and spray it on me every single day....
These lines , in all their entirety describe to the hilt what i feel in that moment when i open my eyes each morning and the dream carries on ....
Somebody told me a few days ago , that to put it simply.....just focus on living your dream without searching for reasons ...the why's and the hows ...and that is exactly what i have been doing . I live , breathe, eat , sleep and dream photography....because i have realized that it gives shape to all the words and emotions and feelings that roar inside me like cumulus clouds and overwhelm the very marrow of me if i cannot express them . You see , they are not the point ....neither are the images....they are the portal to this feeling that sweeps over you , when you are doing what you love....when you are living your dream .

I read read read about images and styles and concepts and dreams late into the night and scribble endless thoughts and ideas and sensations each one evokes within me, in my note pad [ blackberries and apps are just not for me...sigh ]....i realize the more i shoot and talk to people....their comfort level is directly proportional to mine and gets reflected in my choice of subjects and subject matters....

Of course life goes on, all around you .....what needs to be done , has to be done and i cannot plan a life based on whimsical notions that i lose touch with reality or all that is tangible . As a woman , without even meaning to , you focus more on what is required from you vis a vis what you require yourself....but in this thin line of tangibles and intangibles ....i get to dream and play and transcend somewhere into this territory which is all my own ....however metaphorical and profound in the hope that somewhere some time it will translate into what the world at large considers tangible .
So its 6 in the morning and i have just come back from a slow walk with my camera , just soaking ...absorbing my delhi warming its hands, huddled around fires on this cold december day ....and thats what i want to share with you all on picture perfect this week , when its all about WEATHER............

~o0o~

Forgetting that bigger picture for a while.....

As each mommy will vouch for , the one time every child is bound to say something important , something that just cannot wait another second to be said , is when you are in the bath battling with shampoo suds in your eyes .....right at that moment , the door will go bang and a yelp .....MAaaaa .....

not now nandita , later , i yelled back to my six year old
no ma ....i have to tell you something important !
what?? , the resigned to habit me ....

i wish i had a life .
There was a silence from my side for a minute , while i considered if i had heard her right ....so she repeated it ....i wish i had a life ....
oh....hmm.....let me finish my bath, come out and then we can talk about this ?
are you mad at me ma ? is life a bad word ?
no ...not at all , the corners of my mouth lifting of their own accord at the sweet sweet innocent irony of her questions......

Without getting into the semantics of what inspired her question, and trust me ...semantics are important...on most days...just like my ellipses....there are entire novels , lifetimes sometimes woven between those semantics and ellipses ...today....i'd rather focus on life itself . Its been on my mind for a few weeks now ....life and its lessons ....the bigger picture so to speak . Most days , focusing on the bigger picture renders within me huge amount of comfort ....on days like today.....i doubt if there is actually a bigger picture in existence or if its simply a concoction of our minds and hearts and if life is in the details , the small stuff we tell ourselves not to sweat about .

 

Besides i've been wanting to write....its a perfect wintery morning , the sorts that leads you to the hammock under the kiwi tree and chew on pencil ends and trudge through that atlas of impossible by daylight musings . Also when your bff tells you softly that it would be nice if you blogged ....you kind of know deep down , where its coming from.....
 Last few months have been about some major changes on all levels for me and without design they have shifted the plates , the terrain and the marrow of me . The impact has been fairly intense but thats okay.....intensity i can handle , its the lukewarm...halfhearted that has always scared me.....intensity to me is synonymous with life....so i am okay with the changes ....yes, there have been moments when i have literally sat down and sobbed my heart out but like my favorite jane austen line .......

"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."

the " others " here may and does denote time , situations , scenarios , mindsets , prejudices and people .....always people .....

and of course now another line has become a favorite .....hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting....from barack obama's acceptance speech.....

 

 

 

I've learned that life is going to teach us lessons every day ,  especially those we do not want to learn , ...There will be times when just like the people who matter most .....life will let us down and there's a lesson in there too .....things that matter the most , convictions and values that held greatest significance will fall away of their own accord , undergo changes and make way for new ones.....the frames of life will seldom be in focus, the light always wrong and pixelation all grainy and yet......in all the years to come ......we will look at them with the full weight of our love for the moment when that frame was made .

I've come to love a term ...." slow exposure " ....
I've come to love my fumbling slow yet sure steps to what  i no longer feel scared or shy to term as " my dreams essential to my being alive "
I've come to love the overwhelming naked intensity with which i view these dreams......intense , sensitive yet so pregnant with potential that it terrifies me ...yet i love it...
I've come to love this feeling of feeling/being challenged ....i WANT to feel absolutely flagrantly challenged , pit the very marrow of me against the challenge and earn that glow...bask in it...the sweaty adrenalin ridden glow that comes from having overcome it ....

And i've come to love the sadness too....that sometimes envelopes me and almost always passes....yet again reflecting ...refracting life....
Life...wherein you wake each morning....at that precise moment when a slanting sliver of sun's hazel ray travels over and across your eyes...you wake with that childlike wonder intact and faith in all that is yet to unfold ....and know finally that it will always be that picture [ after you've been yelled at for not turning off the bracketing feature ] ....that picture, that moment , that phase, that month .......the one you didn't plan for ...but felt within your bones so deep , that it ended up becoming that very same life lesson i talked about earlier....

....that one... will always be your favorite ....and help you keep the courage of your young unsophisticated naked self in tow....

Is life a bad word ?
hell no...not one bit....


~o0o~

Picture perfect ------ contrast ~

We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment from a contrast and very little from a state of things....so said Freud. I for one subscribe to this theory wholeheartedly....as a photographer , one is always chasing light....some thing subtle in the background....to bring out the intensity of what we want to portray in the forefront.
Life....is such an amazing potpourri of contrasting emotions....almost always...that fine balance that is so sought after, is never really achieved. Life as a whole is forever divided between the big picture and its smaller moments...in constant conflict .

I have included here 3 photographs, which are my personal favorites ...some of you from multiply, may have already seen these on my blog there ....What appeals to me in these is that if one looks carefully , endless contrasts can be drawn here....ranging from colour , and depth of field and textures and even emotions in a single frame.......

 

 

sonny [all rights reserved ]

three kinds of lonely

 


today has been smoothly haphazard

 

organized chaos or chaos organized

closing my fist around a ray of sunlight
honey gold
and warm
imbibing the fluidity of a bumble-bee
drunk on life
or hoping to at least
shrugging my shoulders at the pariah kite
circling
always with 10,000 reasons to fly away

do you see me

 

pressed between the pages of your old spiral notebook
forgotten under the succulent syllables of poetry
you penned many moons ago

today has been haphazardly smooth
of wayward thoughts supremely uncouth
i pedaled to greener pastures
climbed a high
munched on the lows
pocketing that final piece
of a never ending puzzle
called 'us'
trapping it forever
under the weight of right answers

Today i pulled out my bicycle ....put my breakfast in an old lunch box.....pedaled towards india gate....along rajpath....found this old structure one could climb up onto.....settled down to read my book...take a few pics.....marinate in some thoughts and sunlight....soak it all up.....


Its open link night at dverse ...:)


~o0o~

monday mojo ~

when i was little....my mother had passed instructions to everybody in our home...a tap on sonny's shoulder every time she starts talking and takes off as if somebody has pressed the fast fwd button on her precious red n black philips two -in -one . This was her effort at teaching me how to speak concisely without eating up half my words....slow me down a tad .
The philips two in one , which in those days meant that you had a tape recorder and an in built radio, went everywhere with me ....i saw , soaked , breathed life in technicolor ....and in my head...there was a song in the back ground of every scene life presented . Life it seemed was unfolding at such  humongous velocity , it felt almost natural to have a head brimming with words and speak at the same speed to keep pace .

It is now....a fortnight away from turning 35 , i realize....i am probably a late bloomer . Still the same somewhere inside....still brimming with words and thoughts...still overwhelmed with seemingly mundane things which come across as ordinary everyday life to most ....emotions like cumulus clouds ....
..................What HAS changed is my need to communicate or even attempt doing the weirdo act of speaking aloud about the frames as they filter through the sieve of my eyes, mind and heart...and get absorbed into the very marrow of me . You cannot . Its impossible . Needless to say, i make extremely bad company , i can walk quietly by your side endlessly without feeling the need to say a word , disconcerting to many... at the most i might look up at your eyes , it isn't that i am not paying attention to what others around me are saying , what you are saying , au contraire every syllable , every nuance of body language gets registered .....

The change is in the velocity i mentioned above . With each passing year....i have learned to slow down ....and set my own pace so to speak . On the graph of life...a longer arc ...all my own . 

Which is why i write and make pictures ......i set my own pace . I once heard Gulzar say that words are like solid rock formations....they always have shadows underneath , tilt one and see what crawls out...and sometimes the weight of them becomes too much to keep inside . There is that weight...and then , there is the literal weight every word carries which you share , communicate to anybody . Therefore i dole them out in precious miserly bits....because somewhere...someone is simple enough to hold them close to their heart .

My pictures , i am often told...reflect the same . Reflect what i was feeling when i took the shot...or rather when i saw the frame....hopefully , in time ...i will learn to detach myself from the subject and convey the subject matter in my pictures , in their own light , so to speak .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I still view life , sometimes through technicolor glasses...sometimes in sepia or black and white... , still a song in the background ....chewing on thoughts and feelings ....catapulting them onto the paper my way...to see what crawls out . Concisely .

I guess ma's plan did work out .

~o0o~