11:43am: Liftoff
It's been a long time coming and a lot of work, but it's finally here. Follow the birdie to my official site.

12:17pm: Do you know her? 'course you do! That's because she's famous!
Sorry about the lack of updates, but it's for a good cause... I'm working on a website. It'll be a combined blog/gallery, with flash slideshows to boot. Look for that to come about really soon.

Here, however, is something I thought was worth posting. A long, long time ago, I submitted a St. Patty picture to stuffonmycat.com. It seems that last month, they got around to posting it. Click the photo to see the official page.



The title of this entry, by the way, is taken (and slightly paraphrased) from Mr. T's inspirational video, Be Somebody, or Be Somebody's Fool. If you ever have a chance, I highly suggest watching it.

10:05am: And now for something completely different
I'll take a brief break from the wedding photos to post some landscapes. I shot these down in Laguna using a tripod Cherise got me a little while ago.

3:06pm: Bbora & Minh's wedding II
The much-anticipated ceremony:

12:07am: Bbora & Minh's wedding
Ever thought it was possible to be a bit nervous for a wedding that wasn't your own?



I have to admit, I felt a little that way here- my first solo wedding photography effort. I arrived about half an hour early to Hakone Gardens. Scouting wasn't so necessary, because the location was the same as the engagement shots, so I enjoyed some peace. In hindsight, that was a fantastic idea- the day was about to get frantic.




The day began pretty slowly. Minh showed up first, followed by a few early bird guests. (One of these was Bbora's brother, Bborie, and his girlfriend Nicole. I've known Bborie even longer than I've known Bbora, and we were perpetually the first people to show up at events, only having to wait for our damn late friends. The more things change, the more things stay the same indeed!) The flowers followed, and then finally Bbora herself followed enough time passing by for me to ease into the occasion.

I shoot with a very photojournalist style- I try to document the event with an eye for weird angles and catch the things no one else will see. It isn't exactly a traditional wedding shooting style, but Bbora knew full well of this, and let me do my thing.



As is often the case, (at least with the weddings I've worked at,) most of the action wound up being in the bridal prep area.

Plenty of supplies and fuel are kept on hand, ready to go.Meanwhile, everyone's waiting.
Finally, the moment arrives.

2:07pm: Teaser

2:19pm: Check out that turnaround time
A while back, Cherise and I went to Philadelphia. A while back, as in, er, last Thanksgiving. Between the great flood, moving, and going to India, I never really got a chance to post these. Until now.

The reason we were going was to visit Cherise's brother, Lucky, who was one of something like 20 accepted from around the country for the freshman class of University of the Arts.



This is not his dorm. But it is one of the dorms. And it's of note, because it used to be an insane asylum. I kind of wonder how students feel about this dorm, especially as they're passing a row of foreboding bare trees to enter the place.

We checked out a place called Philadelphia's Magic Gardens. The pictures will tell the story better than I can describe it, but this place is insane. Basically, a few decades ago an artist bought a block of buildings, and has spent the time since turning it into an extremely intricate, highly decorated mosaic. Imagine if a pile of glass, tile, wood, mechanical and metal rubbish exploded over freshly plastered church ruins, and you start to have an idea of what this place looks like. Not an inch is spared- allow me to show you.



The artist community in the area is thriving, to say the least. We walked around town at night and saw galleries all over the place, with some unique window décor. We also enjoyed some excellent pizza. Everyone says that New York has the best pizza in the world. I've had it, and it is excellent, but frankly, I found Philadelphia's to be even better, especially at those cheap by the slice places.



Yes, those are various cooked fowl over the faces of those portraits.

After a day and a half in Philly, we made a day trip over to New York City. We got up a little late and took a good amount of time taking the train. When we arrived, we enjoyed some fine vegetarian dim sum. It sounds weird. In fact, it probably is a little weird. But it's damn good.

It was quite late by the time we were done, and we went to see Times Square since Cherise and Lucky hadn't seen it. I'm not a fan... frankly, it's gaudy and ridiculously overpriced versions of stores you can find anywhere else.

But I guess it does have fun lit up trinkets.



There's a few more pictures in the gallery. Click on the picture of me to have a look.

3:04pm: All quiet on this front
I've been a little drained this week by work, so no posts. I'll put some pictures up tomorrow. (Not of the wedding though. Something historical.) Speaking of the wedding... it went well. Very well. I think it's something I could make some money off of.

There's a new political cartoon I randomly found that I've been liking a lot, Jen Sorensen's Slowpoke. Here's the latest one.

12:03pm: Bbora & Minh


A couple weekends ago I did some engagement shots for my friend Bbora and her fiancé Minh. I met Bbora donkey's years ago, while I was still in high school. I went to an all male Catholic school which her brother was attending, and while visiting his house, met Bbora.

I remember her first words to me... after learning my name is Alex, she said something along the lines of 'Did you know you're named after a bloodthirsty gay warlord?' She was so young and precious then. I was obviously charmed, since we've been good friends, and at one point roommates, since.

Here's the happy couple. We shot these in Hakone Gardens, a Japanese garden in Saratoga with a lot of really cool scenery. If you're ever in the area, I'd recommend dropping by.



I'll be shooting their wedding on Saturday. I'm a little nervous, since it's the first wedding I've ever shot solo. Whoops, Bbora reads this... it's all under control Bbora. It's all under control.

EDIT: OK, one more couple shot.

3:56pm: That's dark
By now, we've all heard about Oscar, the cat with an uncanny knack for predicting the cold oncoming approach of the Reaper at a nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island.

But are we all familiar with LOLcats of Death?



Speaking of deaths, two legendary directors have died in two days.


Ingmar Bergman:





Michelangelo Antonioni:




'That's dark' is a phrase coined morbidly/humorously at my work. My coworker mentioned a time that he had to run across a parking lot to stop this guy driving off. You know how some people drive off with their coffee on top of the car? This guy was driving off with his baby carrier with baby on top of the car. We were amazed at this story, and took a moment to reflect.

After a couple beats, I chimed in. 'Well,' I said, 'that's just natural selection, right?'

Laughter ensues, and my coworker says 'Man. That's dark.'

3:31pm: Albert & Junko's wedding


A couple weeks ago, Cherise and I hit the waters of Newport Harbour. The vessel was Destiny, and the occasion was Albert and Junko's wedding.

I've known Albert since 2001 or so, and he and Junko had been together long before that. I started playing violin that year, and enquired with the music department at UCI as to where I could find a teacher. They gave me Albert's phone number, and it quickly became apparent that he was a bit of a screwball. Naturally, we hit it off pretty well.

I was always pretty flexible with lessons in those days, so I usually had wildly different times from week to week. This let him accommodate his young students better, but I guess it made tracking my lessons a bit more difficult. At some point, he stopped billing me, and whenever I asked, he told me he'd get back to me.

After years of this, we settled on an agreement. We'd call it even if I took some photos at his wedding. Looking back, this may have been a clever trick on his part. It wasn't high pressure by any means though- he had an official photographer, so I was basically free to shoot what I wanted.



It's actually thanks to Albert that I played at Carnegie Hall. That's right readers, a mere two or three years after learning violin, I was heading to the same stage the likes of which Tchaikovsky played on.

I know what you must be thinking. That I must be brilliant. And I am. But not in that sense, unfortunately. It seems Carnegie Hall invites youth orchestras around the country to play their stage every so often as sort of a publicity stunt. The audience is mostly comprised of the students' beaming parents, all armed with video cameras. Peppered throughout our mostly young Asian student orchestra, there were the occasional older guys like me, however.

Basically, months earlier, the conversation went like this:
Albert: 'How would you like to play at Carnegie Hall?'
Alex: 'OK.'

Albert, being the consummate networker that he is, managed to get his youth orchestra into this arrangement, and invited several of his older friends to tag along in the orchestra just to be able to say they've played the Carnegie Hall stage. (If you haven't played it, you haven't made it!)



Playing on the stage was quite an experience, to say the least. Just for fun when we rehearsed, I gave one string on my fiddle a slight pluck. The reverberated throughout the entire room... you could have probably heard a pin drop on the stage.

Instead, during the softest, most beautiful part of the adagietto of Mahler's 5th Symphony, we heard a loud BANG as one of the kids behind us dropped his shoulder pad. As luck would have it, we had an official videographer centered right on him when it happened. This event has been captured for generations to come, for this child's children and grandchildren to witness.



The younger me probably would have never gone on that trip. I would have thought too much about it, decided I wasn't worthy, couldn't ready myself, and come up with a million reasons not to do it. I would have heard his proposition, probably told him I'd think about it, and then decide I couldn't do it rather than simply agreeing to it and worrying about practising later. I think partly thanks to Albert, I gained a little bit (ok, a lot) of impetuousness, and a willingness to put myself in these kind of challenges. Sometimes it's ok to act then think.

Anyway, I'd wish these two all the best if I felt there wasn't any need. They've been together so long that I have no doubt they'll be a happy couple for years to come.

Enough talk, more pictures.

8:27am: Sandstone is slippery
On Tuesday, I met with Eric, Mary, and Matthew. This was something of a first for me, as I'd only met Eric before via Xanga, and I believe Eric and Matthew had never met face to face either. As we're all avid photographers, we decided we couldn't pass up the chance to meet when Eric came down to Southern CA for a few days.



Let me just caution to everyone- sandstone is slippery. It looks and feels solid. It isn't. That is all.

( Click here for more! )
I recommend you click on each of their sites. It's safe to say they all have wildly different styles, but they're excellent photographers.

8:55am: My gallant crew


Theresa here is clearly won over by either the easy going charm of Ronald McDonald or the erotically freshly shaved Kalyan.

This photo above was taken on my last day in Hyderabad, obviously outside a McDonalds. McDonalds in India is quite a bit different, by the way- all the menu items are noted with either a green or red dot, indicating whether or not the item is vegetarian. (One good looking vegetarian option was a falafel burger, but I didn't try it. Did I really come all this way just to eat at McDonalds? Well, kind readers, rest assured that I'm kicking myself now. (I did try some chocolate shake though, which was excellent. Hey, look at that, embedded parentheses!!!))

Anyway, the time has finally come. This is my last India entry, as of this trip anyway. I thought I'd take a brief moment here for we three of our little band.



My whole reason for taking this trip in the first place was because of my buddy Kalyan. I've known him pretty much longer than anyone outside my family, we go way back to the mean halls of Harker Academy in 6th grade. I've used him recently as an excuse to travel to places I've never been to, having gone with Cherise to visit him in New York City last year, and this year seeing him in India. Though born in India, he moved when he was very young, and starting to work in India last year has been his first time back for an extended period of time, and I believe his first time going alone.

Given his ethnicity, we'll say this made Kalyan the 'inside man' of the team. His powers included knowing enough Hindi to keep us from getting screwed by taxi rickshaw drivers, and having a keen sense for upscale themed restaurants.

Theresa I had never met before this trip, but she's another long time friend of Kalyan's, having known him since his days at Berkeley. She's travelled to Russia, and speaks Russian very well, and now works in Washington DC. Hmmmm... travels to Russia. Works in DC. Nobody's raised any eyebrows over this? Litvinenko anyone?

Obviously, acculturation and being a master of disguise is Theresa's power. Her efforts and abilities in this group included being able to acquire hotel reservations and communicate over the phone with the management on the other end of the line none the wiser as to her foreign origins.

Then, there was me. Tall and white, the sun gleaming off my shorn head. My efforts in the group included attracting large groups of young Indian men, and doing battle with swarms of young children, distracting them long enough for Kalyan and Theresa to escape and enjoy the tourist sites while I was slowly and brutally felled by the Indian youth, and also taking the most dangerous seats in rickshaws and automobiles. I never thought it possible, but I was apparently the strongman of the group.

Also, I documented with the occasional photo.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've included a photo of myself yet, so here you all go:



I was sitting on top of a fortress wall to get this view:



I felt a little sorry to be leaving India after just ten days there. It was my first truly different (brief) living experience, and I quite enjoyed it. I strongly believe a person has to leave their comfort zones to grow and truly become creative, and India did just that for me: I've never been placed in the sort of situation before where I don't speak the language, don't know the area well, don't have the modern creature comforts we all take for granted here in the first world, and barely have any remnants of the culture I'm familiar with around me, save for a strange version of a few fast food restaurants. This has probably been said better by other people, but as scary as it sounds, it's something everyone should try. You'll be a better person for it, and probably find it isn't as hard as you think it is.

I'll leave it at that for now. I'm currently working on a website, so I'm not going to blog about Hong Kong until that's up and running. I have plenty of other material in the meantime however, so I'll be updating here still while you're all waiting on my slow web coding. Until then!

3:03pm: The Dogs of Goa


After approximately 24 hours combined on the road, we entered Goa, welcomed by warm and humid weather, lush vegetation, and, of course, the massive multilingual 'WELCOME TO' signs every Indian state has. We headed towards the Southern part of the state, often described as the 'least touristy' area in Goa. This is a bit of a misnomer- all of Goa is pretty much tourist saturated, but from what we heard the Southern part would be more of a rustic beach escape, as opposed to the beach cities which are more popular in the other areas. The plan was to head down to the beach for a night, pack up in the morning and head north, which would include catching Goa's version of Carnival in Panaji.

After a long, uneventful drive to the Southern part of the state, we reached our destination. It was... interesting.



After getting just a little bit lost on the beach roads, we found the place the guide book mentioned. We had made reservations, but because we didn't anticipate how long it would take to get there, it was for the night before. By the time we got there, the place we planned on staying turned out to be fully booked. It also turned out to be an LA yuppie's dream. Beach huts, beach wood walkways, palm trees, cool ocean breezes, plentiful hammocks, leaf canopies- imagine Swiss Family Robinson opening a little resort on an Indian beach, complete with yoga classes and yogurt fruit bowl breakfasts, and you'll get the general idea. (Well, the owner wasn't Swiss, but they were European!)

We stopped for a quick lunch, and that's when I saw that cat. This was to turn out to be the vibe Goa creates... it's incredibly relaxing and laid back, almost ridiculously so. You could come here and literally do nothing for a week, and feel fantastic. There's restaurant huts and bar huts dispersed down the beaches, lots of sun and warm water, and the food served is more typical of Southern California health cuisine than Indian food. There's not much artificial lighting, but at night the lack of pollution lets the moonlight and starlight guide you around easily. It really feels like an escape from everything, which attracts al these Western tourists... we met people from all over Europe, and I even met a couple people from my old English hometown of Bristol.

(Oh, and I was reminded by this of how much working in the States sucks in terms of vacation. 'You're from the US? Oh, so let me guess... you only get two weeks vacation a year?' The people we met all got at least six weeks, and the two I met from Bristol were nurses on a year long sabbatical to travel the world.)

And then there are the dogs.



The dogs of Goa are the luckiest dogs on earth. When good dogs die, I have no doubt that they go to Goa.

There's feral dogs all over India. They roam around the cities sniffing around trash, run along the roads and highways in the countryside, and of course, the beaches of Goa. What sets apart the dogs of Goa are the people. Dogs in India, especially these feral dogs, are generally considered pests and completely ignored, left to wander but not given attention. In Goa, this all changes because of the Western tourists, who think these dogs are the coolest things in the world. (A bit scruffy maybe, but awesome.)

The dogs get to play with the tourists. They get fed by the tourists. They hang out with them at dinner tables on the beach, getting along nicely. They get all those benefits of being owned, but in the end are still their own masters. They live on the beach. They can play on the beach all day. And, being feral, they get to keep their balls/uteruses. How neat is that?



The place we wound up finding turned out to be a bit less heavy on the resort side of vacationing. It was kind of a communal beach area of different sets of beach huts, all pretty much on the beach and inexpensive. Those three huts you see at the top are where we stayed, all for about $8 for a night. At this point it was fairly late, so we went to the beach for beers at one of those bar huts, and turned in.

The next morning, Kalyan and I got up early to take photographs of the sunrise. Afterwards, I decided to go swimming in the Arabian sea. I don't think my writing can do it justice, but... it was great. The warmth of the water along with the ambient temperature that morning was perfect, and I was content to just bob in the water and swim around for some time. This was the danger of Goa. I feel we could have been sucked in at this beach if we were less disciplined, content to lazily roam the beaches and enjoy the warm water. That, and I later learned the water has sharks and barracuda.

As it was though, our departure from Goa was rather bitter tasting... we got pulled over by a police officer checking cars for out-of-state-permits (as I've described before), but instead of the usual 100 Rupee bribe, we got hit with something like a 1200 Rupee fine/bribe. We aren't quite sure what happened here... our driver and the officer argued, the officer claiming our driver didn't get the proper permit and our driver claiming the officer was trying to screw us, but with the threat of getting our vehicle impounded, we had little choice but to pay. When we asked for documentation to make sure we didn't have to pay another fine, we realised that it was dated with the current day only, leading us to believe the same thing would happen again the next day, and prompting us to leave the state.

It was an unfortunate way to have to leave the state, especially after we had to travel so far to get there. That being said, I'll always remember that water.

2:04pm: Goa update is coming soon. First, here's something I got some time ago when the flowers around my apartment where in full bloom.

7:30pm: The Great Indian Road Trip - part 2
As things are wont to be, just when I've decided to update more often, I have a busy week at work. My apologies... and now for the continuing epic...



Goa was about 500 miles away, which, in States time is about 6 to 7 hours of driving, or about half that if you're my father. Because of this, we planned on a short detour to some Mosque ruins, and then a direct drive to Goa. Leaving around 6:30 am that day, it seemed we'd be in Goa in time for a late dinner.

Driving out of Hyderabad was incredibly slow. Traffic in the outer areas of the city was fairly intense, even early in the morning. As soon as you're even a little out of the city, you can sense an immediate change: the level of poverty was far greater just a short distance away, the tall buildings completely disappearing and being replaced by huts and shacks of varying construction materials. The poor road conditions and many vehicles kept us for a couple of hours before we started to get a good speed going.

As I stated before, the rules of the Indian road change completely going from the city to the highway. Though the highway is one lane in either direction, it is in effect 5 lanes. You have the far side of the road, the middle part of each lane, and a center shared between the two. Typically you'll stay as far to the left as possible. (In India, you drive in the left hand lane).

The trick is the size of the vehicle. You'll basically have three sizes of vehicles on the road: very large TATA buses, small TATA cars, or tiny rickshaws or motorcycles. (The rickshaws were often crammed full of people. That did not look like a comfortable way to travel.) The large buses and trucks will take up at least two of these lanes, sometimes more. The cars take around one to one and a half. The smallest vehicles take up a bit less than one of these imaginary lanes.

Your position on this road will be dictated by how much you really want to pass the vehicle in front of you, versus how willing you are to get within inches of that oncoming monster bus. If you want to veer into the furthest right lane of the road in order to pass that passenger car that's passing a bus, so be it.

Allow me to illustrate.



There's little room for manoeuvring in this situation. But I wouldn't have been shocked if some daring motorcyclist tried to squeeze between the two. Such are the road rules of a nation that largely believes in reincarnation.

The lumbering behemoth buses were probably amongst the most daring vehicles. Buses won't stop for pedestrians blocking the road in India. They'll just honk louder. (Honks are a never ending sound on India's roads.) And buses won't hesitate to pass other buses, even though it often takes up slightly more space than the road has. They don't care, and I'm not completely surprised. I'd imagine driving one of those festive road machines lends a certain sense of invincibility. They're the largest vehicles on the road. They're in a freaking bus.

I counted at least two bright and colourful buses, flipped completely upside down into a ditch on the side of the road, apparently long abandoned.

Complicating the matter is the interesting pedestrian traffic, which includes people, oxen-driven carts, and flocks of various animals. We would have to stop every so often for cattle either crossing the lanes, or just ambling about with carefree whimsy on the road (ah, to be a Hindu cow). Shepherds were often walking a number of animals down the side of the roads, requiring everyone to slow down a little, and sometimes stopped traffic altogether to cross.

Between the frequent slowing down and speeding up to pass vehicles, the herds of animals, and the occasional transformation from paved road to dirt path, we were beginning to realise that our California estimates of travel time were way off the mark.

You'll have to stop in various cities along the way while travelling the road in India as well. It can be a complicated affair... sometimes signs are hard to find, and not always that useful anyway because of the many different languages in India. Hindi is supposed to be a standard unifying language, but one state we travelled through, Maharashtra, had refused to put up signs in Hindi. Apparently this was partly out of fear that their local tongues would die out, and partly just pure, good old fashioned linguistic snobbery- they thought their language was better. As it would probably be impossible for the company's drivers to have memorised every road in every city the passengers may have the whim of visiting, the driver basically makes his way through the cities by travelling straight down roads, stopping at any fork or intersection, and asking people on the side of the road which direction to go in order to reach whatever your next stop is. From this, I learned my only Hindi... 'Sida, sida,' meaning, 'Straight, straight,' accompanied by nods down the general direction of the road.

A final joy of Indian road travel we found had to do with state to state taxation of commercial vehicles. The vehicle we were in was registered to Andhra Pradesh, and being a commercial vehicle, we had to pay a state tax at each border. This didn't amount to much- usually less than 200 Rs, about $4- but it was another stop to make. Also, we were frequently pulled over by police officers checking our paperwork, making sure it was all in order, and asking for a bribe for good measure. (Except in Karnataka. You freaking rule, Karnataka.)


Goa, at last. Goa was colonised by the Portuguese, leading to a strong presence of Catholic influences, including architecture.

When all was said and done, we spent about 24 hours total on the road to make it to Goa. Not in one sitting, of course... we stopped in a city called Kohlapur for a night, and finally entered Goa around noon the next day, and reached the area we were staying late in afternoon. The road trip was long, but had several advantages in the end. We saw tons of different scenery in India... it went from dusty areas around Hyderabad to grassy plains in the middle of the country, to lush tropical vegetation on the West coast of India. Seeing the random sites on the road was interesting as well... a lot of small towns on the way, as well as a variety of wildlife (including monkeys and wild peacocks).

Our stay in Goa would be interesting but incredibly brief, which will be described next time. Following that, we would travel to Bijapur (talked about in a previous entry where I was assaulted by mobs of excited children) and then back to Hyderabad. All in all, it wasn't a bad view of South India.

I mentioned that we stopped at the ruins of a mosque. Here's a couple of pictures.

2:50pm: The Great Indian Road Trip- part I
Or: Arse-Buster '07

It's been a while since I blogged, but I have a great excuse. No I don't. Anyway, I have returned.

Hyderabad had a lot of sites of interest, but we decided early on that we wanted to get a broader view of India. It's a fairly diverse landscape after all, each area with its own unique languages, scenery, wildlife, and scents. (Especially scents. As Kalyan stated, 'India is definitely a country of interesting smells.' This was astutely pointed out as we passed within a mile or so of a truly acrid sugar rendering plant.) Since India is so large, we decided on a five day trip going to various points in South India, leaving North India for perhaps a future vacation. Following was a question of logistics: how would we travel?

In India, the two preferred means of long distance travel are planes and trains. Trains pose some problems: though less expensive, they are slow, run hours late (Kalyan experienced a ten hour wait once), and have a proportional relationship between sardine-style-packing and ticket price. Expensive tickets might get you your own bed (though at those prices you may as well fly), cheaper tickets might have you sharing a bed with a stranger, and dirt cheap tickets involve conditions most Westerners would demand general anaesthesia for. Despite being a fairly integral Indian experience, the long waits and ticket issues made us decide against train travel.

As for air travel, it possesses its own set of charming frustrations. Plus, it's fairly expensive- maybe a bit cheaper than flying in the States, but after spending so much on the tickets flying to India, we wanted a more affordable option. I don't remember who suggested it (so by default, I'll blame Kalyan), but at that point, the topic of using a car came up.

It seemed an attractive option. The furthest point we wanted to check out were those famous Indian beaches at Goa, a mere 500 or so miles away- about equivalent to a drive from Irvine to San Francisco. It was surprisingly affordable as well, especially between the three of us. According to the guidebook we had, hiring a driver with a car is often cheaper than renting just a car. I guess that having a population above 1 billion tends to drive down costs of labour. With Indian driving making the busiest day on streets of New York City look like a charming and pleasant English countryside drive, it was also the saner option. We decided to go for a driver, and to find out first hand why nobody drives cross country in India.

Though I've described driving in Indian cities, understood cultural road rules on the highway turned out to be completely different, and I was to get a good view of them from the front seat of our vehicle.

The agency sent us a driver with a small Tata vehicle. In case you're unfamiliar with Tata, they make everything in India. No, really. I had already heard of Tata: at the CDMA company I work at, I occasionally have to program devices with India's Tata service provider. I was surprised when I arrived and noticed pretty much all the vehicles in India, from small passenger vehicles to the massive buses that put out enough diesel fumes to single handedly shame Texas, said 'TATA' on them. I thought this was a coincidence, but learned that they are in fact one and the same company. To give you an idea of a few of the areas they are involved in, Tata group builds vehicles, provides cell phone service, refines iron and steel, makes ceramics, owns an airline, creates household goods from soaps to cooking oils, runs hydro-electric plants, engineers chemicals... and it all began with a family which made a fortune in textiles.

The Tata vehicle was fairly comfortable. It was a very compact hatchback, but had a TARDIS like ability to comfortably seat four of us plus luggage. Kalyan, his sense of adventure held carefully in check by a healthy fear of death, graciously volunteered me to be in the most dangerous spot, the passenger seat. (How does such a strong sense of self-preservation hold up in a guy who believes in reincarnation? He must have been misbehaving recently.) I even more graciously accepted, my reasoning being threefold- a) I found my legs a bit cramped in the back seat, b) years of drinking have granted me a profound enjoyment for the tragicomic, and Indian highways seemed to fit the bill perfectly, and c) I figured the pictures would be better.

The dangerous lengths I go to in order to please my audience.

Coming up... rules of the Indian road, and we find out why trains and planes are so popular.

11:17am:

When it comes to religion, Hyderabad is an interesting mix: the population is largely Muslim, with a good number of Hindus living there as well. Overseeing this mixture is a large statue of Buddha installed in the center of the city's artificial lake. (The lake was built centuries ago, the statue installed in the 90s.) Unfortunatey, this mixture isn't without friction.

Mosque Bombing Kills Seven in India
By AMELIA GENTLEMAN
NEW DELHI, May 18 - A crude bomb exploded during Friday prayers at a 17th-century mosque in Hyderabad, a major city in southern India. At least seven people were killed, and about 35 more were wounded.

The attack was immediately condemned by the Indian government as an act of terrorism.

The police said the bomb was detonated by mobile phone at the Mecca Masjid, one of India*s oldest and largest mosques, at about 1:30 p.m. local time. Two other bombs in the area were defused by the police.

The city*s police chief, Balwinder Singh, said that many of the people wounded in the explosion were in critical condition, and he warned that the death toll could rise.

The explosion sparked a panic in the busy streets around the mosque. Television images showed hundreds of Muslims in prayer caps running from the building.

Later, crowds gathered around the mosque and threw stones at police officers, apparently out of anger over a perceived absence of police protection for worshipers before the bomb went off. Police officers used tear gas and batons to clear the area.

Hyderabad, the capital and largest city of Andhra Pradesh state, is predominantly Muslim, and has been a center of communal tensions in recent years between Muslims and Hindus, who make up the majority of the national population.

The bombing today raised fears of fresh hostility between the two groups.

The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, described the attack in a televised news conference as an act of *intentional sabotage on the peace and tranquility of the state* and appealed for calm.

Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the governing Congress Party, expressed sympathy for the victims.

A legislator from Hyderabad, Asaduddin Owaisi, said that the bomb narrowly missed being much more destructive. *On Friday, at least 7,000 to 8,000 people perform the namaz over there,* he said on Indian television, referring to the Muslim praryers. *The fatalities would have been much higher if the bombing took place five, six minutes before.*

Abdul Quader, 30, who sustained light wounds to his legs at the mosque, told The Associated Press that he had been close to the site of the blast and described the scene. *As soon as prayers ended, we were about to get up, there was a huge deafening blast sending bodies into the air,* Mr. Quader said. *People started running helter-skelter, there was such confusion. People were bleeding, running around in a very bad condition.*

The NDTV news channel showed a videotape with scenes inside the mosque as the blast went off. Worshipers, who were praying on their knees, took a few seconds to realize what was happening before starting to run for the exits.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The home affairs minister, Shivraj Patil, said an investigation was underway.

Some 130 million Muslims live in India, out of a total population of about 1.1 billion.

A bomb explosion last year killed 32 people at a mosque in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. The police said that attack was the work of a banned Islamist student group, and suggested that the group was trying to spark communal tensions. No one has been convicted of setting off the blast.

9:24am: Ride, Rancheros, Ride
Sadly, I won't be going to the ranch this year. I took Cherise up to Solvang on Saturday though so she could see the cowboys.

3:47pm: Underage assault


First, a shout out to the Indian state of Karnataka: thank you. You rock. We three went to many an Indian state- Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa- and out of all of them, only you, Karnataka, were cool enough to let us go about our merry way without having to bribe a police officer. Maharashtra had us stopped a few times for a couple 100 Rp bribes, Goa hit us for a bribe of over 1000 Rp, and Andhra Pradesh... well, doesn't count because cross country vehicle paperwork wasn't an issue since the vehicle we were in was from Andhra Pradesh. That being said, I'm willing to bet that if we weren't in an Andhra Pradesh vehicle, they would have made us pay a bribe. That's because Andhra Pradesh isn't as cool as you, Karnataka. Give yourself a pat on the back, Karnataka- you are one classy state.



Other than having a lot of class, Karnataka was generally characterised by having a lot of dust and being really hot. While travelling through Karnataka, we made a stop in the city of Bijapur which, as noted in our travel guide, foreigners have no business in after February- the heat gets so bad that all businesses and shops close around 1 pm. For early year travellers, however, it's worth visiting for its Muslim tombs, including Gol Gumbaz- the 'Taj Mahal' of South India. It's famous for having the second largest dome in the world, being surpassed in size only by St. Peter's Basilica. It really is a humongous dome. The photo above shows Gol Gumbaz from a distance.

Walking towards the building, I realised that even from this distance it was easy to appreciate its grandeur and epic scale. Around the main structure, the ruins of the smaller buildings lay haphazardly around the grounds- a wall here, flooring there-, and gardens had been carefully cultivated around the area, giving it a strangely dynamic feeling of being overrun by well kept vegetation.



Kalyan started to talk to us about the 'Whispering Gallery' at the top of the structure, where standing inside the dome creates an effect where you can hear the whispers of an individual standing across on the other side of the building, and about the numerous and difficult to scale steps up to the top, tumbles from which were responsible for taking the lives of more than one individual, from servants to monarchs.

My anticipation grew- as I walked through the gardens surrounding the ruins and approached ever closer, I felt that even from a distance, I could begin to hear ghostly howls emanating from the Whispering Gallery (people in the gallery tend to shout rather than whisper, and the echoing has a very eerie effect), imagine people running up the stairs centuries ago, and understand Henry Hinton's sense of wonder when he first laid eyes upon the magnificent edifice. I could almost see the ruined remains of buildings around me restored to their original states and imagine the whole area in its heyday.

That is, until I was attacked by a horde of colourfully garbed Indian children.



Domestically, sure, it's handy being white sometimes. There's that money and power thing. There's that low infant mortality rate at hospitals thing. There's the ability to get waved through sobriety checkpoints in Carson that everyone is getting stopped at (true story). The underlying causes may be disgustingly racist, but still, occasionally handy!

That being said, there's a certain disadvantage to being a tall, bald white guy in these mostly Indian tourist spots- I stick out like a sore thumb. Kalyan and Theresa weren't quite so affected in this area. Observe:



Kalyan, though being at heart a total surf's up California boy (without the surf's up part), is ethnically Indian, and his friend Theresa here has cleverly disguised herself as a Southeast Asian Muslim pilgrim. No doubt a pair of clever tricks they learned from UC Berkeley. I find myself damning UC Irvine for its isolationist policies.

So between the guy who looks local and the pilgrim disguise, I guess I can understand why the kids run after the guy who looks like Dr. Venture in denim and a hemp hat. On top of this, what effect does carrying a camera have, you may ask? Apparently it multiplies the enthusiasm of the kids ten fold.

I found myself totally swarmed by Indian children. If I turned, they ran around in front of me. If I tried to back up, I found myself unable, being completely surrounded by them. They started making demands to me in English, and it seemed the only English they seemed to know involved asking me to take their picture. My only means of escape seemed clear: I started to get down and snap away, hoping their photographic hunger would soon be satiated, but nay, I was a fool- their hunger only grew. They soon grew tired of group pictures, and each child wanted an individual picture. As I tried to comply, other children would rush in to sabotage efforts of their fellows' solo photo attempts, and immediately ask for their own solo shot afterwards. It was a whirlwind of treacherous individualism gone horribly, horribly wrong, and I was stuck in the middle of it all.

Kalyan and Theresa, not having garnered the interest of the kids, struck out for Gol Gumbaz on their own, leaving me to content with the onrush alone.



Unfortunately in being left alone I had lost my translator, so I didn't have much in the means in getting the situation under control. The parents thought it was hilarious, and in keeping with the white-foreigner cool factor I had observed, broke through the kids for a little while to shake my hand and say 'Hello, nice to meet you,' with huge grins on their faces. The kids also thought this was hilarious.

It was an interesting experience to say the least, and fairly refreshing after other people's rather stoic photo poses. After while, the kids began to settle down a bit. I didn't know if it was due to tiredness or my losing my novelty, but I did manage to get them all still enough for this group shot:



After I finally managed to pry myself away from them and make my way towards the main building, they're energy grew once again, and I found myself leaving behind their excited farewells (in the form of repeated and loud 'bye!!!!!!'s) and aggressive waves, finally making it to the tomb. It was cool, but somehow seemed a little smaller after experiencing an enthusiastic Indian kindergarten assault.

Incidentally, regarding those black and white shots of another tomb below: it had its own set of children.

2:33pm: Nice try.
Nota Bene: today isn't May Day. It's now Loyalty Day.

Says the Whitehouse, at least. *cough*

3:29pm: Get a load of these chicks


The one on the right is a robot manufactured by SEGA. Something about this image just cracks me up. (Photo courtesy of Reuters.)

Next India post on Monday! Tuesday... Monday is apparently a blog silence day.

9:51am: Published!!
Kind of. I'm currently enrolled in a photojournalism class at Orange Coast College. (In case you aren't familiar with the school, it's consistently ranked by Playboy as being one of the top ten colleges in the US for hottest student body. I mean, obviously... I go there *cough*.) I took an assignment to photograph the Men's Crew team which is doing fairly well this year.

Saturday morning, I got up at 5 am, showered, and headed down to Newport Bay. It never ceases to amaze me that despite barely being able to wake up in the morning during the week everyday to go to work at 9 am, I don't have any trouble getting up for shooting jobs. There's also something cool and calming about being up that early and driving around. You feel a sense of camaraderie with the few other early risers you share the roads with in the early hours. Also, waking up early to be on a boat in Newport Bay isn't a bad way to start the day, either.

Here are the shots I ended up submitting to the paper:



That first image made the cover, and the two other images are a large spread on the back page. You can see them here. Just click on the Coast Report thumbnail on the left side, and it'll download 7.5 meg PDF copy of the paper.

Woot. Anyway, more on India coming up soon. One more fluff entry later in the day though first.

10:20am: Artsy Bijapur shots
I've had some ridiculous busy work at work lately. To tide everyone over, here are some black and whites taken at Muslim tombs in Bijapur.

1:46pm: HDR is neat
I kind of wrote off HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography after learning about it last year because of the plethora of truly horrifying images resulting from this technique. I won't point fingers. I'll just say check out the Flickr HDR pool.

But after playing around with it some more... it's actually pretty cool. Works well for colour and black and white to boot.