Written by: Samyak
Organized by: Samyak,Viki,Bhaskar
Thank You All, The photography enthusiasts, to make this trip a memorable one :) :). We had a great time with all the shutterbugs for keeping their camera engaged most of the time, sharing tips amongst themselves, experimenting at photography and having a great time together.
*1st Day* :
After few last minute dropouts, we have to park bikes and a car, and proceed towards Vellore, our breakfast point. After a stomachful of breakfast, the cars proceeded towards the ultimate destination, Yelagiri, where at the base, the Bangalore shutterbugs were to meet the chennai shutterbugs. The cars from chennai reached early there and then we were waiting for bangalore people (got delayed due to a bike puncture on the road ). But, nonetheless, no one was in a waiting mood, and ppl spread across the base of Yelagiri, busy shooting shooting and more shooting. The mercury was rising and so was the enthuciasm to click more and more and better and better. The waiting never looked like a waiting but the small pit stop to click and share the joy.
After a while, when bangalore ppl joined in, we proceeded towards yelagiri through the scenic hair pin bends and having a gr8 shootimg time together. A break on the way to N'joy the scening view from top and then a telephoto point break to get more aerial view of the villages down there.
We reached Yelagiri information Center, where we collected information about different nice places just to maximise the photography than the actual trekking. Finished quick lunch in nearby hotel and proceeded towards our first Destination of *Sami Malai. *Parked our vehicles at the base of Mangalam Village and everyone started a trek of 4KM with quite a nice ascend. The trek route was full of butterflies, insects, macro life, nature and nice landscapes around. Ppl really took their time to reach the top...
Almost 2-3 hours of photography on the way to reach the top. The scene from the top was exhilarating, with a nice cool breeze sporting on the face, and nice landscapes down in the villages surrounded by the hill ranges nearby.
The evening light was magical, couds were gathering and patches of falling rain in distance was beautiful scene to witness. While doing all this, ppl never stopped clicking and clicking... suddenly we thought the downpour started but it was just a nice drizzling which cooled our souls and the scent of the wet land filled the air. There was a hint of rainbow and I asked ppl to keep cameras ready for the same. And boom, a big big rainbow appeared in the sky and with each passing click, the colors were getting darker and richer and the rainbow getting bigger and bigger.... and then, there were 2 rainbow appearing over each other... and ppl were excited to max to have a gr8 time clicking it.
the descent was fast as the light was disappearing and clicking, finished,people reached to the base, drenched in rain and waiting for the hot tea getting served to them. After that, we proceeded towards a Hotel where we had tasteful dinner to end the day on a hight note. The village promptly offered us to use the around temple and community hall for sleeping overnight. Few souls slept around temple which was open from all sides, the cool breeze singing lullabys in our ear, everyone slept early. The other at community hall played UNO and slept there.
*Day 2 :*
The day started at hearing few alarm bells at around 4 in the morning, where we have decided to reach to Sami Malai agian to witness the morning sunrise. (Yes, sami malai is the sunrise point, so we trekked up again ). Ravi started waking ppl aorund and asking them if they want to come to top for watching and clicing the morning sunrise. Few sould got charged up and prepared their gears for mornign shoot at the top of the hill again.
Few others chose to stay back and spend time at the lily pond nearby, a big campus for shooting birds and macros around the village. I have never seen most of the ppl getting up so early on a CTC trek, and start to catch the morning sunrise rays around. the enthuciasm was good. The crowd was scattered around to utilise the maximim of the morning light.* (For photography, the morning and evening light are the best for shooting around ).
We went to the same hotel to finish our breakfast and waited for few latercomers who were still busy shooting around at around the Mangalam Village. After breakfast, ppl wanted to have a session on photography, so we wanted go to location where we can have a place to take the class and also a
good place to click around for those not interested in the class. So, we proceeded towards the nature walk entry point and reached a resort which was situated just at the entry point. The resort owner was more than happy to let us park our vehicles there so as we can proceed further.
But, ppl liked the ambience of a resort and a nice park provided a perfect place for taking a session on photography. So, we started a session on photography where myself, Rithwik, John and Ram talked about different terms and terminologies used in photography, the science behind cameras, study of lights,composition and various doubts that the photographers have during the session were cleared.
After that, few chose to walk take the nature walk to click more and try at the newly learnt things in photography, few lazied around and few utilised the time to play around. The lunch was arranged at the same resort and ppl N'joyed having finished the day 2 on a good learning note. We settled the accounts there only and we started our journey back home with so many wonderful moments and life captued in our cameras and wondering when is the next such trip will happen again !!!
The trip was successful just because the enthuciasm shown by the participants in photography. The best part of was everyone was indulged in photography whenever we took a stop and never were really bored of clicking and sharing and asking and giving tips to make it better and better. Thanks to all car and bike drivers, for safely taking all of us to a destination and taking care of us while travelling :)
Thanks to Ajay for patiently sweeping on the first day of travelling when one of the car had to slow down due to technical (or mechanical ) problem :) Thanks to Ansar for talking to villagers and arranging for a campsite at Mangalam.
Thanks to Rajasekar, for helping me out with coordination from Tidel Park and sweeping on the first day of trek :). And Thanks to Ram for keeping the accounts so well and serttling it off the same day !!! Above all, thanks to Rithwik, john and many others who pitched in for taking a session on photography and making us know so many different aspects realted to camera and photography. We never knew, there is so much to learn out of it.
Gr8 job at photography guyz... its all that we learn together faster more and than doing it individually !
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Written by Venu
For anyone who is interested in photography, irrespective of your expertise, Yelagiri was the place to be on the last weekend. The registration to the trip getting closed within 2 days of opening was an indication as to how many shutterbugs in CTC were impatiently waiting for such a journey. As for me, i didn't know what to expect. I had never been on a "Trip" with fellow CTCians. I reached the pick up point well ahead of time.(I was too excited to sleep the previous night). Ajay, Abdul, Reji, Samyak and myself were packed into Ajay's Hyundai Accent and the trip began.
We were designated as the sweeper car. The car just in front of us faced some problem so we had to match their speed...this gave us enough time and opportunities to click some pics on the way and still catch up with the car in front of us. Finally we reached the base of Yelagiri and had to wait for the Bangaloreans to catch up. As Samyak has written before, noone even asked how long we would have to wait. Cameras were out and the clicking had begun..I captured on of my best portrait shots during this stop over.
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Once the Bangalore guys reached, we were off again...The 14 hairpin bends were negotiated in quick time and we reached the Yelagiri Tourist Information centre. Samyak went in...cameras came out..and the same old routine was on show again. By that time, another of nature's calls..the call of hunger was making some of us restless..this was quickly remedied by meals from the hotel just opposite to the Tourist Info centre.
After lunch, we reached a small village at the base of Swamimalai. A small trek was about to commence...after all, we are the Chennai Trekking Club. 4km uphill. With no one yelling "Move..Move..Move.." we took our own sweet time getting to the top. Lots of nice butterfly shots on the way. We spent some time at the top. On the first sign of rain, Anu and me started walking back. We got some nice macro shots on the way back too..but we missed the excitement of the rainbow.
I had initially decided that I would go to the top to watch the sunrise. But in the morning I literally got "cold feet". It was a bit chilly and thanks to a tractor guy, some stray dogs and an old lady, I hadn't caught enough sleep at night. I woke up by 6 and roamed around taking some shots here and there...not really doing what to do. Then Ritwik came up with an idea of going to the YMCA park. Abdul, Ritwik and me walked to the park and found out that it was not really a park..it was a camping site. We caught some shots of weaver birds and their nests.
After some time, John also joined us. Then we came to know that the gang had left the base camp for breakfast and we were left behind. But soon a car came and picked us up and took us to Hotel Hills where we breakfast was arranged for us.
After breakfast, there was a little confusion as to what to do next..Finally it was decided that we would to to the nature trail. We were asked to take the road next to the tourist info centre, drive to the end of the road and walk from there. There was little space for parking the vehicles at the end of the road. So we decided to try our luck at the nearby resort named Le Auroville. We parked there and as the atmosphere there was really good, we decided to have a session on photography there itself.
Samyak started off with the basic terms and terminlogies in photography. He was joined by Ritwik, John and Ram. After the basic terminologies, the discussion moved on to Composition.It was a really informative session and I am sure even people who used to click all the pics on Auto mode will now consider using Aperture priority or Shutter priority while clicking.
Lunch was arranged for us in the resort itself. After lunch and some group photos with our cams all displayed in front, we settled the accounts and dispersed.
The day for me wasn't over yet. On the way back, we stopped over at Ambur. Abdul had suggested that it is THE place to buy leather goods and you get good stuff really cheap. We spent about 1.5 hrs there...shopping and finally by 10:45, I was back at home...downloading my pics and looking forward to the next photography trip from CTC.
The highlight of this Trip for me was the chance to interact with so many good photographers. Among my friends circle, there is just one guy who is interested in photography and the majority of the knowledge that I get is from the net. This interaction with people like Ritwik, Samyak and John was priceless. The way they explained techniques and tips and tricks of photography...just beautiful. I wish to thank Samyak for taking up the organization of this trip when the original organizers dropped off. Thanks Sam..you did a really fantastic job..
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I hope such trips are conducted atleast once in 2 months. There are lots of really good photographers in CTC and there are lots of people like me working towards becoming one. Trips like this would give us an ideal platform to meet, learn and exchange ideas.
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Organized by: Samyak,Viki,Bhaskar
Participants: Samyak, Rithwik, John Immanual, Ganesh Rajendran George Karthik Krishnamurthy Sujai Reji Kuruvilla, Karthik R yadav Ansar, Ajay Kumar, Sreeni Dinesh Venugopal K.G. Abdul Rahaman, Rajasekar Manikandan, Kannan K, Vinodh M V, K Ramasubramaniyan Aravind K Rajesh J Sai Kiran Atul Garg Nirmal Kumar Sahoo Ravi S Ghosh Jagadish Ramesh Kuruvalli Gunasekaran Vivek Gupta Siva pradeep yanamadala Ramesha JS Sudheer Nachu Anu Priya Jaison
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