Unbroken Horse - Hey good lookin', welcome to my blog.

Stall

This wonderful fruit stall vendor sold us some fruit but as we were leaving, she slipped two guavas into my hand as a gift, as a gesture of kindness. It was obvious we weren’t really natives. I really appreciate that about a lot of the people here. They are poor as dirt but they still have a heart to give, even if it means a little less for their take home money for the day.

And no, those are not Nazi symbols. They’re going the wrong way and they mean pretty much the opposite of what Germany stood for in that era.

December 21, 2011 by Sunira

General

India

I’m just going to save myself thought and name every post India. Maybe.

I’ve been here three days now. The time is flying much like I thought it would. There has been pretty much no culture shock for me.
I still haven’t gotten quite used to an auto rickshaw (..which is this) driving us head on into a bus and turning at the last minute. There are no road rules here and everything is traffic chaos. From above it is like a beautiful choreographed dance, but it’s actually just traffic running entirely on human cunning and instinct.

It’s awesome.

Crossing the road is like Russian roulette! Life here is definitely bustling and insane-o.
However, none of it is new.

For the longest time I didn’t have much memory of India. My mother said it was due to the fact that young children that are suddenly jolted out of their comfort zone often have to adapt by forgetting what their past comforts are so they can survive in their new surroundings. Forgetting their previous environment to make emotional room for the new one… It’s a psychological defense mechanism that I went through for a solid 18 years at least. I lost my ability to speak my language and any memories of my six years before I was forced to change countries, cultures, languages, and people. Even now I cannot speak even though I can fully understand the spoken language.

Lately, I’ve noticed many of my “lost” memories resurfacing. It’s been happening the last three years for the most part. Suddenly I’ll have a flashback of a moment in my past that I had no recollection of for nearly two decades. Now that I’m in India, it’s like the floodgates have opened. This did not happen to me the last time I was here. I start to remember faces and places and people and events from when I was so little.

A flower on the street sent a wave of memories awash in my mind this morning.
At the beauty parlour, the woman kept speaking to me in Tamil and suddenly the right words for responses fell together in my head. I didn’t have the guts to actually speak them because I was still surprised I had a mental grip on a sentence that made perfect sense. But there they were. Since then I’ve been formulating responses in my head to make sure this isn’t just a one-off thing. It’s not.

It’s been a trip. In more ways than one.
I was griping about how crazy this trip was, and how unplanned it was, and how I’d just be another foreigner to everyone.
But, as usual, it seems God had other plans. And as usual, they’re unexpected, yet necessary for the solid formation of who I am.

Oh yeah. Photos. :)

The first day I was here we went to a local sari shop and picked out a beautiful pink peacock feathered sari for me. I will have to post pictures of myself wearing it. I’ll just say at Rs.2000 it was a steal.

At another clothing shop, I picked up a few nice tops for a great price too. I am thoroughly amazed at how well Indians are at packing a place full of stock. This room is barely bigger than my bedroom but it houses an entire store, a few employees and a tiny fitting room.

Beautiful saris in every color:

Tomorrow, I hope to have time to post some images I took of everyday life for the working class on the streets. I’m hoping to also have some crazy video of the traffic antics I get to be driven in by the end of this week.

Also it’s totally like 75-90 degrees at night & day. I am loving it. It’s midnight here now so I’m just going to pop off to bed. Hope everyone in America is lovely. :)

December 21, 2011 by Sunira

mobile, Photography

Heathrow

Dear people on the internet that read my blog.

I am overseas.

I am also unbelievably bad at updating my blog when I am not half-drunk on a plane.

Here is thispicture I took on my phone the morning of my last flight.

So far I have only been taking pictures with my cell phone. There’s something freeing about having something that takes decent photos but is completely under the radar on the streets of India. I may yet pick up my poor ignored DSLR when the big family functions arrive but for now I will be keeping you happy, I hope, with phone captured tidbits of my culture.

Enjoy!

December 20, 2011 by Sunira

Life, Travel

Flying, Honestly

So here I am on my flight to London. I think we’ve been in the air for about six hours. We’ve got about 3 hours left and I just cannot get to sleep. It’s definitely not for lack of trying. I even had two reasonably sized bottles of wine in hopes I’d just conk out. No luck. This means my 24 hour layover is going to REALLY suck because at this point I’ve been awake nearly 20 hours already. Damn.

It feels just like Tech. I bet my blood will start to feel like acid at hour 30. I’ll keep you guys updated. [sucks to be you] :)

So now you get to hear the first part of the story of my first solo flight over the Atlantic. [applause]

J took me to the airport and helped me with my three enormous bags and my carry on. When you pack for India, you pack for India. As in, maybe 15% of what’s in the suitcases is for you and the rest is other stuff. I had shoved some other stuff in there so at bag check, I barely made it under the 22kg limit.

While I was getting my bags checked through, there was an angry, short, half bald indian guy at the next counter acting like a total ass. He had a family of four and he expected to be seated with all four seats in the same row, next to each other. Well, any idiot can tell you that showing up this late to the party without reserving your seats is a gamble. He stomped about, called the British Airways attendant uncooperative, unprofessional, unable to do even the simplest of tasks as he slammed down the tickets he didn’t want. He went on and on like a small angry baboon with itâ€™s butt all aflare demanding all sorts of pretty impossible nonsense while telling all her coworkers around her she needed to be fired. Dude all I thought to myself is that he should be fired from my race! What a turd. What I found pretty typical was his clearly meek wife standing by letting him have his unbelievably childish tirade while his two teenage kids looked both embarrassed and partially deadened to the situation. This probably wasn’t new behaviour. He made me mad by just existing 10 feet from me.

I managed to get my boarding pass and head on to the Atrium where I cooled off by listening to this amazing duo that had come in to play. They were a husband wife team of musicians called Montana Skies and they. were. amazing. The husband played his guitar which he could play either acoustically or electronically and his wife played both a real cello and a really awesome looking shoulder mounted electric one. I wish I had snagged more pictures but I’m kind of paranoid about taking out my big DSLR at the airport. I got a couple phone pics, though.

My friend Sana was landing at the same time from another flight so she came from her terminal to come see J & I. It was nice to get to spend about a half hour with her before I had to head to security. I had a sad goodbye with J, and I keep telling myself it’s just two weeks, and then of course I got to hang out with TSA. I never get to go through without getting patted down. If you can call it patting. God. The TSA agent tells you.. hey I’m gonna feel under your boobs, and then’ BAM you are getting felt up officially which makes it okay. I’m pretty easygoing so I don’t care. I stick my arms up and offer my ladies freely but I can see how this can be offensive to other people, especially with how blatantly racist the whole procedure is. It didn’t take too long.I would have at least liked dinner first but this is America, people. ;)

I got on the plane at around 9:20 our time and have been flying ever since.

So far only one baby has started crying angrily and for that I am thankful. I always wonder who those crazy people are that bring babies on 10 hour international flights. I also wonder who those sane people are that don’t grab the kid and toss him out the plane after he won’t shut up. It is soooo frustrating for all those people that don’t have the magic mommy and daddy ability to be fine with their screamer. I’m convinced it’s biological and definitely not shared.

It’s really not fair to all those passengers who pay thousands of dollars for their tickets only to have your stupid screaming baby make their lives miserable. It’s all a part of flying I guess. Or life. If you’re going to pay 2.5G’s to get an airline ticket, your dumb butt can buy some headphones. Sucks to be forced to buy expensive noise cancellers just so you can take a flight. Oh well. I feel bad for people who can’t just pop on their headphones and ramp up some Pitbull and rap in the babys face. Babies love you rapping in their face.

Pitbull is my solution to everything.

I am not sure anymore if I am talking or the wine is talking or the sleep deprivation is talking.
You know what’s cool. We’re a thousand miles out from Heathrow right now and we’re going to get there in UNDER TWO HOURS. I wish we could time travel and bring a pilgrim back and then blow his mind.

I miss Ami and Vargas and Sushi.

OMG British Airways has the best food. They asked if I wanted chicken curry. HECK YEAH MUTHATRUCKA I WANT SOME CURRY. And it was delicious.
And I watched the last third of The Help while eating and drinking another wine bottle. At the end I started to cry and the curry was still delicious. I don’t think wine and sad but also happy movies mix because I don’t cry at movies. Except this one.

Like tears streaming endlessly. Thank god the people on either side of me are sleeping like the dead.

My laptop is burning my leg.

I keep opening Google Chrome like I have internet.

I really want to get off this plane now.

I can’t feel my ass.

‘.and there goes baby #2.

â€”â€”â€”â€”â€“

I landed in Heathrow at 9:45am this time amidst screaming babies and a fantastic view of London that I couldn’t photograph because I was so dead tired. I did wind up striking a conversation with the british guy next to me for a solid hour after he’d quit sleeping and droolin’ all over himself. That’s pretty much all the actual human contact I’ve had after leaving J at the airport.

:( J.

So, after I landed they wouldn’t let me into Terminal 5 because my boarding pass is for tomorrow. THEN where the heck do I go’ So I start wandering around this enormous-ass airport. I get advised to take the bus to Terminal 1. I somehow manage to find this bus and wind up being the only passenger in a bus driven by an insane smoking british man. Apparently half the Heathrow airport is under construction and this fact makes the road to getting there this driver’s personal go cart track. I wanted to hurl the entire 20 minutes it took to wind around everything and anything to get to terminal 1.

At this point I go through security again.

From the time I’ve arrived, I’ve gone through security three times, four different people have told me that yes I can go to the shops, and no I can’t go to the shops, but here I am at the shops. A couple of them told me to go to immigration but at the rate of misinformation here I’m going to wind up an illegal immigrant in the United Kingdom so I’ll just stay right here in this terminal, thank you very much.

Breakfast at Terminal 1 cost 20 dollars. Dude the exchange rate here sucks so much.
I just bought a bottle of water for four dollars. FOUR DOLLARS.

Paz is texting me stuff. I’m glad for that.

My eyes are getting watery from sleepiness. I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake. I have the perfect sleeping position.

Unsurprisingly my arse has not ceased hurting.

I’m trying to laugh at all this.
EL OH EL,PEOPLE

December 17, 2011 by Sunira

Life, Photography

Revisiting Your Past

I like to, every year or so, go back and look at how I started getting into photography…the months where I thought putting ugly black borders with titles and copyrights on my photos were okay. The years I worked with a cheap 4.1 MP camera because I was falling in love with photography with no funding to really pursue it with equipment.

In a way, it’s a way to relive the memories. It’s stunning how much detail is encoded within the connection between the image and my memory. Looking at the photo just makes my synapses fire in all sorts of ways, unearthing feelings, frustrations and random unrelated but chronologically familiar events.

Anyway, here are a few I think I still maybe kind of like. At least, they’re not terrible for a kid with no talent, skill or education on the subject built yet.

I bet in another 7 years, I’ll be saying the same thing about my work now. I wonder what I’ll be producing when I’m 90, if I even live that long, with this kind of clarity in life. I wish to be on this journey forever.

I am a sexy fish? Man I was even bad at naming these photos.

..I actually CAUGHT this chipmunk by chasing it. So don’t tell me I couldn’t survive in the forest. :) I let him go after.

I keep coming back to this picture. There’s something about it that screamed my style long before I had developed it, before I’d unearthed it.

I remember taking the MARTA to and from university every day. The ride was long, and I didn’t have much to occupy me. In the fall months I’d be greeted with a sunset on the way home everyday. The summer months would see me home with sunshine, the winter months would see me home with suspicion and a minor paranoia as I walked to the station and to my car in the dark. It was an experience for those two years, for sure.

This starts my love obsession with water. It’s beautiful. By this time I’d bought another, more powerful point and shoot. A Sony 7.1MP H5. I used it for about 3 years and I worked the hell out of what should have been a casual vacation and birthday parties camera.

This is about when I started to look at light differently. I used to focus on the object and angle my shot to it but I soon started to manipulate the light sources. This was a candle through a glass of sweet tea. Again, the memory of J taking me to the student center version of a fancy valentines day date accompanies this. It was a good point in our relationship, a pivot right before a couple years of fairly drastic change in both of us.

I get my first dslr and I go crazy town with it now that I can REALLY macro. This is the point where I start falling in love with bokeh.

This picture was my crowning glory for a while. Why? Because it made Daily Deviation on Deviantart. This means out of thousands and thousands of submissions that day, mine was featured on the front page for 24 hours, selected as a part of a somewhat ‘elite’ gallery. Watching the comments roll in, alongside thousands of views and a few hundred favorites completely made my day. Actually it pretty much made my week. At this point I was looking for positive feedback from a community of people. Not the “omg that is sooo pretty you are sooo talented” kind. Those usually mean nothing. Even today, I can’t see it as meaningful to me. I mean the kind of feedback where there’s a tangible, measurable reaction from the community, a choice made, and a high 5 from people I considered my artistic superiors. That is easily the best feeling to me.

I finally buy myself another point and shoot. I realize a lot of photography has very little to do with the equipment. I still have to fight urges to buy great equipment to this day… I am a gadget girl at heart. I started re-learning how to re-focus on composition, on lighting, on how I felt. Then I bought an iPhone and (4 iphones later) I am happy with it as my secondary camera.

I dream about the future of photography. Even now, as steps are being taken to redefine how we capture the world around us, I am only thrilled at the opportunities opening up for us. For me.

And now that I’ve played Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I’m kinda hoping for an ocular implant technology before I die.
My heaven would be a limitlessly beautiful world, and a limitless way to capture and share it. :)

December 13, 2011 by Sunira

Photography

A little RRR

That means reflective river romance, people. All I had with me was my P&S and well… you can tell. Image quality fail. BUT… hopefully you’ll just be so blinded by the stupid cuteness it won’t matter. AMIRITE?

It’s just shadows. This way you don’t have to be scarred by full on ROMANCE.

Of course this series wouldn’t be complete without this photo. J & I can jive with their slogan.. "To Life, Love and Loot."

Since the cat’s out of the bag (finally) I get to be all sorts of unnecessarily open on this blog.

Muah ha ha ha ha

December 1, 2011 by Sunira

Photography

Airport Sunset

In two weeks I’ll find myself at the airport boarding a flight to India. I have some mixed feelings about it. One, I am super excited about the trip. It’s been exactly one decade since my last visit. Things are going to be very different from how I remember them at 16. Two, I am a bit nervous. Don’t get me wrong, I am in fact wearing my big girl undies but this is the first time I’ll be flying overseas alone, and I have heard enough stories about crooks at the airport to make my 24 hour layover in London a little nerve wracking.

But that’s all silly. One, I’m no green idiot, and two, travelling has been a passion of mine forever now. I sort of can’t wait to do this alone so I can get over that fact and have a good time’ Kind of like my first drive on 400 when I was so much younger. Anyway, Iâ€™ve been taking flights all year here and there but just within the USA.

I don’t do well in planes for very long periods of time’ and in fact I nearly died feeling crappy on my flight back from LA to Atlanta and that was only five hours! This is two 10 hour flights. I will be taking drugs. If I get mugged I’ll give them my 4 bottles of Nyquil and 3 packages of Benadryl nighttime. It’s a good high man, I promise. :P

Oh well, soon J will be accompanying me on my flights of fancy! Except they’ll be real! :)
Life’s looking like one big adventure already.

November 30, 2011 by Sunira

Photography

Moon

I’ve been playing with Lightroom 3 and so far I like it! I thought I was going to miss the control over details that I had in Photoshop but the adjustment brush is way awesome at fixing that caveat.

Working this image was definitely fun. It was easy to reduce all the noise without any real quality loss to the moon detail. Loving it so far. Kinda slow going because I don’t automatically know where everything is quite yet but the application is so straightforward I just have to look for a second to find it.

And facebook integration? Win.

November 29, 2011 by Sunira