Colourful India.

One of the nice things I can do through my blog is not only share photographs but experiences as well. Although I don't share every detail of my life here I do let you get to know me, my environment and my family.  Now we are in India where my wife is from visiting family and to attend a wedding.  We also have a house here that we built on her land where she grew up.

Now one thing about this country is that it is very colourful. From the clothes to the buildings to the insects.  I found this interesting little fellow just outside our door and was taken by the colour and the design on it's back.  For these two shots I put one of the extension tubes on the 24-70 f2.8 with the Canon 7D.  I had the lens resting on the ground just inches from this bug and had the settings at f11, 1/200 sec and 1250 ISO.  I had to manually focus and move in and out until I achieved critical focus.  Fortunately it was not bothered by me and remained fairly motionless.  I was very happy with the results.

I then hovered above him, moving my lens in and out until I got focus.  This was hard to do hand holding and why I had chosen the faster shutter speed. I guess the design on it's back resembling a face is used to ward of predators.

We attended Sunday mass this morning at one of the local parishes named Little Flower Church.  This colourful church was posted in an earlier blog and today I was able to capture a few details.  Now for those who are unfamiliar with the Southern state of Kerala, there is a large christian population here.  St. Thomas visited the region before he was killed near Goa 2000 years ago.  Unlike the churches in North America they are generally brightly painted and Little Flower Church is Purple and Pink.  While listening to the mass in Malayallam (the state native language) I noticed this little figure on the wall for the Holy water.  When services were over I moved in for this close up using the iPhone.

Something new to the compound that was not here when we visited 18 months ago was this statue in the courtyard.  Adorned with flowers and shaded by an umbrella I angled the iPhone to make this capture.

Up at our house on the hill I also made a couple of photo's  This one here were of some leaves that I really liked the pattern of.  This time I did not want the colour to over power the design so I chose the Hipstamatic app with the BlacKeys film that I am very familiar with.  Again it achieved the look I was going for.

These final two images where some photo's of some of the large variety of fruit that we have on the family property.  Above are a bunch of young bananas looking up at them just a few feet above my head.  Then I went to the roof and found these papaya.  Add to this mangoes, coconuts, black pepper, rubber and a number of other plants we have a nice variety of produce on the land.