My Way Is The Highway

The Sexy iPhone5 Panorama Camera Mode!

The iPhone5 Panorama Camera mode is freaking me out. It would take me several hours of struggle with my SLR camera and I still cannot guarantee matching the quality of the photo stitching.  Hats off Apple! If you want just one reason to migrate/upgrade to iPhone5, it is this feature.

This is a 180 degree pan of my backyard on a drab rainy day.

This is a 200 degree pan of my living room. The camera has adjusted magnificently for every light source and dark corner. Talk about panoramic HDRs.

This is an evenly florescent lit pan in Craig Gillesipie’s scuba shop.

This is a fantastic pan across a well lit Seattle day and warm Starbucks interiors.

The best part is that the simple to use interface can be learned in 30 seconds, as demonstrated by the two photos that my 11 year old made. Talk about usability.

 

I am excited about the possibilities iPhone5 panorama mode opens for my next planned trip to Guatemala and Honduras…

Kanheri Caves, Mumbai: Blueprints and Prototypes of Ellora

A trip to the cave temples of Ajanta-Ellora had to be called off to accommodate a day at various government offices to sign some mundane papers. That left open a part of Saturday on my bi-annual whirlwind work trip to India and I was left to find something closer to home. The two choices for a day trip were the island of Elephanta, where, shamefully I have never been despite being a resident of Mumbai for over twenty years and Kanheri caves, that I have visited as a teen but have no living memories of.

Somewhere I read that certain caves at Kanheri are blue prints for Buddhist sculptures and structures of Ellora and then the decision was simple.

Musings on an Ancient Mind: Anasazi Petroglyphs

The Wolfman petroglyph panel near Bluff, Utah

The Anasazi, the ancient ones, left us clues – albeit unwittingly.

We know they lived in tiny adobe houses built in cavernous alcoves in the cliff of the Colorado plateau. We know they carefully stocked corn in high up recesses and how their women painstakingly ground it on stone metates all day long. We know they were accomplished rock climbers and how they could fearlessly scale vertical slickrock, often ferrying big loads to their village. Through the astronomical alignment of their buildings, we know they meticulously observed the sky and understood phenomena like lunar standstill that span decades. The careful mummification of their dead and the wonderful offerings of yucca baskets and glazed pots, especially for their young ones, tells how who they loved and how much. The trail of pottery shards and the mix of styles and colors tell us where they travelled and who they traded with and what they yearned for. Finally we know how deadly they eventually turned, killing and burning (and sometimes eating) their own.

But what went through their minds? Which language did they think in? Could they verbally articulate their emotions?