Seven miles is a long way down, more than a mile deeper than Mt. Everest is up. To reach the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, James Cameron will descend past some pretty amazing milestones. Here's a glimpse.
Christian Ziegler - National Geographic Photographer
Christian Ziegler, a tropical biologist turned photojournalist, specializing in tropical ecosystems has worked extensively in rain forests around the world for the last 15 years. Several research projects and his fascination for nature photography brought him to the tropical forests of Asia, Africa and Central America during his studies. Christian lived in Thailand where he worked as a free lance photographer for the WWF (World Wide Found for Nature). The year after Christian spent four months in the Ivory Cost of West Africa visiting both the Savannah and the rain forest. Since 1998, Christian has been working primarily in Panama, on Barro Colorado Island, a field station of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). After finishing his graduate work in 2000, his focus changed solely to the field of nature photography and journalism. He spent 15 month of fieldwork doing the photography for his picture book on the ecology of tropical rain forest “A magic Web”, which was published by Oxford University Press in November 2002.
In April 2002 Christian was appointed ‘associate for communication’ by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Over the years Christian won several international recognized awards, such as the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year (category 'behavior of all other animals' in 2005). He has completed dozens of magazine assignments, 8 of them for National Geographic Magazine covering topics ranging from ocelots ,tree frogs and monkeys to bats, deception in animals, visitors to a flowering rain forest tree, and orchids. Christian is interested in showing species in their ecosystem context, and sharing interesting behaviors. Christians work is published internationally in magazines such as the National Geographic Magazine, GEO, Smithsonian Magazine, BBC Wildlife Magazine and Natural History. Next to his magazine work, he thinks it important to work with conservation groups, such as WWF and others. Christian is a founding fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers .
Checkout this Photos here: [Link]
Source: National Geographic
Lightbox Photo Sharing
Lightbox is a community of people from around the world sharing their unique experiences through photography. Lightbox is available on Google Chrome Store which can be installed in your Chrome browser or you can downloaded it for free on your Android device.
Following are some of the features:
Create a Timeline of your Photos:
All the photos you upload are automatically turned into a timeline of postcards on Lightbox.com. You can keep these photos private or selectively share them with friends, family, or the entire Lightbox community.
Publish your own Tumblr-Like Photo Blog:
Photos you share publicly will also get posted to your very own Lightbox website that other people can follow. You just focus on taking photos, and we'll automatically create an attractive website for you.
Example: http://ravindrajoisa.lightbox.com/
Top features in Photoshop CS6
Here is a list with some of the favorite features that you may like in Photoshop CS6:
1. Crop tool – Cropping an image has been the same without any enhancement for a long time now. CS6 crop is non disruptive, it will not throw away data after cropping, you can always go back. Even after cropping, you can get the cropped image back and then edit. You can use the classic crop tool as well in the new CS6 if you are used to the older version.
2. Filters – Blur gallery now has 3 different types - Field, Iris and Tilt blur. You have great control over the blur and you can edit your photos which can't be captured photographically like focusing on more than one object at the same time.
3. Adaptive Wide Angle - Instead of cropping and do lens correction go for adaptive wide angle filter. Example is if you have a photo with too many buildings which appear curved because of the wide angle lens used, Photoshop CS6 allows you to adjust manually by drawing lines and edit the image and make it look much better.
4. Video Editing - You can edit videos using Photoshop but using CS6 it is much more streamlined. You can go to timeline and select the right layer and then add effects to your video. This can be done to the objects in the timeline. You don’t have to be a video editor to do this.
5. Content Aware Patch - This feature helps in a great way when it comes to editing your image at the edges. Usually in older versions, when we try to edit image at the edges; it used to leave white patch. This is not the case with the CS6.
6. Content Aware Move – This is a new feature in CS6. If an object in your image is in one corner and you want to drag that object then this tool is very helpful as it will recreate a background which looks so real.
Check out this video by Terry White:
Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta
The world’s best digital image editing software is about to get even better. Photoshop CS6 beta is now available as a free download from Adobe Labs in English and Japanese.
Here are some of the Photoshop CS6 Highlights:
Content-Aware Patch — Patch images with greater control using the newest member of the Content-Aware family of technologies. Choose the sample area you want to use to create your patch, and then watch Content-Aware Patch magically blend pixels for a stunning result.
Blazingly fast performance and a modern UI — Experience unprecedented performance with the Mercury Graphics Engine, which gives you near-instant results when you edit with key tools such as Liquify, Puppet Warp, and Crop. Plus, a refined, fresh, and elegant Photoshop interface features dark background options that make your images pop.
New and re-engineered design tools — Create superior designs fast. Get consistent formatting with type styles, create and apply custom strokes and dashed lines to shapes, quickly search layers, and much more.
Download Link: Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta
South India Tourism - Pandya Nagari
Karkala is a town and also the headquarters of Karkala Taluk in Udupi district of Karnataka, India. The first name of this town was "Pandya Nagari" during the Jain regime but afterwards it was changed to "Karikallu" because of black stones. Black granite is abundant in this area, and is in wide use in the local architecture. The statue Gomateshwara (Lord Bahubali) is located about 1 km from the center of the town and is 42 ft. high, believed to have been built around 1432 AD. Yearly celebrations are in the month of February called "Rathotsava" and once in 12 years "Mahamastakabhisheka", sacred bathing of the statue with saffron paste, milk and water and sprinkled with sandal wood powder, turmeric, and vermilion is celebrated. This statue of Gomateshwara in karkala is the 2nd highest next to the Gomateshwara statue, located at Shravanabelagola. Karkala has a number of natural and historical landmarks including the Ramasamudra Lake. 
There are 18 basadis of antiquity including Mahaveera Basadi, Chandranathaswamy Basadi, Adinathaswamy Basadi, Ananthanatha Basadi, Guru Basadi and Padmavathi Basadi.
South India Tourism - Surathkal
Surathkal is on the shore of Arabian sea and boasts of having beautiful beaches. There is a beach in front of the Sadashiva Temple.The beach is known for its clean surrounding and its lighthouse.
Surathkal is famous for the some of the age old very famous educational institutes/colleges like NITK, Govindadasa college and many other schools. Surathkal was once a Grama panchayat, then town panchayat, municipality now merged with Mangalore city corporation.
According to legend, the name Surathkal is derived from "shiratakal" meaning "headstone" in Tulu (local language). When Lord Ganapathi kept a shiva linga belonging to Ravana on ground, Ravana tried to pull the linga from the ground but could not. The place where the linga is supposed tohave been is now known as Gokarna. 
Due to the force exerted by Ravana, some pieces were scattered. One such piece from the head of the linga is said to have fallen in present day Surathkal. The famous Sadashiva temple is said to be built around that piece of linga. Men in the coastal line go for fishing, as early as 4am in the morning and will be back home by 12pm. Women go to market to sell those fishes (Most common types of fish that they sell include the famous "Banguday", "Bootai"). People here speak Tulu (Majority), kannada or konkani and are proud to be called as "tulu nadu da jokulu".Kalaripayattu–Indian Martial Arts
Kalaripayattu is an Indian martial art from the southern state of Kerala. One of the oldest fighting systems in existence and is known to be 3000 years old. The art was disseminated through the kalari, which served as active centers of learning before the modern educational system was introduced. Still in existence, these institutions were schools where students could assemble together and acquire knowledge on various subjects ranging from mathematics, language, astronomy and various theatrical arts. Martial arts were taught in the payattu kalari, meaning fight school.
Kalaripayatt includes strikes, kicks, grappling, preset forms, weaponry and healing methods. The kalari tradition is struggling to survive in the land of its origin. A few families in north Kerala, who are the repositories of this ancient knowledge, have been keeping the tradition barely alive by opening schools and clinics.
Taking kalaripayattu more seriously are modern dance enthusiasts in Europe and the US. They are attracted by the sheer physicality, the fluid body movements of the martial art. Their emphasis, however, is less on weapons and more on adapting the movements to their own dance forms.
Canon announces EOS 5D Mark III
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 22.3 MP Full Frame CMOS Digital SLR Camera (Body)
The Canon EOS 5D Mark III rumors about which I had updated a few days back [More new Canon DSLRs soon] is now official. Positioned between the extremely popular EOS 5D Mark II and Canon's top-of-the-line professional EOS-1D X model, the EOS 5D Mark III delivers superb image quality, thanks to a new 22.3-megapixel full-frame Canon CMOS sensor, a high-performance DIGIC 5+ Imaging Processor, a 61-point High Density Reticular Autofocus (AF) System and six frames-per-second (fps) continuous shooting speed.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III key specifications
- 22MP full frame CMOS sensor
- ISO 100-25600 standard, 50-102,800 expanded
- 6 fps continuous shooting
- Shutter rated to 150,000 frames
- 1080p30 video recording, stereo sound via external mic
- 61 point AF system
- 63 zone iFCL metering system
- 100% viewfinder coverage
- 1040k dot 3:2 LCD
- Dual card slots for CF and SD
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)