Category: Musings

Click It or Soak In

When you are witnessing such a sight, why view through the camera? Why not be fully present for the moment?

Click It or Soak In?

This was my insta-muse yesterday. Many responded with a “Soak & Click” answer. But my friends overwhelmingly favored soaking in the sight. I love my insta-circle of friends!

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I personally almost always favour the Soak & Click routine.

Let me share my reasons of why I click too.

  1. Convert A Moment To A Memory: There are multiple ways in which a moment becomes a memory. Being mindful of the moment is one way. To take the time to think what you want to capture, frame a picture, imagine how the output will be & clicking it – is a form of mindfulness.
  2. Appreciate The Subtleties: Many a times, the feeling we experience while witnessing an extraordinary sight overwhelms us. We could always embrace the feeling & soak it in completely. It is beautiful. I also like to appreciate the subtleties  that make the sight special – the colours, textures, shapes, etc. Clicking pictures then becomes an art to capture these subtleties & accentuating their impact on the scene.
  3. Isolate The Beauty: Pretty sights today are inundated with people & other distractions (e.g.. the Colosseum is almost always wearing scaffolding for renovation). In the pictures I capture, I try to isolate the beauty from the distractions that might be surrounding it. What wants to remember them!
  4. Share The Awesomeness: The joy of any special sight is so much more when shared with someone. When experiencing it alone, I feel compelled to capture the moment to share with family & friends.

What’s With #Times2Travel?

#Times2Travel

I have been using the #Times2Travel hashtag while posting my travel pictures for a long while now. Friends still ask me what it means. So, here goes a quick explanation.

#Times2Travel represents 2x Travel.

  • First time, is when I actually travel,
  • Second time, is when I nostalgically re-live the experience while researching & sharing pictures with friends

There are four aspects to my travel hashtag #Times2Travel.

While Traveling, Travel!
Typically, I stay away from social media & picture posting when traveling.  This allows me to stay focused on soaking in the experience & be with my fellow travelers when there. This also gives me the time to click pictures at leisure .. the way I want it.

Research At Leisure
I get around to post processing pictures (mostly shot in RAW) many weeks or months after the travel. This way, I get to research & learn more about my subject or location. Sometimes the learning is also friend sourced on the networks. Anyone in my friends circle who is more familiar with the subject or location, generously share what they already know. I’ve learnt a lot via this route.

Post Processing Is Refreshing
The process of research & post processing – I find quite soothing & refreshing. When I’m having a tough day – processing a picture is equivalent to 60 deep breaths. I have some downtime, I’d rather research my pictures than getting lost in the rabbit hole that the Internet is.

You’ve Been Informed
There have been multiple instances where I’ve been mistaken to be traveling at the time of posting photographs. My #Times2Travel hashtag is now seen as a sign of past travels .. and there are fewer responses to my post asking to catch up in far away foreign land.

You can check out my #Times2Travel hash-tagged pictures at both Instagram & Facebook.

ABC = Fn (A, B)

(via Instagram https://ift.tt/2xnLZ99)

Your Adventure Biking Capability (ABC) is a function of your Ability (A) & the Bike (B) you ride.

ABC = Fn (A, B)

Accordingly, you can improve your ABC by either..

  1. Increasing Your Ability – picking up new skills, practicing the skills & thus building experience (muscle memory) in using the skills
  2. Using a Better Bike – a more purpose built bike, or adding any of the large number of accessories that will incrementally improve your bike – custom foot pegs, tires, etc.

The latter is the easy option – requires less effort & no practice. You just have to buy into the marketing stories of the product. I’m not saying they will not help at all. It does, incrementally.

Increasing your ability on the other hand involves learning, practicing & sweating it out building the muscle memory. But the impact this has on your ABC is multifold higher (3x – 5x). Also, ability is easily transferable to any bike you ride.

For most people, increasing our abilities should be the default strategy to improving our Adventure Riding Capability. Our investment of effort & resources will yield better overall results wrt to us becoming better riders. That’s exactly what I’m seen doing in the picture above with @bret.tkacs & @topgunindia.