camera

Dove

Ranjit Singh, , , , , Leave a comment

Dove is the symbol of peace. It is a very gentle bird. Although it resembles pigeon but unlike pigeons, it lives in the wild. During hot summer days here in North india, you can hear its voice among the trees. It comes down to search the seeds and prefers to sit on the branches of trees with sparse foliage.
I located some of these sitting on one tree and using the newly purchased Canon SX60 hs camera, zoomed on them. Very difficult to still the hand during zoom but somehow managed to capture these pics. Hope you will like them.

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The 7 million dollar cameraman

Ranjit Singh, , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Legendary photographer and film producer, Mohinder Singh Dhillon, who is now eighty years old is fondly fondly called “The seven million dollar cameraman” due to his moving coverage of the Ugandan famine. His short clip has profound effect and instantly help raising 7 million dollars aid.
He is Kenya’s leading film maker, Mohinder Dhillon, was knighted by the Order of Saint Mary of Zion during a ceremony at the Royal Artillery Headquarters in Woolwich, U.K. on November 12th 2005.
Now he is writing his autobiography which is named aptly as “Death wish Dhillon” because of his daring exploits in the battlefields during Yemen’s struggle for liberation from British colonial forces.

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He hails from Baburpur in Patiala district of Punjab. His father was first literate person in their village and went to Kenya to work in the railways. He joined him in 1947 when he was a 17 year old boy fresh from the village who has not gone anywhere till then and loved the cock fights.
His father bought a camera from stock clearance sale, a basic second hand Brownie having a fixed speed and aperture. It was the beginning of the life long photographic career and fame spanning 60 years.
Although he was called Death wish Sir Dhillon, he says laughs away saying “no one wants to die”
Another of his sensitive exploits is his 1984 Ugandan famine expedition. It moved the world and helped collecting 100 dollars help.
He is also called Mo lovingly.

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Dhillon clicks Kenya’s founding father President Jomo Kenyatta beings interview

Custodian of the Past

Ranjit Singh, , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

One is surprised and awestruck at the single minded passion of the person. His name is Narinderpal Singh Panesar. He is 43 years old businessman and belongs to Ludhiana district in Punjab. He has the mind boggling collection of antiques which include rare coins, antique cameras, international currency notes and other materials. These are mostly related to Sikh history but in addition to all sorts of antiques. He has collected these in 30 years. He wishes to set up Sikh museum which shall have no parallel.

His collection includes 55000 coins which belong to ancient, medieval, British India, Sikh misls of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Patiala, Nabha, Jind and Malerkotla.

He has rare stamps. Oldest stamp is of golden temple which was released in 1935 on the silver jubilee ceremony of George V. Also stamp issued by Pakistan in 2008 on martyrdom day of Sikh Guru Arjan Dev. Many stamps have gold, silver, silk, Khadi, tin, chocolate and Swarovski on them. Some are perfumed and embroidered.

Manuscrpits are from Gurumukhi, Sanskrit, Persian Arabic or Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam. There is Adhyatam Prakash Granth  dating back to 1668 AD. Also there are paintings belonging to Mughal, Sikh, Pahari, Kishangarh and East India Company.

There was the news that due to financial problems in setting up the Museum, he has decided to sell the antiques which are non-Sikh category with heavy heart. He is disappointed over the attitude of Government and SGPC.

Here are some of the sample photos taken from the article in Times of India.

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Frustration Principle

Ranjit Singh, , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

When we observe the trees and plants around us, we find that even the plants of the same species bear different sizes and shapes. In fact no two trees are alike even if they are growing near one another. This is the result of the intense competition and many traits that trees have to face and acquire.

Every tree tries to reproduce to propagate its lineage. For this it produces seeds. But this is not the end of the story. The seeds have to be broadcast away from the tree preferably to a place where the parent tree does not have its influence over the resources required for growth. To scatter the seeds the tree shall in ideal case try to grow very tall and branches at the top.

Now take its another trait. Every tree has to harvest the sun energy. For optimal absorption of the energy the tree shall desire to have the design in which branches shall be horizontal and non-overlapping. This way every leaf will act as a energy cell.

Third trait is mechanical stability. For this the tree shall want minimum horizontal branches because the branches shall try to destabilize it.

Now as the saying goes no one gets the complete world. The foremost truth about the life is compromise. So when all the traits compete simultaneously there is compromise. The mixing ratios of the traits is the result of the helplessness of the tree. This behavior has been called “Frustration Principle” by biologist Karl Niklas. Niklas used computer models in which he kept the two traits constant and varied the third one. The results were as expected but when he mixed the traits in different ratios the final shape of the tree was like we see in reality around us.

This can be compared to smart cellphones which have a camera also. Although camera does good work but it cannot replace the stand alone camera. Similarly we have gadgets which can do many jobs but they are good for picnics where it is not the refinement but collection of many tools which come as handy but are not as perfect in quality as the individual tool shall be. But then who wants to take a lots of tools for picnic?