The Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge. I was trying to go for a different angle, but keep it distinctive, anyways.

Another visit to my sister, one in which we did every touristy thing we could: went to the top of the Rockefeller Center, walked the Brooklyn Bridge and went to Times Square. Pictures will definitely follow.

The funny thing is, in all my gazillion visits to New York over the past few years, this was the first time I saw any of these things. And it struck me again just how famous New York is, how much a part of the popular imagination. I prefer San Francisco myself, but I have to admit, New York gave rise to everything that we now know as a cliche.

Crystalline

The streetside jewelery sellers on Powell street, near my dear cable cars.

Synagogue in Kochi (Cochin)

The synagogue in Jewtown in Cochin, Kerala. I believe its the oldest one in India.
They are very strict about the attire of the people who enter, I was dressed okay (in a skirt), but my husband's shorts were deemed too short (!) and we couldn't go in. It's a beautiful exterior though.

Commercial Street, Bangalore

Commercial Street in Bangalore, on a wet rainy day in November.
It always amazes me that people drive there.

Waiting for the Cable Car

One of my favourite things to do in San Francisco is ride the cable cars. Up and down Powell street, to Mason or Hyde. Passengers squealing, wind rushing and the crazy streets of San Francisco everywhere. Here's the Bay Bridge, there's the Bay, you never know what you'll see when the road dips.



But, you have to wait to get on the cable car at Powell street (Or Hyde Street, which is worse, which is why I usually get on at Mason). These girls were dealing with the waiting exactly like my sister I would have-I reading, she watching me read (she may disagree with my reading of events).



Or you can just go ahead and have some fun.

Vernal Falls in the Summer

Vernal Falls, taken from the mist trail. Yosemite falls dries out to a trickle in the summer, but Vernal and Nevada falls keep on flowing. You can hike up to the base of vernal falls, to a foot bridge, easily enough. Then comes the crazy part, where you hike up 700 feet in 0.2 miles-all straight up steps cut into the rock. My cousin bounded up lightly and my husband wasn't too far behind, but I was struggling. Puffing and panting like I was 20 years older than I am.

Anyway, every time I take a picture in Yosemite, I think of Ansel Adams hauling his large format camera and photographic plates up all these paths. He may have had a mule, but other than that, it was just him. And photographic plates-he had one shot. One, and on a metal plate.

Needless to say, my pictures cannot even approach his pictures, and I used a Canon digital Rebel, that my husband carried because I couldn't. I love Yosemite though, and one of my dearest goals is to photograph it in ways that it hasn't been already (not that this counts). These days, being too sincere is definitely not acceptable, and nothing is or should be sacred. The thing is, Yosemite makes me feel sincere.

Snow on the Rocks

Taken on winter hike in Sequoia National Park. It was the first time I had ever walked through snow, and it was a good time, shuffling along knee-deep in snow, with no other people but us for miles and miles around.

Sequoia and King's Canyon don't get the kind of publicity Yosemite does-which is sad because they are beautiful wild parks that represent native Californian forest so well. And if you're into that kind of thing, I believe you can find the point in the 48 contiguous states where you are farthest from a road in King's Canyon. I do think that these parks are at their absolute best in winter, when their wild, lonely, stark beauty is highlighted by quiet and snow.

A Boatman on the Backwaters

This was taken on the backwaters in Alappuzha, or Alleppey as it is more commonly known. The backwaters are sublime, beautiful, quiet and almost otherworldly.




However, a lot of people have heard of them, and they are now choked with houseboats-aesthetic and appropriately ethnic, but still, painfully ubiquitous. Who am I to judge though, tourism is likely the dominant industry in the area, and keeps the local people employed and solvent. If that means more of the floating palaces, so be it I suppose. Many of the locals still use the backwaters to commute, and all the houses and fields lining the backwaters have boats tethered outside instead of motorbikes or scooters.

A Lazy Sunday

A special weekend triple: these are some pictures I took while visiting my sister in New York last year. It was Sunday, and warm, and we were lazing by the river, as were these people. The odd thing about New York for me is that it has always been warm when I have visited. It's really strange, because I've been many times, and at many times of the year, including Christmas, but it's always been warm. My sister assures me that it can be cold enough to severely endanger exposed limbs, but to me this is New York-warm, people out and about, always doing something. The guy socializing with his bike, the old couple with their companionable separateness and the young couple with their shared book.

Taken with a Canon digital Rebel XT

The Golden Gate Bridge

Subject of many photographs, many in silhouette. Here's another one, the golden gate through a hazy dreamy sunset, taken from Berkeley.
Taken with a Canon digital Rebel XT.