Seventy one

Today was Holi, colour's festival. My daughter was too excited about it. She got up so early and was asking me, can we fast forward the time. What a question! A kid has all possibilities. When I was a kid, I was so sure that, one day I will see God, and wanted to ask for 3 boons. I was confused about what to ask, so I thought long and wrote down three boons and kept below the pillow. These infinite possibilities slowly disappear as they grow up. Older you get, more pessimistic you become. I need to find a way to be more optimistic and think like a kid. 

Holi

Gauri wanted to play the Holi. All preparations were done. Herbal colors, water sprayer were bought and kept ready. On holi morning, she was very excited.  I applied some oil on her face, hair and hands. Now she is ready. I too applied oil and got ready. One set of cloths, water bottle and snacks were kept in a cover. I was in dilemma, whether to carry camera or not. Holi, is color (dust) and water, both are not good for a DSLR. Finally I decided to take it. I placed the camera in a plastic cover and made a two openings for lens and viewfinder. I mounted Canon 85 mm 1.8 on my Canon 50D, a fast prime lens, should be good for portraits and blur the background.  I set my camera, in AV mode (aperture priority), F 2.2, iso 400 and +1/2 EV ,spot metering, auto focus in AI servo mode and continues shouting. Due to plastic cover, I may not able to change the settings in a holi setup! My anticipation was perfect. As soon as we entered the battle field, colors were flying and water was sprayed from everywhere. Gauri was with one of my friend and I could concentrate on photography!! Still Gauri was not very comfortable with so many unknown people and hence she wanted to put colour only to me!! . Very soon water sprayed on my lens barrel, and also I could see some colours on my lens. One hand was engaged in managing the Gauri and so I had to shoot with one hand only. Using plastic cover was very clumsy, the finger used to slip from shutter. Very often opening made for view finder was out of alignment, and hence many were blind shots. I shot for 20 min, and later I kept camera back in my scooter box (hand was paining and was worried about lens). After that, whole morning I enjoyed playing holi and loved the way Gauri played the holi and she enjoyed thoroughly. Few pictures are here from this small adventure. ( Double click on the photo, you can have a slide show!!)

My friend Shreya!!

Gauri getting into ground......

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