Graffiti Selective Coloring

Dublin in Selective Colors, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

I took this shot near upper camden street, graffiti art done by Maser. You can see the original one here. I decided to try selective coloring on it. Have seen some real good ones on flickr. Trying to avoid photoshop :), I decided to do it in Adobe Lightroom (which btw is a great photo management software, only if it could be free). But after several tries, it didn't seem to work properly. Its very easy to start with, go to Brush tool, make it BnW and then erase the parts you wanna do selective coloring on. But somewhere midway, it seemed to just crash, not exactly crash crash but the eraser tool just won't work right, also cudn't switch between eraser n brush to correct minor details. After 4/5 half tries, time to go back to photoshop. Also was thinking Lightroom might be easier on memory n stuff doing simple selective coloring but no, it took ages n wait'd for seconds (n I'm using latest macbook pro). Photoshop - to my surprise :), lot more easier for selective coloring than lightroom. Import the image, do a background copy of the original layer. From adjustments, selective BnW and then make a mask layer on top of it. Now on the mask layer, just use the brush tool, to erase the parts you are interested in. You can zoom in and do minor details. If an error, switch to black background and erase to get the original parts back. This is important if you want to get the colors right precisely. It was like doing graffiti on original graffiti. The resulting image looked nicer, its bit rought on edges if you see the bigger size of it on flickr, but otherwise looks nice :). Also I only did it using mac trackpad, no mouse.

Belated Paddy's Day (with pics)

Did you had a fun St. Patrick's day. It was a great sunny day in Dublin and I went to see the parade and thanks to pix.ie, got a VIP pass for some great photo opportunity. Recently, I have started using pix.ie also for posting some photos, and plus side of it, it sorta also gives me insight into the local Irish photo community (not that it only irish :D) and some extra feedback is always nice. Check it out. More photos of paddy's day here.

DoF

No Skateboarding, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

From photowalk around Dublin. Photowalk's are good way to spend some quality time with my camera, otherwise it keeps biting dust. Glad I did first one past weekend. More to come!!

Ah enjoy pancake day :)

Snowboarding in Wicklow

Snowboarding in Wicklow, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

To start off, if you don't know, it normally doesn't snow in Dublin :) .. its mostly rainy n windy. But since last 2 weeks, the climate is indeed changing, probably the snowing melting from poles is getting to us.

Last weekend, it snow'd enough (actually can still see the snow up the mountains around Dublin) to do some snow sports. The picture above is Conor getting some good air on the ramp. It was a very good day with all the snow stuff. If you are in or around Dublin, hope you enjoyed the wonderful change of weather.

Here another one:

And finally a video I made last week:

HDR Comparison

Recently, I have been doing bit of HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography or post-processing as you may call it. Normally, I am not very fond of post-processing, am more of a in-camera shot kinda person or mebbe becoz I just can't do photoshop'ing.

Over the Christmas, we did few hikes around the Dublin mountains.

Here are two shots of the same place, first one is in-camera shot:


and here is the HDR processed one:


Which one do you like?

M. Gladwell talkin abt communication

Frm N95

Dublin Metblogs Wants MOAR

Metblogs Recruiting Poster, originally uploaded by seanbonner.

Isn't this the best recruiting poster you have ever seen :), atleast for me. So, I also write/blog/rant/manage for Dublin Metblogs, which is part of the global network of cities "Metroblogging". And Sean (n HQ team) created this awesome recruiting poster; so if you live in Dublin and would like to be part of our team, Check this Come Blog With Us.

Spread my wings n Fly away

Spread my wings, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

Last weekend, we went to see Rose festival in Raheny. Here is a shot of one of most beautiful flower :)

Baile Átha Cliath - Dublin - Town of the Hurdled Ford

Brucified - Springsteen @ Dublin 08

Bruce Springsteen, Dublin, RDS, 23.5.08, originally uploaded by scooter.john.

Last weekend, I went to see Bruce Springsteen "Boss", start of the european tour, at RDA Arena in Dublin. We had pitch tickets and were quite close to the stage. And it was one of the best concert I saw, brilliant, songs, music, energy, the band, bruce himself, the whole arena was filled with energy as long as he played.

Some more shots from the show:

The beginning - This particular camera shot was amazing, sun set on background and the boss shadow

he was totally enjoyin the crowd, as u can see :)

great great music, energy

end, but not really, they played loads of songs until drop tried, the band "e street band" were amazing

one of the final songs, so much energy at his age, damn.. we were just tired of jumping :)

Eye on Dublin Dump

Some of the Dublin shots from last few months.

To The South

Last weekend, after coming back from the west, next day we decided to head little bit south of Dublin, town called Bray Head, for a day hike. One doesn't get nice sunny weather out here everyday, so gotta make use of it as much as possible. So we hop-on onto the train (half an hour from city center). And as we started to get close, cudn't see the sea anymore or the sun and was getting more n more foggy n misty. We started walking towards the beach n broadway walk and it was almost freezing :) n misty. It looked like this:


So we decided to have some warmth by drinking coffee and by then we started see a bit of sun over the hill but it was still heavily misty n foggy like 50-100 mts over us.


Still unsure, we decided to have a walk up the hill and see how it looks. And that was best of best decisions :) .. it started to get clear, sunny, warm, less windy.. almost like we went to different place


Now we were over the misty n foggy weather alongwith the sun :D (gotta say this again.. we don't get so much sun out here). And it was one of most scenic n surreal moments, was just amazing - the view, weather.


And we spent almost 3/4 hours hiking all over the hill (almost to next town - Greystones). Amazing how weather plays.


People enjoyin the sun over the Bray Head.

My fav. shot of the day:


And oh thats Bray Head Hill, n as you can see, its not that high and difference of weather was almost unbelievable.. one of best days in Ireland :)

Window to Dublin

Window to Dublin, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

Happy Christmas

Def. nothing wrong in saying "Happy Christmas" which is the way people wish in Dublin, I always thought it should be "Merry Christmas" .. anyway .. thats not the point of the post. Its been quite an eventful christmas i must say; if you are following my previous posts; i haven't attended that many christmas parties, lunch's, dinners, night outs and all related stuff. Thou' i missed the Chriskindlmarkt's (christmas markets) from Germany; but i suppose the mold (or mulled) wine (just like Gluhwein) is keeping me not to miss them too much. In last 2 dinners i went; i just had mold wine :D

Its quite a busy season in dublin, the streets are packed to brim (i wudn't say it unless i really mean it, they r really really packed), at all times of the day. Also, its a big, sorta tradition or mebbe not a tradition but def. big, to go out tomorrow to local bars and pubs and drink a lot :) .. no big news .. ha'an.. its ireland.. so my friend suggested that i should go to some pub tomorrow and get myself a good old fashioned hang over for chritmas day .. loving it :)) .. will update on that after that.

I hoping to do some xmas shopping tomorrow and i am relying on that people will not shop tomorrow that much compared to what i saw yesterday n so .. cudn't even step inside store .. hopefully there are not many last minute shopper's like me .. which again i highly doubt .. we'll see that tomorrow ..

hope u all r having a wonderful xmas time also .. share the xmas feeling with everyone .. and have a nice, safe, warm, snowy christmas :D

Merry Christmas

So contuning on my last post about xmas parties .. in some sense i am enjoying all of it .. last night we went to see the movie "I am not there", based on Bob Dylan's life n songs; the movie was good, but bit confusing .. they never once mentioned Bob Dylan and sometimes it just felt whether it all makes sense; thou i did enjoy Cate Blanchet's character for bob.

We had some great carving for mexican food after movie, surpringly there aren't that many mexican places to go, the first one we tried to go was a mix of italian and mexican .. am sure they won't be good in any .. how can u mix those two best cuisines .. Anyway we went to next one on George's Street and it ended up being booked for whole evening and we didn't knew of any other place. Following Kathleen's idea, we went n booked a table in a Lebanese Resturant (pics below) called Byblos.. such a full filling meal .. delicious; and we were so stuffed, we didn't vene looked for dessert menu thou we didn got see some belly dancing as dessert, if i might say :D

DSC_0016, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

Been a while

4 weeks since my last post; i wanted to post something last night/morning, but internet was not working; thou i am sober now, whichever is better. So wats going with me in Irish land. Last weeks have been busy in several ways, had few presentations to give and the dry runs for those never went very well, so had to spent even more time in polishing the slides; in the end both presentations were good. In between those, its xmas time and to be true, am kinda sick of going to xmas or related parties; but i still have to force myself not to go to one.

Working in a university (phd student/research) has it benefits :) .. so I/we started with

1. xmas lunch with just our own group .. extending until late night
2. evening drinks with people from just our floor, to have more collaboration/interaction .. turned out be a whole night affair
3. xmas party from the CS department .. extending until 7 in morning and for some other friends, going on until 7 in evening of following day :)
4. mould wine n mince pies evening from student advisor at our dept.
5. xmas party from the research lab i work in
6. after xmas parties of people who i knw in other departments.. eg. conway
7. and yesterday xmas/new-year's party by a friend

this is all in last 4 weeks, along with work n presentations, along with some drink evening with colleagues on odd days also; can imagine why i am sick of going to another one of those.. next week, am sure there is something from friends in other dept. but i have TO avoid going there. Thou' all of them were great fun. One of the best's :) times .. thanks all ..

Happy Halloween OOOOOAAHHH

some pics from our halloween party ->

Group Shot


Coolest Costume .. in symphony


actually he had a cool costume too, he had like a huge coffin around
him, probably too tired to carry it all around :)


The facebook's zombie :)


Red Stars


Guinness is the imprtant one in the picture

Summer in Autumn

I have been a bit lazy to write a real post for quite sometime now, there are quite few reasons for it apart from just laziness :)) which i won't go into details of.

The summer (actual summer months) in Dublin were like rainy season or more like all-time-pouring season, so it was also not helping in motivating to write anything. But finally the summer is back in autumn in Dublin. Isn't it great :))

Ultimate Frisbee

I have joined the summer league for Ultimate Frisbee here in Dublin, to have some summer (thou its hard to describe what irish summer is like) fun and further to get some sports done too :) .. As per the sport, if you don't know what is it, looks at what wikipedia says here about it. I would say its just pure fun to play. Thou' in the league, its a bit more professional and learning more pro rules and strategies for defense and offense. I would give the credit to Brad for introducing the sport to me, but i suppose never had the chance to play with him in Munich. Thou' last summer/autumn, did played some with friends back in Munich. Play it if you have a chance.. for fun and sports both. Enjoy the summer sun!!

MOVED

, originally uploaded by xion.

Few weeks ago, I posted about sharing some news, forgot about it myself :). But now time is ripe, so here it is.. Last month (after a wonderful & never-ending free time in Munich, trips across europe etc.). I decided to take my new research job and hence move to Dublin. From the land of famous german beer to the land of equally famous Irish beer and pubs :)), DUBLIN. Have heard a lot about the city in recent years, so expectations are high. Till now, in last 6 weeks, things are smooth, ok red-tapism is everywhere.. but the transition has been smooth. Can't say much about the city from my point view, still have to explore it. But it def. has a vibe to it. And yeah, the weather changes so equickly .. even before you can open your eyes. Enjoyin' the start, n hopefully will write more about it in coming weeks or months or years.. as it goes.

As per Munich (can't finish without mentioning it), its still like next to me, n will be forever.

And finally, I am going to Delhi next week for a month.. relaxing times.. and the good food :)

Craic