369 - 19th - The lateral effect

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 19th Dec'08

I have emphasized before too about the effect of changing the angle of view. Things suddenly start looking different and strange.

Take this photo for example. Normally the leaves of this tree would look like this. But if you stand up on your toes, balance yourself on the nearby stone pavement, take your eye level to the level of the leaves and after five tough minutes of focusing press the click button, you get a really amazing perspective of an otherwise normal looking tree branch :)

P.S Do not forget to click in the image and see the full of it

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368 - 18th - A "sweet" heart

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 18th Dec'08

Food is a category which has been least exposed to my camera. Though I have clicked a lot of images of fruits and vegetables but when it comes to the "cooked" form of food, I don't think I would have clicked any more than ten photos. So when I saw this bakery in Toluca with the front window all lined up with delicious "wedding" cakes I though it would be a nice idea to experiment. I entered the shop, took the permission of the owner and started clicking.

When I was done, the owner called me and told she wanted to show me something. I went to the counter to find a big album of cakes. She thought that I was interested in buying cakes and was taking photos to show them back home so that people can choose. I explained her my motive of clicking photos, gave a polite thanks and hopped out of the shop.

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366 - 16th - Vitral

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 16th Dec'08

Vitral is an art usually found in Europe and is created using small tainted pieces of glass. You can see all sorts of different shapes made of colored glass - eagles, humans, owls, plants and buildings. The one you can see above in the image is a fusion of man and fire. It was set up at the "Cosmo Vitral" in downtown Toluca.

I stopped there on the way back from Zitacuaro for some time and visited this place. It had vitral all over the place, on the roof, on the walls, everywhere. An amazing form of art; really.

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347 - 27th - Among the clouds

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 27th Nov'08

We were climbing down towards the base of the volcano at Toluca while the sun was setting down at the horizon. The distant mountains were slowly getting lost in a blanket of clouds and the colors at the horizon had started turning into a different shades of purple. The air was getting chilly we were the only people left behind in the curvy maze of roads on the mountain.

After two minutes of constant pestering, my friend finally allowed me to get out of the car and take some shots of the almost dark horizon.

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345 - 25th - Orange hamlets

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 25th Nov'08

The base camp at the mountains of Toluca was built at a height of some four thousand meters and is a house to some local cops who take care of the people who come to visit the volcanic lakes situated on top. People who come here park their cars at the base and then start climbing up. The only shop in the 10 km radius where you can find something to eat is available at this place.

The small orange buildings look beautiful with the green forest and the blue city of Toluca in the background.

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315 - 26th - Nevado de Toluca

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 26th Oct'08

Nevado de Toluca is a large volcano in central Mexico, located about 80 kilometres west of Mexico City near the city of Toluca. It is generally cited as the fourth highest of Mexico's peaks. There are two crater lakes on the floor of the basin at about 4,200 m, the larger Lago del Sol (Sun Lake) and the smaller, but deeper, Lago de la Luna (Moon Lake). A road runs into the caldera to the lakes, making this perhaps the most accessible major Mexican peak.

The one you can see in the photo is the small lake - Lage de la Luna. I trekked all the way up to the volcano and then down to the crater in around 4+ hours. The place was cold, silent and perhaps one of the most beautiful natural settings I have ever seen.

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305 - 16th - Shiny flowers

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 16th Oct'08

I saw these most unusual kind of flowers while trekking up the mountain of Nevado de Toluca. Even though it was overcast and not enough sunlight was falling on the ground, these flowers were shining distinctively all over the place. They had leaves like cactus and a sizeable core with shades of purple.

The ones which bloomed were looking as in the picture, while others who had lived their lives were dry and their cores were split open right in the middle. Strange things nature has in store.

P.S There is one thing which I have decided to change from this post onwards. If you can tell what it is, please leave a comment :)

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304 - 15th - The small lake

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 15th Oct'08

There lay a small lake just at the base of a Grey rocky mountain, with patches of green around it & some random pieces of rocks scattered in the middle. As I was walking past it the sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds and the shadows of the clouds were sweeping past me and on all the other things around me.

It was so quiet and serene that you could actually hear the flapping of the wings of a bird flying over your head. You could hear yourself breathing and the wind blowing past you. You could hear the thoughts breezing past your mind. A kind of unusual, satisfying peace.

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302 - 13th - In the shade of the mountains

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 13th Oct'08

At the first look, this photo will give you an image of a huge mountain with some sundry small things filling up the rest of the frame. The sheer size of the Grey mountain on the right of the frame seems to overshadow the significance of almost everything else in the picture. But if you enlarge the picture by clicking on it and see the full view, you will observe that there are three main things which catch your attention. What are they, I leave it for you to decide.

I took this picture while trekking up the mountain of Nevado de Toluca.

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301 - 12th - Bird of paradise

Originally clicked and uploaded by - Pratosh Dwivedi - 12th Oct'08

I saw this unusual looking flower in a town called Valle de Bravo. We stopped at the place for some snacks and parked the car in a nearby parking when I noticed these flowers growing right in the center of the parking area. My friend told me that they are called "Birds of Paradise" and indeed they gave the appearance of small birds.

Their unusual shape and vivid color combination gave them a type of beauty which is something very different from what one expects from flowers in general.

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Click here to see the flower from another angle