Horsely Hills

The last days of March ended with a flurry of holidays that had piled from my vacation list. Being the last month of the financial year, I had to exhaust my leaves. One of these days, I went to Horsely Hills early in the morning with Roshan. Three hours away from Bangalore and half an hour from Madanapalle, Horsely Hills is one of the few tourist spots of Andhra Pradesh. We were aiming to catch the sunrise from the hills and also to get a glimpse of the birds who nest in the Rishi Valley. I was carrying my manual SLR Nikon F80 with me and my sketching materials. We had reached just in time for the sun to come out and our only company was a dog barking from far off trying to keep us away from his owner's premises. The morning mist was warding off slowly slating the silhouette of the hills around. I tried taking a panorama shot and a few of the sunrise.

Click on the image to see the full panorama shot.

After roaming around in the small zoo/park nearby we had some tea at a stall and got to know about the other side of the hill. We drove to the given direction and found a flat eroded hill that follows the thick woods spread around called Gangotri. There were beer bottle glass thrown all around and as expected the scraped names of the tourists were everywhere who like their names to live longer than themselves. But, this didn't mar the wide view of woods and the inbetween chirp and calls of birds coming out of it. There was one particular rock that shone beautifully in the morning sun. It's red glistened and magnified the yellow sun moving over the grey hills. After taking a few photographs I decided to draw it too while Roshan went following the birds.

Courtesy: Roshan Ali

Courtesy: Roshan Ali

After taking a good look around, we went back to the guesthouse to have some breakfast. Very hesitatingly, we ordered some coffee there after being very sure that the tea wouldn't be good. But, to exceed our expectations they gave us a coffee that can be made no worse. As Roshan said, you need special talent to make such a bad coffee. Spare the coffee, the morning trip had a satisfying aftertaste.

I got my film roll developed and with each year passing by the number of scratches passed during the developing process has been increasing and the number of days taken to do so. Sadly, using manual SLR is becoming a dying practice. The dark room techniques would soon be left in the dark. But, I shall stick to my ideology that anyone who is beginning to learn photography should always start with a manual SLR. Then only one realises the importance of each photograph clicked. It becomes about taking 36 judicious good shots than 3600 wasted shots on a memory card. And not to forget, shooting from a manual SLR builds the confidence in your photography skill. You don't have to check your display screen to judge your shots. When your camera makes the clicking noise, you should know that you have got it right. Once you are good with a manual camera, then owning a digital SLR seems justified. Let's see for how long I can afford continue with this old school habit.