Furious winds were thrashing the windowpanes of our family's 4th floor apartment. It was June and I'd just returned home from the forests of Pench and mountains of Kashmir. The stormy afternoon was a portent of happy times to come. In a week, I'd be chasing monsoons along the east coast. In three weeks, I'd be in the thick of monsoon in Kerala. Soon after, I'd be in Rajasthan, covering a monsoon festival for crying out loud. And I would end the monsoon chase on the glorious green slopes of Sahyadris. By October, I'd be soaked and satiated.

Sonki flowers and a view of Bhandardara reservoir from Ratangad, Maharashtra

Only trouble was that the erratic monsoon of 2016 had no plans of sticking with my plan. It's no surprise that I love monsoons. If you had any doubt, this Instagram series (#30ReasonstoloveMonsoons) should clear it. So when I saw the gale-force winds rocking my hometown, my anticipation was running through the roof.

Arriving at the coastal town of Vishakhapatnam on assignment, I was regretfully informed by my relatives that it had indeed been pouring cats and dogs, but only until I arrived. I drove through the lush forests of Araku valley (Eastern Ghats in full Monsoon Glory) where the effects of monsoons were fully visible but there wasn't a drop of rain to quench my thirst. Although, a week later, chugging out of the railway station towards my next destination, dark storm clouds hovered above the hills of Vizag. They poured down with a vengeance, as the city disappeared into the horizon.

Araku Valley, Andhra Pradesh

The previous year, I couldn't shake the rains off my trail. From January till December and from Ladakh till Turkey, unseasonal rains hounded me everywhere I went. It was as if the monsoons were chasing me. The tables had turned on me this year. Marking the beginning of my woes, the drought followed me to Kerala too.

* * *

It was July and we were traveling along the ancient River Nila, also known as Bharatapuzha in Kerala. The plan was to enjoy the rains and explore the vibrant culture the river has inspired for centuries. We stayed in gorgeous heritage houses which were hundreds of years old and witnessed intriguing art forms that were breaking both gender and caste barriers. Everything was good. Except, it rained everywhere in Kerala apart from a 10 kilometer radius around me, like I was carrying my own invisible shield. Our local hosts were as amused as I was exasperated.

Pothundi Dam, Nelliampathy, Kerala

"It was raining just yesterday!" said my hosts.

"It's pouring here," called another man from the next village.

"It was raining like all hell broke loose the last time we were here, which was merely weeks ago," gleefully rubbed in my fellow travellers.

For two whole weeks, rains eluded me like a mirage teasing a nomad in the desert. It was always within tantalising reach yet it never rained upon me. On the very last afternoon before I left Kerala, a perfunctory downpour was to be my best encounter with the monsoon in God's Own Country.

* * *

"But it's only July. Monsoon will last two more months, I'll meet the rains soon." I say to myself.

Amer Sagar Lake behind Amer Fort near Jaipur

August took me to Jaipur. I once visited Rajasthan in monsoons and have been dreaming of returning to the desert state when it rains, ever since. Yes, it rains in the desert and it is nothing like we can imagine. There's fresh greenery everywhere. I was there to photograph a "sawan" festival – a festival that's celebrated at the onset of the monsoon – Hariyali Teej. So I should get some rains, right? Wrong!

"Well, it has been raining till yesterday. We're surprised it's so sunny today", chuckles a lady in a colorful saree.

"Traditionally, it has always rained on the day of Teej. This year looks like an exception!" sympathetically adds another woman.

"Of course it is an exception, the rains have stopped conspiring with me this year!" I dejectedly reflect.

* * *

Karvy bloom inside Sanjay Gandhi National Park

Still believing in a happy outcome, I reminded myself I had one more month before the rains go away for the year. It was early September and I arrive in Mumbai with stars in my eyes. Mumbaikars are fed up of monsoon already, as evidenced by the angry curses floating in the twitterverse. But I was looking forward to the infamous rains, only to realize the monsoon has deserted the city of dreams too. The first two weeks of September were terribly humid. I hiked in the green valleys and on the slopes of Sahyadris but there isn't a drop of rain falling on my head. Instead, I’m sweating bucket loads due to Mumbai’s oppressive sultriness, even inside the lush forests of Sanjay Gandhi National Park. It’s unreal, that it is supposed to be monsoons.

Dhondane Waterfalls

Ready to book my ticket out of the terribly humid city, “One last hike”, I told myself. Along with a dear friend, we went hiking to Sagargad in Alibaug where the ruins of a small fort and a fantastic waterfall are the prime attraction. There’s a heavy mist, hanging low over the hills of Sahyadris. They look as alive as possible in a luxuriant coat of green. The rumble of a brimming cascade was encouraging. Soon the mist descended upon us and I could feel the crisp freshness of an impending downpour.

Dripping in sweat until then, the heavy rain cleared the salts clinging on to my face swiftly. The water tasted sweet in no time. My raincoat was tied tight to my waist; I wasn’t going to hide from the rare opportunity to enjoy the monsoon in wilderness. Looking at me facing upwards, as if thanking the heavens with my outstretched arms, “Happy?” my amused friend asks. I break into a huge smile. On our way back that evening, the sky turns a dark blue under the cover of a thick spread of storm clouds. We are treated to another round of heavy downpour.

I was soaking wet, at last! Phew.

Ratangad, the jewel of Sahyadris, was nothing more than a mandatory hike to be ticked off the Sahyadri bucket-list. Who comes to hike in Sahyadris and not climb a fort? No one. So there I was. But it turned out to be a parting gift from Sahyadris to me. Encompassing a whole range of surreal sights that included jagged peaks ensconced in swirling clouds, entire hilltops covered in the “Sahyadri special” – mass blooming of Sonki flowers, misty views of the expansive Bhandardara Dam waters and an unforgettable torrential downpour that briefly cleared up these views for us, my heart was brimming with joy at the unreal beauty of Sahyadris in monsoons.

“You say you love rain, but you open an umbrella and walk under it”, said someone wise. Not me! I lugged around my purple rain-jacket all over the place. Not once did I use it. At first, it never rained. Later, I didn’t want to escape the rain. I waited for rains for all of 3 months to no avail. Yet, who would’ve thought that the last week alone would give me more memories of relishing rains in pristine nature than I could have hoped for? If the weight of expectation takes the fun out of travel, the sheer uncertainty of circumstances adds an equal amount of gratification to whatever it is that we find.

My cravings of all things monsoon – fresh greenery, frolicking like a kid in gurgling streams, getting lost in unbelievably misty whiteouts, wildflowers that come to life in a sudden profusion, waterfalls and everything else – were gratifyingly met after weeks of tantalizing denials. Magic, just like happiness, is not a tangible affair that goes on and on. It’s an ephemeral moment in time that disappears the very next minute. But the permanence of that feeling could very well outlast a lifetime, I know the monsoon of 2016's will.

How were your monsoon adventures this year?
Tell me in the comments.

In an age where everything good should also be very quick, Mobile Phones are the perfect embodiment of our newfound impatience driving remarkable technological advances. The progression of the mobile phone camera from a blurry little addition to being the main feature today is astounding. It reflects how much we have come to expect from the nifty devices we carry in our pockets. With the phenomenal rise of mobile apps, and our burning desire to instantly share what we are seeing and experiencing means we demand more and more from our smartphones. I never imagined a day would come where I’d carry a proper tripod to shoot from a palm-sized phone. But that’s what I’ve been doing this past week.

Asus recently released a very sleek Zenfone 3 that’s built for photography. As a travel photographer, with features like Low Light, a competent Manual Mode and additional features like Super Resolution, I couldn’t wait to give it a try. After all, almost half the pictures I post to Instagram these days are taken from my Zenfone 2 Laser and I absolutely love the convenience of shooting and sharing on the go.

Let’s look at some of the features of Zenfone 3 camera as I hunt for secrets of Chennai, a city that never fails to surprise me with its eclectic history.

***

The lighthouse at the far end of Marina beach was a fantastic place I found while looking for Chennai’s hidden secrets. At the edge of the fishermen’s colony, I waited to the heavy traffic and used an additional ND filter to take really long exposures of the bright night. Even though both the traffic lights and the lighthouse light was excessive, the ND filter I held in front of the camera helped in getting smooth and bright streaks. (For those wondering, I used a Hoya 8-stop ND filter in front of the mobile camera with my hand.)

***

Royapuram, now at the periphery of Chennai has the distinction of having the first railway station of south India. It was opened in 1856 and is the oldest surviving railway station across the country today. Home to the fishermen community, Royapuram harbor and the beach side is filled with colorful fishing boats that set sail every morning and the coastline is littered with breakwaters that offer great views of the ocean and the land. It was hard to walk on the gigantic rocks but once I found flat rock at sunset, I set up my tripod to test the waters, figuratively!

To me, the biggest purpose of a Manual mode is to take long exposures. Using a 13-Second shutter speed I was able to get the lovely glaze over the ocean and I was able to capture the evening’s cool ambience by manually choosing a lower temperature instead of the warm colors the auto WhiteBalance was picking. Manual mode wasn’t a cursory addition; it actually gave me good control on how I wanted to capture the image.

The large aperture on the Zenfone 3 camera comes very handy. The f-stop goes as low as f2.0, which means there’s plenty of light reaching the sensor even at low lights. The sun was already down and the city lights were just flickering to life yet the camera was peacefully able to capture the scenery in a little less than 1 second.

Zoomed in view of the boy from the image above

{ Manual Mode ~ ISO 50 | f2.0| 10s }

The normal images resolution in Zenfone 3 is 23MP but it’s quadrupled for the images shot in Super Resolution mode. This creates incredibly detailed photos that retain as much information as possible and you can crop the parts later or you could just zoom in and look for the finer details. The picture in the inset to the left is a cropped version from the hi-res image above.

This is where things get really interesting. I was curious how it would behave in near black darkness. The upper limit of Zenfone 3’s shutter speed is 32Seconds, which means I could technically capture the galaxy with this on a clear night. Anyway, I couldn’t even see the waves clearly in front of me. It was here that I was genuinely blown away by the featured Sony IMX318 sensor’s capabilities. In that pitch darkness, the sensor was struggling no doubt but it was able to figure out the focus by itself and you could see the magic happening in the live view. There’s also the option to manually focus and I tried that with great results.

***

While Chennai’s Marina Beach is the most popular, locals flocks to Elliot’s beach in Besant Nagar than the overcrowded Marina. By the time I arrived at the beach, it was already dark. There was no ambient light apart from the brightly lit Ice Cream cart. Noticing a hawker selling those colorful blinky toys, I set up the camera to get the light trails as well. To get full use out of Zenfone 3, I’d reckon a tripod is a must!

At the human powered carousel in Elliot’s beach, I was keen on getting a clear shot of the operator yet also wanted to capture the motion. Now this is something I would’ve achieved easily with a DSLR. Surprisingly, Zenfone 3 wasn’t far too behind in producing a similar result. With manual focusing and a decent exposure time of 1/8th of a second, I was able to get this shot.

At Chennai’s Santhome church– short for St. Thomas’ church– I played with the camera’s low light sensitivity well after sunset. I was still shooting in Manual mode but even in M mode you can have the camera select its own settings. So I set up the phone on the tripod and pressed the shutter. For those who do not want to bother with manual settings after dark can actually let the camera work its low light magic by just setting it up on a tripod. As you can see, the image quality is remarkable despite such low light conditions.

***

Pulicat is a historic port town 60 kilometers away from Chennai on the edge of Pulicat Lake and Bay of Bengal. A thriving Dutch settlement for centuries, all that remains today of its past heritage are a rather well preserved Dutch cemetery and the lighthouse across the lake. The cemetery contains 22 tombs of various influential people and is now under the aegis of ASI. However, Pulicat has shot to fame due to the thousands of migratory birds, especially flamingoes that descend upon the brackish lake’s waters during winters.

The previous evening, I arrived at this lighthouse located at the village of Pulicat near Chennai well after dark. With a 10-second shutter speed, the camera was nicely able to autofocus and it captured the scene with almost no noise. Quite impressive for a smartphone!

We arrived at the cemetery just as the sun was setting and using the HDR Pro mode, I was able to capture both the colors in the sky and the details in the tombs. The image is quite realistic to begin with and has retained details across the dynamic range.

***

Low light performance is difficult to achieve, yes, but so is handling excessive light. This aspect gets forgotten frequently in smartphones and whenever there is too much light, especially something like city lights, the whole image goes for a toss with blown-out highlights. While using the Manual mode to get the action in long exposure shots, am pleased with the lack of worrying highlights in scenes with dynamic ranges. 

Also, another observation is that I was shooting continuously in hopes of capturing at least one stationary person before he slips away. I found that the camera was quite quick to move from shot to shot and there wasn’t any lag, which made sure I didn’t miss the rare moment of people being still for mere seconds before disappearing into the crowd. 

Summing up the whole shooting experience in few words – Excellent low light capabilities and swift performance. Also, keeping in line with Asus Zenfone’s winning USP, I’d say great features that offer total value for money!