This post has been a long time coming, but… Well, it’s here now. 24th Feb 2012 marked the date when I saw one of my all time favourite band live. In Concert. Unadulterated.
Their music is purely acoustic based and the duo Rodrigo and Gabriela are a magical marvel with the guitar. You’ll see what I mean in the videos below.
The energy and electricity of their music can really be felt when you are standing there in the crowd and the strum of the guitar and the bass hits your ear drums. It is truly something else.
Not allowed to carry any photographic equipment, I tried to capture the essence of who these guys are with a few iPhone shots.
The images and video you see below are all shot on an iPhone 3GS. Images edited using Snapseed on an iPhone 3GS. Video edited using Splice on an iPhone 3GS. Blogged using the Wordpress app on an iPhone 3GS. You get the picture!
To know more about this awesome band, check out their website: http://www.rodgab.com
by Hetal Shah on March 11, 2012
in Life
What are we without our emotions?
If you listen to majority of the spiritual speakers and thinkers, they preach the principle of the “no emotion state” of mind. This is the stage where you are not reactive with your emotions, but are in full control of your senses and emote when you want to emote.
Think about that for a minute. “Emote when you want to emote.” It’s almost a barbie doll mentality.
The pleasure and pain that one feels reacting to a situation can be so powerful a tool that it can cause catharsis in an individual. And if that very same tool became a controlled machine, would we still be as connected with ourselves as we are today?
Admittedly, some of the root causes of our dissatisfaction and suffering lie within our emotional state, but some of the best life experiences and moments of joy also lie within the same spectrum.
What’s really required is an understanding of the nature of our emotional states and how each state can transform an individual to become a better human being. After all, without that understanding, aren’t we not qualifying ourselves as just another animal that purely exists?
by Hetal Shah on February 28, 2012
in Life
“What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.” – Sandy Puc
Oftentimes I really do wonder what I’m giving up today to make today possible. Then I realise, if today didn’t happen, the regrets I would have of all those things that aren’t going to happen is what I’m giving up. The disappointment of not living the future as I see it. That’s what I would be giving up. So every day that goes by, I want to make sure that I live that future. Now.
The importance of today has been very marginalised by the promise of an illusory tomorrow – an event that is yet to happen, may not happen, but that which the human mind has already created, lived, experienced, devoured, and relived a thousand times over. That is the promise of tomorrow. And that illusion is what I am constantly exchanging for today.
If tomorrow is the day I allocate for my family,
Then I have exchanged them for today.
If tomorrow is the day I allocate for my conversation with God,
Then I have exchanged Him for today.
If tomorrow is the day I allocate for my own personal connection,
Then I have exchanged myself for today.
If tomorrow is the day I allocate to living a fuller life,
Then I have exchanged my life for today.
Tomorrow is today’s future, and yesterday is today’s past.
The only reality is today. And it is the only time we really have.
[This post has been inspired by a recent Zach and Jody blog post - two very inspirational human beings I look up to, and am learning a lot of life's basic principles by just reading/hearing/watching them live it.]
My recent trip to India in January was an experience to say the least. It was as much a spiritual journey as it was a physical and emotional one. More on that in my future posts.
I’ve never been much of a photographer, but have loved the medium as a form of expression and story telling. As I’ve started to understand the art form more deeply, I’ve been drawn to certain types of expressive elements, predominantly photojournalistic and documentary styles.
And on this trip, I tried to experiment with one such aspect of story telling. To set the scene, we were on our way to our “dorms” in a place called Palitana – for Jainas, it holds a very intimate and spiritual place in their heart. So, we had an hour long car ride from the railway station to our dorm, and whilst others decided to make use of this golden opportunity to catch up on much needed sleep, I took out my camera to capture life on the streets of India.
The idea was to shoot certain passing moments as we drove by, and put together a reel of how multi-faceted life is on these streets – even when seen through the gap. It never ceases to amaze.
A few weeks ago, I went shooting around Tower Hill in London (I’m getting into this whole creative photography thing you know. Perhaps mid-life crisis, I suppose!)
So on my wanderings, I happened to go through Borough Market where I came across this fantastic gentleman selling oysters. Richard Haward is the seventh generation oysterman of his family, and took on the family tradition from the age of eighteen. Their family have been in the trade since the 1700s, and his son seems set to continue the tradition.
When probed to tell more about his family heritage, Richard just grunts and carries on with his sales pitch. Ofcourse, he doesn’t need to say anything as he is the only oyster vendor in the market, and when I got there, there was already a queue to buy this fresh delicacy at £5 a pop!
The few images below try to convey a sense of what Richard’s tradition and business is all about.
For more images from my Tower Hill shoot, check out my album
