Experiments with Adobe Photoshop

Hey people! Today i have some something new !! I downloaded Adobe Photoshop CS2 version 9.0 from Adobe website and did some experiments. Adobe is a wonderful software, infact the best when it comes to photo editing.

Here are some of the experiments that i did with photoshop today..




This image was produced using the Cut Out effect.


You can learn photoshop in just two hours. Its that simple !!! They have some online video tutorials as well.



Lets see some more pictures that were modified using Adobe Photoshop.



This was made using the Glow effect.

There is one place that i found which is for Photoshop Newbies They have some Easy Photoshop Video Tutorials For Digital Photographers.



Let me show you some more experiments that i did..

This picture i have modified using the diffuse effect in Adobe Photoshop.

The above picture is my favorite, and that is because it give a painting kind of effect.
I didnt knew thats there can be some many things you can do with Adobe Photoshop !!



This was made using the Smudge stick effect.

Well one thing i have learned with Adobe Photoshop is that not all the effects will work equally well on all the pictures !! This means that depending on your picture background and amount of light your picture has, different effects will look good on different pictures !!!

Well, you may want to know from where i got photoshop. I am using their try out version which is available at their site for free.

Hope you liked my experiments. Please give me some feedback or some more ideas with using Adobe Photoshop. I am loving it !!!

Algonquin Park - Most Adventourous Trip !!!

Hey people, today i will share some experiences of my life's most adventourous trip with all of you and why its so adventurous, lets see !!
We 5 people planned for a trip to Algonquin Park, which is around 7-8 hours journey from Toronto.
We had to catch the bus at 7.00 in morning. 3 of us( Me, Farhan & Amjath ) reached by 6.45 and there was absolutely no clue as to where the two others were..
The Bus arrived at 7.15 and we thought that only 3 of us are going for trip !!
And guess what - as the Bus started, our two lazy frends came rushing ( Sandeep & Sumit ) - my God there is a limit to being lazy !! anyway, so we started off smoothly.. After two hours our Bus stopped and we enjoyed Hot coffee at Tim Hortons. We had already started enjoying the Fall Colours !! The next stop of the Bus was "Honeymoon Lake" and one of our friends Farhan had some honeymoon making with the Lake !!
Actually, what happened - he was walking on the Wooden Board and asking Sumit to take his picture as he will be walking backwards. And suddenly, in a fraction of second, he was in Lake desperately looking for help !!
Now, on the other side, Amjath was busy taking my picture. But this guy Amjath is really so Cool..
Guess what, he calmly said to me," Hey Ankit, you know this guy Farhan, he just fell into lake "
And i was shocked !! A streamer was nearby which saved him.. Otherwise i was about to jump and save him ( now i am saying so, but at that time we were all afraid !!! )

After this we came back to Bus, and guess what everyone was asking this guy,"How was the water- Was is Cold ?"
One chinese guy asked," Hey man why you were swimming using back stroke ?"

Now we had something to talk about in bus and we enjoyed a lot with this guy !!

There were some more stops and we were enjoying the Fall colours..

.. All the leaves had gone yellow, orange it was amazing !!!




Well, only thing to complain was the movie that we had to watch in the Bus..
Well, you know why? it was a chinese tour bus and we indians didnt knew a single word in chinese !!! Anyway, we managed the torture !!!

Finally, we were about to reach our home in around 1 hour and as i already said that this was the most adventourous journey, so something strange happened again ! The bus driver left us at Missasagua instead of Toronto, and guess what - the tour travel Guide ( Frank) who was with us all-through the journey
went running away somewhere..
We 5 people were stranded in such a cold night and had to come to Toronto via Taxi Cab !!

Well it seems that the journey has finished, but wait, there is something which is to go wrong again..
We got down from Taxi at Union Station and took the train towards Bloor. I wanted to take a pic of all 5 of us in train and so, i set the timer and clicked the camera. its a 12 sec timer. Just at the 12th second, the train Halted, the camera Clicked !! and i just managed to Catch it from the place where i had kept it !!!

Well thats how we have an adventourous, exciting, Shall i say fearful for some- well, very funny journey !!

And guys, we paid 40$ for taxi but driver gave us a 50$ bill, so we had a 10$ party also !!!

Click here to see a modified version of this post using googlepages:
http://onlinearora.googlepages.com/algonquinpark-mostadventouroustrip%21%21

Rubik's Cube and life

Its been a few months when the rubiks cube bug bit me. I was just 10 years old when i first saw this rubik's cube. i tried so hard at that time but couldnt solve it. And a few months back, i came across a video on youtube and got excited about it again after a long period.
it took some pratice in in 2 days, i was able to solve it.. now i can say without doubt that i can solve it in 2 mins..

Well, sometimes i feel that life is like a rubiks cube. We keep trying different things throughout life and keep messing up things but we enjoy the process or sometimes it becomes annoying..
Similarly we try solving the cube, one side will get solved and we move on to solving other side just to find that we messed up the one side that was solved !!

Thats how life is !! we keep doing things and keep messing up things !!
You can spend hours trying to solve the cube and ending up in frustration,
but if you know the algorithm/approach of proceeding with the cube, you can solve it within a minute with a large smile on your face...

Similarly if we know how to go about with our life, life will become a lot easier !!
Perhaps we just need to make an algorithm for our life.....

30 Days Of Night

Hey guys n gals, this is the latest movie that i have watched. Thought of writing its review..

“30 Days of Night” is based on a graphic novel. The setting is Barrow, Alaska and night is about to fall. But in Barrow when the sun sets it does not rise again for thirty days, hence the title.
As the sun sets ( and there wud be dark for next 30 days), the vampires take toll of the city. They attack innocent people, break all communication and start converting others into vampires !!
There are plenty of scenes that will let you scream out, full blooded gory scenes.
The plot has been very well directed and makes you feel as you are in Alaska for full 2 hours !!
As they say, the good wins over Evil, so in the end the hero manages to save his wife and brother and some other people, but sacrificing himself !!
I would say with Halloween approaching this movie is worth watching !!

I would give it 8 on a scale of 10.

So what are you waiting for - Go and watch it !!!

Shame the corrupt with Rs 0 !!!

Hey, have you ever heard of zero rupees !!! i guess you wont have, neither did i before reading this !!

Isnt it a great SLAP on our Corrupt INDIAN politicians !!!

Well it seems RBI is following footsteps of 'Lagey Raho Munnabhai'
- though in a different yet innovative way !!!!!

Great concept !!

Theatre- Experiences & Lessons Learnt

I can’t remember when I became interested in Theatre. It dates back to my childhood days
when I watched the first play of my life ‘Gadhe ki Baraat’ ( which means Marriage of a Donkey) at my hometown - Roorkee (a small town in north India ).

It was something which I won’t forget for the rest of my life because it created a big impression on me. At that time I was just 14 something. and even at that tender age I was a Theatre Lover.

That was when i was a kid. Belonging to a small town certainly has lot of disadvantages. And such shows or rather plays were not in plenty. So till 17, when i completed my schooling, i had watched only 2 plays !!!

Destiny moved me to College and i could then enjoy plays with my collegues, but as i was not so fortunate, i was still in a small town. So even though i had a lot of interest in watching plays, but i couldnt.

BUT as they say, " If good times dont last, neither would bad times be"
So i got a job in a Metropolitan City - the city of dreams as they say- Mumbai.
Mumbai is a place where dreams are shattered and also fortunes are made.
It was in Mumbai that i could watch what i had been eagerly waiting for all these years !!

I couldnt realize when I started watching and enjoying so many plays in Mumbai- mostly
at Prithvi Theatre at Juhu.

Some of the plays that i can recall:
1. Kabeer:
This was a musical performance by one man ( was a Monologue).
The best thing was that even though there was only 1 person performing on stage for 2 hours-
he was able to maintain the interest of audience for full 2 hrs !!! Amazing Huh...

2. Romeo & Juliet:
World famous Shakespeare play which was beutifully enacted by around 15-20 people.
I had read this play sometime in my school days and was able to recall the complete story
while seeing the play !!
Well it was an awesome experience.. Hats off to Shakespeare !!!!

3. Karodo mein Ek:
I saw this play ‘karodo mein ek’ by Makrand Deshpandey( the guy with shahrukh in ‘yuh hi chala chal rahi..’). He really is an excellent actor, and i say this because this guy made people cry with his awesome emotional acting !!!!
The story revolves around the life of an old person who due to bankruptcy has gone psycho and feels that he is millionarie. The Play shows the condition os the family and how they manage this guy who really proves that he is One in Crore.
His son was enacted by Yashpal Sharma( the guy in ‘babuji zara dheere chalo..’).
Overall a great experience watching it !!!

These are just some of the plays that i watched and feel that whenever i would get time- well yeah, i will go to theatre !!

I would list the things that I feel can be learnt from theatre….

Script writing: Unless the story is great, It wont make a big impression on audience, doesn’t matter how big actors are performing. A good story with even small actors makes a big impression. Content does matters !!!

Team Spirit: Without team spirit, I don’t think any play can be successful. Now this includes synchronization, proper dialogue delivery, coordination et al..

Body language: I think this is one of the most important aspects of any play. That’s because 60% or more of your performance is nonverbal. Also, emotions play a big role in plays. You have to laugh and the next moment, you have to shed tears and have to make your audience feel the same.

Humor: Humor is also very important in a play. Basically, what matters is that you have to take your audience on a roller coaster ride of all kinds of emotions like suspicion, humor, mourning, seriousness, crying, aggression, lambasting, etc.. so humor also plays and important role in plays.

Sets: No doubt, sets form an integral part of any play. You may have to show drawing room, bedroom, kitchen etc. all in the same limited area.

This is what I learnt from the play. Would learn many other things.

Theatre is not for money, it’s a kind of passion for its lovers. Because there is not much audience and not much money in theatre.

But there are many things that only theatre has, not movies. Like:-

Realistic: Theatre is realistic. Everything is done on the spot and infront of your eyes. There is no scope to make any mistake.

Social messages: theatre is one of the best mediums to spread awareness about social issues and what can be done about it. Like child abuse, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence. There are innumerable areas which can be brought into limelight..

Applause: The way you perform and the result you get on the spot is something which only theatre can give you, not movies. That is to say, when the play ends, the standing ovation received by audience is really heart throbbing !!

That’s it for now !!!!

Ankit Arora

How to Kill your Fear

Well, this may sound quite philosophical but this is my personal experience. Let me tell you about how i got rid of my fear of public speaking.

I was in my 1st year of my college (bachelors, back in 2001) and till that time i had never ever faced any stage appearance. I never thought about public speaking and was quite shy to appear on stage throughout my School life.

But i always realised that this is something that i need to change.

So in my 1st yr of college, i saw a notice on our hostel notice board in Pantnagar university: "Debate on: Ragging - Should it be or Shouldn't it be"

I thought that this may be the right time to do something that i was always afraid of !!

I registered for the debate and prepared 2 pages to speak on the debate day.

The day finally came and i was in an auditorium sitting in Audience and there were around 300 people there.

Participants were coming on stage, speaking their part, the debate was getting hot..I was getting too tensed by realising that i cannot do this. It is just impossible for me to go on stage and speak in-front of 300 people!

I told my friend (Upendra Maurya - who also came with me and was from Agriculture branch in our college) that I am leaving from auditorium and I cannot speak on stage facing an audience. I was just too scared!

He said something which touched me, "Ankit, if you cannot speak now, you probably will never in future!"

And somehow i managed to stay there. My name was called and I had to go on stage.

My first public appearance was about to start !!! Believe me - that day I felt like dying is easier than facing a huge crowd !

Well, I was shaking ,shivering and was too nervous, but I was on stage!
And then, I could see 300 people. I had a piece of paper in my hand. I was looking at audience and was reading whatever i had written on the paper. I was shivering so much, but i managed to complete whatever I thought I had to say.

I was there for just 1.5 minutes, but that was really something that seemed horrible to me.

There was some applause when i finished. My friend was happy that i could go on stage.

And thats how I managed to kill my stage fear, it was my first public speaking experience, and i will never forget it. And then there was no looking back. Whenever i got any chance, anywhere, i used to go for it.

In my 4th year in college, i participated in a debate where i was awarded the 3rd prize.

So the moral of the story is:"Do what you fear most, and the death of fear is certain"

Whatever you feel you have been thinking throughout your life but you never did even though you had oppurtunity, do it. Believe me, you will feel that its a boost to your self esteem.

So, Kill your FEAR before it kills you !!!