Any photographer, be they professional or photo-enthusiast, will tell you that taking care of your equipment is one of the major concerns of the hobby. After all, it just wouldn't do to show up and be in the position to take a great photo, and discover that your camera's broken.

The delicate nature of cameras is something that has only been magnified in the move to digital. Where earlier light-proofing the film chamber was the biggest deal, now it's keeping all the little electronics and tiny moving parts dust free and safe. Even the most rugged of SLRs is not something you want to toss around like a stuffed toy.

Of late I've been trying to take more photos of the country I live in. After 12+ years of living here, and coming from a place like India that is infinitely more visually chaotic, it becomes a bit of an effort to keep boredom from setting in. I can't say I'm taking better photos here now than perhaps I ever did, and I still yearn for a place that isn't just desert and buildings and malls, but I'm trying.

Recently I finally looked into this whole cross-processing look I've always liked, and how to introduce them into my own photos. After appying the knowledge of a few tutorials and a couple of GIMP plugins and scripts (including my favourite GEGL C2G method) I've come up with these.

They're all a bit over the top -- nobody said Indians were subtle and I am, in that regard at least, 100% desi -- but I do like the strangeness the techniques bring to otherwise bland, brown and grey photos of the UAE. Here's six more examples.

It's been a while since I just did something for the heck of it. Designers usually like to make such work sound important by labeling it a 'personal project', but I like to think of it more like a sketch or drawing practice -- a Design Doodle!

This piece resulted from a process that is the essence of doodling. There was no plan, no idea, no concept in my head. I simply looked through a random folder of photos I'd taken, picked one, cross-processed it in the GIMP until it looked nice, then imported it into inkscape and went from there. After about an hour of work on it there was a 'click' in my head that said it was done, and that was that.

It was stream-of-consciousness design!

I hope to do more of these, probably one a week, maybe more. It always helps to keep practicing, to keep the gears of your mind charged, and client work or large projects can sometimes be too serious for that. It also feels great to start and finish something in one sitting.

Go out and play, just spend and hour doing 'nothing' -- and you may end up with something you like very much.

V