Tag Archives: pecha kucha night

Browsing Through Time – The Last Few Months

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As I’d mentioned in an earlier post, I thought I would do a quick recap of what I’ve been up to, in the last few months.  This is presented roughly in reverse chronological order, and I’ve used photos to illustrate what I am talking about.  (NOTE: I wrote this post in the mid of October, so it doesn’t cover absolutely everything right up to the present time.)

150+ Days at the Gym

Looks good, no?  I’m quite proud of that photo!  I started going to the gym at office in mid-December 2011.  For whatever reason, I kept count of the number of days I was actually working out, and that count has crossed 150 by now.  I go to the gym on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (since on Thursdays I attend Guitar class), so typically the count gets incremented by 4 every week, less than that if there are office holidays or I am travelling.

You could say this is a new hobby of mine and just like posting my drawings or photos, I’m uploading pictures taken at the gym to mark milestones.  I posted the below one to mark Day 100, and that got a lot of Likes and comments on Facebook.

I was going to post one more when I hit Day 150, but towards that date, I knew there were going to be a few breaks since I was travelling for campus recruitment.  Therefore, I posted the below photo when I reached Day 146.

I’d have left it at that but the Day 148 picture just kind of happened… and it looked good so that’s my current Facebook and Twitter profile picture.

On a related note, here is a very useful link with a workout that you can do even if you don’t have access to a Gym: Beginner Body Weight Workout from Nerd Fitness.

Covering events at office

Over the last few months I seem to have become an ‘unofficial official’ photographer for several events at work.  It’s been a great experience for me and a lot of fun.

Covering these events teaches you a lot – how to get better at not missing important moments, how to plan in advance about what kind of shots you want to get, the importance of getting the photos right in the camera, and the importance of selecting the shots that you want to show to others.

For no particular reason, while I was working on the photos from one particular event, I decided to tweet about the process of selection (read the tweets from bottom to top) –

As you can make out from the tweets, I shot more than 1300 images during the four hour event, and made a selection of around 250 images to show to others.  However, out of that set, I further filtered images and only uploaded the 180 best ones to Facebook.

At one of the events, apart from being the photographer, I also played a small bit of music on guitar.

I later recorded a video of what I played that day.  Here it is –

This was recorded at home with my Nokia 808 PureView phone, and as you can make out, the audio quality is really great!  I edited the video on kdenlive and Windows Live Movie Maker.  The old videotape-type font is called “Camcorder” and you can get it here.

Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad

I attended Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Volumes 8, 9 and 10 in the recent past.  I took photos at each one of them.  I believe I may have put links to a couple of the albums in earlier posts, but for easy reference, here are the links (all are albums on Facebook) –

Two of the photos I took at PKN Hyd Vol 9 got printed in The Hans India newspaper.

(Both photos in that article are mine – you can see them on the Facebook album.)

Speaking of this, earlier (in May 2012), my Pecha Kucha presentation from November 2011 got mentioned on the Pecha Kucha Daily blog.  My presentation is also there on the global site.

Blue Moon and Hard Disk

I took a photo of the Blue Moon from 1-Sep-12 – this is probably my best Moon shot yet.

At around that time, I also welcomed a new 1 TB hard disk to the family –

Mumbai Trip

In the beginning of August, I went on a short trip during a long weekend to Mumbai.  I stayed at my cousin’s place, visited TCS Gateway Park office, met my friend Rajith there, watched Gangs of Wasseypur II, and participated in the TCS Fit4Life – 5 km Run with the CEO.

Here are the two Facebook albums that show photos from this all-important trip –

Two notable pictures – the below one shows me, Girish and Vrushodh – the crew behind the Gods of Galactica podcast (earlier known as Galacticast)…

…and here is a photo from the 5 km Run.  This was the second 5 km Run I’ve ever participated in.

Secret Lake Photo

From earlier in August, here is a photo of Durgam Cheruvu, the “Secret Lake”.  This was shot from Inorbit Mall one afternoon when I went there for lunch, on my PureView phone.

My post mentioned by Nokia

After I wrote that long post about the Nokia 808 PureView, I tweeted it to the official Nokia account (@nokia).  It was really nice of them to retweet it – and they mentioned they liked the post.  I felt very happy about that.

Han Shot First Drawing

I did the below drawing as a gift for my cousin on his birthday.  I also got it printed on a t-shirt (that’s what Girish and I are wearing, in the Galactica crew photo above).

Star Wars fans will know the background of this.  For the uninitiated, here’s the explanation in short.  In the original Star Wars movie released in 1977, there is a scene in which the character Han Solo played by Harrison Ford, is confronted by the gangster Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina.  Greedo points a weapon at Han and says that Han owes money to the ruthless Jabba the Hutt.  Han then shoots Greedo and exits the cantina.

In the 1997 “Special Edition” re-release of Star Wars, this scene was slightly altered, to show Greedo shooting first and missing Han (at very close range), and Han shoots Greedo after that.  This alteration (though made by the movie’s creator, George Lucas) was not looked at favourably by fans.

My cousin has a long post on this here.  This is why I made this t-shirt for him!

On the topic of the alterations made for the Special Edition of Star Wars, it is to be noted that a fan called Harmy has created high-definition “despecialized” versions of all the movies in the Star Wars original trilogy.  This is an assembled edit from various sources, since LucasFilm had not released the unaltered versions on Bluray.

More details at the below links –

Blue Sky at Hyderabad

Early in the month of June, there were a couple of days when the sky was a wonderful blue colour.  A great opportunity for photography –

Here is the Facebook album with some more photos – Blue Sky.

Electric Guitar

For my birthday on May 15, I was lucky to get a great gift from my family – an electric guitar!  I uploaded some photos of it on this Facebook album, and posted a short video of me playing it.

Rooftop Shooting Challenge

I had earlier written about a photo shooting challenge I’d done, of taking only B&W photos in my room at home.  I tried a different challenge sometime later, of shooting with just one lens on the rooftop of my house.

Here is the link to the album on Facebook: Rooftop Shooting Challenge.

I believe I have covered most of the important events from the recent past in this post!  More to come later.

Nokia 808 PureView – My Impressions So Far

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NOTE: This is going to be a long post, but written from the point of view of someone who is passionate about photography and therefore really appreciates the technology that Nokia has put into this device.

Nokia’s new flagship phone, the 808 PureView, was announced on 27-Feb-12 (I wrote about it in this post).  After reading about it, I immediately knew that if I was ever to upgrade my existing phone (a Nokia N8), the 808 would be the one I would get.

My phone choices have been dictated to a huge extent by the kind of camera in the device.  In 2006 I got a Sony Ericsson w300i, followed in 2007 by a w700i, post that, a Nokia N82 (which had the whopping 5 megapixel camera), and in 2010, the Nokia N8 (which, with its 12 megapixel camera, had the best camera on a mobile device).

The N8 now has the second-best mobile device camera on the planet.  This is because, the Nokia 808 PureView has a 41 megapixel sensor.  Over the last few months, I’ve been reading everything I can about the camera and the technology behind it, and I decided that I was going to buy it as soon as I could.  Fortunately, India is one of the countries to get this phone early, so I managed to get my hands on the device on 21-Jun-12.

The retail price of the phone is Rs 33,899, but I ordered it on Flipkart and got it for Rs 32,499.  Plus, they even threw in a cover for the phone worth Rs 1,000.

You can see more pictures of me opening up the package I got from Flipkart on this Facebook album: Unboxing the Nokia 808 PureView (19 photos).  This is like a little kid opening up a Christmas present.

I have been talking about this phone to my friends for the past couple of months now, so quite a few people knew that I was crazy about this device, and people told me that I probably was one of the first people to order this from Hyderabad.  And I know of at least one person who actually bought this phone because of me.

Now you might ask the following questions (and people have asked me this) –

  • Why would anyone need a 41 megapixel camera on a phone?
  • Why would I want this, considering I already have a Canon EOS 550D DSLR camera?

My answers to that –

  • You don’t NEED a 41 megapixel camera, but that doesn’t mean it’s not nice to have.  Recently, I saw Ren Ng’s TED talk about the Lytro Light Field camera, in which he says that the Lytro opens up new creative possibilities.  In the same way, the Nokia 808 allows one to take different types of pictures that wouldn’t be otherwise possible.  You can use it as a normal camera and produce 5 or 8 megapixel images with it.  But you can also use it to produce large-resolution images with lots of detail, and when done right, those images would be unique and can’t be produced with any other camera in its class.
  • Who says you can’t own and use more than one camera?  The DSLR along with the lenses I have can produce beautiful images, and yes, the images are superior to what the Nokia 808 PureView produces.  But a big advantage of the PureView is that I have it with me practically all the time – including situations where I wouldn’t be able to take along my DSLR.

Here are my impressions on this device so far.

Right now, I am not using the 808 PureView as a phone, more as a camera & recording device, and a device to carry around photos, music and videos.  I am using my Nokia N8 as the phone still.

As you can make out from the above picture, the 808 PureView is larger in size than the N8 and feels heavier too.  This phone has a Micro SIM slot, so I have to get my SIM card cut down to size if I have to use it with this.  I haven’t yet done that.

The AMOLED screen on the 808 PureView is bigger than the one on the N8, but it has the same number of pixels (360 x 640 resolution), as a result of which the N8’s display actually feels sharper to me.

Due to the higher memory and better processor, the 808 PureView feels smoother in operation than my N8.

The phone come with a higher version of the Belle OS than the N8.  People told me that if I was investing in a phone, an Apple / Android / Windows phone is better in terms of the applications.  But that was not really my concern, since I was interested in this device only for the camera.  I seem to have bought a camera that also in its spare time, makes calls!

Now that the other stuff about the phone is out of the way, let’s talk about the things that I am actually using this phone for.  Firstly, the camera.

PureView Technology

To really understand what’s special about the camera on this smartphone, here’s a small primer on photography and what Nokia is calling their PureView technology.

A camera is a box that is completely dark inside.  At one end of this box is a shutter – which is something like a curtain.  In order to take a photo, the curtain opens for a brief instant of time, admitting light inside the camera.  This light is focused by a lens, and it hits a light-sensitive surface (film if one is using a traditional film camera, or a digital sensor, if one is using a digital camera).  And this is how a photo is produced.

Nokia put a huge sensor into the 808 PureView.  This sensor is the biggest ever in a mobile phone, and is actually bigger than the sensors found on many compact digital cameras.  A comparison is given below –

  • 35mm Full Frame Camera (Canon EOS 5D Mark II) – 36 mm x 24 mm
  • Nikon APS-C Crop Camera (my brother’s Nikon D90) – 23.6 mm x 15.6 mm
  • Canon APS-C Crop Camera (my Canon EOS 550D) – 22.2 mm x 14.8 mm
  • Nokia 808 PureView – 10.7 mm x 8 mm (1/1.2″ sensor)
  • Nokia N8 – 7.2 mm x 5.3 mm (1/1.8″ sensor)
  • Compact Camera 1/2.3″ sensor (Nikon Coolpix P510) – 6 mm x 4.5 mm
  • iPhone 4S – 4.5 mm x 3.4 mm

You can see more details on this Wikipedia page – Image Sensor Format.

So Nokia’s engineers have put in a big sensor that’s capable of capturing 41 million pixels of data.  This information is used to produce images of different dimensions.  One can shoot in “full resolution” (which equates to a 34 megapixel image if you’re shooting in 16:9 aspect ratio, or 38 megapixel if in 4:3), or in “PureView” mode.  PureView mode produces images of 8, 5 or 2 megapixels – but in order to generate these images, the phone actually crunches all the data that the sensor captures, which means that the smaller dimension images are actually very detailed and noise-free, and in this mode, you have 2 or 3x lossless zoom.  This is what they call “oversampling”.  Video quality is also great, because this oversampling is used in video also.

Nokia is going to put in PureView technology in their upcoming phones too.

The lens on this camera is an f2.4 lens, as compared to f2.8 on the N8.  This means that the lens can open wider (smaller f number = larger opening), and therefore let in more light into the camera.

So what can you do with the camera?

You can use this camera as you would an 8 megapixel compact camera.  It’ll produce very nice images, and works well in low light thanks to the lens and the PureView oversampling.  But you can also put it in the full resolution 34 or 38 megapixel mode, and shoot images with lots and lots of details.

This gets you thinking differently.  It’s like having a wide angle prime lens attached to a huge-resolution camera.  In this full resolution mode, I like setting it to take 16:9 images as I find the wide aspect ratio interesting.

Enough talk, let’s see some sample images – below is one of the early images I took with this camera.  This is Cyber Towers at Hitech City, Hyderabad.

Click the above image to see a larger version.  Of course, that is about 2000 pixels wide and not the actual 7728 pixel wide version that came straight from the camera.

Below are some sections (100% size crops) extracted from the full image – where you can make out text on signs, license plate numbers, you can see faces of the people in the crowd, and two people standing on the roof of the building.  You cannot get images like this with any other mobile phone on the planet!

With a little editing, below is the final image.  I boosted the contrast and colours in Photoshop Elements.  The lens produces a very pronounced pincushion distortion when you shoot it at the wide aspect ratio (I think the distortion would be reduced if shot in 4:3 ratio, I have not tried this much so can’t tell exactly), so I got rid of that too.

I have uploaded the full size image at deviantART here – Cyber Towers at Dusk by ~karthik82 on deviantART.  You can download the 7728 x 4354 pixel image from there (it’s big in terms of file size – approximately 7 MB) and see all the little details for yourself.

One more bit of trivia about the image above – the text I put in is in the typeface Nokia Pure – which is Nokia’s new font that they’re using for all their branding (their earlier font was called Nokia Sans).  This is the font used on the packaging of their phones and also on their websites.  You can read about it here and even download the font file from this page.

One more picture which I shot with this camera, this is a tall one as opposed to a wide image –

As you can see, I am illuminated and enlightened by the light!  This was taken at Prasad’s Multiplex when I went to see the night show of Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur.

This is another image I took with the camera, that I am proud of –

This was taken on a rainy night, and shows off the low light capabilities of the camera.  This is also an edited image, but even the image straight from the camera looked great.  This one, I shot in the 8 megapixel PureView mode.

On 23-Jun-12, pretty soon after I got this camera, I went on a Photo Walk.  I had carried along my Canon EOS 550D, but decided that I’d take all my photos that day with the PureView camera only!

Here is the full album of photos on Facebook: Photo Walk by Karthik and Vikram Jammula (21 photos).  Apart from resizing and a little auto-contrast boosting, no other editing is done to the images in that album.

Recently, I attended Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Volume 9.  As it has been for the past 4 volumes, I was the ‘unofficial’ photographer at that event.  This time though, I took photos using both by Canon EOS 550D as well as the Nokia 808 PureView.  (To understand what this event is all about, you can read my detailed post here.)

Here is the full album of photos on Facebook: Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 9 (78 photos).  The last 20 photos in this album (beginning from this one) were taken with the 808 PureView.

In retrospect, these images aren’t probably the best that the 808 can produce.  I took all of those in the 34 megapixel mode, at ISO 1600 (since it was a very low light environment).  I should have taken them in the 8 megapixel mode, where PureView oversampling would have kicked in and made the images cleaner (I’d still say these images are pretty decent, since many cameras don’t even go up to ISO 1600).  Well, it’s a learning for next time.

Okay, one more image before we wrap up talking about the camera.  I don’t think you can take a picture like this on any other mobile phone camera on the planet –

This is blasphemy… this is madness!  Madness?  This… is… PUREVIEW!

Let me explain a little about how I took this shot.  Earlier, I had taken a photo of the Supermoon.  That experience taught me that when taking a shot like this, you actually have to cut the amount of light entering the camera, since if you keep it in the auto mode, all you’ll get is a white circle.  I also knew that I’d have to zoom as much as possible.

So, I put the camera in the PureView 2 megapixel mode (so I could zoom), set it at ISO 100 (so that the image would have less noise) and zoomed in all the way.  I reduced the exposure as much as the camera would allow (I think I’d put it at -4.0), to cut the light so I don’t lose shadow detail.

I set the focusing mode on the camera to either hyperfocal or infinity (now I don’t remember which one), and then took a bunch of shots.  I selected the one that was the best out of the lot, then cropped the image and darkened it further in Photoshop Elements.  Added text in the elegant Nokia Pure font, and there you have it.

If you want to see the image straight from the camera, it’s below –

Some more tips on using the camera on the 808 PureView

The user interface on the 808 PureView’s camera, I think, is really nice.  It’s very intuitive.  There are three modes in which you can use the camera.

  • Automatic – Camera decides all the shooting settings, provides you with no options at all, excepting the shutter button and an option to turn on / off the flash.  Very simple to use.
  • Scenes – You just decide the scene mode – landscape, portrait, low light, sports, etc, and the camera will decide the settings suitable to that scenario.
  • Creative – Here’s where you can select all the shooting options.  Automatic and Scenes both shoot only in the lower resolution PureView mode.  In Creative, you can select whether you want to use PureView or shoot in full resolution, you can select the aspect ratio (16:9 or 4:3), adjust contrast, saturation, sharpness.

One thing I’d advise you to do is, go into the Creative menu, scroll down all the way and click on Preferences.  There, you can turn on the Viewfinder Grid and enable Video Stabilisation.

The Viewfinder Grid is very useful as it will enable you to apply the Rule of Thirds while shooting stills and recording video.  Also, in the video mode, it provides you with guides to compose your image for a 2.39:1 aspect ratio (crop marks), so if you are going to crop your video later on to a Cinemascope-type widescreen format, you can be sure that you are not placing anything of interest in an area that’ll be cropped off later.

While taking a picture in Creative Mode, the icons on the left allow you to choose the following options (in order) –

  • Flash On/Off
  • Exposure – To brighten / darken the image.  Default is set at 0.0, you can go to -4.0 at one extreme and to +4.0 at the other extreme.  This is what I was talking about in the Moon photo example.
  • White Balance – Sunny, Cloudy, etc options.
  • ISO – This camera goes from ISO 50 all the way to ISO 1600.  And it has relatively less noise even at ISO 1600 for a camera in its class.
  • ND Filter – The camera (like the N8) has a neutral density filter which can cut light (for example, if you’re shooting directly into the sun, you’d obviously need to have it on, else you’ll get a fully white image).  You can set it on, turn it off or leave it in automatic mode for the camera to decide.

There’s another parameter you can set which you might not readily be aware of, since it’s not accessed by any of the above-visible options – Focusing mode.  You access this by long-pressing on the screen (touch and hold for a second or two till the menu pops up).

There are four options here and here’s what they mean –

  • Automatic – The normal mode of operation – you touch on an object to focus on it.
  • Close-up – Similar to the previous one except this allows you to focus closer.
  • Infinity – Set the camera to focus at the farthest distance.  This way, when you press the shutter button the camera won’t spend time trying to focus on anything.
  • Hyperfocal – Focuses the camera at the hyperfocal distance – essentially meaning you get the maximum depth of field possible (one explanation is here).  This means that excepting for objects that are very close to the camera, everything will be sharply in focus.  The “Sports” scene mode uses Hyperfocal focusing.

Again, referring to the Moon shot, I used either Infinity or Hyperfocal focusing (I don’t remember which), since when I kept the camera in Automatic focusing mode, it had trouble focusing sharply on the moon.

Video and Audio

The 808 PureView can shoot full HD video in 1080p.  You can zoom when recording video too, and the quality is amazing, much better than what you’d find in any other camera phone.  The video camera also has Automatic, Scenes and Creative options (just like in stills).  If you put the camera in 360p resolution, you can really zoom in a lot (enough for filming the moon)!

When you’re filming video, the audio quality in your clips is really, really good.  Nokia has put in something called Rich Recording in this device, and it really produces very nice audio.

You can take advantage of this even when you’re just using the Sound Recorder.  Put it in “High Quality” mode and you’ll get really nice audio.

Take this piece, for example –

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/52199117″ iframe=”true” /]

This is a short theme music that I made, for the Galacticast audio podcast on my cousin Girish’s blog Galactica.  Listen to it with headphones – the quality is great.

A couple of things about that file –

  • My cousin’s name, his blog’s name as well as the name of the podcast all begin with the letter “G”, therefore, this theme music uses the G#7 chord, and I simply played 3 of the strings!
  • Broken Plectrum is a name I came up with.  A few days before, the plectrum I was using broke.  That’s what led me to come up with this name, and I even made an image for it (as you’d expect, I shot that with the Nokia 808 PureView camera as well).

Nice, isn’t it?

That about wraps it up for this post!  As and when I come up with more interesting stuff to post and talk about, I’ll write about it.  I have an album on Facebook for 808 PureView Photos, I’ll keep adding to that.  And of course, any videos I shoot with this will be uploaded and written about later.

More Video Links

Items of Interest – 18-Mar-12 to 1-Apr-12

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I didn’t have an Items of Interest post last week as I’d been a bit busy with work and other stuff.  So this is a double-sized issue again.  As usual, I’ll cover interesting links and events and then go on to the collection of tweets over the last few days.

Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 8

For a while now, I have been talking about Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad on my blog here (this post) and also on Facebook and Twitter.  Well, Volume 8 of this event happened yesterday (31-Mar-12) and my brother Varun was one of the presenters.  His presentation was called “Know Tools, Create Better” and was about how software tools have aided his creative process.

Varun’s presentation was the first of the evening, and it was very well delivered.  He’d done his homework well – and that was apparent as he was presenting.  There were 7 other speakers at this volume and the event’s MC was Varun Todi (who was one of the presenters in the previous volume).  I was there to cheer my brother, and also took a whole bunch of photos as usual.

Karthik’s Coverage of PKN Hyd Vol 8 [Facebook Album – 60 Images]

You can click the above link to view the album of my photos on Facebook.  This time I carried along my flash and used all my lenses, so there’s more variety in these photos compared to what I’d done at the previous volumes.  My mom and dad also had come for the event, as did a considerably big bunch of friends.  Very nice evening I’d say.

Like last time, the talks were all filmed.  So those of you who missed some of the presentations can see them when the videos are uploaded to YouTube.

This is the latest video that the team uploaded on the PKNHyd YouTube Channel: Behind the Scenes.  This is a sort of “trailer” for PKN Hyd Vol 8.  It’s pretty nice, more so since I appear twice in the video!

A couple of other interesting things about this edition of Pecha Kucha –

  • All hail Open Source!  The computer that was hooked up to the projector was running openSUSE 12.1 and presentation slideshows were run on libreoffice-impress.
  • The speakers’ presentations (PPT files) were converted into MOV videos, so as to preserve the timing of 20 seconds per slide exactly.

Some Glimpses of Hyderabad

Last Saturday I had to go to office to conduct some interviews.  I thought I’d use the opportunity to take some photos – so I took my camera along with me.  I took a bunch of photos on the commute to and back from office.

This is the album on Facebook – Long Weekend gets a bit Shorter.  Only 7 photos but I think they’re interesting.

Above is one of the photos from the set.  In this, you can see the poster for the movie 3, starring Dhanush and Shruti Haasan.  This is the movie featuring the song “Why this Kolaveri Di?” and it was released here in Hyderabad on Friday (30-Mar-12) both in Tamil and Telugu.

Galactica’s Season 2 Premiere

My cousin’s blog Galactica resumed publication of posts on March 27 (he calls it a “Season 2” Premiere).  A couple of days before, I made this as a promo –

I had taken a print of one of the posters he made, held it up and asked my brother to take this photo.  There’s a bunch of movie reviews you can read.

The budget of the movie was $300 million. For that they might have actually flown the actors to Barsoom.

The above quote is from his review for John Carter.  Other notable reviews: Nicolas Refn’s Drive, Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Kahaani (features my Vidya Balan drawing), The Artist, Scorsese’s Hugo (which I am yet to see).

He also did one Observer-related post, which Fringe fans should see.

Two Movies – “Agent Vinod” and “Dookudu”

I watched both Agent Vinod and Dookudu in the recent past.  The former was seen on opening day in the theatre, whereas the latter was on DVD.  I posted a bunch of tweets about them, thought I would summarise them here.

Agent Vinod from director Sriram Raghavan intended to be a globetrotting spy/adventure thriller.  I thought it was well shot (the director of photography is C. K. Muraleedharan, who shot the director’s earlier Johnny Gaddaar) and stylish.  However, I wasn’t as entertained by it as I’d hoped – the movie was disappointing not because it was incompetent, but I think they tried cramming too much stuff in.  The plot was needlessly dragged out (it’s essentially a lot of people following what seems to be a MacGuffin initially, and then the movie turns into a more conventional action-thriller) and I felt they set scenes in various locations (Latvia, Somalia, Russia, etc) just because they had the budget for it.  Sometimes felt like 2 movies put together.  There was one ‘long take’ sequence which was very nicely done, shaky cam in some action scenes was distracting.  If it was trimmed down and if the central character was more interesting, it could have actually become a nice franchise.  But I’d say it was an interesting letdown.  6/10

That’s the censorship certificate for the movie.  I posted one for Businessman earlier – and like that one, I found the description funny – “Deleted lovemaking sound in the background (replaced with other sound)”.

Dookudu was a huge hit for its star Mahesh Babu, and is a movie that combines action, sentimental drama and comedy all in one package.  If you know what you are getting into, and don’t expect anything even remotely resembling reality, you will have a lot of fun with this movie.  Somehow, despite being almost 3 hours long, the movie worked, I thought it was very entertaining.  The character of “Cool Babu” was… cool, and there were some great one-liners and very funny lines in the movie (“no one can scratch me”).  One rooftop fight sequence in the movie was filmed opposite Inorbit mall, near Durgam Cheruvu.  7/10

Two Songs, and a trailer for a Trailer

Apparently, the Indian release of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers is going to have a Hindi song, performed by the band Agnee.  This is called “Hello Andheron” and it’s pretty nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sobFsj0at0I

I have been following Matthew Inman’s site The Oatmeal for quite a while now.  The latest entry there is a sing-along video for a song called “The Motherfucking Pterodactyl”, presented by him and Sarah Donner.  There’s more info on this page (you can download the MP3 too).

In a short while, the trailer for the upcoming Total Recall, starring Colin Farrell and directed by Len Wiseman would come online.  A couple of days back though, we had the below trailer for the trailer –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JygnlFgcyJ8

Links

Sickipediabot Tweets

A collection of tweets from @sickipediabot –

  • April Fool’s Day: The day every newspaper tries to fool readers by sneaking in at least one properly researched, factually correct story.
  • If I had to describe my mathematical ability in just one word, it would be “fucking awful.”
  • What a wonderful feeling it is waking up next to a beautiful woman. Oh well, back home to the wife then.
  • “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Don’t fuck around, Buzz. Who the hell do you think it is?” “Sorry, Neil.”
  • I’ve just had a new car horn fitted. It replicates the sound of a gunshot. You should see how fast the fuckers move out the way now.
  • I committed the perfect crime. I put a mime in an airtight glass box. Nobody suspected a thing.
  • To cut a long story short, use fewer words.
  • My grandad asked me what I wanted for my birthday so I told him a ship in a bottle… Shame his hearing is getting bad
  • I think it would be fantastic to actually see a great white shark before I die. Just not RIGHT before.
  • My girlfriend just said, “You’re far too vague.” I said, “Well it’s a lot better than being that other thing.”

Collection of Tweets

And finally, we arrive at the collection of tweets over the last couple of weeks.

Tweets 1-Apr-12:

  • RT @r_nikki #AprilFool :Go into a public toilet cubicle. Melt dark chocolate in your hand. Extend same hand to next cubicle & ask for tissues
  • RT @AapChutiyeHain waiting for a text from someone you love must feel like the wait for the reply to a leave request email on a sunday evening.
  • RT @anujgurwara So our financial year begins on #FoolsDay. Think about all the politicians and their scams and it makes so much sense. @roshanabbas
  • RT @justkalpana First 20 Facebook employees and where they are now http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-first-20-employees-where-are-they-now-2012-2 (via a friend on Facebook)
  • RT @funnyhumour As I sat down next to a bloke he gave me a realy strange look. typical I thought.D bus is empty,yet I still end up sitting next to a nutcase
  • RT @edgarwright This tweet is not real. April Fools.
  • RT @zombeaner Who decided that Shriya Saran should be an actress? Can I slap that person?
  • RT @ManMadeMoon Going to see The Raid tonight. Never been so excited about the prospect of having my arse kicked before!
  • RT @ManMadeMoon Really enjoyed The Raid. Some bloody marvellous death-dealing!
  • RT @zombeaner Where is the Funny Names blog when you need it? #DicksonPoon http://pic.twitter.com/RZDnGfGi
  • @zombeaner Hahaha! Reminds me of the character “Poon Dong” from Crank 2 🙂

Tweets 31-Mar-12:

  • RT @AdorianDeck KNIFE TO MEET YOU, SIR! http://bit.ly/H72LqS
  • RT @RGVzoomin “@karthikfou: we in AP have earth hour everyday. Daily 3hrs..”
  • Charging my camera in preparation for @pknhyd Vol 8! My brother’s presentation is first, so I’ll be there early.
  • @PrashantKV My brother & I will probably reach by 6 – 6:30 PM types.
  • Leaving now for @pknhyd Vol 8! All the best Varun for your presentation!
  • RT @pknhyd Ppl have started coming in already!! 🙂
  • RT @pknhyd Technical team ready with everything! Lights, camera and sound ready! 🙂 #pknhyd http://pic.twitter.com/d8vYUY7a
  • Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 8 – Great show and I loved Varun’s presentation – very nicely done!
  • RT @PrashantKV And it all went well! #pknhyd @pknhyd
  • RT @RGVzoomin On the ocassion of save earth campaign I put all the lights on even the ones I normally don’t put on just to be different
  • Very well said! RT @vemana Fuck up as much as you want. Its all fun and learning as long as you are alive and kicking
  • RT @rob_sheridan Holy hell, @trent_reznor was right, The Raid is an INSANE action movie. Like a martial arts Die Hard on steroids. Nicely done @ghuwevans!
  • Reviews http://bit.ly/HuQQSP
  • @rajith_23 Khnrrrr
  • #NowWatching Dario Argento’s “Tenebre” (1982) (Uncut Version)

Tweets 30-Mar-12:

  • RT @Laugh_Riot How do you get four old ladies to say the F word? Have the fifth one say…. BINGO! RT @Yaminikunjur
  • RT @Laugh_Riot What’s the best thing about turning 65?No more calls from insurance salesmen.RT @Yaminikunjur
  • RT @Laugh_Riot An Empty Web Browsing History Is A Sure Sign 0f Guilt..RT @Chhupa_Rustam
  • RT @kunaldgp: @karthik82 check out this one. Even more hilarious. http://itsasmallweb.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/1-1-ways-to-visualize-lyrics/
  • Day 60 #Gym
  • RT @ID_AA_Carmack I’m going to turn on every damn light in protest of Earth Hour. Lighting the darkness is fundamental to humanity’s climb.
  • RT @ajith27 Today’s edition of the Mint is brought to you by Trollo- the mint with the a**ehole #AakarPatel
  • RT @mihirfadnavis “Critics are C.h.u.t.i.y.a.s, I’m a R.E.S.P.E.C.T.E.D filmmaker” – Sajid Khan http://bit.ly/H2vCet . I look fwd to reviewing your film, sir.
  • RT @zombeaner THE RAID inspired numerous “Oh, FUCK”s at the midnight show I attended. Job: Done.
  • RT @kunaldgp Misheard lyrics from popular songs http://itsasmallweb.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/a-girl-with-colitis-goes-by/ #music
  • RT @pkedrosky Those were the days when you could travel from Okinawa to Tokyo with a Hattori Hanzō sword as carry-on.
  • Nice! RT @m_shinoda OK, it’s time. You guys have been so patient, and you deserve a SNEAK PEEK at our new video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5LpwO-An4&feature=endscreen&NR=1
  • @m_shinoda Great to see you and Chester trying something different with the vocals here. Can’t wait to hear the full track.
  • RT @Galactica_gk One year ago, this awesome thing happened: http://timehop.com/m/R4pX
  • RT @kevinshahinian Great tutorial RT @vincentlaforet: Get your GREEN SCREEN skills on w/ Epic & 5DMKII – free 34 min tutorial http://bit.ly/HnzNCF
  • RT @zombeaner WATCH THIS & HAVE YOUR MIND BLOWN!! RT @twitchfilm First Trailer For Akshay Kumar’s ROWDY RATHORE Blows The Roof Off! http://bit.ly/H1J5WK
  • RT @mihirfadnavis Goddamn it. Watched ‘London Paris NY’ last night. MY FACE NOW SPORTS RED BLISTERS THANKS TO ALL THE FACEPALMS.
  • RT @zombeaner This crazy ass nutball of a movie is now on DVD. Ghost (Hindi): http://bit.ly/HvVFZr via @AddThis
  • RT @the_moonface I need to invest in whatever company prints those little “Made In China” stickers.
  • Teach Teach Baby http://bit.ly/GZQ6nA

Tweets 29-Mar-12:

  • A Catastrophe http://bit.ly/GY9hgi
  • Successfully managed to break the capo I had for my guitar! Now must buy a new one.
  • Acoustic Chords for Linkin Park’s “Numb” – http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/l/linkin_park/numb_acoustic_crd.htm – Em, C, G, D with capo on 2
  • RT @omgthatspunny Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine. #punny
  • RT @thevirdas Some day…hopefully soon. A whole day will go by, where no one tweets me asking if I actually drink orange juice, and on that day..I shall.
  • Awesome 🙂 RT @achettup @psam WHERE DO YOU BUY YOUR RAHUL DRAVID MEMORABILIA FROM??? WALLMART

Tweets 28-Mar-12:

  • Can’t wait! RT @m_shinoda First single from new Linkin Park album: “Burn It Down” Coming April 16. #LinkinPark2012 http://viddy.it/HhMIYf
  • RT @funnyoneliners My neighbor’s dog is so popular that every time he barks, the neighborhood dogs RT him. RT @Thedudish
  • RT @m_shinoda Who wants some official news on the new single? Stay tuned TOMORROW. #LinkinPark2012
  • RT @Oatmeal Been catching up on the latest episodes of “People standing outside a farmhouse and arguing”– er, I mean Walking Dead. LITTLE TYPO
  • #307843 http://bit.ly/GY92El
  • #307813 http://bit.ly/Hf0daX
  • I totally tweeted this 1 year ago TH @karthik82 “Manos: The Hands of… http://timehop.com/m/fJFi
  • From Twitch: DESPITE THE GODS Goes Behind The Scenes Of Jennifer Lynch’s HISSS Debacle: http://twitchfilm.com/news/2012/03/despite-the-gods-goes-behind-the-scenes-of-jennifer-lynchs-hisss-debacle.php
  • RT @OMGwhatateen Friend: “What are you watching” Me: “Snakes on a plane” Friend: “What’s it about?” Me: “Horses….horses on a boat”
  • RT @josephradhik Ok byeee tweeple! #tweetslikeaceleb
  • RT @omgthatspunny If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed. #punny
  • Xavier Gens’ “The Divide”. Really want to see it!
  • The “Don 2” DVD that I ordered from @Flipkart was delivered today.
  • Don 2 is a 2-disc DVD. Disc 2 has a 40 min making of feature. Other than that there are songs and Talaash trailer, which Disc 1 has already.
  • Censor certificate on the DVD says “Don 2 with Additional Scene”. Wikipedia lists the runtime as 146 min, and the DVD is 148 min.
  • I’ll have to watch the “Don 2” DVD to identify the additional scene that’s been included. Will report back once I do.

Tweets 27-Mar-12:

  • RT @IMDb Happy Birthday, Quentin Tarantino! What’s your favorite Tarantino film? http://imdb.to/GWNHb6 #itstheonethatsaysbadmotherfer
  • RT @Aashu_Salotra Fool you once, Shame on me; Fool you twice, @AapChutiyeHain
  • A GUIDE TO PRONOUNCING ACTORS’ NAMES http://bit.ly/GSTijo
  • I totally tweeted this 1 year ago TH @karthik82 “I’d hate to run up … http://timehop.com/m/bWHA
  • Reservoir Dogs is awesome as it always has been… give Tarantino his standing ovation!
  • RT @27bslash6 “They have an army of lawyers & you don’t even own a suit. Just change it to a cat or something. Everyone likes cats.” http://bit.ly/GRkb7D
  • Inspired by @Galactica_gk I am #NowWatching “Reservoir Dogs”. Awesome movie no matter how many times you see it…

Tweets 26-Mar-12:

  • RT @edgarwright My friend Brandon is stuck. Can you help? http://www.brandongenerator.com/ Please RT.
  • RT @trent_reznor If you’re in the mood for an ACTION film, immediately go see The Raid: Redemption. God DAMN.
  • Fringe S04E12 had a creepy setup, 13 was good, 14 was great… starting 15 now. @Galactica_gk tells me that it’s even more awesome…

Tweets 25-Mar-12:

  • RT @Galactica_gk Reservoir Dogs is the first masterpiece by Quentin Tarantino. Also has an awesome background score. Loved the song- ‘Stuck in the middle’
  • RT @Galactica_gk Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, Stuck in the middle with you -from Reservoir Dogs..
  • Yesterday caught up with “The Walking Dead”, today it’s “Fringe”. Now on S04E12, will see till S04E15 today.
  • RT @vemana Indian translation of “Mad Men returns(airs) tonight! ” is “Mad Men will be available on torrents tomorrow morning” 🙂
  • RT @Veronica OK, that was pretty good. RT @kenyatta: What do they call The Hunger Games in France? Battle Royale with Cheese. #PulpFiction
  • “Shiitake Happens” – from Fringe S04E11 🙂
  • RT @This_Is_Hari Agar aap @tatadocomo par vishwas karte hain.. toh kasam USB driver ki – @AapChutiyeHain
  • I totally tweeted this 1 year ago TH @karthik82 Our old French text … http://timehop.com/m/BgVg
  • Done with “The Walking Dead”, few more months to go for S03 to begin. Should be awesome, and the prison arc begins.
  • RT @IIFAUpdates Hitman responsible for death of J Bachchan evaluated as schizophrenic; cannot credibly be traced back to A Bachchan
  • If you ask me, TV Release Groups did the right thing by switching to the x264 codec for encoding their rips. Quality is superior to Xvid.
  • I liked South Park S16E02, much better than the first episode of the season. #NowWatching The Walking Dead S02E11

Tweets 24-Mar-12:

  • RT @Galactica_gk #Drive is a lovely movie with awesome background score.
  • RT @JonMwords Please keep tweeting the stats from your runs and workouts. I enjoy learning about new and interesting apps to mute and block forever.
  • RT @headius I learned today that @flipkart, the “Amazon of India”, is MRI+Rails frontend with JRuby+Padrino for the backend. #awesome #rubyconfindia
  • RT @DanaDanger HTTP response codes for dummies. 50x: we fucked up. 40x: you fucked up. 30x: ask that dude over there. 20x: cool.
  • RT @IIFAUpdates BREAKING: Private Investigator hired by J Bachchan earlier this month to follow husband A Bachchan killed by sniper in gorilla costume
  • RT @IIFAUpdates: @ankash1009 Sorry about this, this is just for a committee for Model UN at our university – we didn’t mean to have you killed or anything
  • RT @omgthatspunny A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’ #punny
  • Btw: the last tweet about “Slumdog” director Anurag Kashyap being killed was retweeted by @ankash1009 himself 🙂 now following @IIFAUpdates
  • RT @IIFAUpdates BREAKING: “Slumdog Mil.” director Anurag Kashyap killed! Deep connection between Bollywood/mafia puts all in danger.
  • RT @omgthatspunny How do you get holy water? Boil the hell out of it. #punny

Tweets 23-Mar-12:

  • RT @Galactica_gk Agent Vinod is one of the worst Hindi movies ever made!! It’s the interval. :((
  • RT @poonamkhatri: @PunsNProses If he’s a washer, he’d be called Detergent Vinod.
  • RT @PunsNProses If he is in a hurry, he’ll be called Urgent Vinod. #Sorry
  • RT @Galactica_gk Going for 2 movies back2back: The Hunger games at 5:50 (Finally) and Agent Vinod at 9:45.
  • RT @josephradhik Photo tip: Stop looking at EXIF Info. It teaches almost nothing but lusting after more gear or making excuses for why you can’t take a shot.
  • RT @Nokia_Connects 12MP video power – the Nokia N8 http://nokia.ly/GNirQJ ^TH
  • Catching up on “The Walking Dead”, watched S02E08 and S02E09 yesterday. 4 episodes left to watch for me.
  • I totally tweeted this 1 year ago TH @karthik82 RT @krishashok: #Fac… http://timehop.com/m/8Ip9
  • RT @thehorrorchick Out tomorrow- This may be my first 5-star review ever! Raid: Redemption, The (2012) http://bit.ly/yQv7kG @TheRaidUS

Tweets 22-Mar-12:

  • The Pirate Bay Attacks Censorship With Low Orbit Server Drones http://bit.ly/FPkSlE
  • Michael Bay responds to fans about the TMNT movie’s alien origin http://bit.ly/GJj4f4
  • I plan to buy this. RT @rj_white The new Aziz Ansari special. RT @scharpling: Oh, and buy it at http://is.gd/OTjFej. Five bucks.
  • The Canon EOS 5D Mark III is launched in India. Price is 2.5 lacs INR for body plus 24-105 lens.
  • RT @funnyoneliners Somewhere, a smart Laser eye surgeon has an office full of brochures that are all slightly out of focus RT @funnyhumour
  • RT @supaarwoman Chalo yaar sab log ek ek DSLR kharid lo aur apna Photography page banalo facebook pe.
  • Brilliant stuff! RT @BoingBoing @MouthTapedShut Sony pirates itself with “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” disc http://dlvr.it/1LTczl
  • RT @TheBookofBatman Every house is built by someone, but the Batman is the builder of the Batcave. (Pennyworth 3:4)

Tweets 21-Mar-12:

  • DSLR Basics: Stops and Metering http://bit.ly/GFpBWI (by PhotoExtremist)
  • RT @bobbyllew Top notch Ted Talk on Piracy Maths. Very funny. http://youtu.be/GZadCj8O1-0
  • RT @rj_white Wild Orkut #socialmovies
  • The Facebook of Eli #socialmovies
  • RT @funnyoneliners 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People 1. Twitter 2. Twitter 3.Twitter 4. Twitter 5. Twitter 6. Twitter 7. Twitter RT @marebytes

Tweets 20-Mar-12:

  • RT @GDBALA 10 Things to Leave Off Your Résumé http://tinyurl.com/7pl7ccu
  • RT @m_shinoda #HappyBDayChesterBennington
  • Day 55 #Gym
  • RT @josephradhik RT @mehrzee: RT @tyrantasorus: Whats common between tight jeans and cheap hotels? No ballroom. @mehrzee
  • RT @reiinamoto The genius of Saul Bass. Proves adding shadow and 3D to a logo ALWAYS makes it worse. http://goo.gl/pSdoD
  • RT @rj_white From James Ellroy’s recent television program: Johnny Stompanato, Lana Turner and a guy on his cell phone in a mirror. http://is.gd/Xg4xaC
  • RT @RGVzoomin You can be on the right track nd still get hit by a train!
  • RT @omgthatspunny What does a mermaid wear to math class? An Algae-bra! #punny

Tweets 19-Mar-12:

  • RT @omgthatspunny What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college? Bison #punny
  • RT @rj_white Yesterday, I walked past someone explaining the phrase “Epic fail” to a child who had asked about why it was on the person’s Smurfs t-shirt.
  • RT @thedavesherrill I’ve noticed girls like to wear shirts that say “I Love Nerds” but never want to hear all 45 ways I would have improved the Watchmen movie.
  • RT @simonpegg Paul was NOT the third film in the so called ‘Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy’. World’s End will be the final part.

Tweets 18-Mar-12:

  • RT @planet5D #cinema5D Zeiss 15mm T2.8 – an impressive new lens, but it ’s unaffordable #HDSLRnews http://t.co/oPsiWpig
  • RT @clientsfh “I understand that you don’t work on weekends, but I have a very special circumstance. I spoke with my…” http://t.co/kwRaAcZc
  • RT @ilovetypography My next tweet will be profoundly typographic.
  • RT @ilovetypography The secret to RTs: ‘cats’, ‘sex’, & ‘free fonts’ — working on a free font called Sex Cat.
  • RT @planet5D #planet5D The Canon EOS 5D Mark II mates with a 93 year old view camera #HDSLRnews http://t.co/zPjOELHt
  • RT @funnyoneliners Looking up “obsolescence” in the Encyclopedia Britannica. RT @davio1962
  • RT @ravi_mohan A journey of a thousand miles starts with an Amazon order.
  • RT @PrashantKV The best part of what I do, is what I do!
  • RT @funnyoneliners The Cop: “How do you explain all the cannabis in your loft?” The Suspect: “Someone must have planted it there.”
  • RT @predominant “My mom called it Mozzarella Firefox”

And that wraps up this update for now, see you next time.

Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad

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The next volume of Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad – Volume 8 – is happening at Lamakaan, Banjara Hills on 31 March 2012.  The event starts from 7 PM onwards.

When I tell people about this, they always ask me what this event is all about, and so I thought I would write a post about it.

“Pecha Kucha” is the Japanese term for “chit-chat”.  A Pecha Kucha Night (PKN) is a gathering where a group of speakers talk about their work, hobby or passion, in a presentation format known as 20 x 20.  This means that each speaker’s presentation must consist of 20 images or slides, each of them being shown for 20 seconds.  Therefore, each presentation at a Pecha Kucha Night runs for approximately 7 minutes.  (more info: Pecha Kucha Website, Pecha Kucha Article on Wikipedia)

The time limit avoids the “death by PowerPoint” effect – and since each presenter is speaking on something they are really passionate about, the talks are always interesting.

Pecha Kucha Nights happen all around the world.  Hyderabad has played host to 7 successful volumes of PKN so far, all of them organised at Lamakaan, the open cultural space at Banjara Hills. (Google Maps page)

I was one of the speakers at Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 6, and I attended Vol 7.  Here are a few glimpses from those events.  Since it’s my blog after all, I fully intend to use this opportunity to highlight my seven minutes of fame all over again!

Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 6 – 5-Nov-11

PKN Hyderabad Vol 6 featured 9 speakers, talking about a variety of very interesting subjects.  This was my first time at a PKN, and I had earlier expressed my interest to participate.  As it turned out, mine was the first presentation that evening.  I spoke about “My Movie Fan Artwork”.  The organisers had two Canon EOS 5D Mark II cameras set up to film all the talks.  Here is the official video of my presentation on YouTube –

I’ve made a PDF of my presentation – you can download it here: Karthik Abhirama Krishna – “My Movie Fan Artwork” [3.14 MB]

I had my camera with me, and I took a bunch of photos at the event.  Above is a picture featuring the other speakers at PKN Hyd Vol 6 (photos by me).  These are the talks (all YouTube links) –

I had a wonderful time at the event – and I was totally hooked.  Therefore, I eagerly awaited the announcement of the next volume.

Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 7 – 4-Feb-12

Volume 7 was held last month, again at Lamakaan.  I was present this time as an audience member, and an ‘unofficial official photographer’ (I took photos at the event and sent them to the organisers, who uploaded some of them on their album on Facebook, with due credit to me).  Above is a look at the speakers who presented at this volume.

There were seven speakers (so the first image in the collage above is of Harish Krishnan, one of the organisers, introducing PKN Hyd Vol 7) and another interesting set of talks.  Here are the YouTube links to the talks –

Here are a few more glimpses from the two events I attended so far –

One section of the audience at Vol 6.  If you’re taking photos at this event, it’s in low light, so you’ll either need a flash or a good and fast lens.  That’s the reason why I took many of my pics with my 50mm f1.8 II lens.

This is an interesting moment that I managed to capture at Vol 6.  Anwar Ahmed is speaking, while Viswaprasad Raju draws a sketch of him!  See the full size photo to see more detail.

The presenters at Vol 7 got a copy of Viswaprasad Raju’s Travel Sketches calendar.

Apart from the presenters at PKN Hyd, the MCs are also important contributors to the event.  Srinidhi Dasaka was the MC for Vol 6, and Dixith PNP was the MC for Vol 7.

If you want to see still more photos, take a look at these two albums on Facebook (my photos) –

Are you interested in participating?

I would recommend you “Like” the official Pecha Kucha Hyderabad Facebook Page.  That’s the easiest way to get updates on upcoming events.  You can also follow @pknhyd on Twitter.  This is their YouTube channel where videos of talks and promos of events are uploaded (apart from the videos I have linked above, one of the most popular uploads there is Joseph Radhik presenting at PKNHyd 3).

If you are interested in participating (either as a presenter, or as an MC), you can send the organisers an email to hydpkn@gmail.com, indicating what you would like to present on.  They would then send you further details and a PPT template using which you can create your presentation.

If you’d just like to attend the event as an audience member, all you have to do is come over to Lamakaan – there is no entry fee.  It’s advised that one arrives early, since the seating space is limited and these events tend to attract large attendance.

A few concluding notes

The Hyderabad Editions of Pecha Kucha Nights are organised by the people who run Hands Media and 17d North and a few other helping hands.  These passionate people must be appreciated, since it’s not an easy task pulling off events like this when you have day jobs.

I didn’t know till I saw the 17d North website that this firm did the branding for the Rubaiyat and Nautanki Gali restaurants!  If you’ve been to these places, you know how creative the ambience is.  Also, I find the name of the firm interesting – it’s a reference to the latitude at which Hyderabad is located.

Finally, I have to mention and say thanks to Pratyusha J, since it was she who told me about Pecha Kucha to begin with, several months ago!