Your Bio

Welcome! I am Parv and I am passionate about the arts and photography ...

My photography galleries are a bit like windows into my soul ... they help define me as a person ... I hope you shall feel welcome.

And for a more generous helping of what gets me going and gives me goosebumps, you can check-out my blog-site at http://360.yahoo.com/parvphoto

Questions about assignments/sessions/purchasing prints: Please call (540) 250-3831 [in the United States] or you may e-mail me at "Parvphoto@yahoo.com".

Enjoy!

Parvinder (Parv) Sethi
Explorer, Teacher, Regular Guy
[http://www.parv.smugmug.com]

Featured Galleries

My Hawaii -- Molten lava flows! : Lava flows meeting the Pacific Ocean. I had flown to Hawaii on getting word that there had been several surface 'break-outs' of lava flows which otherwise are not visible as they flow to the ocean through underground lava tubes (lava tunnels). Equipped with a gas mask, a face shield, tripod, camera gear, Powerbars and as much Gatorade I could carry - I hiked for about 6 miles to reach this spot from where I could photograph active flows from within 5-10 feet! I took sunset shots, then camped out close to the lava flows and photographed them through the night. I was treated to a full moon rising over this eerie but awe-inspiring theater where the darkness of night was interrupted only by the hissing of poisonous gases from the lava flows and explosions of steam as the lava met the cold ocean. All of these shots were on Fuji Velvia film taken with a Nikon F-100 body - which I fully expected to have simply melted due to the immense radiant heat being so close to the lava flows; amazingly the camera and film survived, to help me get home some incredible shots! My souvenir from the trip? Hiking boots with most of the tread on the soles burned out! Oh - and I also met another photographer (named - Stumpy! Really!) ... but his is another story, you see - Stumpy, had been photographing similar ocean enteries of lava when he got a bit too close to an explosion that sent shards of razor-sharp basalt flying through the air! Three fingers later ... well!

My Hawaii -- Molten lava flows!

Lava flows meeting the Pacific Ocean. I had flown to Hawaii on getting ...

Updated: Mar 27, 2006 6:45am PST

Galleries

Americana - A Photographic Tapestry! : This is my America - and these photographs are my souvenirs - from places I have visited in my search for that 'common thread of humanity' that inevitably binds us together. These photographic journeys have taken me to places both notable and obscure, and down paths well-traveled and well-hidden. From an old diner along Route 66 to the smile of a little girl holding a gemstone at a street festival - these images mean 'home' to me; this is my America - old and new, splendid and sordid, serious and indifferent, engaging and nonchalant, ever-changing yet timelessly similar. You may also notice my proclivity for taking close-ups; this is something that 'crept-up' on me in my photographic style, in the sense that I didn't realize that I was doing it until I examined a group of slides together on my light-box one night, and it made me think about 'why' was I being drawn to faces up close? And after many a month of pondering that question, I think I have the answer ... it is because each face is a work of beauty unto itself and worth examining with long, unbroken, continuous, unabashed stares ... and since the unspoken rules of our societal dynamics deem such 'studying' of faces improper (or perhaps even rude!) - I therefore study the faces after-the-fact -- through these photographs. These, then, are the photographs that calm me, and help center me when I read the news and sense a world going astray. These photos remind me of the commonality of 'human emotions' - laughter, tears, smiles, gazes - in people brown, white, black and every shade inbetween. Everyone, I'd like for you to meet - everyone!

Americana - A Photographic Tapestry!

This is my America - and these photographs are my souvenirs - from pla ...

Updated: Apr 22, 2006 8:38pm PST

Majestic Places & Spaces! : I was 13, maybe 14 years old; a lanky, scrawny teenager who was transitioning through what had seemed like, so many stages all at once. There was puberty, breaking-of-the-voice, friendships with boys, and of course a redefining of the distance from girls! As it turned out, I wasn't really drawn to the sorts of things my male friends seemed to be spending most of their time on - I was more interested in getting high with hiking and discussions about the meaning of life than with courting the opposite sex. And so began a period of sometimes unnerving solitude, when I spent a lot of my time in pursuit of things/ideas that interested 'me' - and not just ones that were deemed 'cool' by my peers. No siree - I wasn't about to be 'herded' anywhere :) About that time I discovered a place in the high mountains where after a strenuous hike, I could sit in a field of 'geodes', hammer them open, and find amazing crystals of quartz and amethyst -- I'd pack my saddle bags full with these rocks, and walk my heavily-laden bicycle back, 10 miles to home. Then came college and my first geology class. I remember thinking how odd it seemed that one could carve a career out of walking in beautiful places and studying rivers, glaciers, mountains! I was hooked ... 20 years later, as I look back on these photographs ... they each bespeak of all the reasons I chose to pursue geology, and now wouldn't have it any other way! These are some 'Majestic Places & Spaces' I have been blessed to have been in. I use these images (along with stories accompanying them!) in my Introductory Geology classes at the university where I teach. I am blatant, almost ruthless :) in 'leaving no stone unturned' in communicating my enthusiasm about the Earth and its richness and beauty as seen in these pics. I simply set the 'stage' so to speak and let the images do the talking -- it never fails to instill a sense of wonderment and a certain 'wanderlust' in the minds of my students - most of whom have not yet traveled beyond Virginia. I hear the 'doors of their minds' creaking open, the winds of change wafting in - softly yet surely, and I tell myself -- it's happening! And so, each semester I feel like I have 'spawned' a 125 students who are now keen observers of our precious planet. Yes - I stand guilty of 'infecting' my students' minds with wild and incredible vistas ... just so the Earth shall have a chance, and so that ... our children may too!

Majestic Places & Spaces!

I was 13, maybe 14 years old; a lanky, scrawny teenager who was transi ...

Updated: Feb 15, 2008 10:19pm PST

The Grand Canyon -- In a different light! : The Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. It's a place where time seemingly stands still, yet has marched on endlessly for hundreds of millions of years. It's a place that doesn't really care about what a big-shot you may be in a corporate boardroom or elsewhere. Here all beings are equal, humbled and mystically reminded of the intricate connections we all share in the web of life. To try to photograph the vistas in this amphitheater is akin to tyring to describe a passionate kiss -- some things are best said unsaid and best remembered as experiences -- here is a supreme example of one! My best experience at the Canyon was sunrise on January 01, 2000 -- it was below-freezing temperature and I had just hiked up to Hopi Point to catch the first sun rays on this 'anthropogenically created, big-to-do day, Jan. 01, 2000, the start of a new millenium!', when I was greeted by a Korean couple (on their honeymoon) sitting inside their car waiting for sunrise. We chatted and the next thing we knew the magical sunlight was hitting the blood-red walls of steep sandstone cliffs, the mind-numbing wind-chill and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture wafting out mutedly through the speakers of the Korean couples' car -- they politely asked me if they could listen to the music softly as they watched the sunrise and if their music would bother me -- to which I had replied -- "Let's open all the doors of your car and play that piece as loudly as your speakers can put out!"... and so the three of us sat there ... two Koreans and a Indian whose different life journeys had brought them to an intersection at the edge of the Canyon ... trying to 'fit-in' in this grandest violation of human life and scale ... quiet because the only thing that we could muster to share with the Canyon then was a 1812 piece of music by a man long gone!

The Grand Canyon -- In a different light!

The Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. It's a place where time see ...

Updated: Feb 18, 2006 11:15am PST

My India - Women & Children! : The most influential people in my life have been women - my mother - Uttamjit, of course, who taught me so much and still continues to; of what it means to be brave, kind, a friend, a maverick, a father and a son, of grace under pressure and tenacity under stress. Mostly she taught me about love; about what it is and what it takes and the rewards that await those who walk the walk. My college professor (a geologist) who was probably one of the first female geologists in a field dominated by males in India in the 1980's - who taught me that there is nothing more pure than a relentless pursuit of knowledge and of excellence - that once that is kept in focus - all other things just have a way of 'falling into place'! I remember her telling me one day that there were no real limits, just imagined ones and I have kept that quote close to my heart. My SCUBA-diving instructor in Brussels at the time I was learning Deep-sea diving for my research on the muddy bottoms of the tumultuous North Sea and the English Channel - all of 5 feet tall, she was(is) a woman of steel with nerves to match - she had helped me reach a state of physical and mental control which after a year of practice in the pool every friday night, had allowed me to pass the stringent European Exam for Open-water diving and had involved tests including holding a breath for 3 minutes, swimming ridiculous distances (precisely what had saved my life at times!) and held back no punches because she believed in me. My Ph.D. Advisor at NC State University - who helped me 'grow' intellectually, both carefully and demandingly and always led by example - to teach things she wanted her students to learn -- something I do now - to my own students as I pass the baton on. My Chairperson in the Dept. of Geology at Northeastern Illinois Univ. in Chicago - who taught me that it was OK to do big things, to not await somebody's permission, and that anything done with a lot of love becomes worthwhile. Yes indeed, I have had the blessing of some utterly remarkable women in my life ... they are the 'stronger' sex - and these photographs are my tribute to them ... just like my favorite bookstore that still exists on the corner of Clark and Foster in Chicago - "Women and Children First"!.

My India - Women & Children!

The most influential people in my life have been women - my mother - U ...

Updated: Apr 22, 2006 8:38pm PST

My India - The Ageless! : I have been very fortunate to have been schooled in India, Europe and the U.S., with more years of my life spent living outside than in India. I grew up there, through my teen years, but my most formative moments have come not from any one country but from a 'progressive juxtapositioning' of concepts and belief systems against a backdrop of different cultures that I have experienced. My world-view stems from a true amalgamation, a blending of things that made (and continue to make) 'sense' to me -- be it in something as innocuous as my greeting to a stranger on the street to something as personal as why was my marriage was a 'love marriage' as opposed to an 'arranged' one as is the norm in India! My regular visits to my parents in India have repeatedly thrust me center-stage into a society that senses me as a 'local guy' - in as much as I 'walk the walk' and 'talk the talk', however, my 'view' of the India I visit is not entirely from within but from the outside as well -- I am constantly switching back-and-forth between contrasting cultures in my own mind even as I blend seamlessly and almost anonymously with the multitudes on the street and in the bazaars. Studying my photographs and the content and manner in which I composed them, reveals much to me about myself, and about where I am in this unending yearning for a clear(er) definition of the self, of myself. Just like the way in which the 'act of writing' forces a writer to think through 'the cobwebs of ambiguity' in his/her mind and 'pen down' thoughts clearly and forcefully; similarily photography for me forces my mind to 'take a stance, a position' which in turn helps me discover where I am and where I have been and also offers just a glimpse of where I seem headed to. There are times when I recognize my roots in India, yet there are also times when I feel 'a homeless of sorts' -- and the whole key for me has been to grow to a point where a 'home' is what I make of the place that I am in, to 'bloom where planted' and to recognize that we all have two families that deserve equal attention -- one that we are brought into this world in and the other being the people we are surrounded by - in the community, the workplace, the Little League, the YMCA! A word about photographing in India. One of my heroes (photographically speaking) has been Steve McCurry (famed for his work covering Asia and the Far East for National Geographic and author of a stunning book simply titled - 'Portraits'). Steve once commented on his experiences photographing India for over a decade and he summed it very thoughtfully; he said - "In the West everone is very private about everything and very few things are sacred. In India, nobody has much privacy, and everything is sacred!". My own thoughts and photographs echo Steve's viewpoint but I do have a bit to add to his sensibility. I have often mused about why photographing in India seems so much more colorful, pungent, noisy, vibrant, hopeful and tragic at the same time as compared to the West. The best I have been able to come up with is by thinking of the two worlds as 'two lovers' - in the West, the lovers are waltzing, mindful of the personal space and nuances that somehow mean sophistication for some, whereas in India - the two lovers are in the act of eloping, frenzied with life, dancing not simply holding hands as in a poised waltz, but 'clutching'. These photographs, to me, mean it is this 'clutching' that I must do more of -- so I can feel each moment of this 'certain wild and precious life'! Namaste!

My India - The Ageless!

I have been very fortunate to have been schooled in India, Europe and ...

Updated: Mar 30, 2006 4:37pm PST

Abstract a.k.a. Whimsical Musings! : I'd like to die during sunset, a stunning, fiery, red-emblazoned open sky - the kind you get to see in Arizona, Utah, Montana -- big spaces with big skies! We'll see if I am to be that lucky! My ashes - no finer place to disperse them than Big Sur, on the Pacific Coast in Northern California with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture blaring out loud and then one 'big' party to celebrate the departure of my spirit to that 'top secret, classified meeting grounds of kindred spirits'! No, I have never been preoccupied with 'death', just aware of the certainty of it. In fact, as I approach 40 next year, I sense a certain quickening - of the mind, of my heartbeats, of being more courageous and wise about sifting through the unending to-do-lists to focus on the really important stuff - I did that yesterday - took the time to visit with a friend of mine 30 miles away, sat on the porch swing and drank wine - and then the neighbors joined us and there we were 'touching each other's lives' and having a celebration of the ties that bind us, anchor us, together and bring richness to our days. These photographs are my promises to Mother Earth and Father Time - that I have 'not' been speeding through life hurriedly and frantic, but that I 'listen' to the 'voices in my head', or 'to what my rice krispies tell me', or 'the tea leaves at the bottom of my cup' -- that I 'see' in the beyond, and in the within, and hear - well - of course - both the infra-and the ultrasonics - from the low droning of whale sounds while diving in the Pacific to the ear-splitting lightening strikes in the tornado-alley in Kansas - all sounds that rattle me out of any complacency my 9-5 teaching job may manage to beguile me into. These abstracts are therefore - the 'more real' of things in my life, and my wish is that such abstracts always hold their realism for me until that fateful day in the future ... when some ashes will find the wind in the Pacific, with lilting notes of Tchaikovsky's 1812 piece and a bunch of colorfully-dressed people eager to get home and drink some very fine vino!.

Abstract a.k.a. Whimsical Musings!

I'd like to die during sunset, a stunning, fiery, red-emblazoned open ...

Updated: Apr 22, 2006 8:49pm PST

What Did I Photograph Recently ... : What is it that nudges people to share the beautiful things/moments/spaces in their lives with others? I have felt that tangible 'rush' to the head while standing at the mouth of a glacier in Alaska, solitary and so wishing I had someone to put my hand on his/her shoulder and exclaim - "Isn't that just a glorious view?". I have felt it watching the exuberant finish of SeaBiscuit (while watching the movie in my study) at his final race, and that particular summers day in Utah when I continued hiking in a torrential downpour to see the Delicate Arch (while all other hikers turned back) and then for a few seconds the sun had shone through, illuminating the arch and producing the most gorgeous rainbow I have ever seen smack in the middle of the arch and I photographed it! I wanted to share that moment too but I was alone then - thoroughly drenched but grinning ear-to-ear, soaking-in that beautiful moment. And so it is ... with all the changes/growth/evolutions, one thing that has survived in my life is wanting to 'share' - I guess it must be one of these 'default settings' from the factory for our species :), and so this gallery is about 'sharing' - the photographs that I continue to take/create ... these are views that have caught my eye and perhaps even made me go weak-in-the-knees for a moment or two ... these are pics that chronicle the 'regular days' of my life these days -- these pics may not be the 'sexiest' ones out there ... but they are of 'my' days, of the town I live in, people I meet and allow me to offer my bit of that 'lowest common denominator' that threads through all our lives - no matter where we live ... 'humanity'. Welcome!

What Did I Photograph Recently ...

What is it that nudges people to share the beautiful things/moments/sp ...

Updated: Nov 26, 2007 6:33pm PST

Fragments of Color - Abstract expressionism of rocks. : These photographs are one of my attempts at blurring the line between science and art! All of these images are of paper-thin, transparent/transluscent slices of rocks photographed with pure 5500 degree Kelvin, white light in a microscope. I use a industrial rock saw to cut a hand-sized piece of a rock, then trim it with a oil-cooled saw with a diamond blade after which I glue a square chip of the rock to a glass slide using a special epoxy and 'cure' it with heat. Following that I hand-grind the slice with a series of grits until the slice is about 30 microns thick (a.k.a. barely visible!). I then use a 'petrologic microscope' with a special adapter tube that acts as a 'close-up bellows' and attach my 35-mm SLR film camera onto it and take the photographs. The 100 ASA film is then developed normally and the prints scanned. Magnification used is 40x so the entire area of a 600x800 pixel image is just about the size of a pencil point on the glass slide! I do not use any artificial coloration of light or materials in these photographs; all colors are how they appear under plane polarized light -- meaning light vibrating in only one plane - similar to what polarized sunglasses do - the cutting-out of the glare is what intensifies the colors that are already present in such slices of a rock. The other way to understand this is to think of a thin, colored (let's say light green) plastic sheet. If you hold just one such thin sheet against a light source - you'll be able to see the light green color, but then take a stack of a 1000 of these sheets together and what you then see is almost black/opaque. What I am doing with these photographs is a kind of "reverse engineering" with starting out with a 'thick mass of a rock' and just slicing it very thinly to get to that elusive 'thin sheet' of its composition - a thin-ness that allows for its inherent colors to become more visible. I like to think of this work as 'parting the curtains'! Enjoy!

Fragments of Color - Abstract expressionism of rocks.

These photographs are one of my attempts at blurring the line between ...

Updated: Apr 27, 2006 12:05pm PST

Los Angeles: The Rhythms of a City! : Part of a series I did on Los Angeles, the week of Thanksgiving, 2006 ... my memories of those seven days are now tied to the music of James Blunt ... his CD was my constant companion on this solitary photo jaunt for me :)

Los Angeles: The Rhythms of a City!

Part of a series I did on Los Angeles, the week of Thanksgiving, 2006 ...

Updated: Jan 23, 2007 6:37pm PST

One From My Archives ... : My photographs are my memories. When I am sad I journal/write, when I feel happy I photograph :) I have many photographs - must mean that I have had many moments of happiness ... you betcha! I have lived a blessed life, a rolling stone's, eager to turn the corner and meet what's on the other side ... A walk down memory lane for me usually means sifting through my 35-mm slides and paper prints, and every now and then I'll pick one up, study it on the light table and decide to scan it and upload it on this gallery - to share. So - here are some pics from my happy moments ... along with a brief caption. Please feel welcome! - Parv

One From My Archives ...

My photographs are my memories. When I am sad I journal/write, when I ...

Updated: Oct 17, 2006 6:39pm PST

The Zen of Rocks :

The Zen of Rocks

Updated: Feb 14, 2006 2:43pm PST

My Mexico - Touring in Cozumel! :

My Mexico - Touring in Cozumel!

Updated: Mar 30, 2006 4:37pm PST

My China - Slices of a time! :

My China - Slices of a time!

Updated: Mar 30, 2006 4:37pm PST

My Turkey - Streets of Istanbul! :

My Turkey - Streets of Istanbul!

Updated: Mar 12, 2006 3:55am PST

Los Angeles - Part Deux : A vagabond week :) spent walking my tush off and photographing Los Angeles ... now I do not fear that city, only hugely respect its moods and nuances ... she is a generous hostess! Go, visit her someday :)

Los Angeles - Part Deux

A vagabond week :) spent walking my tush off and photographing Los Ang ...

Updated: Dec 14, 2006 9:06pm PST

B&W - Earthscapes! :

B&W - Earthscapes!

Updated: Mar 14, 2006 1:45pm PST

Steppin' Out 2005 - A Street Festival :

Steppin' Out 2005 - A Street Festival

Updated: Mar 30, 2006 4:36pm PST

My India - The Spiritual! :

My India - The Spiritual!

Updated: Apr 22, 2006 8:38pm PST

Robinson Crusoe - Children's Theater : Click on the gallery. You will be prompted for a password. Prints can be purchased by clicking the 'Buy Photo' button above each photograph in the gallery. Enjoy the photos!

Robinson Crusoe - Children's Theater

Click on the gallery. You will be prompted for a password. Prints can ...

Updated: Feb 11, 2008 5:11pm PST

My Hawaii -- Molten lava flows! : Lava flows meeting the Pacific Ocean. I had flown to Hawaii on getting word that there had been several surface 'break-outs' of lava flows which otherwise are not visible as they flow to the ocean through underground lava tubes (lava tunnels). Equipped with a gas mask, a face shield, tripod, camera gear, Powerbars and as much Gatorade I could carry - I hiked for about 6 miles to reach this spot from where I could photograph active flows from within 5-10 feet! I took sunset shots, then camped out close to the lava flows and photographed them through the night. I was treated to a full moon rising over this eerie but awe-inspiring theater where the darkness of night was interrupted only by the hissing of poisonous gases from the lava flows and explosions of steam as the lava met the cold ocean. All of these shots were on Fuji Velvia film taken with a Nikon F-100 body - which I fully expected to have simply melted due to the immense radiant heat being so close to the lava flows; amazingly the camera and film survived, to help me get home some incredible shots! My souvenir from the trip? Hiking boots with most of the tread on the soles burned out! Oh - and I also met another photographer (named - Stumpy! Really!) ... but his is another story, you see - Stumpy, had been photographing similar ocean enteries of lava when he got a bit too close to an explosion that sent shards of razor-sharp basalt flying through the air! Three fingers later ... well!

My Hawaii -- Molten lava flows!

Lava flows meeting the Pacific Ocean. I had flown to Hawaii on getting ...

Updated: Mar 27, 2006 6:45am PST

Post Cards ... From The Edge! :

Post Cards ... From The Edge!

Updated: May 15, 2007 9:26pm PST

B&W - The Grown-ups! :

B&W - The Grown-ups!

Updated: Apr 22, 2006 8:38pm PST

Grimm-O'Donnell Wedding : Prints can be ordered here with a credit card. Please click on the 'Buy Photo' button below any photograph to add to your shopping cart. You can select between sizes during the online checkout. $3 for 4x6, $10 for 5x7, $25 for 8x10 sized prints. CD with all 350 + high-resolution photographs are also available for $50. Please e-mail me at 'parvphoto@yahoo.com' with requests for CDs.

Grimm-O'Donnell Wedding

Prints can be ordered here with a credit card. Please click on the 'Bu ...

Updated: Nov 23, 2007 12:23pm PST

Virginia Junior Rodeo, Dublin, Virginia. Aug. 26-27, 2006.Parents can order prints online here. :

Virginia Junior Rodeo, Dublin, Virginia. Aug. 26-27, 2006.Parents can order prints online here.

B&W - The Not-So-Grown-Ups! :

B&W - The Not-So-Grown-Ups!

Updated: Mar 30, 2006 4:37pm PST

Newfarmer Lightbox GEOLOGY Jan 09 2008 : Newfarmer_Lightbox_GEOLOGY photographs

Newfarmer Lightbox GEOLOGY Jan 09 2008

Newfarmer Lightbox OCEANOGRAPHY Jan 09 2008 :

Newfarmer Lightbox OCEANOGRAPHY Jan 09 2008

Newfarmer Lightbox GEOGRAPHY Jan 09 2008 :

Newfarmer Lightbox GEOGRAPHY Jan 09 2008

Updated: Jan 10, 2008 8:02am PST

Newfarmer Lightbox METEOROLOGY Jan 09 2008 :

Newfarmer Lightbox METEOROLOGY Jan 09 2008

Updated: Jan 10, 2008 8:31am PST

Photo Timeline

Browse by: All (1830)    2006(1219)    2007(598)    2008(13)   

Or, pick your own date range:

Start day:     Stop day: