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the.final.shot

the.final.shot

Next up on the photos that never made it to the 'g

Next up on the photos that never made it to the 'gram is an impromptu photoshoot that @shivam_sharma014 and I did on the outskirts of the town. We have had many plans for doing something together but life always got in the way. So before he left for Mumbai we thought we'll do something together but guess what, life got in the way once again. There we were driving, chasing daylight, which eventually we weren't able to catch. Then we spotted an empty field and said what the heck. Let's just do something. Thanks to the low aperture prime of Shivam, we got some amazing low light shots. I thought I'd share them.
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#impromptuphotoshoot #unplannedphotoshoot #nightpgotography #shotoncanon #nightrider #lowlightphotography #abandonedafterdark #experimentalphotography #lightflares

/of the moon and its marvels Can one ever get tir

/of the moon and its marvels

Can one ever get tired of admiring Earth’s only natural satellite? The wraith-silver salver hanging in the lonely sky. You know my obsession with the phases of the moon - 2 failed attempts to capture the entire 14-day cycle should give you an idea. Ha ha. This year, I was more or less on the same geographic plane, so I did not attempt part 3 of capturing only the 11 phases of the moon visible to my longing pair of eyes.

Instead, I captured it against the natural backdrops of Earth’s atmosphere (well, actually, it’s foreground technically, but I am taking the creative liberty to call it the background here). I made images of it whenever I was beguiled by its beauty. Be it when the ghostly chords of moonlight crept from the clouds with the radiant glow of the supernatural. Or when it seemed to magnify the potpourri of aromas swirling in the woods. Or when the vindictive winter garrotted the land and its phosphorescent brilliance illuminated the sky.

This carousel contains images captured in the past 6 months, barring the full moon punched-in frames which I shall post separately. Hope you like the frames featuring this magnificent glowing orb of radiance.

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#phases #moonphases #phasesofthemoon #timelapsephotography #seasonschange #skiesofinstagram #skiesofindia #tripotocommunity #othallofframe #cresentmoon #fullmoonnight

Come visit the magnificent landscapes as witnessed

Come visit the magnificent landscapes as witnessed during the #hamptapasstrek from 9000 feet till 14000 feet. Which frame is your favourite?
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sempiternal sceneries montage
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#reels #reelsinstagram #reelsofinstagram #himachalpradesh #himalayangeographic #himalayasarecalling #bornoninstagram #reelsindia #reelsvideo #reelkarofeelkaro #tripotocommunity #montagevideo #framesofindia

Interplay of light and shadows en route Hampta pas

Interplay of light and shadows en route Hampta pass. Observe the movement of light escaping the clouds. What do you think this was shot on?
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#hamptapasstrek #lightandshadow #timelapse #sustainabletravel #trekkingindia #himalayangeographic #himachalpradesh #timelapsevideo #tripotocommunity #interplay #mountainsofinstagram #bornoninstagram

/when can I see you again? The last time I saw it

/when can I see you again?

The last time I saw it, it was grey. A thousand shades of it. Murky darkness patched with bright whites. Just like how our life is - always in the middle of something, some shade of black and white. I was with it for more than a week. I saw it merge through a multitude of shades and intonations with each passing moment. I observed it at every waking hour. I felt it while I was asleep. I was one with it. Oh, what an expedition and experience it was - to be nestled in the arms of the mountain, where the wind attempted a language to sing lullabies and the clouds tried their best to keep our souls occupied.

14,000 feet on your own feet was an amazing feat and I consider myself really fortunate to have experienced the mysteries of nature. To have witnessed hitherto horizons of beauty, to have experienced rain and snow and a rumor of sunshine from behind the clouds. To have observed the landscape change around me with every 1000 feet - quickly but also not so fast that you don’t get to soak it in.

I am nostalgic and really emotional as I bring this series to a close. This expedition - my first solo expedition - my highest-ever expedition - my longest-yet expedition - has been nothing short of marvelous and I am so grateful that I got to share the beauty through my lens. Massive thanks to the regular folks who went through each and every post, read through my random musings, and even added to the context. I cannot express how blessed I am to have you.

Himalayas, you were beyond great. I know that routine will engulf me. But I’ll remember you, even if it's only in a corner and secretly. I won’t let you go.

Sempiternal sceneries | Curtain drop
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#hamptapass #hamptapasstrek #14000ft #sustainabletravel #solotravel #himalayangeographic #tripotocommunity #himachalpradesh #chikacampsite #sempiternal #mountainsofinstagram #trekkingindia #indiahikes

/where time takes a breath Listen up. Nature is t

/where time takes a breath

Listen up. Nature is the source of utmost beauty. We all can agree on that, can’t we? But hasn’t it happened with you that you witness the mind-hurtling beauty of nature’s creations, maybe the view from the top or perhaps the view from sea level, the one which first freezes the mind and then slowly releases it to hitherto un-experienced horizons of beauty? Something similar happened to me at the final stage of my trek.

We had just reached Chandratal after a hectic trek of 4 days and were making our way to the lake. At first, the route was beautiful, but so had every course we had taken during the trek - filled with sights to behold. As soon as we reached the peak inclination and were about to descend, and I kid you not, this is exactly how I remember it - there was a moment of complete silence as if time was taking a deep breath.

The soft-white clouds were moving ever so slowly as if they were hosting a parade to exhibit their shapes and texture. The back-and-forth movement of the dense blue water of the lake felt like mother Earth cradling its favorite element. It was a sight of monumental grandeur. Amazed by the beautiful scenery, I made a humble attempt to steal something and stamp it in pixels that, at the very least, closely represents how it felt standing there. I hope your soul teleports there via this image.

P.S.- The first image is an ultra-long exposure (6x3 secs)
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sempiternal sceneries (extras 2/3)
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shot on @goproindia Hero9 Black
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#shotongopro #chandratal #chandratallake #moodygrams #darkandmoody #lakesofindia #incredibleindia #tripotocommunity #othallofframe #incrediblehimachal #himalayangeographic #winterlandscape #snowcladmountains #spitivalley #incredibleindia

/languages I can’t speak It’s almost laughabl

/languages I can’t speak

It’s almost laughable to think that inanimate objects, such as the flowing blue water to the floating white clouds, no matter how animated their attributes are, have even the teeny-tiniest ability to speak - literally.

But they do, don’t they, in their own strange ways? Think about the time when you put your head out of the window of a moving vehicle or the time when you stood at a really high elevation - urban or natural, doesn’t matter. Do you see the clouds in the distance? Can you see them moving, running into each other, shifting, apologizing, making some room, and moving further along? Do you recall how the air felt in your hair, on your awe-struck face? Do you hear the howling? Don’t you think they were attempting a language - to talk to your soul surreptitiously?

And then there are literal gestures just like the one in this frame. Is it the universe's attempt to resolve all my thoughts enveloped in silence by an acknowledgment or is this a reflection of what I know in my heart but don’t have the courage to word - is this a version of me saying… yes.

Maybe I’ll learn the language to speak to it or maybe it’s already within me, within all of us. What do you think?
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sempiternal sceneries - extras (1/3)
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shot on @nikonindiaofficial D5200 w/ 18-55mm kit lens
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#cloudsphotography #mountainsofinstagram #pareidolia #shapesinclouds #tripotocommunity #othallofframe #himalayangeographic #himachalpradesh #balukaghera #mountainslovers

/landscape aesthetics To balance the excessive tr

/landscape aesthetics

To balance the excessive travel I did in the mountains, I took to the coastal cities of India over the past 3 weeks. If you have followed me for some time, you’d know that I don’t use social media while traveling. But this time I made an exception and tried sharing the journey as I made it. I still couldn’t bring myself to post posts as they require my undivided attention, and a thousand things are screaming for my attention while I travel. I tried to complete the ongoing series, but since there were 4 posts that remained in it, it would have been a forced churning of content at its very best.

So I waited. I waited for the entire duration of my trip. And now that I am back, I’ll sunset this series properly. This post is about the natural aesthetics of the mountains. The interplay between light and shadow is easily visible, but the interplay between natural elements is a rare sight. During my travels, nature presented me, on multiple occasions, a sight to behold. The white clouds tucked behind the rugged mountains posing like a volcano or the chance encounter with the moon during daylight were a few such instances. I have cataloged them in this carousel, which marks the end of the regular posts. I do have 3 bonus posts from the set which I’ll be posting shortly. And after that, we shall begin the journey of 3 states in 3 weeks!
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shot on @nikonindiaofficial D5200
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sempiternal sceneries (36/36)
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#cloudsphotography #weirdclouds #landscapeaesthetics #tripotocommunity #himachalpradesh #himalayangeographic #whiteclouds #blueskiesandsunshine

/hypnotic inversion While photography is most int

/hypnotic inversion

While photography is most intimately connected with discontinuous ways of seeing
(the point is precisely to see the whole by means of a part - an arresting detail, a striking way of cropping), it is connected only with continuity. When you arrive at a scene where a river is slowly making its way to the mountains, you can either be an acute, non-interfering observer or evaluate the world from your lens and make something breathtaking with your photographic seeing.

A quick refresher on the concept: Photographic seeing means having an aptitude for discovering beauty in what everybody sees but neglects as too ordinary. Photographers usually do more than just see the world as it is, including its already acclaimed marvels; they create interest, through new visual decisions.

Start at the bottom-left side of the frame and follow the stream of water. See how it slowly merges with the ice on the mountains. And how that ice subtly merges with the blue sky imprisoned by white clouds. I can go on and on about the themes that stem from this frame but I won’t over-elaborate.

I’ll leave you with one thought about the title. Usually, it’s the water that’s blue and the sky that’s white. Look at the color of the water and the sky here. Nature - the best artist, well, here’s one of the many reasons why.

Technique: This is a panorama of 3 landscape slides taken from @goproindia Hero9 Black on a ball-head tripod. Stitched in PTGUI and converted to JPEG in Lightroom.
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sempiternal sceneries (35/36)
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#himalayangeographic #othallofframe #tripotocommunity #chikacampsite #himchaltourism #himachalpradesh #photographicseeing #leadinglines #leadinglinesphotography #dramaticlandscape #panoramicview #ultrawideangle

/fourteen-thousand feet on the phone The way to C

/fourteen-thousand feet on the phone

The way to Chandra Taal is nothing short of breathtaking. You encounter a mix of serpentine roads, lush green trees, bright blue skies, snow-capped mountains, and barren stretches of land. The drive, although, challenging, pays constant dividends by providing a feast for your eyes every few kilometers. Since you cannot make stops and capture the immensely beautiful stretch (because you have to reach the base as well before the daylight vanishes), you do whatever you can to capture whatever you can.

Thankfully, modern-day camera phones are there for our rescue. The shots that you see in this post are not only captured by a phone but most of them were made from a moving vehicle. Because, you know, pit stops are not that abundant on the narrow roads that lead us to the lake. So this is my humble attempt to show you the majestic beauty that beholds us all during the drive from Chatru to Chandra Taal (14,100 feet).

The drive bears many visual treats for travelers.
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sempiternal sceneries (34/36)
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#shotonvivo #himachalpradesh #himalayangeographic #himchaltourism #mountainrange #othallofframe #tripotocommunity #chandrataal #roadtrip

Here’s my entry for the #VinceroSamNewton editin

/the milky way, finally People are made of storie

/the milky way, finally

People are made of stories. Our memories are not the impartial accumulation of every second we’ve lived; they’re the narrative that we assembled out of selected moments. Here’s one about a boy who dreamt of capturing all the light we don’t usually see.

It was in 2012 when I learned about the milky way, the galactic center, and all things near-space. It has been on my bucket list ever since to capture the spectacles of the night - the milky way is one of them. It took me some time to learn the technique, then some time to buy the equipment, and some more time to find the appropriate condition to shoot - 8 years to be precise since the day I decided that I can shoot it.

Oh, and let me clarify. By equipment I mean, Nikon D5200 with 18-55mm kit lens and GoPro Hero9 Black. So you know that it’s as basic as it gets. Most people have these lying around in their houses. The nearest I came to capture until the last year was in 2019 but the weather gods had other plans.

In 2021, I made proper plans and trekked the mountains of Kheerganga to capture it, and guess what, the batteries drained due to extreme temperatures. This brings us to this image, right here. It was 2022 and I was determined to not return to normal land until I had a usable shot of our galaxy's center. To my dismay, it didn’t just rain, it poured. It was on a fateful night at 2 AM with -6 degrees temperature and a slightly cloudy night sky that I was able to finally make an image of the milky way.

Coincidence and intention are two sides of a tapestry. You may find one more agreeable to look at, but you cannot say one is true and the other is false. Human-ed determination and luck are what helped me produce this. Here’s to the next attempt, next year, with the hope of clear skies.

Shot on @goproindia Hero9 Black.
f/2.5 / 3mm / 600secs / ISO-800

Slides 2 and 3 show the entire landscape.
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sempiternal sceneries (33/36)
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#shotongopro #themilkyway #galacticcenter #milkywaychasers #goproindia #astrophotography #nightskyphotography #allthelightwecannotsee #beautifullandscape

/mysterious mist Here’s the panorama I spoke ab

/mysterious mist

Here’s the panorama I spoke about in the previous post. The first slide is a punched-in view captured a few minutes before making the panorama shown in the second slide. Slides 3 and 4 show the same panorama split in smaller frames for better viewability.

How I made the panorama:

It was a misty evening in Chika, the first evening of the trek and the mist mixed with clouds was caressing the mud-green mountains. There was a lot of play given the setting sun, blue skies, and cotton candy clouds made the scene so active.

This was also one of the rare moments during this expedition where we had such an expansive unobstructed view. I set my tripod up and panned my camera to the extreme left. Then I made 5 frames keeping the horizon level and panning the camera to the right. I brought them back to my laptop, used PTGUI to stitch the RAW panorama, processed it in Lightroom to convert it into JPEG, and here it is. The key was shooting in RAW and creating the pano is RAW. That allowed me to extract the colors and details from the scene.
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sempiternal sceneries (32/36)
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#panorama #panoramicview #mountainpanorama #himalayangeographic #himachaltourism #ptgui #panoramaoftheday #surrealmountains #othallofframe

/traditional landscapes As we near the end of thi

/traditional landscapes

As we near the end of this series, I bring to you full-size landscapes from the expedition. The last few planned shots from the series feature frames that just couldn’t fit into the 4x5 resolution. Hopefully, you like ‘em. There’s a panorama coming up.
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sempiternal sceneries (31/36)
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#landscapesofinstagram #himalayanrange #himalayangeographic #himachaltourism #othallofframe #idylliclandscape #tranquility #sunsetview

/take me somewhere far away This is a composite o

/take me somewhere far away

This is a composite of 3 shots taken back to back to capture the bird's trajectory in the frame.

During the trekking distance of ~4000 feet, the landscape shifted dramatically. It went from lush green trees to no trees, from snow-clad mountains to barren mountains, from bright yellow days to dark grey mornings. One thing that really stood out for me was the texture of the mountains.

Sure enough, if you just glance at them they wouldn’t look a lot different from one another. But if you take a closer look you’ll notice that they are quite different. Here’s one exhibit. The mountains at ~12,000 feet in the Himachal region (en route to Hampta pass) look like they might have been the wings of a dragon frozen over time. The flint-grey rocks laced with goldenrod-yellow appear otherworldly. Look out for these when you depart from Chika and are heading towards Balu ka Ghera.
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sempiternal sceneries (30/36)
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#balukaghera #hamptapasstrek #texture #incrediblemountains #incrediblehimachal #mountainsofinstagram #tripotocommunity #rarerocks

/carbon black motifs

Observe the typical and you’ll be treated with surprises.
That’s the mantra I chant internally whenever I hold my black rectangular device that freezes motion in pixels. Although the camera is an observation station, the act of photographing is more than passive observing.

It is a way of at least tacitly, often explicitly, encouraging whatever is going on to keep on happening. To take a picture is to have an interest in things as they are, in the status quo remaining unchanged (at least for as long as it takes to get a “good” picture), to be in complicity with whatever makes a subject interesting, worth photographing —including, when that is the interest, symmetry in nature.

We all see things differently. Some of us might have seen a singular tree through a narrow corridor of surrounding trees. Some of us, including me, saw a couple of bent trees making for a great tunnel-like entrance for the eyes of the viewer and an array of trees guiding the eye to the event horizon of the metaphorical tunnel to the white abyss (read: black hole) that lies beyond the silhouetted tree.

Photographic seeing does bring out the poet in us - it’s a psychological transformation of our eyesight.
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sempiternal sceneries (29/36)
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#blackandwhitenaturephotography #bnw_captures #symmetricalmonsters #symmetryinnature #silhoutte #motionphotography #monochromatic #singlecolor

/like a drizzled cake I gazed upon the crumpled f

/like a drizzled cake

I gazed upon the crumpled forehead of the mountain. It stabbed the sky and loomed over me. It had a wizened and world-weary aspect to it. The first falls had made it snow-snooded. A brooch of snow had clasped itself to the scalp of the mountain and it looked like the broken, jagged tooth of a hag. However, I could see the bare rock at the foot of it, as it hadn’t been enwrought in wilderness-white yet but was veiled by the green skyscrapers of wilderness - trees.

The rain came then.

Like a druid’s spittle, it was sibilant and stinging. When it ceased, lasers of light broke through the clouds. Lichen-encased rocks gave the landscape its primeval quality, adding to the marvel of the occasion. I had a hallelujah moment then, a moment of clarity. I could see that the splendor of the world was inspired by a divine force. I realized that nature’s sorcerous magic could salve the most oaken of hearts.

The rain had forced me to keep my camera inside and this was the image I made just before that. Hence, it serves as a reminder for me of how I felt when I was there. I thought I’ll share the experience with words if not visuals.

P.S.- Slides 2 and 3 show the entire landscape.
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sempiternal sceneries (28/36)
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shot on @nikonindiaofficial D5200

/fire in the sky At times, the background of a la

/fire in the sky

At times, the background of a landscape is so interesting that whatever you have in the foreground feels bland. During the summer expedition in the snow-clad Himalayan range, I witnessed this so many more times than I could remember. This frame is from one such instance.

It was around 4 PM (it gets dark by 6 PM there even in summers!) and we were setting up our camps. The grey clouds had already sucked the color from the vibrant summer skies. Night’s dark mantle was closing in around us. There wasn’t any moon loitering in the evening sky. Nor did the night stars speckled.

To our surprise, there was a tangerine glow that lit the silhouetted trees almost 2 mountains away. I went inside my tent to grab my camera and by the time I was back, there was a clear ring of fire in front of us. It was as if nature was saying a constant drumbeat of pessimism usually drowns out any triumphalist song so here’s something bright and shiny to lift your spirits.
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sempiternal sceneries (27/36)
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#fireinthesky #goldenhoursunset #tangerinesky #tealandorange #sunsetsonmountains #himchaltourism #himachalpradesh #goldenhourcollective

/tracing silhouettes of you Teleportation time.

/tracing silhouettes of you

Teleportation time.

You are looking at a thick puffball-white stretch of clouds cloaking the entire Earth beneath them. Everywhere you see it’s blinding white. You catch a whiff of the intoxicating swirling perfume of the time-worn forest. A smell you have had buried somewhere in the maze of memory. There is a moment of silence. As if time is taking a deep breath. And you rub your eyes in disbelief. A grove of trees rises from underneath as if swinging one of its arms to celebrate a triumph. You are beatific.

You are in awe.
You are in amazement.
You are in astonishment.
And that’s just the A’s of what you’re feeling.

This is a composite of a slow and a fast shutter shot taken back to back to encapsulate the essence of the experience. The second frame is also based on the same technique. The third and fourth frames show the entire landscape of the first.
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sempiternal sceneries (26/36)
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shot on @nikonindiaofficial D5200
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#mistymorning #framewithinaframe #forestphotography #treesofinstagram #himalayangeographic #othallofframe #tripotocommunity #moodylandscape

/this version of you Let me start by stating a fa

/this version of you

Let me start by stating a fact, there are good days and bad days, and then there are some that fall somewhere in between. No one can escape any of them no matter how much we’d like. Most of us have this association hard-wired that darkness is bad and light is good. Maybe it’s because we say villains in cartoons evading our favorite heroes’ catechize(ing) and disappearing in the darkness. But dark and moody skies stir emotions inside us that we can barely put into words. So doesn’t that make darkness, beautiful?

As all things in life go, it’s how you look at it. Sure, gloomy days don’t have to be labelled as something enjoyable but don’t you think these are the days that drag the metaphorical arrow inside of us backward so that we could catapult back to greater heights? And doesn’t the constant toil on the bright days suck us dry? Don’t we fundamentally fall into this cycle and our actions shape our destiny?

The first image in this carousel is a practical representation of this construct. The dark days fill you with opportunities, you use them and excel in your bright days. The luminosity of the bright ones dry your pool of creativity and you are back in the pool of darkness to recharge. These are just 2 versions of you, one looking at you and you looking back.
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sempiternal sceneries (25/36)
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shot on @nikonindiaofficial D5200
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#playoflight #playoflightandshadow #darknessandlight #thisversionofyou #dramaticlandscape #surreallandscape #himalayangeographic #othallofframe #natgeotravellerindia

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