Looking at things differently

Photography is one of the best hobbies I have ever picked up in this life of mine. It feels great when you end up with a nice shot, something to be proud of. It feels great to shoot a roll, drop it off to a photography lab and to wait in anticipation for the prints. It feels great to discover a subject that is interesting and full of potential.

Sure, there are disadvantaged to being a serious amateur photographer. There's the money aspect. According to a rough estimate, I have spent close to Rs. 100,000 on my photographic equipment, various films rolls and the cost of their development, printing and scanning. Why not buy a digital camera, then? Because I am a luddite. I like loading film in my camera, sometimes setting the ISO speed manually for black and white rolls for better contrast and hues. I like the fact that I cannot waste shots on any subjects since I have a limited number of frames available (which leads to better judgement and a better feel for how the shot will turn out). I like the fact that print film is not so sensitive to light as a digital sensor is, which makes taking good photographs in low lights and high contrast shots very difficult, which in turn leads to a greater sense of elation when a shot does come out well.

Another disadvantage is that photographers are sometimes so engrossed in composing shots that they miss the scene. There have been times in my life when I was so anxious to capture a sunset that I missed seeing it with my own eyes. I remember beauty much more vividly from times when I didn't have a camera handy, or when I didn't carry it with me to a particular destination.

And don't even mention the extra luggage that one has to carry. During the first five years of me buying a camera, I never went anywhere without it, two extra lenses and a tripod. It can be cumbersome and heavy, you know. And if travelling by a train, there is always the fear of losing stuff.

But there is one advantage to being a photographer that offsets all these negative -- there's beauty everywhere. It really is in the viewfinder of the cameraman, as somebody once said. Before I started photography, I could never see the covert beauty in things. For me, this world was made up of new, shiny objects and old, dull objects. There were good looking people, and those who were not. There were new, swanky buildings, and old delapidated ones. But once I started looking at things through a viewfinder, beauty took on a whole new meaning. Beauty is not in a thing itself, but in how the thing is looked at. It is up to the photographer to bring out such beauty in things. Case and point, this shot by Senthil, and this and this. Boring, old, dull objects have been made to look beautiful because the photographer found beauty and was able to capture it for everybody else to see from the same perspective. That, my friends, is a boon. I find very few things ugly and uninspiring now.

Fortunately, India is fraught with photographic subjects. I found this lady sitting on the steps outside a general store, waiting for someone. After taking her consent, I took this picture. I hope you like it...




Please do leave your comments.