Photography is an art, its
science, its music and it’s also poetry. Its the art of taking an instant out of time and freezing it. It’s purely on the way how you look at
it. It’s a wonderful and rewarding profession and also a very satisfying hobby.
Photography helps you unwind and gives you a chance to explore, it brings out
newer perspective to life, by exposing you to your own ability to look at the
things from different perspective.
Its amazing experience capturing
moments and emotions and freezing them on silicon. It could be kids playing on
the ground, or some very old person sitting alone at some corner in the park.
Photography helps you create painting with minimal effort and miniscule time in
comparison to painting with paint and brush.
I started photography when I was
in class eight, with an Agfa camera given by my father, who himself was an
excellent photographer. Back then, there were only black and white 35 mm films
and it was always delayed gratification with lot of suspense, as you could see
your work printed only after few days, because those days developing studios
used to take some time developing your film and printing the ones you chose by
looking at the negatives. But that delay never reduced the joy of getting to
see the snaps, and reminiscing the moments you’ve frozen on paper. The nervousness
of fitting the film on your camera, seeing that you waste minimum of the film
by exposing it to light while fixing the spool was marvelous and when you could
extract 40-42 pictures from that film that promised 35 snaps, you used to get
the feeling of great accomplishment.
I learnt skills and finer points
of photography from my Mama ji, an artist who studied at Lucknow Arts College and
later worked at King George’s Medical College, Lucknow as Artist. He had a
small dark-room (The lab to develop and print films) set up in his drawing
room, by partitioning it with ply-board. I assisted him in preparing the
developer, for the negatives that he had exposed in course of his work at the
medical college. He had a chemical balance to weigh the chemicals to be mixed
in the developer; it was a great feeling being there in the process of creation
of great photographs from those black strips of celluloid. While writing this I can still remember the pungent
smell of the cocktail of Sulphuric Acid, Hydrochloric Acid, Acetic Acid, Nitric
Acid, Metol, Hydroquinone, Potassium Metabisulphite and Sodium Hydroxide. The
prepared developer was poured in the developing tank after loading the films on
the cartridge inside. The tank was to be shaken occasionally, so that the film
is developed evenly. It was thrilling experience as the film was loaded in complete
darkness inside the darkroom. I learnt to see through my hands in the darkroom.
It was a wonderful experience still very fresh in my mind.
My mama ji was an
out of the box thinker a great Jugaadi as an innovator and out of the
box thinker is called in India. He used hair removing soap to give sepia tone to
the photographs. He also invented an interesting way to shake the developing
tank, he used to put that tank in a bag while going for vegetable shopping, as
he walked and moved around from shop to shop, the tank was silently shaking its
way to developing the films evenly and time was also not wasted. Being part of
developing process of the film, made me aware of the finer points of lights and
how the film responds to it. This knowledge does come in handy even now, when
the technology has taken over the better part of photography and it has become
an art of instant gratification with almost no risks. Now the photographer is
only left with the choices of choosing the timing and composition of his
photograph, rest everything is taken care by the camera and what is left is
further taken care of by Photoshop or Light room software. But these two
components of photography; timing and composition, constitute the heart and
soul of the photograph, and like humans, how so ever beautiful or attractive a
person might look physically, unless he is bestowed with a good soul, his
attraction would not hold long.
The composition is a technique
which becomes a natural reflexive act like gear shifting in car, once you have
shot enough number of photographs, but timing is something which can only come
if you are part of the scene with all your heart in it. Life of a moment is
only a moment long, and that’s all the time a photographer gets to capture it.
Sometime a photographer has to choose
between composition and moment, a good photographer always chooses the later as
the moment or lamha is important. Gulzar’s has expressed it beautifully – ek
baar waqt se lamha gira kahin, wahan daastaan mili lamha kahi nahi. A
photograph captures only a moment a lamha, but when you look at that moment
captured in photograph an entire story unfolds in your mind. The memories keep
pouring in, might bring smile on your face or tears in your eyes. This song has
the philosophy of a photographer in its opening lines – Aane waala pal jaane
waala hai, ho sakey to isme zindagi bita do, pal jo ye jaane wala hai.
My click during the shoot at village location
With the advent of smartphone and
very versatile digital cameras, photography as a technique is very simplified
for a user. Now even a novice can capture good photographs with almost no
effort. I said good photograph, because my friend Neeraj Sharma, an acclaimed
international photographer says there is no bad photograph, its only how you
look at it.
So all you my photographer
friends, be ready to capture aane waala pal, before it leaves.
Happy clicking –
KK
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