What is the secret to the art of photography? It’s experimenting, experimenting, and endless experimenting.
Fan Ho
I remember reading somewhere that the things that you are naturally attracted to in your childhood are your true passions. I am not sure if this is true for everyone but it is certainly true in my case. I remember the first time I saw a typewriter as a kid. I put a paper in it and started typing. It was half a page of really clichéd fiction about a man walking in a dark, rainy night, similar to Snoopy’s “It was a dark and stormy night.” I am not surprised that it was bad. I am surprised that I thought of typing that instead of my name which would have been the most natural thing for a kid to do.
I had better luck with camera because I took to it like a duck to water. Before I go on, I need to take a pause for the benefit of readers who were born in this century. So pay attention kids, here is a contemporary history lesson for you.
During the eighties in India, photography camera used to be a rare and valuable object. Not everyone possessed it and those who did, treasured it. It was used for special occasions – vacations, birthday parties etc. If you did not have one, you borrowed it from friends or relatives for ceremonies. For bigger ceremonies like weddings, there used to be a designated photographer with a huge camera who would do his job with relish (spending most of his time zooming in on the beautiful ladies dressed up for the wedding – it was a “work event”) and produce a stack of photographs to be treasured for decades.
The idea of photographing your food everyday was as absurd as having a “pasta pizza.” (As irony would have it, Domino’s Pizza in India is serving a terrifying dish called “Moroccan Spice Pasta Pizza” and I am sure people are photographing it as well.) If you have old family photographs, go through them and see if you can find any photos exclusively of food items.
The film roll in a camera could produce around 36 photographs but it was always one or two less because you had to expose a little bit film while loading it. The photography nerds would do the loading in a dark room and thus get those extra couple of photographs, an achievement worth bragging about.
So imagine my excitement when I was handed a fully loaded camera to shoot anything I wanted. I remember walking in our garden for over an hour because I could not decide if a subject was worth the precious film. I finally decided and took this shot of a butterfly – my first ever photograph.
After this first hand experience with the camera, I began to watch movies differently. I became aware of a person who was the director, aided by another person who was the cinematographer and I began to pay attention to what these guys were doing. Even today while watching movies, I am subconsciously recording the camera movements and the cuts while watching the actors.
My love for the camera kept growing, so much so that on my first trip to Japan, I bought this beauty – Canon EOS 7 28-105 mm and a 90-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens.
Alas, I was a little slow in recognising the changing winds of technology. Within a few years, digital cameras took over, followed by smartphones and film cameras became nothing more than museum pieces. Nevertheless, this amazing piece of machinery has given me many a memorable moments.
I believe that there are two types of photographs. First one is where the subject is so interesting or captivating that half the job is done by the subject itself. For instance, you cannot go wrong while taking a snap of the Alps, the aurora borealis, or the Colosseum. And beautiful sunsets.
Even here, skilled photographers leave their mark. The secret lies in composition. More about that later.
There is a subcategory where the subject is interesting but the photographer must be skilled to capture the right moment. One example is professional photographers who shoot actors/models. Here the subject is interesting but the photographer must be able to capture the right moment that brings out the personality of the subject. Second example is wildlife photographers. Here, the subject is not under your control. It requires a great deal of patience, skill, and concentration to capture the animal at just the right moment. If you want proof, try taking a half-decent snap of a dog or a cat who is playing.
Second type of photographs are those where the setup itself is quite ordinary. It is the photographer who brings out the unusual or magical part to the forefront. That’s why I love street photography. And the master I revere is the great Chinese photographer Fan Ho. His photographs are a revelation of how magic can be created out of routine situations.
Another interesting aspect of old film based photography was that the process was quite intricate. If you had a camera that was more advanced than a simple point-and-shoot, there were many parameters to consider such as shutter speed, exposure time etc. As more people start using their smartphones as a camera, most of these will be handled by a combination of hardware and software. So what is left for a photographer to work with?
The answer is composition.
No matter how advanced the camera, it is the photographer who decides what the frame should be, what is to be included, what is to be left out, what should be placed in the middle or 1/3rd way across and so on. And it is precisely this aspect that reveals the masters. A master taking a snap of the Giza pyramid will find a unique way to frame it that will distinguish it from the thousands of images of the Giza taken by mere mortals like me.
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Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘photographer’ as “one who practices photography.”
It is clear that the definition needs an update because today everyone with a smartphone is a photographer. Nitpicking over the definition aside, the amazing thing about today’s world is that everyone has a chance to discover if they have a talent for singing, dancing, writing, composing, acting, or indeed, photography. They can showcase their work directly to the public.
As the great Larry David would say :
