I finished my Ph.D in the beginning of 2009. After that I wanted to do peruse a hobby. So, in 2009 I took up stock market as my hobby. It had two advantages. One, I will learn about investment and another I learn about economy. In one year I learnt few things. I realized the value and role of money in life. But this hobby did not align well with my personality and there was nothing much to learn (of course, If I go to pure economics, then more to learn).
In 2009 I attended my cousin’s marriage in Bangalore. I travelled by train from Mumbai to Bangalore. During the journey I did lot of photo and video shooting. I truly enjoyed my second class journey with very good travelling partners.
In Bangalore, when I was talking to one of my friend about this train photography and fun, he said, “look, unless you buy a DSLR, you will learn very little photography”. “Oh really”, I said, author writes a novel not the pen!!!!!!!!!!!. In 2009 September, we were blessed with a baby girl, Gauri. In hospital- camera was not allowed, so I used mobile. In home I took lot of photos. I realized few things after looking at these photos. With a P and S I failed to capture the moments due to shutter lag, and low light photography was impossible. In auto mode, whenever light is bit dim, flash would pop up. I was really frustrated. Gauri was growing very fast and I can’t capture the moments. After lot of internet search I realized only solution is DSLR!
When I looked at the prices all DSLRs were above 25k. I did search on Canon vs Nikon. Further I realized that, I need to buy lenses too, so which one? In Digital Photography School site I posted this dilemma. I got very good suggestions. Based on that I decided to buy an entry level Canon DSLR 1000D, kit lens and 50 mm 1.8. This package in India was around 31k, and that is 6 k beyond my budget, so I decided to buy from US through a friend. But he came to back to India in Feb 2010. So officially I started my photography 2 years back. This month is 2nd year anniversary of my tryst with photography.
My friend brought camera in a plastic cover, no box. I took out the camera and lenses. I knew nothing. Read the manual and aligned the white/red dots of lens and twisted. Battery was charged and took my first photo with DSLR. I used auto mode. In the beginning I used kit lens a lot, since I could zoom so I can record Gauri well. Slowly from Auto, I moved to manual mode to avoid pop up flash!!!!!.
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| First photo from a DSLR |
During these two years, I learnt some photography in whatever little time allotted by my daughter. Without a mentor, it is a very steep learning curve. As a student of science I enjoyed lot of reading about technology on autofocus, sensors, digi processers etc. By the end of first year I was fairly confident about technique part. But what I realized is “how to take a photo” is easy but “why to take” - is very difficult to answer. Meanwhile, I met Mr. A.G. Lakshminanrayana in my village a well known photographer. I showed few of my shots. His interpretations and constructive comments led me to think more and dig deep into my emotions. One of the most important lesson I took from him, is don’t shoot what is very common, make your own path. I took this message very seriously. I know that going off track, is bit lonely but worth it.
The most important component in my learning is internet. I learnt lot of things through blogs. I did not hesitate to ask a photographer of a photo, how he made it? I sent mail to unknown people across the globe. I got lot of inputs from them. Now I use Google reader, and added good blogs and read them regularly. I bought few books (expensive!) to read and understand all about photography. In my last visit to my native place, I searched through my grandfather’s book collection. I got few books. The most important one is, “Composition for photographers” by R.N.Haile, 1952 edition. The other book was Pictorial lighting by William Mortensen. The first book is really wonderful and a great read. I alos read many old free ebooks, like selection of subject, pictorial photography which are free to download.
For inspiration and to learn, I regularly visit Flickr. Flickr’s advantage is you can get exif data to learn about photo but quality of photos are extreme, ordinary to exceptional. Later I discovered Flickrriver, which is a collection of good photos. From here on from different blogs I learnt about 500px, then 1x, then creative nature photography many more. Creative Photo Artist.org was introduced by Mr.A.G.Lakshminarayana. I learnt lot from CPA, not only from suggestions given to my photos but also reading the comments on others.
What lenses I used (I included this section for amateurs like me). I started with 18-55, - one example
later I shifted to 50 mm 1.8, great lens. I learnt many things from 50mm. Depth of field, zooming with the legs, trying to fit the things in 50 mm.......... I should say in two years, more than 60 % photos were shot with 50 mm lens. One here and most of these are from 50 mm.
. 6 months back when I was shooting honeybees, in my native place, honeybees chased me down!!!!! I dropped my camera and ran into a shelter!!!. So I broke the 50 mm lens. I got it repaired. But again when doing some street shoot in Mumbai local train, second time it broke. Meanwhile I wanted to shoot macro, same time I wanted a zoom, so I bought a used Sigama 70-300 macro for 5 k, which is slow in focus, and soft at 300 mm.- one from Simga 70-300
For macro I got a Raynox 250R for 2k and used it on my 50 mm
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During this time I missed my 50 mm a lot , most of the time it was in repair. Again got into net, and searched for value for money lens. I wanted a macro as well as regular 50 mm. So I settled for 60 mm (1:1). Excellent lens, fast USM, f2.8 , macro – all in one lens.
After a year , I found Sigma 70-300, is too slow to capture fast growing Gauri, so again went around searching for a good lens – lot of search I found 1989 make Canon 70-210 USM, 3.5-4.5- relatively fast, but accurate focusing lens, got it for 10 k from US. Now I shoot with two lens kit, 80 % time with 60 mm and sometime with zoom (70-210).
One from 70-210 mm
Composition- people say oh good composition, what does it mean? Still now I haven’t understood much. Different attributions are given. One thing I clearly understood, it is about balance and unity. I mean, I can’t explain how I balance neither a cycle nor how I swim. You can do it, if someone is not doing it you can say they don’t have balance, but you can’t put them in words. Photo balance is also similar one. In both years I tried my best to stick to these principles of composition, rule of third, tones etc. But one thing I realized, similar to cycle, you can’t leave the hand and raid the cycle before you learn to balance the cycle. Similarly till I learn all the rules of photography, I can’t break them, there is a higher possibility of falling down. Well, in two years, lot of wounds and bruises.
Photoshop, Picasa , Gimp- I learnt very little, especially failed to learn the layers. So I can’t make sentences in Photoshop I can white only abc.
Crop- oh that is the biggest bad habit I developed across two years. I keep composing my photos using crop tool rather than view finder. So, most of my photos are soft. Holding the camera- sometimes I don’t hold the camera properly – when I was reading a blog on this – suddenly I realized I too don’t hold the camera properly. Preview- I am so excited to see the photo on LCD , before I finish the photo I will turn the camera to see the result!!!!! Still around 60 % photos are not sharp at 100 % magnification. How successful am I? When I look at my raw files and processed files, I should say only 1 % photos will end up in my personal portfolio. Further, when I look back my older photos and make further assortment then around 0.3 % photos are agreeable to me.
Competitions- I sent to two international photography completions, no chance, only thing I gained is two CDS – excellent collection of photos. This year also have plans to enter some competitions.
For the third year, I thought let me learn flash photography a bit. This would teach much more on light. I need to travel and explore new locations and different conditions. Because of family commitments, I had less time to photography and travelling. Now Gauri is two year old, so I hope this year she would give bit more time!! So that I won’t be doing pigeon photography this year too!! Pigeon photography: that is the only bird, easily accessible without going out of the building and allows me to do babysitting and photography simultaneously.
I tried tabletop photography for some time. But very soon tripod legs, glasses, reflectors were favourite toys for Gauri! Looking forward for third year............................
