Still learning.......

Looking back, one more year passed......

This is my third year with DSLR. I had set few targets for this year; few are achieved and few are not. Last year I also wondered that, how long this hobby does lasts. ( aarmbha shooratva). I was not really sure about this would last for three years!! Since I am not an inherently artistically oriented person or I never drew any good drawings. Somehow, I am crossing this third year and going to fourth year. I must admit that unlike first and second year third year was less eventful. I wanted to learn lighting and hence the flash. I got two used flashes, but it was bit more complicated than I thought and more demand for time and space. With my daughter running around, forget about the setting up a light stand. So hopefully this year I will do that.

I noticed that, I started taking less number of photos and fewer crops. Still pre-visualization is beyond my capacity. Meanwhile I also observed that bit of ego and I am great feeling creeping in, fortunately I was observing that carefully, I was able to get over with some difficulty (here). Unlike last 2 years, I became extremely choosy about what I take. Even many times I find something beautiful nice or interesting I avoided that since it was already a cliché in internet, nothing new I could add into it. Doing new more creative rather than repletion is extremely difficult. Unlike regular shoot , thinking new making unique above that making a story and most important adding emotion to it – I felt bit too much for my current level of creative maturity.

This year I did good amount of street photography, especially portraits. The time has changed, and people don’t like their photo taken by a stranger. Many times I was asked to delete the photo. Luckily camera/lens was not broken by them!! Good street photography is an ideal mix of daring and timing. Well, I need to add light and composition to those photos. 

Missed opportunities – or did not carry camera- un-photographable ( a site my cousin suggested) – but photography taught that lesson , yes missed opportunities ( low light, wrong setting , abstractions, photography not allowed, fast moving subject , many more) but more opportunities wait in the future.

Not to crib about the last things, make new things, think above the crowd, make it possible, look for opportunity and be prepared to grab that and use it.

Life is all about journey not about destination.

Ego

Ego always fascinates and amuses me. Very often I look at my own ego and get surprised about its power and the way it shapes my opinions. Where is it? What is its role? The Indian philosophy has dealt this subject with great detail. Basically it originates from “I” and “I am right”. One day I was going to office by cycle. One dog was sitting on center of the road. As my cycle approached near to dog, it did not budge from its place.  It was sitting as if it owns the road. I was so furious and irritated, took bicycle just near the dog (even though there was enough space). But it was just sitting there and never bothered. Furious Shashi!!!!!!!!!. I went around the dog and proceeded further. Suddenly I realized why so much irritation? Oh, I am the mighty human being, I am on the wheels, one of the greatest invention of man, I am going to “the office”, I do research, how can this dog could treat “mighty me” like this and humiliate me so much? My ego is hurt, I felt like stopping the cycle and beat the dog. I got even furious about the government, how could they leave a stray dog like this, it might bite kids !!!. Well, with in 100 mts I realized the role of my ego, oh look at that it was sitting somewhere deep inside me just sprung up, oh without even my knowledge, it was in charge of my emotions. Consciously I brought back my senses to ground. I forced my being to be humble and sensitive to others opinions and pains. I just narrated one incident. It doesn’t mean that I have won over my ego, it is just a war between both of us and conditioning my senses to be humble; well, this is just like training for running or swimming, having a healthy mental status too need a constant exercise.

This deteriorating dead crab was lying on the wooden plank. It stirred lot of emotions in me, especially concept of ego. The most important one is looking at its claws. In spite of death and decaying body, the claw remained strong and shining. It reminded me of many of us even though we don’t have power to do the things and are helpless; but our ego is much larger than our persona. 

 

 I tried different angles, and luckily I was having an off camera flash (using for the first time). Only constraint was my daughter, she wanted to touch that dead crab with a stick and she was becoming more and more impatient. So whatever 5 min allotted by her, I tried these things. I tried to process them in different ways just to see, how does it look? Here are the photos.