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.

Story

Gauri is almost 3 years old now. Her vocabulary and logic has grown beyond my imagination. Every day she amazes me with her new words, sentences and precise logic. At the same time her imagination is not limited by adult logic and hence imagination runs very wild. Here is a set of photos, when she narrated a story of purple monkey, pigeon and elephant mixed with amba bushi (cow). I am not supposed to correct her nor help her- oh yes, she knows everything, so here goes her story enjoy....

Knot

My daughter was playing with a roll of thread. She pulled out long thread and was weaving around toys. Then I saw this, knot of thread, first thought was, just throw it. I can’t un-knot this and wound  back the thread. Next moment I felt that such a complicated thing it has become. How a child can do it? I also felt wow what a design. I took few photos too. 

Bacteria, eye, human body, spider web, bird’s flight and many more who designed them? God. Really? Or may be. Or No. All of these happened by chance. What? What do you mean? 

Most don’t believe this and look at me as if I am stupid. Well, when a child can make such a complicated knot, which may take hours to untangle, why not all these things can happen by chance.EVOLUTION.

I was searching for meaning of life from past 20 years. I went through different philosophies. Finally I found answer with Darwin. Now I can interpret and understand life much more clearly than ever before.Evolution happens at every level. What we see around has happened across billions of years.This time scale is beyond imagination  of the most. Evolution happens in culture, language and in many more things. Even at personal level, we evolve as  a person and it is a continues process.

Hansa - All about passion

Life is all about passion. On March 4^th there was a vintage car rally in Mumbai . Taking photos of these vintage cars is a photographer’s delight. I reached the venue by 7.15 Am. I had very little clue about this rally and never expected so many cars. Cars were parked from left side of the road.  Ford, Rolls Royce, FIAT,......... few I knew but rest were new to me. I was surprised to see these cars in absolute working condition. My assumption was, they are like old, dusty and antique museum kind cars. No. They were shining, polished, no dust and in perfectly working condition. Many of them looked newer than 2011 model cars!!!!!!!!!

Hansa 1100

I was in a hurry to capture as many cars as possible. Crowd was getting more. At least 3 to 5 photographers were found around each car. The vintage cars were arriving to the venue one by one. Owners were very proud and happy as they drove slowly into the venue. One such car was parked and the owner got down from the car. I rushed towards that car to take a snap, before the crowd come in. The owner was a gentleman may be in his 60s. He looked at me, and said, “young man, she is rare and unique, only one in India” I was just looking at him, he continued, “she is a beauty” I said, “of course sir” . He walked away from the car. The car name was Hansa  and an unknown name for me. Internet search gave me following details. However, there were not much details available on net, and the production year and models are given differently in different websites. I figured out that, this Hansa is 1934, Hansa 1100, a German car 

Look at the dashboard!!

As I was taking photos of this beautiful car , I noticed one senior gentleman was looking at the car, as if he wants something from it. I looked at him, and said “beautiful, isn’t it?” he said yes, still looking at the car, I asked him is it your family car, since he resembled the owner of the car. He said oh no.. "I am wondering who has done the painting job for this car, fabulous work". He continued, "I am waiting for the owner of this car, to ask about the paint job". He said " my car is that Merc across the street". I stood there, “PASSION” this old man wants to know how paint job is done on the other car, so he can get it done for his car. Wow, I felt what I am doing with my life? Do I have a single hobby or job with such passion?

Proud owner

Learning to follow the light- second year

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 2^nd 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!!!!!.

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

. 

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............................