Hundred sixty two

I dragged myself to write this. It is so difficult to write a few lines. My respect for even a scrappy writer has increased. It is not about writing but about discipline. I need to do something about getting away from the Internet. I was thinking, the smartphone is a just brick or just a camera without the Internet. I am so happy that my office doesn't allow phones! but sadly the internet is allowed on PC. Maybe I should sit in the library for long hours. 

Hundred thirteen

Humans don’t learn from a book or by another person’s experience. But, few learn from mistakes. All new endeavour goes through the same path. Let us say photography. All start with a simple camera, move to point and shoot camera (now mobile), next DSLR, later mirror-less, then full frame that is the progressive upward movement of want. Then the tale of the lens. Kit lens, pro zoom, prime, fast prime, telezoom, tele prime, macro, wide angle never-ending story. After going through this and losing money on all these things, I suggest a newcomer to photography that; you buy this and these things are more than enough for photography. Do they listen? NO. They will go through their own journey through the landscape of camera and lenses. 

Seventy

As an amateur, I spend a lot of time on photography forums and review sites. From the past 10 years, I have learnt many tricks and intricacies of photography. In most photography forums, we talk more about the sharp photo and less about art. Whenever, I come across pro photographers in marriage, sports or any other function, I am astonished to know that they don't understand many technicalities and relevance of camera, light and composition. I also found that they don't read any reviews before buying the camera (all this applies to India not sure about the rest of the world). But at the end of the photo session, they have more keepers than us. What do they do? In their world, photography is learnt via peer learning. They have a bunch of settings for each situation and function. Aperture, white balance, flash, lens focal length and ISO setting all are well defined. For situation A, setting X is used, for situation B, setting Y is used- simple and straight forward formula.  Camera buying depends on market demand since customers are aware of full frame, APS-C etc.; before hiring, customers would ask what camera and lens will you use for my function? Therefore, even though a low-end camera would suffice the purpose, the pro will buy the high-end camera to satisfy the customer demand. Apart from that pro photographer will decide his camera based on opinions from their professional friends, service centres and camera shops. I really don't think they read a lot of reviews. A pro knows that Canon 5DMark IV or Nikon 850 or Sony A7R are fail-proof, fancy looking and proven market models. One more reason they buy only these cameras because it is easy to find used lenses, spare parts and the most important thing - there is always a fellow pro photographer is there to teach menus, settings of these cameras. 

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.