Photographs – A piece of life at a time

I love photographs. I love being behind the lens and capturing a bit of other people’s activity while they are not ready for the shot. I believe it brings out the beauty in them as they are just being normal without the changes and the poses that we create when we are trying to take a picture – yes before you say it I will, I get a lot of blurry shots but I also get some good ones as well.

Now taking pictures is a wonderful thing and most of us love to be in pictures but some are more comfortable behind the lens than in front of it and now that we all have phones and games and all manner of devices that can take pictures, it is very easy to change roles and enjoy the pleasure of capturing a piece of one’s experience and that of other people.

Prior to the availability of cheap digital cameras, I used the film camera and I remember that after taking enough shots to fill a roll, I hurry to the developer and I drop off the film to pick it up a few days later.

Well, when the shot are eventually processed and printed and I pick them up, I am surprised at how the shot I remembered being so bright and sunny and perfect come out so dull. I persisted with my picture-taking and saw some improvements but then most of the time; it did not come very close to the shot I took. Then I had the opportunity to send my pictures out for development elsewhere and behold, the shots were way too cool for me to have been the one that took them. The sun was the way it should be, the brightness was just like daylight. There was no dullness and then I learnt something new about photography, it does not end with the shot, there is a craft in the development process. If it is done well, the picture is close to what the film captured. If it is not, then you may not like what comes out from the studio.

Now, this is something I was able to articulate better after digital cameras became quite common and I began to read magazines, blogs and books on taking pictures, improving them and printing them. I began to understand the process and I from then appreciated the opportunity software like Photoshop gave to people, the power to bring out your picture the way you envisioned it and shot it is now in your hands.

In future posts, I will look at some of the guys that inspire me and teach me more and more about the process as well as on some of the things I have learnt.