Count ur blessings !

 

           This guy knocked into my home the other day. A typical lazy afternoon.. He neva spoke a word. Only later did I realise he cudnt speak nor cud he hear. The entire while we were still conversing.. I was made to understand his name was Shiva. He was in his 3rd STD. Father passed away. He was born hearing nd oral impaired.

He luved sweets so much. I gave him whateva I had at home. He ate them. Offered me sum too. Actually spent a lot of time at home nd then I asked him to pose for a photograph. He asked me for what I was doing this. I didnt know what to tell him.  

His excitement took over wen he saw the camera with a huge flash head nd he was all smiles. Clicked a few quick shots. He came running over for me to show him the pictures. He gave me a tight hug nd tuk out a small post it note from his pocket. Wrote "Tank You" nd went off waving his hand.

Nd a long time after he left, It stuck me. Those two words were the only LANGUAGE we shared in the whole time. Here he was. A very differently enabled Third Grader. He wanted to share what I gave him, could communicate excellently where normal people often struggle to and he did it with so much ease that I hadnt noticed it the whole almost-one-hour that he was at my place. He showed No signs of an impairment.

I realised, u dont actually need a language. U dont need any material. Just make the best of what U have. I remember amma's favourite quote, "Count your blessings.."

I dont think I can never again complain. Am blessed after all !

Dream Big !!

I know it's been two months since my last post which was my first one too.. All of a sudden I felt like writing today. Nd I realize, I get this feeling only when something disturbs me very deeply.


Today, I found my camera's stopped working. This piece of just-electronics for most of you, may not mean anything significant. But ask a photographer what it is like to walk around for just a day without a camera !


I look back to my first introductions to a camera. Appa owned a Manual rewind Yashika which I I think still lies sumwer in his wardrobe and then he bought an auto-rewind Kodak camera. I remember carrying it with me for a North India School trip and coming back all too excited to see what I managed to click.


The film was processed and brought home and we open the envelopes to find blank brown transparent film strips.. I dont remember touching that camera ever again. Then came the first Digital camera at home. A proud 4.3 MP Canon !! Used to take it all around my home and compound acting like the wildlife presenters from Nat Geo and Discovery channel, shooting close-ups of Spiders and lizards. I think I even had pet spiders which usually died in a day or two in my plastic containers with holed-lids.


Thambi still teases me that he made better pictures back then. I was more of the unsteady hand back then (It continues to be so even now). My first real interests in photography came two years back. I bought my first SLR, the Nikon FM10 as soon as my lecturer showed it in class that day. But then history kept repeating itself. Strips and strips of blank films continued.


Most others who bought cameras with me, bought Digital SLRs. They would walk around in Auto modes and autufocus making the best out of their Automatic - Intelligent cameras. I would curse Appa for being stingy and making "You will learn better with this cam" reasons. I guess I would have never learned anything at all if I had bought a DSLR from the start.


Then were the days when I used to take every opportunity to borrow D40 s and D80 s to shoot ! Eventually they stop lending you their cameras after a point of time. Curses followed. Curses for having wasted huge bucks on PDAs and smartfones when I was stil in school. (Yes. I was the first one to have bought a touch fone in my class :P). Cursed myself for all the money I had wasted on Game CDs.


Then my cousin buys a compact Digi, a 10.1 MP Sony. I think I used it more than she did. She is one person I should be grateful to for she then helped me buy a DSLR. The Canon 6.3 MP 300D. My first ever DSLR. A used one. But then, It was my own now. I quite literally slept with it. It wud lay within arms reach from my bed.


Lots and lots of birding trips, photo-walks, photo shoots and then came the wretched super moon when the cam took a plunge into the Elliot's Beach waters, thanks to a huge wave nd a careless Urs Truly !! One whole night in a rice sack and two days at the service center brought it back to life.


Two birding trips and one photo-walk and now again it's back on the death bed. I thought it was time for a new one.


Canon 7D tops the wishlist ! But the price is wayy too high for me. Showrooms offer EMI schemes and being a Student has its own disadvantages. You dont have a consistent bank balance and you obviously dont have a  salary certificate which rule out EMI options.


All my life, I was brought up saying, Money is not everything in life. I never really understood. Now that I think about, I realise how clever Amma nd Appa were. I understand, Money isnt all. But then Money plays the major part !


A gud frend, Rohit who is infamous for his witty status updates on FB (Not his wits :P) once put up, "Money isnt everything in life. But then its better to cry inside a BMW than on a scooter."

I remember reading a book, "Walt Disney: An American Original."


He once said, " I would sit at Electric Park, 15 blocks from my home. I would and dream. The dreams were big. I then grew up and realised the biggest problem of my life. It's money. All big dreams take a lot of money to realise. But slowly you reach a point where you dont work for money anymore. You work because you love to do it."


No wonder, Walt Disney's the best inspiration for me... From now on..


Dreaming Big,
Kabi.

Digital Retouching !??

My first Blog post and I thought I would answer a question that has somehow repeated itself ever since I got into photography.

"Is that a photoshopped image / why do you edit your images ? "

To start with, Photo retouching did not start with Photoshop. Only a few decades after Niepce created the first photograph in 1814, photographs were already being manipulated. I shall give examples in a while. 

A Retouched Photograph is unethical !?!?

Then,
A 170 billion dollar industry wold be considered unethical, the Cosmetics Industry. Darkrooms and digital dark rooms do to photographs the same things that you do to yourselves - ENHANCE your look.

In that context, a bad looking person can never look great just by make-up. The same applies to photographs. A bad photograph cannot be a good photograph.Only a good photograph can be made a better photograph.

If you consider all photographs from the past, true and were only depicting what was actually there, You have been very illiterate.

Here are the examples I had promised,




This nearly iconic portrait from 1860 of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is a composite of Lincoln's head and the Southern politician John Calhoun's body.


Need one more,

     

   This print purports to be of General Ulysses S. Grant in front of his troops at City Point, Virginia, during the American Civil War. But this print is actually a composite of three separate prints: (1) the head in this photo is taken from a portrait of Grant; (2) the horse and body are those of Major General Alexander M. McCook; and (3) the background is of Confederate prisoners captured at the battle of Fisher's Hill, VA.

Here is another,





When in the summer of 1968 Fidel Castro (right) approves of the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, Carlos Franqui (middle) cuts off relations with the regime and goes into exile in Italy. His image was removed from photographs.

Before the advent of Digital Photography and subsequently Digital Retouching, Photo manipulation was achieved by retouching with ink, paint, double-exposure, piecing photos or negatives together in the darkroom, or scratching Polaroids. Airbrushes were also used, whence the term "airbrushing" for manipulation.


The 1980s saw the advent of digital retouching with Quantel computers running Paintbox, and Scitex imaging workstations being used professionally. Silicon Graphics computers running Barco Creator became available in the late 1980s which, alongside other contemporary packages, were effectively replaced in the market by Adobe Photoshop.

There have been many other Digital Darkrooms which provided tools and platforms for Digital Photo Manipulations. 


But why are today's photographs labelled "PHOTOSHOPPED" and are looked at as unethical and cheap stuff ??

Is it because of the ease of technique due to scientific advancements or is it simply because there is a wider audience who know the capabilities of such digital manipulation softwares ?

This blog that you are reading is my own perspective of how I want to see and I want my readers to see this world. 


Why is it hard for viewers to accept the same with photographs ?


For a conclusion,
Artists and today's photographers are no different. Both make you see only what they want you to see. Photography is an art unto itself. 
Art is creative and need not necessarily be depictive.
Photographs are no exception.

To stress upon the topic, I repeat " Digital Manipulation can only make a good photograph, a better photograph. Not a bad photograph, a good one.."

Will continue writing. Happy Clicking. Hopin this post left a change.