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.