Capture the moment

I love a good photograph. Every photograph has a story to tell. I know the story of any photograph that I have taken and love the speculation that I indulge in if it’s taken by someone else. I guess the love for photography comes with my genes. Dad tells me that my paternal grandfather and his brothers educated themselves as engineers almost a century and more ago thanks to the love of photography that my grandfather had and his trusted camera. Photography was a way to earn money to ensure continued education. He must’ve gone through quite a few cameras including a hasselblad that was around till the mid 70s after becoming an engineer. Photography became a hobby for him and I still have some 35mm colour slides from the late 50s that he would have shot. Photography was quite expensive then and colour process even more so. Dad knows the stories behind those snaps and now so do I. One of his cameras that is still around is a 35mm TLR. For those who don’t know; a TLR would normally take medium format film and not 35mm so it’s quite rare and I know that Agfa were the only company to experiment with this format. 

Back to my story; in school I joined the photography club in the 5th and 6th standard and learned how to develop and print black and white film in the dark room. The first photograph that a bunch of us developed was from a negative that had one of the space shuttle’s ready to take off. It was fun, we did some counter intuitive things like washing photographic paper with water after it was exposed. I used to have one of the small 110 mm film cameras that had a fixed lens and was an absolute piece of crap now that I look back; at that time though it was as if I had the best thing around. I went through a bunch of cameras my self of different film sizes and capabilities. Went through a bunch of digital cameras too. Now have a DSLR that gives me enough pleasure. Quite glad that I can see the result of the composition immediately and not have to wait to get film developed.  Finding film now is quite rare but would love to shoot on transparencies again. The snaps from Meghna’s and my honeymoon holiday are all on 35 mm transparency. 

A really good photograph will transport you back to the instance in time and you can relive the emotions, the vibe and the atmosphere. In the thousands of photos taken from when I started, I might have just a handful that truly capture all this. Quite glad that I didn’t take up photography as a career but also know that I would have excelled had I needed to take it up. 

Do you have a great story associated with a few photographs? 

C