I have had a crazy up-and-down relationship with photography. In my childhood and adolescence, I was never familiar with the concept of photography because my family never had a camera. In medical college, I was averse to being photographed. I don't quite know the reason but I wanted myself to be out of every photo that was taken during holiday tours. Maybe it was the fact that I had protruberant teeth and was scared of looking at myself in a photograph.
Then came the era of digital cameras. Some of my friends had a camera that they allowed me to play with. I realized how much fun it was to compose frames and soon learnt that I was good at it. This made me long for a digital camera. Around the time that my folks allowed me to buy one, I lost Chuck’s camera. I had to buy him one for his marriage and I used up my allowance for the same.
For the next five years, my interest in composing photographs stayed put, and yet I couldn’t afford a proper camera. The first camera that I ever owned came in the form of an early camera-phone model from Nokia. I started clicking pictures for documentation—primarily x-rays and MRI scans of patients for making presentations.
Then, I fell in love with Vinokur, an expert photographer. He tried to motivate my photography by gifting me a very good digital camera. This is the first good camera that I have owned. I started taking pictures with it. Vinokur and I would spend hours online and going through the pictures, commenting on them, editing them, and finally posting them on forums like Facebook.
During this period, however, the commenting and editing process started to become tiresome as I didn’t quite understand the reason behind some photos being adjudged as ‘bad’ or ‘good’. Vinokur tried to help me out by showing me examples of photography by the greats which I couldn’t grasp. Soon, our ‘photography sessions’ started becoming annoying and irritating, especially to me. I guess he must have felt disappointed and annoyed too.
Since then, I fear taking the camera. Every time I click a picture, there is a hell lot of ‘baggage’ attached to that frame—about its quality, its cleverness, and its negativities. Taking pictures and editing have become a pain for me. Hence, I have stashed away my camera. I don’t even take pictures using my mobile camera anymore. Why initiate something painful when you have the choice to not?
Showing posts with label hobbies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hobbies. Show all posts
Middle age reality
Is being in your middle age supposed to be like this? It seems to be a time when all you seemingly do in your life is worry, and when everything you do seems like a chore. Those fun things — going to a movie, reading a book, catching up with friends, taking photos and sharing them — everything becomes tasks that you wished you didn’t have to do. Even hobbies — especially if you have made them into an unfulfilling unforgiving profession — aren’t enjoyable.
Probably, it is a phase of life where the amount of hope dwindles, and the amount of expectation, from your friends, society, and you yourself, overwhelms you. In addition, it’s when you tend to make lists of things to do and tasks to accomplish and check a majority of the items off because of lack of time and money. You also would wish to overcome insurmountable barriers because you see others achieving them with ease.
Your life seems stuck at a place which is unpleasant to you, yet not unbearable, and you do things to please others — others who you care for, or who you don’t, who are often at a much happier place in life. You see childish foolish folks around you everywhere you look, who seem to be happy, much too happy for what they deserve, and you wish for a moment as to why you couldn’t be so innocent and naïve.
To add to this, almost everything that you end up doing had to be done because if you don’t, something bad will happen as a consequence to you and to others, who often, almost coincidentally, seem to forget life is not a one way street. Everything seems to be stuck at an unfortunate point in your life, and its easy to find fault every relationship that you have had — be it friend, family, lover, and those with the other people in your head.
Even if I had a time machine, I probably can’t use it to good effect — I hate my past, I dislike my present, and I’m scared about my future.
Probably, it is a phase of life where the amount of hope dwindles, and the amount of expectation, from your friends, society, and you yourself, overwhelms you. In addition, it’s when you tend to make lists of things to do and tasks to accomplish and check a majority of the items off because of lack of time and money. You also would wish to overcome insurmountable barriers because you see others achieving them with ease.
Your life seems stuck at a place which is unpleasant to you, yet not unbearable, and you do things to please others — others who you care for, or who you don’t, who are often at a much happier place in life. You see childish foolish folks around you everywhere you look, who seem to be happy, much too happy for what they deserve, and you wish for a moment as to why you couldn’t be so innocent and naïve.
To add to this, almost everything that you end up doing had to be done because if you don’t, something bad will happen as a consequence to you and to others, who often, almost coincidentally, seem to forget life is not a one way street. Everything seems to be stuck at an unfortunate point in your life, and its easy to find fault every relationship that you have had — be it friend, family, lover, and those with the other people in your head.
Even if I had a time machine, I probably can’t use it to good effect — I hate my past, I dislike my present, and I’m scared about my future.
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