A Century - One Hundred Posts and Counting ...

This is my one hundredth post to this blog.

A toddy tapper coming back with his day's collection through the backwaters of Kumarakom in a traditional country boat.

I started this blog to share photographs with my family and friends, somewhere along the way, it expanded in scope to become a medium for me to track my photographic evolution and changes in my style and technique as I continue along this path of learning photography as a medium of self-expression. It continues to be a vehicle for sharing photographs with family, friends and the greater internet community, and to collect their appreciation, feedback and critiques. And in some cases, to serve in documenting my travels & experiences for the benefit of others.

But above all, this serves as one memory that I can look back upon continuously, deriving some inspiration from the subtle signs of improvement that show up in my body of work as time goes on.

After the rain

When I initially started learning and experimenting with photography around eight years back, I never "slotted" myself into any particular genre of the art. Recently however, my primary interests in photography have revolved around travel, adventure, nature & people. This itself is quite generic, and I am fine with this lack of "specialization" that some regard as key to defining and developing a style of one's own. Maybe one day in the future I will find a particular genre more appealing than the rest, but for now, I photograph the moments and/or subjects that I feel must be preserved.

Another discovery is that I do love monochrome photography, they have a quality that is not just restricted to the old time charm that they evoke in the viewer. To strip away multitudes of color is to see the world with different eyes, and this is one key aspect of making interesting photographs. When we play with focal lengths, depth of field, noise, saturation or any other creative effects, what we are trying to do is to convey a vision that would not appear "normal" or "natural" to our eyes. In fact, a 2D representation of a 3D world itself is inherently manipulative and unnatural, and hence a creative tool.

Identifying images that come into their own in monochrome is an interesting exercise in itself.

Flowers at Lalbagh

Hopefully I will continue to have the time to pursue this interesting and challenging hobby, and to keep this blog updated with newer photographs.

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