"It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary." - [David Bailey]
Bangalore Photography Group - an online Yahoo! group for photography enthusiasts. To join the Bangalore photography group, send a mail to [email protected] with the subject field empty and body containing the sole word "subscribe". |
photography |
My interest in photography started when I got my hands on a small point and
shoot camera when I
was around 10 years old. For the next eleven years, I used that to document
excursions from schools, college cultural events and family functions on film.
Since cost was a huge constraint, this restricted my photographic endeavors to
around two to five rolls of film per year.
Once I got my job at Texas Instruments, a major part of my salary was diverted for the purpose of buying a camera and I finally became the proud owner of a Canon EOS 300 (Rebel 2000 in the US). Currently, I use a Canon EOS 30 (Elan 7E) with a Canon 75 - 300 USM III and a Tamron 28 - 200 XR lens. I plan to buy one of the Canon digital SLRs one day and go fully digital.
See a selection from my portfolio at photo.net.
photographic interests |
I like photographing nature, people and wildlife. When taking photographs of
people, I prefer to take candid shots rather than posed ones because the candid
shots have a spontaneity that the posed ones tend to lack. There are few people
(except maybe professional models and small children) who can look natural on
camera if they knew that their picture was going to be taken.
For nature photographs, I capture images of objects as they are when I find them. Both sweeping landscapes as well as detailed macros fascinate me. These extremes of scale and space tend to exemplify the underlying uniformity of form, structure and pattern running across everything in nature that imparts so much beauty to this world. As for my wildlife photographic expeditions, they have been restricted to zoos and national parks.
One of my favorite locations for taking photographs is the Lal Bagh botanical gardens in Bangalore, Karnataka. Here you have lots of flowers, a lake, one pond, and many varieties of butterflies and birds. Sadly, such a great park is not properly maintained and one sees sewers emptying into the lake, paper and plastic thrown around the gardens and ponds covered with algae.
india and photography |
Being a photographer in India is a mixed bag - on one hand you have an
abundance 
of
interesting people and beautiful places to photograph, on the other hand you
have the overwhelming expense of photography, difficulty in obtaining film and
equipment and a pervasive attitude of considering photography as a
documentation medium rather than an art form. Another major hindrance is the
emphasis on cost rather than quality. Getting a decent print is almost
impossible with all the processing labs involved in cut throat competition to
reduce cost at the expense of quality.
To some extent going digital solves the issue. Instead of two factors being an issue - developing and printing, now one needs to worry only about getting good quality prints done. However, the prices of digital cameras are beyond the reach of most photography hobbyists in India. For resolving this the government has to pro-actively act upon the demands of the photography industry and reduce the extremely high import duty (up to 100%) on all photo equipment.
activities |
I am the founder of two online photography groups, the "Bangalore Photography Group" and the "TI India Photography Group". In addition, I moderate the Lensa board in the Mensa Bangalore forum. I am also a member of the Youth Photographic Society of Bangalore. YPS members meet on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Monday of every month at the "State Youth Center", Bangalore. Unfortunately, due to lack of time I am unable to attend these meetings now a days.
