18. AUTOBIO(PHOTO)GRAPHY - 1

In case the title sounds confusing, I mean that I plan to write about my biography in relation to photography. I would like to ruminate over how my interest in photography started and got stuck and never grew more at some point ! Some photographs of those periods of my life would be posted along with those incidents.

I remember the very first time when I handled a camera. It was immediately I finished my school and was about to enter into college. My friend had a borrowed camera to take some snaps of him in our school campus. He had the loaded camera and asked me to 'click' him in all different poses. I made him accept that one of those poses would be to my liking. I think it had 12 shots. 11 shots were over. For the 12th I made him stand on the cycle-stand and I lied down on the ground and took a shot! The film roll went for processing and printing and I don’t know what happened to that last click. I got only a comment that my friend looked like an abnormal skeletal structure! I felt sad that my friend had no taste for that ' cat's eye view '.
Then it took some years for me to have another camera, probably in my late twenties. This time I owned the camera and it was a Yaschica J, a viewfinder camera. I was just clicking around and nothing big about those days. But then I got my first SLR, a Mamiya Sekor. That would be in the late seventies, not my age this time!

In those days an SLR camera was a rarity and people were accustomed to see
TLR cameras of 120 format dangling around the necks of people. Interest in
photography makes one to keep taking photos and if something good comes out of it and if it gets due recognition that could make one feel great and the interest ,now turns into passion. Same thing happened to me. I did my B&W processing and printing in one of the two dark rooms of the Physics Department of our College. The Physics Professor V.Srinivasan was so kind enough that I can use the dark room anytime that I like. Since he showed interest in my photos I used to show now and then some selected photos. When he was impressed with one of my photos of that early period of my photography he had it in the departmental notice board with the technical details under my name. The word spread. Many students came to me with compliments or asking questions about it. That single photograph (Photo:1) got me some recognition in our campus and that kindled my interest further.

17. HIGH AND DRY - 2

16. HIGH & DRY

15. TUNGSTEN LIGHTS

I dont think houses in U.S. do have any tungsten lights at all, of course except in their bathroomsI I always wondered why no house has 'tube lights' and why their bathrooms are so well lit !

14. COLOURED COLOUR PHOTO !

One another from my old personal album. When colour photographs were a rarity, it was the transparent photo-colours helped us satisfy our longing for colour photos. We smudged the paints - as you see in this photograph! - and gave a look alike of some colour photos. No fancy, efficient and interesting software tools, just a brush and a pair of shaky hands!

13. STORY BEHIND THESE PHOTOS

It was a morning, at least some 25 years back, that I had a caller at my home. It was the assistant of a professional photographer known to me. Normally there used to be a tendency among photographers not to divulge the finer points of photography to others so easily. Probably they think ' I learnt it the hardway; why should I make things easier for others'. But this gentleman used to allow me to be with him in his dark room and never bothered to answer any question I asked on the practical side of photography. He was a true gentleman. Now I got a caller from him on that day, since no telephone faciltiy was there on those days as it is today. I went with this boy and my friend said that he got a colour negative film and asked me whether I want to use it and continued that it was an expired roll and I had to try my luck. I was overwhelmed with joy. But then I asked how to get prints. He told me that very evening one of his friends was leaving to Malaysia and he MIGHT get it done there.

You people belonging to this 21st C should remember that on those days colour film rolls were a rarity and there was no labs to develop the exposed films as far as I know in Tamil Nadu. I dont know about the erstwhile Bombay. So when I had a chance to have a colour roll, even an expired one, I was simply thrilled.

I took half day leave for my outdoor shooting since I thought that for taking a colour photographs I should have some greenery at least. I took my daughters dressed in their colourful silk dresses to a nearby park. Exposed the roll and dutifully returned it to my friend for him to send it to Malaysia. Three months would have gone and by that time I had completely forgotten about the roll. Then came the news from the friend that the prints had arrived. What a great joy to see "colour photos" taken by me...

These were 3 photos picked from that bunch which I keep as a treasure. Everytime I see these pictures I always travel all the way back to those days and ruminate how thrilled I and my family were. To retain the old day's charm I have not tried to enhance the photo in any way with any software. I just present them as they are...faded they may be.......but still they are quite valuable to me.

12. AFTER THE DEATH OF ...

Like all the other B & W photos this also belongs to that 3-decade old period of my photographic ventures. It was a flop then, since I could not get a complete black background with my limited knowledge and inadequate equipment. What I failed to get then, could be accomplised now by photoshop ! Thanks to this Hi-tech period ...!

11. FACES...4

10. LIGHT HOUSE

9. PENCILLED WITH LIGHT

இந்தப் படம் எடுத்த ஆண்டு அனேகமாக 1980 ஆக இருக்கலாம்.

My interest in photography was born a litter earlier than my daughter was born. But since serious photography and an SLR camera, at least in those days, had an interdependance, I can very well say that in that respect my daughter becomes the senior since i bought my first SLR -MAMIYA - SEKOR when she was three. My trials and failures in photography stand out more than any achievement. In that growing period of my photographic interest my daughter served as my model - a very understanding and coperative one. Even at that age she knows to pose even for time-lapse, slow-speed shots. This photograph is one such moment.


FACES...3

Then came color photography. She started showing interest to pose only for color photos and that interest too soon vanished and she became a very demanding model and so I then switched over to other things as my models - mostly non-living things. They never demanded anything !

8. "THINKING MAN"

RODIN's THINKING MAN