A Wasted Passion

I am a decent photographer. The experiments I have done with film photography while at BITS are not entirely insignificant. There was always a dream; to buy the best camera available in the market when I finally start earning. My friends did it. But they turned prodigals. They were buying digital cameras. Somehow the DOPYite in me could just not accept the fact that they were going into something so non-human. The Department of Photography did give us memories of failure, memories of rolls after rolls going to waste by our negligence and yet we survived, and learnt photography for what it was worth. It’s true I couldn’t do much while at IIMB, but even the minutest opportunity I have had, I have ensured that I click like crazy, albeit with a digital camera. And as a very strong critique of myself I can say that though my sense of lighting hasn’t improved much,(and has been nothing to write home about) my composition and framing have not lost their magic. In fact, the pictures that I take with my phone are not bad at all.

Every time I speak to one of my friends from the Department after a long hiatus, I am reminded of my promise to myself. It’s like your first love. It’s always difficult to forget the first hands that you held in your own, as it is to forget the first shutter that you pressed and the first lens that you adjusted.

But I think these days I am ready to face myself much more ruthlessly and I realize that perhaps this dream will never be fulfilled. I shall always be buying cameras that can more or less do my work for me. But the search for my perfect camera is now hidden behind the shrouds. They say it’s sensible not to flaunt a new camera in the streets of a city you do not know much about. I say, it kills me slowly every time I flash out my cell phone to respond to that irresistible call to ‘write with light’. And then I delete what I captured.

The child is grown; The dream is gone;
Have I become Comfortably Numb?