Calling the Shots !


Dusting the old wardrobe, being not one of the chores, was taken up as a high priority task after the procrastination reached its highest indices. Sniffing and cursing I ventured at the not so interesting job. The initial energy works as a negative exponential and I sat down after few minutes hopeless, looking at the created mess. Suddenly the eyes found a small white thing which was almost yellow showing its endurance or effect of time. An age old photograph, black and white, almost tattered and screaming by itself that its going to be an antique soon. The thoughts suddenly placed themselves into the comfortable past, making me to wonder as how they would have taken pictures in those ages. The uncanny looking huge stand, black mysterious cloth inside which the photographer buried his head, the larger than life artificial settings in the backdrop which could place you anywhere in the world and in any position. The postman could sit in the latest of the cars, the whole family suddenly misplaced in time and standing amidst the lush green verdant nature, the aspiring artistes next to their role models and the list can be populated depending on the depth the human creativity can penetrate.
An era passed. The camera with the films made its entry. Everyone was amazed. The harbinger to the present day’s ultra tech sleek lenses. But still you had the limited privilege to take few thought -to -be perfect photos. You take it to the studio and you cant wait to see the results. The dark room with the red light and the liquid cleaning gives a chill to your nerves. As often depicted in the movies , that the pictures finally will have some strange element in it hanging. The photographs finally land up in your hands. You are divinely pleased with some of them and you keep seeing it, without leaving its negative counterpart too. You want to make sure that the contrast is as beautiful as the original.
With this you entered the age where the cameras are found anywhere and everywhere. All sort of lenses, focal lengths and pixels and you are spoilt for choices. The shutters are faster than the blink of an eye. Everyone is a claimed photographer now clicking everything around and flaunting it. Ofcourse we are all happy and liking it. You can create the one picture in all spectrum of colours, make things visible or invisible, cut, chop,crop and what not.The technology has no backtrack and only has to advance and get better. Suddenly when I am writing all this and making such big claims,I realized that my mind and heart still yearns for the old pictures. The hard copies which we used to ceremoniously put in the decorated album and flipping through the pages with your kith and kins gave the joy which cant be surpassed. Something told me that the best of today’s bling flashy and clear photographs also cant equate it. At that moment, the old black and white picture stood vindicated ! SAY CHEESE !

8 comments:

aRaS said...

Yet again.. you came up with something nice.. You are right! Old is always Gold.. Sometimes I do wonder the direction in which technology is taking us.. By inventing new-new things, Are we making our life easier or lazier? Is our life at our finger tips or on some http:\\ page?.. Don't know..we are all part of this "TIME", which flows continuously. The best thing we can do is, run along with the time and cherish the olden(Golden) memories..

harsh said...

hey SAY CHEESE is patented for maya madam only....

Abhi said...

Sooper kane! Really nice!

Chandan C K said...

Yes..this thought runs through the mind whenever we see old photograghs. Those are real kodak moments :D .

Lavanya S N said...

Watching the digital photos on computers can never get on par with "Sitting and flipping the album sheets with friends and family". The way we connect to the incidents in hard copies is totally different than those on screen. And you are absolutely right about everyone now being a photographer, with the high resolution, digital ones and crop, enhance, auto-fixes available. Little do people realize that photography is much more than that! Very nice post! :)

Unknown said...

Nice blog!!

i too enjoy seeing our old family photos and at the same time i love my digi camera too ,,,so i m neutral on this

Calvy said...

...these snapshots are their little stands against the flow of time.
The shutter is clicked, the flash goes off, and they've stopped time,
if just for the blink of an eye.

http://abhi.aminus3.com

http://calvy.wordpress.com

Priyanka said...

@Calvy- Nicely put :)

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