The Passion contnues...

My penchant for photography has increased tremendously in the recent past. Anything I do in the weekends (or at times in the weekdays), I try and associate it with photography. I plan trips only if the place I visit is worth photographing (in my perspective). For the past 4 months, I have been dragging my parents to various destinations (and not to forget all those gazillion places I visited with Kavitha before that) with photographic thoughts more than anything else.

I amaze myself at the amount of time I spend taking pictures. There have been times I have spent two hours or so photographing a simple bridge or a lighthouse. Every single time, I would be surprised at how fast the time flies. I seriously have to give it to people who accompany me in such trips, God must have blessed them with abundant patience! I'm not sure if I would be waiting so patiently if I were them!

For somebody in my stage, every single photograph is a learning experience. Each photo is a challenge. Every photo makes me understand the technology better. More than the photo, what fascinates me is the time I spend planning for the moment, researching, taking the picture, feeling satisfied or taking the picture again with different settings or try everything all over.

A small example is yesterday's lazy afternoon. I was absolutely bored as parents were asleep after a tiring trip to Cleveland Air show the previous day. I was doing vetti browsing and stumbled upon some water-splash shots in the internet. After a few minutes of reading/researching, I was at my bathroom, with my camera sitting on the tripod aiming at the wash basin. With a glass bowl, a red backpack and some water, I came with this shot:

I took over 120 pictures to get about 4 shots I liked. I was quite satisfied, yet exploring my areas of improvement. Here is the setup I used (in case anyone is curious, I used the comb as the point to focus, as I expected the water to splash at the precisely that height and there was no other way to focus the water droplet!):

The other day, I also happened to read at somebody's Flickr photograph that that was his best photo and he would have died to take that picture 6 months ago. He also said he isn't sure where to go next. I was thinking about what he wrote. After a discussion with Amar, the guy who inspired me into photography in the first place, I realized maybe, when one feels they are perfect in what they do (and attained a relative success), they may stop doing it completely.

Currently, I display interest in photography, because I have a zillion things to learn. One day, if I feel I have attained the stage where there is nothing left to learn, I may stop. Or I may redirect the interest to a whole new dimension. Or I may just continue to learn. I dont know. I see some very good photographers redirecting their interest towards writing a book or selling their photographs, making a good business model out of them. Others just continue to take pictures with unexplicable self-content. I guess it all depends on how one wants to realize happiness.

Not sure where my appetite for photography takes me to, but it makes me want to travel more. It makes me want to do things I wouldn't otherwise do. It makes me spend more money. It makes me spend more time. It keeps me busy. It makes me learn. And finally, it makes me happy. Very happy!

[P.S: My photographs: www.flickr.com/photos/arunsundar]