A lively discussion
about photography on a friend’s face book timeline made me pen in few of my
thoughts. What I write here are my opinion and observations.. Not meant to hurt
anyone’s feelings
Gone are the
days when very few wildlife photographers in India were struggling to get
decent image of animals in their habitat as it involved lots of hard work,
hardship and had to face dangers in the forest not to add in the expenses for
the films, travel and so forth. In the event they did get their dream shot their
only medium to showcase their images were newspapers and magazines or exhibitions
that they held to raise fund for their next sojourn into the forest.
Advent of
electronic media and social media networks has spurred an increase in the
number of wild life photographers who are generally brash young professionals
with lots of money to spare who splurge on high end cameras, and big lens. By
the way high end cameras and assortment of lenses does not guarantee better
images if they are not aware of the basics of photography. A creative
photographer can take a great image even with a mobile phone since the end
product depends on the composition of the image and the knowledge of
photography in general.
Most of the
current day wildlife photographers are being driven by peer pressure to get one
up on the other person who has posted an Image on the various social media
network. Be it wildlife, landscape or
the street photography there is an intense unseen competition to get a “wow”
image on your face book page. Please note my stress on most… as I do know very
good photographers exists among the current lot who carry out their photography
out of pure passion and are hardly bothered about the responses they get on the
social media networks.
Another trait I have
noticed among the current day lot is that there are no dearth Ego issues... and
they are very quick to belittle other photographer’s images either the way it
has been captured or post processing done. During olden days one needed a
darkroom, chemicals and other tools to do the post processing but now all is
done with a click of the computer mouse. One needs to understand that all
images captured by anyone is first processed within the camera itself based on
the manufacturers setting so nobody can quote that no post processing is done .
Coming to the post processing the images on a computer where does one draw the
line on this aspect. In my opinion there is no issues in doing all the
processing required just to make the captured image look good as the individual
had envisaged the shot. This may involve even digital manipulations, but then
those images would not be accepted for photojournalism or photography contests.
Few persons are gifted with good
knowledge of creative processing and I have seen them use this tool to bring
out “Wow” images that only can be in our dreams and is acceptable to me as long
as they do admit to having digitally altered instead of palming of as shot
images.
I do know my
statement may rake up intense discussions but then here is a quote for you all from a 13thcentury mystic from Persia named Jalal Al Din Rumi and I do believe holds good for everyone in whatever field it may be.
“When you do things from
your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy”
Enjoy your photography hobby
earnestly and I am sure you would feel the joy and
fulfillment of capturing your images
without any thoughts of what the society or the virtual friends on social media
networks think of it.
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