Remembering the Relationships with my cameras
I kind of remember the first time I ever operated a camera. It was a point and shoot film camera and my father handed it to me along with verbal instructions on how to take a picture.
I looked through the viewfinder, adjusted the frame and nervously pressed the button. I don’t exactly remember how the developed picture turned out, but I vaguely remember my dad giving me encouraging words for framing a good picture.
I was probably 10 years old then and my father wasn’t a professional photographer or anything. But probably that experience would have created an even deeper impression on me and I went on to love photography.
Growing up in a middle class family in the early 90’s didn’t really help me figure out my passion for photography until I joined college. During the college days was when I got access to the mobile phone cameras of my comparatively richer friends. Soon they somehow agreed that I was the photographer among them which gave me better access to the latest phone cameras available in the group.
But my unlimited access to a photography equipment started when my older brother discarded a Made in China gadget — an Mp3 player cum video player cum 1.3MP DIGITAL CAMERA! This ‘camera’ could fit inside the front pocket of a shirt and I have had a lot of fun with it. Probably this was the first gadget that really taught me, legs are the best zoom lens available.
Couple of years after college, when I was in my early twenties and got my first real job, when I could finally afford a mobile phone with a built in camera, I went ahead and got myself a Samsung phone. Even today, I still believe that it was the best camera I ever had. It was a no-nonsense point and shoot camera which I used so much so that I knew exactly when to click to get the exact frame I wanted even while I was on a running bus. Probably that was the first camera that taught me what it was to live with a camera.
My real upgrade happened couple of more years later when I could save up to buy my first Big boy camera — a DSLR! Though there were no entry level camera below it, I was super excited to finally have a ‘professional’ camera! It was a Canon 1100D.
It was the time when people with DSLRs were considered to be ‘professionals’ due to the influence of many talented Facebook photographers. Instagram wasn’t really that popular then, so was mobile internet and publishing on the go.
It was really an interesting time for me as a photography enthusiast. Not because of Facebook or Instagram, but because of my own expectations, disappointments and frustrations.
When I was buying the DSLR, I had a lot of expectations and lot more creative ideas to accomplish through my photographs. I wanted to precisely control the lights and shadows and to create masterpieces. But all I could create was master craps!
The manual mode wouldn’t give what I wanted to create. It was either too dark or too bright. The auto mode gave me ordinary snapshots. Nothing was close to the artsy photograph I had in my mind.
It was days of frustrated trials and errors, mostly errors as a matter of fact, until the day I figured out that the moving marker had to come to the centre to get the right exposed image and two point to the left gave a slightly under exposed image and two points to the right gave a slightly over exposed image. That was the day of revelation and everything became sort of easy after that.
I set the camera at its maximum aperture and played with shutter speeds. Then I reduced shutter speed when there wasn’t enough light. Then I started changing the ISO when lowering the shutter speed gave shaky images. I finally learned the exposure triangle. My frustration slowly started to diminish and I started to enjoy the creative process behind photography.
Half a kilo became a constant weight in my travel backpack from that point onwards. That companionship with my camera continued for about 4 years. I added a nifty-fifty — a 50mm prime lens to it during one of those years. Other than that I didn’t buy anything new. I stayed loyal to my camera for over a decade.
Like most relations, the spark kind of diminished and a layer of dust started to settle on top of the equipment in the corned of my wall shelf. Wide angle kit lens stopped auto focusing due to an internal gear fault, zoom lens got fungus inside and made its marks, prime lens and the camera body protected one corner of the shelf rack from getting dust.
I slowly started to prefer my OnePlus camera phone and later a gifted iPhone. My relationships with proper cameras were coming to an end. I tried to date some, but it didn’t really work out. I kind of hated the mirrorless ones. It was too slow for me. It wouldn’t respond when I wanted something. You have to wait for its whims and fancies. I was thinking that I wouldn’t be able to find love again in finding moments in space and freezing those times, until I came across Fujifilm X100 series online.
It looked compact from the pictures, the reviews said it was fast, someone praised it for having an Optical viewfinder and all of it made me fall in love. It was almost love at first sight. Only thing that stood in between us was our financial situation. But I am sure, in a couple of months I will be able to sort it out and start a fresh new relationship.
And with all those great relationship comes great stories. I believe I can create some great stories with my future Fuji X100V and share with you all. Thank you for your time reading this piece.
PS : Update : After months of saving up for the camera and a bit of luck through ebay, I have finally bought a Fujifilm x100s. As expected gofundme wasn’t of any help. Though I am happy that it didn’t work out, as I am not obliged to post pictures for my ‘investors’ as I’ve stated earlier. So thanks for that.
