This year I did something I had never done before: I started pursuing my hobby seriously, and what a great start it was ! I was lucky that I stumbled across this group called the "Mumbai Weekend Shooters", commonly referred by the acronym MWS. What are the chances that you start pursuing your hobby and you meet a set of people who are so into it, that you can talk about it on an entire Sunday !
My first shoot was on 4th January, when the MWS group assembled at Chota Kashmir to shoot. Well, this was the first shoot of the year and thus there was a huge turnout for it ! In those days, I had a Sony DSC-H50, which was the coolest camera I had seen until I had seen the gear which people in MWS had ! My knowledge of photography, ranging from basic shooting settings like exposure, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, et cetera to the aesthetic sense in pictures, well it was non-existent then !
While I was sitting in the autorickshaw on my way to Goregaon, I was thinking of what to expect. I said, "Hmm ... MWS is a group of hobbyist photographers, they must be a bunch of college students who are into art and all. I am going to be probably going to the only engineer there". I googled Chota Kashmir and browsed through some of the pictures that appeared. "Chota Kashmir is such a boring place ... no great landscapes, nothing ! What are these guys gonna shoot over there !!" Well, what really happened is still to come.
I picked up my camera, switched to "A" (auto) mode and started clicking some pictures while sitting in the rickshaw.
When I reached, there were 3-4 guys standing near a lake. There was only one person with a Point and Shoot out of those 4 people.
"Oohh ! I am not the only one with a point-n-shoot here".
I met them, shook hands and was standing quietly in one corner. In about 10 minutes or so, there was a huge congregation of people, people with cars, people with terrific gears, disconnected people shooting macros, people with point-n-shoots :P and in the middle were people of which it was explicit that they were loud and seemed outrightly fun !
MWS has a tradition that all new members of the group have to bring chocolates for others.
Last night, when I went shopping for chocolates, I was in a dilemma, which ones should I buy: Five-stars or Mars or Lindt. I thought, "Hmm .. am a student, Lindt is super expensive, so it is definitely out of picture, Five star seems too cheap, its my first day, I should have a good impression, lets buy Mars".
Back to narration, so I thought that it would be best if I introduce myself to this loud set of people, maybe they would introduce me to the rest. I introduced myself to this girl in black:
"Hello, I am a new member, my name is Ashutosh"
"Hellllooooo Ashutosh !!!" and then in a really loud voice, "Arrey chocolates kahan hain ?"
"They are in my bag"
"Arrey toh bag mein kyun hain .... nikaalo bhi !!!!!!!!"
As it turned out this girl was Riddhi Rathi. I made it a point: Riddhi is very loud and can embarrass someone :P
I started introducing myself to the other members. As it turned out, everything which I had expected was not happening. People didn't care that someone brought Mars or Eclairs ! They just love it when a new member comes and they get something to eat early morning !!
For the next 2 hours: Click ! Click ! Click !
When I saw that most people in the group were serious photographers I made it a point to try and see what they see and learn from it. At the end of the shoot, I was really happy. I had never taken so many good pictures on the same day !
Today as I write this blog, I have had around 7 shoots with MWS. It been a great day every day !
