Interesting Quote from an unknown author

Squalls, doldrums, heavy seas, gear failures, being tired, being cold are the condition for sailing, part and parcel of the commitment to get from here to there -- not enemies to be eliminated, but companions to be danced with.

Learning Art : Inspiration & realization of taste ?

It had been quite a few months since I had done any photography, and I did lost touch to many things which I consider before going on a photoshoot. Luckily, this shoot turned out to be pretty decent and I got some good shots (atleast I am happy with whatever I got in the end).

I always set a theme in mind before setting out for a photoshoot, for example, if I am going to a beach, I thought, since its a beach, it would be better if I capture the spirit of the sea, and keep human figures small as compared to the sea. Another time, I wanted to shoot only black & white photographs. This time, I did not think of such a thing :( I believe that setting a mindset is very important, because, then its easier to think of subjects in terms of what to shoot, how to shoot, and when to shoot.

I went to Chota Kashmir this time. My first shoot with MWS was also in Chota Kashmir, and the place is ideal for someone looking to burn his fingers with his camera. Well this time, since I had no particular set theme in mind, I was wandering around the place, looking for catchy shots.

The place was the same, the same paddy fields, flowers, butterflies and insects, and this is what I captured. This means that I haven't learned anything if I shot the same stuff, what I had shot an year back when I had just started. Later on, when I was browsing through the pictures I took last time, I noticed a pattern which led me to a very significant realization about my style of learning. This realization pertained to my train of thoughts; they were basically affected by two factors: inspiration & taste.

Inspiration, I believe is a very important component of my style. The photo I had taken above is of a farmer who has to carry a huge bundle of cut paddy plants. In retrospective, when I saw this farmer, I thought, "Ghosh that looks heavy, Poor farmer !", and essentially parallel images of Jews carrying around heavy stones during the Nazi times flashed to my mind. When I came back home, I was trying to crop this photo, when it suddenly dawned on me, that this should be in B&W. This picture, very closely resembles, at least for me, those dark times during the Nazi rule. I, thus want to make a conjecture that probably what your imagination moulds what you shoot (if you want to shoot randomly without any purpose).

Later, when I was shooting with Rohit Bansal, I started clicking butterflies. Well, I think that came around because a day before I was looking at a friend's blog (Ramdas), and he is pretty good at clicking nature. This supports the inspiration conjecture.

The second factor, is taste. Every person has an inclination towards certain styles and a repulsion from the others. I clicked butterflies, that comes from inspiration, and the other part is how I clicked them & when I clicked. The taste component is basically what defines the unique characteristics of two different images of the same subject.

I think, that it would be nice to click something which the eye doesn't see, or try to present the same thing is a different way so to create a "whoa" effect. A more cliché way would have been to just click photograph of some fantastic flower, or some really colourful insect (?or maybe the other way round :P). Well, I wanted to show a cool flower (below) or the tethered texture of this butterfly. Comparing my old photographs of Chota Kashmir with the recent ones, I could really see the development of a taste in my photographs.

I was previously trying to capture photographs in a way I have seen them clicked. Now that I hope I have exhausted that method, I click them in whatever way I feel like. This is definitely progress. However, I am still a long way away from being able to define my taste. Maybe this is what art is !