Technology has very obviously changed lives. I love technology. Lately, I have begun noticing that our very great growth with technology is actually eating away on one of my favorite forms of art. Photography. For many years, I used to own a simple point and shoot camera and clicked pictures with it that no one could believe were possible. It was all a self-taught process and my camera never moved out of the manual mode. I loved Canon for the amount of manual control they can give to a basic camera like the one I had. Later, I learned about a few more details about depth of field, focal length, etc. and actually started relating the theory to the photographs I was taking. It all made sense and I started loving photography. I badly wanted to own a higher end camera. I had the opportunity to use a few high-end/mid-range cameras like the 1D Mk II, 5D and 7D from the Canon stable thanks to a Studio Photographer Friend. That made me crave more for a good camera that was completely in my control.
In the meantime, tragedy stuck. My tiny point-and-shoot that served me well for so many years, died a brave death in a long exposure mission gone wrong. When I was in Delhi at the India Gate, I placed the camera on a flexi tripod I owned and tried taking a timed photo of our group. I placed it on a railing that was wide enough but was a little curvy. Its gripped legs seemed to be holding quite well. The first photo I took came out really sharp after using almost 2 seconds of exposure in the darkness with a very low ISO. For the second photo, I started the timer and started running towards the group and by the time I got there, my friend shouted, "Look!". I turned around and noticed the tripod slipping down. I knew I was too late. I made a dash for it, but the camera was already on the pavement. At first glance, it looked like the camera was ok. I noticed it got turned off. I tried turning it back on. I got a lens read error. For the first time, I looked at the lens and then it struck me. My companion for four years, just died a tragic death. The lens twisted and got pushed back into the camera at an angle. It was stuck there and would not move any more. The gears were damaged the motor seemed stuck. I could not do anything more about it.
A great trip to Delhi ended in a bittersweet way but I let it go. Soon, I started noticing people getting decent entry level DSLRs for good prices. Especially, this thanksgiving break had seen many people I know getting great cameras at low prices. I didn't want to throw my money at an entry level camera and I was waiting for the day I can build up some dough for at least a mid range one with a couple of good lenses for a start.
But at this moment, I'm reconsidering if I really want to take my interest in photography any forward. I thought it was a form of art where you capture the behavior of light. Right now, when I look at it, almost any person who can cough up about $500-700 can take great photographs. And if I'm with a group of friends among whom, one owns a DSLR, everybody wants pictures taken from that camera. Nobody wants pictures from tiny point-and-shoots any more. "Hey, I want a picture from the awesome camera". And when I look at it and ask, "..that's pretty less noise for the light there was, what was the ISO setting?", he replies, "I don't know, it was Auto".
So it was Auto-focus, Auto-exposure, Auto Aperture, ISO Auto, Auto White Balance, Auto Contrast, Auto-Flash, Auto-everything. And he gets an Auto-Awesome picture. So all that I had learned carefully in the last few years was just proved wasted, because someone with no idea about the technical details of a camera actually captured a brilliant picture (Ofcourse it doesn't matter that one side of the photo had a huge empty space in it and a guy on the other side got cropped in half). Moreover, if he wanted to learn some basic tips about photography, it would take him under an hour to learn from an online tutorial. Great! Four years against 1 hour. Thanks to technology, I feel like I wasted many interesting hours of my life.
As it's getting more and more clear, I am beginning to notice that technology is actually taking away the manual creative process involved in photography. Many a time, I caught myself thinking of the time when there were no digital cameras available, no memory cards, no LCD previews, no live modes, no Auto-awesome pictures. One would have to analyze the light and figure out the best possible setting on the camera. And out of the 36 pictures from the standard roll that would get developed after a week's wait, only 10 come out good. The process restarts with a new roll and after a month of careful experimenting, a little more is learned. How many people would then think of owning a camera? From my experience, my guess would be only a small percentage of amateurs who currently (and quite easily) own a DSLR would actually have the patience to learn the real Art of Photography.
In the meantime, tragedy stuck. My tiny point-and-shoot that served me well for so many years, died a brave death in a long exposure mission gone wrong. When I was in Delhi at the India Gate, I placed the camera on a flexi tripod I owned and tried taking a timed photo of our group. I placed it on a railing that was wide enough but was a little curvy. Its gripped legs seemed to be holding quite well. The first photo I took came out really sharp after using almost 2 seconds of exposure in the darkness with a very low ISO. For the second photo, I started the timer and started running towards the group and by the time I got there, my friend shouted, "Look!". I turned around and noticed the tripod slipping down. I knew I was too late. I made a dash for it, but the camera was already on the pavement. At first glance, it looked like the camera was ok. I noticed it got turned off. I tried turning it back on. I got a lens read error. For the first time, I looked at the lens and then it struck me. My companion for four years, just died a tragic death. The lens twisted and got pushed back into the camera at an angle. It was stuck there and would not move any more. The gears were damaged the motor seemed stuck. I could not do anything more about it.
A great trip to Delhi ended in a bittersweet way but I let it go. Soon, I started noticing people getting decent entry level DSLRs for good prices. Especially, this thanksgiving break had seen many people I know getting great cameras at low prices. I didn't want to throw my money at an entry level camera and I was waiting for the day I can build up some dough for at least a mid range one with a couple of good lenses for a start.
But at this moment, I'm reconsidering if I really want to take my interest in photography any forward. I thought it was a form of art where you capture the behavior of light. Right now, when I look at it, almost any person who can cough up about $500-700 can take great photographs. And if I'm with a group of friends among whom, one owns a DSLR, everybody wants pictures taken from that camera. Nobody wants pictures from tiny point-and-shoots any more. "Hey, I want a picture from the awesome camera". And when I look at it and ask, "..that's pretty less noise for the light there was, what was the ISO setting?", he replies, "I don't know, it was Auto".
So it was Auto-focus, Auto-exposure, Auto Aperture, ISO Auto, Auto White Balance, Auto Contrast, Auto-Flash, Auto-everything. And he gets an Auto-Awesome picture. So all that I had learned carefully in the last few years was just proved wasted, because someone with no idea about the technical details of a camera actually captured a brilliant picture (Ofcourse it doesn't matter that one side of the photo had a huge empty space in it and a guy on the other side got cropped in half). Moreover, if he wanted to learn some basic tips about photography, it would take him under an hour to learn from an online tutorial. Great! Four years against 1 hour. Thanks to technology, I feel like I wasted many interesting hours of my life.
As it's getting more and more clear, I am beginning to notice that technology is actually taking away the manual creative process involved in photography. Many a time, I caught myself thinking of the time when there were no digital cameras available, no memory cards, no LCD previews, no live modes, no Auto-awesome pictures. One would have to analyze the light and figure out the best possible setting on the camera. And out of the 36 pictures from the standard roll that would get developed after a week's wait, only 10 come out good. The process restarts with a new roll and after a month of careful experimenting, a little more is learned. How many people would then think of owning a camera? From my experience, my guess would be only a small percentage of amateurs who currently (and quite easily) own a DSLR would actually have the patience to learn the real Art of Photography.
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