When I was in high school, a friend from
another school asked me with a carefully-camouflaged smugness, “Guess how many
pictures I took at the school farewell?”
“Well, depends on how many reels you used”, was my lame attempt at levelling the smartness. “You don’t need reels. It’s a digital camera – take as many pictures as you want”, was the sentence that opened up a world of possibilities in photography for me that went beyond Kodak reels and the sole Nikon point-n-shoot Baba possessed.
It does not matter what happened after that. What does, rather, is to know how my ideas of photographs, photographic devices and photography evolved over the so many years up to that point.
The camera was treated as a sacred instrument at home. It was pretty much a given that only Baba could use it, and that too, to capture special people emoting special expressions on special days. If he was in the mood, however, it would come out on Sundays and ordinariness would be captured. On rare occasions when I was allowed to wield the machine, it would be under the strict vigil of Baba, who ensured shots were not wasted! For reels were expensive. And moreover, there weren’t always ready stocks at home. What if you suddenly ran out of them? Each capture was thus calculated, thought-out and meditated.
Once it struck 36 (shots), the camera let out a cranky groan. This was indication that it was time to wound the camera back, remove the reel to be returned to the little black plastic cylinder with a grey lid. This is how it would have to be delivered to the studio guy. If ever - in spurts of rare generosity in its dying moments - it allowed two or three free shots, they never translated into positives!
On our part, we the enlightened children of the 90’s, of course knew ALL about how negatives turned into positives at the studio! Why, after downing shutters, the studio guy took the reel to the ‘dark (actually red-tinted) room’, cut the reel into strips following the easy-to-decipher negatives, immerse them in basins of water, stirred them with tongs till the negatives gave way to identifiable images. Moments of hangings-in later, he waved them in mid-air with (or without) the flourish of the photographers shown in Hindi films and, Voila! Your pictures were ready!!! Easy-peasy! It is, of course another matter altogether, that I have never seen a ‘dark room’ in real life and have absolutely no idea how things actually work!!!
Baba would bring back the photographs - developed matte-finished - from his office para in neat white envelopes. I would jump to check - with the enthusiasm of counting new teeth – if in fact all 36 had been developed! More often than not, we would be short by 3 or 4! Matching the black-brown strip of negatives to the fresh positives would be another fun activity – one that gave me the feel of a super-sleuth investigating precious clues of a murder!
When I was about 14 or 15, girls started bringing cameras to school – to chronicle goings on during
such important days as Teachers’ day, Children’s’ day, Farewells or fests. WHAT a task it was to convince Baba to allow me too, to take our Nikon to school! Permission granted, it was a walk on tenterhooks all the way till I came and safely handed it back to him. The reel and its processing continued to be Baba’s responsibility. This is why, when a little later, I was trusted to use the camera a wee more ‘freely’ - ONLY within Baba’s screaming distance - my sense of caution however, never wavered. Why? What I photographed, whom I photographed, who I was photographed with, how the last-mentioned photograph turned out, would be monitored, censored and censured first by Baba! I stared in wide-eyed amazement thus, when I would hear friends going to collect their own photographs from the studios. I kid you not, back then, it was a huge big deal – a mammoth indication of freedom and independence. For us less-privileged kids, it WAS a bandemataram moment, you just won’t get it!
Yes you, kid with smart phone in hand, clicking selfies, groupfies and god knows what other fies, that even MS word expresses bewilderment at, at this very moment as I type them out. Fie, you, fie! For all the restrictions imposed on me, I feel sad at how rampant and misused the medium of photography is today. How easy, how dispensable, how not-so-precious anymore. How, the assurance of infinity produces reckless callousness. How, in the desperation to capture every fraction of every second, moments are captured hardly ever. How i-phone folders are replacing moth-eaten albums, separated by cellophane strips. And how Facebook captions have robbed stories – real and imagined…
“Well, depends on how many reels you used”, was my lame attempt at levelling the smartness. “You don’t need reels. It’s a digital camera – take as many pictures as you want”, was the sentence that opened up a world of possibilities in photography for me that went beyond Kodak reels and the sole Nikon point-n-shoot Baba possessed.
It does not matter what happened after that. What does, rather, is to know how my ideas of photographs, photographic devices and photography evolved over the so many years up to that point.
The camera was treated as a sacred instrument at home. It was pretty much a given that only Baba could use it, and that too, to capture special people emoting special expressions on special days. If he was in the mood, however, it would come out on Sundays and ordinariness would be captured. On rare occasions when I was allowed to wield the machine, it would be under the strict vigil of Baba, who ensured shots were not wasted! For reels were expensive. And moreover, there weren’t always ready stocks at home. What if you suddenly ran out of them? Each capture was thus calculated, thought-out and meditated.
Once it struck 36 (shots), the camera let out a cranky groan. This was indication that it was time to wound the camera back, remove the reel to be returned to the little black plastic cylinder with a grey lid. This is how it would have to be delivered to the studio guy. If ever - in spurts of rare generosity in its dying moments - it allowed two or three free shots, they never translated into positives!
On our part, we the enlightened children of the 90’s, of course knew ALL about how negatives turned into positives at the studio! Why, after downing shutters, the studio guy took the reel to the ‘dark (actually red-tinted) room’, cut the reel into strips following the easy-to-decipher negatives, immerse them in basins of water, stirred them with tongs till the negatives gave way to identifiable images. Moments of hangings-in later, he waved them in mid-air with (or without) the flourish of the photographers shown in Hindi films and, Voila! Your pictures were ready!!! Easy-peasy! It is, of course another matter altogether, that I have never seen a ‘dark room’ in real life and have absolutely no idea how things actually work!!!
Baba would bring back the photographs - developed matte-finished - from his office para in neat white envelopes. I would jump to check - with the enthusiasm of counting new teeth – if in fact all 36 had been developed! More often than not, we would be short by 3 or 4! Matching the black-brown strip of negatives to the fresh positives would be another fun activity – one that gave me the feel of a super-sleuth investigating precious clues of a murder!
When I was about 14 or 15, girls started bringing cameras to school – to chronicle goings on during
such important days as Teachers’ day, Children’s’ day, Farewells or fests. WHAT a task it was to convince Baba to allow me too, to take our Nikon to school! Permission granted, it was a walk on tenterhooks all the way till I came and safely handed it back to him. The reel and its processing continued to be Baba’s responsibility. This is why, when a little later, I was trusted to use the camera a wee more ‘freely’ - ONLY within Baba’s screaming distance - my sense of caution however, never wavered. Why? What I photographed, whom I photographed, who I was photographed with, how the last-mentioned photograph turned out, would be monitored, censored and censured first by Baba! I stared in wide-eyed amazement thus, when I would hear friends going to collect their own photographs from the studios. I kid you not, back then, it was a huge big deal – a mammoth indication of freedom and independence. For us less-privileged kids, it WAS a bandemataram moment, you just won’t get it!
Yes you, kid with smart phone in hand, clicking selfies, groupfies and god knows what other fies, that even MS word expresses bewilderment at, at this very moment as I type them out. Fie, you, fie! For all the restrictions imposed on me, I feel sad at how rampant and misused the medium of photography is today. How easy, how dispensable, how not-so-precious anymore. How, the assurance of infinity produces reckless callousness. How, in the desperation to capture every fraction of every second, moments are captured hardly ever. How i-phone folders are replacing moth-eaten albums, separated by cellophane strips. And how Facebook captions have robbed stories – real and imagined…
