Click-Click!

What does that heading mean? For many people in the world today, that is the name of the excercise that they indulge in most frequently. You guessed it right. Those two words signify the double-clicking of a mouse. But if you are looking for a post on the IT industry or some related stuff, look elsewhere. I'm definitely not staying up late to discuss the very thing that am forced to discuss throughout the day. Even as I type this, my right hand index finger is sore from double clicking. So no more mice here... I'll discuss here the more traditional kind of clicking.

It's photography, my new hobby.

My father is as good a photographer as an amateur photographer can be. He bought his Pentax SLR camera just before my birth. He has studied thick books on the subject, and done his practicals on me. The result, as can be imagined, is that I have numerous photos of my childhood. As I grew up, I developed interest towards it as well. However, I did not have a good camera that would allow me to put my imagination on film.

Until the time came when there was no need for film any longer.

I bought a digital camera on a recent trip to Mumbai. It was a long cherished dream. I have been clicking away ever since. I click my mouse during the weekdays, and my camera during the weekends. I had no idea that I'd be loving it so much. And since there is no film cost involved, and I can see the results instantly, I can experiment as much as I want. Even after a long day at office, I often spend some time on the roof photographing the night sky or the city lights. I find it quite refreshing.

I always had a fascination for zoom, and I was quite disappointed when I was unable to get the camera I wanted as it had 8x optical and 7x digital zoom. In that respect, this one was a compromise with only 3x optical and 2x digital zoom. But the Pictures that it delivered soon made me fall in love with it. And I discovered that macro photography was much more interesting than zoom photography while photographing some flowers in our garden last week. Since then I've been shooting frogs and mosquitoes and little wild flowers, apart from aeroplanes and buildings and the Moon. I even shot a few small videos.

All said and done, there's something that I don't like about Digital photography. It is more like hunting with a stengun. You go on clicking when you get the subject in front of you... and one of those pictures is bound to come out nicely. In tricky light conditions, one can experiment with the aperture and shutter speed, and compare the results. Only the best photograph needs to be kept while the others can be deleted. While this delivers good end results, it no doubt takes away some of the thrill and skill that makes photography the art that it is. And who can forget the suspense and eager expectation with which we awaited the developed prints after some function in the house, or some trip? Digital photography also takes away the thrill of fighting over the new prints, or the joy of arranging them in albums. But some things must go with time, I guess!

I don't want to miss this opportunity to show off, so I'm ending this post with a couple of my recently taken photographs, one macro and one zoom.