There you are. My instagram feed is on the left of the blog.
Blogging was a big thing at one time and then facebook came in and stole the
thunder from ever one. On facebook for the most – I am a by standing voyeur. I
don’t post much, don’t write much and simply like or comment on interesting
stuff. It’s also an interesting place to catch other articles or videos gone
viral. Then one day I heard about how facebook acquired instagram. Like a
typical corporate guy – I was interested only after the economics got my
attention. Once I got my instagram account – I was sold. It’s a dam cool
software. With the touch to focus (the rest gets a little blurred) and a choice
or predefined filters it makes photography so lovely.
I have been fiddling with it now for some time. It is pretty
cool. Over a period of time I have evolved to have a style and language of my
own. Many years ago V-nu and I had gone to the ardh kumb mela at Allahabad. We
met a guy taking photos. We dint realize it at the time but the guy, Ben Lowy
was a crazy celebrated photographer. He has been to conflict zones across the
world and has been taking photos. Later on he had started his photo feed which
was a series of photos that he would take from his iphone. I would always
wonder how he would get the effect on the iphone. Once I started fiddling with
Instagram I realized how he did it. Now I regularly follow my instagram feeds. It
is a lovely liberating experience. I was always interested in photography but I
found the camera very limiting. Who will carry a bulk load of equipment and worry
about it all the time. V-nu would carry his equipment and then sit and change
lenses etc, and I hated the whole thing. its too messy for me. Then you are
always worried about equipment and worse – you stop living the moment. Once in Jaisalmer,
I tried my best at capturing the perfect sunset and I realized that in that bit,
I had failed to experience it. I had given up completely on photography after
that. No camera for me.
The cell phone Instagram has helped me regain the photography
mojo back. It’s nice to be able to click and most importantly – share your pics
with people. I mainly do it when I am on vacation. I take pictures of the
different experiences. I try and take unconventional ones. Interesting stories.
Then I also learnt to write something interesting around it. A picture with a context has far more to it
than by itself. This too I picked up from another celebrated photojournalist that
I was following. The things I have learnt is that – its ok to cheat with the phone
on the picture. Cropping is ok – playing around and fiddling with the focus is
ok, using filters is ok. No manually erasing stuff but everything else is par
for course. These have helped me connect to people and helped people connect to
me.
Very interestingly, there is this one chic from office. She sits
in one of the branches and she hardly ever meets me. I would have never talked
to her anything more than basic pleasantries. But she catches me on FB a lot
and my photo feeds. I met her at a coffee shop the other day. I was with Jasmine
and Jispa. She immediately was warm to Jasmine and wanted to meet Jispa and was
warm to her as well. This is possibly the power of the media. The ability to
stay connected in a new sort of way. Jasmine’s millions of cousins in the US
are now connected to us and share the holidays with us. I try not to spam the
feed. I try and make it relevant and interesting. After all you don’t need to know
that I ate a chocolate cake yesterday and that it was YUM. I guess I use it for
what I feel are more interesting interactions and my thoughts. It’s a language that’s
mine and mine alone.
WE have not allowed Jispa on any social network site, but I relented
on Instagram. Her feeds are private and by invitation alone and she needs
permission before she posts. I was explaining to her the other day how one
could look at a story while clicking a photo and how the focal blur can help in
telling a story. The eye follows the focus and that the story you want to tell.
We experimented with two simple coffee cups on a table to tell different
stories.
This is a good skill to learn I guess. She has a camera
which we bought recently 0 but that useless. She doesn’t use it at all. She uses
the ipod touch for now, but her camera there is pretty much useless. I guess I may
buy her a better itouch but I too worried about the kids using the itouch to be
out of touch with the environment around them. So it’s a bit of a bummer. Lets
see.
