Capturing Memories and Growing with ‘Photography’
I bought my first ‘DSLR’ (a Nikon D3200) in 2012 and the trigger was a trip to Germany. Before that I had a point and shoot Sony CyberShot that I had bought in 2005, that too was to capture pictures on internship trip to West Africa. These were simple decisions to buy a camera that I can afford – no considerations of their capabilities or technical specifications. Both these cameras were used occasionally to capture memories- and my then ignorant self had a very narrow definition of memories. The camera got to be packed and used mostly when I was traveling and memories were mostly travel memories.
But it all changed in 2015. The definition of memories changed and my purpose for taking photos changed. We became parents. And, every gaze, stare, smile, movement, gestures.. everything was worth capturing. Every moment became a memory to preserve. A camera became a constant companion. But I also got hooked to not only capturing these memories but learning how I can capture them better. I wanted to do justice to the divine innocence engendering happiness in thousands different ways; I wanted my photography skills to be able to capture them in better way.
This made me go into a rabbit hole, consuming many tutorials on photography, getting in photography gears and photography as an art form. But I have no regrets. It introduced me to Susan Sontag, John Berger, Ansel Adams, Roland Barthes, Henri Cartier Bresson, Dorothea Lange, Steve McCurry, Annie Leibovitz Stephan Shore.. the list is endless. The journey that started with an ambition to getting off the ‘auto mode’ and mastering the manual mode unintentionally meandered into understanding why we take pictures and what makes it an art form. There are many theories and approaches and deviations from these theories that have resulted in mesmerising pictures. Be it Stephan Shore’s approach of taking pictures as we see things naturally or the decisive moment of Bresson – the masters of photographies went deep to put soul into a mundane act of pressing the shutter button. Knowing their work and looking at their pictures was a reward in itself!
My photography journey started with clicking pictures of our daughter and it is growing with her. But more than the pictures and getting better at photography it gave me something immensely valuable that goes beyond the photography or photographs. Out of my crazy schedules and numerous distractions, it makes me shut down all distractions and focus, literally and figuratively, on what matters- people who I love and care about.
(For those, who are keen to explore photography, here are some YouTube links that are good starting points to know more about photography as an art. You can also just search for the master photographers’ name in YouTube and will get enough videos to get better understanding of their work and learn from their work.)
- Learn the Language of Photography Through Critique
- Are You Expressing Your Creativity or Just Pressing Buttons?
- Stephen Shore – How to see
- John Berger – Understanding a photograph
Intense conversation about the climate action with some exceptional people.
Managed to get my bookshelf organised. This time by colors. I also realised that I have bought at least 4 books again as I was not able to see them at home and did manage to read them so picked them again from the bookshop. #books #reading
Finished reading: Long Shadows by David Baldacci 📚
A couple of weeks back I got a chance to stay at the campus for a few days. While many things have changed since I graduated in 2006 from here but it remains one of those places that always triggers nostalgia.
Finally, I did reshuffle my entire portfolio amid all the chaos caused by the Adani-Hindenberg issue. Better to hold cash than to be in the market till we figure out what our regulators are up to. The entire episode has made the retail investors suffer the most.
I hardly recommend music albums and songs but I could not resists recommending Qala. Absolutely brilliant work from Amit Trivedi that must be celebrated. open.spotify.com/album/3yV…
The Power of Written Words
Never underestimate the power of written words. Indian investors can vouch for this now. We lost a lot of money despite having no direct exposure to Adani Group.
This whole episode has shaken the confidence of Indian retail investors and put a question mark on our regulatory framework and loopholes in that.
#HindenbergReport
Surprisingly we are not talking enough about methane problem. It is 30 times more dangerous than CO2.
Do you want to make a career in climate solutions and sustainability space? Figure out which problem you want to solve and what kind of skills it requires. It will take some time to know this but it is absolutely critical.
#climatecareers #Careers #ClimateActionNow
The State of the Carbon Dioxide Removal – No where close to what is needed.
- The current status of Carbon Dioxide Removal is just a fraction of what is needed to achieve our goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees.
- The total CDR is approximately 2 GtCO2 per year compared to 12-16 GtCO2 per year required for meeting Paris Agreement.
- We have put an unsubstantiated hope in ‘Novel’ technologies that would bail us out by removing carbon from the air. Unfortunately, so far these ‘novel’ technologies have remained nascent or emerging and almost all the CDR has been through conventional methods. Out of 2GtCO2 CDR achieved, the novel technologies (BECCS: Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage, Biochar, and others) have contributed only 0.002 GtCO2.
We need this. ChatGPTZero #OpenAI
Jaipur Literature Festival is one event that I keep on missing for one reason or another. Next time again. #Litfest #jlf
A trip to Auroville, Verite before I get back to cold and gloomy Delhi!
Openai ChatGPT3 and the Robot Curve
With public availability of ChatGPT3 people got suddenly exposed to Artificial Intelligence and what it can do. Some are being alarmed about what all careers will be lost and some are enthusiastic about what all possibilities we will unlock. For those who are scared about their careers and job losses, this is not something that is happening for the first time. Marty Neumeier’s Robot Curve explains this quite succinctly.
The Robot Curve depicts how creative and thinking processes get routinised and automated overtime. Creative work when it becomes well understood it becomes skilled work and then rote work and then goes all the way to be come robotic work. It keeps on repeating. The only thing that we can do is to reinvent and transform ourselves to move up on this curve by preparing ourselves to do more creative and original work. Continuous learning and up-skilling oneself to do more original and creative work is the only way to remain relevant.
Curiosity, especially about the larger context of professional environment developments that can affect once career or things they care for is often underestimated.
Currently reading: Life Is Hard by Kieran Setiya 📚
What is happening in Joshi Math is sad reminder that we are not respecting the carrying capacity of our ecosystems. All our hill-stations are in very precarious positions. #RespectNature #JoshimathIsSinking
History is fascinating. It can help one learn from past and shape the future but it also has the risk of sucking one in past glory or failures and make one oblivious of what future is asking from oneself.