Perspectives...

 

The grass looks greener on the other side..... 

Sometimes, moving away from the problem gives more clarity than staring right at it... 

Living in the present....

For those special people...

One way or the other...

Six degrees of separation in the web of life... ?

Lessons from the computer...

 

A shift in perspectives is all you need sometimes... 

Control is not always an option... sometimes, one has to let go so that life and its many surprises can come your way...  This is a little difficult to do for people like me and therefore such constant reminders are needed...

Life and the sense of "I"...

Never lose yourself to be a part of the bigger... life is a journey we all take alone...

Knowledge...

In the journey from darkness to light, from confusion to clarity... knowledge is the first step to take !

From I to we and beyond...

Kitchen philosophy... :)

This is what I end up doing when the sun decides to take a break on sundays in sunny San Diego - I take a break too.  :)  I enjoy my coffee and my book and then I rummage in the house to find things I think I want to photograph and then I hound them with my ideas and concepts till I think they are saying what I want them to....

To me then, each image becomes imbued with a thought and I end the day feeling a master of kitchen philosophy...


This one to me is all about finding order in chaos...  filtering out the noise...
The separation between the idea of chaos and the word itself... 

Cities...

These images were taken on a Sunday morning as a creative burst shoved me into action. The idea was to send some entries for a feature contest on the theme of "cities". Of course, by the end of it, while I still liked the concept, I wasn't too happy with the execution and with the results and so the images stayed put in my system. :)

Frames from a life...

Ever so often these days, I come across these points of views which completely echo mine. Thoughts which I have had at some point in the past but never bothered to remember and note. Feelings that I have had but never quite understood. Ideas and opinions on subjects which I have always had with a degree of uncertainty and circumspection. And then I chance upon these writings or people who act like your sounding board and there is a connection, no matter how brief or how transient, there is a connection, that gives me a degree of certainty in my thoughts and ideas…. And ever so often, the other person manages to express my views in a way far more beautiful and poignant that I would have in a long long time….

The following is one such text I chanced upon the very next day after writing my "on the spur of the moment" blog on photography. My fascination with pictures has been for long and I have always had very romantic reasons in liking photography. While I did put across my thoughts on the subject in my previous blog, this article in the Sunday edition of the Hindu made me jump with joy. It said all I wanted to tell in beautiful prose ! Confirmation bias someone would say. Maybe ? But the fact of the matter is that these nuggets of thought floating around in the universe, come to you at times you are ready for them. And I find that order in stochasticity and randomness rather appealing to let go.

Anyways, I put forth here some of the text from this article with the footnote that I hope I can write with greater fluidity with lesser effort in times to come.

"A Story in Each frame

Life is a series of stories that could be broken down into a sequence of images that could run fast enough to seem like continuous spiral of activity without the punctuations of blank spaces. Each of these images can be captured, memorized by the mind and often is, only the finest details blurred over by time, age and eyes that may not be quick enough to fix them for eternity. And what the ye can see, the camera can freeze, too, each photograph keeping a log of what happened, where, when and how.

A really good photographer can also steal a little bit of that feeling, the emotion, the soul of that particular moment in time - in fact, in many cultures, a photograph is dreaded, sometimes even forbidden, since it is believed to take away a tiny slice of the soul, perhaps even the life, of the subject being photographed. But for the viewer, a photographic image tells a story, or a bit of one, leaving the rest for the imagination to conjure up and embellish. In telling that story, photography, once considered to be merely a way of capturing a moment, be it as a family portrait, or a facet of breaking news, gradually became an art form - a creative story telling, fiction perhaps - or a means of documentation - a biography or a record of life and its living.

The images tell more stories than their subjects would perhaps have imagined. The unsaid says more than that which is spoken of, conveying mood, relationships and affections in that one snap in time. And there is history in each frame - culture, tradition and age as reflected in the way the women pose, the clothes they wear and how they are worn, the furniture, even the pictures on the walls, Each has a special story, its meaning and interpretation left to the viewer. "

- Excerpts from the Hindu Magazine, Sunday, 22nd August 2010
An article by Ramya Sarma

And as the photographer in the article says - "If I could write, I would not be a photographer"…
I would perhaps say that if I could paint and write, I would not be a photographer.

Welcome...

I love still frames and the thoughts that bounce in them. Like a time capsule, they stand there in front of you reminding you of the times gone by - good and bad. Like a book, they reflect your thoughts, ideas, emotions and personalities. They narrate a story and they paint a picture. They make all things beautiful, even pain.
They freeze moments in time long after they have passed, long after the people have changed, and the world has changed, the picture lives on... and it carries the story with it. 

 

They could be your stories that you would want to revisit later or some one else's stories as they prompt you to stop, look, reflect and make sense. Moments from life around you, frozen for eternity on a small piece of paper.
Photographs freeze these many moments in time. A blooming flower, a dropping leaf, a fluttering butterfly, the light peeping through the shadows, a tear drop, a smile.... moments that make our life. Moments of agony, despair, ecstasy, camaraderie, empathy, hope and many more such emotions... they define us and our lives. Some visions and images epitomize these emotions. Some moments will forever remind you of such feelings. These are the moments that one would like to hold on to and photographs do that for us. They hold a story for us long after we are gone. I love freezing those moments by the simple click of a button.

For many many years now, i have loved watching the world through my lenses. Somehow, it has never disappointed me. Things always looked clearer and more beautiful - almost perfect. And so whenever reality gets to me, I tend to go to my camera and see the world through it for a few hours. And life does feel better after that. :)

A few months back, a friend told me about project 365 - taking an image for every day of the year. Knowing the camera-freak that i am this was a great idea that clung on to me... I loved the thought of capturing the best or worst part of every day - etching it in your memory for the years to come. And so while active procrastination :)) and a mild paucity of time kept me from undertaking this mission with the regularity that was needed, i have nonetheless been contemplating on the idea of starting a photoblog...

A place where i treasure a few vignettes of life around me and keep a visual record of my thoughts and ideas...

I hope you like some of these frames enough to stop by every now and then...