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Sunday, December 09, 2007

Remembrances of Times Past...

I love photographs and can easily get lost in the pile of photo albums that I have.. I used to spend hours and hours looking, arranging and rearranging them, much to the annoyance of my mom.. These are the photographs of my childhood, of old friends, of school and college, of family functions, of exciting vacations, of beautiful places,.. The moment I pick an album, I will be taken back to that exact place and time,recollect the beautiful moments, recalling fond memories, replaying conversations, smelling the fresh air,..

There are some of my childhood snaps - the old black and white ones taken in studio or by a photographer who was called home. And there I was with a toothless smile, or with the corners of my mouth curved down and eyes clouded with tears, or with a smug grin on the face (probably coz of the new dress).. I can also see my grandparents who are no more now and remember the stories they told me, the special dishes grandma used to make,.. The carefree days..

Then there was a gap as I had mentioned before. I have very few personal snaps during this time..Still there are some snaps from the family functions where I'll be with my kutti cousin gang, all in pretty frocks and hair full of jasmine flowers arranged as a bow and of course everyone beaming at the camera.. Or the school photo where all the 90 teenagers (yes we were that many in one class) in blue skirt and white shirt, with hair neatly platted on either sides, trying to look serious.. Then the colorful college days, light moments with friends , joyful class trips , excitement and turmoil of a first timer in a Saree , the painful send off parties ,.. Each of those photographs speak volumes..

I bought my first camera after I passed from school. And the shutterbug bit me and it bit me too hard.. I wanted to capture anything and everything around me..Yes I clicked people , places , buildings , flowers, trees,.. Now before my friends pounce on me - mine was only a very basic camera with absolutely no overrides. But it did the purpose. It helped all those moments, places,people and settings stay forever, which would have otherwise faded with time.. Yes that's the whole beauty of a photograph.. It freezes the moment from running away, making the finite eternal..

8 comments:

The Avenger !!! said...

i agree, now if only i had not "gifted" my SLR to indian railways, i too would have had a super collection. all in all i lost about 800 photographs !!! :(

Anush said...

clickin fotos is one way to go back in time [:)] nice post, made me smile [:)]

ദീപു : sandeep said...

posing for photographs... oh it was nostalgic....

I still remember one incident very clearly. My uncle called a photographer home to take the pic of my grandparents. I wanted to be with them infront of the camera so made a scene and finally they fooled me with a flash, and took the photograph afterwards. Whenever I see the photograph of my grandparents, the whole incident comes to mind...



to your qstn... me too face the same issue on Mozilla. didnt run behind it since it works fine with IE. :)

mathew said...

isnt it true that we have very few fotos of our childhood that mkakes it all the more precious..with digicams i think the 'precious' factor of a photograph is lost..

i have only one camera..and i hope to buy a better one soon..;-)

Usha said...

Until some years ago, photos were taken only on special occasions and so each one brought special memories. Now of course we click them all the time and sometimes I don't even remember when a pic was taken. I,love looking at the B&W pics from the past.

Anonymous said...

hmm .. shutterbug once bitten is bitten for ever :-) unfortunately i dont have many memories of posing for photographs during childhood ... but i am making up for it now!

saw ur comments asking for posts thnx ... please find my photo blog here : http://photography.usandeep.com/

Dhanya said...

@ avenger : Oops 800 is a huge no. U better make it up.. With digital, it's so easy :P

@ crazybugga : Thanks a lot.. yeh photo's do take us back in time :)

@ sandeep : yeh that's the whole beauty of photographs na.. everytime we see a snap the whole scene comes back as it is :)

@ mathew : Yeh with quantity, quality does suffer.. I can see that in my digital version of my collection.. I've hardly seen all of them, forget going through them again n again.. :(

@ usha : Yeh that's true. I arrange my digital snaps according to categories so that I don't forget abt it completely :)

@ sandeep : Yeh very much true.. shutterbug once bitten is bitten for ever :) I too don't have that much snaps from childhood but lots during college days :) But now a days not many people photography..
And thanks for the link. I have subscribed to the feeds.. U experiment a lot..:)

Anonymous said...

You take me from one post to another! This was great reading too. I wish I had a lot of photos from the past.