The initial spark!

“It’s the journey, not the destination”

They say, ‘It’s the journey, not the destination’. Being on the journey of life, we meet people and make new friends who often, inadvertently, make us discover something new about ourselves. One such experience happened when I met one of my dear friend, Anshuman, during my engineering college days!

Anshuman was a photography enthusiast since his teenage days and was transitioning into to the world of digital photography away from the film based SLR cameras. I started spending time understanding his perspective and nuances of photography, as an art. I got awestruck by his creative photography and discovered a completely new perspective of looking at the nature and people around us. At this point, I didn’t really think of buying a camera or taking up photography as a hobby but did feel a spark about it.

“The picture that you took with your camera is the imagination you want to create with reality.”
— Scott Lorenzo

Back in college buying a digital camera was a distant dream as I could barely afford a Nokia 1100 mobile phone but Anshuman, being an amazing guy as he is, was always open to let me use his camera and try some shots. I have to say that if I had not met this guy, I probably would have never picked up photography.

I didn’t really think of taking up photography seriously till I started working and it was only until after my marriage that I thought of buying a DSLR camera. Film based cameras were a thing of the past by then and mobile camera still at a nascent stage. DSLR cameras are expensive commodity and at that time it used to cost more than a month of my salary!

However, during the summer of 2013, I took the plunge and got myself a Nikon D5200 DSLR camera on credit card EMI. Nikon D5200 was a beginner level digital SLR but a powerful one to learn photography skills. I was fascinated by the quality of the pictures and started learning basic skills through online videos and articles. Fortunately, few months later, Ina had to travel to Sydney, Australia for an office assignment for few months and this is when I got an opportunity to take a break from work and explore the world through the lens.

I stayed in Sydney for 3 weeks away from my regular worldly routine and it turned out to be one of the most incredible experiences. I discovered my passion for photography and there was no turning back after that.