Time Travelling

Some weeks back I decided to head down to South Bombay (SOBO) to shoot some street photography and in the process try out some new/old equipment. And by that I mean the Olympus IS-10 film camera which was new to me and old to my uncle who gave it to me. 

In a nutshell, its a pretty crappy camera. I don't know what Olympus was trying to do with this bridge, 35 mm full frame camera with limited functionality but I, sure as hell, am not going to use it again. Its plain frustrating to use and the noisy sound that the AF makes while operating made me flinch every time I tried to focus. It was also my first time testing the Lomography 100 film. Most of the shots came out overexposed and I could only save a few after some post processing. 

While shooting there, I re-shot a couple of images of the Taj Hotel in a similar way as I had done a couple of years ago on a different SOBO street shoot. Back then I had used the digital Sony A-200 and was a funky post-processing junkie as is clearly evident from the comparison below (The sepia jpeg is the only version that I haven't deleted from my photo archives).

The images on the left are digital while the ones on the right are film. Despite the completely different shooting  experiences between then and now, I still prefer the film photos over their digital counterparts. After all, there ain't no school like the old school!

First Salary

So I've completed about a month and a half at my first ever job and also had my first salary experience at the start of this month. Weirdly enough, as I held the cheque in my hand, I didn't feel any surge of excitement or for that matter I didn't feel anything at all! I was disappointed about that.

But that changed quickly too...turns out spending money is more exciting than earning it. Go figure! Especially when money is in its electronic form. I would've definitely felt a sense of hesitation were I handling hard cash, but paying it online was way more convenient and quicker. Anyway, I purchased seven rolls of film and a couple of great books on cinema and another book on photography (that's yet to be delivered). Browsing through online retail shops can be addictive!

Strings Attached

A few days back, some friends and I decided to head down to the Furtados shop in Mumbai to buy a brand new, shiny guitar for another friend of ours. His birthday was coming up in a few days and he's destined to leave for the States by the end of July, and as we aren't gonna meet him for at least a couple of years, we thought that the guitar would definitely be a great birthday/parting gift!

So we caught a train from Thane to CST, and then walked the remaining way down to Furtados. The shop looks pretty awesome with guitars, drums, keyboards and other instruments all over the place. While we were there, we saw a guy playing an electric guitar quite well while a girl sat next to him gazing at him with this love-struck expression in her eyes.

Watching this particular scene immediately brought to my mind the image of Lord Rama with his bow in his hand with Sita next to him, gazing at him imploringly with affection. The times may have definitely changed but certain elements clearly haven't. There's still the man, there's still the shiny, stringed instrument and there's still the woman with the nauseating gaze. The purpose of both instruments are obviously different, but they do seem to have the same effect on women. You've gotta admit, there is some sort of hold that a man with a stringed instrument has on a woman! To me its just simply incomprehensible. 

Anyways, after some pointless haggling over the price we did finally purchase the guitar that we wanted (it was a Granada acoustic with an electrical attachment thingy) and I volunteered to carry it on our walk back to CST. On our way back, as we passed St. Xavier's College, I found myself getting many stares from both sexes...women more than men! A few raised eyebrows and a few repressed smiles later, I realized it was the guitar on my shoulders that was creating such an effect.

Women do have a strange affinity to the guitar and I sure as hell don't understand it. Its probably the same reason why band groupies give initial preference to the guitarists over the drummers. Anyways, my friend loved the Granada guitar!

I wonder if he'll experience the same effect when he goes to States......

The Dark Knight Rises

20th July 2012, 11.05 am :


The cinema hall is already noisy as late comers scurry to their seats in sanguine anticipation. The screen lights up and the hall quietens as everybody eagerly looks up at the screen. They all let out a collective sigh of disappointment when they see the usual Vicco Vajradanti advertisements playing. On any other day they would've gleefully watched those advertisements and joked along with their friends about it's longevity in Indian cinema halls. But not now, not today. Nope, today they were to here to watch the end of a series, a trilogy to be more specific...the Batman Trilogy.

Everybody had seen the earlier two movies namely Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008). Expectations were high, after all it is a Christopher Nolan movie. And I've gotta say, we sure as hell weren't disappointed!


For the three hours that all of us sat in that cinema hall to watch this movie, we were like a single human entity. We were all feeling the same emotions and exhibiting the same emotions. We cheered collectively when he came on screen and gasped collectively when he was being beaten.


We gaped at each other in shock at the scene when the movie paused for the interval. At that point he had fallen, and along with him so had we. After the interval we saw his struggle, and along with him so did we. As we saw the Dark Knight rise from the depths of hell, along with him so did we!


Never before have I ever had such an awesome movie watching experience wherein you can literally see, and more importantly, feel the impact that the movie has had in the cinema hall. And for that, all the credit goes to Christopher Nolan and his team!


Excellent script, camera work, screenplay, editing and direction! A complete package that one could find in a movie. Some of the dialogues literally give you goosebumps that stay longer than usual. Absolutely fantastic! It took me a day to put these feelings into words and I know I'm still falling short right now.
(Although I have to say that the kissing scene kinda broke the hold that the movie had had on me...only for a little while though!)


If you haven't watched this movie yet, then you're clearly missing out on something great. That's all I have to say.


PS: They showed the promos of Man Of Steel during the interval. Now, although I'm not that great a fan of Superman, as is evident from this previous post here, I still am excited about it as Nolan is the producer! *crosses fingers*

...and I'm back.

Its been two years since I last posted here. A lot has changed in these past couple of years... for starters :


1.
My initial dislike for film photography has died ever since I had a taste of digital. After all, there ain't no school like the old school!
Procuring film and then getting it processed is pretty expensive though :(
So, I should be posting photos from both mediums!


2.
I have changed as well...at least I think I have. I guess evolved is a better term to describe it...people don't really change who they are.
I find myself laughing at how pathetically naive some of my old posts on this blog were, but I've decided against deleting any of them 'coz well, they are kinda responsible for who I am today. Hell, a couple of years from now, I might find myself laughing at the naivety of this post!


3.
I'm done with my four years of Mechanical Engineering. The results are rumoured to be out soon, and if they're good enough then I begin working at my first job, sometime in August...but more on that later!


4.
I'm still pretty unsure about what I want from life, I finally seem to have begun understanding what I don't want from my life. I'd like to call that progress! :)

I started this blog in 2009 with no general purpose and I'm happy to admit that even after three years, I intend to continue it in the same manner. I should be modifying the layout of this blog within the next week, once I've figured out the changes that have happened in Blogger since I was last here.

I'll try to post more often, whenever I find something worthwhile from the mundane jungle that is my life.

But as of now, we're open for business!