If anything, our generation has learnt is how to pose "beautifully" "gorgeously" "picture perfect" and "amazing" way in front of the lens. Starkly different from the stiff , overdressed, and slightly embarassed at the PDA, older generation, our generation has come to believe that the best way to showcase your love is posting pictures on facebook.. (and here goes the bitch again with her usual bigmouth, ranting ill-effects of social media..) No.. No.. wait I want you to read on.. I mean it... read on... and I swear I wont kill you with boredom. This is NOT about facebook, there is a whole movie out there dedicated to this addiction, why would I waste my wits on some already explored subject!
The word camera literally means dark chamber (now you know why black cameras are so fashionable!) Photography word when split, gives us two very direct words, photo meaning light, and graphy meaning drawing. Where a camera was probably invented in the times of Aristotle, the word photography itself came to origin in late 1800s. Perhaps photography grew in popularity because it could capture reality more accurately than a potrait, or a painting. Isnt it like when you see potraits of rajas and maharajas and emperors you think they existed in dreams or some other world, and a photo of say Maharani Gayatri Devi makes a queen's lifestyle more credible! Now I leave the reign of further technical explanations to Wikipidea. You can read more about this art and its development here and there.
Reverse gear, my generation, the photography fad, and photo mania. I have a black and white picture of my mom and uncles and aunts with naani, preserved by naana. Ofcourse I couldnt believe my eyes when I saw my 2 year old mom.. Apart from looking foolishly innocent (yeah she knows about this reaction), one could never imagine she would grow up to be looking exactly the same (please omit 'foolishly' from the reaction). Period. Naana has a few more pictures of older times, which have more of black and white than the faces and clothes, hence naana usually avoids displaying them . I wont have such a blissful life.My children or grandchildren would know exactly how dumb their mommy or naani looked when she was 2, dumber when she was 5, and there were no signs of improvement on her 15th birthday as well.. (Somehow I know the reason of extra respect I have for my older generations,why not, we have only seen them sober and controlled, with no wails or fuss! ). With SLRs growing cheaper, and every gadget coming with an attached camera, photography is becoming an art, and a fad, and a convenient method to blackmail. It is a growing belief that everything worth happening is worth clicking.Canon even asks us to click a bum, ! (in the latest advertisement with Anushka). You go out with family, you click. You go out with friends, you have to click and display those pictures, to show hot dresses you wore, and prove you had fun. You eat, you click, you are happy you click, and blah blah. And the loners on facebook drool over your pics and assume you are having one riot life. A piece of advise for those loners. A photograph is a capturing just one of the million moments you breathe and camera is an excellent doctoring device, it allows you ample scope to mask your true self, and put up an excellent show of happiness. Blame the make belief happiness to the greed of getting clicked. Almost everybody who manages to buy and SLR, and shoot some sky, leaves and sun is a self proclaimed photographer. This is an era of enterpreneurship, and self promotion is a very humble ambition!
We humans are probably growing wiser in the art of fooling ourselves. And I admire that. We click our happier times,( probably the distraction around us has left us with a short term memory),look back at those times, and assume we were happy all along. And as long as somebody continues to value what he had, and preserves it, looks forward to life because of it, I dont blame it, how can I.. Memories fade, but happy pictures dont.. yaadho ke zakhm par puraani photo marham....
So.. Happy Clicking!
Sign off
The word camera literally means dark chamber (now you know why black cameras are so fashionable!) Photography word when split, gives us two very direct words, photo meaning light, and graphy meaning drawing. Where a camera was probably invented in the times of Aristotle, the word photography itself came to origin in late 1800s. Perhaps photography grew in popularity because it could capture reality more accurately than a potrait, or a painting. Isnt it like when you see potraits of rajas and maharajas and emperors you think they existed in dreams or some other world, and a photo of say Maharani Gayatri Devi makes a queen's lifestyle more credible! Now I leave the reign of further technical explanations to Wikipidea. You can read more about this art and its development here and there.
Reverse gear, my generation, the photography fad, and photo mania. I have a black and white picture of my mom and uncles and aunts with naani, preserved by naana. Ofcourse I couldnt believe my eyes when I saw my 2 year old mom.. Apart from looking foolishly innocent (yeah she knows about this reaction), one could never imagine she would grow up to be looking exactly the same (please omit 'foolishly' from the reaction). Period. Naana has a few more pictures of older times, which have more of black and white than the faces and clothes, hence naana usually avoids displaying them . I wont have such a blissful life.My children or grandchildren would know exactly how dumb their mommy or naani looked when she was 2, dumber when she was 5, and there were no signs of improvement on her 15th birthday as well.. (Somehow I know the reason of extra respect I have for my older generations,why not, we have only seen them sober and controlled, with no wails or fuss! ). With SLRs growing cheaper, and every gadget coming with an attached camera, photography is becoming an art, and a fad, and a convenient method to blackmail. It is a growing belief that everything worth happening is worth clicking.Canon even asks us to click a bum, ! (in the latest advertisement with Anushka). You go out with family, you click. You go out with friends, you have to click and display those pictures, to show hot dresses you wore, and prove you had fun. You eat, you click, you are happy you click, and blah blah. And the loners on facebook drool over your pics and assume you are having one riot life. A piece of advise for those loners. A photograph is a capturing just one of the million moments you breathe and camera is an excellent doctoring device, it allows you ample scope to mask your true self, and put up an excellent show of happiness. Blame the make belief happiness to the greed of getting clicked. Almost everybody who manages to buy and SLR, and shoot some sky, leaves and sun is a self proclaimed photographer. This is an era of enterpreneurship, and self promotion is a very humble ambition!
We humans are probably growing wiser in the art of fooling ourselves. And I admire that. We click our happier times,( probably the distraction around us has left us with a short term memory),look back at those times, and assume we were happy all along. And as long as somebody continues to value what he had, and preserves it, looks forward to life because of it, I dont blame it, how can I.. Memories fade, but happy pictures dont.. yaadho ke zakhm par puraani photo marham....
So.. Happy Clicking!
Sign off
I was so engrossed in reading that i was expecting more and then at sign off i realised its already ffinished...very nicely written , a worthy topic to analyse human psychological behaviour on social site...I feel like in human specie this show off factor is inherent deep rooted somewhere..lets forget about social network the behavior remain same in real life. Too ,u cant change it and this special show off attribute makes us different also from non smart specie....anyways we can take this in this way let them pretend...let them show off their one part of happy life ..at least in a way they are "sharing" ..positivity....
ReplyDeleteAs asked my 2 cent worth thought... ;)
exactly Manoj!! :)
Deletesab maya hai
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I would like to thank MARK ZUCKERBERG for providing a service where someone is preserving all my memories that i want to keep, that too in chronological order and that too without any charges... Looking for the day when i get old and flip through my facebook timeline and have a look at happy moments of my life ( obviously i am not going to put bad & sad moments on facebook)...
ReplyDeleteAnyways ,this is not about facebook or twitter or etc. Its about preserving memories,experiences,etc like this blog that you wrote anvita. Someday you will return back to it and will feel proud and will think, HEY I AM A GOOD WRITER,or whatever you did and posted on facebook,or anywhere else... You will return to all of them. (the pictures you are talking about consist of a major part of what you need, when you want to return to your memories)
We keep on forgetting our own lives and we will need to remember as much as we can when we are old.( Reason : Life, most of the times makes us forget our good times and keeps our minds occupied with things that trouble us, or keeps us engaged.And in the old age even memory starts to fade away.)
I feel sad for my parents , they have only their handful of memories to bank upon. The then technology didn't help them to do so, and i feel lucky to have means and people in this world who are doing this happily for me and getting paid for it. Someone is preserving what i wrote, someone is preserving where i went, whom i met, what i ate, what i did, what i shared, and what not.
Its not for any other person. Its only for me. I don't know who will remain with me when i grow old, but yes i will be with myself, and i will need my memories at that moment. To make me feel that what i did to the life that i was gifted, was a good job, that i LIVED MY LIFE and i am happy and content and ready for my other journey... in the moment when death will be near and i would still be trying to hold on life desperately, I will require a MARHAM OF PURANI PHOTO JO MUJHSE KAHE " chal jaa yaar , bahut ho gaya, itna masti maar liya hai, bas bahut ho gaya... nikal ab..."
disclaimer: this is not a review of your blog rather a positive effect of your blog, and the power of a piece of writing lies in its effects... thanks for writing this.
Sandeep, your post is almost as lengthy as my blog.. why dont you start writing? :o)
ReplyDeleteaaah....Anvita....i liked this blog too much..
ReplyDeletenow u got to know....why i emphasize on clicking d grt moments,,. :)