Growing up, photography was always present in my family. My parents liked to document and memorialise milestones as I, and later my brother, grew up. My father, in particular, always took pains to organise people in large gatherings and thanks to him, we have ample photographic evidence of good days and sometimes, not-so-good days (but mostly good days!).
I got my first analogue camera when I was ten years old. It was thrilling to take pictures-mind you, only 24 at a time-, wait for ages until someone would take the negatives to the store, and develop them for me. Things have changed a lot since then. Now, I find myself carrying a camera around to my friends' houses or at family gatherings and that was how this business started for me. What hasn't changed that much, is the experience of going through old photos after a while. When the negatives were developed, there would always be photos I expected to find; photos that I had wondered, "would they turn out okay?"; but there was also joy in finding photos about which I had forgotten ; memories that would resurface seemingly out of nowhere. There is an artistic sense of gratification whenever I capture a good shot. You know it immediately. You can feel it in your hands even without having seen it. But that is only part of what photography is about for me; the other part is in finding treasures of moments that you did not know you had lost. |
A lot of the photos that end up being dear to me, are those images that capture the 'in-betweens'. Photos that are posed and well-structured are great, but for intimate family photos, the ones I adore are usually when the subjects forget the camera is even there. There is no centrality to the image. Sometimes, people are even looking away from the camera. It's just a moment; frozen in time. Here's a photo of my cousin's family, who were generous enough to let me photograph them and make this lively photo. |