Say Cheezeeeeeee

We, "The birthday committee", formed from a team of 43, make sure that everyone’s birthday is celebrated. It was one such birthday yesterday. I came across an instance during the party and that immediately got me into a thinking process (guess not having the cake is showing positive results, I have started to THINK).


~At the Party~


I saw 3 of my colleagues smiling for a photo. *Click*. These colleagues who posed for the photo shoot reached the colleague who took the snap and almost snatched the camera from him. Next thing they did was hitting the "Preview" button, while two of them agreed that the photo looked neat (they meant they looked good), but the third person refused to agree. He looked a little dark, than his usual complexion was his argument. Even before the other two debated on that, he hit the "Delete" button. The image vanished in seconds.


Thanks to Steven J. Sasson, the digicam that I got on my birthday last year, underwent all the above tortures without a single complaint.


~Lost in thoughts~


Gone are the days where one had to visit the studio to get a pic. I can recall my mom deciding on the colors and the costumes that would look good for the photo, weeks before the D'day. It would be regarded lucky if the picture came well and the result pitched in only after the photo was developed. How can I forget how furious mom was when in a family photo that we took, I had ended up closing my eyes.


Then came the era where dad bought a camera home; our own camera. The one that was regarded small (in size) those days. But actually was so huge that I managed to hold only the lenses. This particular camera had 4 kinds of lenses; all of them being for different distance photo take.


There were so many blunders people (about 8 families) who used the camera did. Sometimes they forgot to switch on the flash; fewer times the battery would be low, most of the times the reel would be put in a wrong way hence got stuck, the clicking trigger did not work on few occasions. Many of my memorable trips though are in mind but were not captured due to such small mistakes now, but big blunders then.


The amount of reels that were bought always depended on how big the event or the trip was. The event used just 24 snaps and that would expect us to wait for the next event so that the remaining unused snaps would be used, and then we get entire set developed together. Being born in a family where in all are photogenic, it was very rare that we would get into the wait phase. Many a times we used to have a day dedicated for the “photo shoot”, just to use the remaining snaps and in return the reel could go for the developing.


Going by experience, we clicked away the initial 2 and the last 2 pictures out of 36 randomly i.e. without focus. My major excitement were those moments, when myself and my cousin waited for dad to get the photos after washing (call it developing) to check out how we both have featured. Dad would carefully view each and every negative so that none money was wasted on bad snaps and their developing, also most of the times the studio person himself denied developing the bad photos.


~Back to reality when someone clicked my pic~


Coming to the digiworld, where even mobile phones have camera, the enthusiasm factor has obvious vanished. Are you dark? Short? Plump? All your problems can be solved. You can look the way you want (immediately in the pic) if in case the reality is not possible or will take time.


Before I sign off all would like to say is, the technology has never asked us to waste resources, isn't it?


O btw Check out this new avtaar of mine, of course shot in a 3mp mobile cam at the birthday party :)