Capturing Stories in Images

the real stories

I love photography. The need to capture every important moment on film is an obsession I’ve inherited from my father. His love for the lens predates the digital revolution, of course. When we were youngsters, he had a special imported Pentax SLR camera (note the absence of the ‘D’ there, this was the regular 36 film roll non-digital camera). Our baby books and other albums are choc-a-block full of photos — carefully preserved, some black and white, some colored and some even lovingly labelled by my mum. A treasure trove of memories.

Of course, with the advent of digital cameras and smart phones the need for photographs in a common person’s life sky-rocketed. Facebook profiles, Whatsapp DPs, Instagram accounts, the ubiquitous #selfie.. all fuel the need to click-click-click. You come across all sorts of gems (and disasters) on any social media platform on a daily basis.

One trend (a very popular one) though that disturbs me no end is getting photo shoots done. I initially heard of the concept 5–7 years ago; a colleague mentioned that the latest ‘it’ thing was for couples in Korea to get pre-wedding photo shoots done. We had a hearty laugh about it — how ridiculous! Wear your wedding finery before the wedding and get photographed?! I mean, really?! And then, before you could say cheese, the idea had permeated our very own desi weddings. Social media is awash with frame-worthy airbrushed pictures of betrothed couples. The more ‘candid’ the clicks, the more sought after the photographer.

But wait a minute, what is so candid about such a photo shoot? You wear some pretty clothes specially picked for the day, and go to some picture friendly location — which in a majority of cases has no relevance or importance to you both as a couple. You take the typical look-into-each-others-eyes photo, or the hold-hands-and-walk-into-the-sunset photo. Look at that point away from the camera, zoom lenses, some filters, some (or a lot of) photoshop… and voila! Your very own set of (meaningless but very nice looking) moments worth framing. Really?

Pregnancy photo-shoots are the other thing-to-do apparently. Not only do I find this equally ridiculous, I also wonder what motivates these mothers-to-be to parade what is probably their least attractive, ill-fitting-clothed, constantly-in-pain, hyper-hormonally-moody selves in a studio, for so many hours, at the whims of a photographer. I’m not saying don’t click a photo of yourself while pregnant (trust me, I’ve got a hundred of those too), I just don’t understand the need to manufacture a magazine worthy image which has no story behind it other than — “oh, we went to this guy’s studio and spent half a day changing clothes.”

And of course the obvious next step is to do an equally brushed up photo-shoot for the baby. I confess that even I (partially) succumbed to this Pinteresty temptation.. saw one such photo of a baby boy sleeping on top of a football, and decided that we would do that with a basketball if we have a boy. (The husband is a basketballer in heart and soul). So 12 days after being blessed with a little munchkin, my parents, the husband and I decided to do our baby’s “first shoot”. We still didn’t look for a professional because I still find that ridiculous. But we put our own heads together, tried to set up the ‘studio’ at home, and got the props and baby all ready for his perfect shot. It was a very entertaining half an hour — a little soul wondering why these monkeys are jumping all around him! Clapping, screaming, laughing, trying our best to get his attention.. under the perfect light, the perfect angle. The fruit of our efforts was a collection of more than a hundred clicks of baby with ball. We picked a couple of them, and cropped and focused, and filtered — very pleased with our efforts.

But you know what the best capture of that day was? After the entire charade was done, my husband picked up baby in his arms, and in the other hand held the basketball. He was having a quiet conversation and telling baby how much his dad loves the game, and how he’ll teach him to play once he grows up. That moment, captured in a photo — baby looking lovingly into his dad’s eyes, and dad holding his two loves so dearly. Perfect. No one looks at the background in that photo, no one cared to airbrush it. It’s perfect as is.

That is precisely the reason I’d never get a photo shoot done.

A picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words. A studio photo is worth maybe four (oh-that-looks-beautiful); and that’s just not enough in my books.