Friday 9 December 2011

Photography: a secret passion

You can't go travelling without a camera. It would be like taking no change of clothes - ok, slight exaggeration there.

My camera occupies a really special place in my life. Well, it lives in a case at the bottom of my bag but, nonetheless, it comes with me everywhere I go. This became a habit after I visited India for the first time in 1998. Although I was only 9 years old there were so many things I wanted to snap and put in a holiday album. Unfortunately, at that time I didn't have a mobile phone and I wasn't responsible enough to be trusted with a camera all to myself. What I saw and did during that holiday sits firmly in my mind as memories now.

I bought my first camera aged 11, it was a polaroid. It was big, silver and I pretty much took it everywhere with me. In all honesty I had got it for a spice girls (remember them?) concert I was going to. But, I ended up using it at every chance I could.

The polaroid was brilliant. A no-nuisance camera. You take the picture and it slides out the bottom on white polaroid photo-ready paper. It was simple and my photo albums were filled up very quickly. It's been over 10 years since I've seen the camera - it's tucked away in the storage room at home.

Since then I've happily moved on to many a camera. At the moment I have a silver Sony Cyber-Shot DSC S930 10.1 MP digital cam. It's small, compact and a bit worn out - now that I've had it for over two years - but, it does the job and it does the job well.

Photography is an area of interest that was born out of a travel experience for me. What I really enjoy is taking photographs of places, people, buildings, sign posts, food.... anything I find worth capturing on holiday. Although I'm no Peter Tsai, Matt Brandon or Basil Pao (some of the best in the game) I take pride in my amateur camera skills and occasionally, meaning very rarely, I take a shot that makes me think 'wow that's great' - when in fact it's probably just ok. But, that's alright with me because photography isn't really about quality and positioning and exposure for me, it's about what's on the other side of the lens and, more importantly, the memories that are sparked when I look at what I've captured.

Here's a slideshow of what I think are some of the best photos my sony cyber-shot has captured. I like to play around with these things so some of the photos have been manipulated in terms of colour and size. What do you think??

Showreel by Shabana Adam on Vuvox

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