It’s never too late to kick-start a new career or passion, says the Kolkata shutterbug
By Debasish Mitra
In India, they say ambrosia emerges from churns. Well, in my case it wasn’t exactly a churn but a disaster of humongous proportions out of which emerged my love for photography, my desire to attain perfection and my aspirations to take a by-product of science to the level of fine art. Over the years, 12 to be precise, photography turned into a motivation and the leitmotif of me being in full bloom in the autumn of my earthly existence.
It was a disaster that some 35 years ago that sowed in me a desire to excel in an art which puritans are so reluctant to accept as a form of art. They say photography isn’t any art, and, that at best it can be called a pseudo art. They say photography is a by-product of science. Whatever the puritans may have to say, to me photography is an art and my tryst with photography began on a note of disaster.
My wife and I had gone on a trip to Kashmir immediately after our marriage and along with us we were carrying a basic aim-and-shoot Agfa camera to capture our experience and beauty of the place. I still remember I shot over a hundred photos. Two weeks later,when I got those films developed, a shock of horror swept me inside out. Ninety per cent of the photos I had clicked in Kashmir turned out to be complete disasters. For the next 25 years I dared not touch a camera again. Until some 12 years ago that is.
The Incident That Changed My Life
The incident, however, stirred in me a deep desire to excel in photography and to move on from the cataclysm. Back then I was in relentless quest of a channel, rather a leeway, to express, to communicate, to enhance my engagement with the world, and more, when, and if, I could once again muster up the courage to do so. I was then in the quest of an alternative to writing. Especially the kind of writing that I was doing. I found photography offering me what I was looking for.
Gradually, I could feel something growing in me – a feeling that an image is a poem about time. I could feel that photography was actually a universal language – perhaps the best language which is understood by one and all across the world. As this perception began to grow in me, I delved deeper into photography in my bid to communicate and express in that universal language.
I began to feel the philosophy of John Keats growing in dimensions inside me. I felt beauty is indeed truth, and truth is beauty, as much as a thing of beauty is a joy for ever.
The Quest That Kept Coming Back
Since my early teens I began to feel a deep dissatisfaction growing in me. It was about the fact that I was not born with the talent to paint. Photography offered me a means to compensate the dearth I was born with.
Today photography is the reason why I am full of life. When I look back on the fiasco that I experienced some 35 years ago, I get the feeling that that incident planted in me the seeds of love for photography and a determination to excel in it.
I may not yet have achieved perfection in photography. It is a work in progress. However, I have learnt to see the world and people from a better perspective which is so much thrilling and aesthetically appealing.
I have learnt to see beauty even in what may appear to be mundane to most.
And that, perhaps, is my biggest achievement in photography – the biggest and most valuable take home.
(This article first appeared in www.24x7qatar.com and is being used with permission of the website’s publishers)
(Debasish Mitra is a senior journalist who lives in Kolkata after his retirement from active journalism years. He is the former Opinion Editor of the Times of Oman newspaper. His articles have appeared in several publications in India and abroad. The views are his own)
