My photography journey begun when I bought my first DSLR Nikon D3300 to take some decent photos during my sister’s wedding. The decision was made purely on what was on sale during that Christmas, and it turned out that the D3300 was the cheapest among the entry level cameras with 24MP sensor; for a novice like me this was amazing!
After buying the camera, I remember for a first few days I was taking photos in auto mode. But one day, I must have flicked the focus button to manual from auto in the kit lens and I just could not understand, as to why all the photos I took not in focus. I didn’t even know what to search for it in google, but luckily google suggestions came to the rescue and that was the day I learnt what “focus” meant.
I kept on shooting in auto mode and was quite happy with the results. I first became aware of manual mode when my sister’s wedding photographer started talking to me about my camera; he advised me to learn how to shoot manually, so that I would be in control of how the photos would come out. But at that time I had no interest in taking up this hobby or becoming a photographer. A bit after coming back home from the wedding, I started talking to my colleague at work who knew a few things about photography out of her hobby and she sent me some links of articles about composition in photography.
After reading all about it I became a little more curious, so I started searching YouTube and other resources about photography, and I found out that with my kit lens I could shoot milkyway! I was always interested cosmology and to be able to take photos of milkyway with my camera had me quite excited! So then, began the research of how to take astroshots.
Along the same time my parents decided to visit Australia, which led me to deciding against playing cricket as that would take up my whole Saturday. Instead, I started doing what I wanted to do since I heard my university professor describe it during one of my environmental science class ‘Bush-walking’. That lecture was seven years ago but it stayed with me; to this day I remember the professor describing the meter worm found in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. He would say that when you go bush walking you’d hear them moving underneath the surface during the quiet moments. Another memory of bush-walking came from Randy Blythe of the band Lamb of God. During his talks between the songs he would describe how beautiful our country was and that he wasn’t just talking about the city but also, how he had gone for bush-walking and seen the beautiful nature surrounding Melbourne. Since that time I wanted to go for ‘bush walking’ but I didn’t for two reasons – none of the people around me seem to be interested in it and public transportation was a bit limiting in reaching places I wanted to visit.
But after a period of time I realised I didn’t need anyone to go with me; I was used to going to all the music festivals on my own as none of my friends were into metal and this would be no different. My parents visiting me helped as well; as I did not have much annual leave left, I decided to take my parents around Melbourne every weekend and visit all the national parks that I wanted. And, during one of those trips in Dandenong ranges I came across these Red Parrots. I tried taking photos of them but couldn’t as I only had a kit lens for my D3300. From this moment everything changed; I started searching for reasons why I couldn’t take a decent photo of that bird on that day and what was it that I needed to do to make it happen. Thus, started my journey into bird photography!
Today, three years later I am still enjoying bird photography and astro-photography but, I’ve also added film photography and landscape photography to the list too. May be I will write about that in another post.
What does this mean, you ask? You may find the thing you are passionate about very late in your life or your interest may change down the line. I used to be the guy who watched almost all the sports played under the sun and now I hardly watch any. Sometime it’s better to just go with the flow and enjoy the journey of wherever life takes you!