JYOTISH DUTTA

"Make at least one definite move daily towards your goal"-- Bruce Lee.

    During a recent trip to the mountains with a group of photography enthusiasts, I realized something funny about the way in which we approach digital photography. It seems more and more importance is given to the 'Rules' of composition over one's instincts or intuition. Needless to say, on coming back, everyone from the trip ended up with similar images, displaying a lack of creativity. This trend isn't surprising as most of the online content on "Taking_better_pictures" swear by the Rules of composition. They tend to create the impression that without the 'Rules' photography doesn't exist. Photography contests and Digital Saloon exhibitions seem to prefer photographs that adhere to the laid out rules of composition, indifferent to the types of photography. Judges check if the photograph fall 'IN' or 'OUT' of the set rules. I have also been to some workshops, both basic and advanced, where the mentors try...

Vivian Maier...street photographer extraordianaire, discovered posthumously, shot more than 150000 photographs which, surprisingly, she never published. It seems that many of her negatives never made it to print.   She kept all her work to herself. An artist, in contrast, today spends a lot of time and effort in promoting himself or herself and his or her art through various mediums of communication. In the present day scenario, with the internet bustling with photographer and photography pages, artists compete for space and an audience. Vivian Maier's story is thought provoking. What might have been her motivation to photograph random people or streets ? Why did she isolate herself? Will I photograph solely for myself, without any audience to derive feedback or inspiration from?    

Got a call from a friend asking me if I would like to join them on a trip to Dzukou valley, Nagaland, as they needed one more person to make the trip happen; I jumped to the opportunity. The itinerary was a simple three day program. We started early on  11th June(June), boarding the 4AM inter city train from Jorhat to Dimapur. We reached Dimapur at 7.30 AM, had our breakfast and booked a tourist taxi to Kohima,  which is about a 2.30 hrs drive. Once in Kohima , we met with Roko and her Eastern Green Tours, and made our way to Viswema village and began our climb. We were informed that the trek from Viswema is comparatively easy with respect to that from jakhama village , which, though shorter(2-3hrs), was more steep . One hour into our climb and I realized how ill prepared I was.  A bag full of clothes that got wet, and thus heavy due to  non stop rains, made body balance and climbing difficult. Moreover, I was carrying too much camera equipment. After three ...