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Param

 

Photography Man-i-fes-to

Bedi

Of all the wonders that modern technology has given us, the camera remains for me the most magical.  This has not changed for me since I got my first box camera when I was ten. My first camera did not last long. I took it apart after a few days to see what was inside and how it worked.


My high school class mate Ahmed taught me the workings of a dark room, which only compounded the magic of photography for me. My technical training in photography continued under the rigorous and demanding tutelage of Craig Pozzi at the Graduate School of Architecture. 


The advent of digital photography has been a catalyst to my passion. I now have a digital color lab on my laptop with the same tools I used in the dark room but with unmatched power and precision to control the final image. Ansel Adams I am sure would be envious.


A friend asked me why her photos did not look like mine. In response I quote the maestro photographer Ansel Adams himself when he said “A great photograph is not taken.... it is made”.  Made in the dark room of which Ansel Adams was the unsurpassed master.


Ansel Adams compared the photographic negative to a written musical score and the work done in the darkroom - the production of a print - to an orchestral musical performance.  The camera cannot always do it alone.


The joy I find in photography would be considerably diminished if the creative process ended with the click of the camera.  Thankfully it does not.