Berlin 2006.

Hyderabad 2002.

This is a really old photo, circa summer of 2002 if I remember correctly. If I’m not wrong it is from perhaps the first roll of film I used on my then recently acquired, Zenit XP, my first ever film SLR. The Zenit is an old Soviet era workhorse apparently based on the Zorki rangefinder camera series, which itself was a copy of Leica. I got it from the grey market in Cochin through friends for what was a sizable amount of money for me as a student back then. It came with a nice bag and a Mir-1B 37mm/2.8 M42 screw mount lens attached (apparently this lens is something of a marvel). Of course, all this information I didn’t know then. Lacking a manual I really didn’t know what I was doing. It was only today that I realized (after doing some research online) that this camera has TTL metering but since I didn’t know this then I used this camera without batteries and therefore with no metering whatsoever! Except for the loading of the film, setting aperture and shutter speed and focussing, everything else was pure guesswork! Even then, somehow, I managed to get a few photos that I still like. So you will see a few more photos from this camera over the next few days. Now that I know a little more about this camera I think I’ll put some b/w film in it and start shooting with it once more.

Today’s photo was shot in my old alma mater, University of Hyderabad, which has a huge and very beautiful campus. Most of the campus is wilderness and has some amazing rock formations. Once I return to India I intend to go back there, camp there for a few days and shoot these unique rock formations to my heart’s content!

Berlin, January 2007.

Edinburgh 2007.

Vienna 2006.

For a long time I thought I had lost the negatives containing this photo but to my joy found them on a roll I had given for developing. The man on the right is from the Philippines and has lived in Vienna for the past 11 years. We got talking when I went to take a walk along the Danube while visiting Vienna while he had come there to while away the evening by listening to some music on his boom box. As our small talk began to end I surprised myself by asking him if he would let me take his photo. And I won’t foget his reaction. His face lit up with a big smile and he actually called his son (the guy on the left) to join him in the photo! I was somehow touched by his gesture. I wish there was some way of sending a print of this photo to him. I’m sure his face would brighten up in a similar fashion as before.

Salzburg 2006

Berlin 2007.

Cologne 2006.

Berlin 2006.

(Have a safe flight back to India Gsat! Moving on, I’m off to Scotland tomorrow for a little jaunt. Regular programming will resume here on Sunday. Have a great weekend people! And oh, for various reasons, I turned off comments here again.)