Viswanathan K's Thoughts

A lot of those pics we see on our Facebook and Instagram feeds are what Thai photographer Chompoo Baritone calls “artistic-looking photos”. And yet it only pretends to create art, what Jonathan Jones blasted : “We are turning into a world of bad artists, cosily congratulating one another on every new slice of sheer kitsch.” Baritone says pretty much the same thing; that most pics just seek to show off trendy aspects of life “with the end goal of getting praise” (a phrase from Baritone’s Facebook album on the same topic). As Annalisa Merelli said : “Such nicely framed images, pretty filters, witty captions and hashtags break no boundaries, but rather strengthen a pre-defined taxonomy of what’s trendy.” So what’s the way to avoid that? Eugene Wei talks about the simplest tip to improve one’s photography : “Take photos where your subjects aren't looking directly into the lens.” Why not? And why would that make any difference to the shot? First, let’s understand th...

My wife doesn’t like the fact that I delete many of the pics on the phone very soon after I take them (I delete even more after I download them to a computer’s bigger screen). And it’s on this filtered content that I crop, zoom and apply the photo app and application filters. Why do I purge so many? Because let’s face it: most of the pics are average or worse, and certainly not the kind I would look back at years later fondly. I want to avoid what photojournalist Kenneth Jarecke describes: “Instead of having a body of work to look back on, you’ll have a sad little collection of noisy digital files that were disposable when you made them, instantly forgotten by your followers (after they gave you a thumbs up), and now totally worthless.” Most people, of course, don’t do that. They just post anything and everything they clicked and applied a filter on onto Facebook or Instagram. After all, isn’t What-I-had-for-breakfast the most common theme on Instagram? I agree with Ted Nym...

There are plenty of people who didn’t quit while they are still at the top (look no further than Tendulkar); instead they keep hanging in there until they become a joke and then are forced out. One guy who bucked that trend was Bill Watterson, author of the awesome Calvin and Hobbes who quit while he was still at his peak. Given the power of all those photo editing tools we have today, if only Watterson was willing to photoshop his famous characters onto photos that seem to the exact backdrop that we imagined when we saw those strips. But Watterson being Watterson is unlikely to oblige. So it is left to others like photographer Michael S. Den Beste to do that instead. And thanks to the Internet, we can sit back, open the popcorn and go down memory lane … Take the first one below… one can almost hear their philosophical discussions as they get ready to plunge down the cliff on their sledge: I always loved that Duplicator series where Calvin made copies of hims...

Point a camera at my one and a half year old niece and she will drop whatever she’s doing and give a smile. Or what she thinks is a smile anyway! Makes for good photos, so who’s complaining? Contrast that with the way most Indians, at least the older ones, pose for photos. (If you don’t believe me, go look at the albums your parents have). They will either refuse to smile at all, or if they do, it looks very put on. Well actually, it even looks like a constipated expression at times. Hardly the recipe for fond memories or what? So why is that? Were times tough back then? Was there so little to smile about that people had forgotten how to smile, I wondered? I used to think so until I saw these portraits of some Indians kings and queens: Notice what’s common? None of them has even the hint of a smile. Surely these guys had plenty of reasons to smile. After all, they led, well, a king’s life! Surely, the king who killed the tiger could have smiled? So is the reason that most Indians...