Man From Matunga

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April 16, 2006

Flash from an SLR past

This was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.

Last Sunday, we suddenly realized that the one-year old, passport-sized photos of our fast-growing, six-years old twins, would not do for some visas that we were applying for. They already look different.

So, just before our biweekly Sunday Udipi ritual, we trooped to Foto Circle, which we have been frequenting for the last God-knows how many years and with a brief nod to the owners, mouthing the words “passport photos”, we promptly walked out through the rear entrance, onto the landing of the building that Foto Circle belongs to, and then climbed up to the first floor to their studio. Why didn’t we go directly up to the studio? I have no answer…I guess, just force of habit.

In today’s day and age of 5 and 6 mega pixel cameras and other fancy digital photography equipment, photo studios may seem anachronistic. But, as long as we need visas and as long as the visa people insist on 35mmx35mm or 45mmx35mm or 2”x2” or some such rubbish size, with a white background and blue shirt with the ears seen and shoulders straight, and teeth brushed with only Colgate and not Pepsodent, photo studios will live.

But there are photo studios and there are photo studios.

As long as I can remember, Ramesh Kandari (and I bothered to learn his name only this time), has been around shooting faces on his SLR. He exemplifies the saying “whatever you do, do it well”. Ramesh does not just click photos as if for a passport. He clicks photos to be treasured.

I have been to a few other studios and identity-photo shoots. You come in front of the camera, the photographer says “smile” and sometimes not even that, you hear a click and see the flash and you’re out.

Ramesh takes his own time. He first adjusts the bulbs and flash-stands for about a minute. He then fusses over your posture, making sure your shoulders are straight. Your chin has to be upright just so. He then looks through the view-finder to check whether everything is fine. Invariably, he is not satisfied and he makes a few more adjustments. Then comes the “please smile” followed by the click and flash. And just to be sure, he clicks once more.

He doesn’t have to do all this. But he takes pride in his work and that’s what counts. To the extent that he repeated the entire session with the kids, once again, when he found that one of the flash-bulbs had not been triggering properly.

This is the reason why, despite being personally reasonably photo-savvy, we’ve been going to him for other photographs as well. When the kids were six months old, we took them for a photo-shoot in their cribs. Then, when they were around three years old, and dressed to the hilt for a Navratri evening, we took them for a photo-session.

And this time, after the passport photos were done, we did another session to record my son’s first fallen left upper central incisor, which had been moving for the last six months, but finally came out, just four days ago, And since the tooth fairy had anyway left him a video-game in exchange for his tooth, we realized we needed to record for posterity his one-tooth-less grin as well. With a professional photo-shoot to boot.

And like the other photos shot by Ramesh, this one will also take pride of place in the photo-collage in the kids’ room.

Posted by bhavinj at April 16, 2006 06:26 PM

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