Let’s be the change, not just a shooter

Let’s be the change, not just a shooter

Between the observation and the shot, a photographer’s mind must have travelled many miles.  The picture you see is not merely a creative art but reflection of a character of the photographer thyself.  The purpose of the picture matters in this and a picture has the ability to reflect the relationship one’s heart and mind share between each other.  Photos are thus powerful instruments, camera is just the tool that charges it up.

My words talk about that side of the photography which gives the unheard a voice – be it human, other species or the ecology at large.  I have practiced this kind of a photography all through my life, ever since I caught hold of a camera.  I can hear the voice of the rivers, the water and the mother earth.  My photographs are supposed to reflect this character of mine and manifest in them the many faces of this relationship we share with the ecology that supports our lives.

We all have visited a river.  We have used it as a resource; enjoyed its beauty.  While most may realize the might of a river, a very few can really see the plight of it.  Or else tourists thronging to river sides would not be throwing garbage into it and then expect to enjoy its beauty the next time they come back. 

My message to young photographers is to understand these delicate linkages of life with rivers, with ecology.  If you are a real photographer you have to love and respect your subject.  You have to be a sensitive guy, not just a shooter who takes out the benefit and then flies away.  You have the potential to change this growing challenge that humanity at large faces now.  We are killing the very rivers which gave us civilizations.  Let’s point our cameras at the plight of the rivers and use those to reconnect the society with the mothers of our civilizations.  Let’s be the change, not just a shooter.

(This article was recently written for the inaugural issue of a newsletter published by a young group of photographers who had asked me to contribute as a guest expert.)