A visit to my old boarding school

Pics taken from the trip back to my old school where I spend 7 years of my life..

 

My First camera (world’s cheapest camera)

Even before I started making paper cameras, I had another camera in late 80’s. Believe it or not; my very first camera was a ’handy’cam :). This handycam of mine was not only quite handy but also the cheapest camera ever. Please don’t sprain your brain by imagining the handycam of the 80’s. It’s nothing but a simple trick; . Just make a small frame using fingers and look through it, like it is shown in the picture. Area marked in red is the viewfinder.

Don’t forget to replicate shutter movements with the same fingers followed by a click sound from your mouth. Undoubtedly this would be the world’s cheapest camera ever!! This is how I perceived the basics in photography as a kid :P . Here is another similar camera.

My early days in photography

I have always been inclined to photography since my childhood. Those days photography was so expensive but my means of photography was the cheapest of all. Because, my camera was made out of paper and the prints were drawings made by me. No matter what’s the subject is; photographs were ready standard drawing kept inside the camera. Clients were also happy (they did not have any other option). Sometime soon I’ll post the paper camera that we used to make as kids.

From there photographer in me grew up to own a plastic camera, which my father bought for me from a toy shop during some local festival. Now so that I got a better camera I started clicking better pictures. Whoever I clicked with that would look like Filmstars. Thanks to the manufactures of the camera, who managed to insert pictures of filmstars. Pictures kept looping inside with each click. Again the clients were very happy though they never got a copy of the photograph with this plastic camera. Who wouldn’t be happy to see themselves as filmstars :P

Probably it was when I was in my hi-school I got my first chance to click some real snaps. My uncle had a Yashica autofocus camera and I used to borrow that from him. Since I was in a boarding school keeping a camera was a crime. So I was a criminal in my school days :).

My school was in a hi-range area, a beautiful place surrounded by hills. So a few of us criminals (going outside school compound is a criminal offense) decided to go for a trekking to the forest one day. Once we got outside the school we were not less than any tourist, me in the front hanging a Yashica from my neck followed by my other partners in crime. On the way to the river bank we met an old man who was very confused and asked a 100questions. We proudly said we that we were going to click some nice pictures at the river bank and said bye to the confused old man. When we reached the river bank. It was then only when we reached the river bank that we understood why the old man was so restless,That side of the river bank was where the women in the village took bath. by the way we managed to get inside the hostel without getting caught.

It was when I was in college that I started serious photography from many borrowed SLR cameras from my friends. Again photography using film was very expensive for me, so it did not flourish much then at that point of time also. Here are few of my early shots. All of them are shot in black and white film..