Have my photos published

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kapitanniemand/show

And yet… uploaded on Flickr -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kapitanniemand/

“I see myself as a storyteller. Instead of recording my thoughts with a pen or a brush, I use the camera to record the emotional content of my mind’s eye.” Allen Birnbach

On March 14, 1839, John Herschel borrowed from astronomer Johann von Maedler the word ‘photography’ and used it in a lecture before the Royal Society. This was the year the photographic process became public. At that time some artists saw in photography a threat to their livelihood and some even prophesied that painting would cease to exist. Photographic establishments mushroomed to 147 in London in 1857 and 77 in 1850 in New York.

The demand for photographs prompted Charles Baudelaire, poet and critic of the medium to comment, “Our squalid society has rushed, Narcissus to a man, to gloat at its trivial image on a scrap of metal.” His disdain for photography is evident in his words, “If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether… if it is allowed to encroach upon the domain of the… imaginary, upon anything whose value depends solely upon the addition of something of a man’s soul, then it will be so much the worse for us.”

Personally, I’m more inclined to agree with Edward Weston’s statement “Photography suits the temper of this age-of active bodies and minds. It is a perfect medium for one whose mind is teeming with ideas, imagery… for one who sees quickly and acts decisively, accurately”. With economic limitations of student life and the digital revolution overtaking me, I’ve published a few themes on India Travelogue (http://indiatravelogue.com/phot/siddhartha.html). But as one is always skeptical of the objectivity of Ma’s appreciation, I’m hoping to get another assignment through Shiv for my three month Europe stint from a magazine in Bombay. Till then, Heil Flickr! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kapitanniemand/)