In the Frame...getting the Picture right

Unusual rains lashed - OK, OK, glanced Chennai in the past few days and we both praised and cursed the weather for bringing down temperatures and raking up the muck on the streets respectively. As Chennai plunged into darkness once again...

My son, Sam half drenched, rushed in and brushing aside his concerned mother's admonitions at getting wet when it rains (?) grabbed his camera and tripod and preempted my incredulous glance and said, “Dad, I have never seen so much lightening ..that too at such quick intervals and I am going to the terrace to capture them” Then he asked her bewildered sister, Rachel: do you want to come too?

A quick cut to a back story here: Rachel is his trusted 'apprentice' and 'muse' and it is entirely up to his mood which role she ends up playing. This time, it was very clear apprentice – an euphemism for 'edupudi”

Grudgingly though excited, Rachel grabbed her umbrella and before her customary check out in the mirror, Sam had covered two flights of stairs, Rachel rushed out to catch up with him.

To escape from my wife's lecture on parenting ..raining, dark, two teens going out to the terrace...what the hell are you doing here...I donned my poor Indian imitation of an American baseball cap and followed my hyper teens to the terrace.

By the time, I reached Sam had identified a vantage point and set up the camera and shouting out instructions to Rachel to hold the umbrella at a particular angle – so that – the camera could be protected from the steady drizzle but does not affect the view or conflict with the 'frame' as he calls it.

With Rachel obediently holding the umbrella at various angles and heights and Sam bending into the camera and all the time calling out the various settings, “F11, F16, too much light...”, I stood there nodding sagely as if I understood what he saying, wait a minute...too much light? , it is pitch dark..before I could interject and proclaim my ignorance, I came to my senses, when the lightning lit up the skies in a thousand brilliant flashes ..this is what he had meant.

As the slight drizzle became more steady, I backed out into the safe confines of the shade while the two of them stood there transfixed and silhouetted against the dark skies. I lost count of the lightening flashes that scrawled out God's awesome signature on the grandest canvas of nature...but whenever, I heard Sam and Rachel squeal in delight, I could make out that they managed to capture the brightest streak in the tiny 35 mm frame. Someone said that Photography means Painting with Light and watching Nature painting the skies with light, perhaps this is what the discoverers of Camera Obscura referred to. 

I waved to them indicating that I am going down as my failing legs could not keep up with my youthful excitement. They were engrossed in their task, Sam's voice giving a crash course on lightening photography 101, his trained fingers calibrating the aperture and shutter speed...

As I walked down, I could not help reflect on the contrast, patience is a virtue you don't normally associate with Sam, he was always in a tearing hurry and extremely impatient answering his mother's enquiries about 'this generation”

Yet there he was, standing as if nailed to the spot, not worried about getting wet, but ensuring he gets nature's furious flashes in his 'frame'. He was a picture of perseverance, confidence, assurance and excitement all rolled into one.

Geoff Colvin once wrote that “Talent is overrated” where it takes focus and several hours of deliberate practice to hone the exceptional natural talent into mastery and expertise.

Watching Sam working away for more than an hour in the rain, I tend to agree.

I hope he got the picture, but sure I did.