What is slow living?
How is it connected with photography?
By the end of this article, I will explain how mobile photography has changed my perspective on photography.
Let us see why we take photos in the first place.
There are 3 kinds of people who are taking pictures.
1. The Documentarians – These are the people who want to capture the moment they are in with their mobile camera.
Not that they are going to take 1000 photographs of 1 experience.
Yet, be sure that they would have a large photo bank that can portray every single day of their life.
They like documenting each day with one such photograph.
2. The “Posters” – We all know of these people, the so-called media influencers of today’s day & age.
They capture aesthetically pleasing photographs that will gather more likes & followers when uploaded on social media.
3. The Professionals – They are the people who are in the business of selling their creative art to make a living.
Although the 3 categories of people capture photographs very differently, essentially there is 1 thing that they are all doing.
THEY ARE CAPTURING HISTORY IN THE MAKING
You see photography as an art form is quite nascent when we compare it with painting.
While the first documented painting is around 45,000 years old, modern photography is only around 180 years old.
Now look at these statistics
1. An average cost of a film camera is around $1000 – $4000.
2. An average digital camera costs anywhere between $200 – $500
3. The average price of a mobile phone which has a decent camera starts from around $100 – $300.
Think of it, we have one of the most powerful visual capturing devices in our hands. We can document “history in the making”.
Suppose a person is capturing a city for the past 25 years with his phone.
He circles back through those photographs & visually experiences how the city has been developing over the years. Creating a set of collages with such a collection of images would be something nothing less than fascinating.
To give another example, this is a photograph of the old pontoon Howrah bridge in the year 1900.
This photo was taken by Johnston & Hoffman.
On that day when Johnston & Hoffman took the photograph, I doubt they knew that these would become a medium of preserving visual history.
Likewise, when we photograph a particular place, the photos are capturing a slice of life from the present day.
Fast forward 50 years, and we may look upon these photos as visual documents to see history.
It would be a visual way of reliving history.
With that context in mind, can we think about how important it is that we preserve today in the best way possible through the photos we take?
But the question remains unanswered, how has this got to do anything with experiencing slow living?
Let me explain.
By definition from Wikipedia,
“Slow living (sloh liv-ing: Proto-Germanic *slæwaz) is a lifestyle which encourages a slower approach to aspects of everyday life, involving completing tasks at a leisurely pace”
When I am walking down an alleyway, watching the sunray hit the green-colored window nothing is crossing my mind.
I’m in the present, focusing on what is in front of me. I.E. the interplay of light in the city streets of Kolkata.
To cite another example, I am standing at the sea beach of the quant fishing village of Palolem South Goa.
Noticing countless rainclouds passing by.
All I’m doing is keenly observing when the lone standing tree is engulfed by the massive rain clouds.
Photography has enabled me in living a slow life. Not thinking of the past, not worrying about the future, but just being there. Taking things slow. Observing the world go by.
Back in 2007, I started photographing with the Canon IXUS. Then a Canon 1100D followed by a Canon 80D to a full-frame Sony A7III. I have pretty much owned & used all the lenses that one can dream of. Only to realize that till the time you are enjoying photography it is worth all the gear. With all the gear I owned the joy of documenting the world through my photographs was slowly diminishing. I just accumulated photo gear because I could.
I wanted to implement a minimalist approach in every aspect of my life. Owning a bunch of photography equipment certainly was not the way to go forward.
So, I sold off all my photography gear. Kept nothing.
It is only then that I realized the truth of the statement made by the famous photographer Chase Jarvis. “The best camera is the one that’s with you,”.
Today when I walk down a street in Kolkata I enjoy the process of documenting more than ever. Just my phone.
Not only have I made this lifestyle change of living minimally with my photography equipment, but it has also transcended many other aspects of my life. From the food I have to the repeated clothes, I wear to uninstalling apps that made me buy things compulsively.
Today, I do not aspire to become the best at anything. I just aspire to become a person who captures the city that I live in, and how I see it.
Many years from now I may look at these photographs reminiscing about what the city looked like. What have we made of it after all the urbanization we strived for?
In this overstimulated world of digital media, when you take a step back and focus on 1 thing for a few days, months & years you would feel a sense of slowing down. A sense not stimulated by the artificial pumping of dopamine. But by a natural secretion of the hormone which makes us feel good from within.
That’s experiencing slow life firsthand.
I’ll request all of you to give yourself the chance to become a historian.
1. If you live somewhere which is evolving at an exponential rate, why don’t you photograph a single frame every week? See the series of pictures you come up with in a passage of 5 years?
2. Not everyone has to be a “photographer”. One can do the same thing with any other form of creative outflow. Be it painting, writing, or videography for that matter. But I would highly request that you can give documenting a try.
Till next time, enjoy your life, you have one life to live. You either live it every day or race every day to live for that one day in a distant future. THE CHOICE IS YOURS. YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE.
