A hobby of 10 years

When we’re at school and university (those of us privileged enough to get university education might I add), we’re always encouraged to take part in extracurricular activities, most of which would fall under arts or sports. However, once we graduate and leave formal education behind to get on with our lives, this requirement to do something that is not part of your normal routine suddenly disappears. And unless you’ve made your extracurricular your mainstream, that is you yourself aren’t a professional practitioner of arts or sports, there is no expectation that you go for piano lessons or debate club.

Of course, many of us continue to pursue our hobbies, though the intensity with which we indulge in things that interest us vary based on our obligations to the home and workplace. 

Most of us remain amateurs, though some amateurs are as good as or even better than professionals. I’ve seen a lot of amateur photographers who would give the so-called professionals a good run for their money. In fields like astronomy and photography, equipment makers are mainly supported by amateurs buying professional equipment.

I’ve always firmly believed that work is just one aspect of my adult life and I’ve always made time for at least one or two other activities at any point of time (though these interests keep changing and that’s ok). Photography has been with me for a while now. Since my dad gifted me my first Olympus in 1994 (a film camera), I’ve been capturing images off and on. It’s only in the last 10 years that I have continued photography with any consistency, graduating from my Nikon point and shoot and then eventually back to Olympus now for about 8 years.

Over the years, I’ve more or less zoned in on things I like to photograph. I hardly do any street photography or profile/ product shoots. I do love landscapes and architecture, wildlife and macros and non deepsky astrophotography (though the opportunities to get the kind of clear night sky which make this exciting are limited) especially star trails such as the one in the header of this article.  

I haven’t quite reached the level of a professional yet, but I will continue on improving my skillset over the years to come.

Featured in the article are some recent photographs from my Olympus OMD EM-1 and EM-5. More on my blog https://sukanyaramanujan.wordpress.com/