The Feels This Week: My Home In Photographs
I had some errands to run. I wasn’t in a hurry so I took the scenic route. In Mumbai, this means via a more public, public transport. Because even inside an airconditioned car, you can’t disconnect completely from this city. I used to take a lot more photographs, even on my basic 2000s pre-smartphone phone. And then I’d go through the elaborate process of installing the drivers with a CD on a shared computer, download the pictures, find a piece of code that could import this onto my blog and put it up. Those were the early stories I told about Mumbai and myself.
Then a major newspaper stole my photographs and published my entire blogpost as an article without so much as asking me, let alone creditting me. My journalist friends scoffed and said ‘blogging is not really writing’. I was still anonymous so it was hard to ask for my rights. When I could, I found ways to put @ideasmithy into the image. And this was a time before smartphones, when Paintbrush was only used by a few who couldn’t access more professional tools and were nerdy enough to try something on computers.
Eventually the capitalists came in, grabbing what they could for free. “You shot them on your phone?” they scoffed, brandishing DSLRs. And the attacks on my appearance began as my anonymity began to unravel. So I began blurring my face. Even more scoffing. If a brand doesn’t want you, you’re not worthwhile. You’re not that great looking so what are you hiding anyway? Who cares about these photographs? Mumbai is filthy. I stopped sharing my photographs.
~O~O~O~O~O~O~
Gopal’s inputs have given me not just tips but the impetus to pick that self up again. But maybe I’m weighed down by the success of all the words I’ve accumulated. It feels incomplete, almost naked of my created self to just post pictures. So I turned them into captionised, gallery’d posts for Instagram. Still, I’ll give it a try on my blog.
Here are my favorite shots of the day.
Gopal also suggested that I give Substack a whirl. So if you’re liking these posts-in-pictures, maybe toss me a subscribe? This post will go up with refinements for a newsletter.
As always, I’m IdeaSmith and my Substack is @ideasmithy.
Beautiful.
@Topher: I don’t feel that way about my city anymore. But I’m being reminded of new ways to make an effort to stay in love with the city. Thank you for yet another.