5 Ways To Keep Yourself Motivated For Learning Photography & Some Bonus

I can't tell you how many of my friends bought DSLR, with an intention of learning photography and then just gave up everything in few months. With all the other work and responsibilities that we have, we tend to put a hold on our passion and eventually end up giving up what we like to do. 

Just like every other hobby or passion, to keep it alive, you have to keep yourself motivated, no matter what. So - how exactly can we do it? Here are the 5 things that I recommend that you do, to keep your passion alive. 

1. Love what you do 
This is the first and the most important thing to keep you motivated. You need to love what you shoot. Period. You may not be the best photographer and might not have got the most amazing shot that there is. But if you like it, you will spend more time and click some more pictures. Sure - 5 years down the line when you look at your archives, you may not like most of the pictures you clicked, but they did their job. They kept you motivated to reach the level of photography you do today. 

2. Be with people who genuinely appreciates and critiques you
It doesn't matter what your job or passion is, you need to be around people who genuinely appreciate your work and critique it whenever necessary. Such people are difficult to find, but once you find them, don't leave them. They will keep you going, without virtually doing anything. 

3. Make it part of your routine/schedule
Just like you brush your teeth everyday and pay your bills every months, you need to give time to your photography and put it somewhere in your routine. How much time should you give? It really depends on you. I follow a schedule of reading about photography 15 mins everyday and plan a photoshoot at least once in a month. Reading alone will not improve your photography. Go out there and click some pictures. Find out how busy you are and then make time for your passion. 

4. See other photographers work & find a mentor 
Any form is art is about imagination and that usually comes with inspiration. I can't tell you how much I have learned just by looking at pictures that others have clicked. Start following photographers of your genre. I am sure you will have a lot of "Eureka" moments when you see other's work. Better is if you are able to talk to the photographer you admire and he acts as your mentor. 

5. Do something else too
I think this one is self-explanatory. No matter what passion you have, you have to do different things, take different experiences. The more diverse your life is, better are the chances that you will make better pictures and keep your self motivated. If you are stuck with one thing, that is the worst thing that you do. That will definitely derail you. 


I hope after reading this article, you will be able to keep yourself motivated and take your photography to newer heights. But before I leave you today, I want to give you a BONUS. It is actually an extension of my 1st point about loving your photography.

We all should love our work, but we should stop judging it. Don't judge your work based on what someone else thinks or says. Don't judge your work by looking at how many "Likes" you get on Facebook or on other social media. Yes, you want to share your photos on social media for others to see and appreciate, but not getting Likes does not mean photo is bad. Infact - getting a lot of likes doesn't mean your work is good either. So - trust your imagination, trust your skills. If you got the shot that you planned to click, that's the best thing that could have happened on that day. :-)

Thank you again for reading my blog, I really appreciate your support here. Interestingly - my writing this blog is a proof that I am keeping myself motivated about photography. (At least) As of today, I don't have many readers for my blog and I don't even know if people read my post till the end. Let's prove that by asking you a simple question. If you have read till the end, write #ReadIt in comment on my FB post Or on this post

You all have a wonderful day !!! 

Punish yourself. Go to Taraporewale Aquarium in Mumbai

Don't get me wrong. I am a pure Mumbaikar and I love this city but there are some things about the city (especially when they are over-hyped) that I simply cannot tolerate.  Taraporewala Aquarium is one of those things.  Anyone who was born and raised in Mumbai knows this aquarium. It was perhaps the only aquarium that we had ever seen in our childhood and sure at that time, it was great. We all enjoyed going there to see different kinds of fishes and sea animals. It will always remain as our childhood memories. 

But now things have changed. Many of you who are in Mumbai probably know that this aquarium was shutdown for some time and it was renovated (suppsedly) and re-opend in the first week of March 2015. There was a tremendous hype surrounding the renovation that it was now ultramodern and it was even compared to some of the international aquariums.

So - one fine day (a saturday), I decided to take my wife and kid to this aquarium, completely unaware of what was going to happen next. Since it was a weekend, I was expecting some rush and so I decided to pick an ODD time (about 1.30pm) to reach there. Let me walk you through what exactly happens over there 

1. If you want to go to this Aquarium, you have to pass through multiple stages/queues. The great (sarcasm) part about it though is that its like a video game. You don't know what's next, until you reach that stage. 
2. First queue is "Outside the gate" (literally on the road), and no points for guessing, the queue is long (and I mean really long - atleast about 200-300 people). And the security guard won't let you in until its full hour. They allow people to go in at full hour like 1pm, 2pm , 3pm etc. So - if you reached there at 1.10pm, you gotta wait outside for the next 50mins. That's 50 mins of waiting in hot Mumbai afternoon with your kids.Welcome to Taraporewale Aquarium.
3. So somehow you go through those 50 mins and you are finally allowed to go inside the gate. So what's next? You gotta buy tickets to get inside the aquarium...right? Here's the equation. # of people entering the date = 300. # counters = 2. Time to get ticket = "Depends on mood of people at counter". It took me about 40-45 mins just to get the tickets. And if you are wondering what happended to my wife and kid. They are waiting. Outside. No share. No place to sit. Kid is still excited (coz he's gonna get to see some fishes) But he doesn't know that things are just getting started. 
4. Now - normally you would expect that once you buy ticket, you go inside. Nah Nah. Doesn't happen over here. There is a 3rd queue. For entering the aquarium. And this one is the LONGEST of them all because there are people from previous slots trying to enter the aquarium (i.e. if  you entered in 2pm slot, there are people from 1pm slot trying to get inside the aquarium). It took us about 1 hour 20 mins to to through that queue and go inside aquarium. And the kid (who came to see fishes) is already frustrated. Oh - but never mind, this is not the end. There are still more queues. Still not frustrations waiting for you inside. 
5. So let's take a check-point here. You've already spent close to 2.5 hours and barely got inside the aquarium. On positive side, there is Shade. There is A.C. On the negative (or the normal) side, you are still in a queue. Even after entering the aquarium, you are not really allowed to roam around the way you please. You have to follow the queue. You are not allowed to 'wait' longer at a particular fish-tank. There will be security guards, bugging you and asking you to move ahead (in marathi - "Chala..pudhe chala..pudhe chala"). 
6. The aquarium itself is not very big. If you have visited any aquariums outside India (like singapore, USA, UK), this one would definitely look smaller. We went through the entire aquarium in about 20-25 mins. That's 2.5 hours of waiting in line and 30 mins of seeing fish. 
7. Coming to the fishes. I wasn't really impressed. I could be biased because I have seen aquariums in different countries. But when they said Newly renovated, best in class etc, I expected more. It definitely was disappointing. 
8. Oh and I forgot to mention. You are not allowed to take photographs inside the aquarium unless you pay for photography charges. I found that weird for 2 reasons. One - The charges are pretty high. For photography using Mobile phones its Rs 500 and for clicking good professional pictures it is about Rs 5K-10K. The ticket cost for entering the aquarium is Rs 60. So now you understand why it's weird? Second reason is - WHO WOULD WANT TO CLICK A PICTURE OF THEMSELVES AFTER WAITING FOR 2.5 HOURS????(i guess this one is self-explanatory). 

Here are my little suggestions to Taraporewale Aquarium team (if they even desire to make their visitor experience a pleasant one)

1. Please raise the ticket price. At least for weekends. With Rs 60 per ticket, it is just too cheap. Entire population of Mumbai would probably come there for this price. 
2. Please provide an option for buying tickets online. There is definitely a big chunk of people driven away by sheer inconvenience of getting inside the aquarium. This will at-least help them skip some of your queues. 
3. Provide a VIP Pass (Fast Pass) at a much higher price, so that those who can afford the convenience can atleast skip the major queues. 
4. Allow photography for free. Period. 

WOW- I didn't realize, but this post turned out to be longer that I originally thought. I would have to blame emotions for this. They don't come often, but when they do, they come in Burst mode !!! :-) 

Anyways - thank you for reading this post. Hope it reaches the Taraporewale Aquarium's management team and we can hope for some changes. Until then, you all stay blessed & have a wonderful day ! 

Moved to India

When you work in IT industry, you are always on the wheels. The life is very dynamic and you learn to enjoy and accept these changes. I frankly think that many of the folks from IT have started photography because they get to go around the world, work in different countries, meet people with different cultures, experience the extreme weathers etc etc... which are all the necessary ingredients to get into Photography. 

India is dynamic, colorful, random..and it will be exciting to see what photography I can do in India. Life's gonna be busy, but gotta find some time for passion ! 

Not going to write much.... will post pictures when I go for a photography trip ! Till then ... tk care ! and have a nice day !!

PhotoJojo Canon 70-200mm F/2.8 Lens Mug Review

It should come as no surprise to you when I say, "Hey, I want to own a Canon 70-200mm F/2.8 Lens". I mean, who wouldn't want to own it? Right? Anyone who uses Canon system, and loves photography wants to own that lens. It is perhaps the best lens that Canon has ever made. And, like every other 'awesome' thing that you want to own, it comes with a big price tag. Most of us, who are doing photography as a hobby have hard time justifying that cost and buying that lens.  But we are who we are. We still go through all the photography websites and look up the most recent price of that lens (may be every other day).

So one day I was browsing through internet as usual going through some photography articles, and I came across an article "50 affordable gift for photographers under $50". The title seemed interesting enough, so I started reading the article and there was one item that made me say "Yup. I want this!". It was the Canon 70-200mm F/2.8 Lens Mug. I said to myself, "If not the lens, I should at least have a mug!".

I decided to buy a mug. I thought buying a 'mug' shouldn't be difficult, but when I started looking for it, I was faced with 100s of options of various quality and price. It took about 6-8 hours of research and googling before I decided to go with "PhotoJojo" to order these mugs. 

In this post, I wanted to go through some of the options that I found over the internet and why ordering from PhotoJojo made sense to me. 

There are basically 3 types of Canon (or Nikon) mugs that you can get. 

1. Canon branded
2. Canium or other names branded. 
3. Unbranded

The Canon branded lens mugs are not available in US directly. I tried to look it up on the popular US websites and they did not have the mugs with "Canon" written on them. If you are looking to have mugs with "Canon" written on them then the best place to order them would be from eBay. There are sellers from Japan/China/Hong Kong who will ship these to USA. It takes longer for your shipping to arrive, but you would get a mug that you would like.

Canium or other branded mugs are also great, but my problem was that it had "Canium" or something else other than Canon written on it, which kind of kills the mug completely. No offense to the mug makers, but my idea was if you want to buy a mug that looks like lens, it should "look" like a lens. Canium or something else written on it just kills that 'look'. 

So therefore I ultimately decided to go for an unbranded lens mug. Those that are sold by USA sellers. PhotoJojo is a popular name in USA and a reliable place to buy, so I decided to buy the mug from them. I was a bit skeptical at first about how the mug would 'look' or 'feel' as compared to the real lens. But I was so pleasantly surprised when I received the mug. It looked just like the real lens. The feel was sturdy, the looks were awesome. I even almost zoomed it ! The only problem with PhotoJojo's 70-200 f/2.8 mug is that it does not come with a sipper lid. It comes with a standard lid. But if you are ordering a 24-105mm f/4, it shouldn't be a problem because that one comes with a sipper lid. 

At the end, I would like to show you a few pictures of the mugs.

5 Things You Do (As a Photographer) That Annoys Your Better Half

Photography is a great hobby, an expensive one, but a great one none the less. And if you have any hobby (not just photography), you would know that it doesn't take a lot for your hobby to become your passion and then eventually an addiction. 

Photography for me is an addiction, and for that matter anyone who has read about it or learned it. And honestly, why wouldn't it be? It not only lets you pictorially depict the way you see the world, but it also 'in a way' makes you feel good. How???Well it's easy..You carry a big professional camera, you change lenses on it, you have multiple filters and tripod etc etc..and you think "Ya, it makes me look cool"... You spend a good deal of time reading photography books, articles, watching multiple videos on YouTube. And last but not the least you genuinely like the subject.It's almost as if you forget about everything else around you and indulge into learning photography. 

Did you notice I wrote "forget about everything else around you !!" ... now that's a BAD IDEA ! You live with your spouse (or better half) and forgetting about them is never a good idea. If your spouse is not a photographer, you may have done things in the past that annoyed them. 

Here's a list of 5 things that you may have done, that have annoyed them. Just for the record, I have done all of them (and more).

1. You focus a lot on camera settings
This is perhaps the number 1 reason why your spouse might be annoyed at you. For majority of his/her life, he/she is used to someone pointing camera at her, clicking the picture and moving on. But after you, things change. You take the first shot with your favorite setting, and almost invariably, you don't like the shot. So you fiddle with the settings, you take another shot and its probably not something you like either. You take some more test shots, but by that time, your spouse is already annoyed.  

2. You're not in the picture 
Imagine, you went on a family trip - you spent a good time researching about the place, you got the best deal that was possible, all the arrangement was just perfect. Everything is great. You go out there, you have a great time. You take a lot of pictures. You come back from the trip, you sit with your spouse, you look at those 100s of pictures (hopefully not 1000s) and all you see is your spouse and kids(if any). There is no sign of YOU.  That my friends, annoys them a lot.

3. You are the photographer of 'any' event you go
Whether you are married or not, you have to socialize and go to multiple events. "Normally", socializing involves interacting with people, talking about stuffs that you like about (and most of the times about the stuffs that you don't really care about). But if you have a professional DSLR, things change. Your host wants you to bring your camera and take pictures of the event. And you do agree, because after all, you like photography. But be careful, you might annoy your spouse, if you are over doing this.

4. You are picky about direction of light
You've read about photography, you really have. And that means, you know the importance of LIGHT and the direction of it. You cannot stand the fact that there are hard shadows on the face when you are capturing the shot. You do not prefer taking pictures when the sun is on top of your head. When you're on a trip however, you cannot control everything. But you simply cannot help yourself. You try and change their position in some way so that the photo looks good (at least to your satisfaction). As I said before, they are not used this. All they want is for you to point the camera at them, click that button and get a picture. They want you to position them in front of the monument, waterfall or whatever there is and take a picture. And when you are not able to do that, you annoy them !!!

5. Quality, Composition and Post Processing... what is that???
Whether you are a pro-photographer, or a learner you understand the importance of composition, quality (focus, noise, negative space etc etc) and you really care about it.  You spend a great deal of time post-processing your photos so that they look 'great'.  But- your spouse don't care about those things.. well at least, not directly. They do want great pictures, they just cannot stand the whole big process of getting there,especially when they have to go through it every time.  Many times, you might find yourself putting your spouse and kids in "Rule of 3rd" arrangement or Leading lines arrangement OR many times you capture great expressions of your kid, but because the photo was out of focus, you discard the picture. Your spouse probably doesn't care. 

Ok so with that, I will end the post here. Hope you had some laughs reading through these 5 'things'.  I am no exception to these 5 things (and other things too) But for the record - I know for the fact that my wife likes what I do and supports me (& my little addition in photography) as much as she can, until of course I over-do one of those 5 things. ;-) She has been very patient with me. 

If your spouse has been patient with your photography addiction, it is time that you thank him/her for that. How about you thank them today ?

Cheers !!!