Photography

Why do I click these pictures?

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Why do I click these pictures?

Is it about my aunt? Or is it about my dad? I am not sure yet.

This is an uncomfortable thing to do and that is perhaps why.

With aunt, I always had a warm relationship. Yet, in the last few years, we’ve maintained a distance, because in proximity we had disagreements.

With dad, it’s a lot of the same. Yet, it is completely different.

Like I said in my post on my daughter, relationships are hard and messy. A thin veil of disagreements always linger. How you handle them defines the relationship. Maybe this is my half-baked study on relationships, especially disagreements and how we deal with them.

I don’t know. I mostly just click.

Being daddy!

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She invades your personal space like no one else can. Yet, you don’t mind it.

She shares her fear of monsters and expects you to slay them. You hug her hard, for you were responsible in bringing her to this big bad world!

Her world is filled with good rabbits and bad wolves. Beanstalks that grow to the sky and ogres taller than trees.

And princesses locked up in castles!

It hurts you no end that the rescuer is always a prince in shiny armour. Not daddy!

There’s only one man in her life. Daddy. You think, wishfully.

One day, she will be out seeking a new man of her choice. You have to let go!

Relationships are hard and messy. Yet, being a daddy to your little girl is special. You’ll do it again without batting an eyelid.

Shutter jam

~ premsagark ~ 2 Comments

I am a professional photographer.

Strange things are happening around me! I cannot explain it yet.

I think it all started after that particular client meeting on August 5th. The meeting was a disaster!

We met at CCD. The old man wanted a photographer for his daughter’s wedding and had asked for my portfolio.

I would have been fine if he had simply rejected me. He rubbed it in by laughing at my photos. “Enappa idhu? Ondu photo’nu nettagae illaa!,” he pushed the sample album aside with a smirk on his face.  It was the most humiliating moment in my career! He didn’t even pay the coffee bill, I had to.

What a jerk!

As he got into his car, I took my camera out. For some reason, I wanted to take his picture.

I pressed the shutter button. It didn’t work. Damn!

The shutter button had gotten jammed. I took it to the service centre. The technician took it in. He came back after 10 minutes and said he didn’t find anything wrong with the camera. The shutter button worked just fine.

Really? I asked him to check again. Continue reading →

Rebranding Tapprs

~ premsagark ~ 6 Comments

I have to confess.

Inspite of all the cribbing in my earlier posts about how rentals is not exactly a great market and how the market signals aren’t great, I have been hooked onto the idea of Tapprs (mind you, not to the idea of rentals).

The reason is, I feel Tapprs could be woven into a nice brand if done well. Not necessarily rentals, could be anything else too. I have stuck my neck out on Tapprs. I can’t explain why. Perhaps, its because it’s your baby, even if its ill-conceived. Or perhaps, I feel that it needs to be given more time and patience.

I have put all my tech ideas on hold to give Tapprs some concentrated effort in the coming 1-2 months.

Whatever, I am here now. Looking at re-branding Tapprs. I don’t want Tapprs to be identified as a rental place and would love to create a brand out of it.

I want Tapprs to be attributed with a few characteristics. And that means change from the ground up.

I’ve tried to work things out towards that effect. So here goes.

Continue reading →

Tapprs rental as a business

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‘Why do you want to get into equipment rentals?’

A financially savvy friend of mine asked me.

Few of you might know that I handle Tapprs as a hobby venture.

Equipment rental, esp dealing with equipment like photography gear is

  • a high risk business and equipment damages can hurt returns
  • is dependent on volumes and return per rental activity is small
  • is capital intensive (to make more money, you need to pump in more and buy more equipment)
  • break even period is about 75-100 days worth of rental which in calendar terms could work out to more than a year for a very successful rental shop and could take 3 years for those that aren’t as successful. In 3 years, the equipment could fall out of favor from the user crowd.

Continue reading →

Wish you a fantastic 2011!

~ premsagark ~ 5 Comments

Wish you all a fantastic 2011!

May all your dreams come true! May the travel gods smile upon you! May your bikes take you places! May your cameras click wonderful images! May you live the life you always wanted to! May there be more leaves when you want to travel! 🙂

May your life be wonderful!!!

2010 through the rear-view mirror:

2010 to me was fantastic in terms of travel and photography!! Initially, I thought I would do a full fledged year review, but thought year reviews are too personal and hence wanted to save you the trouble of reading through yet another boring review.

So, I thought I will just list a few memorable moments of 2010.


Continue reading →

Backpacking in Borneo-11: Epilogue

~ premsagark ~ 4 Comments

Okay folks! Time to wind up living in Borneo!

Filipino market

This is mostly a meta-post about previously written posts to give a better perspective of my trip. Also, I will try to cover a couple of things I haven’t spoken about yet.

First, thanks to the people who made this trip possible and a successful one.

  • My wife who was pretty cool about me leaving her and going to an exotic location for 10 days
  • Adarsh for being a wonderful companion and for all the painstaking research on Borneo
  • The kind-hearted taxi driver who helped us at Kota Kinabalu
  • Tong Ali, our amazing and friendly guide at Uncle Tan
  • Lan, Olong and other friendly guys at Uncle Tan
  • Yunus, our soft-spoken and gentle guide for the Mt Kinabalu climb
  • Jenny, the energetic guide at Gunung Mulu

Continue reading →