15th of April, 2017

Streets of Tiruchanoor were crowded due to summer vacations.  Temple's lady elephant "Srinidhi" was standing near ticket counter with her mahout to bless the pilgrims.  Me, with my new camera in my hand, was heading towards Srinidhi.  Mahout saw me.  His face became a physical exclamation mark.  

**KA-CHICK**

Srinidhi with her mahout.

My camera's shutter opened and closed in 200th of a second.  But mahout understood what I did.  He became angry like a wild elephant and started yelling at me. I ran away from that place and started to think what wrong was did by me.  After thinking for a long time, it "FLASHED" to me.  Elephants get afraid of flashes and sometimes even they run amok.  Even though I wasn't using my flash, Mahout may have not wanted to take any risks.  That's how my first Street Photography began.

How it all began?

After a month long torture, my father brought me a new DSLR.  For a few initial days, I was stuck in our backyard capturing bugs, butterflies, flowers etc.  When I started exploring online photography communities like 500px.com, DigitalRev TV, professional photographer Mike Browne's FB group, I understood that to capture some good photos, is should step out of my backyard. And the "Street Photography" was the most popular kind of photography in those communities. 

So I decided to go on streets to capture some photos, but questions like "how will someone react if I take a photo of them?" "I wear a Dhoti and Shikha and a camera in my hand. Won't it be funny?" started to rise in my mind.  But my determination was stronger than these questions.  On the weekend day, I started walking in Tiruchanoor's busy streets with my new camera in my hand and ended up yells at Srinidhi's mahout.

What happened next?

With those yells, my confidence levels took a steep dive. With that, I headed back to home.  On my way, I confronted a mischievous boy of our town.  He is so naive that, he pisses on entrances of others homes. 

He stopped and asked me "what is that in your hand?" I answered dejectedly "camera".  He again questioned "will you take a picture of me and my friend?" I replied "Okay, give a pose".  After few seconds of thinking, he started imitating me.  

Again,

My camera **KA-CHICKED**

Imitation

After taking this photo, what I discovered is "communication is key to street photography". I have decided that I would take permission of people whose images I am going to capture or take their permission after capturing.