OUT OF FOCUS

Two different snapshots to the way we look back at our memories. Bimal Mukherjee,a photographer from Jadavpur,Kolkata,feels it is only natural that this change would set in. “True,I miss the Kodachrome rolls,the old-world SLR cameras,the heavy cumbersome equipment and also the old albums,but it’s not that bad. When the world moved from the old photographic plate cameras to the Kodachrome roll films,everyone thought it was the definitive answer to the photography needs of people. But with the revolution of cameras and photo editing software,the rolls are passé. So we need to learn to move on.”
The art of preservation of photographs has also seen a sea change. From the heavy cumbersome albums where you edged the pictures into corners to the light slip-in ones to the current digital frames—the transformation is there for all to see.

At Ratan Studios in Pune,business is as usual. Customers flit in and out to convert old pictures into digitised images,and reduce the bulky albums to slim compact discs. Sanjay Hira,the third generation owner of the store,refuses to believe that the album has died out completely. It has simply become more exclusive. “Pictures can be compressed,cropped and cut to make a photo collage on screen and then printed. People still make hard copy albums but these are only of a big event,like a wedding. They don’t take prints of every Sunday outing,” he says.
While earlier we took pictures for posterity,the weekend photographers have a new reason to take photographs—social networking sites. Orkut and Facebook have become yet another storage space for those who love posing for their point-and-shoot cameras.

Eric D’Souza,manager at Lenseco Photography Equipment,Mumbai,turns up his nose at the new-fangled images and their touch-up jobs. “Old paper albums let the owner accept pictures the way they are. Whether good or bad,perfect or imperfect,the pictures show people as normal,imperfect people,something that can easily be altered in digital albums,” says D’Souza.
At the Sen household,with three generations staying under one roof,the family has gone through the complete journey—from black-and-white albums to digital frames.

Niladri’s mother,Bhaswati,has opened the family album for us. She plugs in a USB thumb drive into the rear of a digital photo frame and punches the setting buttons. “We love clicking and displaying. The old photo albums are very cumbersome. They are stacked away in a cupboard to prevent damage to the old prints. We take them out only when the whole family assembles on special occasions.” The frame is lit up with a picture of Niladri at the F1 race in Singapore. The photo zooms out of focus to a soft tune followed by a picture of Niladri’s grandparents on a beach in Pattaya.
The old albums won’t be pulled out of the cupboard anytime soon.

YOUR ALBUM CHOICES
Digital albums:
Around 300-400 pictures edited and printed directly onto special textured paper. You can also tweak them to make collages. One such album can cost around Rs 15,000-20,000.
Online albums:
Most social networking sites offer options for members to create online albums where one can store as much as 10,000 pictures. Security settings help maintain privacy,but these albums are vulnerable to hackers.
Slip-in albums:
They were a rage when instant photography came into the market. They are dying out now
Going old school:
One can easily get the old black-and-white albums made to order. But these could be expensive.