Weekly Notes 2024 W03

I have been struggling to get myself to write here and also get a general grip on life. This week started out tough. I have been gloomy for a while, and it got much stronger starting this week. I tried writing about it in the hope that I could dissect it.

I am currently only working on one client project. For the last several months, we have been working on migrating the processing pipeline to a newer architecture. That was messy and painful. It was hectic, and several continuous weeks of long hours. This didn’t help my long-term burnout. This project culminated with a week long demo for major clients this week, resulting in a code freeze. This meant I had some breathing space, getting through only what is needed to keep things running.

I mostly worked from home. I usually like working from our office, but I felt I needed a change in space.

For the first half of this week, I didn’t really do anything. I was just inside the home and did mostly what was needed, and other times I tried to make sense of things. I didn’t even feel like picking up my camera this week. I also missed my workouts for the week.

Wednesday, I forced myself to go out on a walk and take some photos. I felt good about it, and it cheered me up a bit.

Photography is motivating me to take walks, and on good days, I also end up talking to people I would not have otherwise spoken to. In spite of being an introvert, talking about my interests to strangers makes me feel good and happy.

I watched Migration (2023 film) in the theater with my team. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly.

On Saturday, I developed the rolls I shot earlier. I’ll add more details about it below.

On Sunday, Orpa and I attended Ankur Tewari’s concert in Bangalore. I enjoy Ankur’s music. I discovered Ankur’s music a couple of months before COVID and used to listen to it a lot, as it felt like a warm hug. I am happy that I listened to him live.

If you have never heard Ankur’s music before - I recommend this, especially for these times - Woh hum Nahin.

I shot a lot of photos of this concert on Fomapan 400. Due to low light conditions, I had to open up the aperture all the way. So I am not sure how it would turn out. I will need to wait till next time to develop the rolls and see the results.

Link to the Analog Images I made during 2024 W02-W03 here.

Film stock is Kentmere 400, shot as ISO 800. I used my Pentax P30T and 50mm f1.4 lens for all the shots. I have been using only this 50 mm lens most of the time and rarely reach out to the 35-80mm zoom lens.

I processed this film in D-76 I had brewed back in December. Developed it for 12.5 minutes at 20C.

I continued to apply zone focusing, and most have been shot at 1/125 - 1/250 shutter speed. Shooting it at ISO 800 helped.

Now I have a roll of Fomapan 400 that I am shooting at an ISO of 320. This is making it a bit difficult to have a high shutter speed. Also shot a lot of concert shots - low light conditions have me worried. I will probably push it by a half-stop.

Some of the Images I like from 2024 W02-W03

I usually sit at this bus stand and drink my coffee, which I buy from the nearby cafe. I felt like watching this bus stand from behind and could envision this image of someone walking through it with the contrast of people’s legs behind. Happy that I could make it happen.

I find that traffic police booth very interesting as a subject and already have made two photos earlier. This time I found 3 cops on a break. So I tripped the shutter before they could react. I then spoke to them for a bit.

This is Bombay Shirt Company on the 12th Main Indiranagar. I was exploring a few angles to take this shot of this young man in a suit, and those suits hanging. I then saw this angle - especially with the woman on the phone on the other side.