Feeling Lucky

This post is about luck in photography. About having the (right) camera right at hand when you need it. About uttering the most clichéd photography advice, “it’s not the camera that takes the photo, it’s the person holding it”. And hence I believe my Nokia’s 3.2MP camera does a better job than iPhone’s 8MP one. Since it’s about belief, I don’t need to furnish any proof!

So let’s start with an insect

of a book. Compare the insect’s size with one of the words in the title of the book! Guess this word… Should be simple enough!

So these photos were shot with my Nokia phone, which has no Image Stabilization but it captured nice presentable photos in low light nonetheless as you can see for yourself! Now we move on to photos taken from my usual Olympus camera. Two edge-on shots of a dandelion, to demonstrate the effect of why auto-focus of the camera cannot always be trusted!

Another way to put the above photos in context would be to say how manual zoom can be chosen to give what you really want. The following set of photos demonstrate the effects of choosing different shutter speeds:

My first proper photo with ‘long’ exposure leading to capturing acceptable water trails (of a fountain in this case; someday it will be a waterfall) and imparting a feel of hazy veil over the scenery. (Ah, such poetic lines, I amaze myself!) Now, we come to the real ‘luck’ aspect of photography. How many flies do you see in the following photo?

I was about to leave the place after taking this photo but then I saw that the fly had moved up the flower and without studying the camera’s LCD screen much, I just snapped another pic. The following is what I got. Now how many flies do you see here?

That’s right! Only when I uploaded this photo on my laptop was I able to realize that what I had snapped was a photo of two (mating) flies! I don’t know the exact name of the species and am not bothered to search for them. However, if you know the name, I would be more than glad to learn! This is what being lucky means: I captured an interesting moment in a photo, which is also sharp enough as far as the focussed subjects are concerned to give the camera’s auto-focus system some well-deserved pat on its sensor (not ‘literally’ though)! Obviously, these puny flies are not that interesting subjects when we have the brilliantly bluish Damselflies hogging all the spotlights in such a fine display of orchestrated choreography! Anyway, enjoy some more of my photos at

Summer 2012