Ant steps to photography

The iconic Abbey Road album cover

"A good photograph evokes emotions."-Afiq Fikri, October 2009.

I've always wanted to pick up photography, and so i bought a second hand Nikon D40 dslr recommended by a friend in summer. It was back in 2005 or 2006 that i so wanted to get my hands on one of the machines but due to some reasons, i opted not to.

Actually i wanted to get a decent digicam in the summer because i don't have one (a less than average BenQ digicam doesn't count), but in the end the price was right, so i got a more than decent camera.

Surprise, surprise. When i came back to Volgograd there were a lot of people using the dslr, like some epidemic typhoon had hit them (including me). The sudden surge of DSLR users here is making Digicams look pre historic.

Although it is genderless, maybe i will call it Maria or Chuck or Blackie.

I've yet to take Maria for a walk. In reality, i prefer staying home. So the chances of seeing a picture compilation of 'Top 10 things i love in my room' are higher than 'The sights and scenes and sounds of nature in Volgograd.


As an avid music lover in a previous life, the bulk of nice photos are often observed on album covers. The first is the iconic Abbey Road cover of the Beatles, and the second is Rage Against the Machine's debut album.

They say, pictures paint a thousand words. And RATM's cover album is the picture of Thich Quang Duc, a monk who burnt himself to death as a protest of America's oppressive policies toward Buddhism in Vietnam. It remains one of my favourite pictures due to the sheer fact that humans may go that far when their voices are drowned in a sea of oppression.


And here's Terry Butcher. The England hero kept on playing even after suffering a cut on his forehead in one of the 1990 World Cup Qualifiers against Sweden. He had a few stitches but as a defender, he was forced to head the ball from the penalty box and the wound severed and reopened, and thus, his heroic antics are immortalized.


There are a lot of war pictures, particularly from the Gaza crisis, but this one stands out as my favourite. Saw it on BBC in January and it sticks in my mind. It's a battle of David vs Goliath, against all odds. The smoke in the picture tells us that they're facing mortars and grenades, while they are only able to hurl stones against the Israeli forces.

I can tell you that taking pictures is rather addictive since you strive for perfection in each picture, and if you're not satisfied you would take it over and over again (if you have time, that is).

But then again, i'd rather spend my time writing than to edit some pictures. I'm still coming to terms with all the basics of photography, so if there's any good, i'll post some pictures.