Pilgrimage

I am not a very religious person as most of you would know, so why the heading "pilgrimage"..well thats exactly what i did, a pilgrimage to Gyan Manch on Saturday the 20th of March.
It all starts from the year 96, when my parents got me my first SLR camera. It was a Canon rebel X autofocus SLR. Something unheard of among amatuers like us then.
And the next 4 years were spent giving a lot of time to my photography, first by learning it from my Guru Atanuda and then by the numerous trips made to the rural areas of bengal to do photography. In the year 97 i also had my first photgraphy exhibition at academy of fine arts. The one person whose photographs were always looked at with admiration and whom i really dreamt of meeting some day was the great Raghu Rai...never had thought i would ever get a chance.
But thanks to my friend Mansi i got invites to a workshop by the great Raghu Rai. And the workshop was nothing less than a pilgrimage to me, just looking at his work and the kind of thought process that goes into his pictures was something Mortals like us cant even think of.
His funda in photography is simple he says put you 'Mind, Soul and Your physical being all focussed at what you are doing" .
A lot of myths and thoughts that used to confuse me are clear now.
The sad part of the whole thing is that i dont have the SLR camera now, but after this workshop i am inspired to buy one again and make photgraphy an integral part of me like it was earlier.
Hopefully i shall in future have a blog with my work. till then happy clicking