Clicking the first roll
19th August 2023 - World Photo(graphy) Day

S Balakrishnan *

First click- Sun rise

Everyone is a photographer these days (Am I jealous?). Whoever owns a cell phone (By the way, who does not own a mobile phone these days!) is a photographer; be it a button phone or the latest smart phone, all mobiles have a camera and all owners are photographers.

But back in 1979, the scenario was different. One had to own a still camera that used film rolls; digital camera was unheard of. Why, even colour film roll was triple the cost of a B&W roll and its processing & printing facility was not available in all places.

Of course, a dash of colour was added, on request, by studio people to B&W photos by hand-tinting them with colour inks/paints/oils. In my cousin’s B&W wedding photos in 1969, the garland alone was coloured which was magic to us.

Posted in Port Blair, the quaint little capital town of the Union Territory of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, in 1978, I was so enchanted by the beauty of the Island Territory – Sun, Sand, Sea, Hills (not imposing mountains but loveable hilly terrain), Rains & Greenery, plus a Mini India with people from all parts of India living there! What more could a photographer ask for.

So, the shutter bug in me woke up and I was forced to present it a tiny camera in the New Year of 1979. What I could afford was Agfa Isoly-II Camera for Rs.240 + Agfa Leather Case for another Rs.34.60.

I also bought two B&W film rolls (of Indu brand by Hindustan Photo Films, a Government of India company) for Rs.7.50 each from Somu Studio in Port Blair on Wednesday the 3rd January. Was it because Wednesday is considered auspicious! One could click 16 snaps with this roll in this camera. Thus I blasted off a month’s basic salary of Rs. 330.

I was itching to go out and start clicking, and on the following Sunday (7th Jan.) began my first shooting spree. Saturday was a working day in those days. It was unintentional but the first snap was of sunrise.

What an auspicious beginning for a future photographer! But being a lazy bird, instead of going to the seashore I clicked from the terrace of my office building where I was staying. It was exactly 6 AM and the sun was already high above the horizon, behind the mosque’s dome, silhouetting it. Being 1,300 kms East of mainland India, the sun rises in the islands much, much earlier.

In the first two clicks I also recorded the fast development phase Port Blair was undergoing then, what with high-rise concrete buildings (four stories) replacing the traditional single-storied wood & tin structures. In such a highly seismic sensitive zone, I wondered about this ‘development’. I had also captured the ubiquitous crow perching high up on the iron rod.

The third frame truly brought out the photographer in me – a bird’s eye view of the weather-beaten tin roofs of the traditional wooden dwellings in the congested bazaar area of Port Blair. I loved the drumming sound when the monsoon rains started pelting & then pounding on the tin roofs. It was music to my ears.

Sun set

But these wooden structures had one drawback - susceptibility to fire which had devastated several buildings in the past. The next three snaps were, believe me, aerial-view snaps of a Nicobari family cutting and drying areca nuts in the taxi stand area; father, mother and their two kids were involved in this process.

Shy of clicking close-ups of people, I had the courage to click a close-up of the areca nuts, instead. Bravo! Aerial shot to close-up, what a fast progress in the first roll itself! I patted my back.

I had to come down for this masterly close-up photo. How could I miss the nearby massive Clock Tower, the prominent landmark of Port Blair’s Aberdeen Bazaar? The Clock Tower was to commemorate the victory in World War I- “In memory of victory 1914-1920 and of Our Glorious Dead Including Members of the Military Police Force who fell in action Captain E.B. Fawcett, Formerly Assistant Commandant, Subedar Muzmmal Khan, Naik Mangat Chand, No. 2312, Lance Naick Ali Sher No. 2796, Sepoy Feroze No. 2609”.

By then it was 7.17 AM, as the big clock indicated. Men and goats were warming up in the morning sun in the little greenery around the Clock Tower. Unlike the usual scene of men reading newspapers sipping their tea/coffee and discussing the issues, the scene in the remote Port Blair was different. There were no local dailies, and the mainland papers came in bunches of 3 or 4, if at all the bi-weekly flight from Calcutta (Kolkata) landed.

There was no daily flight service and no air service at all from Madras (Chennai); life was peaceful and in slow pace. The town sprang to life mainly when the twice-in-a-month ships from Calcutta and Madras arrived with rotten onion, potato, other cargo and thousands of passengers, after 3 ½ days of nauseating sailing. OMG!

More than the men, the goats attracted my attention, especially the one that put its head out through the grill fence looking very innocent. A man sitting nearby looked aghast at my shooting the goat. Thus I have shot a bird (crow) and an animal (goat) in the first roll itself – another achievement!

As I wandered along, I reached the Jama Masjid which I clicked artistically through an oval window; I consider this one of the best taken in my early days. As I returned after the morning shooting schedule, I saw a petty shop loaded with local plantains and coconuts which are very sweet, maybe due to the soil and rains. It was a shop run by a Tamil man, also selling puja items for the nearby Ganapathi temple.

By then I had reached the 13th frame and there were only three more left, which I reserved for clicking sunset scene for a dramatic closing; after all, had I not begun with sunrise? I clicked these last three frames from my office balcony itself, lazy to stir out. The sun was sinking behind a hill range setting the sky and the clouds afire with orange hue.

Though happy that I had exposed my first roll, I was sleepless that night to see the actual result. First thing the next morning I gave the roll for developing & printing (D&P) at Somu Studio, and awaited the result eagerly. Seeing the prints in the evening, I said ‘Not bad for a first timer’ and awarded 10/16.