The shutterbugs

Scene 1: Trident Hilton opp Meenambakkam airport
5.20 p.m- We make our entry... people are lingering around the conference hall. To be specific, reporters and photographers. Some are inside the hall setting up their cameras and checking their equipment for their 'OB Live'telecast
5.35- A group of executives make their way through the corridor...everyone rushes into the hall. In a moment, the corridor outside is deserted.
5.38-5.40(approx)- Everyone's seated. "He ll be here in a minute," says one of the 'coated'men.
A few minutes later- Carlos Ghosn, Renault Nissan CEO walks in and takes his seat at the table to address the press conference, on the eve of launching their plant at Oragadam, near Chennai.

He talks for a few minutes. And then deafening silence followed by a splash of sounds. The silence lasts for may be 5 seconds. It's deafening cos everyone was listening and the sounds that followed was more overpowering than anyone trying to talk.

If a picture could speak a thousand words, that moment defined it for me. The 5 seconds of silence, rather a pause by the speaker, accentuated by a movement of his hand, had about 30-40 cameras go 'Click, click, click, click.......' each one clicking away a minimum of 10 pics, in single moment.

In another age and another decade earlier,when film rolls were used as the only way of taking pictures and camera's had to be rolled to rotate the film to next empty film and shutter speeds were way way below what's available now, the clicks might have been sparsely and scarcely distributed. That single moment, in a way symbolised how much technology has grown over the years. At the end of the day, just about one picture might have been published by each photographer's respective newspapers. But then, this is what technology is all about. The more number of frames per second probably gives a photographer a wonderful opportunity to showcase his skills and gives him/her a shot a capturing a better moment within just a second later.

Or is it just abuse of technology? Has technology given even people without enough talent to just go and make use of it, to eke out a living? A cameraman once told me that the real cinematographers were the ones who lived and worked in the age of 'black and white' films where lighting was the most important aspect of cinematography. While the new age hi-def cameras are boons of technology, may be the cameraman had a point. Probably, some of them survived on sheer talent, some by pulling others down...but nevertheless had to have a basic idea.

However, the age of 'crouching tehelka...hidden camera'and the camera mobile has changed everything. Tehelka was ahead of the times. But a few years down the line from now on, they might not have had to spend whatever they spent on buying spy cams and setting them up. May be the camera might move from a mobile phone to the pen in your pocket...or to even your shirt buttons. Anything is possible! But the 'click,click, click, click...' of the shutterbugs will go on... 'A second's pause might be deafening to the ears in the presence of a few tens of cameramen'!!