Hyderabad 2002.

This is a really old photo, circa summer of 2002 if I remember correctly. If I’m not wrong it is from perhaps the first roll of film I used on my then recently acquired, Zenit XP, my first ever film SLR. The Zenit is an old Soviet era workhorse apparently based on the Zorki rangefinder camera series, which itself was a copy of Leica. I got it from the grey market in Cochin through friends for what was a sizable amount of money for me as a student back then. It came with a nice bag and a Mir-1B 37mm/2.8 M42 screw mount lens attached (apparently this lens is something of a marvel). Of course, all this information I didn’t know then. Lacking a manual I really didn’t know what I was doing. It was only today that I realized (after doing some research online) that this camera has TTL metering but since I didn’t know this then I used this camera without batteries and therefore with no metering whatsoever! Except for the loading of the film, setting aperture and shutter speed and focussing, everything else was pure guesswork! Even then, somehow, I managed to get a few photos that I still like. So you will see a few more photos from this camera over the next few days. Now that I know a little more about this camera I think I’ll put some b/w film in it and start shooting with it once more.

Today’s photo was shot in my old alma mater, University of Hyderabad, which has a huge and very beautiful campus. Most of the campus is wilderness and has some amazing rock formations. Once I return to India I intend to go back there, camp there for a few days and shoot these unique rock formations to my heart’s content!