01/23/2024
In the 80s, for the first time, I saw a professional photographer plying his trade outside a photo studio at the Gateway of India. These mobile photographers were a boon to visitors to the monument, especially tourists who wanted a souvenir of their visit but did not own a camera. Fast forward a few decades, and everyone has a decent camera on their phone. But the photographers are still there, laced with early model SLRs, sweating profusely under the hot Mumbai sun. They haplessly approach people with albums studded with photographs that look like they were taken several years ago only to be ignored.
I could do nothing but feel bad for them.
I had found a quiet ledge to sit down and sketch. Several people peeped over my shoulder to see what I was doing. A few stopped and watched as my pen flew over the sketchbook. One couple even asked me if I was willing to sketch them.
That’s when a photographer beside me said, “First the iPhone, and now your sketchbook will sn**ch away my business.” I thought he was joking as I looked up with a smile only to see the abject defeat on his face. Time and technology had not been fair to him.
