Why I failed to "Learn" Photography !

The photo on the top was taken by me in 2005, and the one at the bottom was taken in 2010. 

Somewhere in between I started looking at Photography a bit seriously. 

In 2009, I suddenly felt the URGE to learn photography, from those who knew a lot. That urge led me to one of the well-known institutions, and this is what happened thereafter. 

The first couple of sessions went very well. Light, Filters, Shutterspeeds etc. and then trouble began. 

For 2 hours I had to look at a 40 year old SLR and understand the Remote trigger assembly which was basically a trigger wired to the shutter. Very relevant 40 years ago, but why now ? 

In each class, we got to see a bunch of very nice photographs, yes, seriously nice. We were encouraged to shoot more and more. Very noble thought indeed. So I started to shoot. Spiders, Tea-stalls, sleeping dogs, crying beggars, Grapes in a glass and even a very furious wife !

A couple of weeks later I turned up for the class on darkroom processing of B/W negatives (yes, that's right !). Before the turbulence, I decided to proudly showcase some of my photographs:

My teacher was kind enough to spend a few seconds on the 20 odd prints that I had handed over. He looked up. "What is the meaning of these photos ? Where's the story behind each of these ?" This is all he said.

That was the last time I saw him, and he saw me.

It was decided right then. I would never 'Learn" photography !