Is described as “the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time”. I will take the poetic license of redefining it as “the defining spirit or mood of a particular (photography) technology as shown by the skills and features of the image post processing at that time.
Recently I stumbled upon an image I took in May 2011 of a dear friend of my daughter. whom I shall refer to as S, for her debut performance of Bharatanatyam. This was a major milestone event for her and her family who asked me to take the photos in full regalia for making program notes, invitation, and display posters on the day of the event.
I did everything by the book and applied my learnings working as an assistant to my talented friend Viggy, who conducted many such photo shoots, admirably.
Zeitgeist 2011: The state of the art of the photography equipment and the related photo editing software was quite primitive relatively speaking, though it was the latest and greatest available since the slice of bread. The image below is the example reflecting the post processing software sophistication and the skills or lack thereof of my photo editing capabilities. I do have the permission from S to use her photo in this article.
Zeitgeist 2024: In the ensuing decade or so, the photo editing software has made leaps and bounds in advancement of the technology. These current states of the art tools take advantage of faster hardware, and emerging AI technology to elevate the sophistication by many folds and more ironically, and albeit interestingly make the editing more effortless. It took me perhaps, a couple to minutes to achieve the results below, whereas it took considerably longer time and greater effort, tedious at times, for the image above.
Circa 2011, I reached an inflection point in my diabetes treatment. My endocrinologist said that the efficacy of my oral medications has dropped enough to be ineffective, and I need to switch to insulin. As I was (desperately) exploring options, she mentioned that if I could lose some weight, it might help. I enrolled into a medically supervised weight management program that resulted in a dramatic drop in my HbA1c levels till the ageing and lifestyle have caught up my HbA1c levels in 2018 to where they were in 2011. The good news is that my past (weight loss) gave me another 8 years of insulin free life and enabled me to try new class of medication that again brought down the HbA1c numbers, but I had to compromise on the method of taking the medication which is an injectable drug. I won the battle of postponing the insulin, but the war is still going on.
The moral of the story is that past can certainly be a prolog to the future, and it does not have to be a baggage. It can certainly serve as a ballast to keep you afloat and balanced. So, it behooves for us to be not dogmatic in our views and beliefs and take them within the context. Zeitgeist is relative. My absolute belief is that there is nothing absolute.
