The Initiation

Rise of Olympus 

When I got my first camera back in 2012, Olympus OMD EM5, I was enamored by the beauty the world has to offer. It is the first camera in an OM-Digital lineup that will run alongside the PEN series and, according to Olympus, its Four Thirds models.

At first, I started shooting without any knowledge of photography. As I was shooting my way through the process and garnering a love for the art form, I started taking self-portraits and photos of friends. Of course, the Auto mode on the camera was the only thing  I knew to play around with. Unfortunately, the result I got is not up to my expectation. I was disappointed and realizing that was what photography about. I never go beyond Auto mode on my camera.

Olympus has fallen

I did explore other goodies offered on my first camera. I did play around with Art filters (ART) mode a couple of times. ART filters offer one of the most comprehensive selections of filters available. At that time, my favorite ART filters are 'Key Line' filter (apparently inspired by the Japanese manga drawing style), a purple-tinged 'Cross Process II', and a monochrome version of the existing Dramatic Tone filter which can give striking results with an appropriate subject. 

I am not a fan of all the frames or filters but the sheer range means there's often an interesting option available to spice-up an otherwise underwhelming image. After a year of shooting purely on Auto Mode and using ART filters, I get bored and lose interested in photography. I realized not all situation in photography is suitable by just using the filters. The EM5 ended in my stored room.

Return of the Olympus

After completion of Postgraduate study in Obstetric and Gynaecology a few years ago. My daily schedule filled with clinic works, Hospital wad rounds, weekly elective surgery, and medical student teaching at the local university. Being a family man is not easy for being an Obstetrician working in one of the busiest hospitals in the country. It was a daily challenge to divide my time between clinical work and responsibility and family.

In 2018, I suffered a midlife crisis and depression. Others go through life on autopilot, and suddenly realize that I am getting older, the time has passed by quickly, and that I haven’t accomplished very much in life. I started trying up new things in life. As I try to look for new activities, taking steps towards positive changes in my life, I came across my old EM5 camera in my storeroom. The mysterious spell of the silver-colored magnesium alloy body of EM5 cast into my eyes,  incredible it all was, but, for the first time, I was lost for words in a good way how good looking the EM5 is. I picked up the retro styling camera as if it was the first time I am holding it. And I decided to give it a second chance to be alive again.

After 7 years, I started to read the camera menu book. I realized there is a lot of things that the camera can do. I used whatever resources to study basic photography in my free time. It helps me to divert my struggling through the midlife crisis into something more positive and helpful in my life. I started learning to take photos in manual mode. Manual mode is the camera’s simplest, most natural state. There’s no digital guesswork going on about the exposure, no assumptions about what kind of shot you’d like to get from a scene. It’s the place where with just a few conscious decisions about what you’re doing, you can in most cases achieve far better images than the camera can of its own accord. I also explored the other mode, namely the Aperture and the Speed mode.

I slowly began to become more comfortable, not only with photography but with who I was as a person. The camera soon became my strongest and most distinguished voice and thoughts. This is something I still struggle with, but where I am now compared to where I was 3 years ago is astonishing when I stop and think about it. It served as the tool for how I expressed myself, and it was by my side during the years of struggle with depression. After nearly a year of just photographing randomly, I gained enough confidence to start photographing portraits of other people or street photography. 

I am not a professional photographer, but I tried my very best to produce good photos with a story to tell to the world. The rest is my story and please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions and to share your love by liking this video and subscribing to my blog.