I know jack all about photography. I can barely work out apertures and depths of fields, although I know how zoom lenses work. I almost always get the exposure wrong, and if it wasn’t for the miracle that is Adobe Lightroom chances are most of the pictures I take are destined to end up in the big recycling bin in the sky. I usually just snap at will. I get a picture in my head, and I try to capture it the best I can. I blame it on the lack of a camera during my STF years. So many memories, so little proof. I am poorer for it.

Before I had my Canon 300D SLR I used a Nikon Coolpix 2100. The advantage I have with the Canon is that incisive moment. Sometimes I see something through the lens, and I want to capture that very moment. The Coolpix didn’t afford me that split second click. It’s harder to get candid moments when what you want to capture has fled the scene seconds before.

But it’s easier to be taken seriously when you gave an SLR. People think you’re big business, you can afford to buy something at that price, you’re serious about this. I still think I cheat because I take digital. If I was a proper photography aficionado I would be taking pictures with my analogue, and stash away the fear that out of my 36 shots, only 3.6 are worth sticking into an album of some sort.

Yes, digital photography allows me to cheat. I get to delete stuff I don’t like, or edit my miscalculations. But it also lets me experiment. All I need to do is suss out what the settings on the camera’s dial mean, and I’m off. Oh, and having the right lenses help I suppose. The holy grail of distinct foreground on blurred background that I chased for long and wide, was easily rectified with a lens that had a low f number.

Still, for all the misgivings digital photography has over it’s more skill-intensive analogue predecessor, digital allows me to experiment. And for me, it lowers the cost. A photographer for a key Malaysian newspaper who did the pictures for the pieces I wrote for the NST once told me how she starved, skimped and skinted to buy her camera kit. I designed a website to get mine, same principle applies I suppose, but after the initial outlay I’m not shelling out processing costs. And I didn’t need to rent a two-bedroom flat so that one could be used as a darkroom.

So yeah, purists might scorn, but at least digital photography has finally managed to give me a creative outlet. My boss paints. I can’t paint a spot on the arse of an elephant. So I do photography. You know what they say about photography. It’s art for people who can’t draw.

I think of photography as an emotive art. Just like writing. If, with writing, you try to capture a form of emotion and transport that to those who read, with photography you’re looking for that decisive moment that best captures emotion. Often best done when the subject isn’t realising it. Which is why I’m not so keen on posed pictures. People are best read when they’re not looking.

That’s my quest for now, I think. Trying to find that decisive moment to press the button, so that what is captured is not just a snapshot, but a moment.