This post is inspired by a forum post in indiblogger asking people how did they start blogging. Well, I am a relative newbie to blogging / travel blogging and photography but I too have a story. Without much ado, lets see how it all started.

1. April, 2010: Great Lakes: After 4 years of work, Great Lakes happened to me. 300 young, vibrant and energetic people around me 24×7 and some of them were great photographers. Gladiators (as our batch was named) were great company and made wonderful models for photos. Looking at other photographers and their work (and thinking that it was cool to have a big camera), I too wanted to be a photographer.
2. June, 2010: Camera: Though I decided to become a cool photographer, there was a big hurdle – I had no Camera (!) and I had never handled one!!! So with my zero knowledge about Digital Cameras, one night I knocked at the door of one of those photographers and asked him what camera should I buy. He asked if I knew photography, and I lied saying yes had a good experience. So he wrote a name in a chit and told me to buy that one whenever I went to Chennai. Well that’s how I ended up with a D3000 without an idea on how to use it.
3. June 2010-Nov 2010: Photography: Now since I had a camera, had to learn it anyway. So started with the user manual, read it like Ramayana and then would go and bug the photographers. The Photography Club of my college helped us a lot by conducting late night training sessions. By Nov 2010, I had graduated from the Auto to the Manual mode. 🙂
4. Nov 2010: Blog: Finally in Nov 2010, I decided to take part in a photography competition of some B School. Its prerequisite was that I should have a Flickr account or a Photo blog. Now Flickr, I never understood in those days so thought of creating a blog. Since the theme of the competition was Shadows in black and white, named it Shadows Galore. However, this “blog” remained unused thereafter  for almost 7 months. 
5. July 2011: Shadows Galore 1.0: College over. Was in my new job and on bench. So all I would do all day was to browse the internet. One day I came across a blog called Me and Frenchie. It was the travelogue of a French couple all over the world. It got me hooked so much that I started thinking that being no less than Marcopolo myself; I should also write something about my trips and become a Travel Writer ASAP. So after a discussion with Ekta, the photo blog was taken out from its mothballed existence, dusted and put on web again that night. This was Shadows Galore 1.0
   

   Shadows Galore1.0

6. Oct 2011: Shadows Galore 2.0: Three Months down the line, Shadows Galore has some 25 posts and 9000 visitors! It was overwhelming! But there was a problem. Being on the Blogger platform, flexibility was very less and I just wasn’t able to put a photo gallery in the blog with breaking functionalities. So after a lot of deliberation and research, shelled out some $50 and bought a hosting, learned how to use WordPress, took 2 days leave from office and kept working on it endlessly. The end product was almost what you see now, not as beautiful as that Blogger blog of mine, but much more flexible.
   

   Shadows Galore 2.0

Phew! This is my story. I must say, that in these months of blogging, I have met wonderful people and have been so happy. Creating something is so beautiful! I must thank you all for the constant support you have shown. Am grateful! 🙂

Update: Shadows Galore 3.0 is here .. you are actually on it ! 🙂

PS: How did you start blogging? Will you share your story with us?