Since I can't kick, I shall click.

It's been almost year since I started playing with DSLRs. And friends and relatives have been asking me why I've suddenly picked up the camera.

All along, or since young, I've never thought I'd be interested in photography. I've always been the soccer guy. Field soccer, street soccer, or other ball games. Photography seemed a boring hobby, and I always left the shooting at outings to other people or professionals.

All was going well until I lost the ACL during a friendly match in June 09. Ironically it was on NJ's newly laid artificial pitch, one of the few places one could expect to get injured on. It was a harrowing experience. I pivoted on the right leg while swinging the left to clear the ball, and soon enough, a 'pop' went off and I lay on the grass. That's when I knew something had gone horribly wrong. In hindsight, I think the cause was a lack of warm up, since we were late for kick off, no time for proper warm up. Well, a lesson to be learnt there.




It was only 2 months after the first injury before I started running again. Soon, I got back to playing soccer. The doc said that if I could do the things I did before, op was not necessary. I was back to playing level and it felt as if I had not been injured at all. (although MRI reports are most of the time true) So I continued playing for 1 year, till August 2010.




I was playing with my usual Saturday khaki at Serangoon. This time round I was jumping to control the ball and landed awkwardly on my right leg. The knee was jarred and I experienced the same excruciating pain I did in NJ. If the ACL wasn't torn then, it felt like it did this time round. School was starting in less than a month's time. The injury worried my mum, whether it would affect my ability to travel to school etc. I did, in the end.




I was defiant, went back to soccer, and injured it a few more times. Each time it happened, I cursed my luck and the damn knee. Needless to say, a few more rounds of worrying for my folks. That's when I decided, no more soccer until I go for the op and get back to shape again.

Since then, I started playing with cameras. My cousin's Nikon D40 which was collecting dust at their home anyway. Brought it to Vietnam for holiday, and they made me the "chief photographer". That's how I started gaining interest.

So I had been shooting more and more. Camera-wise that is, and less and less physical soccer. I still watch matches though, supporting the red of Manchester. Soon enough I had realised photography had started becoming my hobby, replacing soccer. That is something I still find hard to believe, up till now. Then I got my own 550D, and have seen gotten lost in the world of shutters and lenses.

I still love soccer though, and really miss the times when I could play freely, without injury. I do wish to put on the boots once more. That's only after I successfully get the knee fixed, put in loads of strengthening and rehab, get back to full fitness, then return to rule the courts.

Till then, I'll have my cameras to distract me from the ball.