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Digital photography for those who have tried it, is a lot like playing golf, the violin or bowling a googly. When the master does it, it looks very easy. But when you try it, things get frustrating! You start out thinking: with today's digital camera everything is so easy - just look at the image on the monitor behind the camera and click; Voilà! You've taken a good shot. If only!

Bad photographs from your camera take many avatars: Shaky Pictures where nothing is clear, Dark Photos that look like there was no light when in fact you shot it in broad daylight! And Washed-out Photos because of too much light - makes Kerala look like the Sahara Desert!

Last year, within weeks of opening his three pixetra camera stores, two in Cochin and one in Bangalore, owner Srikantan Suryanarayanan identified this disappointment among his customers. And he decided to do something to alleviate their disappointment with their results. "Abroad, most high schools, and several colleges offer photography as an ancillary subject; so there is tremendous awareness to techniques and a lot of people learn to use the camera. In order to bring that kind of awareness, we at pixetra decided a four-step plan." Srikantan explains.

"First, when a customer buys a camera from pixetra, the store staff take them thru the simple how-to lessons so that they don't make the most common mistakes like camera shake and under-exposed photos due to poor lighting indoors. Next, we have started pixetra Club, a coming-together of serious minded amateur photographers interested in taking their hobby to the next level. The club meets regularly in both, Cochin and Bangalore, and members share tips and learn from each other - the club-platform also gives an opportunity for groups interested in outdoor activities, like trekking and wildlife, to get together and organize photo-outings. On a third tier, pixetra Club arranges periodic lectures and classes by working professional photographers - these are short, intense seminars or workshops and participants come away knowing a lot of simple tricks to take better photos. More importantly, they get 'charged' or inspired to take more and better photos. Since a lot of photography is about creativity, this is very satisfying to us also.

"The fourth level of knowledge-sharing we want to do is online - pixetra club is already on the web at www.pixetra.com/club. Very soon we will have a large community of amateur photographers using the many features being added: discussion forums where members can post their photography related questions and find answers, equipment advise, photo-blog, photo-critic forum where members post their photos for other members to comment and share constructive criticisms to help improve, and so on.

"We found our USP - pixetra's motto today is 'Beyond Imaging' and while there are many retails stores out there where our camera prices may be matched, we offer knowledge-add-ons that are unique - only at pixetra!" smiles Srikantan.