the worldfamous ghats of varanasi attract a lot of visitors everyday especially to enjoy the early morning scene and the spectacular ganga arti in the evening with a picture perfect backdrop young photographers can easily be seen strolling on the ghats to click the moments for those inclined for it and whats more they carry portable batteroperated printers to give printouts instantly however now with smartphones and selfies becoming the order of the day there is a drastic downslide in their business in some cases nearly 80 as the demand for instant pictures dwindles old is not gold anymore pradeep kumar a photographer whos been clicking pictures at dashashwamedh ghat since the last seven years says smartphones and the fad for selfies have really taken a toll on our business earlier we used to earn 1000 per day but now it has been reduced to 200300 per day and on a really lean day it further dips to 50100 ravi singh another photographer at the same place agrees with pradeep with a mobile phone with camera costing as low as 2000 we are now wary of approaching a person to offer our photography services jab hamare pass smartphone hai toh hum aap se photo kyon khichwaye is the usual reply we get especially from young visitors at the ghat we rarely approach them as they are not ready to pay even 20 which we charge per photograph it is the convenience factor that goes in favour of selfies instead of these posed photographs clicked by professional photographers feels prem prabhu vishwakarma a railway employee vishwakarma who visited the ghat for ganga arti recently reasons taking a selfie is way easier than posing for a photographer one can take innumerable photos with their own mobile camera and save the best one which is not possible if you hire a photographer one cannot pick and choose a lot of time and money is wasted if the clicks do not turn out to be perfect establishing a comfort level with the photographer is another reason why people are not getting pictures clicked by these photographers one cannot do masti while posing for a photographer on the ghats the ghats give ample opportunities to click mood shots which can come only if one is comfortable with the person taking the picture says saumya parashar studying at delhi university who visited the ghats recently further fear of misuse of photographs is another reason which prevents girls from going in for a hired photographer why take the risk of getting pictures clicked by a stranger when i can get them clicked on one of my friends mobile which has a high resolution camera that gives good results questions rini rahul another collegian from patna visiting banaras these days the hard way also many youngsters feel that hard copies of photographs are an outdated concept though we have portable instant printing machines but youngsters are not keen on hard copies we have even started using a better