Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Music is my Soul - My first flashlit shot


Music is my Soul, originally uploaded by LooseCanon.

Since the very day I started photography, i've absolutely hated flashes. Whenever I've used the flash on my camera, it has only spoiled the shot with flat looking subjects, screwed up colors and horrible shadows.
But then a read through this very famous website (http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/) changed things drastically. I finally collected enough money and mind to buy a Vivitar 285HV flash unit. It's a fairly dumb, fully manual flash... and I love such stuff because if offers complete control (yeah, i am a control freak).
Anyway, I bought the flash unit along with a 10m sync chord and hot-shoe adapter and now I was ready for off-camera lighting.
I requested my friend Arpita to pose for a test shoot. Considering the amount of text I had read about flashes and off camera lighting before buying the 285HV, it hardly took me any time to setup the light and start the shoot. As it was just an experiment, we decided to shoot on the terrace of my building. The trees and taller buildings all around practically killed all my creative space leaving me with the only option of shooting towards the sky... and that actually worked for the shot.
So, for this shot, I put the flash to the camera right about 60 degrees at 1/4th power. Then I asked Arpita to swing to the beats of a song and started clicking. I'm glad that by the end of the shoot, I had a good picture of her where I could portray her passion for music and also my notion that "flashes are bad" got shattered for good.
Now i'm collecting some more off-camera lighting setup and hope to do a better job in future.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Timeless Grace


Timeless Grace, originally uploaded by LooseCanon.

Portrait of an old Shepherd Lady, shot on b&w film at a village near Hosur, TN. I was surprised at the grace she had on her face inspite of the wrinkles that tell the tale of a hard life.

This is one of the first portraits i shot with a b/w film. Later I used that roll of film to click more landscapes and also for wide angles at Lepakshi. Compared to color film, b&w film is a different ball-game altogether. Here are the learnings -
1. Almost all my frames are over-exposed. That too, when i know for sure that i metered them properly. The dynamic range of b&w films is much lower than that of color films. So the dark shades appear darker and bright shades appear brighter. So, need to deliberately underexpose every frame by at least 1 stop to achieve correct exposure.
2. The details are captured, but the contrast is usually quite high. Therefore, It's an excellent choice for portraits, historic monuments, textures and sculptures.
4. There is a LOT of grain in b&w film. But the kind of mood it creates is outstanding. Every frame, looks right out of history.
5. It's tough to get b&w film developed. If you find a good developer, let me know ASAP.
6. If you plan to get the film printed, always ask about the paper being used. B&W film printed on regular color paper looks awful. You get only brown/sepia tones and the feel totally goes for a toss.