a small gift.....

05 December 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

I had some opportunity to do some shoot with Toma before.... she has a great face for camera..... short sessions, but productive..... one of the best things with in-laws is that you can always ask them to feature in front of the lens.... and they just do as told.... anyway, this time it was a bit different, as Toma was no longer alone.... she was with her life-partner, Liton.... I missed their marriage ceremony, but was privileged to get the opportunity to have them together in a frame.... and this session would also remain in memory for long, as they plan to fly to Australia after some days..... it was a gift to them..... God bless the new-married couple!








this was basically the first time I had done a photoshoot with a couple since becoming a strobist.... the challenges were many..... the subjects were no models; so had to instruct a lot.... sometimes, banked on some spontaneous moments..... has decided to use basically one light to illuminate them...... the Simpex 50x120cm softbox played the real trick.... the idea was to use the softbox as a strip-light.... the control of light with this modifier was superb!...... I was using this modifier for the second time..... the first time was during the graffiti shoot (check the last post)...... but that time, it was without the diffusion material..... the Elinchrom Ranger was the power source..... somewhat below 200w/s power...... used an SB-900 at 1/4 power with a DIY grid as a hair-light (in SU-4 optical trigger mode) on an improvised boom stand.... the light didn't really feature that much when I was shooting both of them..... I did some practice shots with Toma where the hair-light was good enough though..... well, lets see, need to improve upon this a bit..... and on another point, perhaps a reflector on the opposite side would've added a little bit more highlights on the shadow side.... but hey, perhaps another day..... I'm still learning!!

I was using f10 on the venerable 28-80mm lens for good enough depth..... to keep two people sharp was a bit of a challenge.... at f10, the SB-900 was a bit underpowered at 1/4 power..... that was probably one of the reasons why the hair-light wasn't featuring much...... the grid reduced it further..... it was a bit of necessity as I didn't want the hair-light to create flares on my lens...... I didn't want to push the power more, as I also wanted to keep a bit of recycle time in my hand.... and ultimately that little recycle time produced the images I wanted....

up there once again!!

Second High-Rise Graffiti Shoot
03 December 2010
Dhaka, Bangladesh

we knew we had to go there again..... that was the impression we had the last time we toiled to climb those 10 floors.... the rarity of such items made us take the pain last time and we simply weren't satisfied enough..... now, just a few days back, Zaim came up with another proposition, stating the increase in the number of graffiti there... we simply couldn't resist.... we jumped into organising the second venture there.... though the number of participants weren't awfully high..... yet, the enthusiasm was there 100%.... big thanks to Zaim for making this happen and also thanks to all the participants for making a fantastic enjoyable event!

this time, we also had several models with us...... Ornob and Rafi were great subjects...... these two friends of Ashif were superb!!.... big hands for Ashif for bringing them .... they were not only great in front of the lens, they had great enthusiasm and energy...... we moved around so much with our setups; yet they were never tired a bit.... they enjoyed the event as much as we did..... and our fellow photographer Nasif was also superb in front of the lens.... he showed his multi-talented traits with pride....

it was a morning venture with intention to close off by mid-day, though we overshot our targeted timing pretty easily..... winter days are short, which is why we opted for morning rather than afternoon hours..... we started to gather right after 9:00AM, but we couldn't start our shoot before around 10:30AM.... it was a first timer for me with the Ranger unit.... the first test was portability.... it passed the test pretty much comfortably.... around 10kg weight up to 10th floor.... well, thats a good start..... I'm still alive.... didn't really end up testing the power of the unit, but we did test its ability to stop action.....

I had the privilege to help others and got some pics myself as well.... the first effort was to shoot some funky portraits..... I started off with the Elinchrom Ranger, shooting through a 60x60cm softbox... the light was overhead, while an SB-900 illuminated the background through a DIY grid spot.... Nasif was seriously moody here....





then added another light behind Nasif on a tripod (SB-900 on SU-4 optical trigger mode) to give some edge light.... also told Ashif to hold a foldable reflector (white side) to bounce a Canon 430EX flash off it.... that reduced the shadows created on Nasif's face as he turned away from the main light....



next, illuminated Ornob with a single gridded SB-900..... this created a really funky look....





and then brought in the Elinchrom Ranger with the 60x60cm softbox to do a similar shot, but in a different mood..... used the surface of the newly acquired 50x120cm softbox as a go-bo, preventing light from creating highlights on the wall.... thanks to Ashif, Nasif and Dhrubo for taking the pain holding the go-bo up there....



Nasif then featured under the same set-up....



then it was time for action..... the Ranger got the 50x120cm softbox without the diffusion material..... the idea was to stop action keeping the subject in focus and having minimum exposure on the graffiti wall.... Rafi, Nasif and Ornob produced a great series to ubran warriors..... it was a great shoot and utterly hilarious!!













that was the end of the session with the action shots..... we almost forgot how much time we had crossed..... we packed up almost in a hurry..... but not without getting a really creative group shot...... Dipa has the image in her portfolio..... that was the last fun for the day..... while we were packing up, we discussed the fact that the place it probably counting its days as a photography venue for us..... that made us think whether we could utilise this superb place once again!

its been a while since I've done this......

26 November 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

its a self-portrait..... the last time I can remember taking a self-portrait was probably back in September 2006...... and that too, was a ghostly portrait, experimenting with long exposures....

anyway, just came back from a party, so, I thought it wouldn't be too bad if I can utilise the wardrobe a bit..... but it was a pain to get a good shot..... I don't know how some others do this so efficiently.... but I struggled.... struggled to focus and frame correctly..... so, it took me quite a few tries to get a decent shot....

used the Elinchrom Ranger as the main light...... and very interestingly, my Simpex accessories seem to be going with Elinchrom somewhat.... not 100%, but certainly workable.... the Simpex 25"x25" softbox sat on the Ranger A-head almost perfectly.... wooooha!!!...... one light, thats it..... camera was on a tripod with timer.... Elinchrom Skyport used as trigger.....

as the setup was more-or-less ready, we carried on with some more portraiture..... put an SB-900 (in SU-4 optical trigger mode) with grid-spot for hair light..... had to push the power of this one up to around 1/4, as I was shooting at f10.... still, the SB-900 was struggling to make its presence felt.... the 28-80mm lens is producing some awesome images at lower apertures.... images at f10 are freaking sharp!!.... any lens is supposed to make such sharp images at lower apertures.... so, no point breaking the bank if you are shooting f10.....

I suddenly decided to do some sort of editing that I usually don't..... used the Old Image effect in Lightroom and kinda liked it.... so, kept it that way..... and as both the subjects were wearing black, it probably wasn't a bad idea to try out some different stuff in editing....

still have been shooting the Ranger in low power settings..... have to take it out some day to see what it can do.... but one thing is for sure, this is only one light.... and that much power from one direction may cast some stark shadows on the other direction.... other lights in my possession are not even nearly as powerful as the Ranger..... so, there may be some challenges ahead.... lets see....

much more to come....

same Lamisa, but another cake!!

25 November 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

yes, thats the second time too!!....... Lamisa does it again!!..... another cake, but the same Lamisa.... this time she's not alone.... her little buddies were there too to witness the event.... Tabassum jumped in, so did Adiba and Aarib..... a short, but memorable photoshoot.... children always give the best memories over the years, as they grow so fast.... this pic would be cutest pic after several years, when all these little ones would be able to watch how small they once had been!!




now the tech stuff......... wanted to reduce the unattractive background..... that called for a tele lens to flatten perspective.... and tele called for a smaller aperture for proper sharpness across the frame and to ensure enough DoF for several people....... shot at 125mm, it wasn't possible to use on-camera flash and then diffuse it.... so, it had to be off-camera flash..... but at f10, SB-900 would struggle to produce a decent frame rate.... so, called in the Ranger unit with 35" brolly..... enough light, problem solved?.... no.... the shadows on the other side were too dark..... so, brought in an SB-900 and a 34" shoot-through umbrella on a tripod.... shot at 1/8 power, it was able to take away the shadows mostly...... the Ranger was triggered by Skyport unit and the SB-900 picked up the light from the Ranger in SU-4 optical slave mode.... but the SB-900 responded to other camera flashes as well, making it unprepared for my shoot in some cases... lessons learned...

Lamisa Turns Two!!

23 November 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

yea, we know its not the 23rd..... it was couple of hours early!.... but we couldn't help.... Lamisa's wickets start to tumble after 11:30PM.... and by 12:00AM, she can hardly stand...... so, we decided to cut the cake (cut??) when Lamisa still hadn't felt the effect of her daylong exploration!!

anyway, we decided to unleash Lamisa on the cake, rather than cutting it formally.... and as expected, Lamisa pounced on the cake and made her day.... why not?.... after all, its her birthday!!......

the "beast" has arrived!!!

23 November 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

at last the beast arrived!!....... I had been longing for this for almost a year..... it was almost a dream getting to open that massive case!!...... yes, the impossible had at last happened and I got my Elinchrom Ranger (Elinchrom Ranger RX Speed AS with A-Head; packed in carrying case; extra battery; 35" brolly; two reflectors) in my hand!!..... it had been a hard decision for me..... I asked myself many questions before I finally decided to go for the Ranger..... I was actually looking to invest in things that I thought would really help me change/diversify my photography..... I refrained from getting any new lenses, and definitely not cameras..... in fact, I got rid of all my previous camera bodies until I ended up with the magnifico D700..... lenses can get me sharper images, less distortion, good bokeh, faster focus, etc. that ensure only the technical quality of an image, but doesn't make a good or different photograph...... the lenses that I have in my hand are more than enough to do decent photography.... the only option that remained was "the light"......

ever since discovering the strobist movement, I never looked back..... I never thought of all the possibilities until I was able to fire my first off-camera flash.... since then most of my effort went into understanding light and getting to use light in the best possible ways..... I'm learning, I'm experimenting and I'm making mistakes..... it had never been more exciting for me...... it gave my photography a new dimension..... when I was challenging myself whether I would be able to keep myself in photography because of job pressure, this word "strobist", invented by David Hobby, gave me a new life..... now I was able to shoot even when there was no daylight..... it kept me in photography..... I was able to enlist myself in "52 weeks project"...... this opened the door to many new possibilities...... this is a new lifeblood for me.... and the Ranger will certainly push me further....




I will post some more things about this "beast" as I get to know more about it..... I haven't been able to take the thing outdoor, where it belongs..... thats when things will start to heat up...... am still thinking how to take this massive thing out..... the battery pack alone weighs 8kg!!.... the flash head and some accessories would add more weight when I would be on location..... lets see, how I can manage it.... but I will manage it for sure..... thats the challenge I would have to take.... after all, this is the single biggest investment that I have made in my photography!!

shot a few images over the last couple of days.... first, with a white backdrop (4'x4' diffusion panel) illuminated by a Simpex Prolite 400D (shooting into a 31" silver reflecting umbrella) at full power (oh shit!!)..... and then, against a blak background...... both occasions, the Ranger A-Head was in a 35" umbrella brolly softbox..... I shot at 1/250s and f11..... this wasn't really possible with SB-900s.... I required at least f8 to shoot decent pics with SB-900s shooting through 4'x4' diffusion panel....





lot more to come....

testing the DIY backdrop stand......

18 November 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

after Eid day, it was turn for a continuation...... Lamisa provided me with the impetus in the morning.... she pulled me into my makeshift studio...... it was real delight actually.... it is always so difficult to keep her in front of the lens... and now it came from her!!..... she posed in front of the lens in a voluntary act and the whole shoot was done within minutes!!







and then the night shoot was inspired by my wife..... Lamisa played a small part, but the most important thing was that she stayed out of the frame in most occasions, which was too important!!





the set-up.....



Eid day shoots were done using an improvised backdrop, which wasn't really suitable for portraits of a full-grown human..... Lamisa was probably the biggest subject in front of it..... I wanted to extend the shoots beyond these limited prospects..... I had a much bigger backdrop stand made of aluminium pipes that I had used previously, but not with a lotta success..... the stand was not stable enough.... but since acquiring the boom stands, I had the idea floating around in my head.... the booms came from the mike stands that I had acquired a while back.... the base of the mike stands provided an excellent set of studio equipment.... two of these base stands provided the base for the backdrop stands.... the backdrop stands had bases for themselves, but they needed weights to stand upright..... now the base stands gave the badly needed balance.... no weights required.... on the other hand, the cross-bar was another problem before..... attaching the cross-bar to the stands was something of a challenge previously..... now the system works much better with the use of "T"..... a couple of "T" attached the cross-bar perfectly on top of the stands.... the system was now more stable than any time....

another problem was to cut the spill of light.... that was absolute necessity to work with a black background.... I don't have a big softbox and space is something of a premium..... using panels provide the big lights, but they do produce a lot of light-spill.... I had been using some black fabric as sort of a GoBo between the backdrop and the main diffuser...... that more-or-less did the job.... but today, I found another spill on the top-end of the backdrop.... this spill wasn't there previously as the backdrop wasn't that high.... I thus put another black fabric on the SB-900-diffuser combination and the the spill was gone.....

another change was the power of the SB-600 hair-light.... I had overestimated the SB-600 and kept its power at one-stop higher than the other SB-900 hair-light.... it seems that the SB-600 needed much more power to feature in the shot.... so, whereas I used 1/128 power on the SB-900, I used 1/8 power on the SB-600.... both served the purpose of hair-light..... the above shots hardly had the effect of the SB-600.... for some later shots the SB-600 had the power increased and was featuring much more clearly in the shots.....

Eid-ul Azha........

17 November 2010
Mohamadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Eid Mubarak...... its Eid-ul Azha.... its usually an Eid of busy times.... had been busy most of the morning hours and resting during the afternoon.... had lunch pretty late and wasn't really in a mood to do some shooting..... but it all changed in a moment as Tabassum and company hopped in..... Lamisa was very busy during the day, making our lives twice as busy as it could've been..... this was her second Eid-ul Azha..... and she got rejuvenated after finding her mate, Tabassum.....

we cut cakes and did some photo-session...... Riad, my brother-in-law showed up and it was a bit of a party for a short while.....









for the later photo-shoot, I followed a similar set-up that I used in a shoot-out last month..... the set-up worked pretty well after putting on the grid/snoot on the hair lights..... there was a bit of light-spill on the black backdrop, which went away totally after using the grid/snoot..... used the venerable 28-80mm lens.... had been using this lens for a while as something of an experiment.... also used this for an outdoor shoot for the first time on the 16th, the day before Eid...... more on that in the next blog, hopefully.....

Baunia adventure.....

12 November 2010
Baunia, Dhaka, Bangladesh

A short photowalk it was from TTL ("Through the Lens: Bangladesh" group of Flickr)..... Shudipto organised it in short notice, as he thought it would be a good idea to go there with some click-buddies, rather than going alone..... and it turned out to be a nice outing..... we had a lotta fun, though not sure how much we were able to click!...... well, it was a lesson concerning the moments to expect at the time and place of our preference.... I didn’t join another PW couple of months back; so, it was a new discovery for me almost..... I went to this place many years back actually, when I didn’t pick up a camera...... the place has definitely changed since then.....

Its the end of the runways at the airport..... planes land at that end and usually put some pressure on our hearing devices..... that the thrill people want to enjoy ultimately...... the close proximity of the screaming silvery beasts is something of a tourist attraction here..... there is security around here and usually they try to keep the onlookers at bay.... the lines of landing approach lights there were not fully secured by the way, and thats why the authorities were closing off that part of the area..... well, as it turned out, we actually ended up there on the last day of a free-ride!!.... the section containing the landing approach lights were being sealed off..... we actually had to find a hole in the fence to come out of the area at the end of our venture.....

From Baunia, 12 November 2010

From Baunia, 12 November 2010

From Baunia, 12 November 2010

From Baunia, 12 November 2010

Anyway, it was a Friday and we had little idea about flight schedules..... there were many people roaming about the place seeking to get a glimpse of those monsters from the smallest distance...... it was a gloomy day and even though we could see the sun, it was quite subdued and barely enough for good photography......... we were sort of out of ideas about what to shoot other than those low-flying giants..... I took a small strobist kit with me to do some experimentation with flashes..... as it turned out, all others went without flashes.... big thanks to Zaim to feature in front of the lens and another big thanks to Mithun and Audity Bhai for being great assistants..... Zaim also assisted when he was not featuring...... and I really needed these assists as it wasn’t really possible to station the flashes somewhere up there..... and the small tripod that I took with me, also malfunctioned while the umbrella was set on the flash..... anyway, there was hardly any way other than assistants to take photographs..... I’m grateful to them...

From Baunia, 12 November 2010

From Baunia, 12 November 2010

The light condition jumped from being ordinary to utterly hopeless within a short time..... I decided not to push my ISO to catch the planes...... I rather let the planes’ landing lights blur out and create trails against the dark skies..... while the sun was still there, I used the umbrella to soften the light coming from the single SB-900...... Elinchrom Skyport was the trigger used for the flash..... for the group pic and the ones with the planes, I used two flashes.... both were on tripods..... I borrowed one tripod from Saif Bhai to set the second SB-900..... the second flash was in SU-4 mode (optical trigger) firing after seeing the light from the other SB-900...... I wanted some depth in the images, which is why I decided to use a relatively smaller aperture (f13-f6.3)..... didn’t push the ISO at all (ISO 100)..... the flashes were working at ¼ power to full power..... didn’t bother about it too much though, as I was shooting only sporadically; no burst of shooting.....
For the planes to cause the longest light trails, I wanted a jet aircraft, as it approaches much faster..... the last couple of planes were propeller-driven unfortunately, and the one we saw after packing up, was a massive jet; adding salt to our wound!! :P

there's something about the light.....

03 November 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

there must be something about the light..... by light I mean light created by fire.... the age-old light source..... man had been fascinated by this phenomenon and it made a deep mark in his thoughts..... somehow, the light has to be there to complete the spirituality..... the ambiance isn't complete without it.....

its an integral part of faith..... just the other day (2nd November 2010) I came back from All Souls Day event..... an important day in the Christian calendar...... it reminded me of another festival I witnessed a few days back, Prabarana Purnima festival of the Buddhists..... both the events had a lotta candles..... there's another event coming up for the Hindus.... Kali Puja, where there would be more lights..... I've gone to the old part of town last year to witness that one.....

I was literally amazed by the lighting that only candles were able to produce at the graveyard of Farm-gate Church..... I missed the photowalk last year.... this time, I was determined to catch it.... although I missed last year's full moon under a cloudy sky......

From All Souls Day, Dhaka, November 2010

From All Souls Day, Dhaka, November 2010

From All Souls Day, Dhaka, November 2010

From All Souls Day, Dhaka, November 2010

have seen something similar at Prabarana Purnima festival as well (22nd October 2010)...... it was all about lights...... surely a festival of lights.....

From Prabarana Festival 22 October 2010

From Prabarana Festival 22 October 2010

From Prabarana Festival 22 October 2010

From Prabarana Festival 22 October 2010

and this is what I saw last year (18th October 2009) during Kali Puja (Diwali)....... lights again.....

From Kali Puja, Shakharibazar, Dhaka, October 2009

From Kali Puja, Shakharibazar, Dhaka, October 2009