one hour's strobist meet........

09 October 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

we decided this just a couple of days back, and stuck to the plan..... three participants.... Rumi Bhai, Gazi Bhai and me..... time was almost squeezed.... but still enough was there for a decent shootout.... after all, how does a picture take to expose... less than a second? :P

anyway, we picked a less busy area of Mohammadpur and began to do our thing..... the idea was to shoot strobist.... so, we set up our lights from the start.... I was shooting Nikon and those two were shooting Canon.... as they both were relying on TTL trigger, I kept my trigger separate..... we loved the background lights produced by neon signs and aimed to include those in the frame..... I took my tripod with me to mix ambient with strobe..... and used the 85mm f1.8 lens that I haven't used in a while.... just got a knock from others on the web and thought I better be getting along with it....





I started with adjusting ambient light and then adjusted the light..... my aim from the start was to give just a wee bit of light, which can be considered as part of the ambiance on the street...... no sudden unnatural wash of light...... just the bit of fill light was missing in the shot...... focusing the lens in that extreme low light condition was a challenge..... we used mobile phone, torch and lighter to help focus..... it worked anyway..... :).... we all became subjects for each other until Abdur Rahim came up..... well, he turned out to be the most interesting subject of the evening..... the people in the street stared for a while at us, every now and then...... and then walked away.... a bit puzzled..... we just went about our way..... it was a short, but nice effort..... already thinking of the next one... :)



under all that glitter .......
Abdur Rahim is one of those shy fellas who don't wanna waste too much time in front of a camera.... shaken by the camera and lights, he took some time to remember his own name.... he's one of those simple people who make their living on the streets, not touched by the glittering lights of the mega-city.....

Abdur Rahman is a street vendor selling ground nuts....



Camera info:
Nikon D700 @ ISO 200; 1/4sec; on tripod + Nikkor AF 85mm f1.8D @f2 + Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger.
Strobist info:
One SB-900 on camera left, almost behind subject; @1/32 power; shooting through a white shoot-through umbrella; on a tripod; triggered by Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger