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.....
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| From Baunia, 12 November 2010 |
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| From Baunia, 12 November 2010 |
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| From Baunia, 12 November 2010 |
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| 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...
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| From Baunia, 12 November 2010 |
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| 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
