Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh
it was Friendship Day.... and my good friend Ayon gave me a wonderful idea in the morning... to involve the family members in an intimate friendship day shoot.... I got determined, even though it was a hard day at office in Ramadan.... we were supposed to spend the evening at my in-laws anyway, so, I thought this was a day that should not be wasted, no matter what....
my determination faced the first hurdle even before I had reached there..... I had little time to pack up after coming back from office.... and I was thinking of packing the most necessary gears for a strobist evening..... tested the new Lowepro Rezo 190 bag and my old soft bag that I got from office years ago.... it was a new assignment for both the bags.... but more appropriately, it was a test for me to utilise the space as efficiently as possible, as the bags didn't really allow a mountain to go in them.... I reached there everything packed alright... but through the hurry, I forgot to pack the most important small item.... a PC sync cable, without which the Elinchrom Skyport radio triggers won't work with the YN-560 flashes....
so, right after Iftar, me and my wife went out to accomplish some things that could help us remember the day better.... we went to a gift shop to buy some wrist-bands, specially made for friendship.... we reached home from the shop through drenching rain.... and while I was leaving the just-purchased merchandise from the store, I also left the wrist-bands at home..... so, once we reached my in-laws, I realised that I got the PC-sync cables, but left the wrist-bands!!..... we decided to make do.... and somehow, my wife was able to manage something out of nothing.... she extracted some laces from some toys that had the exact messages that we wanted.... and thats it.... we didn't need another splash of rain to get it done!!
folks down there were happy.... happy to have their grand-child with them for an occasion.... its not that they don't have Lamisa regularly... but you know emotions.... and a bit more of that went into this shoot.... we haven't had a shoot of Lamisa with her grand-parents for some time.... so, it was just more than appropriate to have this shoot on this day.... people here are really vowing to keep this friendship for life.... and friendships like this do last a lifetime.....
technically speaking, I used a Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe Softbox on a Manfrotto monopod as a boom, held by my wife and Riad (my brother-in-law)..... to eliminate shadows, I posted a flash on the ground with a grid spot on it.... but unfortunately, the flash didn't work most of the times as the battery was somehow at its lowest end... too bad that I didn't notice this earlier.... anyway, the shots looked nice enough.... more than the technical quality of the shots, it was more of the moment that made it important.... Lamisa was already searching for bed, so, it was hard to keep her attention.... Riad wanted to feature in an arm-wrestling kind of encounter with Lamisa.... but that didn't really work great..... its difficult make a preschooler understand what you intend to see in a photograph!!
anyway, much much more to come.... the backlogs are still backlogged!!
