playing with time....

07 January 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

remember the gloomy day photoshoot from fifteen months ago?.... no?.... then let me refresh your memories.... we were in the middle of a photoshoot with two of our best models.... Lamisa and Tabassum.... time flies isn't it?.... to us it seemed just yesterday.... now we know that our children are growing.... and the evidence of their gradual progression can only be recorded in a camera.... what a magic machine that is!!

we had to sacrifice something every time we were allocating some time behind some photoshoot.... at that time we feel all the pain, tiredness, and throw a question-mark on the whole thing..... "is it really necessary?".... "what if I take a rest today and do it tomorrow??"..... I'm glad for every single photosession decision that I've taken in my life.... and I'm sad for every single one of them that I missed for one reason (excuse) or the other.... time is our judge.... I can't possibly answer the question in the ailing days -- "what was I doing on that day?? was I that busy??"

every time I find an excuse to pick the camera in my hand, I feel lucky.... lucky to capture time... history... glad that I chose to be a photographer!!

anyway, we wanted to recreate memory.... so, we dressed Lamisa and Tabassum in almost the same fashion we did fifteen months back.... we could see the difference... the children are no longer one-and-a-half year olds... they're now three-year-old preschoolers... they're much more expressive now....

on a technical note, this time the lighting was totally different.... you can see the background dark in the new photos.... this is the effect only a softbox would leave.... it was taken with an Elinchrom Rotalux 100cm "Deep Octa" softbox..... its punchy light with sharp falloff was quite evident.... and to add to the falloff, the softbox was a bit tilted towards the floor; not 100% parallel to the ground.... the main idea was to take some intimate portraits of the two together..... so, the setup wasn't that perfect to get them dancing around all over the place..... for that kind of shoot, probably the earlier setup was better.... to see the setup of the earlier shoot, please see the earlier blog post.....for this shoot, it was shot on D700 + 28-80mm lens and whole shoot was done at f8... trigger was Elinchrom Skyport....

a lot more to come....

all of that for a single idea....

Three special shoots explained....

December 2011
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh


December 2011 was a busy time for us.... not just with location shoots, but also with shooting at our studio.... our aim was to create some theme-based photos that would talk.... and for obvious reasons, we chose to make Lamisa as our model..... for a three-year old, the themes may seem a bit too matured.... but we took the challenge anyway.... working with children over some time taught us that it is always possible to bring some out-of-the-ordinary outcomes if the effort is there.... so, we went about the projects in our minds and ultimately they spawned into some of our most favourite pictures!!


Victory Day Shoot.....

the first one was with the 16 December Victory Day theme..... we thought about bringing that sad look in the photo.... just like the most famous song for the special day.... "sob kota janala khule dao na".... a look that would portray a wait; a wait for the fallen heroes of the soil.... that wait had to be in front of an open window, which would symbolise freedom.... and the picture won't be complete without the national flag...

it was a two-day effort to produce the whole thing.... the shoot was much more challenging than preparing the set.... the lighting was kept to bare simplicity.... one light only.... a big light, that would be enough to light our subject, the window, as well the flag, which would be 'behind' the window... used the Elinchrom Ranger + Rotalux 100cm "Deep Octa" combo..... the light is not only big, it also does something that other lights can't.... its quite punchy!!.... it doesn't wipe off all the shadows, keeping the mood in the photos... Elinchrom Skyport was used to trigger the light.... I was shooting with a 50mm f1.4 lens on D700.... wasn't intending to keep the windows tack sharp in the image.... so, used a fairly big aperture of f3.5....

now, the big question..... how on earth did we manage that expression from a preschooler??.... well, thats a lot more complicated than can be explained here.... suffice it to say that it took some effort.... Lamisa was not really comfortable sitting behind the window.... and it was particularly difficult to make her keep her hands on the windows.... and the icing on the cake was the expression.... didn't come easy.... at one point, we became a bit impatient too.... but in the end, it was a success!!

Mercury Dropping Shoot.....

the next one was almost an instant decision to bring about.... as it shows, it all came up from the sudden drop in temperatures sometime around the third week of December.... it required a one-day effort to pull it off.... was less challenging than the earlier Victory Day shoot.... again, kept the technicalities to simplicity.... just one light.... a Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe softbox combined with a YN-560 flash.... Elinchrom Skyport was the trigger.... used a 50mm 1.4 lens and shot pretty much wide open ~f2.8 on a D70s...this is an old camera that I just acquired recently... and this was a nice shoot to prove that old cameras don't die that easily!!.... 50mm on the D70s produced a nice perspective @75mm equivalent.... a good focal length for portraits....

Lamisa's expression was more of a result of spontaneity than anything else.... as usual, we provided the aid to bring an expression... but ultimately it comes down to the split-second moment when the shutter closes...

New Year Shoot....

now comes the last effort of 2011.... we wanted to have two images made... one would be a sad mood related to a goodbye for 2011... and the other would be welcoming 2012.... it was another two-day effort.... set preparation was done without a lot of difficulty.... but the actual shoot with the sad expression proved a bit of a challenge... it didn't seem too difficult to us as we had already achieved a much tougher project like the Victory Day shoot....

the shoots used two different perspectives... one would show 2011 going out of the frame with Lamisa in the background staring with a sad face.... to show this, I used a wide setting and a very low vantage point... @28mm, and so close to the prop, had to use as small an aperture as possible to have enough DoF.... was shooting @f11... it wasn't an ideal aperture for this kind of a DoF requirement, yet, it was sufficient for the shoot.... the main light was again the Elinchrom Ranger + Rotalux 100cm Deep Octa combo.... but this time, I wanted to cut the shadows.... so, placed three YN-560 flashes in optical trigger mode shooting at the ceiling in the opposite direction.... the three lights ensured a good enough recycle time for the shoot.... when shooting with children, recycle time is always important.... otherwise you may miss that precious moment....

for the second photo, used the same light setup.... only the props were changed and some change in wardrobe for Lamisa.... this time, the whole perspective was different... 2012 was 'moving in' and Lamisa was happy seeing it, as it brought hope.... @31mm, the whole setting was comfortably in the frame... used the cheapie 28-80mm lens on D700 for the whole shoot... trigger was Elinchrom Skyport for the main light... and optical trigger (S1) for the YN-560s....

the second photo was much more natural for Lamisa... and it was much less complicated given the effort to bring that expression....

a whole lot more to come....

the fight within.....

03 January 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Riad is a nice guy.... well, a bit too nice to say that he had nurtured a bit of disappointment at some hidden corner somewhere.... so, it was time to wipe that disappointment off.... he brought in some redundant stuff which he thought might be of use for our photography... but we ended up using all of that shooting him.... what else did we have to do on a nice Tuesday afternoon??

Riad is a big fan of movies.... you name it, he's got some opinion on it.... big fan of action flicks, he always had some of his favourite characters in his mind.... sometimes even trying to replicate them in some way or the other.... its always been a fight within himself.... trying to be something which always lives in imagination....


anyway, keeping that fight in mind, we decided to turn him into a character, which would resemble some tough character, quite opposite to his actual personality.... through expressions and gestures we tried to make different frames with different message... some typical of the character he tried to resemble; some typical of the fight that rages in his heart....

we kept the lighting simple.... as we were doing some low-key sorta stuff, black on black... backlight was essential.... a YN-560 with grid spot on it as the backlight, triggered in optical trigger mode (S1).... another YN-560 inside a Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe softbox as key light from camera left.... the key light was triggered by an Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger.... used a D70s with a 50mm 1.4 lens.... shot mostly around f2.8....

a lot more to come....

night lights love 85mm.....

I love my 85mm 1.8 lens... previously I had posted a blog on 85mm, utilising big windows.... but the best use of this lens doesn't come without some small lights in the background.... this lens produces some lovely bokeh.... I don't usually shoot @f1.8.... f2-2.8 produces really impressive bokeh, and at the same time, this improves sharpness.... the lens is quite sharp, mind you... but the sharpest results can be attained stopped down a little...

talking of bokeh, not everything looks that well as a background.... if there is anything as book object, it has to be lights.... out-of-focus lights produce a dreamy backdrop, making it the perfect lens for night-time portraits.... half-body to full-body portraits produce the best results with this lens, when it really shows its colours...

this lens loves street lights at night... lights and neon signs become dreamy and automatically improves the overall feel of the image.... wedding photographers love this lens.... I'm no wedding photographer, but I've used this lens at night many a times to know how good it is....

at night, focusing is bit of an issue... but that natural with any lens at night.... some sort of focusing assistance has to be there.... and when we are talking of full-body portraits, the distance of the camera from the subject makes the camera's in-built focusing assistant much less effective.... this isn't a complain against this lens in any way.... its a trait of a lens that is 85mm in focal length.... you just have to know how an 85mm lens works...

hope to post something similar on 50mm 1.4 and Sigma 150mm macro lenses sometime in future....

the hooded attitude....

28 December 2011
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

this was an unplanned session.... we just decided to shoot some photos literally within minutes... the whole shoot lasted barely 10 minutes!!.... we didn't try anything fancy, yet, we wanted it to be representative... we took in a thematic way, rather than literally....

our subject was a confident young man... with an attitude.... we used his hood and made him look like a hooded warrior; though he's not a warrior; not even a boxer; but he's got the attitude of a fighter.... that attitude is always beyond visual; always protected by a strong self-belief....

we had two lights within the frame.... didn't make any effort to remove the lightstands from the frame... the two lights in the back were the brightest, yet not able to revel his full face.... that went more with the theme in our view... the two lights were two YN-560s in optical trigger mode, which were triggered by the main light, another YN-560 inside a Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe softbox, triggered by an Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger.... kept things simple inside the camera.... 28-80mm lens on D700 @f8....

a lot more to come soon enough....

never forget to experiment....

Christmas Day
25 December 2011
Dhanmondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh

it was a shortish photo-session.... wasn't even planned.... but we kept the options open for a session; our gears rested in our car.... as it turned out, we were really happy that we brought the gears with us..... when you have an enthusiastic subject, its always possible to come out with something interesting....

our aim was to create something interesting.... the way we started out, we all were kinda disappointed with the typical outputs.... then we changed the light direction and changed the pose to bring out some interesting portraits.... yet, something wasn't really right as we continued to change our setups.... our subject got a bit frustrated as she thought she wasn't the right subject for interesting portraits.... but hey, we just got started.... you should never give up trying until you really think its not possible to do something more... it didn't take too long for us to bring that look in the photos....

we decided to dramatize the settings a bit.... our main light was a YN-560 flash inside a Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe softbox, which was producing typical stuff.... then we added another flash in the back (another YN-560) with warm gel filter on it.... that at least brought out some feel to the pictures, with a glowing backlight....

 

then we decided to experiment and to dramatize it a bit more.... took off the softbox and propelled the bare flash through a patterned surface.... experimented with the distances a bit and changed the wardrobe too.... that at least brought out some mood in the pictures....the experiment paid off.... never forget to experiment... you may end up getting something interesting....

the trigger for the main light was Elinchrom Skyport and the other flash flash was in optical trigger (S1) mode.... used an 85mm lens on D700 for close shots... and used f2.8 for a dreamy feel and put the background shadows out of focus....

a lot more to come....