children + mood + B&W = ?

07 January 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Lamisa and Tabassum are cousins..... we are always on the hunt for some photos when they gather in one place.... the two children are quite contrasting when we talk about their moods..... whereas Lamisa is always on the move and happy to give a happy face, Tabassum is, most of the times, on the moody side of things.... this gives a great opportunity for some contrasty photos when these two get together.... this particular instance was one of those opportunities that we utilised to get some cool moody photos...

if you had been following our video podcasts, you probably have seen our child photography basics video featuring these two.... one of the most important things we talked about in that video was keeping attention of children...... and thats what we concentrated on in the first place when we started this photo-session.... but as the session progressed, we started to get some unique pictures.... by unique, we mean the unique combination of moods produced by the two subjects.... each and every combination produced a different kind of mood in the picture and created opportunity for uniqueness..... but that also created the challenge of constantly keeping attention on both the subjects and to induce them to "produce" some moods....

one of the ways to have a successful "moody" session is to keep other things simple.... we kept a simple lighting setup.... something of bare necessity.... and stuck to it for the whole session.... just one light... Elinchrom Ranger RX + Rotalux 100cm "Deep Octa" softbox.... the light allowed us (recycle time) to use f8, which allowed for a decent DoF for the two.... [for more on DoF and recycle time, please see our earlier blog post here].... the trigger was Elinchrom Skyport.... D700 was used along with the cheap 28-80mm lens....

this was one of those successful sessions when we were able to keep their attention for a substantial amount of time (29 minutes!!)..... and in the end, I love B&W images.... its not that frequent when I resort to B&W for children photography..... but this time, it seemed more than appropriate to do this.... somehow, the moods of the two blended with the colourless environment.... there was nothing else in the picture other than their moods....

a lot more coming up.....

just a couple of lights and a lot of improvisation....

20-21 January 2012
Rajshahi, Bangladesh

we were traveling to Rajshahi to attend the wedding of one of my close in-laws.... if you had been following our blog of late, you probably know this from the earlier blog post.... apart from some exclusive portrait of the couple during the event, we were aiming for some exclusive portraits of the bride.... portraits that most of the time get missed out in Bangladeshi weddings....

we went to Rajshahi with the minimum amount of equipment for portraiture.... two small flashes (YN-560) and a softbox (Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe).... we had a small program at the bride's home the day before the real event... so, we did some run-and-gun type portraits during the event.... we couldn't make everyone wait.... so, had to do it the quickest way possible.... I decided to use the 85mm lens for some shallow DoF.... @f2.8, it was really shallow... and in fact, I had work hard to keep my focus in the right place.... and this became even more complicated once I found out that the bride's room was reflecting too much light out of the white walls even when I was using the softbox.... I wanted the backdrop darkened out.... so, had to move up to the program stage on the roof to get the portraits done.... and there were lots of lights on that stage!!..... we made the lights (all the lights) go out!!.... yes, people were in complete darkness, literally!!.... and thank God that my D700 came with something called "focus assist"..... using that, I was able to focus in absolute darkness.... now the backdrop disappeared almost completely.... the whole session (from the start of the shoot in the bride's room to the finishing of the shoot on the rooftop) was done within 14 minutes!!.... and even for that wait, some words had to be swallowed by us..... never had the time to set up a backlight, which could've added a nice separation from the black backdrop.... anyway, sometimes you just have to live with what you have....

after the wedding day couple portraits, we had some time left..... it was late at night, but there was time.... just because according to the event agreement, the bride was coming back home.... another event would be there for the groom to take the bride with him.... anyway, that left us with another opportunity to do some more exclusive portraits..... we were particularly aiming to utilise the nice personal room of the bride, who had a bit of creative touch in her decorations.... in 2010, I had already had the opportunity to use her room for some portraits of her and also took some portraits of Lamisa there using some gel filters... so, it would've been just unfair if we felt too tired at the end of the day....

that said, we setup our lights in a hurry and went down to work.... but this time, that one softbox won't be enough, as the aim was to bring some elements in the room as well..... yet, we didn't want the whole room washed in light, which would've made it really dull.... to make it happen, we put up a YN-560 on camera left (the softbox was on camera right) and aimed it straight towards the white ceiling.... had to be careful though, as the walls weren't completely white.... on a D700, it was a 28-80mm lens... shooting @f8...

we got lucky with the expressions of the bride... she was very spontaneous and needed little instructions.... it was another short, but pleasant portrait session.... the best part of this late-night photoshoot was that we had a lot of fun.... the earlier two sessions were far from fun.... we were literally on the run.... a positive break is always welcome....

a lot more to come....

take a break; enjoy a sunny winter morning.... part2

27 January 2012
Dhaka, Bangladesh

please find part 1 of the blog here.....

Yeasef's interests in cars and motorbikes meant that this session with Ishita and Yeasef had to have some wheels!!.... well, even though Ishita wasn't too attracted to wheels, her attraction for the man behind the wheels was enough for us to go with this theme....

anyway, the basic idea was to take a break from busy life and go out for a short drive in the mild early morning sun to get some nice pictures.... Ishita and Yeasef both work in the corporate world.... so, taking that precious break seemed like came after an eternity, which is the same for most people working in the corporate world...... and we also wanted to bring some nice memories that the couple can chew along in the coming days.... and to make some nice memories, enjoyment was always a priority.... we had lotsa fun while shooting and also while traveling to-and-fro.... yea, we did travel quite a bit without getting any real benefit!!

after getting some photos with the car in a dramatized setting, we switched to some old-fashioned relationship frames.... the good-old romantic moods.... classic and timeless.... Ishita and Yeasef really shined here..... their spontaneity reduced our work a lot.... we got rid of all the complexities of lighting and what not.... and relied exclusively on sunlight.... the sun was still in its good self to allow us some direct lighting... probably because it was still winter... so far we were shooting against the sun.... this time we turned around and let the sun  take over....

to bring that classic look, switched to 85mm lens and shot almost wide open @f2.... shutter speed ranged between 1/5000sec - 1/8000sec.... ISO 100.... ya, the sun was really shining!.... even thought of using an ND filter for a while.... but that wasn't needed....

Yeasef proposed that we could explore another probable location nearby.... it supposedly had lots of rose farms.... so, we thought what was there to do on a Friday morning??.... we began the new adventure.... Yeasef was full of spirit, as he always is; loving any kind of adventure.... Ishita was on the opposite pole!!.... and when that search yielded basically nothing, we could feel the real contrast of characters between the two.... after all, thats what we tried to depict.... bring out the contrasts between the two.... and tell the story of their togetherness despite all those contrasts.....

anyway, please have a look at the BTS video of the shoot.... and you can also watch the video of the equipment carried during the assignment....



a lot more coming up in a hurry.....

take a break; enjoy a sunny winter morning.... part1

27 January 2012
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Yeasef's interests in cars and motorbikes meant that this session with Ishita and Yeasef had to have some wheels!!.... well, even though Ishita wasn't too attracted to wheels, her attraction for the man behind the wheels was enough for us to go with this theme....

anyway, the basic idea was to take a break from busy life and go out for a short drive in the mild early morning sun to get some nice pictures.... Ishita and Yeasef both work in the corporate world.... so, taking that precious break seemed like came after an eternity, which is the same for most people working in the corporate world...... and we also wanted to bring some nice memories that the couple can chew along in the coming days.... and to make some nice memories, enjoyment was always a priority.... we had lotsa fun while shooting and also while traveling to-and-fro.... yea, we did travel quite a bit without getting any real benefit!!

we wanted to make some pictures that could both walk with the basic theme (a day off from busy life) and a dramatized story.... yea, we tried to make some drama out of our subjects.... short, but somewhat like a storyboard.... we tried to project on stories that actually happened and also tried to project on 'what if' kinda situations.... waiting is something that almost all couples went through at some point or the other.... so, that where we made our start.... at first, we did the 'what if' and then did the actual scenario.... thats right..... it was Yeasef who had to wait most of the times!!

on a technical note, we were shooting against a bright sun.... it was a winter morning alright... but the sun was quite bright as well..... the idea was to make the best use of the shadows cast by the sun and also to use the sun as edge light wherever possible.... but to achieve this, we needed some pretty strong artificial light.... without that, we risked a completely washed out background.... the Elinchrom Ranger RX unit came to the rescue.... it was with the Rotalux 100cm "Deep Octa" softbox.... this allowed us to shoot @f16 and 1/200sec 100 ISO....

for the first shots, used a 20mm lens for wide-angle effect.... and for the shots from the side of the car, used a 28-80mm lens on D700..... for the whole shoot, Elinchrom Skyport was the trigger.....

stay tuned for the second part of the blog post.....

on the stage, after a while....

 21 January, 2012
Rajshahi, Bangladesh

its been a while since I had been active blogging.... in fact, not just blogging, all activities took a dive south with my health condition.... thanks to Almighty, I'm now on a fast recovery trail.... it feels great to be back again.... anyway, back to work....

went to Rajshahi for a few days in January.... and that opened some opportunities for doing something different.... its been a while since I had taken my camera to a wedding..... so, it was time to revive the memories.... in fact, last time I did any kind of wedding portrait, I wasn't even a strobist!.... so, playing the role of a strobist in a wedding ceremony was something new for me.... its not something that I would on any given day..... not my job, for sure.... ceremonies in Bangladesh are just too typical to allow anything atypical.... we, in fact, had to push quite a bit to get these pictures done.....

it was the wedding of one of the closest cousins of my wife.... so, it was more like a wedding present to carry all that photo gear there.... we needed to convince both the parties to buy that little bit of time for an exclusive photoshoot of the bride and the groom.... the bargain worked out well enough.... the conditions weren't ideal, as we had to work with less than ideal stuff.... carried only two flashes to Rajshahi; so, had to deal with that.... I guess needed 3 or 4 lights there.... anyway, you just have to work with whatever is available in your hands at that moment.... there's no point talking about ideal scenarios....

we wanted to get one official portrait, and some jolly moments with the ring as well.... used two lights (as there was no more flashes).... the main light was a YN-560 inside a Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe softbox.... and the second light was a backlight; another YN-560.... both the flashes were triggered using Elinchrom Skyport... couldn't rely on optical trigger for one flash, as there were other people there with cameras.... used a Sigma 150mm lens (on D700) to flatten perspective.... it really was necessary, as the backdrop was pretty much widespread and multiple colours; making it hard to adjust in any kind of framing....

there was a big challenge placing the softbox, as the groom was wearing fancy glasses with a parabolic design.... that made me put the main light in places where didn't want to.... and as I didn't have a third light, cutting shadows became an issue...

did some more exclusive portraiture at Rajshashi with the bride, which I hope to cover in another detailed blog post..... so, stay tuned....

a lot more coming up....