setup, pose, click!!... & calculate lessons...

31 August 2011
Eid-ul Fitr Day, Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

demand induces supply!! :)...... I had the plan to shoot on Eid Day.... if there was nobody else, there would be Lamisa for sure... she's always a good subject (although a bit too unstable)... but once the setup is there, there are chances of taking pictures... and its Eid Day, so, there's always chance of getting subjects.... the best thing that happens during such occasions is that you get to shoot the most infrequent of visitors... and the pictures remain as a document of that time, increasing in value over the years....had my photog buddy Nasif coming in and also had my old buddies Saadi and Shameem showing up after a long while....had some neighbours visiting us after a while, which also provided some unique opportunities....

I had a two-light setup ready for the whole day.... a Westcott Apollo 28" softbox and a 24" Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe softbox.... a YN-560 in each one of them.... this was the first time I was thinking of using a softbox as an edge light.... I was almost sure that there was no blonde bombshell showing up in my home.... so, the edge light was a necessity as I've setup a black backdrop.... the lights were both triggered with Elinchrom Skyport radio triggers, as they were both in softboxes... with the Lastolite I could take the chance with optical trigger, but when you have the better option, why push?

a lot of lessons learned from this little venture.... the sessions were quick and sometimes dirty!! :)... but it was fun all the way through... tried to make the sessions as enjoyable for the subjects as possible... most of the portraits were typical studio-like portraits.... but wherever the subject was receptive enough, I tried for the different look....


lesson 1: take a safe shot first.... you never know what would happen next moment.... so, its better to take a safe shot first and then try out something different....







lesson 2: swap the main light.... don't just stick on one light as the main light... sometimes, if you swap the lights, you can end up with a different viewpoint... also, putting the edge light higher gives better results...




lesson 3: read the subject.... try to figure out how the subject reacts to photos.... that may give you an idea how much different an expression the subject may offer you....



lesson 4: give them comfort.... most people think that their portraits don't look good.... so, its a must to give them assurance that everyone thinks the same of themselves... not everyone has a model face, so, only the models shouldn't have the right to be photographed!!



lesson 5: be funny.... making fun behind the camera always gives nice results.... that brings out the expressions and also reduces distance between the subject and the photographer....



lesson 6: get crazy..... there's always that inner self in everyone that they don't want to expose often.... try to trigger that.... and that can actually help to bring the subject closer to the photographer.... but this may not work with all subjects....







a lot more shooting during the Eid holidays.... so, more coming up in a rush!!

food and Eid: no confusion; great combination!!

31 August 2011
Mohammadur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

just like the 2010 Eid-ul Fitr shoot, I had to bring out all that junk up to the dinner table... oh yeah!!... all that yummy stuff were to go into our stomach... but they have to wait.... for may be another half-an-hour.... and that was worth it, as these items are not that regularly made at home... a lot of effort went into those.... and with a much much lesser effort, they went into my camera!!

anyway, not being a food photographer, I tend to bring in the experience of the previous session.... apart from the last Eid's shoot, I only had done shoot for Cafe Higin, which, in my opinion, was a pretty average show.... a new day is always a new experience... so, I went to work with a fairly basic setup.... what I've learned is that food photography was more to do with food styling than anything else.... but lighting is also important.... last time I had the main light shooting towards the ceiling, giving an overall fill for the whole table.... this time, I decided to use a 24" Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe softbox, creating a more directional light.... and just like last time, there was a second flash giving backlight.... both the flashes were YN-560s... one was triggered by Elinchrom Skyport, the other was in optical trigger (S1) mode.... the lens was 85mm f1.8 Nikkor.... gives great bokeh, but I wanted a little bit of depth, so, used mostly between f2.8-5.6.....

there you go.... just before they went into our stomach..... :)











a lot more from the Eid Day coming up....

food, glorious food!!!

11 September 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Eid Day!!...... usually Eid-ul Fitr is more of an Eid of food and guests at our place.... I've documented home-made food bonanza for the last several Eid Days..... but never really concentrated in it or gave enough time behind it..... this time round, I got my strobist stuff going and I just had to push this one..... my family members were also co-operative enough...... we kept ourselves from eating the delicious stuff for, I don't know, may be 20 minutes or so!!

here's the geeky stuff..... I used two SB-900s here.... one as a back-light; direct, but with the diffuser on....... the second as the fill-light; beside the camera; with the diffuser on; shooting vertically towards the white ceiling..... both were firing TTL and were on tripods...... the trigger was the SU-800..... used a 50mm 1.4 for shallow depth (shot @f2.0; also experimented quite a bit) and 70-210mm lens for perspective flattening (shot @180mm f5) on D700..... shutter speed varied between 1/125s-1/200s, not to include any ambient light actually, but to compensate for longer focal length balance..... anyway, it didn't anyway, as I had the stopping power of the flash.... ISO was kept at 100....