Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

A Heaven for Quiet Portraiture
Baliati Palace, Baliati, Manikganj, Bangladesh
17 March 2010


I was just thinking.... why I haven't written something about this short, but unusual tour...... I was just going through the blogging activities of Joe McNally and thought what do I do that keeps me from writing?....... well, busy schedules aren't gonna be an excuse for myself 10 years later..... thats the time I would ruin it for not managing the time to write this.... if the old man McNally can still do blogging even maintaining his busy schedules, may be I can too....... hats off for McNally!!..... you brought me back to writing!!

the tour was again organised by the hard-working Shudipto.... who can do it better?.... any TTL tour always means it has to be Shudipto...... this was the first time to Baliati for a lot of us..... the place is a bit away from the Dhaka-Aricha highway.... though within the district Manikganj, it is not really adjacent to the Manikganj town..... Manikganj usually takes less than 3 hours to reach, and it was supposed to be something like that for Baliati as well....

our journey was delayed a little because of the late arrival of some of the members....... we had a reserved bus, which probably gave too much comfort to some...... the main journey started from Farm Gate area, though I got picked from near Shyamoli....... it was around 8:30AM.....

the journey was smooth until we reached an intersection before Manikganj and took a right turn from the highway...... we were expecting to take the turn from the Manikganj town, but the driver was confident that he was taking a shortcut, which should cut the overall travel time...... major bummer!!....... we realised quite quickly that these people, the driver and the helper, had little idea about the way..... we soon discovered that the road there was inaccessible because of the breakdown of a small bridge just a day back..... these people were somehow not updated about this accident.... we had to take a detour......... and the detour ultimately ended up nowhere.... we were on a road that was more like a one-way path..... there was no way a vehicle like ours could take a U-turn..... there was a big truck in front of us and we had to step down...... after a lot of quarreling, we ultimately decided to walk....... the locals told us that the palace would be no more than 20 minutes' walking distance....... it was very warm.... but we were energetic and desperate enough to walk..... it was around 10:30AM when we began to trust our feet.....

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

through the green carpet of Nature....

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

betel-tunnel!!

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

oh ho..... I left my money in my other pocket!!

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

looking back to future?


the walk was pleasant actually..... we mostly walked through paved village roads shaded by greenery..... vast farmlands, rows of betel-nut trees and bamboo orchards provided us enough entertainment...... we walked slow, enjoying every bit of it....

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

enter the glorious past.......

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

pillar of evidence.......

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

don't cry for what you've lost.......

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

this is no time to forget your past.....

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

under the veil of tradition........


we all reached Baliati Palace between 11:00AM and 11:30PM...... the first time I stepped through the gates there, I got amazed.... I saw the pictures of the palace and imagined it to be big..... but seeing with own eyes makes a big difference.... the palace is divided into several distinctly separate sections.... as if the sections were made in separate times..... its quite obvious actually.... the designs are similar, but they do follow a pattern of similar choice.....

anyway, I spent some time on front of the palace...... most others were exploring the back of the palace...... till then I had little idea of what was behind the palace.... so, I kept looking for opportunities to have some interesting frames.... the light was bad to say the least..... it was harsh like anything..... I had a hard time keeping my eyes open..... after around 15 minutes, I slowly moved to find my friends at the back of the palace....

once I was there at the back, I found peace!!...... well, the place was in the shadows and the shadows were cool enough to make us feel all the comfort!!... after a hectic journey and walk, this shade provided us with a great relief!!.... and did the shade on provide us relief?..... definitely not!!...... the front side of the building was bathed in mid-day sunlight, whereas, the shadows at the back revealed all the marks of time....... all the designs and textures exposed themselves to make us crazy to do some photography!!....... and guess what, we all started portrait photography!!...... we went there to shoot archaeology and architecture, but we ended up making ourselves models!!...... we started to have all the fun!!

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

textures........01

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

textures........02

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

tunnel-vision......

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

stairs of darkness.....

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

its been long since they left.......

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

the lonely window......

we moved around and discovered different sections of the palace.... each section had its own beauty in design, texture and play of light and shadow.... we went crazy and a great photofest began!!...... as far as I can remember, this was the first time we really concentrated on shooting portraits of our own forgetting most other things.... it quickly became one of the most interesting photowalks ever arranged.....

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

intruders!!


we continued to shoot to our heart's content until we began to feel our empty stomach.... we took some great group shots and started to move out..... lunch was not too far from the palace..... though not very exotic, it sufficed to fulfill our stomach.....

we moved right after we finished our lunch..... the whole journey took us through enough hurdles to convince us that we should move early.... our bus took a circuitous route to arrive at the palace from another direction; the direction that we thought we would follow in the first place..... so, the route confirmed, we boarded our bus just before 4:00PM........ the return journey did take us that long.... we were at Dhaka by around 6:30PM.....

as said, this was one of the most interesting photowalks ever..... the place had all the surprises there to make us think differently!!...... I just can't wait to go there again!!

here are some of the portraiture from the tour..... all were available light shots...

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

model: biju

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

model: shudipto

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

model: shudipto

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

model: saud a faisal

From Baliati Palace, Manikganj, March 2010

model: muntasir

Second TTL Studiowalk, Mohammadpur, March 2010

Its been a while since I've been posting blogs regularly....... and I had been pathetically busy, as well as lazy in recent times to be able to write anything...... I also managed very little time to even shoot...... so, when we started planning for a second "Sudiowalk" last December, I was up on my toes not to miss this event..... it was still a struggle to find a suitable schedule for it...... finding enough participants was another challenge.... the number of strobists were increasing at slow rate among us...... so, we knew that participants would come in small numbers...... still, we had the hope to getting more people this time round.....

we had been talking of doing this round outdoors...... so, we were looking for a suitable location...... a location where we could see enough of the afternoon sun..... but finding such a location proved to be a pain...... ultimately, we banked on my place...... we decided to shoot indoors until the sun was low enough for outdoor shooting.....

we were models ourselves...... last time we started with ambient light....... but this time, ambient was less available....... so, we started with flash straightaway....... we setup my black backdrop to create a temporary studio..... it worked well, though not excellent...... space limitation was an important obstacle towards exploring different ideas.... yet, we explored different settings...... I was more on the assisting role during this part of the event..... so, I don't have outputs from this shoot...... we explored two light solutions.... one umbrella and one reflector worked with the SB-800+SB-600 combination..... they didn't give extraordinary results, but worked........ my daughter also featured as a model and we had to lower the lights as well as our cameras to extreme level to be able to shoot....... she hardly gave us enough opportunity to shoot..... I spent most of my time managing her..... Bijuman and Shawon did the shooting.....

we studied strobe-related videos and had a nice discussion before and after lunch..... a relaxed time later, we decided move to capture the golden times..... we went to the rooftop and began to get creative.......

Network turbulence!!

setup....



Shawon brought up the idea of utilising the cell-phone tower..... we had Gazi Bhai as the model, as he forgot to bring his Canons.... I was able to get an exclusive shot of "crappy mobile network" thanks to Gazi Bhai's extraordinary facial expression....... the challenge was to shoot while the sun shone on Gazi Bhai's face..... we used my 24"x22" home-made diffuser to hide the direct sun from his face..... and we used flash as fill light...... I shot TTL (inspired by Joe McNally) totally and adjusted EV to get proper lighting on subject's face..... used a bare SB-600 to do the job...... SU-800 worked outside after all......

High-speed sync.....

setup.....


one of my ideas was to shoot high-speed sync.... the sun was still not red.... and shooting straight into the sun had its own challenges....... I also wanted to get some action...... a dull portrait is something that I hate to take.... Gazi Bhai again did well to grab my ideas and put it into action..... but I had a hard time getting enough light...... I measured the exposure from the typical frame without flash and found out that I needed 1/1250 shutter to accomplish the job at f8!!...... I used one SB-600 and found a silhouette....... I then used three flashes together (2xSB-600+1xSB-900) triggered by the SU-800...... TTL +0.1EV...... I found Gazi Bhai in the frame!!


Extreme vantage point....

setup....


next came my other idea...... extreme vantage point.... I brought the aluminium ladder from my house to get the elevation...... it looked risky to put Gazi Bhai at the edge.... but we managed it somehow..... Gazi Bhai was excellent at this one as well....... I needed soft light for this that would not make it look artificial..... bare light washed out the subject and clearly indicated at the presence of a flash...... use of the home-made diffuser did the job......

Bijuman and Shawon did the rest of the shooting..... they took great vantage point shots using the ladder...... and also used the setting sun and nice cloud patterns as background..... I relegated myself to assisting and helping with ideas.....

The Koba Squad



the last shot of the day was the group shot....... I set my camera on the tripod and we all kept the flashes in our hands...... I exposed for the evening lights and that was it......

my SU-800 worked really well...... Bijuman had the advantage of using the radio triggers....... but I was stuck with this IR trigger..... I knew my limitations.... I didn't try extravagant things with the SU-800..... but still, shooting into the sun with IR trigger; shooting at 1/1250 shutter speed; and also to shoot at extreme angle of view were not typical shooting......... the trigger failed sometimes.... but it actually did fire most of the times.... it failed when I actually forgot the line-of-sight thing of IR triggers..... it was my fault....... I shot only TTL, deviating from the usual manual settings..... the SU-800 allowed me shoot much much quicker than I could think of while using radio triggers..... its a superb thing if you know how to use it; even in seemingly extreme conditions.......

anyway, I broke off and others took off for more evening shooting on the streets..... we thoroughly enjoyed this little eventful day..... we missed the others who could not participate........ but we thought the event was a great success, surely an encouragement for participation next time...... can't wait.....