do you think you can make a preschooler pose for you??

01 August 2011
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

I had been shooting Lamisa long enough to learn some basics of photographing a baby, especially a really unstable one.... that told me that photographing a preschooler is one of the hardest things to do... they have a mind of their own and would like to stick to it, whether it goes for you or against... they're mobile, so you may have to wait for a long time before they come back to your preferred location.... but there are some ways you can make progress.... sharing some of my experiences....

1. find her interests.... the faster you can figure this one out, the quicker it would be for you to accomplish this.... you may try to use your setup to get to know the baby.... you can build your relationship with the baby while you do this..... babies do love photographic equipment.... they're just too different from their boring toys!!





2. involve her.... make her feel that she is engaged in the whole process and doing some hard work.... Lamisa has interest in new attires... I try to use that to my advantage... every time I want her to pose in front of the camera, I tell her to get ready.... and she jumps into it!





3. have patience; lots of patience.... babies are restless.... they're very unpredictable and would change mind anytime.... but don't give up.... usually they do lose interest in one thing pretty quick.... and thats a good thing when you want her to come back.... you can never say that you can keep her in front of the lens for an indefinite amount of time.... this simply isn't going to happen....



4. be trigger happy!!...... you'll never get enough time to photograph a baby.... so, make the best use of time..... a frame takes a fraction of a second, so, take as many frames as you can when the baby is in the right place and in the right mood.... mind you, she can change her mind in a fraction of a second!



5. take help..... if you can have someone with you who can keep interest in the baby, do to advantage of that..... there's nothing more frustrating than sitting idle with the camera while the baby pursues something else!



setup for this shoot....


there are many other tips that other photographers have shared online.... but these are my findings regarding making a preschooler pose... I would also like to share some more learning regarding doing an actual shoot after you get the baby to pose in front of the camera....

the pics here are from a long backlog, which I started clearing almost a month back... and I'm glad that I'm almost at the end of it....

more to come soon.....

fashion shoot with LX-5??

18 August 2011
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

oh yes!!.... Lamisa just got her new pair of shoes from her grandpa and she was more than just eager to show it off.... and when such moments occur, you have to resort to the best camera (which is defined by Chase Jarvis as the camera that is available to you).... I was privileged, because I had a lot more than what Chase Jarvis was mentioning about.... I had the fantastic Panasonic Lumix LX-5, and with it I had my most portable strobist gear (a YN-560 flash, Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger and receiver and a 60cm x 38cm home-made collapsible diffuser).... and all of that was packed inside the same bag where I had my netbook with its charger, mobile internet and some small stuff... this is my most favourite bag, which I mentioned in an earlier post....











Lamisa's mom played the assistant's role with the diffuser and the YN-560 flash.... and that turned out to be a fashion shoot after all.... I used the "Paper Toner" tone in Color Efex Pro for some of the images to make it more punchy and to focus on Lamisa's growing talent as a baby model!!









for the last part, some old collectibles of my wife and her brother gave Lamisa another excuse to stay still in front of the camera.... in fact, that was the only way to shoot her shoes!!

more to come soon enough.....

mixing daylight....

29 July 2011
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

natural light is by far the best light.... but unfortunately, I don't always get the opportunity to use natural light; at least, not on weekdays by any means.... so, practically weekends become my only friend when it comes to using natural light....

when it comes to natural light, the possibilities are huge.... you can also mix daylight with artificial lights to create a different kinds of environ.... your control of light increases dramatically when you can mix a bit of fill-light into it... that said, I thought why not keep daylight in the background and overexpose.... that can give a dreamy kind of look to the images with an abundance of light illuminating the place... creating that kind of feel with artificial lights would've required a lot of effort..... and needless to say, a lotta lighting equipment..... so, here, I just used a Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe softbox as fill light and let the background take its shape using shutter speed (1/15sec) and a bit of ISO (800)....






but I also wanted to document what it requires to finish a meal of Lamisa.... its true that she requires many types of incentives for that effort, so, I can at least try to show at least some of them..... one of her favourite toys is an old remote keyboard of mine.... its more than 10 years old, but its not that old to Lamisa.... thank God that she still thinks its her "laptop"!!..... this perception is still keeping my netbook alive!! not sure how long we can feed that into her mind.... and there is the TV.... its one of the best tools to help during her meals.... well, a lotta people say its not good to let children get consumed by TV, but there's hardly any options left when babies are born watching all the latest gizmos around.....







all the pics were made using similar settings mentioned above with Lastolite 24" softbox and YN-560 flash triggered by Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger....

more to come soon...... more backlogs need to be cleared!!

through rain, mud and sweat..... all of that, for friends...

07 August 2011
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!!

twenty-taka light.....

23 July 2011
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

I always try to make a picture different from the one that I just took.... its not easy when your options get limited by lack of time.... but every now and then you do get that opportunity when you encounter something new.... it may not be the most valuable stuff... its just different from what I shoot everyday.... and that opportunity was presented to me by a cheap top that illuminates while in action.... Lamisa is a bit too young to operate it.... but she loves to watch it; though its hard to keep it away from her hands... she tries it, and thats where she takes all the joy.... the toy in others' hands just creates that desire for her...












to accomplish this, I wanted to drag the shutter.... to create light-trais.... it was pretty easy when I set up a black backdrop.... a one-second exposure did the job well enough.... the flash did the rest... at first, I decided to turn off the lights in the room, which scared Lamisa off a bit.... then I decided to do it even with the lights on.... and it worked!!... the difficulty was with Lamisa.... she was not in the mood to stay in one place.... and we were able to make a few number of shots before we had to call it off....

before we ventured in this, we did some typical shoots as well, with Lamisa and her pumpkin doll.... and she also had her hands on the sticks of my 120x50cm softbox...









more to come soon enough..... lots of backlogs....

its all about perspective.....

16 July 2011
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

it all depends on the view we have of something.... our differing views can make the same thing look different.... and that was what we experimented with when Rumi Bhai and Gazi Bhai showed up.... while reviewing the Westcott Apollo 28" softbox, we decided to try it out with some shots..... Lamisa's favourite "mama" is Gazi Mama and there was no problem getting the two in one frame..... I was just too lazy bringing out all the black fabrics to set up a black backdrop.... so, decided to improvise.... I put the softbox in a 90-degree stance to the subject and work around it.... this made sure that the wall, which was around 6' in the back, didn't get a lotta light from the softbox..... the first idea was to shape the light using the surface of the softbox..... put Lamisa in different positions to get different views and also experimented with Gazi Bhai's face...... at one point, also used a reflector on the other side to take off some of the shadows....























the crazy thing started when we decided to take the softbox off the top of the light.... two hard lights from two different directions created that hard-edge look.... also used a kicker light on the floor to bring a bit of detail on the shirt of Gazi Bhai, also not forgetting the chain around his neck.... decided to use the silver reflector as a backdrop...... well, its not too bad to experiments, isn't it?..... the hard-light combination opened up the horizons and created that latitude I was looking for..... wanted to create something different..... and thats what we got.... the ever expressive Gazi Bhai came up with some great expressions to produce something out of nothing..... we were able to create something different without doing a lot..... just changed the perspective..... and we were through.....










more to come later.....

a sunny day at last, and windy too!

09 July 2011
Mohammadpur, Dhaka

it has rained quite heavily in recent days.... hardly a day gone by without something coming down from the heavens.... a nice outing without getting wet was becoming a rarity.... and worse still, quite frequently it rained during the golden hours of photography..... so, when the weekend coincided with a sunny day, I could hardly wait... it was a nice day off with the family.... avoided any outdoor stuff just to spend a lazy day....

the golden sunlight at the end of the day took us to the rooftop.... the sun was actually behind the clouds when we had reached the rooftop.... and when it did come out, it was too weak to aid real photography..... I decided to try out the Westcott Apollo 28" softbox in the outdoors for the first time.... the softbox is basically based on an umbrella, which made it perfecting for catching every bit of wind there is.... and unfortunately, there was more than enough wind to make me scramble.... I put a couple of brick blocks on the light-stand base to make it stable.... one wasn't enough; the whole setup got imbalanced and headed downdowns once when I grabbed it at the last moment!.... two bricks made it stable enough to reduce some of my worries.... yet, it required manual help to keep its direction.... it was constantly changing its direction, making proper lighting difficult.... and the higher I put the softbox, the problems just got multiplied....

anyway, Lamisa was at her best getting that open space.... she was running too much to get her to face the light.... we did enjoy the shoot; she enjoyed the space.... the Apollo proved a great light source with one YN-560 flash in it.... its light is even and creamy....


















more to come soon....