never miss the spontaneity of the moment....

29 October 2011
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

capturing the moment.... at least, thats what brought me to photography.... and that thing I realised every moment I found the photographed subject change with time.... street subjects are never the same... I shot the same wall twice in two days... thats how dynamic street photography is... every moment is history... and when talking about history, I've not found a more important moment than a moment in human life.... every moment is history.... you miss capturing it, you miss history.... you don't know what you've missed until you really miss it... and that will be the hardest to forget after twenty years.... I'm glad that I took my camera in my hand to capture history...

anyway, as all moments are important, I do keep an eye on spontaneity of the moment... not all photoshoots are meant to be planned and perfect... sometimes an imperfect moment is probably the most precious.... every picture of my child (Lamisa) I took during her first one year was spontaneous and the photo-series I was able to make out of that one year's effort is one of my most precious works.... after her first year, I did a lotta staged photo-sessions, but still didn't forget about the spontaneous moments....I've had a session with Lamisa with all her toys more than a year back... yet, when I saw her bringing out her own toys to hide herself among them, I had to run to grad my camera.... we helped her out a bit while shooting, not denying the fact that she instigated the shoot...

its been some time since I've used the 50mm indoors in available light.... it was a good feeling.... shot @f1.4 wide open... only had to use ISO 100 as the shutter was manageable @ 1/80.... used the backlight to overexpose the shots.... thats it...

oh, this was the 200th blog post in Ideas_R_Bulletproof blog....  started this blog on 21 July 2009 to record my regular activities... the blog's purpose changed over time and its still evolving.... thanks to the readers who had been following us (yes, its 'us' :) and also gave us lots of feedback.... thats been our inspiration.... :)

much much more to come....

the 85mm loves those big windows....

06 September 2011
Natore, Bangladesh

its a pity that we haven't taken Lamisa to a children's park yet.... we've gone to so many interesting places, but not there.... not to a children's park.... well, it seems that the opportunity just jumped on us when we went to Natore.... we had our lunch in Natore town after coming back from Rani Bhabani's Palace.... the place was on the top floor of a 8-storied building, which was probably the tallest structure of the small town.... and most interestingly, the top floor of the building also contained a nice children's corner.... and to complete this already surprising find, the roof of the building contained a big wheel, which wasn't operational yet....













we also had enough time after lunch to hang around the children's corner before we started for Puthia Palace.... this allowed us to put Lamisa on top of the toys there while her meal was complete.... and when I saw those big windows there, I couldn't resist bringing out my 85mm 1.8 lens...... shot almost wide open @ f2.... just blew out the bright windows as backdrop and we have our dramatic images.... didn't need any fill-light at all.... the light was so pleasing.... the 85mm loves big windows.... Lamisa also had a nice time there checking out each of the toys for their quality..... but the time she was talking to check out their quality became a bit too much for us, so we decided to move out.... she had to resist her tears to go with us.... such a pity.... bad folks always leave you disappointed.... anyway, she had tons of fun at our next destination as well... so, it didn't take much time for her to forget her disappointment....

more to come.....

High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, 23 April 2010

it was a very very sultry weather, but we braved the weather to venture into a room that drains the energy out of the body in minutes!!

it was another strobist meet..... a meet that we learned to call Studiowalk.... it got that sort of name because we not just shoot with strobes, but shoot with anything that we can put our hands on...... anyway, this short, but nice Studiowalk was organised by Zaim..... actually we couldn't even think of something like this without Zaim's proposal....... his proposal was unanimously greeted with excitement and the enthusiasm actually skyrocketed once we saw the samples of the graffiti over there... Zaim and his friends created these arts and gave a new horizon to think about.... at least, I haven't seen such graffiti in our country so far..... we simply didn't want to miss such a unique opportunity..... so, there we went.... it was a preparation of almost a week, yet we felt a little under-prepared once we reached there....

the building has been abandoned for more than four years...... and gives an eerie feeling inside..... there are marks of human activity, but not a single soul to be found..... the floors have acquired so much dust that one can create a graffiti using the dust!....... all the floors were empty and dusty.... we climbed to the top floor, the 10th floor..... and things began to clear up in front of us..... this floor contained offices, and there were plenty of files and other office stuff to corroborate the fact..... the floor was once fully air-conditioned; so, now it contains to air outlet..... we opened the door to the balcony and let some air and light in.... this made us survive there for around two hours.... the month of April was felt inside down to our bones..... it was sultry and exhausting.....

From High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, April 23 2010

model: biju
Nikon D700 + Nikkor AF 50mm f1.4D
f8, 1/250, ISO 200
Strobist info:
3 x SB-900 with warm gel filter outside filtered window glass on stand; TTL mode; triggered with SU-800+ extension cord

From High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, April 23 2010

model: biju
Nikon D700 + Nikkor AF 50mm f1.4D
f5.6, 1/250, ISO 200
Strobist info:
3 x SB-900 with warm gel filter outside filtered window glass; 1 x SB-600 with honeycomb grid on left on stand; TTL mode; triggered with SU-800+ extension cord




anyway, we started off with the main graffiti..... the sun was exactly to the opposite side and there were huge windows with filtered glasses prohibiting light from coming inside.... the graffiti was pretty much in the dark, so, we needed to set up some flashes to light things up..... we set up three SB-900 flashes outside the window with warm gel filters to create late afternoon sunlight..... but it proved difficult to trigger the lights with the SU-800 from inside the dark glasses.... it took some effort to get an acceptable exposure.... we weren't absolutely happy about it, but accepted it..... needed to set up another SB-600 with honey-comb grid as fill light..... the samurai replica from Hameem gave us the opportunity create some drama.... the whole thing proved tough because of the extreme contrast created by the graffiti colours.... we couldn't find a satisfactory solution to it.....

From High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, April 23 2010

model: dipa
Nikon D700 + Nikkor AF 50mm f1.4D
f3.5, 1/200, ISO 200
natural afternoon light coming through large filtered glass window

From High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, April 23 2010

model: zaim
Nikon D700 + Sigma APO 150mm f2.8 EX DG HSM Macro
f3, 1/250, ISO 1400
natural afternoon light coming through large filtered glass window


anyway, shooting continued with strobes..... there were quite a few strobists there shooting away.... I gave a hand to some and helped create some great images..... I, on the other hand, found my frames with available light.... the huge filtered glass was holding enough of the afternoon sun to get some cool portraits.....

From High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, April 23 2010

model: zaim
Nikon D700 + Sigma APO 150mm f2.8 EX DG HSM Macro
f3, 1/500, ISO 200
natural afternoon light coming through door

From High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, April 23 2010

model: zaim and kamal
Nikon D700 + Sigma APO 150mm f2.8 EX DG HSM Macro
f3, 1/320, ISO 200
natural afternoon light coming through door

From High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, April 23 2010

model: kamal + hameem's samurai
Nikon D700 + Sigma APO 150mm f2.8 EX DG HSM Macro
f3, 1/2,500, ISO 200
natural afternoon light


Hameem's samurai had seen some action, though mostly without its original owner... while I was shooting Zaim with the samurai and thinking of creating a scene where a samurai silhouette would be attacking someone else's silhouette, Zaim came up with a cool idea of creating a Japanese beheading ritual...... Zaim and Kamal created the scene, though there were not enough space to do this properly.... we also went outside and shot the samurai with the setting sun......

From High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, April 23 2010

The Koba Squad!!
Nikon D700 + Nikkor AF 50mm f1.4D
f10, 1/500, ISO 200
Strobist info:
6 x SB-900, SB-800, SB-600 on stand (4) and on ground (2); TTL mode; triggered with SU-800


the last act of the day was a group shot..... the big graffiti was the obvious choice for a background..... it was real challenge to light everyone with strobes, since we had space constraints on one side, which left us with one side to setup the strobes..... we used a total of 6 speedlites to do the job...... killed the ambient light with a high shutter speed and set up two flashes behind the people in front to that we had enough light for the people in the far corner.... it wasn't the most ideal of group shots, but was enough for us start packing.... it was already quite dark and we had to go all the way down the dark stairs.... there was no electricity in the whole building.....

it was a cool outing.... though tough from the conditions point, it surely helped us learn quite a few things..... lighting and other conditions were quite different from what we had encountered in other places.... the challenge was great and we thought we came through..... lessons were learned, for another day..... we have to come back.....

for more shots from same venture, please visit the following link:
High-rise Graffiti Shoot, Dhaka, April 23 2010