where there's light, there's a way....

15-16 April 2011
Jessore and Narail, Bangladesh

yea yea.... its been a while fore sure.... writing this blog two weeks after the event doesn't really give me pleasure... but at least, I've managed to write something.... anyway, this is about how I managed location lighting during the Jessore Safari arranged by TTL.... I've shared my camera's flash sync problem in my previous blog post, which really pushed me during this safari.... learned a lot of lessons and now trying to make the best use of those lessons... the first thing is not to forget the lessons and with my poor memory, thats always a challenge.... I rather write things up so that I can revisit them....

the first challenge came up at renowned artist S M Sultan's home.... we found bit of a pottery village there right beside that place and almost like found the moon in our hands!.... an old lady was working on her pottery and presented ourselves with a fantastic photographic opportunity.... but it was a challenging situation to say the least..... lighting was tricky and it came down to the management of dynamic range.... I had decided to emphasize on the wheel, which was decorated for the purpose of worship and tradition.... the wheel was not to turn during the whole month of Baishakh... and there would be flowers presented at the wheel everyday during the month of Baishakh.... the problem was, while the back of the shade was in quite a bit of darkness, including the old lady, the wheel in the foreground was getting harsh summer sunlight.... it was around 10:00AM, but 10AM during April is more than just a bit of sunlight!!..... I decided to illuminate the subject separately with a flash and to block the direct sunlight falling on the wheel.... Shudipto held the SB-900 on camera left to illuminate the subject.... resorted to optical trigger of D700 to trigger the flash.... the flash worked even though it was behind my camera.... I used warm gel on the flash to emulate early morning sunlight.... but the warmth became a little too much for comfort, which had to be corrected in Photoshop.... tried to block the direct sunlight on the wheel with two of our buddies standing right beside me and one holding a collapsible reflector to block light.... it worked to some extent, but there was still some light on the wheel, which again needed to be corrected in Photoshop.... and now comes the most important question..... how on earth I managed to do Photoshopping.... well, when you get the master for free, you try to utilise him, isn't it??..... my buddy photographer Kamrul Hasan did that fabulous job for me and I was dumb seeing his hand in the work....


Pori Bala doesn't know how old she is..... but our guess is, she would be in her late eighties to early nineties.... she's been doing this since her childhood..... that wheel is the witness to her toil; witness to her life....

I've already shared the details of the horse race and the portrait of the winning combination in a previous blog post..... that was the second challenge..... the third challenge came during the next day of safari, at poet Michale Madhusudan Dutt's home.... it was a great combination of arches that I wanted to feature.... there was a poem of the poet on the big wall opposite the arches.... but there was no subject to shoot and the light was pretty bland as well.... I wanted to create some drama by bringing that big wall in focus..... it was a very very warm and humid day and we were sweating like pigs!!.... I decided to concentrate on creating one photo.... and it took me around 35 minutes to come up with something that I desired..... I had already swapped my D700 with Saif Bhai's to keep safe of the problems I mentioned with flash sync.... I put a couple of SB-900s behind the arches with warm gel and illuminated the big wall.... the wall thus got the attention that it didn't have.... and quite fortunately, I got the subject as well.... there was a team of visitors from Iskcon Temple of Khulna.... and one of them was a young monk in orange dress that completely covered his body.... I couldn't poshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsibly find a more contrasting subject in that place..... he was quite co-operative as well, standing right where I told him to, controlling the shadows on the wall.... in fact, I did the whole shoot twice with two lighting setups.... the second time I told Zaim to fetch him!!.... and he was so kind to lend himself to us once again.....

the Elinchrom Skyports caused a lotta trouble for some reason I don't know.... they were barely 20ft from my camera, but they refused to fire when my camera was either out of sight or I went closer to ground!!.... there was empty floor in between... anyway, I was able to pull it off in the end.... the shot would've been more realistic if I could set a big flash some 50ft or so behind the arches to emulate early morning sunlight.... anyway, thats wishful thinking..... you have to work with whatever you have....



the fourth challenge came right outside Michael Madhusudan's place..... there's an old mosque; a pretty small one, but old enough to cause interest.... we stopped our car and went in..... we found Ramzan Ali Sheikh to feature in front of our camera.... he was willing and extremely helpful.... he gave us 20 minutes to do our thing and did exactly what we told him to.... I shot some frames, but didn't really like any one of them.... so, concentrated on getting one shot only that I can be a bit happy with..... my main aim was to make it look natural, as it happens on a typical day.... it was difficult to get the subject separated from that window in the back, but as I said, this was the natural position for him so, I kept the frame intact just for the sake of keeping it natural..... a position closer to the window would've made his silhouette more prominent against the window, but that would've been the unnatural position.... and also wanted to keep the details inside the mosque..... now, the details were quite tricky to say the least.... light conditions inside the mosque made it impossible to get all details in one shot.... perhaps some HDR can get this right, but me not being an HDR person, was always looking to create with my available light, which means, the light available in my pocket -- a flash!!.... the line of Qur'ans and the texture on the wall were just too important for me.... I decided to expose them with a remote flash.... told Zaim to stand with a flash outside the mosque to shoot through the window in the back..... the mosque was on an elevated ground, which made the outside flash shooting from below even when Zaim was standing on a chair!!..... so, I told Zaim to relax and brought the flash inside the mosque.... to make it look like natural light, I set the flash near the wall on the opposite on camera left.... the flash was shooting bare towards the wall, bringing in just a bit of light on the dark foreground.... I was trying to keep the depth of field at maximum, shooting at f14.... keeping the subject, as well as the Qur'ans in focus.... but, that was killing the details in the background.... so, kept a shutter speed of 1/40 and ISO of 800.... I was lying on the floor to get this.... without that precious flash, this was an impossible shot.... the camera was again Saif Bhai's and trigger was Elinchrom Skyport...




I've become a strobist for sure... location lighting has become a very important part of my photography now.... ever since I went into that jute mill at Narayanganj, I knew that this was the way for me.... and with the resolution of 2011 for me, this has gained added impetus... the lessons from this safari were really something.... first lesson was to keep options and backups.... I almost suffered because of the only one camera body.... thanks God that Saif Bhai helped me out.... trigger options also have to be there... being versatile is the key.... I shot the winning combination portrait and the Pori Bala portrait using the D700 built-in flash in manual mode and the SB-900 in optical trigger mode (SU-4).... the other two were done using Elinchrom Skyport.... the built-in flash should never be ignored.... it saved me the precious time during the horse race portrait to turn around in record time.... another lesson was gels.... gotta have more options in hand.... at least one diffuser is a must, be it an umbrella or a white collapsible reflector or something else....

well, that it for this.... lessons learned.... have learned some more lessons in recent days and hope to share those too....

a taste of speed......

15 April 2011
Narail, Bangladesh

it sure was a treat to experience this.... we didn't really know that such a thing actually existed in Bangladesh.... a horse race; a rural horse race!!..... the moment we heard about this, our heart leaped.... and I couldn't even think of taking my eyes off this event..... Shudipto has let us see the country.... can't thank him enough.... this was yet another superclass tour organised by TTL.... something to remember for a long time.....

Narail is around an hour's drive from Jessore.... but the place where this race was supposed to happen was not that easy to get to..... a further one hour's travel was required before we could see some horses.... it was the village Khashia in Lohagara Upazilla.... we had to cross the River Nabaganga by boat and also needed to travel by some local motor vehicles, which created some unique sound!



it was a demonstration of prestige.....








"Sada Ghora" was the majestic winner.... except only once, it always achieved a head start and the jockey Bulbul was guiding the majestic animal like an expert rider!!







it was amazing to see how young they were and also, how competitive they were..... their competitiveness made the race attractive....




whether its a winning horse or not, there's a bond that remains intact.... they were all tired at the end of the race and needed some time to catch their breath....




there was only one real competition for Sada Ghora.... he won one race beating Sada Ghora.... but his joys were short-lived....



the horses had to be taught the way of the race.... the trainer and the jockey would take the horse down the track to give it a feel of the soil....




the race went on into the fading light.... the last and the deciding lap.....




and there was no stopping Sada Ghora.....

had no idea about this event, actually..... and discovered everything after reaching there.... we discovered all that in testing weather conditions.... reached there by around 1:00PM, but as it turned out, the race didn't really get started before 4:00PM.... there were five laps and the whole thing lasted up to around 5:45PM, under fading light.... the weather was even more tasking on the participants.... we could see that on the soaking wet bodies of the horses and the exhausted faces of the jockeys..... the jockeys were something to see.... didn't expect them to be that young.... forget about child issues.... this is rural Bangladesh and you have to accept what you get.... this is the tradition here..... they are not just low on their weight; they're low on their age as well.... the winning jockey was only 12 years old!!..... but you have to say that he was good..... his body language tells that he doesn't want anything lower than the first prize....

after the race, I hardly had two minutes to complete the portrait of the winner, "Shada Ghora" (literally meaning, White Horse).... improvisation was the key here.... my D700 was suffering from a weird problem with flash sync.... and I discovered the problem right before I started for the tour... so, I couldn't take my chances with this.... I banked on the only way it worked.... optical trigger.... used the built-in flash at lowest power and triggered the SB-900 in SU-4 mode..... Zaim did a great job adjusting to the "dancing" horse and also adjusting to the constantly changing angle of the photographer as a result of the dance.... the SB-900 was bounced into a white collapsible reflector.... used the white side rather than the silver side.... Zaim held both.... the light was tricky, as the sun had gone down quite a while back.... there was hardly any ambient light available to create a dramatic backdrop..... but the moon was up and there was a palm tree to anchor to....



the jockey, Bulbul, was quite a character.... he said that he's been racing for more than four years!!..... and his experience can be seen in his riding..... he's been busy of late.... just one day before, he was racing at Faridpur!!.... and he claimed that he doesn't lose races!!..... thats quite a claim, but he surely had the spirit..... Shada Ghora lost lap number 3 to another horse, but came back to win the rest.... it was a majestic victory!!

anyway, that was that for the day..... it took some time and effort from us to reach back to Jessore.... more on that later....