It has been sometime that I have left my job and am now a student. Being back at college is awesome, no doubts, but a little tiny part of me, misses those deadline oriented work at break-neck speeds, pulling 14 hours shifts when needed, looking forward to the Friday and Saturday nights….above all the friends I made 🙂
This post is to some of the best days of my life!
Assignments, tests and presentations have kept me busy pretty much. So I am reduced to the weekly posts and some occasional compilations. Soon though, I intend to make a trip to the nearby locations and come back with some mesmerizing shots.
Have you been to an empty house? The furniture covered, dust settled on them. Only the ticking of the wall clock. The floor creaks as you walk about and you get the feeling that though the place is empty, but you are not alone.
Now, imagine that being an entire village. Had it been thriving, it would have been the biggest village in the vicinity. Almost a hundred houses. All alike, and empty. No roofs remain, doors gone, and the people who called this place their home, have vanished.
This could be the perfect setting for some horror flick too. And this place exists very much on the map. I give you , Kuldhara. Dont be creeped out just yet.
A hamlet on the outskirts of the golden city of Jaisalmer, is this empty, and often referred as haunted village. There are more than a hundred houses and none of them are surviving in proper conditions. Folklore is that one night following decisions by the village elders, the entire village shipped out, with their belongings and also the temple idol, never to be found or traced again. All they left behind were the lores, the empty houses and a curse that no one will be able to stay in the village. True to the word, the village is devoid of any settlement, human or otherwise.
The feeling that you are being watched, is highly felt and a certain sadness fills you up as you see the ruins.
All that remains are just ruins!
This is also an example of double exposure shots. More to follow soon.
Photographs are generally classified on terms of locations, themes, stories they depict, subjects they focus on, so on and so forth. As the multitude of classifications exist, so are the personal favourites. My favourite is portrait.
The main objective of the portrait from my point of view is to portray certain emotion, or a certain feeling through the photo. Â My model should be the point of focus, and the emotions felt, the expressions emitted should be captured in the best of possibilities. If I manage to show to my audience, what my subject felt while the shot was taken, I feel, its a good portrait.
Today, I shall put down certain points which I feel are important while taking portraits. I keep these points in my mind while shooting and so far, they have served me well.
1. Focus on the eyes: The first rule, by me, is the focus should be on the eyes. Not on the nose, not on the lips, the EYES. Why? Because consciously or not, that’s the first thing that catches our eye in the photo. So, a sharply focused eye of the model, makes the photo likable immediately.
Sharp focus is on the eyes
2. Let the eyes see: I ll explain this, in simpler terms. I mean, let the photo be such that the model has some place to look to, that the viewer also looks towards the way the model is watching. Let the curiosity be there. If the model is looking towards left, leave some space in the left, and vice versa.
She looks to her left, so thats where the space should be
3. Change the angles and point of views: All shots need not be taken right from the eye level. Go up, go down or maybe, just take a step back. They all work wonderfully.
Take a step back, and let her beauty fill the frameMake her look up to youIf needed, get down on the ground too
4. Anticipate Movements:Â While shooting at an event, you shall come across conditions where your model is in motion. Observe the patterns and anticipate the movements, be ready and press the shutter at the right moment. With a bit of practice, sharp shots of moving people will not be difficult.
Anticipate the patternPrefocus, be ready and shoot!
5. Go Candid:Â Â Here, you just need to be on the prowl. Keep your eyes peeled for subjects to be shot. Sometimes they notice you and the expression changes, the objective is to shoot before the expression changes. But be advised, the shots may not be as you would have wanted them to be, but then, sometimes, gems emerge too.
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6. Bokeh to the rescue:Â If you have a background which has distractions, or maybe you just dont want the background, open the aperture wide and let the background fade.
The tip of the finger is all I am interested in, rest all should fadeTo isolate the model from the distracting background, use a wide aperture
7. Use Flash:Â When shooting in the dark, or poorly lit conditions, use the flash as a last resort. With a few test shots, gauge what strength and what shutter speed you need to do justice to your model. Once found, fire away.
The flash gives the adequate light and also helps freeze the motionCombination of Flash and wide aperture helps isolate the model and also provide proper lighting
8. Get close: Â Often to capture the expression, you must get very close to your model. But be advised, do not disturb the natural surroundings in the process.
Concentration….captured
9. Ask the model to smile: This trick, never gets old. Ask your model to relax and take a seat. Bring out your gear and show them how to take a shot, and when they have relaxed, ask them to smile….voila! You have a genuine and happy smile,
Effortlessly beautiful
10. Try Monochrome:Â For a lot of shots, the monochrome version appears to be of more depth. Try it out, but dont overdo it.
Beauty as I know best
So, there you go. 10 simple tips to get you going on your next portrait shooting trip. Go on, have fun and shoot some wonderful portraits.
Thanks a lot to the wonderful models here: Nikhila, Gowri, Rishika, Shruti, Soma, Mayukh, Shweta, Parthivi, Aakash, Anushree, Yogi and my muse, Tuhina. You all are simply wonderful 🙂
Time and again, I have come across invitations of bloggers meet but have never managed to attend one. Reason being, none of them being organized in my city. So, this time, as I reached Pune, my first thing to do online was, to organize a bloggers meet.
Proper channels were used and the date was set. As for the venue, 11 East Street Cafe was my first choice. This is a cafe which I hold very close to  my heart. A lot of memories and nostalgic emotions are attached. To avoid any issues coming up at the last minute, I went there personally and booked the slot for our meet.
So, here I was, organizing a bloggers meet, which would be a self sponsored one….it felt just too bland, too simple. So, I called up Zomato to see if they could pitch in something and they agreed. Now I was happy. I managed to get a major food review site associated with us too.
On the eventful date, it was an amazing event. We had bloggers from quite a large spectrum. And I dare say, I made some amazing friends, Vikram, Vibhuti, Tara, Aziz, Shubhashree and Vatsala and the evergreen Rutuja.
Here are some of the photos from the amazing evening.
It felt amazing to meet these wonderful people and to discuss the ways to improve. To me it was a great experience and am sure, the future meets shall have much more participation and we’ll make some more friends.
See you all in the next meet.
We are always asked to look up and aim high, and then only shall we reach our objective. Its true. We should also keep our base strong and firm, keep our feet on solid ground, and then, take the lunge up to our goals. Do take a moment, reflect and have a look at the ground beneath your feet.
A bit of green, and whole lot of concrete! A happy and sound foundation for me!
So, when someone asked me if I could make some tricks with the camera, I said, lets see. So, here I am, making my dear brother, who is holding the Tamron 150-600mm monster, levitate.
Dont worry, no dark arts at play here. Its a very basic case of merging and two photos, shot at the same location, same settings and then a case of precise masking. Try it out with different backgrounds and poses, for much more amazing results. Below are the two basic files that had been used for the shot.
The TPTC Blog!! 