A cup of Tea anyone?

Tea is something i can never refuse, a cup of tea or a glass of tea here in India is better than any cold drink even in the middle of our blessed summer. Some time about noon, some where in UP.

Lucknow

The early bird gets the worm I guess, though I had to literally push myself out of bed because of all the late night discussion at home and on the phone I guess it was worth it. This is a photograph of one of the most photographed monuments in Lucknow – The Bara Imambara. Will fill you in on the short history class shortly.

The Eclipse

Okay first the confession, I had no plan to wake up the see the eclipse, none what so ever!

Being given the responsibility of waking near and dear ones the alarm went off at 6 am, guess things were mid-way by then. Yes I know I woke up late! Anyhow without my ultra dark glasses by my side and everyone telling me to take a photograph I reluctantly got the 20D with 400mm out (did not want the risk the 5D). Some where in the back of my head I had the vision of the magnifying glass burning my eye etc etc.

So how was I supposed to take the shot without looking through the camera?

Then it dawned me .. the Depth of Field preview! That tiny little button that you can press with your left had, bringing in the Aperture leaves together restricting light to a tiny pin hole at F40! With the light down and being able to see what I was shooting without going blind I was able to take more than the usual arc in the sky.

It took me a good five minutes of shooting without looking and other tricks before I remembered the DOF preview button but we wont talk about that!

Red and Green

A village school run by the daughter-in-laws of the village was one of the many interesting visits during my week with RGMVP. We were walking back to the cars wading thru the puddles on the kachha road while a tail of children excitedly followed to bid us farewell. The village was the usual mud-huts with thatched roofs. One house however had a brick wall with this turquoise green paint. Though the rest of the team had already moved ahead and there was a good chance I would be left behind this time, I stopped and took this shot.

Pack-up!

On a trip in Bhutan some years back I waited in the front seat of our car camera in hand hoping to see a Red Panda. At about four in the evening I gave up and put the camera away. (Packed up for the day.) We must have driven for another 10 minutes when we found one, not in the trees far away but on the road staring us in the face… of course I don’t have the shot, had packed up for the day.

Some of my best photographs have been a result of not packing up when it seemed the time to put the camera away. Its as if I was being tested and having passed the test was allowed to see what I did and so photograph it. I have always struggled with clients friends and family as I insist that the cameras should not be put away. So when is it the right time to put the camera away?

Covering a meeting of a Self Help Group (SHG) for the Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojna (RGMVP) I was asking myself the question all over again. The meeting was over and we were being offered sweets and water, I was wiping the sweat on my face that threatened to seep into the camera and short circuit it. It had been a good day despite the heat and the humidity. Waiting for the rest of the team I was whiling time looking absentmindedly all around when I this visual came to me. Running across the village square I reached the spot just in time to capture the moment before the ladies put down the graphic chart that explained the benefits of Unity.

So when’s the right time to put down the camera and say okay lets pack up? Guess never !

Photography-Drawing with light

The simplistic meaning of the word derived from its Greek roots is something many photographers take some time to quite understand. (including me) While there is more to a photograph then just highlights and shadows and often the subjects we photograph are so captivating that it seems unimportant to fuss about this, yet the proper light (or lighting) can make a good photograph even better.

Now before you take up arms and attack me with strobes, flashes and anything else that you use for your lighting up the frame, as I have said before there are no rules and in many cases one has to work hard to get even lighting for certain products etc. but we are not talking about that right now.
It has been my experience (and I am hoping you will agree,) that when light come from the right direction it can draw some extraordinary work on the canvas of your sensor (or negative for those of us who still shoot film at times). Often though we don’t find the time that this task demands because of our busy schedules, even if all we do is take photographs (and want to do it well).

The important lesson to remember here is the simplest, all it takes is to remember what photography means and then see how one can do justice to its simplest meaning. Very often the time of the day when we walk past a certain building or monument may not be best with regard to shadows etc. but instead of waiting a half hour or having a cup of tea and then returning in an hour we just go ahead and take the photograph (nothing wrong with that,) and never return to see what would have happened if the lighting had changed.
What would light draw an hour or two hours later?

Seeing what is there is one thing, but looking for what can be there is something quite different and the results will speak for themselves.

Splash!

Being in the right place at the right time that’s what its all about! (i'm not so sure!)
It surely helps to be there at an opportune moment but there is more to it then just being there. I am sure you too have realized. There have been times when I was at the right time in the right place but could not make the most of it. Simply speaking I could not take a single shot!

One such situation was when I was in Hawaii chasing the Humpback whales. I’d been riding boats for over a month or so chasing these majestic mammals. As per the laws you cant get closer than a certain distance but the whales are free to approach you. A calf did, it came real close, about a meter from the bow of the Zodiac where I was with my cameras just waiting….. and THEN all out of the blue a huge male whale surfaced not more than 10 meters from us to sound a warning.

Its one of those moments I can see again and again but just did not have the wits about me to pick up my camera and shoot. It was the moment I had hoped and prayed for every time the boat left the harbor. A lot changed after that, I began being more prepared and though there are going to be moments in the future that might take over, I hope I’ll be able to react in time to get the shot - more often than not!

A couple of months after the trip to Hawaii I was sipping a drink on a beach in the Caribbean when a wave broke right behind a girl playing on the beach....
I took the shot.

Need cat-like reflexes? Yeah! May be, it sure does help once you are there (at the right place at the right time!).