Magic of Books

Having explored all the mm’s from 18mm to 55mm, I finally decided it was time to venture out into the unknown and buy myself a new lens; a kit lens can only get you through, like, 10 blog posts. So, off I went to the nearest Canon showroom. And promptly came back. Empty handed. Depressed. Sulking. Confused. Suicidal (well, not quite – but you get my drift).

Investing in a DSLR is a big decision. It’s expensive, and unless one is very serious about photography, it doesn’t make much sense either – having a 10MP of your pet licking her tummy simply doesn’t have as much of universal appeal as you might hope for. But let’s say you are serious about it. A decent DSLR costs anywhere upwards of INR 30K. But that’s just the beginning of your spiral into bankruptcy. Before the DSLR, your images used to look amateurish, grainy, plain, stupid and lacking a single strand of creativity. Post purchase, you’ll realize that you now have the power to create images that are still amateurish, grainy, plain, stupid and lacking any strand of creativity, albeit in super-high resolution. For a moment, you’ll start questioning yourself, and play around with the idea of taking your day-job a little seriously. But soon, your efficient survival system will kick in and you’ll decide your "equipment is to blame; if I could just get my hands on a decent lens…" From then on, there’s no looking back.

I’m awesomely proud of this image. I’ve wanted to take this image since quite sometime, but the bokeh just wasn’t possible with my kit lens. So, I decided to make this my first image with the refreshingly cheap canon 50mm 1.8 prime lens. The setup is fairly simple. The books have been lit with a bare Vivitar 285HV at 1/4th power about 3 ft away. Another Vivitar to camera right lights the army of drinking glasses placed at a distance of around 2.5 ft behind the stack of books. This flash is gelled a shade of blue, that is reflected by the glasses. Since the 50mm lens allows for a wider aperture, the depth of field (the range of the image that remains in focus) is limited, reducing the reflections from the glass into a beautiful blur. Voila!

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