There are some people in this world who have that certain indescribable spark that lightens up the entire room wherever they go. They seem to have this invisible aura around them that compels anyone and everything around to gravitate towards them.

Karthik is NOT one of these people. Unfortunately, he thinks he is. So unless you are familiar with Karthik, time spent with him could be like a series of disturbing pauses, wherein he performs a string of randomly ordered secret-service type squint-eyed glances into the middle-distance. If you were familiar with him, you wouldn’t be spending too much of time with him anyway.

So, there I was the other day romping around, camera in hand, for some inanimate objects to photograph. After an hour of brainstorming, I’d zeroed in on Karthik and a flower vase. The gaudy floral motif around the vase seemed a tad too alive, and tilted the scale in favour of the ever-reliable, ever-vegetating Karthik.

The lighting setup was pretty simple. There was a Vivitar 285HV shot through an Umbrella from camera left (around 8 ‘O clock) triggered via radio trigger. There was another light behind and back of the bearded vegetable from camera right – this was basically to throw some light onto the phone. For those of you who’re wondering how to get your subject to emote like in this image, generally phrases like ‘did I tell you your boss called again to remind you you were fired last month and need not keep coming to office‘ or ‘did I tell you your GF called to say she’s running away with that guy who keeps tweeting about his epic struggle with erectile dysfunction?‘ seem to help. For Karthik, however, just asking him to look happy did the trick (yes, that’s him being deliriously happy).

The second photograph has more or less the same setup, minus the second light on the background; here, the background is lit with light from the window to the left. There was a reflector to the right to fill the shadows on that side and decrease the contrast, but alas  I should have been more specific when asking Karthik to HOLD IT in place).

A steaming hot plate of yucky south-Indian food was placed next to camera to suitably dilate subject’s pupils (yes, still trying to figure out if those catch-lights are actually idlis…) and add the semblance of a smile. I would have liked to have taken more shots, but a salivating, frothing-in-the-mouth Karthik doesn’t a very pleasant portrait subject make. To complete the image, some tweaking was done in post: played around a bit with curves, hue-saturation, colour balance, etc. to soak up the remaining traces of life from the image.

The shoot wasn’t very ambitious. It was just a regular portrait session. But I like the end results because they are very close to how I’d visualized I would want Karthik to be shot. At times, one tends to get carried away with the technical side of things, and forget what’s being photographed altogether. It helps to stay true to the subject and go in with a clear idea in mind. I’m learning to see light as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. That being said, I also hate those boring as-is black and white portraits that one gets to see a lot on Flickr masquerading as portraits. Black and White is grossly over-rated!

View another image from the same shoot here.

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

Emboldened by my Liquor Therapy Session, I thought I’d try and generate some more ‘intoxicating’ photographs. The unsuspecting victims were a couple of wine glasses that the missus had bought back in the early 19th century when she still cherished visions of introducing a little more sophistication into her husband’s life. So, the other day as I scratching my back and groping around the fridge for the next can of beer, there they were at the corner of the kitchen, gathering dust and calling out to me in a mocking tone, as expensive, unused ‘am too good for you’ kind of wine glasses are prone to do.

Anyways, here’s the image I got. There are three things that you must notice about the image (If you can figure all three without reading further, give yourself a pat on your back and have a sip of that wine):

1. 1. The background is white,
2. 2. The glass itself is defined by black edges,
3. 3. There are no reflections on the surface of the glass

This is what is uncommonly known as Bright Field Lighting. Bright, because it is predominantly a bright image, with the subject defined by dark lines. It is one of two standard ways of photographing glass, the other being Dark Field lighting (but that’s for another day).

So, what’s this oh-so-secret method? Here goes. Surfaces that reflect light (like glass, mirrors and other shiny surfaces like my ever-increasing forehead), do so only when the light is located within a particular range. This range is determined by the angle of incidence of the light rays on the surface and the location of your camera. I know, I know – that doesn’t help much. So, here’s a simpler way. Assume you are standing in front of a mirror. There’s a light somewhere in the room. How would you know if the light is within the ‘range’ that we described earlier? If you see the light, it is. If you don’t, it isn’t. Great, but how does this help? It helps to know this because if we can ensure that the light source is not within this range, we will be able to eliminate all unwanted reflections, as in the image above. Hmm, nice!

Now, how about the dark edges, and stuff. For that, we again resort to the same idea described above. In the image, the effective light source is not so much the flash itself, as the bright background that it bounces off. And in order to keep the edges of the glass dark, all we need to do is to ensure that the part of the background that is reflected off the edges of the glass is dark (or black, or beyond the light source), and does not reflect back any light. In the above photograph, this, is achieved by inserting two rather wide strips of black chart paper on either side of the white reflecting background. Black, besides being Batman’s favorite color, has the added advantage of being able to suck in all light. It, effectively, doesn’t send back any light (That’s why the name Black hole, got it? Bingo! Otherwise it could very well have been called a Magenta hole or something). But that’s not the trick. If you were to try and identify the exact spot on the background from where the light is being reflected off the edges, it would take you around…err…half a day. Assuming you don’t have that kind of time, there’s a simpler way.

All you need to ensure is that the white background is just big enough for it to fill the full frame of your camera, so that the edges of the background will line up almost perfectly with the edges of the frame. Once you’ve done this, all you need to do is insert some black material beyond either side of the edges (since we are talking about photographing a wine glass, the top edge is not so important, else we’d have to insert some black at the top as well). That’s it. Click away!

Oh, and if you have an assistant who can help you out by gently pouring down some liquid while you click, you can capture some really nice images like the one you see here. It’s ridiculously easy, and looks so darned sophisticated that you’re almost certain to spot a discernible respectful pause before your boss starts abusing you tomorrow. Water behaves exactly like glass, and hence goes very well with this lighting scheme. However, if you fancy, you can also try and add any colored liquid to introduce that zing into your images. But as the liquid becomes less and less transparent, it will appear progressively darker (because the light source is at the back, right?). So, how do you light it properly while still ensuring that you avoid all reflections?! Hmmm…give it a thought.

Also, if you do decide to try something of this sort, be sure to clean the glasses thoroughly beforehand. The almost invisible fingerprint, or that tiny speck of dust around the rim tends to get a little exaggerated in these photographs. And correcting all that in Photoshop is possible, but takes half the fun away. I haven’t touched up the above photographs at all, save for some cropping, etc. (you can tell by looking at the base on which the wine glass stands – the books on which the glass was placed are visible on the far side; I’m sort of a perfectionist that way).

All the best!

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

So, the Boot Camp 2, Assignment 1 is over and the results are out. And despite all my efforts, I didn’t even figure among the top ten. There are lots of people who are still commenting out there, saying things like ‘not disappointed’, ‘was in it for the learning,’ etc. Yeah, right. All of a sudden, everyone’s disgusted of winning. Had David Hobby picked up their images as the winner, they would have been totally ashamed, and felt compelled to abandon everything and spend the rest of their lives as wandering hermits on the foothills of the Himalayas, their off-camera flash in tow. What’s with admitting that you were disappointed? Doesn’t that show that you will try harder next time? You don’t have to go on a killing spree or anything, but feeling a little blue is fine, no?

Anyway, by pure coincidence, just as the winners were announced and I saw that my images didn’t figure amongst them, I decided to get drunk. So, off I went and got myself some beer from the fridge. But photography as a hobby can be quite merciless. There was a time when I could sit in front of the TV, sipping beer, and watching Seinfeld reruns for hours, putting all the muscles in my body to sleep save for the ones required to maneuver the beer can. ‘This is the life,’ I’d tell myself, as I groped around for the bowl of chips lying somewhere within my arm span. But then, everything changed. It was as if I’d taken the red pill (or was it the blue?). The TV became a light source, the beer can was ideal for specular highlights, and the popcorn gave out diffused reflections. So, you can imagine how the rest of the Liquor therapy session went.

Camera at 1/200, f18. A moderately large DIY softbox at around 4 ‘O clock, and another 285 HV shining on the back wall, creating that nice big halo. Oh, and the can is on a piece of glass to add the reflection. Also, I remember putting at least 2 GOBOs between the camera and the softbox and and the softbox and the background to better control the light from spilling over like the beer.

Am pretty pleased with the results, et al. The shot is nicely exposed, the choice of the gel complements the color of the can, and the beer I’m guzzling down is exactly the right temperature to make me forget the humid weather.

Do you notice the long, white patch of light on the right side of the can? That’s my softbox. And that is just about right to give the can some depth/ shape, right? Well, kind of. While I would want that to be there, wouldn’t it be great if it didn’t get in the way of us being able to read the text on the can? I mean, imagine showing this to Mr. Mallya. Despite all his appreciation for all things beautiful, et. al., I can’t really imagine him changing his brand of beer to ‘Kingfis’ just so that my image looks right. Hmm. So, what do you do? You cover the reflection. As I said, the white patch on the can is nothing but a reflection of the softbox. So, wherever I don’t want that reflection, I cover that part of the softbox. Easy, right? Not quite. Takes a bit of doing. Particularly, burp, after about 5 cans of beer. So, I squinted my eyes and pretended everything was fine. Works every time.

Then, an extraordinary thing happened; something that rarely happens in my life. By mistake, I did something right. I replaced the can of beer with one from the fridge. By virtue of being full and chilled, the can of beer had droplets of water all over it. The photographic possibilities were immense – after all, how is the image of beer going to work unless it’s chilled, right? But, there was something else as well. The tiny droplets of water on the surface of the can apparently diffuses the reflection of the softbox. So, the intrusive patch of white that was there in the earlier image was now replaced by a much more bearable and pleasing patch of white, sophisticated suggestion of a highlight. Neat, huh? The rest of the lighting setup was same as far as I can remember. In post-process, I decided that the crop should be a little less severe, in order to bring in a bit more of the background Anyways, nice result. I was pretty happy with the final image. I rewarded myself with another can. The Boot Camp Assignment was a distant memory now. 

Next, I tried a different lighting setup. I brought the light previously shining on the background to camera left, and bounced it off a white piece of chart paper (still gelled). I put black chart paper under the glass on which the can stood and on to the background, creating a seamless background that killed all the reflections. Next, I pushed the softbox to 1 ‘O clock to add a nice rim-light to the right edge of the beer can. This, I thought, would also help me highlight some of the drops of water on the surface of the can. Had I not been completely and utterly drunk by that time, I would have tried out the following with this:

1. 1. I would have tried a smaller softbox on the right,

• 2. I would have gelled that rim light too,
• 3. I would have cleaned up the base of the image (the glass),
• 4. I would have stopped after beer no. 5.

But I WAS drunk; so, I just picked up the next can of beer, and squinted my eyes; And everything was alright again, and the image was perfect, and I had won the Boot Camp 2, Assignment 1, and I had become…burp! Sigh!

Want to try it? Kind of fun! Here are light setups 1 and 2.

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

As I sat in front of my laptop, twiddling my thumb and scratching my head (yes, I CAN do both at the same time), a divine revelation came on to me:

“It’s tough to write a blog post on photography on a photo-blog without new photographs…”

As I told you, it’s divine. But everyone deserves a break, right? So allow me to cheat just this once. I’ve no photographs to talk about, nor do I have any tips to share (I did learn a couple of new ways to tie my shoe-laces, but I don’t really think there is an audience for that sort of thing). What I do have, is an announcement. An announcement so earth-shattering and <insert similar word here> that I was contemplating writing a post announcing this announcement (but I took pity on you).

I give you the rOllon Flickr Group!

If for some reason you still haven’t left, let me tell you something about this group.

1. It does NOT give out awards

2. It does NOT spam

3. It does NOT support human cloning

It does, however, contain some truly amazing images from some very talented photographers that I admire on Flickr.

Entry to this group is strictly ‘invite only.’ This is so that I am able to maintain a good control on the quality of images, and get up every morning feeling very, very important.

Enjoy!

Note: All copyright of the images above with their respective photographers.

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.