There comes a time in every wannabe-photographer’s life when he has to rest his camera and ask himself, ‘what the fuck do I shoot now?!’

I went through one such existential crisis last weekend. Which is when my good friend Pradeep called. ‘So, what are you doing over the weekend?’, he asked.

‘Uhh, nothing much.’

‘So are you up for a shoot?’

‘Sure,’ I said. I am always happy when I am offered the opportunity to outsource certain parts of the photography process, like say, zeroing in on a subject, and emotionally blackmailing them into posing for me. I’d some very pleasant photo-sessions with Pradeep, and the opportunity was too well-timed to be ignored.

Which is until he turned up over the weekend, and revealed what he exactly had in mind. He wanted to shoot me. Gulp.

‘Ideally, I would do a ROFL right now, but the maid hasn’t swept the floor yet,’ said the Missus, as she passed by the living room. ‘Try not to break too many things.’

For the next couple of hours, I sat in front of all the lighting equipment, following instructions like ‘look to the left, now look at me, don’t slouch, intense expression, how about a smile…’ Surprisingly, these words sound simple enough when you’re behind the camera. But when you feel like scratching your balls and throwing up at the same time, and the photographer tells you to ‘hold that intense expression’, you know you’re having a bad day.

Mid way through the shoot, I realized that I needed some leverage to convince Pradeep not to make these images public. So, I suggested that he too pose for me. He agreed. Alas, he turned out to be a natural.

The above image is one from the shoot. Pradeep seemed to be following my instructions, but now that I think about it, he was probably just recalling my intense expression. He has a mean streak.

The lighting setup is one of my favorites. A beauty dish was used as the main light – this is basically a fancy way of saying that a flash was thrust into a steel bowl so that the entire inner side of the bowl acted as a light source. This makes the the light larger than a bare flash, resulting in soft, even light, since it falls on the subject from more directions. This, however, is not as soft as when you use a softbox (which is even larger, and hence softer). The result is a gritty lighting effect. The lights reflected off the subject’s eyes (called catch-lights) also come out as big circular disks – this adds a bit of punch to the image. A couple of portable flashes were placed on either side of the subject, lighting up the contours of the face. These lights were a little brighter than the main light, which is why you see the white patches on the forehead and cheeks.

In terms of post-processing, I followed the same method as detailed here.

In retrospect, the shoot was enjoyable, except for the times when the missus decided to peep in and say things like, ‘are you sure you don’t want a Digene?. So, we have decided to do this more often, but preferably with a third person as a subject. I only have so many intense expressions.

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

Review: Focus on Lighting Photos

I have blogged about the awesome Mr. Fil Hunter before. His much-acclaimed book, Light: Science and Magic, is probably the first to be picked by every amateur who’s trying to get a little more serious about photography. But as with most scholarly work, this book too is not without a flaw. In fact, it was such a glaring omission, that I occasionally found it embarrassing to recommend this book to others. What is it, you ask? This book, and I am not making this up, didn’t have a single contribution from yours truly! Fallen of your chair yet? No? Damn you.

But the good Mr. Fil Hunter is a decent chap, and he has the humility to own up to his errors in judgment. And he did just that with his new book, Lighting Photos. It involved a lot of convincing, whining and groveling of course, but I don’t want to get into all that. Suffice to say that the matter has now been resolved and everything is finally alright with the world.

Lighting Photos is the new title by Fil Hunter and Robin Reid. As with the rest of the Focus On series, this book picks up a specific area of photography (in this case, Lighting) and aims to equip the reader with a working knowledge of the craft to enable her to start taking photographs instantly. Lighting Photos breaks down the intimidating subject of lighting setups into bite sized doses, and illustrates, through detailed examples, on how to get specific results. It’s ideal for people starting off in photography as the recommended equipment is fairly basic, and doesn’t require you to sell your kidneys for that fancy stadium-sized soft-box or over-engineered beauty dish. It is full of tips from Pros and inspiring photographs from contributors across the world. And once you’ve mastered these, you graduate to L:S&M

Amazon UK is still running a Free Shipping Scheme for India, methinks. So, you might want to hurry up. Go and click this link already!

I spent a lot of time mulling over what excerpts of the book I would like to include in this blog. And going by pure merit, here are the 2 pages that I think clearly stand out. And oh, the fact that both the pages have contributions from yours truly is entirely coincidental. I am very fair that way. Ahem. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

Applause. Bow. Thanks!

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve been getting an unprecedented number of queries regarding the self-portrait I’d uploaded on my Flickr stream some time back. Mom called twice, and Dad rang up an hour back to ask if I was feeling okay. Even my brother called up and asked me to take down the image immediately – apparently, it’s extremely inconvenient having to explain to everyone why his brother has nothing better to do than to click flattering photographs of himself and uploading them all over the web. He’s just jealous. Anyway, here’s the image that has created such a buzz at MIG Block 2, Old University Colony, Guwahati.

Light Setup: Back to Joel Grimes/ Dave Hill territory here. A regular 3 light setup. Two rim-lights to light my sides, while a soft-box acts as the main light from over the camera. I used a studio strobe inside the soft-box. And since I didn’t trade my kidneys for that one, it didn’t come with any way to control the intensity of light. So, that pretty much meant that I had to adjust the rest of the lighting around this big, ugly light. The rim lights are our good old Vivitar strobes, set at 2 stops higher than the main-lights. That’s just a fancy way of saying that I played around with the settings on the Vivitars till the light they threw was brighter than my main light. That’s so that you can see that shiny highlights on the edges of the painfully handsome face. The simplest way to go about this is to first just switch on the main light, and take a decent image. Once you’ve adjusted the shutter speed and aperture as per this, you then add one side light. Then another. I know. Very complicated. I am a genius. Bow.

Step 1 (Preparation): On to the post processing now. Here’s how the image looked straight out of the camera. More or less. I added a duplicate layer and played around with the curves to give the contrast a bit of punch. Then, I went on to clone out some of the bumps and irregularities on the face – this took me around a decade. Once I was satisfied that I was looking human again, I went on to step 2.

Step 2 (Shadows/ Highlights): This is the most important step. Here’s where we start giving the image the final shiny look. A lesser mortal will use Dodge/ Burn. But that would be too simple. (I have to justify a blog post, no?). So instead, here’s what I did. I created two blank layers, and in a flash of genius, renamed them Highlights and Shadows. For the Shadows layer, I took a small, soft brush and ‘black’ as the foreground colour. Opacity was set to somewhere between 5 to 10. Then I went on to darken the already dark portions of the photograph. This would mean the creases on the t-shirt, the vertical shadows framing the cheeks, the laugh lines, etc. Also, you might choose to  darken out some of the distractions on the background. The result might not be readily obvious to you. In case you feel that the opacity is too low, be bold and crank it up to 15 or something – you’ll still be able to modify it later using the layer’s opacity. Anyway, the end result – you should just be able to make out the painted areas when you toggle the visibility of the shadow layer.

For the highlights layer, use the same setting as for the shadows layer, and choose white as the foreground colour. Now, paint over all the areas where the light from the flash was visible. This would include the extreme edges of the face, the hair to the left, the edges of the neck, and the creases of the t-shirt. I also chose to accentuate the sweat drop on the nose for some reason.

Step 3 (High Pass Filter): The next step is to select the original layer, and run a high pass filter on it. I went kind of nuclear on it, choosing a setting of around 200. Since it was a new layer anyway, it could do no harm. Also, I’d just been shouted at for not watering the plants. So, wasn’t in the mood for subtlety. Anyway, once done, I changed the blending mode of this layer to ‘soft light’ to tone down the disco.

Step 4 (HSL): I could leave the image here, but being the perfectionist, I chose to surprise you and add another layer of complexity – literally. I revisited the original layer, and added a Hue-Saturation adjustment layer. All I did here, was to change ’Master’ to ‘Red’, and brought down the saturation till the image started looking like one of those gritty, Christopher Nolan meets Guy Ritchie kind of images.

End Notes: For obvious reasons, I cloned out the logo from the t-shirt. You’ll be aware that my deal with Adidas has finally expired. And in the interest of artistic freedom, I’ve chosen to not renew it. Well that, and I just thought I’d look cooler.

If the above ileads to some horribly discoloured and zombie-style images on your computer, please note that the method is not mine. It’s actually a mix and match from a lot of sources. Chief among them are Joel Grimes, Dave Hill and Scott Kelby. If you love the method, on the other hand, remember that you read it here first and you owe me your kidneys.

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

Have you heard of Dave Hill?

If you haven’t, may I please request you to pause for a moment, reflect on your worthless existence, and give yourself a couple of hard slaps. Then, click on the link above and stare at his gallery for a while. Chances are, post that you might want to slap yourself again. Don’t let me hold you back.

The Dave Hill look, as it is referred to in general,  is perhaps one of the most discussed about and attempted methods of photography today. Most people are in awe of the look, but since they cannot even reach near, they just convince themselves they hate it, it’s too cosmetic, it’s all PS, and blah, blah. I am undecided. Regardless of whether I like it or not, I’d still like to learn how to achieve that look. If I’m successful, it will make me feel powerful, and confirm my childhood suspicion that I’m a genius. If not, well, I HATE DAVE HILL too!

Firstly, I don’t claim to have figured it all out. Granted, I’m a genius et al, but I’ve still not grasped this method in its entirety. So, what I present here is strictly WORK IN PROGRESS.’

So, let’s get to it. While all of Dave Hill’s creations are heavily Photoshoped, it helps to keep in mind that this does require a good photograph with a particular kind of lighting to achieve the final effect. (An image of poop with the ‘Dave Hill’ look is…er…an image of Poop nonetheless. There are a whole lot of post-processing wizards out there attempting this with stock images, but ending up with nothing more than severe cases of dodged and burnt fingers. Similarly, there are photographers who’ve tried fitting in lights in every nook and crevice of the frame, but with similar results. Also, it doesn’t help that the creator himself seems to have a lot of fun contradicting himself every once in a while while revealing tiny tidbits about his ‘oh so secret’ method, and watching his followers scampering around in rabid frenzy.

The kind of lighting that Dave Hill uses in his images is called wraparound lighting (not really, but it is now anyway). There will be a soft main-light illuminating the subject from the front. To this will be added some rim-lights. These are comparatively hard light sources positioned behind the subject from either side of the frame, highlighting the subject’s edges as defined by the camera’s perspective. The difference between the two sets of lights would be around 1 or 2 f-stops (that’s Greek for aperture settings). What this does is give the lighting a nice wraparound lighting, as if wrapping itself around the contours of the subject. It also gives you a nice little, mildly intimidating phrase to throw around that comes in handy in various situations.

Cheap Friend & Wannabe Photographer: ‘Hey Rishi, isn’t it your turn to buy beer?’

Rishi (staring at reflection of self in mirror): ‘Yes, will be with you as soon as I figure out the f-stop differential used in this singularly inspiring art nouveau piece employing the highly acclaimed wraparound lighting.’

Cheap Friend & Wannabe Photographer: ‘Er…ok. Catch up with you then…in 2012…’

Other characteristic elements of a Dave Hill creation would be a lot of dynamism. Thankfully, for you, I am not talking about the photographer’s personality here. All of his frames have some kind of a dynamic feel to them – either something is happening or about to happen (That immediately rules out Karthik as a subject, as the only thing that happens in his life happened about 28 years ago). Also, he contrasts this dynamism with a very wide depth of field, keeping almost the entire background in focus. (Since I’m God, I disregarded this last bit in this example).

We will follow 4 simple post processing steps:

Step 1: First, we need to do a bit of healing. Make liberal use of the spot healing brush and the cloning tool to eliminate any blemishes, potholes or craters on your subject’s body. In case you are photographing Om Puri, here’s when you should say ‘D’Oh’ and quit. For others, you are looking for a reasonably flawless looking skin, as otherwise, what we’re going to do next will amplify the imperfections further, making everyone look like Om Puri (I love the actor, but he’s just not Dave Hill-ish material).

Step 2: Next, you create three duplicate layers of your healed layer, and name them (bottom up) Median 30, High Pass 5 and Mask. Please be sure to carefully replicate these names otherwise your computer is liable to go up in smoke in under 30 seconds of your doing this. That, and the fact that it helps you remember the steps. Once that is done, select the layer named ‘Median 30′, and apply FILTER>NOISE> MEDIAN with a value of 30. Then, select the layer titled High Pass 5, and apply OTHER> HIGH PASS, with a setting of 5. Change the blending mode of this layer to ‘Overylay’. Next, log on to your bank account, and transfer all your money to my paypal account. After that, move on to the layer named Mask, and apply a mask over it. Fill it with white. Now, take a nice soft brush (0 will do fine), and having selected the white mask rectangle to the right of the layer thumbnail, start painting your subject’s skin with black. Take care to stay away from edges and sharp areas like eyebrows, eyes, nose, lips, etc. What this will do is make your subject’s skin look awesomely soft, while still preserving enough detail so as to differentiate it from Barbie’s butt. Do this for all of the exposed skin.

Step 3: Next, we apply the LucisArt filter. But before that, remember to flatten your image and make a duplicate layer to minimize the damage you’re most certainly going to do next. Go to FILTER> LUCIS. Set the control on the top-left of the screen to Whyeth, and the mix level to 30. There are 7 buttons on the bottom of the panel, of which the first would be selected by default. This will do just fine. Press okay. Chances are that what will now be presented to you will probably not look pretty. Play around with the ‘transparency of this layer till you’re satisfied.

Step 4: Then comes the fun part. This is where the Dave Hill look really comes out (It better, as it’s the last step). Flatten your image again, and create a duplicate layer. Select the burn tool from the tools palette, set it’s exposure to somewhere between 10 – 20, and setting to ‘shadows’. Now, run the tool over all the shadow areas of your image. Try it first on the clothes of your subject till you get the hang of it. When you think you’ve done enough, do this some more (remember, exposure is at 10 to 20, so you might have to apply this more than once to see any visible difference). Next, select the dodge tool and repeat the process over the highlights on your image, with the setting at ‘highlights’ and the exposure value at anywhere between 5 – 10.

As a finishing touch, add some vignetting effect by applying FILTER> LENS CORRECTION. If you’re not as lazy as I am, you’d have hopefully taken the extra trouble of actually setting your composition against an interesting background – so, you might want to do some colour correction and sharpening there, If you are, then you can just sit back and gloat at your new creation.

This should do it. You should now be the creator of your very own Dave Hill image that you can flash around and blind your wannabe-photographer friends with.

And how have I evolved this elaborate method? I haven’t. There is this noble soul out there called Joel Grimes, who like me, is a very gifted photographer. And unlike Dave Hill, he believes in spreading the knowledge. Do visit his blog for some very nice tutorials on wraparound lighting and post-processing. In fact, I’ve learnt the initial skin softening process from him. For the rest of the method, I’ve relied on another resourceful individual called Google.

Do let me know how your results look. And throw in a few pointers if you figure out something that I’ve overlooked.

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

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!

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

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.

Having loitered around the Strobist blog for well over a year now had lulled me into a comforting complacency regarding my photographic skills. I was living a fairly satisfied existence, occasionally uploading a DIY-soft-box lit image of a frog here, and a bare 285HV backlit portrait of a grasshopper there. Accolades from such varied and credible sources as ‘Flickr Rose Awards – Post 1 Comment 8‘ and ‘You Are My Flickr Star – No Invites Required‘ helped perpetuate the illusion that I’d arrived. Also, the fact that David H. talks about lighting the same way I would may be  talk about making coffee didn’t really help infuse any realism into the situation. Photography is simple; don’t know what the big fuss is about, I’d tell myself as I clicked through pages and reverse-engineered another upload from Chase Jarvis.

Boot Camp Two, Assignment One was posted sometime earlier this month. The brief was simple: a headshot. Use all the learnings that you’ve been spoon-fed here, here and here. Even an idiot couldn’t get that wrong. I mean, headshots are to photography what nuclear tests are to North Korea – they should happen naturally, no? So, as with all previous assignments, I decided to do the exercise mentally. I’d prop in a light here, and a reflector there, the subject would be X ft away from the background, which would in turn be lit with a snooted strobe, gelled to a warm orange hue. The 5th strobe to the left would provide the rim light. Voila! A dazzling headshot of a corporate looking middle-aged guy gazing into the middle-distance shone through. But just as I was about to file another successful session into my extensive imaginary portfolio, an old nagging feeling made me pause. Somewhere inside of me was a kid that still felt a little less cuddled; it still yearned for the elusive pat on the back, or the nod of acknowledgement from the Gurus 1 & 2 themselves! So, I decided to give it a go. For real. What did I have to lose, after all?

Subject: K2. A friend from MBA days, who quit his job in an MNC to start off a microbrewery (the first in India). Looking at his track-record, it was unlikely that his risk appetite would be a factor in his agreeing to pose for me. Besides, he badly needed some decent shots to be circulated in the print media to accompany all the articles they were suddenly featuring him in. Done.

Location: This was a bit tricky, since I was spoilt for choice. I could do the shoot in Corner A, B, C or D of the living room. But the Pro that I am, I choice point E, which happened to be bang in the middle of the living room. The wall (background) was about 4 feet away from the subject, and gave me enough freedom to more or less do anything with it. Inverse Square Law, et. al.

Shoot: K2 was asked to sit on a chair. I would have preferred him standing, but he’s inconveniently tall, and shooting him standing up would mean the support beam on the ceiling of the living room would creep into the frame. I could have Photoshop’ed it out later, but since I am a Pro and all, I wanted to post this as is. Besides, it helps to have your subject seated and comfortable when his confidence in you is evaporating with each passing second. The original thought was that K2 would be holding a pint of his beer, and just benevolently beaming into the camera. But K2 and beer do not a model subject make. So, just a dignified look into the camera would have to suffice. As for lighting, I had two 285HVs, and my subject’s sparkling white teeth. I decided to place one of the 285s inside a DIY softbox that had mysteriously appeared in our house about the same time the missus had lost a sari, some earrings, a curtain, some cardboard that used to cover the hole that was left after the old AC was disposed off, and random pieces of furniture. This would be the soft light that would gradually fall of K2′s face from frame right to left. As for the background, there would be the other snooted 285 that would create a pleasant halo, which would perhaps match K2′s light blue t-shirt.

Surprisingly, doing an actual shoot adds various unforeseen dimensions to one’s thought-process. The simple case of the 285HV on the BG, for example. In real life, it just wouldn’t conveniently hang in the air, behind the subject. Similarly, the reflector would keep sliding down the chair just as I clicked, occasionally taking the 285 down with it. Nor do I remember having to answer the door for the milkman, the newspaper guy, the grocery salesman and the postman every time I thought I had the perfect f-stop figured. And, do any of you recall the strobist site ever mentioning anything about subjects that insist on calling up every person on his address book just as the shot is ready? I couldn’t help feel frustrated, not unlike the time I went around the city unsuccessfully looking for something called VALs in every photography store in Mumbai.

Anyway, back to the shoot. Things, as you can well imagine, weren’t looking up. My subject was getting increasingly restless and talkative, my lights were falling apart and my ego was taking a stroll out on the street waiting for the next SUV. But I wasn’t going to give up. Being the super-resourceful strobist that I am, I decided to give it one last try. Here’s the rather complicated lighting diagram for your reference.

One of the tougher decisions I had to make(apart from deciding between the postman and the newspaper guy) was to zero in on the number of light sources I wanted. I’ve noticed that if I go into a shot without having a definite idea of the desired output, I very often find myself unnecessarily adding light all over, till my subject begins to resemble the Eiffel Tower. If I have 4 strobes, for example, I somehow find a way of fitting them all into the setup, regardless of what the marginal utility is. It helps to have a tight brief in mind.

On a more sober note, THANK YOU David Hobby for giving us this!.

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.

It seems obvious on hindsight, but it looked like a very good idea at the time. A break away from work to the salubrious climes of Goa was exactly what I needed. Of course there was the minor matter of me being employed by a company and required to attend office every weekday. So, when I cleverly asked for a well-timed (Thursday and Friday) leave for 2 days from work, judging from my boss’ expression I could just as well have been threatening her life with the stapler I was holding in my hands (which too is not beyond the realms of possibility, but that’s besides the point). Post the perfunctory gasps and sighs to make me feel like a miserable, irresponsible twat, she finally conceded, and made the supreme sacrifice of granting me 2 days leave in the last 2 years. Thus having completely tricked the system, I went home in a rather chirpy mood, and chirped the plan to the wife.

Now, regular readers of this blog (yes, I mean the loyal fan following that I seem to have developed in the region of Africa, who keep leaving me comments asking me to pick up strange packages containing regal jewelry from the airport) that I share a rather unique equation with my spouse. It would not be wrong to say that we complete each other. Without her, I wouldn’t know the things that I dislike, and without me, she would have no clue why she was fed up of her life. For example, something like the mode of travel would be a non-issue with her. But, she instantly knew how much she’s hated air travel all her life the minute I suggested we should fly down to Goa. Of course the knowledge that I was totally against wasting a good 12 hours of my vacation time on a train that seemed to stop at every pan shop on the way had nothing to do with it. I had had it. I decided to put my foot down.

Instead of taking a train that took 12 hours, we thus took the Konkan Express that added another delightful extra hour. I spent the morning clicking images of random strangers trying to look grave and reflective by the compartment door. The train delivered us early in the morning in a place called Thivim, ready to be ripped off by friendly taxi drivers who refused to recognize the independence of our country and kept asking payments in Euros and Dollars. After another hour or so, we reached the hotel that had been arranged for us by my dear friend DJ (more about him some other day). The negotiations on the rates went somewhat like this.

"How much for an economy room for 2?"

"INR 7000 for a day!", shouted back the clerk, obviously irritated at being disturbed by stupid tourists who’d nothing better to do than to check into hotels.

"That’s too much…any chance of a discount?"

"Okay, okay. INR 3000 with a complimentary upgrade to the Presidential Suite and free spa."

Exhausted with the fierce negotiation, I didn’t bother asking which President had the suite been originally meant for. But all said and done, it was a nice enough room, complete with an attached living room, balcony, bathrooms with bath-tubs, etc. I was pretty happy. Having had to spend one full night over me, even though it was on the upper berth, had taken its toll on my wife, and she went straight for her bath. I decided it was time for me to check out the white balance of Goa. Walking into the balcony, I was pleasantly surprised by a nice full view of the swimming pool below, complete with foreigners in all shades of pink trying desperately to turn different shades of darker pink. Moments later, I was surprised once more when I felt a tap on my shoulder while trying to manually focus the camera on a particularly attractive lady who was trying very hard to even out the color scheme on her body. Words not even present in the the Free Online Very Liberal Dictionary were exchanged. I gave her a piece of my mind, and then instantly went and made coffee for the both of us. The following image of her trying to reach out and grab me by my hair can also pass of as a nice little romantic snapshot. Vivitar 285HV from camera right, and fury from subject centre.

Later that evening, I found the conversation veering towards a rather uncomfortable direction. It was only when the suggestion of going and spending time on the beach was floated that I realized why my suggestion of coming to Goa had not been shot down (like the time we’d spent our planned Ladakh trip in Kanyakumari). For yours truly is not very fond of water. Don’t get me wrong, I am pretty okay with drinking water from glasses, et. al. But lounging around the edge of the Arabian Sea was a million light years beyond my comfort zone. The wife obviously knew that.

Thus having failed to convince the wife that a vacation to Goa need not necessarily be turned into a cliché with visits to the beach, et. al, off we went to the sea. A cool beer on a beach chair soothed the nerves somewhat, while the wife romped around mockingly in the water. Occasionally, I took a few snaps of her as well to convince her that she was the reason I’d insisted on bringing along the camera in the first place. And topless foreign tourists? Where? How?

©2012 rollon. All Rights Reserved.