Posts Tagged ‘ portrait ’
Went out for the photo-walk in the morning. Not much people on the roads but able to get this one. I moved closer to them with a smile and camera in my hand. They din’t objected, in fact they were happy. All the little girl said was- “Dikhao” (Let me see) after it was over.
“A single chair in the corner of a dark balcony,
And a lot of windows watch me”
~Fatima Naoot
What is this old lady thinking? Does she want to talk? Or she just want to watch.
Must see here on Flickr as it looks superb on black background
Photography has given me a lot of wonderful experiences. You talk to unknown strangers without any context, without any judgement. you just talk. I was a little apprehensive about going close to her and taking the photograph. I thought she would refuse. I was taking a long distance photograph when she called me.
She was speaking Marathi I guess and I din’t understand a single word she said. But I felt connected to her. It was like she was searching for someone to talk.
I just listened to her and took photographs. She was not nervous.
There are some photography tips I learnt from this photograph. I think you will benefit from them too.
1. The placement of subject: I cropped the upper portion to allow more of the wall in the lower portion. This shifted the weight to the upper side and now you feel that you are looking up.
2. The color: I added some texture on the background of the balcony. The blue color of the background gave the depth to the photograph. It gave the lady a push and a color contrast.
“Old men’s eyes are like old men’s memories; they are strongest for things a long way off”
GEORGE ELIOT
See on Flickr for a better view
I took this photograph at Lakeside, IITB. I like to capture static frames. When you just sit at a place, let your mind loose, enjoy the silence. It shows ‘growing old’ in a very positive manner. Not for the death but for the life you have lived. For all the stories and adventures lived. This song My Way sung by Frank Sinatra just says everything I want to say by this photograph.
“And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
I traveled each and ev’ry highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way
I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way,
“Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way”
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!
Yes, it was my way”
I have decided to start again my old style of showing how a photograph is made.
1. I observed this old man sitting near the lake, just lost in his thoughts. I took the initial trial photograph to see the exposure and the make up for the difference between what you see in Camera and what appears to your eyes.
2. The contrast was good but the highlights appeared too much washed out. So I removed the sky by changing the vantage point.
3. It was better than previous one but not something which stands out. So I decided to make use of some surrounding features. I clicked one frame using a tree to make a frame and another one through the grass.
4. I liked the one taken though grass. The placing of grass on right side was intentional to balance the weight of the photograph. The use of grass led to a new idea of clicking through a lower angle showing more of the out of focus grass.
5. After editing it in Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5, adding some textures, I got my final photograph.
I also edited one other photograph as it was also impactful.
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.
~Henry Ford
I have been trying different formats for portrait photography for some time now. Portraits excite me to no ends. I want to document some people near me and maybe extend it to others if it goes well. She is an Undergraduate in MSc. Chemistry at IIT Bombay who is more interested in business than chemistry. She plays guitar, read books, sort of addicted of coffee and chocolates :P.
See on Flickr for a better view
Yay! I am back in Mumbai. I have a loads of photographs to upload and a lots of ideas but first I have to get a job to survive here. I maybe uploading more than 1 photograph per day to make up for the days I missed.
The above photograph was taken at Jaipur Railway station. I have done a lot of hard work on the post-processing and I hope you like it
I din’t get time to go out and shoot today, so uploading an old photograph I took when I shot drowning. I have got a loads of ideas for 365 + I am working on the proposal and planning for a series of workshops I am going to conduct (with my team) for school children + I got a freelance work of designing graphics for a game. What more can you ask! I just have to solve the problem of accomodation now and It will be all perfect. Flickr link
For this photograph, I like the tension between the lady and person sitting. But it is described so well by a friend of mine ( who is also my team member for the workshops) that I am not going to waste any more words.
” first you just see the guy,
then you notice the woman,
and then you see invisible strings on the abandoned path between them,
she has traveled that bit of the road,but he is still unsure
and there are strings
some have broken… laying down defeated on the ground
some are still hanging, bearing the tension
That’s how it happens, you know? A couple is like a system held by many strings
As they grow apart
some strings break
the remaining strings are in higher tension now
tension keeps increasing, strings keep giving away
then the last one snaps all of a sudden
and there is no tension
no strings attached
and it is where these two people come from
that makes their strings cotton
not nylon
not metal
off-white
hand woven
Cotton Strings! “
~Harshwardhan
It was a wonderful morning. On the other hand I think all mornings are wonderful except the fact that I spent most of them sleeping. This was the first time I made an HDR involving a person. I was able to do that because this person was completely engulfed in the book. He was reading ‘Gitanjali’, the Nobel Prize winner book from Rabindra Nath Tagore. I am dedicating this photograph of mine to this great artist with a fantastic poem written by him. Flickr link for a much better view.
Passing Breeze
Yes, I know, this is nothing but thy love,
O beloved of my heart—this golden light that dances upon the leaves,
these idle clouds sailing across the sky,
this passing breeze leaving its coolness upon my forehead.
The morning light has flooded my eyes—this is thy message to my heart.
Thy face is bent from above, thy eyes look down on my eyes,
and my heart has touched thy feet.
A portrait I took on the last photo-shoot. The photograph Sirhan is also with her. Keep looking this space for the complete photo-shoot
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | ||
The Silent Discourse 