Photo stories till date remain one of the highest forms of story telling. Incidents portrayed in the form of a series of well composed, content rich photos, while aesthetically pleasing, continue to be one the most attractive and arresting form of documentary.

The power of illustrations, even when simplistic, is self evident.

I did this simple photo story on road layers as part of one of my projects. A common enough occurrence…..but several photos documenting the process of work and the people when strung together complete a short and simple story which can be interesting.

Forming a photo story starts with deciding upon a theme. 

THEME

A carefully chosen researched theme is almost immediately appealing. Even commonplace occurrences when presented well can be interesting.

Right mix of portraits, environment and activities.

A story needs to document snippets of a lot of things. People, environment and some of the important activities that these people engage in.

INFORMATION

Some information regarding the protagonists is always welcome. Its better to ask around, to engage in conversations, to know the relevant details about the process being photographed. This kind of information can influence how you finally present the story.

CURATION AND PRESENTATION

One shoots a lot of photos while looking for a story. But proper curation to include the best and the most relevant photos is of utmost importance. Repeatedly view your photos to decide upon which appears to be the best.

BE AWARE

Be sensitive to local customs and processes. If and when possible it’s always better to ask for permission from individuals before photographing them. Identify off limits areas.

Before being unduly insistent on gaining access to forbidden and restricted areas, be patient for a while. Utilize that time to build up a rapport with people who frequent such areas. Recklessness almost never pays.

GEAR

I personally prefer to carry two camera bodies, one with a mid zoom fast lens usually a 24-70mm and the other with a telephoto lens usually 70-200mm.

If the situation warrants so a wide or ultra wide might be necessary to take in the environment.

The post Beginners’ guide to composing a brief and simple photo story appeared first on SlickPic Digital Photography School.

SLOWER SHUTTER SPEEDS

The most important rule. Shutter speeds by definition need to be slowed down to allow tracking a subject over a period of time. This creates the beautifully blurred backgrounds.

Shutter speeds depend on the speed on the moving subject. Fast moving objects may need around 1/60th of a second. Most often 1/15th to 1/30th provide good results. But this varies too much. As said before, the speed of the moving subject decides this. Usually some experimenting is required.

FOCUS AND TRACKING

Modern cameras allow tracking a moving subject while in focus. Half press of the shutter usually locks the focus. At times manual focus set to a specific distance might be needed.

PANNING

Smooth movement of the camera to follow the moving subject comes with practice. A horizontal smooth travel or following of the subject with the camera is the basic underlying technique. Tripods and monopods come with pan heads but most often panning is done with the camera handheld.

SPACE AROUND THE SUBJECT

Too tight frames tend to negate the effect of motion blur. Usually some real estate on both sides of the subject result in a more dramatic panning effect.

Photo: Colours in the background helps in subject isolation

PANNING SLOW MOVING OBJECTS CAN BE TRICKY

One might end up moving faster than the subject. In my experience panning slow moving subjects require more skill. The shutter speeds might turn out to be faster than required….the camera movement can turn out to be out of sync with that of the subject…….but opinion differs.

BRIGHT DAYLIGHT

This can lead to problems in slowing the shutter speed. Stopping down at base ISO can help.

TEST SHOTS, EXPERIMENT, SEVERAL SPEEDS

Try out several shutter speeds at different focal lengths to get at the optimum and most dramatic pan. Fiddle around a bit with the aperture.

The post Introduction to Panning – Basic techniques and a beginner’s guide appeared first on SlickPic Digital Photography School.

Banks of Hooghly

Photographers have continually stressed on getting the timing right and discussions continue to focus on anticipation, preparation and techniques.

Similarities

The all important sense of anticipation

A term is often used…..”working the scene”. That’s when you make sense of a scene by moving around, observing a scene from different angles, looking for interesting subjects popping into the scene and building up a scenario in the mind. This creates a sense of anticipation and this sense of anticipation leads a photographer to a state of readiness with the camera settings and framing.

Metamorphosis

Compositional elements

What you finally see is what you anticipate. Interesting juxtapositions, overlaps, portraits with meaningful backgrounds and freezing stunning action are some of the constituents of canning a moment that has a certain amount of x factor in it…..something that sets it apart from a regular moment.

Environment

Multi shot

Using the multi shot function is almost always a winner. Multi shot mode allows you to shoot a sequence of photos of moving objects in rapid succession depending on the frame rate of your camera. Frequently one among this sequence will appear to be just the right shot in terms of positioning.

Plunge

Higher ISO and faster shutter speeds

Immensely important to capture stunning actions. Even in daylight iso speeds in the range of 800 to 1000 allows for significantly faster shutter speeds thus helping to freeze fast action.

Wits end

Be unobtrusive

Be as unobtrusive as possible. All elements of a scene, when they become conscious of the photographer and the camera, tend to behave unnaturally. But there’s nothing better than a candid shot which captures the natural essence of a scene. Spending some time in the shooting zone and familiarizing oneself with the situation at hand tends to relax people around the photographer. After a while they just go about their business without being too conscious of the camera.

Paper Bird

Innovative angles

Experimenting with angles and povs ( point of view ) usually create different looking shots. Eye level shooting has mostly been the norm in documentary and journalistic work. But even simple street scenes can often appear dramatic with creative angles.

Catch

To conclude, the sense of anticipation reigns supreme along with the readiness to shoot away the moment something interesting begins to happen.

Moved left

The post Seizing the moment – Anticipating, identifying and capturing the right moment in street and documentary photography appeared first on SlickPic Digital Photography School.

The festivities are generally observed in mid April on the final week of the Bengali calendar year. The rites involving Gajan has evolved over centuries and presently involves worship of Shiva along with ritualistic body piercings, self-flagellation and fire stunts.

Tongue piercing starts

The word “Gajan” is etymologically derived from the bengali word “garjan” meaning roar or cry which the worshippers emit in a bid to appease the gods and celebrate the pain which still forms an integral aspect of the rituals. The worshippers are commonly referred to as sanyasis or bhaktas. The festival ends with charaka puja, a form of worship aimed at evoking blessings of the gods for prosperity and harvest.

‘Sanyasis’ pierce themselves with skewers and march across villages accompanied by drummers and followed by the locals in huge numbers.

Body piercing and preparing for march

Rituals vary from place to place including one popular method in which men hang from ropes and are spun high above the ground from tall tree trunks converted to poles. In other places obscure tantrik methods predominate, wherein devotees march on through villages with skulls and bones. Fire stunts remain a widely observed routine.

Ever popular among rural communities, this festival still draws huge crowds and continue to remain a spectacle.

After the worship of Shiva, devotees gather to collect ‘charanamrit’ or holy water which has supposedly been used to wash the idol’s feet.

Waiting to collect Charanamrit

Considered the ultimate form of the lord’s blessing.

Mad rush for Charanamrit

Of course a mandatory selfie

Selfie

Videos

The rituals mandate marriage of Shiva with Leelavati. The devotees go berserk amidst drum beats as the grooms companions.

Accompanying the groom

The marriage rituals… outsiders are never permitted inside.

Leelavati’s wedding

Shiva has been married off to Leelavati. Now the customs state that the groom, the almighty Shiva graciously blesses a dead man and brings him to life. Devotees celebrate Shiva’ s ability to bring one back from the dead.

Raising the dead

Dawn. Crowd swells. The most eagerly awaited part begins. The tongue piercings. Celebration of pain. It is said men pierce themselves to feels the pain of womenhood, of childbirth.

More piercing

More piercing

Amidst body piercings and voluntary infliction of pain through self flagellation, another integral part of the festival remains the dressing up of men and women as popular deities and performing impromptu skits. The intensity of the piercings are countered by the light hearted comical performances by these characters commonly referred to as “shong” meaning jesters.

Young performer in the middle of a yawn

Goddess Kali

PROBLEMS WITH FESTIVALS

Photographing a festival that is observed predominantly at night can be tricky, even difficult. One might get trapped in corners or get jostled around by unruly crowds preventing proper vantage positioning or time to shoot critical moments.

Uneven lighting or even the lack of adequate ambient light further complicates matters. camera settings need to be frequently checked to ensure proper exposure settings at all times.

SHOOTING MODES AND ISO FOR LOW AMBIENT LIGHT

Many prefer to shoot in Aperture Priority mode in such situations. I though always prefer full manual controls.

Low light situations are what you mostly end up with. Even apparently bright fluorescent lights in open spaces have huge fall-offs and do not contribute to ambient light in a manner you would expect.

High ISO settings are almost always a must. Modern full frame sensors usually do a more than decent job of handling ISO settings above 2000. I almost always maintain a basic setting of ISO 3200 in such situations and at times climb up to above 6000.

In camera noise reduction helps but tends to differ among manufacturers.

SHOOT RAW

Its advisable to shoot RAW. The speed at which things can happen in festivals, fairs and similar celebrations might not always allow one to set perfect exposure settings.

Post processing, at times even heavy, is generally required. Modern softwares help a lot with contrast and noise adjustments while retaining clarity and augmenting sharpness.

PRIOR SURVEY AND PLANNING, LEARN ABOUT THE EVENT

The scope of a recce of the scene, if possible, cannot be overstressed. Crowds tend to move in throngs, in phases, so high ground if available is almost always an advantage. Crowd movements when combined with slow shutter speeds can make for dramatic and creative styles.

Its best to collect as much information as possible about the rituals, customs, local sensibilities, off-limits areas, places to avoid, places to be in, situations to follow, a bit of local history etc.

GEAR AND SETTINGS

When I need to cover a festival that’s chaotic, disorganized and draws voluminous unruly crowds and that too at night, I usually prefer a full frame sensor noted for good ISO handling abilities and a fast mid-zoom lens.

Mostly it’s a Canon 6D which allows really smooth high ISO handling, enabling faster shutter speeds and I usually pair it with a Tamron or Canon 24-70mm, f2.8 lens. Tamron even puts in an image stabilization in its 24-70.

The entire sequence was shot after midnight. ISO settings have mostly stayed above 3200.

I don’t prefer too shallow DOFs for street and documentaries because in my opinion that messes up the eyewitness feel of the photographs. I am almost always shooting at f8 or higher during daytime and at night I try not to come down below 6.5 unless I am looking for extreme subject isolation

The post Photographing Gajan, a religious hindu festival of rural Bengal, at night in low ambient light appeared first on SlickPic Digital Photography School.