Portraits - Freezing Emotions

More often than not, people simply point their cameras at other people and click off! Few of these will ever look at the photos in the 'review' and decide to shoot the same frame again; still fewer (and innocent) might appreciate good portraits but can't really say what goes into capturing those perfect moments.

I have yet to master the art myself but I feel I can definitely give a few pointers for beginners.

The photo on the right is probably one of my personal favourites. It was shot in a small village during a casual photo trip that a few of us had gone on. The powerful emotions in the kid's eyes were not so easy to catch - I had to strike up a small talk with him and then click 4-5 frames to get the one I wanted.

Firstly, shooting multiple frames is almost always a good idea. Secondly, notice that almost the entire frame is filled with his face, avoiding any distracting background. Initially while taking portraits we tend to try and 'get everything' or 'fit the face / half body' and in the process loose the essence of portraits - to capture emotions. For example in this photo, part of the kid's face (ear and small portion of head) is not in the frame; but by avoiding that, the focus of the viewer goes straight to the kid's eyes - or at least that was the intention!

This is one of the techniques used in portraits - the effect of good composition. Most of the times, any good camera put on one 'auto' or 'portrait' modes will take care of the rest of the stuff.

Another technique used to eliminate the background distraction is taking advantage of what is called the 'depth of field'. Simply put, this factor decides how much or rather which portion of the frame will be in sharp focus and which will be totally out of focus, creating the desired 'blur' in the background. The details of aperture, focal length etc are left aside for this beginner's guide. The first step is getting the composition right! Once that is done, the above mentioned factors can be easily played with to get better results.

Portraits are meant to bring out details, to bring out the finer aspects of the picture, to get the viewer 'involved'.

Almost everyone around has a digital camera these days with more features than many care to use! This aspect of photography, however, hardly requires any special features and yet is accepted to be one of the most challenging ones in photography!

Sweetly Bleeding

Blue winter breeze

A burning struggle inside

Let not the pain ease

Don't choose a side

In a flash it all strikes

Rolling tears upon a smile

Live the unrest

Peace away a mile

Leaves turning red

The crimson will not stay

Thoughts of dear memories

Must they fade away?

Colours washing off

Hollowness surrounding

A deep open wound

Left sweetly bleeding

-abhi

PS: this is also an expression for something seen in a dear friend recently...

30th September - The Conflict is Lost

People in our country seem to unite over the most destructive of causes, and not merely figuratively. The verdict of the conflict over the Ayodhya land has been declared recently. If one looks at the history of this long lasting conflict, it dates back more than 17 years.

The Liberhan Commission which was set up by the Government of India after the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 submitted it's report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in mid 2009; after what one can only call a "delay" of 16 years! This is probably one of the longest run commission in the country's history and yet the report has some "legal fallacies". One of these is the fact that former Prime Minister A.B.Vajpayee is included in the list of the people responsible for the destruction act and yet he was not summoned once during the inquiry. This obviously gave the BJP an issue to challenge the findings of Justice Liberhan.

Apart from the utterly ugly politics involved which basically transformed the existing socio-religious issue into a political one, there is something which I, or rather an overwhelmingly lot of us fail to understand - why the hell are people so willing to unite against such a bloody destructive cause? I'm not in favour of either the Hindu side or the Muslim side here.

In December 1992 over 150,000 karsevaks (hardcore Hindu activists) demolished the Babri Masjid. This was despite the assurance given to the Supreme Court that that the structure would be left untouched. Thousands were killed in the riots that broke thereafter in major cities like Mumbai and Delhi. Thousands more died later in the riots in Godhra many years later. Nothing was gained; none of the sides proved any point. Why were thousands of innocents dragged into this slaughtering at the whims of a few religious fanatics? Or has this fanaticism been penetrated so deep in the masses that it's no longer a few people fueling this madness?

The roots of communal disharmony can be traced back to the Mughal invasion. There is a general belief that the Babri Masjid was built after demolishing an old Hindu temple. This is yet a matter of debate, even after the supposed evidence given by a report of the Archeological Survey of India on the issue. However, whichever way one chooses to draw conclusions from the little available material evidence, why can we just not live with the fact that all of this has happened over four hundred years ago, when power was law.

Just because some invaders probably demolished a temple and built a mosque there doesn't give anyone the right to claim a certain property as that belonging to any particular religion. India is a huge country with hundreds, if not thousands, of religious places - go build whatever you want to over there! What possible bad would have come, had the Ayodhya land been declared as a heritage site and the ancient structure preserved as a part of Indian history; not Hindu, not Muslim but Indian history. Seriously, are there less number of places of worship that we have to fight like cavemen over this one place? Please someone show me how this logic is refutable.

The whole country was portrayed to be in a state of "wait and watch" and tension and apprehension, days before the verdict. The general consensus is that the verdict is unbiased and what not; and people are relieved that one of the longest, if not the longest burning communal issues in the country has been resolved. There is nothing to be relieved of over the Ayodhya verdict! It might as well make us all feel ashamed of ourselves - for who can now assure that no moronic people would simply kill thousands of innocent people to erect places of worship...

Worship...people are busy worshiping everything but humanity...