RAINS--LET COME ALIVE

IT is interesting to photograph in rains. It is a different sort of feeling holding camera during rains, hiding yourself in some shop, bus stand or ant protective where your equipments are safe. Since the atmosphere may go darker, u wud need slower shutter speeds. Therefore, it is essential to avoid camera shakes and improper focusing.U will have to use a UV filter over the lens to protect the lens from rain drops and then getting it scratched while wiping out rain drops. A good filter is ND filter when it is raining and light is brighter to use it to get slower shutter speeds. Rain photographs need not be restricted to rainshowers only....u can shoot ripples and coronets that are formed when rain water hits the ground/roads.

2. The light during rain is so low, that u may need to increase the ISO during daytime too. This will add noise to the photograph. I think noise is a part of a photograph...u can use noise to your advantage converting images to b&w.

3. The above photo i shot from the windscreen of my car, while it was drizzling. You can view the light reflection of scooter on the road and the distorted lamp post because of slipping water on the glass, with more diffusing effects. This is an example. finding out possibilities is endless.

MOISTURE IS ENEMY OF CAMERA EQUIPMENTS-(40)

YOUR CAMERA EQUIPMENTS are not safe round the year, particularly in rainy season or when more humidity persists in the atmosphere. Therefore, the camera owners have to be more cautious about their costly gear, in handling and storage especially. If they are travelling to a wet humid place, carry a large plastic bag, which can be quickly draped over the camera bag and can protect them too from a light shower. It would be better if silica gel pouches are kept inside the camera bag. It will protect the camera from moisture. At the end of their shoot, they can sit in a dry place in home/hotel and wipe all the equipments with a dry lint free cloth. It may happen that the camera bag might have gotten wet. Take out and pl do not store the equipments in it. Let the bag dry fully, while cameras can remain in some dry place like a table. If they have a table lamp with a tungsten bulb in it, switch it on and focus the light onto the equipments. It will keep them dry and ready for the next shoot. A cupboard's column may be used by placing a tungsten light bulb and keep it on for half an hour over the equipments. When sun comes out from clouds, particularly in winter, the equipments can be placed in an open verandah for some time. the light of the sun should not be too hot, like summer or in other months. The above procedure will prolong the life of the equipments and save them from fungi and costly repairing charges.

MONSOON ENTERS--BE PREPARED.

THE RAINS JUST STARTED. I switched my ISO TO 3200...therefore a good amount of noise. Took it on manual mode at f3.5 and 1/13. The light is against the lamp-post. you can visibly see the yellow effect of an halogen lamp...the rest blue area is lighted by tubelights and was 200ft away. Therefore i got the distance in the picture. The rains were close to my gate...and it was a good downpour. The halo effect i could not get because there were tree branches near the lamp-post.

2. However one way to capture the droplets of water on a glass pane, try to include the light source like a street lamp in the background. This will show droplets more vibrant and make them stand out clearly. One easy way is to keep the light source out of focus so that the water droplets stand out clearly. Next, you can create another interesting effect by shooting the droplets as bokeh by blurring them out.

3. The lighting conditions during daytime with a good directional sunlight will capture rain effectively. The backlight plays a good role here to bring out the drops of water more clearly. Thus you can try several angles for the prominence of the rains. The sidelight will help light up raindrops partially and add a three dimentional effect to the overall picture. You can use your on camera flash to freeze the droplets during night or after it is dark...Making still life objects, freeze raindrops in closeup mode inside the room by using on/off camera flashes.....LOOK out for the perspective of your subject including with rain water. Avoid camera shakes and wrong focus, not to lose your best efforts.

PHOTOGRAHY:HOW CLOSE SHOULD WE GO?-37

IT is a common question in every person having camera and going to shoot...For example he is snapping a friend standing in the garden....He may be in confusion whether to cover whole garden or his friend only....However, generally the closer the better. The nearer the camera to the subject, the larger its image grows in the viewfinder/LCD screen. At the same time surrounding details disappear.

2. NOW TO THE PERSON PHOTOGRAPHING HIS FRIEND HE WILL HAVE A VIEW FROM THE FAR END OF THE LAWN, most of the lawn, larger part of the adjacent house together with greenery in the form of bushes, assorted weeds etc... But before the person clicks, his friend would like to prefer a picture of himself. As he goes closer, gradually the trees of the drive move off the edge of the picture. The bushes at the other edge will follow suit, while the roof of the house and quite a lof of surplus garden will disappear at the top and bottom. As we move further closer, the viewfinder will just show full personality of the friend....If the person wants to end here,he should leave it at that. Or wish to go nearer still for a head and shoulder portrait or even a close up of the face, he can go more closer. But in close up of face, use the lens at tele end not to show any distortion of the face...This small pace will teach the person a lot.

POINTS TO HAVE STRONG COMPOSITION..

We just go on shoot...the subject is enchanting, we cannot move our eyes from it, wish to use flash, can include some more things, so beautiful a perspective, high angle will suit it, sunlight or diffuse light will suit???---These and more questions come in the mind when we have a camera in our hand...There is no end of temptations.

2. Therefore in the experts' view the compositional balance is perhaps the single most important aspect of an image. SIMPLICITY AND A CLEAN COMPOSITION is often more difficult to achieve than a complicated effect. TOO MANY ELEMENTS FIGHTING FOR ATTENTION can confuse a viewer...However in order to have a good classification from composition pov, have a look at the following:

2.1 Subject placement for emphasis: here rule of thirds and following diagonals are some of the basic guides to look out for;
2.2 Distractions in the frame: A good photographer knows what to include or exclude...Anything that is not the part of the subject or its context is a distraction.
2.3 Framing, orientation, camera angle and perspective, these should the subject and the theme.
2.4 Ignoring of these will hamper ur final selection of the image...since a complete photograph is loved by the viewer, the judges in competition, or the audience in ur own solo photo exhibition.

3. In the above photograph, u will find simple placement of the sketch-pens. However, colour makes the difference...The red cap is dominating so placed at rule of thirds....both corners are neutral colours and does not allow eye to go out of frame but help to come on the red...On the paper there are diagonal lines...they give strength to the placement of the pens---a combination of horizontal and diagonal make it a pleasing composition. Otherwise there are so many colours such as: green. white, orange, blue, white of paper but compressed in single composition dominated by red.

BE YOUR OWN CRITIC

''BE YOUR OWN CRITIC'' is not a simple word...It has lot to say. As you go to a tailor for getting your shirt or pant stitched, you will notice that he follows certain norms, they may be general in category, but that please you...''OH THAT MASTER IS A GOOD TAILOR'' and suggest his name to others...So a photograph needs certain norms to be followed to look pleasing. As I viewed thousands of photographs on sites and in competitions...there is great difference in the photographs submitted for competitions and photographs uploaded on sites...WHY? The photographs submitted in competitions are by serious enthusiasts and pros, who know the norms of formal photography and follow the rules of composition.

2. There are forums on sites, where the learners, the enthusiasts and pros share their photographs. What I want to explain that the pros have that eye, that perception, that post-processing process, which makes their photographs out of the ordinary and they do hard work on it from the time of shoot......where if we wish to find some lacunae, it is difficult for us since the pro concerned took care of the photograph from finding of the subject, exposure, DOF, placement of focal point, leading lines, balance of the objects, colours (colours have a psychological effect in a photograph, since they are warm, cool, vibrant, dull, pastel toned etc.).While the photographers in a learning process, copy other photographer's work, shoot the images and take them as final without giving them a second thought....Copying is not bad, but study the ingredients, follow them and make ur own style with those norms.

3. One photographer wrote, 'i do not follow the rules but ''shoot with intuition''.' I think everyone's intuition does not take him astray...The dictionery meaning of the 'intuition' is "'immediate mental apprehension without reasoning, immediate insight''''. Then what is reasoning in your photograph...Is it a hollow question mark? If it so, give it time to think, to reason, to calculate the work of art, put the ingredients responsible to make it spicy, that interest the people, your own colleagues, your own family members. Otherwise you SIT WITH A CAMERA IN HAND AND YOUR PET DOG IS PLAYING NEAR YOU...NOW YOUR INTUITION ORDERS YOU TO TAKE A PHOTO OF IT....TILL YOU OBEY THE INTUITION AND CLICK THE BUTTON, THE DOG IS OUT OF FRAME AND ONLY HALF HIS BODY IS WELL CAPTURED....following intuition is fine till other parts of your brain adjust with it and u take a complete picture.

AMBIENT LIGHT NEEDS FLASH TURN OFF

SOMETIMES PHOTOGRAPHERS MAY NEED TO GIVE THE AMBIENT LIGHT EFFECT to their images...the images will have a warm effect, which will look different from what anybody gets in sunlight, daylight shadows and with flash which throws light equivalent to daylight.

2. Warmer effect may depict a different mood, that is why i chose the ambient light i.e. tungsten light to lit this portrait of my daughter...The background too matches the warm effect, because i used a cream coloured walled at a distance from the subject...The effect i wanted is easily achieved.

3. Here while shooting this sort of photography, the the photographer will have to switch off his builtin or separate flash....these moody shots anybody can take in home with sufficient light by slightly increasing the ISO(generally 400 or 800 will work better without tripod or with tripod), in the parties, where flash light is not allowed or flash will mar the original effect of the hall concentrating light upto a particular distance, in the theatres, where the artists' moods are shown by their own light arrangements, on the roads or in night where again the restricted flash light will distract the overall luminance of the ambient lighting, reading under the table lamp light and shot the mood of study...there are so many like occasions where ambient light is photographers main light source....exploit it to ur best.