And after a looooong hiatus, I am back with an update to the photo-blog. This time catching up on the pet project, The Rainbow Series.
So far, I’ve covered Red, Yellow and Blue. And now I give you Orange. This particular shot was taken way back in October 2015. Editing took place sometime later in the year and since then it’s been waiting for me to pen the post for publication.
I took this shot during my maiden trip to the world famous Bondi beach. Apart from the many other picturesque shots I was privileged to take, this one stood out for the simplicity of the composition. This couple was staring out into the ocean peacefully, almost standing still while doing so.
Personally I love the fact that this couple just stood so still and that too with the perfect back drop. Every photographer’s ideal subject!
Dug this one up from the archives. This shot dates back to 2010 and was taken with my very first DSLR camera, the Canon 500D. The image was part of a street photography exercise when I was taking a beginners course in digital photography.
On the day, there were some sort of celebrations taking place in the grounds of the Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah near Arab Street. This damsel was part of a group of women all dressed up in similar attire and leisurely walking around the park grounds. The reds aren’t just limited to her dress but also seem to seep through her visage on the lips as well as the rouge foundation.
Her slightly contemptuous glance and regal adornments prompted me to dub her “The Red Queen”. Although I’m sure she must be an angel in person, that title has somewhat stuck ever since I clicked the image.
The Red Queen
And with this image I strike off Red from my RainBow Series. Three down. Four more to go. Yay!!
I’ve never looked great in photos. Correction. I’ve looked absolutely completely, totally hideous in all pictures. I suppose its got something to do with the awkward body dimensions coupled with an equally disproportionate visage structure and god awful facial hair situation. Whatever the reason, I just don’t make for a good photo subject. So when this week’s theme was announced, I fell into a man-hole and decided not resurface.
But since the whole idea behind the weekly photograph challenge IS to challenge my own skills and push myself out of my comfort zone to work smarter and better, I decided to man up and face the music.
I was certain that I would not go for a straightforward selfie with me posing in all my (un)glorious self. There would need to be a certain creative streak to the image that would possibly help defect the attention from myself and instead to the composition of myself.
I had a few ideas which involved heavy use of Photoshop. But decided against using them on account of time, or the rather the lack of it. I’ll stay away from the details for now since I do plan to put those ideas into practise sometime in the near future and there’s no fun in ruining the surprise of you guys!
Then it struck me! Why not frame a shot with the device that caused the term “Selfie” to go mainstream; the hand phone. After all the term “Selfie” gained mainstream acceptance and usage thanks to the ubiquitous camera phones in the late 2000s.
I have taken shots with a DSLR or point and shoot in the past that capture the image as seen through the eyes of a handphone. So the setup was not something I wasn’t familiar with already. The trick was to ensure that both cameras focussed on me well enough for the main camera’s shot to be clear. Cue the handy tripod and the self timer on the Fujifilm to the rescue.
After setting the focus for the handphone screen, I clicked the shutter release button on a timer of 10 seconds to allow myself to position myself in front of the handphone. Fortunately it took very few attempts to get the shot. Although the background is kinda lacklustre I felt the overall composition was pretty close to what I had in mind so I went ahead.
Post processing involved cropping the image enough to allow the focus to remain on the handphone screen and the image therein, i.e. my ugly mug! Rendering it in black & white was a conscious one since there was a lot of light and very muted colours in the frame.
Fujifilm X-E2 | XF18-55mm 2.8 4 R LM OIS | 1/80 | f/2.8 | ISO 1600 | 18mm
Gandhi Clicks 