Take 2

It has been very long since I’ve posted anything (minus my last post – after almost 7 months!), to say the least. I really don’t know why that happened even when I had so much going on, photography wise. But before that, I was completely neglecting photography. I literally had to blow dust off my poor D90.

Soon after writing the 7 month old post, I just sort of stopped using my camera. I hardly had time to get out and shoot. And when I did have the time, I would watch television or play Call Of Duty instead of using my camera. It didn’t matter to me at first. I sort of gave up on photography. But, out of nowhere, I became extremely frustrated with myself for letting my passion die.

The first thing I tried doing was to change my style a bit. Event photography and all that commercial nonsense that I wanted to get into just stopped appealing to me. Fine art and street photography gained my interest and I tried to get more technical with my camera instead of Photoshop or Lightroom (that said, I did make a few serious attempts at HDR photography – not in the usual overdone, unrealistic fashion but more with the idea of what the human eye would see). I also started to try and frame the photograph as well as I could within the camera instead of cropping it later. I realised how little I paid attention to the overall composition of the photograph and forcing myself to stop cropping has really started to help me create much better composed photographs than I did before (in my opinion). Although with the D90, always getting the right composition isn’t always possible since it doesn’t have a 100% viewfinder and I’m still getting used to the viewfinder crop (these little changes in my shooting style have made me start from scratch, which is a good thing).

A picture from my first real attempt at street photography

So, with my new angle towards photography, I started paying more attention to the photograph I was about to take. Along with really thinking about my composition, I tried to evaluate the exposure (even with the correct metering, there’s, more often than not, some fault) as accurately as possible so that the picture was ready to be shown with very little or no post adjustments at all. All this thinking and planning also stopped me from over shooting, which I used to do a lot (I’m sure both my camera and computer thank me for that).

Like I said before, I’ve also gained quite a bit of interest in street photography. The thought of capturing that “decisive moment”, that one moment in daily life that will never occur again, was just too good to pass up without a serious attempt. So, after reading up on the basics concepts and ideas of street photography from various blogs like www.erickimphotography.com  and www.85mm.ch (by the way, if you’re into street photography even a little bit or just want to see what the fuss is all about, be sure to check out both these sites. Both, Thomas Leuthard (85mm) and Eric Kim are geniuses behind the camera and also very generous guys who share their knowledge for free and through workshops. Plus Thomas Leuthard has got excellent ebooks for free download on his site – get them by clicking here), I grabbed my D90, slapped on a 28mm f/2.8D prime on it and went into the streets of Melbourne‘s CBD without any real idea of what I was going to shoot. I did that deliberately just so that I could get a feel of what I was up against. And to be honest, the streets intimidated me like anything before. But I started shooting anyway. I was shooting random people. With hardly any thought given to composition or anything else other than the exposure. Needless to say, all the 150ish photographs were absolutely crap.

Patience is not a trait found in my personality. And it was because of this that I decided to hit the streets after reading only a few blog posts. Little did I know that street shooting was far less complicated that I had imagined it to be. As far as the camera settings are concerned, just set it in Aperture priority, set a mid range-ish aperture, set the ISO depending on the light (or leave that in ‘Auto’ as well) and you’re set. I had my camera on manual the first time and spent almost the first 45 minutes trying to figure out the right settings since the light is almost always different in different places. I was too worried about the exposure setting than anything else. In street shooting, composition is key. Let the camera worry about everything else.

Coming back to the matter of patience, you need bucket loads of it in street shooting. I’ve realised that now – somedays you may get 5 or 6 amazing shots, other days, you may not get even one. One needs to be patient and wait for it to come to you. You will never get the composition you want when you hunt for it.

The other thing that I’ve derived from my, now, massive library of ebooks and documentaries on street shooting is that almost everyone says something or the other that is loosely or directly related to the quote by legendary photojournalist, Robert Capa, “If your photos aren’t good enough, then you’re not close enough.” While that may be true around 80% of the time, one doesn’t always need to get in their subjects’ face. I will admit, getting as close as Robert Capa requires some major cojones and does yield some spectacular results, I just simply can’t get that close (for now). Now, look at the guy who practically invented street shooting, Henri Cartier – Bresson (nothing even remotely related to street shooting is complete without the mention of his name). He did get close but when he talks about street shooting, he talks about geometry. And that’s the style I want to develop. I know it’s not very original of me, but at least I have a direction till the time I try out different things and determine my personal style.

To force myself to be patient and not over-shoot, I got a smaller memory card for the D90 (I normally have a 16gb card but I opted for a 2gb card for this exercise). I did stop but I still took a few useless images that I simply deleted when I ran out of memory. To completely cure myself of the impatience, I shelved my D90 again and recently bought a 52 year old Minolta Uniomat 35 rangefinder camera. Mainly because I’ve wanted to try a rangefinder system for a very long time and also because you can’t review/delete your pictures when shooting film. You have make every shot count. I haven’t done much street shooting with the Minolta as yet but the number of times that I have been out with it, I’ve only had the roll that was already inside it and, to make things even more challenging, never carried any extra film.

This all said, I have been using my D90 for other stuff that’s beginning to interest me; star trails and time-lapse photography. I’ve done two attempts at this till now (mainly because we haven’t had a clear night sky for over a month here in Melbourne. Clouds just have to show up at the wrong time!).

My first attempt at star trail photography.

Anyway, this has been a concise version of what I have been up to lately. I concentrating more on film photography, so my next post is going to be focused on my first few attempts at film photography (rangefinder and film, both are firsts for me).

Stay tuned!

Related articles

• Henri Cartier-Bresson L’amour tout court Part1 (manonmona.wordpress.com)
• The year in street photography (klarayoon.wordpress.com)
• A little treat for myself (hibrahimphotography.wordpress.com)
• Street Photography in 2012 (stephentrepreneur.wordpress.com)

(Almost)Back in the game

It’s been a while since I’ve written/edited/taken pictures of/updated/uploaded anything. My desktop became the development land for new spider housing societies, and my beloved camera gathered dust (so much dust that when I cleaned it, my allergies kicked in). My overpriced education is to blame for this (exams etc.).

Anyway. Haven’t taken any new pictures but I did discover a stash of untouched photographs in my aperture library. They were a few random street shots and some of the ‘Royal Melbourne Show‘ I went to a few months back (for those of you who don’t know, it’s an absurdly overpriced carnival). Edited a few. Went a bit crazy with high contrast b&w though. Wasn’t feeling comfortable with the software. Not quite happy with the editing. 2 months of nothing taking a toll on me I guess.

Please take the time to check out my sad little flickr page at www.flickr.com/hasanibrahim (poor thing gets half a visit a month).

Practice makes perfect

So, we did the improv on the Sunday that just passed. Turned out to be a very productive session. Firstly, for me, I got a clear idea of the camera angles that I would use and, secondly, the actors got to meet for the first time and had a proper meaningful discussion about the scripts before they (sort of) acted them out.

The location, the second writer (right) and the first lead (left)

We used a recently vacated cafe under a friend’s apartment (the main writer of the script), which still had all it’s furniture and still had the feel of a cafe (even the tables were properly set with the cutlery and all). This was the location we were going to use for the main filming as well before I asked and got permission to film at an excellent second hand record shop/cafe near my university.

Our set up, or lack there of

Equipment wise, we were severely restricted. No viewfinders, monitors, rigs, steadycams, glidecams, etc. (a few things off my shopping list), or anything of that sort was used simply because we have none. All the close ups were done hand held (= camera shake) and two sets incorporated the use of tripods. I filmed using a Nikon D90 (I know, not the best choice for hand held filming. i.e unforgivable amount of rolling shutter) with a combination of a 50mm f1.8 for the close ups and a 18-105mm f3.5-5.6 lens at 18mm for the wide angle shots. Also, not having electricity didn’t exactly help when the laptop’s (we used it to review the clips) battery died.

One of the scene setups, the tripod behind the table will support the Zoom h4n that will be used on the actual day of filming

Reviewing the clips

Our second lead caught in character

As far as the actors are concerned, our second lead is a student of acting and has taken part in a lot of theater plays, etc. but never done any work infront of a camera. But luckily, that didn’t bother him much. Our first lead however, had never done any type of acting before. So getting him on line was a bit of a challenge, which we (the writers and I) delegated to our second lead.

Our first lead in character

Both of our actors clicked instantly and managed to achieve a good on-screen chemistry between themselves. Our first lead was having a lot of issues though. He was trying really hard to actually become comfortable infront of the camera with the whole ‘I have to act for an audience’ thing looming over his head which made things worse. We did manage to calm him down and got some good behaviour shots of him before we wrapped up. But, I am a concerned that he might freeze or something when we do the actual filming since it’s going to be filmed in a public cafe that is almost always busy with students of the near by university (to make things worse, he studies at this university). Other than that, I was satisfied, to a certain extent, with what he delivered.

The only picture of the main writer (right) since he was taking the pictures you see on this post

I figured, we’re not shooting a film for an oscar nomination or anything, it’s more of a visual exercise…but, it still has to be spot on! The writers wanted to get this script made since this was a concept they had for a long time and they wanted to get it out of their system. I loved the concept and just wanted to do something that’ll challenge me and violently push me out of my comfort zone. I can’t think of anything better. Not only do I have to film, I also have to direct. So it’s my cinematography and directorial debut, which just adds to the pressure and also makes it fun to do.

In my opinion you can never clearly see your mistakes till the time you put in everything you’ve got to the mix. Only then can you see the area’s you’re lacking in.

Exploring new horizons

In my previous post, I told you guys that I’ve received an offer to shoot music videos for well known Pakistani bands. I got the offer through a friend who does a bit of screen play writting and the band asked him to do the video and he just asked if I wanted to tag along. I did as a sane person wanting to add something different to their resume would do, I pounced on the opportunity like a kitten on a ball of wool. My friend/writter sent me the concept and told me the gist of what he requires me to do.

A majority of the video is going to be made up of time lapse photography but a few small, but crucial parts, of them are to be shot in video. I volunteered for that as well and luckily my friend/writter aggreed to let me have a go at the video bits. I told him that I would be using a DSLR for the video. He was a bit sceptical at first but he got his head around it when I showed him some of the work done by the extremely talanted Philip Bloom.

HDSLR videography is something that I’ve been dying to give a serious try for quite sometime ever since I got my D90. But after a few tests with the D90, it was apparent that I would have to get another body. The D90’s video capture cababillities are…well…shit. I have been considering to go down the Canon route with a 7D (*gasp* the blasphamy!!) but now I’m going to wait till I get to read decent hands-on review of the Nikon D7000 or try it out myself in a camera store. Even though the 7D has far superior video related features than the new D7000, it’ll do till the time the folks at Nikon come up with an answer to the 7D or the 5Dmk2. Changing brands is never easy (unless you’ve got a thick wad of cash under your mattress due to tax evasion).

Aaaaanyway. The second offer is to film a music video of a new upcoming Pakistani progressive rock band (can’t disclose their name at this point because of instructions from the band). I got offered this directly for a reason I honestly can’t figure out. One of the band members saw my photography while flciking through flickr and asked me if I would be intersted in videography. I told him about the other music video that I will be doing soon and his exact words were…’cool, I’ll send you the song. Please just make sure no one gets their hands on it’. Weird. But hey! I got a job shooting a music video for my favourite genre!

I’ve got a concept (with the help of a friend) for this which sat very well with the band members when I pitched it to them. I’m now more excited about shooting this video more than the first one since the rock video is all video..no timelapse or any stills involved. )

So that’s two…here’s the third. This is my own project in collabortaion with another writer friend of mine (the one who helped me with the concept of the rock video). This was the result of a conversation while being high on coffee at 2 a.m. He randomly started telling me an idea for a short film he had (which is absolutely genious) and wanted to make something of it for quite sometime but couldn’t. 5 hours later, facebook messages to friends are being sent out to see who’s willing to act, tentitive dates are being laid out to see when we can shoot improvs and my friend starts work on the treatment for the script.

There you have it. I’ve had a pretty eventful month as you can see. Very excited about all these opportunities which have litterally been laid out in my lap (ask and ye shall recieve?). I just hope I don’t screw anything up.

Practice, practice, practice!

Hello world!

Been a while since I’ve been doing photography, 5 years to be precise. And now that I’ve made it into a part-time career, my friends have been pestering me to start blogging (the way they pestered me into showing off my photography and try to earn some money off it)

Written one blog post in the past. Don’t really know what to write that would actually interest anyone of you out there. I guess I’ll open up more once I get into the habit of writing?

Just a quick intro. I am a future charted accountant by profession (i.e yet to graduate, who knew?) but have this great and never-ending love affair with my camera(s). Got hold of a friend’s Canon 350D, which was a well used hand me down from his father, a few years back. He never used it and it kept gathering dust at his place…before it caught my eye. Being the tech nut that I am, I borrowed it off him and started fiddling around with it. And then, one thing led to another, I ended up marrying the thing. It was permanently glued to my hands. It came to a point that my friends actually held an intervention which led to my friend taking his camera back from me. 15 minutes after that I went out and bought the best point and shoot that I could afford (owning a dslr became a blurry dream in a land far far away during that time). Taking the camera from me was like taking a syringe from a heroin addict.

My desperation led to my friends and fiancé to feel sorry for me and, although I had to wait 8 months, got me a brand spanking new Nikon D90 with a 18-105mm kit lens. Oh the joy!

Been slightly over one and a half month since I’ve had the Nikon now. Shutter count….9836. Sweet (not so much for my basic spec 13″ MacBook pro. I can hear the measly 2GB RAM gasp the words “you bastard” when I run Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5 on it)!

I always wanted to keep my photography as a hobby. Just to/for myself but I have to admit, there is a mark difference in the quality of the pictures I used to take and the ones I take now. Maybe the pressure of taking pictures for someone else who is actually paying for your services brings out hidden capabilities you never thought you had. So, just a quick advice to hobbyists wanting to go pro (picture quality wise) do a bit of commercial work and get out of your comfort zone as much as you can! Even if you do free gigs for friends (like the first 6 odd gigs I did), it’s well worth it, in terms of your learning (plus it boosts your confidence as a photographer). When it’s free, you won’t have the pressure but still know that you have to deliver good quality photos to someone who’s actually asked you to do them a favour (another tip, don’t make it look/treat it like a favour, always treat it like a high paying job…it always is). I am nowhere near an accomplished pro, or even just a pro for that matter. I had my first paid job just a few weeks back ($200 for 2 hours…not bad in my opinion). But I’ve built up a reputation of being an honest, hard-working and delivering photographer. And the result of that…got two offers for making two music videos for two great upcoming bands which are to be shot in time-lapse photography (they did say that they won’t pay me till the time they see the finished product though, but honestly, if you’re in it for the love of the underrated art, you couldn’t care less about the money – I must admit that I do have a monetary interest, who doesn’t, but it’s probably only 5% of my motivational factor and only so that I can buy the lenses or whatever camera gear I need).

Enough of the advice giving now! Lord knows I’m not the one to give advice. But still I try to help others as much as I can by sharing what I do. This is what I will be doing on this blog.

I will try to keep it updated as much as I can (I’m extremely lazy when it comes to these type of things). I gets burst of enthusiasm when I start using my Twitter account wildly and throw Facebook status updates and then, I forget about it all (I’m going through that burst right now). I will try to make it a point to write one post a fortnight at least, nothing too ambitious (still very ambitious for me though) and keep you guys up to date with everything that I do.

This is a good time for me to start this blog since I just started getting into the photography business. So, people who want to start their own business (or photographers with established businesses…any tips or advice?) in the near future, stay tuned so that you can learn from the mistakes I made (I’m bound to make more than a few) and see how I (hopefully) progress through.

So, until next time…good bye.

Update: This is all bullshit.