Tag: Varsha

Varsha, My Photography Journal
by David Burgess on 0

Varsha, My Photography Journal

Backtracking my photography learning process through a model

I decided to seriously learn photography back in December 2011. I purchased my first digital camera, which was Sony NEX-3, and started to read some photography books. Until today, I have participated in three professional photo shoots and five photo exhibitions. One of the most remarkable person during my learning period of this art is Varsha.

Varsha was my first “unofficial” model. I practiced a lot of basic theory and concept of capturing image with her as the main subject. Sometimes I asked her to pose, but most of the times I took her pictures in candid. Indeed, the photos of Varsha show the progress of my photography learning skill, from a real newbie until now. In this article, I would like to share some of my photographs of Varsha. Please kindly share your comments and feedback about my work.

A story about Varsha

Varsha is a student who studied Bachelor of Arts in Telugu (one of national languages of India) in Hyderabad between 2009 to 2012. She pursued her degree under the scholarship of Indian government in Koti Women’s College Hyderabad. I met her for the first time in 2011 through one of my classmate who also originates from Mauritius.

Varsha is physically very attractive and perfect to be a model for my photos. She is also very friendly, thus it makes me more comfortable in taking her pictures. The first time I took her photo was during a trip to Medak, a remote district about three hours driving from Hyderabad. At that moment, I felt that her face was very camera friendly. Therefore, I decided to take her photos regularly as a part of my learning process.

Varsha originates from Mauritius, a very beautiful island, a paradise on earth. Mauritius is located on the south east of the main continent of Africa. This country is full of amazing beaches, beautiful jungles, and wonderful people. Most people in Mauritius have Indian blood, and they speak French as the first language. I worked with Varsha in two different photo shoot, both of them when my skill was at very newbie level.

Photoshoots with Varsha

I spent a lot of time with my Mauritian friends because they are very good people and student. They invited me a lot to have some lunch, and we went out together to watch movies, concerts, and other interesting spots in Hyderabad. The first time I seriously took photos of Varsha was in November 2011, when I and three of my Mauritian friends (including Varsha) watched Zeb and Haniya concert in Ravindra Bharati, Hyderabad. At that moment, I successfully captured some very great candid photos of her.

After being able to take a bunch of great photos, I successfully convinced her to be a model for my photo shoot titled “The Night Song”. It was my very first photo shoot that I did only two weeks after I purchased my first DSLR camera. She performed surprisingly above my expectation. Her photos that I took during “The Night Song” were really great, and some of them were even selected for my international exhibition in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Another moment when I successfully captured great images of her was during Ugadi, one of the traditional festival for South Indian community. She dressed in saree very nicely, and we went to the temple and visited a lot of friends and relatives who celebrated Ugadi. During our trip, I took a lot of beautiful candid photos of her.

About two months after Ugadi, we worked for our second photo shoot titled “The Mystique of Love”. It was done for my photography assignment in my course and located in landscape garden, Osmania University. The photo shoot was rather challenging for me, compared to the first one due to the technical aspects and my lack of experience as a photographer. But from this work, I really learned a lot of useful things in photography.

Varsha finished her course in summer 2012 and went to her country immediately. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to say my last goodbye and to take more photos of her because I was abroad.

Some tips to improve your photography skill

Try to take photos every day
More photos you take, the better your skill in photography. If you really want to be a good photographer, try to allocate at least half an hour per day for hunting pictures. By taking a lot of good photos, your technical skills, experience, and sensitivity as a photographer would improve. One more thing, try to think this habit as something fun, not as a boring responsibility.

Spend some time to review and select your best photos
Among of those photos you take regularly, you have to carefully select which photo to keep and which to delete. Be selective, and don’t hesitate to delete not so good photos. If you want to publish them in social media or online album, then you have to be more selective. Only publish your best photos, or the one that has special meanings for you.

Use a prime lens
Instead of zoom lenses, it is better to start learning photography by using prime lenses. Prime lenses will make you use your legs more in order to make the subject closer or farther from your camera frame. They don’t have zoom feature so you are forced to move a lot when taking images. By using prime lenses, you will learn how to depend more on your body and eyes rather than the zoom.

Learn to use manual focus
Manual focus is the best way to get the perfect focus. Although in modern days some autofocus of an expensive camera also performs well, but nothing can beat the accuracy of manual focus. Thus, learn to take photos with widest aperture as possible (to enable you detecting the focus point more easily), choose a single subject, then try to get the best focus of a specific part of the subject.

Focus on the eyes of the subject
After learning the principle of focusing, it is advisable for a beginner to practice with a living subject such as human and animal. At your very first few weeks of learning, try to take a close-up photos of the face. When taking photos of living things, the most important thing is to make sure that your camera focus is on the eyes of the subject. When you do it right, your photo will look better.

Share on Read Full Story
The Night Song – My Tips for Doing Budget Photo Shoot
by David Burgess on 0

The Night Song – My Tips for Doing Budget Photo Shoot

The Night Song

Have you ever wanted to create good, artistic photos but you only have limited amount of money? In this article, I would like to share my experience of doing a photo shoot with two models with very limited budget, in a very normal location with lighting from house lamps, and taken with cheapest entry level DSLR. This photo shoot was also my first experience working with models and DSLR camera. Could you imagine how limited was my knowledge about photography during this photo shoot?

I would like to emphasize that the most important thing in photography is not your gears. It’s your passion and creativity, and those two are the best weapon to create great photos. I am also looking forward to your comments and feedback so I could improve my works in the future.

The Concept

The story behind the scene
The Night Song

I bought my first DSLR camera in January 2012. My initial purpose for buying that kind of sophisticated camera was to make documentary of my final Bachelor of Arts research. Just a week after getting my DSLR, I accidentally found a very interesting video about photography on Youtube, from DigitalRevTV. The man in the video seems enjoying himself very much, taking photos of beautiful model with very cheap camera. Suddenly I felt that I wanted to create some photography works too.

The first thing came to my mind was about finding the models. As I was an amateur and didn’t have enough experience of handling DSLR camera, I decided to ask for help from my friends to be the model for my photography project. So, I contacted Nooreen and Varsha, two of my beautiful friends from Mauritius and offered this opportunity. Luckily, they agreed.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the model. Nooreen and Varsha are two students from Mauritius, a very beautiful small island in southern part of Africa. Mauritius used to be a colony of British and France. When the British ruled India, they sent some local Indian workers to work in Mauritius. At that time, there was no people on this island. Only jungles and animals. So, those Indian workers were the first colony in Mauritius, and they live, create a family, and until now inhibit this beautiful island.

After some years, British Empire decided to give Mauritius to France. Thus, under France regime, those Mauritian workers have to speak in France. The habit of speaking France has become a culture, even after their independence. Today, France is the national language of Mauritius.

I find that Mauritian people such as Nooreen and Varsha are the luckiest people in the world. They have beautiful, exotic face from their Indian ancestors. They speak Franch, the most beautiful, sexiest language in the world. They inherited the education and political system from British Empire, which is very systematic. Plus, they live in a small island with very beautiful nature; beaches, mountains, and jungle. What a very fortunate nation!

Back to the story of the model. Nooreen and Varsha are very good friends. They live together, study in the same college, and they understand each other very well. I wanted to use these facts to help a strong, artistic, and memorable photos. Thus, I decided to create a theme about intimate relationship between two women.

The Photo Shoot

The execution of the concept

As I told you before, I didn’t have any experience for doing photo shoot with any DSLR camera at that time. Thus, I wanted to focus more on the concept and messages of the photos rather than the technical aspects. I wanted to work as comfortable as possible, so I decided to do the photo shoot in Nooreen and Varsha’s house, in their small living room. I didn’t want to do it outside, because I thought that it was my first experience, and I didn’t want to embarass myself and the model.

The photo shoot took about three hours and it would be faster if I had more practical knowledge about DSLR camera. I spent a lot of unecessary times to adjust the ISO, control the focus, and set the exposure. I did all in manual mode, as I didn’t aware that the Aperture Priority mode would work more efficient. One of my most stupid mistake in this photo shoot was the fact that I forgot to turn on the Image Stabilizer, and at that time I didn’t even have a tripod. Luckily, I was able to take some good shots, and it took me about three hours to select, edit, and publish the photos.

Black Kimono for B&W Photoshoot

Here are some great kimono, a traditional Japanese dress for black and white photography. The wardrobe of the model is very important, especially if you later want to convert the images into monochrome. I strongly suggest that you find some dress with interesting pattern, especially for a photo shoot with plain background. Be sure to find a dress that looks cute and elegant.

Tips to do budget photo shoot

1. Find a strong, solid concept that can be executed in an empty room
Instead of focusing on the properties of the photo shoot, you should focus more on the model. Exploit your creativity and push it to its limit so that you can create good photos by only framing the model and a plain background. For this concept, you will need model who has strong, memorable expression. If the model also have beautiful and exotic face, it would be very helpful as well.

2. Try to find good references
Watch videos, read books, or go to photo exhibition. Read also about various article and tutorial about creating beautiful photos with cheap camera and limited budget. I strongly recommend that you watch “Pro Photographer Cheap Camera Series” from DigitalRevTV channel on Youtube.

3. Make it black and white
Black and white photos always appear to be more artistic, and by desaturating the color you can focus more on the subject. Simple photos with an empty background also look better in black and white rather than in color. For a better result, you can play with the contrast, brightness, exposure, and clarity of the photos during the post-processing.

4. Remember, your passion and creativity are more important than the physical aspects of the photos
It is you who can make the photos look great. Not the camera, not the place of the photo shoot, and not the dress worn by the models. Of course they will help you create something better and more beautiful, but remember that your passion and creativity are your main weapon.

The Black Dresses

Here are some alternative dresses that would be suitable for your model if you are planning to do a simple photo shoot with plain background. My advice: don’t choose a type of dress that has too much distracting patterns. Try to stick with a type of dress that look simple, elegant, and slightly hot.

Share on Read Full Story