Flight of Faith
Tv: 1/125 (0.008 ) s; Av: F/3.2; f: 31.3 mm (35mm-equiv: 189 mm); ISO 140
This is a photo which conveys a feeling… a feeling of faith. This photo was taken in an “Othekola”, a type of “Bhuta Kola“, a religious ceremony in Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka. I like the way the look in the eyes of the worshipers has come out on the photo, conveying a sense of awe, faith and a little bit of fear.
To be frank, while taking this photo I was not concentrating much about the expressions of the people. I was looking to get the motion blur while capturing the fall towards the pile of embers. But, I discovered that adding a bit more shadows and tweaking the levels and saturation gave a whole new meaning and dynamism to the photo. I like the noise in the photo which gives it an old, grainy, spoilt look to the photo.
However, the noise can be viewed as a drawback as well. Another drawback is that people may see it as a loss of a little naturality of the photo because of the effects in Photoshop; but I wanted a different colour tone for this picture and so was experimenting with it.
I would have been better if the subject was better focussed and the background was blurred out a little.
anoop erakkil said,
January 29, 2009 at 2:17 am
i think the effects hav come out okay on this! its always difficult to click during crowded situations lik this i guess..so good capture anyways…
liked the black n white blurrd effect of ur previos pic, the child and the bird one..!
Rakshith : Thanks Anoop. I liked the way it turned out too. Plus, I was happy the way the expressions have come out.
And yes, the girl and bird photo – I liked the whole mood of the picture; because it tried to say something.
Aishwarya said,
February 2, 2009 at 11:17 pm
love this pic! especially all d mood n the expressions in the photo… u know, the way they r all gripped by this religious fervour..:) also like the way it has conveyed it all to b in motion…
Rakshith : Thank you. That is one of the main reasons I liked this photo too.. the way the expressions were caught in the frame. Well, actually it could hve been better; but, I guess, may be it’ll come out better if I take a similar photo again sometime.
Hari Sharan said,
February 2, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Good one.The photo came in the natural way and you have done it very well.
Rakshith : Thank you, Hari. Ya, considering the early morning low light setting, this photo has been able to portray the scene pretty well, and in a pretty natural way too.
Subhanjan Sengupta said,
February 3, 2009 at 11:43 am
I wonder what equipment was used. If the lens had been able to control the light and brought about detailing in the expressions at the background this could have been a great picture. The effort was good. I wish I had been there. There was good scope for great pictures.
Rakshith : This photo was taken when I was in the crowd and so, I could not use the tripod. Also, the lighting conditions weren’t so great. However, as you say, with a camera more advanced than my Kodak DX 7590 and with a bit more effective customization, this would have been an even better photo. Yes, even I wish to explore such settings a bit more now, so that I can apply few of my photographic experiments in these conditions and hope for improved results.