Colour

I hate rains.  There... I said it! Sue me! Everybody I know and their cousins love the rains and this makes me feel like the odd man out. Even if I don't take into account the facts that traffic slows down to a crawl and everyone thinks it is completely alright to act like an idiot (zig-zagging their bikes while driving and roaming shirtless on Marine Drive) I still don't like the rains for two primary reasons. I am afraid of screwing up my equipment even if it is safely tucked in my cabinet due to the appearance of mould and fungus and more importantly - rains just suck the colour out of everything.

Exhibit A - the photograph below was taken at 2PM in the afternoon. Do you see how dull and drab it is?

I am fascinated by colour and I keep shooting random images of colour as it appears in our everyday lives. Enter Exhibits B,C,D,E,Fand G.

While shooting for TV I think we tend to get a bit scared while using colour. We get so taken up by the technical definition of white light and tungsten light that we forget the abundance of colour around us and that is exactly why I shoot these images -  to remind myself that bright and random colours do exist around us in all shapes, forms and objects. Colour also affects our mood and while I have been trying to implement this in my photography (with varied success) for a while, I have just recently become bolder with respect to using colour while directing stuff. I now control more of the lighting aspect of the scenes that I shoot or even better - some scenes that I don't shoot myself.  Enter Exhibit H.

People who follow my TV series Arjun will get to see more of this bold colour approach over the coming weeks. So while the rains might suck out colour from things around me - on the set, it is a different matter entirely.

Inspiration: The magic of old things

" Where is your camera these days? Don't see it much..." Behzaad asked me a couple of weeks back. "It's always in my car," I said, "It's just that I am really sick of shooting all of you (the ETF team) and only you - all the time! Maybe I should have cast Katrina Kaif in Arjun,instead of you guys!!!"

"...or maybe Priyanka Chopra," chimed in Shaleen and we all had a hearty laugh.

The truth was that I really was getting frustrated of shooting only these guys - mostly under lighting conditions that were set up by the cameraman on set. I felt that I was contributing very little, if at all, to the creation of the pictures that I post so often.  My trigger finger was getting itchy. I had not shot something for almost 15 days. Even a call from Raju Bhai, my trusted friend and camera dealer, telling me that a lens that I had ordered long back was finally in stock, failed to excite me. I almost reluctantly went and picked up the wide angle 17-35mm lens from his place late at night and got it home.

On my way to the set the next day, stuck in a Mumbai traffic jam, I started flipping through my "Inspiration" notebook. It is actually a software called Evernote which I use very often to keep quotes, pictures, photographs and other stuff  for future reference - or for times just like these. I came across this quote:

To select well among old things, is almost equal to inventing new ones. - Nicholas Charles Trublet

Then it struck me - what I needed to create/invent was already around me. I had very willing and able actors who would do (practically) anything for me and I was surrounded by lights every single day - the two most important components of photography! All I needed to do was to get them together and create a shot that I could call mine!  I had a few images in my head that I wanted to shoot as a part of a project that I had been thinking of for quite some time. I reached the set that day, determined to get my shot before the day got over. In between all my meetings, discussions and briefings that day, I kept my camera around my neck and an eye out for the frame that I wanted to capture. Finally, in the evening as everybody was  going about their work - I identified the shot I wanted to take and I quietly asked a couple of lightmen to help me setup the lights for my shot.

As soon as Behzaad got free, I asked him to come with me and took the photograph. After him, it was Shaleen's turn but unfortunately, by that time, the cameraman on set had ordered those lights to be brought in because he needed them. I barely managed to get Shaleen's picture as I asked the lightmen, who were already in the process of taking the lights away to step outside the frame. If I remember correctly, both the pictures took a total of two minutes.

Also, as I thanked them and walked away, I cannot be sure... but from the corner of my eye, I think I saw Behzaad and Shaleen exchange a high-five and in between their muted laughter, I distinctly heard one of them say something about Katrina Kaif...

As usual, you can find the large versions of these pictures on my Google Plus page.

The bag

A twenty year old boy was carrying this on my set. It was stuck on his bag. When I asked him about it, he told me that he had made it himself. He showed me pictures of how he sculpted this piece with wax, made a cast and then filled it with metal, which gave him the final "piece".