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.

Visitors on my set

Whenever I get a brief moment to pause and look around while shooting, I usually see a lot of visitors and bystanders who have gathered around to watch the shoot happening.

It is fascinating to see the reactions of these bystanders. And sometimes, they take you by surprise - like this lady in the picture above. I thought, at her age people would give a damn about shooting and television and would soon move on. I was not carrying my camera around my neck that day and did not even to call for it for the same reason. Half an hour later, I looked up and she was still there in exactly the same position. I promptly called for my camera from the car and shot this.

Note to self: Must do a series based on the theme.

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".