beyond photography - the quest for the ultimate image - by subroto mukerji

PHOTOGRAPHY

BEYOND

The Quest for the Ultimate ImageSubroto Mukerji

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image

I dedicate this book tothe sacred memory of my best friend

Baman Deva Mukerji.Father always encouraged me to write the book he knew was in me, all of thirty years ago

to my inimitable guru

S. Paulthe Great Master who befriended me.

2


CONTENTS

Dedication....2 Copyright.....5 Acknowledgements.....6 Introduction.....8 Prologue.....20 Beyond Photography Part One - Coming to Grips with the SLR...29 - The Starting Point The Shutter Speed..31 The Aperture .34 Depth of Field36 Lenses37 Exposure by Experience Meter ..41 Filters for Daily Use...44 Flash Synchronization45

Focusing

Beyond Photography Part Two 35 mm Film.....50 Film Sensitivity...52 f Numbers and Focal Length56 Variable f Numbers..60 The Law of One-Thirds ..61 Focusing on the Hyperfocal.62 Postscript.. 64 Beyond Photography Part Three Airing the Lenses!....66 Beyond Photography Part Four Light.76 Breaking the Rules 79 Special Effects Filters. 83 Which System? 84 When to Shoot? 85 The Digital World 87 Special Effects .89

-

-

3

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image Panoramas and Groups 95 Beyond Photography Part Five Life The Underlying Theme Composition.97 Portraits 104 Bespectacled sitters.. 106 Low-Key and High-Key Portraits.. 110 Landscapes. 112 Capturing Love... 114 The Fountainhead. 120

-

-

Epilogue...132 TIPS FOR BETTER PICTURES...134

We have two lives - the one we learn with and the life we live after that. ~Bernard Malamud, The Natural

4


CopyrightThe author asserts his moral right over the ownership of the contents this book, they being his personal intellectual property. No part of the book may be copied, Xeroxed, quoted, or otherwise reproduced without the express written permission of the author.

5


AcknowledgementsI acknowledge my indebtedness to my guru, S. Paul, a creative artist par excellence who three decades ago somehow bridged the enormous gulf that separated his towering genius from my own far humbler endowments, to extend a hand of friendship to a greenhorn. I am indeed lucky to know one such as him. His accomplishments are lofty indeed, but even greater are his humanity, his reverence for all life, and his tireless dedication to his callingthe hallmarks of a Master. This book also gives me an opportunity to thank Thomas Abraham (Seor El Tomso) of LM Ericsson, Austria, and all those other friends who encouraged me to take up the cameramany of whom I never got around to thanking in so many words. There is nothing I can ever do or say that will enable me to make amends to my wife, Sumita, for the insanely fanatical and self-centered way in which I pursued (but never quite caught up with) photographya hobby she never really approved of. Yet she not only put up with my lunacy, she once even sold a diamond ring to buy me an enlarger. Her elation, on the rare occasions when I managed to do something a tad out of the ordinary, always left me red-faced and fidgety. I seriously doubt that I merit such devotion and deep commitment. She is a divinely ordained cosmic gift to keep me afloat in a world where lifelong companionship is becoming such a rarity. And to my timeless muse, who always tried to get me to activate some smidgeon of potential that she imagined lurking within my submerged self, I say, Merci! But for you, mamselle, this book would never have happened. Life after life, her inspiration is a karmic debt I fail to square, which is why it tracks me relentlessly across the eons. 6

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest We Ultimate Image flame by an encounter with another human being.for theshould all be thankful for those peo

Photography according to Maitani..."In the future I believe all those who want to leave a record will be photographers of some kind. Our concept of a photographer will broaden. It will include everything from those in the area of scientific recording to those who use it to record everything in the household. And there will be many who would hold exhibitions and publish photographic collections as a means of personal expression. In that world of the future there will also be people who use photographs, rather than words, in an attempt to change society." "Photography has many different roles and education is one of its most important. The photograph is valuable in conveying what only you can see and therefore, understand. The photographs value is in its ability to act as an extension of the human eye. There will always be a need for photographs as long as people use their eyes." "Every form of human communication starts as a pure thought in the brain but passes through the hand or mouth which act as a filter. Even if a person is extremely sensitive, if they are not skilled in the use of speech or body language, their meaning may not be conveyed effectively. Since the photographic medium affords faithful recordability, images are made without those filters. There is a spontaneous, pure expression that is unique to photography." "Its apparent ease frequently causes people to overshoot, to take pictures of things they really dont want to photograph. Thats when youd like to have that filter. Thats a fact to always keep in mind when picking up a camera." "A camera is just a tool for taking pictures. As a designer, I want to design a camera that becomes an inseparable part of the photographer, a camera that does not get in the way. But I take pictures too and I have come to realize that because the contemporary camera is at its state-of-the-art limits, surpassing those limits is a problem that the photographer will have to solve by himself." ~ Yoshihisa Maitani of Olympus Camera Company

7

mself, when he sets out to learn a new language, science, or the bicycle, he has entered a new realm as truly as if he were a child newly born the Bicycle Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image

INTRODUCTION

The Seductive CameraThis book was originally intended for the amateur who was keen to improve his photographic skills. Ive lost count of the people whove asked me questions like, How is it that all my pictures come out darkand usually blurred? or Ill bring my camera and lenses over some time; I wonder if youd care to explain the correlation between the various functions? So I decided to write a primer that would cover the basics of taking good pictures without obsessively dwelling on the technicalities ad nauseaum, for such books numerous as they are can be monotonous, and Ive always felt that a lecture is the most boring thing on earth. It was never my intention to put the reader out of his or her misery; euthanasia is not my style. All I wanted to do was to try my hand at a little book that shoots from the hip (lip?) and, while enthusing the beginner, expands her mind by exposing her to some of the endless vistas that one can explore with the camera besides breaking him of his habit of reflexively reaching for his automatic compact camera only on birthdays, class reunions or picnics. But before the book had progressed halfway, it got away from mejust like everything else Ive written. As this particular book began to write itself out of me, a by-now familiar feeling of dj vu engulfed mea signal that this book, too, was taking me where it wanted to go. After Id gotten the transcribing out of the way, then, I took a short breather before going over what had come through me. I found it was, again, a sort of rehash of my life learnings (thats a grammatically verboten word Ive picked up from all the HRM books Ive edited), this time clad in photographic garb. At the same time, I dimly glimpsed my subconscious motivations: what Id really wanted to explore was not just the substance but also the essence of photography. 8

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image My timeless muse was at it again In lapsing now and then into introspective mode, I was unwittingly going beyond far beyond photography, to venture into another universe Id never dreamt had anything at all to do with making pictures with a camerathe realm of unfathomable everythingness. This is a zone where there is no space, no timejust an everlasting encounter with Truth, Light and Beauty of which we are all part, from quark to cosmos, across all eternity. Ahead of me, a glittering trail of stardust illuminated the path taken by my muse as she after having yanked me out of my comatose state led the way across the vast chasm that separates our mundane from our eternal selves. Not surprisingly (with her in the picture), it had turned out to be a different sort of photography book, one that while often adopting a philosophical tone shared practical information (and, more importantly, probably had the ability to trigger ideas that had the potential to provoke people to action). I think that is why, perhaps, Ive adopted a conversational style, with minimal use of jargon. Never did I feel the urge to copy anyone elses book. Good, mediocre or just plain lousy, the book would be all my ownwell, almost all my own. I just have to acknowledge once again the role my muse has played in making it whatever it has turned out to be thats your privilege to decide. So as to obviate the perils of exemplification, Ive purposely avoided too many of the pictures that are de rigueur in how-to books on photography. Beginners tend to use visual examples as templates, and thats something that can seriously inhibit experimentation as well as hobble development. Moreover, the high degree of subjectivity involved in the selection process signals that its likely to be anothers version of a pretty pictorial book on photography. We have enough of those already. All I wanted to write was a short, punchy, inspirational book that pointed in the right direction to borrow a phrase from Antoine de Saint-Exupry, once quoted by my timeless muse without getting in the way of the action. Now that Ive finished writing it, two people, thirty years apart, can heave their respective sighs of relief. One is my father, who way back in 1977 encouraged me to write a book on photography. The other is a dazzling friend who was born a mere three years before that, in 1974. She is crazy about vintage cars and 9

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image photography, and she had once sent me a few well-put-together emails to clue me up on certain points. I owe her a backlog of debts that I can probably never adjust. Some people are human catalysts; they go through life changing people but remain unchanged themselves. Thank God for that! Both she and Dad probably expected much more from my pen than this pocket-sized effort. But given the circumstances, its the best I could manage. I hope theyll understand.

What is it that definitively sets Man apart from the animal world? It is not communication, for animals have been proved to communicate. Its not intelligence or manual dexteritythe primates demonstrate them in ample measure. Its got to be the elusive thing called creativity, always more apparent in its results, whether conceptual (e.g., the General Theory of Relativity) or tangible (such as the ancient cave paintings, found in the Lascaux caves in France, or the far older images of humanoids and animals scrawled on rocks in the Tassili region of the Sahara). Ever since Man has looked at his world with awe and wonder, he has tried to capture his memories in (startlingly real and evocative) images that seek to mirror his perceived reality. Whatever the medium, however, we can be sure that men were (and are) essentially dissatisfied with their creative effortswhether it be bushman rock paintings, caveman art, photographic images, computer generated 3D imagery, verisimilitudinarian or virtual realitywith reality sometimes overlapping these, as in motion picture representations such as the Arnold Schwarzeneggar (to spell his name the way he did earlier, way back in 1969 before he won his first Mr. Universe title) blockbuster Total Recall. Optics have been around for centuries, but till the nineteenth century no one had been able to make images by means other than manual efforts that is, by pencil, charcoal or paint on paper or canvas before the invention of photography. It owed its genesis to the laboratory discovery that silver halide crystals react to light by undergoing a chemical changeand nothing was ever the same 10

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image again. Photography forever changed the way we relate to the world around us. All credit must go to the early pioneers, men like Joseph Nicphore Nipce and Louis Daguerre, who saw the potential in the new developments in science and initiated the art and the science of mechanized image making. Over the years, the process was further refined, with cameras more or less keeping pace with the latest scientific developments, till finally, the age of the 35 mm camera dawned. Ive skipped a lot of history here, because I dont think very many of my readers want to know about all that old stuff. But I cannot resist squeezing in a rambling (if far from comprehensive that would take another book) discussion about 35 mm cameras, because this is the point where, for the first time, the portals of photography opened to the common man. It didnt happen overnight, of course, but the writing was on the wall. Any camera/film system that was easily portable, relatively cheap and simple to use was destined to be democratized in an age of mass production. 35 mm photography really got going when the renowned optical firm of Ernst Leitz GmbH, Wetzlar (now literally a Mecca for photo enthusiasts who come on pilgrimage from all over the globe, and who approach it with as much awe as a Hindu approaches the Temple of Jaggannath at Puri) was given a charter to develop an instrument to test the new 35 mm film developed for making motion pictures. They, in turn, hired an optical engineer called Oskar Barnack and told him to work on it. The rest, as they say, is history. Long used to working on microscopes and other precision optical instruments, Barnack did the only thing he could: he came up with a high-precision optical instrument that happened to take pictures. It was tiny, easily handheld and simple to useonce the film had been loaded in the body. This was easier said than done, because in order to ensure that the film lay inexorably along the film plane (the focal plane, i.e., the flat surface at which the image cast by the lens falls), the back of the camera had to be so designed as to be completely removable. Leitz werent taking any chances with a foldable, hinged back with a steel, spring-loaded pressure plate, as in modern cameras. It was hardly a paragon of convenience, that first Leica (the UrLeica), but to photographers of the day, used to bulky roll film and before that, the 11

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image unwieldy, wooden plate cameras that could weigh forty pounds with tripod, it was manna from heaven. Even as early as 1905, Barnack had the idea of reducing the format of negatives and then enlarging the photographs after they had been exposed. It was ten years later, as development manager at Leica, that he was able to put his theory into practice. He took an instrument for taking exposure samples for cinema film and turned it into the world's first 35 mm camera: the 'Ur-Leica'. It was a simple but elegant solution: that of doubling the cinema film format created the miniature film format of 24 x 34 mm (it became 24 x 36 mm a bit later). The first photos - of outstanding quality for the time - were made in 1914. The First World War interrupted progress, and it was only in 1924 that the first Leica (Leitz Camera) went into serial production, and was presented to the public in 1925. Today, of course, we have cameras with auto-loading, an innovation that is in my opinion a mixed blessing. In my manual loading cameras, I always managed to get 38 frames out of the film, unlike the strictly 36 frames these programmed cameras deliver. They go into auto-rewind mode after the 36th frame, and thats it. Moreover, people like Mitchell Funk rewound film on their Nikon Fs to certain (already exposed) frames, in order to make perfectly registered double exposures. The Nikon F had a film counter that actually counted backwards as one rewound the film (by hand, of course) so it was easy to return to a previously exposed frame if one had recorded the frame numberwhich Mitchell Funk routinely does. Sometimes, the old ways are the still the best. Although the famed Leica Model 1A now worth its weight in gold to collectors was cumbersome to load and not exactly easy to use, the picture quality incredible by contemporary standards can easily match those taken by all but the best cameras available today. Featuring revolutionary Leitz optics, the new Leica cameras were an instant hit with field, sports, and news photographers of the stature of Henri CartierBresson (one of the co-founders of Magnum Photos, the famous newsphoto service), but they also had many detractors. Some lamented the arrival of a format (35 mm) that sounded the death knell of photography as a leisurely, contemplative medium: the end of the lovingly composed, excruciatingly tedious one-shot an-hour process. 12

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image Bertrand Russell compared the 35 mm camera with the cod that lays a million eggs in order that one may hatch. Elitists hate their exclusive tramping grounds being thrown open to the public. It says much for the prescience of this famous philosopher that his words presaged the coming of a new age of photography. Model after improved model followed in a steady stream from the hallowed works of E. Leitz GmbH, Wetzlar, West Germany, more notable among them the Leica IIIF, the Leica IIIG, the legendary Leica M3, with its exquisite Elmarit, Summitar and Summicron lensesto be finally topped by Leicas first Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera: the fabled Leicaflex, a reply to the growing might of the (long defunct) Swiss Alpa and the Japanese kamikaze cost-busters. I have used both the M3 as well as the Leicaflex, and am hard pressed to describe the rapture of using these awesome instruments. Leica stood for the pinnacle of the camera makers art, to be finally challenged by two upstarts from distant JapanNikon and Canon. The Korean War in the early 1950s coincided with the development of a Japanese rangefinder camera (it focused by turning the lens till two discrete images of the scene coincided in the viewfinder much like the rangefinder device used by riflemen), by Japans oldest optical firm: Nippon Kogaku K.K., of Tokyo. Combining the best features of the Contax (another justifiably famous German camera, that harnessed the power of Carl Zeiss optics) and the Leica, the Nikon S was given away free to war correspondents covering the Korean War. It was a smash hit with them. The little camera was incredibly rugged, even under battle conditions, and the Nikkor lenses it used were second to noneso they reported. Practically overnight, the less-than-than-half-the-price-of-a-Contax Nikon S2 became a major sensation. Then came the march of the Nikon SLRs: the redoubtable Nikon F exploded onto the scene, followed by what is arguably the most famous SLR of all timethe fabulous Nikon F2 Photomic, with its horizontally traveling cloth (later titanium foil) shutter, and infinitely variable manually set shutter speeds from 1/60th of a second all the way to 1/2000th of a secondnot counting, of course, the slower click-stopped speed settings. 13


None other than the legendary S. Paul owned the first F2 that I ever used, and I still remember my amazement that a mechanical (as opposed to an electronically-controlled) shutter could be this smooth, and have so light yet so positive a release. It was heavy (but not unduly so), divinely balanced and utterly heavenly to use; its lever-operated film-wind was deliciously smooth, as if the gears were coated with butter. Moreover, its unique 100% viewfinder integrity what you saw was what you got on film, not 95% or 93% as in most other makes/models allowed one to shoot 35 transparencies keeping the outer mounts in mind and composing the picture accordingly in the viewfinder. Variants of the F2 followed, such as the F2AS and the Hi-Eyepoint (which featured a unique high-vision eyepiece in place of the Photomic finder) mostly concerned with the removable / interchangeable pentaprism atop the camera that contained the metering system. Add an MD-2 battery-operated motor drive that allowed picture taking at a thenphenomenal 5 frames a second (you saw an F2 powered by an MD-2 being used to photograph the ill-fated Padre in The Omen), and you were deep in professional territory. I preferred the economical but essentially robust Nikon FE (which still lives on in the Nikon FM 3A) with its electronic shutter and MD-12 motor-drive that allowed sequential shots at 3.5 frames per secondand since it used the same razor sharp Nikkor optics as did the F2, it was theoretically its equal. S. Paul always eyed my compact FE / MD-12 motor-driven combination warily, knowing I had the armament to (hypothetically) match him in the field 99% of the time. The fact is that I never came even remotely close to emulating my guru; he is beyond the reach of any lensmanthe Maharajah

of

Photographers (as Pramod Kapoor, the suave publisher of Roli Books callshim), all of six years older than his brother Raghu Rai, today a legend in his own right. 14

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image A cousin of mine, who was the General Manager of the New India Assurance Company way back in the early 1980s, once went all the way to Japan to hunt for an F2 in pristine condition; he had a severe heart condition and his health was fast deteriorating. But his desire to add the king of cameras to his collection of fine cameras prevailed; on reaching Tokyo, he asked his Japanese friends to hunt high and low for the fabled beast. Even in those days, a basic F2 Photomic was a highly prized item, and a second-hand specimen in mint condition was almost impossible to locate, because no one wanted to sell. Despite the fact that his Japanese underwriters, part of a mighty zaibatsu, joined in the merry chase, it took him three weeks to find one! Bindu Mukerji died a year later; the Nikon had not been used even once. He went to the Happy Hunting Grounds with a smile on his face. Such is the irresistible fascination of these superlative optical instruments. Lest I manage to give you the impression that Nikon is the only good Japanese camera manufacturer, allow me to remind you of the erstwhile Kwanon Camera Company named after Kwanon, the Japanese Goddess of Mercy. This oncesmall camera maker made excellent rangefinder cameras, but in unleashing the versatile Canon F1, with its exhaustive repertoire of accessories that vastly extended its capabilities, mercy flew out of the back door, which is perhaps why they renamed the company as the Canon Camera Company. The Canon bombardment had begun. Well known for its outstanding compacts, it now became a big name in SLRs as well. The Canon F1 was a worthy opponent of the Nikon F2. Its more plebian stablemates were global best sellers, and one model the aperture-priority, semi-automatic Canon AE-1 even held the record for the maximum number of SLR cameras sold for a particular model. Though prestigious and exquisitely engineered, Nikons were very expensive; Canons perhaps cost a tad less but performed just as well, and the Canon optics were second to none. Their high-speed super-telephoto lenses such as the 600 mm f.4 were very popular with sports and wildlife photographers. Asahi Pentax (the Pentax Spotmatic F had spot metering, a very handy way to read exposure) and its Takumar lenses, in their traditional screw-mount 15

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image avatar, was a superb instrument. Asahi occupy a special place in the history of cameras; they introduced the instant return mirror. In an SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera, the viewfinder shows the actual image that will appear on film; it is not an approximation, as in rangefinder cameras, because the picture-taking optics and the viewing optics are one and the same. Light enters an SLRs lens, bounces off a mirror positioned at a 45 degree angle, and ricochets around twice inside a pentaprism (5-sided prism) once to correct its upside-down orientation and once again to flip the image the correct way around, i.e., left-to-right before entering the eye! At the instant of exposure (i.e., at that moment in time when the shutter opens to admit light), the mirror flips up out of the way (the viewfinder image is blanked for a fraction of a second; this action is quite apparent at slow shutter speeds like or th of a second, when the viewfinder blacks out disconcertingly for an instant), allowing light to strike the film that lies stretched out beyond the now open shutter. MIRROR LOCK-UP LEVER Before Asahi Optical Company invented the instant return mirror, the mirror had to be manually flipped out of the way, and manually returned in order to restore vision through the viewfinder (even lenses had to be manually stopped down to the taking aperture, just before exposure, and manually reopened thereafter). In fact, the redoubtable Nikkormat a Nikon SLR with its hardy band of diehard aficionados who practically swore by this machine shares with the Nikon F the provision for folding away the mirror manually. They are both mechanical camerasbut what cameras! A mirror lock is still a very useful feature for photomicrography (photography through a microscope) even in these days of near vibration-free shutters, where even the negligible amount of dither caused by the mirrors flip-flop action was enough to blur the image. The instant return mirror breakthrough came about the same time as TTL (Through-The-Lens) metering. It involved the placement of a suitably calibrated light meter placed inside (as opposed to the traditional handheld light 16

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image meter) the body of the camera to read the intensity of light at the film plane itself. The TTL meter recommended appropriate combinations of apertures and shutter speeds (these two components of exposure are explained later in the text). To OLYMPUS goes the credit for inventing another important feature: TTL flash metering at the film plane. OLYMPUS is another excellent make; their Zuiko lenses are astonishing in their sharpness and color rendition, and the brilliance of Chief Designer Yoshihisa Maitani, ensures that they keep coming up with ingenious solutions to many of the bugbears in 35 mm photography, such as more ergonomic placement of controls. The Asahi Pentax Spotmatic model had a TTL meter that measured the intensity of light over a small central area of the viewfinder. As a result, the photographer could get spot-on (no pun intended) exposures of the most important of his target sceneseparate, handheld spot-meters became a rarity. TTL metering was obviously better than a general meter reading of the scene (a system followed by Minolta for a long time; its averaging metering system was effective under most situations but was apt to be fooled by scenes with predominantly dark areas where the main subject was well lit, since it tended to try and expose them correctly, in the process over exposing the better lit main subject). Thus, it often recommended and enabled (unless you shifted to manual Experience Metering mode see Page 30), in the automatic mode, a reading (shutter-speed-aperture combination) quite inappropriate for the main subject. In time, with the coming of sophisticated electronics and programs that averaged light in all sorts of combinations and shooting situations, the Spotmatic, with its screw-mounting lenses the other major manufacturers all had their own versions of bayonet mounts was left far behind in terms of sophistication. Yet, thousands of these rugged cameras are still in service, still giving the best of images through their light, inexpensive, screw mount Takumar lenses. Pentax reinvented itself in the early 80s with a new bayonet mount and a slew of compact SLRs like the amazing ME and MX, which seriously challenged the OLYMPUS OM2. Of the lesser known manufacturers such as Konica (their partnership with Minolta is now defunct, as is Fuji), Ricoh, Cosina, Yashica and Topcon, let it be said that they do a fine job, giving full value for money. For all practical purposes, 17

ailures are people who didnt realize how close they were to success when they gave up.~ Thomas Alva Edison


there would be any difference between a picture taken with a Nikon and one taken with a Cosina or Ricoh. This awkward but undeniable fact may serve to discourage what I call Camera Fever, a malady that once afflicted me to no small degree. In the ultimate analysis, it is the photographer who takes the picture, not the camera1. This holds true even for the clunky and relatively unsophisticated Russian bow-wows like the Kiev and Zenit, what to speak of the once-fashionable and now defunct Alpa Swiss, and the redoubtable Voightlander from Germany. So if I stray now and then into the heady world of cameras and their enticing accessories, please bear with me. It is an infection that never quite leaves the system. Nonetheless, it has to be admitted that the more sophisticated the camera (within reasonable limits), the easier it is to get the technical bits out of the way and start taking pictures. It is only when the limitations of automation increasingly manifest themselves that we stop to reconsider. This is where we start looking for ways of achieving more control over the image, so as to facilitate the process of ideation. One of the main reasons for writing this little book is to help greenhorns over this hurdle, drawing upon my own experience with automatics. Those who have outgrown their tiny auto-everything compacts and want to take control of their picture making, would probably find this book helpful. But photography like all the really important things in life is a product of passion, precision, practice and perseverance. There is no easy short cut to becoming a good photographerand photography palls when results are consistently below expectations. Many a potential photo-artist has abandoned the medium because of this; Id like to do my little bit in preventing this attrition. All its takes is some hard work, dedication (stick-at-it-tiveness), and some guidance. I hope the latter can be found between the covers of this book. The good news is that like gambling at Las Vegas no one ever had such a good time working up a sweat, as they can have in working at creating great images.

1 See Part Five of this book for more on the creative aspects of photography.

18


Prologue

PrologueThe Return of El TomsoOctober, 1976. My father, my wife, and I had gone to the cantonment area at Patiala, where Durga Puja was being celebrated. I dont know whether you are aware of it or not, but this is the time of year when all Bongs are non compos mentis by varying degrees. The extent of abnormality can be determined by applying a mathematical formula I have discovered, which I call the Bongonsong Scale. It works like this: take the distance of ones abode from Calcutta (sorry, Kolkata), divide it by the number of years spent living outside Bengal, then multiply the outcome by the square root of the number of rossogollas one can consume in a single day, exactly a week before Ashtami. Rest assured that a score of 100 or more on the Bongonsong Scale means that the pull is still strong, even if camouflaged. Long insulated from the baleful effects of this temporary loss of sanity (the Sherwood academic year ended in December), and the considerable 19

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image distance of Nainital from Kolkata, I am revealed as a true-blue Bong by the enormous quantities of rossogollas I can put away at a sitting. My individual score hits the 150 mark on the Bong-on-song Scale; I am not as immune to the malady as I would have imagined. A terrible restlessness, a naked wanderlust, always hits me hard around this time of year. I remember remarking to my wife of six months that Seor Toms said he would come to India around the end of September, but there is no further news from him, although he has kept in touch with me all these years, after he left us at Solan to work for LM Ericsson, Kuwait almost three years ago. Seor Toms, better known as El Tomso, was my neighbor in Hauz Khas, and was known as the Hauz Khas Bulletman in the neighbourhood. It was the daily sight of his immaculate Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle that goaded me into buying one, and thereafter we became fast friends. He was a paying guest with a hardy Punjabi family next door that bathed in cold water in the depths of Delhi's severe winter. Ergo, he too perforce had to take cold-water showers, something that was anathema to the warm south in him, for he is from balmy Kerala. I gave him the duplicate key to my little apartment, with its geyser-equipped bathroom, so that he could use it any time he liked. Toms never forgot this small token of my regard for him. He was growing out of his job with Ericsson India, and wanted to go abroadthere was an uncle in the BKME (Bank of Kuwait and the Middle East) who had promised to sponsor him provided he managed an appointment letter from LM Ericsson, Kuwait. So one fine day, Toms resigned his job and joined my parents and me in Solan (Himachal Pradesh), my first posting as a Probationary Officer with the State Bank. We were delighted to have him! About three months passed happily, with Toms well adjusted to his life with us. But one day, he bared his heart to my father (this came out much later), revealing his distress at the prolonged stay and wondering why the long-promised NOC (Noobjection Certificate) had still not come from Kuwait. Dad, who was 20

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image quite a palmist, told him not to worry and that his NOC was due any day; he would be an NRI soonand stay that way. A couple of days later, Toms came loping into the house, found that Dad had gone to the fruit market, located him there and showed him the NOC that had come that very day poste restante. That same afternoon, he left for Delhi and for a new life with LM Ericsson Telefonatibolaget, P.O. Box 5979, Safat, Kuwait. I bade him a gloomy farewell, knowing that the chances of seeing him again were bleak. The late Lars Magnus Ericsson had set up a small radio repair shop about a century ago in Sweden that had grown into a global communications behemoth and taken my best friend away from me. As we returned from the Durga Puja mela at the cantonment area in Patiala, we saw a long, low, dusty shape with thick radial tires parked in front of the house. Arabic lettering peeped out from behind the splashes of mud on the registration plate. I rang the doorbell, and Mother opened it. There was joy on her face. Guess whos here! she chortled gleefully. It was Toms! I hugged my dear friend whom Id never thought to see again. He was my fellow Bulletman, my partner in many a hair-raising, high-speed Bullet trip over remote mountain roads. His driving skills are simply phenomenal. I am barely good, but Toms is outstanding, a born rally driver. Anything with a motor and wheels becomes a controlled subsonic missile in his hands. Yes, thats the 6-cylinder Datsun 260 Z Sports 2+2 hed sent me photographs of, the ones with the new TV tower in Kuwait and the huge oil tankers navigating the Gulf, in the background. With him were a young, recently married English couple, Andr and Doreen Winter, very keen on computers, cars, rallying, and photography. M/S Andor Microsystems were computerizing the Bank of Kuwait. Andr had a bag full of equipment and fine lenses, from a 300mm Takumar telephoto to a 16 mm full-frame fish-eye lens, to go with the Asahi-Pentax Spotmatic F body. I wondered whether Toms had remembered to bring me the small camera I needed: the cameras available in India were crude and unsophisticated. I neednt have worried; he had 21

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image remembered to bring my camera. But what a camera! It was the new Minolta single-lens reflex, theXE-1, produced after Minolta Camera Company signed their collaboration agreement

with Ernst Leitz GmbH, Wetzlar, West Germany, manufacturers of the legendary Leica cameras. Details of its sophisticated features would fill this page: Copal-Leitz Leitz electronic shutter, twin metal shutter curtains with vertical travel, infinitely variable shutter speeds on Auto from 30 seconds to 1,000th of a second, aperture-priority automatic exposure, through-the-lens (TTL) metering with Minoltas patented Minolta averaging exposure system reading a weighted average of the entire scene, multiple exposure capability, self timer, low-battery LED, comprehensive viewfinder readout, depth-of-field preview, 2 stops exposure compensation on Auto, auto-exposure memory lock, optional full manual override, M90 (Manual, 1/90th second) setting for manual/flash shooting even without batteries, Minoltas patented bayonet mount Minolta accepting a mind-boggling array of Rokkor lensesit goes on and on and on: and all in the expensive, black professional finish. Bulging in a distinctly masculine manner at the front end was a huge chunk of glass weighing 14 ounces: the fabulous 58 mm, f1: 1.2 MC Noct-Rokkor lens, excellent for flash-less, available light picture taking. Incredibly, there was even an accessory 200 mm f4.5 Tele-Rokkor telephoto lens, along with a 2X teleextender, all in individual, original Minolta cases! I was speechless. Id lost my tongue. Besides, there was a large obstruction in my throat. No sound issued forth, no matter how hard I tried. Id asked for a pebble: the man had brought me the whole goddam mountain. In one fell swoop, he had handed me the equipment I needed to become a serious photographer. Ever since I had a tonsillectomy in 1955, Id been using the Model T of cameras, a Kodak Baby Brownie box camera giving eight exposures per 127 roll of film, which my cousin Otima (Iron Lady Otima Bordia, IAS, elder daughter of my uncle, Justice Basu Deva Mukerji) had then presented me. It had cost her all of 19/- rupees of desperately saved pocket money, which represented a considerable sacrifice in those days. Through all my boyhood and young manhood, it had coped with me, while faithfully recording fishing, hunting and camping trips, and sundry other 22

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image outings. I hardly found any incentive to buy the crude, 120-size roll film cameras from Agfa-Gevaert then available in India. After twenty years of hard use, however, the Brownies bakelite body had started chipping, and ingress of light into the chamber meant that its useful life was over. Amazingly, the lens and leaf shutter were still in perfect conditiona tribute to Eastman Kodaks commitment to quality. Seeing my interest in photography, an indigent but indulgent maternal uncle had sent me many books on the subject. These I had pored over, absorbing technical know-how as well as tips on better photography. I drooled over the pictures of cameras, especially the single-lens reflexes with their instant-return mirrors, TTL metering, and lens interchangeability that made this type of 35 mm beast the most versatile of all picture-taking instruments. I read and re-read many other books I bought, but alas! I was a cameraman sans camera. Now, thanks to El Tomso, the long wait was over. Fitted with the 200 mm telelens, the camera felt familiar in my hands, but this time, a gun that did not kill or maim, freezing images on film forever. 36 rounds, single shot or rapid-fire, up close in macro or as distant as the stars, I could now shoot anything visible to the eyeor beyond. The mustachioed rally driver from the Gulf had made my dream come true. The trio had driven overland all the way from Kuwait in the Persian Gulf, through Afghanistan and into India. Toms overflew Pakistan, as he did not manage a visa from the Pakis, rejoining the party at Amritsar. I remembered that only six years earlier, the Indian Armed Forces had given the Pakistan army a drubbing in the 1971 war, and the memories still rankled across the border. As we tucked into a hearty dinner, we made plans. It was decided that we would drive down to Delhi, then on to Agra to see the Taj Mahal before returning to Delhi. We would then fly to Srinagar, Kashmir. I baulked at this: I could not impose any further, although Toms insisted that he would take care of the tickets. The Kuwaiti Dinar was then valued at an exchange rate of Rs.13/- to a Dinar, and Toms was apparently flush with Indian Rupees. But I could take advantage of his generosity no further. I came up with Rs.5,000 all I could then spare which sum I pressed into 23

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image Tomss reluctant hands. Thats all I paid for the camera and probably the best holiday I ever had. In return, I got priceless memories that would last a lifetime. The next day, I took ten days leave and we were off in the 260 Z Sports 2+2. High-speed cruising, at least of this variety, was something new to me. 150 kilometers an hour on the speedometer and climbing steadily, yet I had total control, thanks to the low center of gravity, wide Bridgestone radials and Girling disc brakes on all four wheels. The Grand Trunk road never felt like this before. Could Sher Shah Suri, who made this road, ever have imagined that one day, people would travel on it at such fantastic speeds? The NISSAN Datsun glides, floats; whatever the condition of the road surface might be, its no concern of ours. Tinted glasses, power steering, genuine leather bucket seats, 6-track quadraphonic music from the cartridge player, silent airconditioning; the works! The trusty Ambassador was revealed as a bullock-cart! The shock-absorbing, soundproofing qualities of this famous rally car were legendary. At 175 kilometers an hour (thats well over 100 miles an hourthe ton! At last!), one cannot hear any exterior noise inside the Datsuns luxurious passenger compartment. The high-frequency triple horns can only be felt (through the co-pilots footrest, or the drivers foot-pedals), not heard. You know they are working from the way traffic veers sharply to the left, giving me room to overtake. A quick declutch, a mere tap on the tubby gear lever to shift down to fourth, a slight jab of the right foot, and the engine responds gallantly; the car surges forward eagerly, pressing us violently back, deep into the aromatic leather. Things recede dizzyingly in the rear-view mirror as I slip back into top, and the muted, superbly responsive engine hurls the streamlined projectile at nearly 180 kilometers an hour (112.5 mph) ventre terre towards Delhi. The capital now seems disappointingly close as the odometer reels in the distance rapidly. Agra! I cannot find the words to express the wonder that life was for me then. My heart overflowed with love, happiness, and bonhomie, and my body seemed to be bursting with physical power. Every breath I took seemed to invigorate me even further, as I reveled in the magic of youth. My wife of seven months (!) and I had never seen the Taj Mahal. We were now gazing at it for the first time, and that 24

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image too in the company of dear friends. After seeing the mausoleum, we wandered about the grounds the whole afternoon. I was not prepared for the sheer grandeur, the breathtaking immensity, of this poem in marble. No photograph of this monument to eternal love can ever hope to do it justice. It was a fantasy world; the very air seemed to whisper of an ancient love that lives on beyond the grave. The best description of the Taj Mahal that Ive come across is couched in poetic, not architectural language: A teardrop on the cheek of time. I empathized with Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his lost love, Mumtaz. Her death must have made him realize that he, too, was mortal, and that nothing lasts foreverexcept love. The monument was, perhaps, his way of telling us that love endures even after the body, evanescent and ephemeral, is gone. That moonlit night at the Taj, I pinched myself often, to see if I was dreaming. There were hardly any people around, and Andr put the Pentax on a tripod and took many long exposures with the fish-eye lens. We felt very close to our wives. Poor Seor Toms. Then unmarried, he was very fidgety, trapped between two young couples on their second honeymoon. The restlessness would increase further in Kashmir! The Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir was distinguished IAS officer Sushital Banerjee, my paternal cousin. When we alighted from the plane and I phoned my sister-in-law Ranu, that beautiful and capable lady at once sent a car to fetch us. It was a Sunday, and I found dada was home. He was very happy to see me and my friends: my Dad (his maternal uncle) was his boyhood hero and he would spend hours giving him the massage disciples traditionally give to their gurus, pressing his biceps, muscular back and brawny legs after his workout or game. Sushital was meeting my wife for the first time (he sent me a gold Sheaffers pen set as a wedding present, but pressing duties came in the way of his attending the reception at our ancestral home, Madhu Mandir, Allahabad); he remarked that if such a lovely lady could not tame and domesticate me, nobody ever would. (Did she? I often wonder.) The lady in question blushed at the neat compliment from this extraordinarily handsome and charismatic man who exuded power and authority. Sushital regrets that, on account of government regulations, he cannot 25

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image have Andr and Doreen as guests in his official residence, but hed arrange something even better. That evening, the couple was settled in Armstrong, a Category A houseboat moored on the Dal Lake, with its own dedicated shikara (similar to a Venetian gondola, except that it is paddled, not poled). I have rarely seen such luxury as I saw on that house-boat; a lavishly equipped kitchen, two plush bedrooms, a magnificent drawing room littered with genuine antiques, engaging bric-a-brac, and Persian carpets. There are flowers everywhere, even on the balconies. It is a floating palace! There is no airconditioningall you need to do is to open the window! It is verily a paradise on earth, this idyllic vale of Kashmir, tailormade for romance. I envied the young English couple, so obviously in love, and guiltily wished that we, too, had a houseboat! But thats being ungratefulBowdi looked after us very well, and gave us a lovely suite in the West Wing of the huge bungalow on the Bundh. Andr was most impressed by the armed guards at the gate, and the magnificent Chinar trees in the beautiful garden. Trips were arranged for us to see Sonamarg, Pahalgam, Gulmarg, Chashmeshahi, etc. From Gulmarg, we took horses to Khillanmarg and on to Alpatthar, beyond the tree line and even beyond the snowline. Andr had difficulty breathing, and asked me what height we were athe paled under his tan when he learnt he was at over 12,000 feet! Thats almost two thousand feet higher than Ben Nevis, I pointed out, the highest peak in the British Isles! No wonder the Englishman had trouble finding enough oxygen to breathe. Doreen, my wife and I were not affected by the height: we must have highlander blood in us. Andr is a throwback to Viking forebears; burly, and with a bushy, reddish beard, he could pass as Eric the Red himselfthe ancient Norwegian explorer who discovered, named and founded a colony on the worlds largest island, Greenland, an intentional misnomer designed to attract settlers. In reality, 87% of Greenland is ice-bound round the year! What an adman hed have made. A last snowball fight, then we galloped downhill to Gulmarg and drove back to Srinagar. One evening, we even got to meet Sheikh Abdullah, the Lion of Kashmir, a giant of a man in every sense of the term, with his leonine countenance and his massive, six-and-a-half-foot frame. Another evening, Lakshmi Kant Jha, the 26

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image well-known ex-bureaucrat, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and now the Governor of J&K, drops by. He is an old family friend, married to beautiful Mekhala, whose own house was not far from Madhu Mandir. Somewhere in the middle of all this, El Tomso had borrowed the Minolta and fled to Trivandrum (now Tiruvananthapuram); he just couldnt take any more. (A few months later, he too, got marriedto Anila, a typical southern bell with a smooth, dusky complexion and classic features). There was a last minute glitch: Indian Airlines informed us over the phone that we did not have OK tickets, so on the proposed day of our departure, there are no seats available on the plane for any of us! Sushital steps in quietly and asks for the Station Officer or some such official who is in-charge of the airport. A few terse remarks are addressed to that worthy. Half an hour later, we learn that a special flight has been arranged to accommodate the sudden demand for seats on the busy Srinagar-Delhi route. Thus did we return to Delhi as per schedule. In India, as everywhere else, it pays to know the powers that be.

[

Mother of telephoto 1700mm

The all lenses!! Nikkor Super Zoom lens 1200-

27

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune in to.~ Wayne Dyer

gness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. Photography ~ The Quest for before they are aware of their own self-importance, le Beyond That is why young children, the Ultimate Image

Beyond PhotographyPART ONE

28


COMING TO GRIPS WITH THE SLRIt is hard to shed habits, for they become so much a part of us that they are very difficult to shake off. Even with the sophisticated Minolta XE-1 in my hands, I found, after exposing a few rolls of film, that I was still taking snaps, not making pictures. It was as if I was still using the Baby Brownie box camera, with its universal-focus, constant aperture, and fixed shutter-speed. For one thing, I was using the camera on its Auto setting, which allowed me to relinquish the responsibility of determining the correct exposure. This means that the cameras metering system was giving me the shutter speed that, in its wisdom, it felt was appropriate for the aperture Id set on the lens: remember, this was an aperture-priority automatic camera. You set the aperture and it set the corresponding shutter speed, both visible within the bright viewfinder, that not only reflected the aperture number set on the lens (via an ingenious prismatic system) into a box at the top of the viewfinder, but also showed a needle that swung vertically up and down the full scale of shutter speeds to indicate the speed available. There were three concentric focusing aids right in the center of the bright, contrasty viewfinder: the split image focusing aid, one that split an image (like a jawline, a pair of spectacles or a hemline), that you then joined up into a coherent item by turning the soft, rubberized lens focusing ring. There was also a shimmering outer ring that turned clear when the image was in focus. Either of these usually suited the subject; if not, the rest of the ground glass of the viewfinder was the fallback position. Since despite all the theoretical knowledge Id picked up from books (and which seemed to promptly desert me in actual picture-taking situations) I didnt bother too much about which aperture was set on the lens, I usually got a shutter speed totally inappropriate for the subject I was shooting. For example, to freeze (if thats what the creative requirement was) a fast-moving subject like a car crossing horizontally in front of me, I needed a shutter speed of at least 1/500th of a second. If the aperture setting on the lens, however, happened to be f.11, there was no way, with 125 ASA negative film, I was going to get more than 1/125th, except in very brightly lit conditions. To achieve 1/500th of a 29

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image second, I needed an aperture setting of f.5.6! To confound matters further, if the averaging system used byMinolta

found some dark areas in the frame/ background, it tried to expose those

shaded areas correctly by further lowering the shutter speed, thereby overexposing the subject. On account of all these factors, I usually found that, although the frame was correctly focused focusing was something I had to do (and still prefer doing) myself my subject was either over- or under-exposed, the background was distracting from the point of view of contrast (too dark or too light to make the subject stand out against it), or the composition was just plain rotten (there were telephone poles growing out of peoples heads, the classic bloomer!). Worse still, the subject itself was usually blurred when I wanted it to be pin-sharp, thanks to camera shake. The natural tremor of a persons hands can be horrendously magnified in pictures shot at slow shutter speeds, which is a problem well examine a bit later in the book. Certain situations can call for a blurred subject, but thats also something that well go into later on. THE STARTING POINT In order to get more meaningful pictures, I realized that I first needed to understand the inter-relationship between shutter-speed and aperture that produced a correct exposure. A correctly exposed negative is one which is neither dense nor too thin, that has detail in both highlights as well shadow areas, and which prints in all its finest details on normal photographic paper. Though I am not going to go into too much detail about darkroom aspects, suffice it to say that there are basically three types of light-sensitive paper available to the photographer (going from little 3 x 5 sheets, to mammoth rolls that can be cut in the darkroom for making blow-ups). The three grades (coming in glossy and matt surface variants) are suited to negatives fitting into any of the three categories of negatives, as cited above. Only when I used proper combinations of the two components of exposure, i.e., shutter-speed and aperture, could I hope to meet the requirements of correct exposure of the main subject. Correct exposure was, as I came to realize, entirely dependent on the creative aspects of the shot I had in mind. This, in turn, threw up 30

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image the need to satisfy certain technical requirements that I had in mind. In other words, what was correct exposure for one subject or situation was not necessarily the correct exposure for another situation. But at the starting point, I had to properly understand what shutter-speed and aperture meant, in the first place! This was where control started; I was obviously out of control at the starting line itself! The Shutter Speed

I found that shutter speed determines the duration for which light falls on the film. That is why it is expressed in terms of seconds or fractions of a second. The larger the fraction sounds, the shorter is the duration of the exposure; e.g., 1/60th of a second is a slower shutter-speed, giving more time to the light to fall on the film, than, say, 1/250th, 1/1000th or even 1/2,000th of a second, the last two being very short exposures (fast shutter-speeds). Fast shutter-speeds can freeze rapid movement; a car flashing past appears stationary in the picture. If a speed of say, 1/30th second is used, however, that same car would register on film as a blurnot bad, if you are looking to capture an image about the velocity and impatience of road users around you, juxtaposed against a slower strata of travelers say, a cyclist to add the contrast that highlights what life in a metropolis is all about. Its not a good solution if your intention was to show the cars detailsbut its a good one if you want to illustrate the hazards of cycling on busy roads with fast, undisciplined traffic, a common feature on Indian roads. High shutter speeds can freeze action. High-speed flash can produce the same effect, provided the available light is too weak to create an image on film, except at very large apertures (such as f.1.4). This is why strobe lights in discos work so well: flashing on for a very brief intervals of time before shutting off again, the infinitesimally-brief (but very intense, as a compensation for the brevity) winks of light mean that your retina only registers freeze frames of the scene, a very pleasing effect when some of the better-looking dancers are frozen in attractive poses on the retina of your eyes. 31

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image I seem to remember a disco called Ghungroo in the Delhi of my wild youth, which had this sort of arrangement. Pulses of light from electronic flashguns (significantly called strobes in America, or Speed Lights by Nikon), Nikon are normally as short as 1/1,000th of a second or of even briefer duration, and have the same effect as that of high shutter-speed in daylight. This is the reason why exposures made with electronic flash as a light source can freeze motion so effectively. The shutter of your camera, instead of controlling the intensity of light from its natural source, usually daylight, (something quite beyond its control!), restricts the duration of light going through it to the film lying behind it, for certain fixed intervals of time, i.e., as per the shutter-speed setting. In a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, there are two shutter curtains, both simultaneously cocked by the simple act of winding on film, either by thumb, or, as is usually the case today, by merely shutting the camera back after loading the film cartridge and allowing the cameras built-in motor to automatically wind on the film to frame 1. On your pressing the shutter-release button, one curtain starts on its journey from one side of the film to the other, while the second curtain follows suit fractions of a second later. The gap between the two curtains as they travel (horizontally or vertically, as per the design of the shutter, it doesnt matter too much for all practical purposes) determines the shutterspeedand, coupled with the aperture, gives the exposure! Before we go on to discuss aperture, a simple example might serve as an aid to memory in remembering that shutter-speed is but one-half of the equation. The other half, of course, is aperture:

Shutter-speed x Aperture = Exposure.Let us suppose you are seated in a room, in total darkness. You are facing the door, and there is a piece of unexposed film in your hand. The room has only one (sliding) light-tight door, and that being presently tightly shut, no light has managed to sneak 32

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image in from the sunlit balcony beyond it to hit the film and expose it. But now, if someone opens and shuts the door for a thousandth of a second, a small quantity of light will manage, in that brief interval, to get through to the film and register on iti.e., expose it. The light hitting the film will cause a chemical reaction in it, which is what exposure means. When that light is a focused image, such as through the focused lens of a camera (read shutter for sliding door), unlike simple ingress of unfocused light coming though a doorway as in our example, it will form a (latent) focused image on the film, an image that will emerge, as if by magic, after the film is chemically processed. However, depending on how sensitive the film is (yes, films come in various types and sensitivities, but for the sake of simplicity we will continue to talk, for the time being, of standard negative film, the type you use to shoot your picnic snapshots), some effect to the exposure to light would have resulted. But if the person at the door now decides to slide it open and shut it again after an interval of a full second, the film will, in all probability, be totally fogged by the heavy exposure (thanks to the long duration of the exposure). In other words, the duration of the exposure has been far too long, and the film is overexposed, like any movie star can be if s/he gets too much coverage, fogging the minds of cine-goers! Too much of a good thing can be bad! However, if it were dusk, the evening light coming from outside would be very weak (weak intensity of light), and the one-second duration of the exposure ought to be right on the button! In other words, we have the option of adjusting shutter-speed according to the intensity of light, by keeping aperture (the doorway) constant so as to balance the equation and achieve correct exposure. The Aperture But there is another way of achieving this most desirable correct exposure: changing the other half of the equation, i.e., by keeping the shutter-speed constant and varying the aperture! 33

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image The aperture you have set on the lens is, of course, the other half of the equation that you can fiddle around with. The aperture mechanism of the lens of a single-lens reflex camera closely resembles the iris of the human eye. By virtue of an arrangement of overlapping metal plates, each the approximate shape of a butterflys wing secured in an annular configuration that allows each plate a certain degree of free lateral movement, the aperture through which light must pass (like the iris of your eye) can be increased or decreased. What this means is that by controlling this aperture or iris, you can control the amount of light getting through the lens and onto the film. If you look through a window on a bright day, the outside glare can hurt your eyes for a few moments. But then the iris of your eye reacts by closing down, narrowing the pupil (letting in a smaller amount of light) till the harsh glare no longer causes discomfort. While the human eye can take a few seconds to thus adjust itself, in a camera the actual iris shuts down to the aperture set by you on the aperture-setting ring on the lens, in microseconds, at the instant of your pressing the shutter-release button (on an SLR camera). If you had looked out of the window through a card with a single pinhole punched in it, the scene would not have dazzled your eyes at all; the tiny aperture of the pinhole would have restricted light to the extent that the harshly-lit scene outside would have looked pretty dim! (When you were back at school, you might have made your very own pinhole camera; they need exposures of quite long durations, because the pinhole allows so little light to squeeze through to the film).

Equation: tiny aperture x long shutter-speed = correct exposureThe small aperture controls the amount of light reaching your eye to the point where it does not over-expose the scene on the retina of your eye and cause pain (at which point, you shut your eyes tightly). Its like a tap whose knurled knob can be used to 34

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image control the flow of water; the wider you open the aperture inside the nozzle of the tap, by twisting the knob anti-clockwise, the more the amount of water (read light, in the case of your camera) that gets through in a given span of time (the other half of the equation: remember shutter-speed alias duration?). A proper combination of Aperture and Shutter-speed (the two elements vital to exposure) gives us a well-exposed negative or transparency. To examine the relationship between the two in greater detail, let us take the analogy of the tap a little further. Let us suppose we are filling a large bucket of water from the tap. We are given only one minute to fill the bucket. We therefore open the tap the correct amount, so as to fill the bucket within this pre-set time duration. Transposing this analogy to an actual picture-taking situation, let us suppose we are told to shoot the picture at a shutter-speed of 1/250th of a second. So we set 1/250 on the shutterspeed dial on the top of the camera, then adjust the aperture ring on the lens manually to the aperture recommended by the cameras in-built exposure meter.

Different makes of cameras convey this information in different ways. Usually, the better makes of automatic cameras also give you the option of full manual control, allowing you to override auto and make manual adjustments of shutter-speed and aperture, the way many professionals still do. As you become familiar with your picture taking and with the way your camera works, you will learn that, in a variety of situations, it is better to override the auto setting and go the manual route. Exposure meters can be fooled (though, in this age of computer-like cameras, this is getting somewhat rare), but once your experience meter gets going, you can instantly come up with the correct combination of shutter-speed and aperture and compensate manually. Later, we will explore this point in greater detail. Depth of Field is another factor affected by the aperture (apart from the amount of 35

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image light it controls). The depth of field is the distance behind, as well as the distance in front of, your subject, that is acceptably sharp at a given aperture. In other words, it is the zone of sharpness. The basic rule is: the smaller the aperture (e.g., f.11, not f.4), the deeper the zone of sharpness, i.e., the area that is acceptably sharp to the eye, both in front of and behind the subject. I will expand on this point a bit, later on. Professional photographers, who shoot scenic pictures or college graduation group photographs, know this well. You may have noticed that in most of your pictures taken with a simple box camera, your friends clustered in the close foreground, the cars in the parking lot behind, and the distant skyscrapersall were in good focus: a very deep depth of field indeed! This is because such cameras have very small lenses (which are very inexpensive when mass-produced), with very small, fixed apertures. But in serious photography, such a universal depth of field (dof) is not always desirable. So many things in focusit can confuse the eye and steal the thunder from the main subjectyour friends! You dont want a picture-postcard frame of Dal Lake, do you? All you want is a well-composed picture of your friends in sharp detail, with the rest of the scene out of focus so as not to distract the eye. A professional would try for a shot at a very wide aperture, perhaps f.2.8 or even f.2. With the aperture ring on the lens at this setting, he would set the shutter-speed to about 1/2,000th of a second, or even 1/4,000th of a second with ASA 100 film in daylight. Voil! A super-sharp photograph of your gang; the rest is an inconsequential mish-mash. However, if you guys want a record of your visit to the Eiffel Tower, hell probably use f.8 or f.11, so as to get it to loom up sharply in the backgroundbecause thats exactly why the gang is posing before it! The high shutter-speed of 250th of a second used in the group shot would have yielded another side benefit: the blurry effect of camera shake would have been neutralized! Many people buy expensive cameras, and then wonder why the pictures always come out blurred and hazy! Dont be shy of using a small tripod, especially for static scenes, like panoramas, taken at small apertures and slow shutter-speeds, or when you intend joining the group picture when using a self-timer (fight off the urge to rest the camera on the bonnet of the car with its engine 36

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image running). There are two other factors that affect depth of field: the focal length of the lens in use, and the distance of the subject from the film plane: To increase dof, then, (a) use a wide-angle lens, say, one of 28 or 24 mm focal length (b) use the smallest possible aperture (c) get as far from the subject as possible (but dont let it disappear from view altogether!) To decrease dof, (a) use a lens with as long a focal length as consistent with your aims (b) use as wide an aperture as possible (c) get as close to the subject as possible.

Somewhere within these tips lies the solution that best lets you shoot it like you want. LENSESAs mentioned earlier, the single-lens reflex cameras versatility rests on the fact that it can accept a wide range of interchangeable lenses encompassing true fish-eye (6 mm or 8 mm), full-frame fish-eye (16 mm) to super-wide (18 mm), ultra-wide (20 mm), wide (24 to 35 mm), normal (50 to 58 mm), short tele (85 to105 mm, excellent for portraiture), medium tele (135 mm) to long (200 to 300 mm) to super long (500 mm to 2,000 mm) telephoto lensesfavorites of wildlife photographers.

Wide-angle and ultra wide-angle lenses startoff from 35 mm focal length, and go all the way down to 20 mm, whereafter they enter the zone of superwide angle lenses that give enormous depth of field. Certain (very expensive) fish-eyes have a 360 arc of vision, and a depth-of-field that extends all the way from infinity right down to the glass surface of the lens, so that you can actually photograph an ant walking across the front element! 37


Fish-eye lenses were originallydeveloped for scientific and space use, but image-makers specializing in product and advertising photography have also exploited the impact of the unique perspective it offers. Fisheyes are different from ultrawideangle lenses, since their most obvious feature is the weird curvilinear FULL-FRAME FISH-EYE LENSES perspective distortion that causes extreme bending of straight lines, especially those near the edges of the frame. The angle of coverage of fish-eye lenses can be anything from 220 to 360! Other noticeable (and often very handy) features are the exceptional depth of field and stretched out perspective. The wide-angle lens has the effect of stretching a scene: a room can look very long; a small cars bonnet can look as long as that of a Ferrari. This is an intrinsic property that comes with the lens, and can be used to good advantage in certain situations, which youll appreciate as you go along.

Narrow-angle lensesAt the other extreme, the longer the focal length of the lens, the narrower the zone of sharpness, other things being equal, i.e., given the same aperture setting. Portrait, sports, and news photographers often use this to their advantage; it allows them to concentrate on the most important area of the picture: the actual subject. Moreover, the longer the lens, the more it compresses distance. If you have watched cricket on TV, you will have noticed how the pitch appears very short, hardly the 22 yards its meant to be. The bowler seems to almost bounce the ball off the batsmans head! The telezoom of the TV camera has compressed the distance. Famed film director David Lean used the long lens to stunning effect in his 38

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image classic movie Lawrence of Arabia in a scene where the Black Prince (Omar Sharif) looms out of the desert on his racing camelbut though the animal is obviously going flat out, it doesnt seem to making any progress; it appears to be dancing on one spot as it races towards you, thanks to the tremendous magnification. Still photographers use this property of telelenses in various creative ways; to emphasize the confusion caused by mile-long traffic jams, with the vehicles tightly bunched together; the incredible masses of pedestrians on Kolkatas streets; row after claustrophobic row of low-income housing complexes; the profusion of blooms in a rose garden, to heighten the impact of their collective beauty, etc. The telelens is indispensable when you have to compact distance and also when youd like to selectively isolate a subject, as the close-up of the old Turkey Buzzards eye in the opening frames of McKennas Gold. Suppose you would like to highlight just one runner (possibly the one you think will win the race) in a line-up of sprint stars at the starting blocks, just fit the longest telezoom in your bag, open the aperture as wide as that permissible under exposure considerations, focus slightly ahead of this particular runner as he crouches there (all seen side view, not front on). He will be sharply etched, while his competitors will fall progressively out of focus on either side of him. I vividly remember a prize-winning shot by legendary photographer S. Paul, shot with a Nikon F2AS, MD-2 motor drive, and 180 mm f 2.8 Nikkor lens wide open at f 2.8 and 1/500th of a second (on Kodachrome 64 transparency film), of a Republic Day parade in New Delhi: only the red feathered pom-pom on the beret of a striding soldier was in sharp focus; the rest of the picture, the solidlypacked phalanx of marchers, was hazy. What a shot! What incredible impact! That lone, sharply etched pompom neatly summed up the martial overtones of the parade, the esprit de corps, and the sheer lan of the crack battalion! Such blazing inspiration is the stuff that great photographs are made of. Macro lenses (such as the stupendous 55 mm f.2.8 Nikkor), lens extension tubes (auto as well as non-auto), and bellows attachments, enable close-up photography to extend into the tinier world of macro-photography, allowing one to 39

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image explore and record a wonder-world of rare coins, stamps, patterns in bark, and the subtle textures of natureminute flowers and infinitesimally small insects that usually go unnoticed. And with a microscope attachment, we can take pictures through a microscope; photomicrography allows you to take pictures right down to the atomic level of matter (using a tunneling electron microscope). You can even photograph the heavens by attaching your SLR camera to a telescope (like the Celestron 1000 mm, using very long exposures and an equatorial drive (highly recommended) that allows your camera rig to compensate for the Earths rotation. From macrocosm to microcosm, its all yours, baby! Phew!

Exposure by Experience Meter

2

A rough guide, a rule of thumb, that I always use, is that I take the correct bright daylight exposure to be a product of the reciprocal of the film speed, and an aperture of f.11. Impressed? Now Ill stow the jargon and simply say that if you are using 125 ASA film, your bright daylight shutter-speed will be 1/125th of a second at an aperture of f.11. Now you can consign your old hand-held light (exposure) meter3 to the dustbineven if its a Gossen Luna Pro! 125 ASA film = 125th of a second shutter speed, at an aperture of f.11thats simple, isnt it? If your film is rated at 400 ASA, use 1/500 th of a second at f.11 (theres no 400th of a second setting on a cameras shutter speed dial, so one has to make do with the closest alternative 1/500th of a second). It follows from this that, if correct exposure is merely a product of a combination of both aperture as well as shutter-speed, we can fiddle around with this basic equation. Let us suppose it is:

Shutter-speed (1/125th sec) x Aperture (f.11) = Correct exposure(Bright daylight with 125 ASA film)2 The term is borrowed from my guru, the legendary S. Paul. 3 An exposure meter suggests workable combinations of shutter speed and aperture.

40

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image Then, we can use any of the following combinations:

Shutter speed 1/15 1/30 1/60 1/125 1/250 1/500 1/1,000 1/2,000 1/4,000 1/8,000

Aperture (equipment permitting) 32 22 16 11 8 5.6 4 2.8 2 1.4

The above table is recommended for bright daylight exposures only, with ASA 100 to 125 negative films. For daylight beach or snow scenes (where theres more light bouncing around), use f.16 with 1/125th of a second as the base for a fresh table. It will be observed from the Experience Meter4 chart above that, depending on our priority, i.e., whether we wish to achieve greater depth of field or a shallower one (to highlight a subject and obliterate a disturbing background), we can select appropriate combinations of the base exposure (which is based on the reciprocal of the film-speed) to get an appropriate shutter-speed & aperture combo to achieve our aims.

4 Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes. ~ Oscar Wilde(Lady Windemeres Fan, 1896)

41

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image 1/125th with f.11 is a suitable combination for achieving excellent depth of field coupled with fair motion-stopping power, especially if the subject is not traveling too fast, i.e., is coming straight at us or crossing diagonally in front of us. Alternatively, our priority might be to freeze motion or, at the other extreme, blur it creatively. If so, we will select higher shutter-speeds to stop motion, or lower shutter-speeds to blur it, along with the appropriate apertures (see chart) that will ensure correct exposures. Or we can use a middle combination that will give us reasonable action-stopping power as well as a useful depth of field, which on the basis of the above chart may be 1/250th and f.8, or 1/500th with f.5.6. Another rule of thumb worth mentioning here is that, for shake-free hand held exposures (more pictures are marred by camera shake than any other factor unless its the no film factor!), use a shutter speed at least as fast as the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens in use. So if you are using the 50 mm, 55 mm, or 58 mm normal lens, 1/60th second is the bottom limit before you use a supporta doorway, a table-top, a tripod, a monopod or anything solid and stationary which can stabilize you.

42


The Nikkor Zoom 85~250mm f/4.0~4.5 Auto lens If youre using a 300 mm lens, select 1/250th second or higher, say, 1/500th; Ive sometimes gotten away with 1/125th of a second with a 500 mm mirror lens, but I always had some kind of support, be it a branch or a rock. Ashok Talwar, well-known producer and director of television serials and rabid OLYMPUS man, had designed an aluminium shoulder stock-cum-pistol grip with a cable release where the trigger on an AK-47 would normally reside, on which to mount his OM-1 with telelens. It was a very nifty gadget for those long tele shots of flying painted storks he was so fond of. Alas, he settled down to taking endless pictures of nesting bulbuls from his bedroom window, and the nifty contraption disappeared into a vast dungeon where he stashed his memorable collection of photographic junk. On the other hand, Ive often seen S. Paul using his shoulder firing NOVOFLEX 400 mm f.1: 4.5 follow-focus telelens, that focuses by squeezing and/or releasing the spring-loaded trigger built into the pistol grip. It is an excellent weapon for someone like him, with his incredible reflexes, sharp eyesight, and knack for capturing breathtaking images of birds in flight. Filters for daily use I do not believe that the keen amateur needs much more than a UV (also called skylight) filter on his lens, which not only protects the front element of the lens but also neutralizes UV (ultra violet) rays from the sun that give color photographs a bluish cast. I personally prefer using a 1A filter, which does all this and a bit more, imparting a faint pinkish (or warming) effect to my color pictures that I find very pleasing. I use HOYA filters, but you can choose any brand that appeals to you. The only other filter that I will recommend for colour film is a polarizing filter. As light coming off reflections can degrade images, the polarizing filter, by virtue of its internal construction, acts like a Venetian blind and rationalizes the rays of light, eliminating scattered rays that spoil the picture (degrade image quality) by hitting the lens at odd angles. 43

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image A polariser tames glare or reflections off many types of surfaces, like water. Details appear again in brightly-lit portions, whereas burnt-out highlights is all youd get without it. One more effect of a polarizing filter is to enhance colors, so that blue skies look bluer, making white clouds stand out contrastily against them (see calendar shots), greatly enhancing the visual appeal of a scene. With slight under-exposure of a transparency film, and the use of a polarizing filter, breathtaking effects can be achieved. Another widget that photographers love to use for taming excessive levels of light intensity is a neutral density filter. This filter, like your sunglasses, curtails light by as much as 10%. Neutral density filters come in different strengths expressed as 2X, 4X etc. a 2 X ND filter cuts light by one stop, so that, for example, you can use 1/1,000th of a second at the beach at f.4 instead of 5.6, as recommended. This larger aperture also allows you to narrow the depth of field. A 4X ND filter can help if you are caught with 800 ASA film in your camera on a bright day, by bringing exposure combinations within control. With the 4X ND filter fitted, the 800 ASA film becomes as a film two stops slower, i.e., the equivalent of a 200 ASA film. Although it is the rare amateur who is likely to face such a crisis, I mention it simply to add another angle to the possibilities offered by ND filters. Who knows to what use you may have to put one to, if you always load 400 ASA or faster film? But buy the other two filters first! Flash Synchronization Unlike leaf shutters, where flash synchronizes with each and every shutter-speed, focal plane shutters in most5 SLR cameras cannot synchronize with flash beyond, usually, 1/125th of a second or 1/250th of a second shutter-speed. Without going into the technicalities of why this is so, let us confront the problems that arise from this property. Suppose we have to use 1/500th of a second in a daylight shot and also need to use some fill-in flash (to brighten up throw some light into shadow areas) as well, we will have to compromise by reducing the shutter-speed to 1/250th which is the5 There are exceptions, like the Olympus 4T a major advantage despite its hefty retail price.

44

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image maximum speed at which flash-sync occurs (with, say, the Nikon FM2). But this will defeat the purpose of the main exposure, which may be to get a shot that freezes action, yet has flash lightening up shadows and revealing detail lurking there. The ideal balance we are in search of will be lost. You may even end up with two overlapping images, one in response to the available light, the other in response to the flash. Not a bad effect, something to file away for future reference! Although electronic flash in general cannot sync at shutter speeds higher than 1//250th of a second, there is another (but a little more cumbersome and expensive way) to take flash pictures at any shutter-speedfocal plane flashbulbs. For all those who have never seen a flashgun that uses flashbulbs, something not entirely surprising since these conventional flashguns have more or less gone the way of the Dodo, let me explain that these guns used flashbulbs that had to be discarded after use. Since these bulbs became very hot after the exposure had been made, they usually gave the negligent or absent-minded a memory or two to last a lifetime if he touched them with ungloved hands. I really have no idea if at all focal plane flashbulbs (or such flashguns) are available today. Perhaps not; their inconvenience apart, in this age of instant karma, they wouldnt find any takers. Every camera system or flashgun has something going for it, and most SLRs are in trouble here. Some Nikons have managed to circumvent the problem by means of a special, very expensive flashgun dedicated to some of their top-of-the-line models. But most pros who are into fashion or other forms of commercial photography prefer to use leaf-shutter cameras/ lens combinations (not only because they sync with flash at any shutter speed, but because the larger negative gives the greater detail necessary for their magazine/poster shoots!). Hasselblad, Zenza Bronica, Rolleiflex, Mamiya, Kowa and Yashica are some of the major systems. Since these are all 120 roll-film cameras, and hardly as versatile or compact as SLRs, this use of lens-shutter cameras with flash has remained firmly within the domain of photographers who specialize in high-speed nature and scientific photography, fashion, table top food photography, and other sundry studio image-making. These large format cameras, however, pack enormous detail into the negative due to the larger surface area, which is why they are popular professionally. 45

I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.~Winston Churchill

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image I would always advise the keen photo-enthusiast to save up money

and buy the outfit that will help fulfil his/her aspirations, no matter if it takes a yearor two. Good, solidly made cameras, like, say, the Nikon FM3A will last a lifetime, as will the lenses. Even pros use their gear for years before discarding it.

better makes to ensure many, many years of trouble-free service. It would be a pity to see and die merely because the photographer outgrew his equipment, or if the camera purchased did not come up to PART TWO expectations. Choose as carefully as youd choose a life partner, and once youve decided, stick to your guns, thats my advice. I doubt youll ever regret taking it. Its very expensive to switch camera systems, believe you me.

Beyond Photography genuine interest and enthusiasm wither

In the hands of an amateur, there is enough built-in durability in the

After becoming acclimatized to the enormous potential of the MinoltaXE-1, I acquired a Hanimex zoom lens, a 90~230 mm, f4.5~5.6 optic. One John XE-1

Hannes, in far-off Australia, had gone into the import-export business, and guess what he named his company that was soon specializing in marketing, under its own brand name, a range of fine photographic equipment? No prizes for guessing correctly! 46

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image I wish to thank John for an excellent lens marketed by his company; it was one of those sturdy, well balanced, no-nonsense zooms with good performance (and very lucky for me, too) that featured an adjustable (and lockable) tripodmounting collar, besides separate rubberized rings for focusing and zooming. With most zoom lenses, it is advisable to focus at the maximum focal length of the zoom range, and then zoom out/in until the composition is judged to be ideal. All this takes much longer to explain than to actually do. Push-pull zoom lenses were very expensive in the middle seventies, and, unlike today, not always capable of delivering image quality comparable with those obtainable from fixed focal length lenses. That doesnt include Nikons fabulous but stiffly priced pushNikon pull f4.0 80~200 mm Zoom-Nikkor my dream lens that, one day in the future, I was to actually acquire. The great advantage the Hanimex zoom had over the 200 mm Rokkor telelens I owned was, of course, that I could crop the image in the viewfinder itself, eliminating much of the composition that I normally had to do in the darkroom. That is, I could enlarge or shrink (zoom in or zoom out of) a scene while viewing it in the viewfinder, compose, and press the shutter button when it felt just right. This reduced cropping at the enlargement stage, and obviously made better use of the potential of the tiny 35 mm negative, whose 24 mm x 36 mm size was not as tolerant of wastage as a larger format like, for example, the 120 roll-film negative, which is 70 mm x 70 mm square. The 90 ~ 150 mm portion of the zooming range of the Hanimex lens was ideal for portraiture, and at 230 mm with four times the magnification of my 58 mm standard lens I could pull in quite distant subjects. Images shot with the aperture wide open at f4.5 were sharp from corner to corner, and with the background thrown well out of focus at about 150 mm in tightly composed shots, subjects stood out even more sharply because I made it a point to select contrasting backgrounds that isolated them still further and made them pop out of the picture. Shooting with fine-grain 125 ASA B&W film, I was able to use fairly high shutter-speeds in sunlight because I shot with the lens wide open (i.e., at the 47

Beyond Photography ~ The Quest for the Ultimate Image maximum aperture of f.4.5), and I could get razor-sharp handheld pictures with reass

beyond photography - the quest for the ultimate image - by subroto mukerji

Documents