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Category Archives: Behind the Image
Kavitha Subramaniam: Land Of A Million Elephants
In a time where fast cars and a need for speed dominate our lives, it’s nice to step back and take a nice leisurely ride on an elephant. What’s even more fun is trying to capture decent pictures from above. With one hand holding on to a seat and two bags, and the other with a camera, it was a miracle that nothing came crashing down to earth, yours truly included. “Pai, pai, Kamdi….pai pai!!” We were delightfully screaming out these words to our elephant Kamdi in the middle of the jungle, urging her to go forward. Anyone else would have thought we were crazy, but that’s just how it goes in the “Land of A Million Elephants” – Laos.
© Kavitha Subramaniam
Sitting on a fixed seat that’s perched on an elephant is all well and good, but there comes a moment when the Mowgli in you just wants to jump up and sit upfront with your legs behind its ears – wild and carefree. And boy, was it amazing! Nothing beats the feeling of Kamdi’s ears flapping against my legs as she made her way through seemingly impossible routes.
As I was taking a back seat to my friend’s adventure up front, I decided to focus on how her hands looked against Kamdi’s hard skin. It seemed to resonate with me; here is this amazingly strong creature, yet she’s so fragile. After all, we were instructing her where to go, which way to turn and when it was time to eat. When I think about it now, I do feel a little sad for Kamdi. But at that very moment, all I felt was love and respect for this beautiful creature.
© Kavitha Subramaniam
I’m just glad that Kamdi is in good hands with the lovely people at the elephant camp. It was a joy talking to her and feeding her loads of sugar cane. Just being in her presence was an experience I’ll never forget. For a short moment, we were both creatures connecting in a foreign land. I hope she felt the same way too.
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Kavitha is an amateur photographer who loves to travel and connect with the local folks.
Website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/
Brian Parillo: Skyscrapers of Downtown LA
As the clouds are rolling over the skyscrapers of downtown LA, it’s 3:30pm on a Sunday afternoon in the month of March. It’s empty down here for the most part. The business crowd won’t be back until tomorrow so driving around looking for potential shooting moments makes things feel a little safer on the driving end of things. However being safe is never usually a preoccupation when down here but finding the right moment is. I like the way the wind sounds on days like these when the streets are fairly empty. It’s a hollower sound and makes things feel even more desolate. As I see something lighting wise that looks interesting I decide to pull a quick u turn and park in the yellow loading only zone.
© Brian Parillo
It’s Sunday, nobody will care. I quickly change my lens and I feel like I’m in a race. What am racing for? Light usually and cloud positioning. These poor buildings. They must feel like I’m paparazzi when I show up because I really do want to invade them in every way. So out of my car I go as I begin staring up at these giants. It amazes me every time. I walk around them for a while and try to find something that looks different to me. Something that gives these enormous slabs of concrete a voice. I can imagine what I must look like to the average passerby.
© Brian Parillo
Lying in the middle of the street on my back or standing on some ledge must look fairly ridiculous. However, when I find a moment that truly speaks to me everything slowly goes to silent. The only thing I hear, which I ignore for as long as I can, is the security guard who is quickly walking toward me shouting “Sir, excuse me, Sir excuse me,! Excuse me!” Here’s where things get a little hairy. I’ve almost got my shot and he’s getting really close to ending this for me. I open up a little wider on my focal length, drop my camera speed one stop as the sun tucks behind a cloud, and I start shuttering away. “Excuse me Sir”, I hear again for the last time as I pull my camera down from my face. “Hi,” I say as politely as possible. “You can’t take pictures here,” he says as I ponder the idea of that phrase being my epitaph. “Oh you can’t?” “Okay sorry, take care.”
© Brian Parillo
As I get in my car I quickly review my shots. No, no , no, no, no, maybe, maybe, possibly but the light is a little to hot on the top portion of the far building in this shot. I may be able to save it in post. I start my car and off to the next location. I’ve always felt like some refugee on the run while stalking these buildings. It feels a bit sin city like down here and I’m enjoying every minute of it.
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I’ve been shooting architecture for quite a few years now. I choose to shoot in black and white mainly because it extenuates the lines of a building and because it separates the elements of the photograph resulting in a more clean and efficient look. It also creates a feeling as if you’re being dropped into a mysterious abstract world. I see integrity, elegance, strength and vulnerability in black and whites and I try to carry those emotions into my shots as well.
Website: www.brianparillophotography.com
David Julian: Canon Beach
On a recent road trip down the Oregon coast, I spent a day at infamous Canon Beach. To say that it’s a magical and photogenic place is an understatement. The surrounding public- access coastline draws over 20,000 people a year, yet much of it can easily be seen with hardly a soul upon it.
© David Julian
On this September morning, there were probably forty people within a hundred feet of me near the base of the ever- popular Haystack rock, so I chose to move in closer to nature and leave the people out of frame. It’s easy to reach these multi- hued Ochre Sea Stars at low tides, but a challenge to find an unpopulated composition that really comes to life. I wanted to show the habitat more than to focus in on the animals themselves, which I would make detailed portraits of later. I also made a gallant effort not to step on the anemones, mussels and tiny crabs covering the area. I must have looked like a strange clown balance- stepping toe- to- toe with the extended tripod legs held high over my head.
Once I found the perfect composition, I mounted my SLR and a Canon 17- 40mm wide zoom, composing half my frame with the starfish grouping and half with the landscape and shoreline. The warm morning sun lit my foreground perfectly. Timing was important as incoming tidal waves swirled in and around my sinking tripod legs at staggered intervals, causing a shift in its position. I stopped my lens down to f16 so I would have a sharp enough background to show the nurturing sea and landscape’s details. A slow exposure allowed me to soften the receding waters leaving a reflected sky. The result was a pleasing description of animals in their environment.
But I was not finished telling the story of this amazing place, because it is accessibility that allows us to see the colorful creatures of this environment and make our connection to them. My next task was to show the starfish and the people in an imaginative way. I put my camera in my bag and strolled along the tide pools noting how people viewed the uniquely accessible offerings of undersea nature in their path.
© David Julian
Once I had a feel for their behavior, I set out to reverse the typical photograph of people watching nature. Instead, I put my camera’s point of view as close to the starfish as possible, and let the people become the background. This technique worked perfectly, and put the emphasis on the natural history of this location rather than our occupation of it.
Next time you are out in the world shooting nature, macros landscapes, try an exercise of thinking of the idea or story before the compositions, and you will be more deeply linked to your subject. From there, I believe your perspective and compositions will reveal themselves naturally.
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Photographer/Educator David Julian teaches creative workshops across the US, and offers screen-shared online custom learning.
Website: http://davidjulian.com
Andrew Prezioso: The Night Before Irene
Looking to break into the photojournalism profession, I’m always looking for some standout image. Though I’m more comfortable shooting sports, when we had Hurricane Irene hit Richmond this past fall, I was ready to go shoot the storm. This image is actually from the day before the storm, right at dusk. I have never seen a sky quite like that, and it just gives a sense of the foreboding storm.
© Andrew Prezioso
This is actually not the photo I wanted to get. When I was walking back to get my camera after dinner/buying bottled water for the next day, I noticed the sky was golden. I wanted to get that photo; but by the time I was able to gather my equipment, it was too late to get the golden sky. By the time I got out there with my equipment, the sky had turned that pink/red/purple color. Regardless of the change in scenery, I knew the framing of the picture would be important. Obviously, taking just a picture of the sky is a boring photo. There was just something about the clock that I thought provided a terrific contrast between it and the sky.
© Andrew Prezioso
I fired a couple of frames of the scene, and was immediately pleased with the scene I was able to capture. Originally, the shot looking at the clock straight-on was my favorite, with its more vibrant colors. But recently, I liked the other one slightly better; the bird flying adds a nice touch to the photo. Also, behind the trees in the bottom left corner of the photo, you can see what look like storm clouds in the distance, rolling in. It also helps that the bird is flying away from the clouds, like it is trying to escape the storm.
Even though it was a fairly simple photo set-up, it is still one of my favorite non-sports shots.
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Andrew Prezioso is a senior journalism major at University of Richmond.
Website: http://amprezioso.smugmug.com/
Colin Gallagher: Winter in Central PA
This shot was taken after the only real snowfall this year in Central PA. Failure to set an alarm led to a late start, missing sunrise by a good 3 hours. Grumbling that I may have missed and frozen beauty before the sun did its work, a friend and I hopped into his Subaru and headed out of town towards Poe Valley.
© Colin Gallagher
The road into the valley looked pretty well-plowed, which worried me. I wanted fresh snow. Untouched. My fears were soon dispersed as we made a right onto a side road and clearly left our mark as the first ones there since the snowfall. A mile drive through snow drifts and sagging, snow-laden evergreens later, we pulled off next to a bridge. Strapping on the boots, I headed out into the woods towards the lovely stream cutting through it. The first few shots were nice, and served their purpose in getting my juices (and warm blood) flowing as I stepped carefully from rock to rock, trying to get a shot down the stream towards the bridge. The game of cat and mouse with the sun was growing frustrating, the dark midday shadows cutting harsh lines through most of my pictures.
Enter Solstice, my friend’s adorable dog.
Crashing through the trees off the right side of my shot, a few of the smaller, bare trees brushed up against the evergreens towering over them, sending dusty snow sprinkling down through the sunlight. And just then, a breeze blew through. From the very tops of the pines, snow crystals began raining down all around me. The light from the sun softened, glittering as the cloud of snow diffused the harsh rays. I stood there, mesmerized for a moment while I got a second helping of falling snow in my own little part of Poe Valley. Then I remembered something…
Push the button, Colin.
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Colin is a 27-year-old Bellefonte photographer from Pennsylvania. His uncanny ability to completely destroy any piece of lighting equipment that he touches continually drives him outdoors to capture the breathtaking scenes Mother Nature has to offer.
Website: http://colintgallagher.com
Dipayan Bhattacharjee: Human Rights
A man crossing one of the busiest streets in the city with a load on his back which he has to deliver at a shop on the opposite side of the street, and that probably weighs ten times more than his own weight.
I was out on the streets trying to get a subject to shoot for an exhibition on “Human Rights”. It would be unfair if I took all the credit for this image. It so happened that I was looking in exactly the opposite direction from this subject when all of a sudden a friend of mine who was accompanying me in the shoot, pointed her hand right over my shoulder (reaching behind me) and shouted “human rights! human rights!” I immediately turned back and saw what I saw and a part of what you are seeing right now. I barely had the time to make any adjustments on the camera (luckily I had done that before). I just raised the camera to my eye and in less than a second I had released the shutter and the moment had also passed away. Would I be a milli-second late, I could have never got this shot. Because just as I pressed the shutter and even before I could remove my eye from the viewfinder, a big car went past right across my frame, and by the time the traffic emptied out, the person had already crossed the street.
Now about this person, it would be very unfair to say that he is doing it because he can. No! He is doing it because he has to. So that he can feed his family. Employment is a major problem in India, and so people literally do/have to do anything to earn a meal. But we can clearly see that the job this person is doing is inhuman. The smallest mistake and he could get crushed under the weight. Or maybe even run-over by a car.
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Dipayan Bhattacharjee is a passionate Street & Portrait Photographer who loves to show posed beauty as well as candid truth.
Website: http://50mmstreettog.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xedmundian
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