Art & Science - Not different (Udaipur)

As I travel around in this life, people ask - what is the difference between art & science? Which one should I go for?

For most people they seem to be different paths.

For me like most things in this world, this is just another facet of all prevailing duality. Two sides of the same coin.

The real question is not how they are different. But how their difference can be united to achieve stellar results.

Let's break it down with an example. A pencil and a paper.
The knowledge of how to make a mark with a pencil on paper is science.
The knowledge of how to make that mark beautiful is art.

Now if you are asked to make a mark and then later make that beautiful without help of both paths.
You might now ask, why should I be bothered with such trivial information. My answer will be to shift our perspective to a more important question.

We should be asking what difference can we make with art & science, not what is the difference between them.
As earlier this thought came through a meeting during my visit to Udaipur, Rajasthan. I met Mr. Kailash Jinger, who is an artist known for his work on mewar style of painting. He is the chief artist working in Udaipur City Palace and has done a lot of commissioned work on many buildings in and around Udaipur. In his free time he teaches mewar art to mortal beings.
As an artist he could also have been intrigued by the question of difference between art & science. Instead he chose to ask what difference can he make. And the answer he found, started with his own house. He initially started painting his house with the idea of making it a showcase for mewar art. And what a splendid work he has done. Every corner of his house is a testimony of what he is and what mewar art means to him. He has already spent a lot of money and his time (around 6/7 years) into it.

On his roof top, watching the city from above. He said - "You know I did all this, but something was missing. Majorly because whenever I use to come home, everything was beautiful, except the street leading to it It  was littered with garbage, spit and pee. I decided why not extend the art on street and see if people respond positively!". So he took up the challenge and spent time beautifying the street. It took him around 2 years with his own money and the job was completed. People stopped throwing garbage, spiting or peeing on beautiful piece of art. It slowly gained momentum and now the street is part of heritage walk in Udaipur, with government also putting it's clout behind.

So what was I left with? Obviously I secured a promise to live with him next time I go to Udaipur. That will help me more detailed documentation of his thoughts and work. But I decided till that time, at least I can spread his message to whoever wants to listen.

The real question is not what the differences are, but what can be achieved by unification of those differences.
What will you be doing or have done, let's pour it out in the comments section.

The dreams - what motivates us! (Jaisalmer - Part I)

Sab kuch milega - Jaisalmer

Dreams are always the first step to reality. Most great personalities have been great dreamers first. They dreamed and imagined what the world will be like if their dreams come true. Their dreams were what motivated them and contribute to human societies.

I am not a great and my dreams are pretty much limited to understanding myself. As you all know travel is that part of dream and what can be better than realizing a ‘travel dream’.

Long before I got a job and could travel with my will, a failed attempt gave birth to this dream. My father’s transfer to city of Jaisalmer got cancelled and with that the dream of seeing in person the famed ‘sonar kella’. As it happens with most of dreams, this one took more than a decade to be realized.

Jaisalmer Fort

Once the travel bug bites, you get addicted. You want to travel all the time. But that does not happen in reality. Even for a die-hard travel buff who wants to visit every place on earth, there are places which they definitely want to visit.

For me Jaisalmer is one such definitely place.

Early morning in month of March, and Jaisalmer gives you a glimpse of what is coming, the summers and more broadly what will feel to be like in a very warm globe. Having heard earlier of fort stays, I too booked a room online with not much idea of what to expect.

It turned out to be more than I could have bargained for that price. A room right inside fort, behind the alley of Rani Mahal, next to big cannon.

The heat was to be respected and time for this feeling to sink in. I decided to park myself in one of the balconies with some grapes and the see the city as the kings of those times might have done. You look at the city and see the multitude of people who might have been dependent on the king. The decision kings make affecting so many people. Then slowly you realize, Oh! That’s something like me. Now if you think it through, in your adult life, you will have at least 10 people who somehow are affected by the things you do. Those 10 people each will know 10 more people who are affected by them and so on. You kind of get the picture.

To put into perspective, in earlier times, the kingdoms were built or killed by what dreams their kings saw. In today’s time too, believe me or not, we are directing most resources towards what our governments dream. And if you listen to news, you probably know the effect of good vs. bad governance.

So where does that leaves us at individual level? Do we stop dreaming?

No! Go back to the previous example of affecting 10 people and they each affecting 10 more people. So even at individual level, you have the power to dream and be a change agent for many.

I am not here to preach what kind of dreams you see or what kind of changes you want to bring. My only request is that you affect and motivate many people even if you don’t realize it. So all your acts matter. Make good use of them. And if you are already a dreamer, help others dream too.

You will create a reality that is more than what you dreamt of.

Light - Camera - Practice. Chasing Light.

In my last post I talked about – photography is all about chasing light. That does not mean, we need to run after street lights, tails lamps etc. Chasing light for us photographers means understanding light.

Hold on! You said you will make us a better photographer and now you are turning us into physicists.
Not exactly, we don’t need to understand photon and stuff. We just to understand the basic and how it effects a photograph.

So let’s go back to school and recap how we see things.
Light from a source, reflected by an object is captured by our eye.

 Now we add in a camera in front of the eye and the scene is recorded on device sensor.

So let’s first understand the major factors to consider and then we will see through some examples to put theory into practical perspective.

Source – Natural vs. Artificial light- For us natural light source is sun during the day and moon at night. Artificial light is anything from candles to bulbs to external flashes.
Understanding the source is important as it will help you determine the overall mood and other aspects of a photograph. And there is no good or bad light source. If you ask a landscape photographer, he will tell you natural light is the best. If you ask the same question to a studio portrait photographer, he will swear by artificial light.

Direction of light- The second thing to consider is the direction of light. It simply means at what angle the light is being reflected towards the camera.

Color Temperature – What! Colors don’t have temperature. I agree. But just to remember there are warm colors and cool colors. Just imagine a color and if it makes you feel cold it is the cold color and vice versa. Imagine color blue and immediately your mind perceives sky, water bodies and make your feel cold and relaxed. Whereas shades of red/orange will make you feel warm because your mind associate those colors with warm things like fire or sun.

Enough of text, now let’s get to examples and dissect them to understand lighting in each situation.
(Disclaimer – I shoot exclusively with available light, if you are looking for advice on external flashes and lighting systems, I am not the correct guy to follow)

Natural Light

Here you can see that the light is natural (from sun), being blocked by something which is allowing partial light to fall through, coming from top left direction.

Artificial Light

 Here the light source is in front (candle), with light being reflected by the metallic surface.

Light Direction One

Here the light source is again in the front.

Here the light source is on top with beamed light falling on the subject.

Here the light source is coming from top right, as you can make out from the direction of shadows. The intensity of light is also hard and close to subject, which you can make out as the bell on right got more light than the left one.

Leaving three four images for you guys to dissect in comment section. Give it a try will be a good exercise.

What is Photography Blog Post - Click Here
Learn to see like camera Blog Post - Click Here

Boats

Ruins

Durga Puja

Golden Temple

What is photography - More than clicking a button!

Eat-Sleep-Drink

In today’s world most of us have access to decent cameras and we know clicking/pushing a button will capture a photograph. But most of us do not know what photography is. It happened with me too.

I started learning the techniques but never knew what photography as vocation meant. Had I known it since beginning, maybe I would had better idea what to expect and what to achieve.

Let’s pick up this definition of photography from Wikipedia and try to make sense of it.

“Photography is the science, art and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiations, either electronically or by means of a light sensitive material such as photographic film”

In short photography is CHASING LIGHT. Okay! I know this does not simplify anything.

Chasing Light

So let’s get our hands dirty and break down the above definition.

• ·         Science – the technicalities of the field like rules of composition, ISO, Aperture etc.

• ·         Art – how to use the above science and mix your feelings and vision

• ·         Practice – Repetition of above two for lifetime

• ·         Durable images – Physically and Psychology

• ·         Recording light – The real deal. The final Product.

Okay! Now this makes it more complex I suppose. So let’s see how we can get inducted into photography.

Like any art form, photography will take some time to master too. Two key skills for any photographer is patience and perseverance.

I tackled this complexity in steps.
The first thing is to learn the science of photography. Understanding what different terms like Aperture, Shutter speed, ISO etc. means. What are the different techniques of composition and post processing will have to be learned. In short you should be aware of technical capabilities of photography and what capabilities your tool (camera) has.

Then comes the part where you learn how each of these effect a photograph. Changing what causes what. This way instead of just capturing what is presented, you will be able to create images with your own vision and feeling from any given scenario. Once you have you identified what your vision is, your photographs will start becoming piece of art.

It is needless to say how much theoretical education you have, till it is applied in field it does not become knowledge. So practice as much you can. In short you should be sleeping-drinking-eating photography.

Practice everyday

Once an image has been captured, it can be saved/printed for sharing with others. There are many methods of output and archival. However your real aim should be creating images which are even worth archiving. We will get to this in our later stages.

All of these learning and efforts is with an aim of capturing light. Photography is all about chasing light or the absence of it. The whole world we see are varying shades of light. As a photographer your main job will be to see and present light where it makes sense to common public. 

You have the power to give or change perspective of others through your vision.

I know this article might have made you thought – It is too much of effort. But if you give photography one month, I can guarantee at least some improvement, which will make you curious to learn more and step up to next level.

Over course of next few months we will go in details - the science and the art aspect of photography.

Chasing Light Blog Post - Click Here
Learn how to see like a camera Blog Post - Click Here
 
 

Please leave a comment below with your thoughts or write to hello@backpacknirvana.in