Photography is not only about beauty

“The last class I felt really bad for the freedom fighter's photo. I laughed when my view point was only @ the ten rupees currency. I never saw the tear running out from his eyes and even today morning, I literally cried when riding my bike, thinking of his situation and even I felt bad myself for laughing, felt ashamed. I really respect elder peoples, may be this was a good lesson for my instant reaction. Pls. forgive if I had disturbed anybody, thanks!” – a mail from one of the weekend class participants.

It was the final day class for the weekend basic photography, I was sharing few pictures. And this was the picture of a freedom fighter in his advanced age saluting with the rolling tears for the ten rupees he received from one of our students during a photography tour. There was a spontaneous laughter from few of the students in the class. But once I explained the story behind the picture, the entire class was moved…!

As few of my 'full time' photography students were trying to take photos, this elderly person was begging in a temple at Kancheepuram, he suddenly burst in to tears and saluted the shooters. Moved by his condition and emotions, I captured him in tears. The condition of this old man tells about the values of life and freedom. For a flash of moment I realized the happenings of ‘Free India’ (Minister caught watching porn in Karnataka assembly, patient’s husband kills the doctor, 9^th class student slits the throat of his lady teacher, supreme court verdict challenged, grand reception for the Tihar returned..!, bank robbed at gun point, 4^th standard girl raped by the headmaster…. and so on) and the respect and reward we pay for the people who fought for ‘Freedom’. Only if we are aware about the struggle for freedom, we will value the constitution and understand our rights.

I told my students, “Photography is not only about beauty, it is also about hard and bitter truth. It is not only about the appearance but also about the values of life. Capture your feelings about what you saw… that makes a sensible picture”.

Now read the first paragraph….

A photo is made to be understood from a viewer’s perspective. But sometimes, if the situation of the picture or the story behind the making of the picture is told by the photographer, the viewer will truly understand the purpose of the photo.

Light meters

The ‘light meters’ (also known as ‘exposure meter’) are used in understanding the intensity of light that is required for getting the exposure ideal. ‘Exposure’ is about getting the desired brightness or darkness in our photos. In fact, I used to take pictures using cameras without built in light meters in early seventies.

The clue we had those days was the ‘Sunny Rule f/16’. The "Sunny f/16" rule, which says that your exposure on a normal sunny day will be 1 over the film's ISO to be set as the shutter speed, with the aperture set at f/16. 

This rule will hold good for most of the mid-tone subjects or scenes. If the scene does not contain the mid-tones, we compensate the exposure accordingly. We had neatly exposed pictures because, we thought for a while before we pressed the shutter. I had even met ace photographers of olden times, who could tell the ‘ideal exposure’ by just looking at the light falling on their palm! 

In fact most of the modern cameras now have built in light meters. But, despite of the most advanced exposure meters with the ‘spot metering’ facility, many of our pictures are badly exposed. Most of the time, we feel that we couldn’t depend on these light meters. Some of us even blame the camera..!

The advanced light meter technology is a true gift to serious photographers who know to use it. For all others, ‘ideal exposure’ in photography is truly a nightmare.The automatic exposure compensation, automatic exposure bracketing (AEB/BKT), tonal values, mid-grey or 18% grey, grey card, zonal system, brightness histogram are few things to make our decision on a particular exposure OK. Let us learn to understand these light meters and metering principles to get the exposures right.

However, let us take the exposure meter readings just as a guideline and work for our desired effects in the pictures. 

More than f-stops and shutter speeds, pens and papers, notes and strings, knives and clay, what matters is that the feel and mood of the photograph. Don’t you think that a dramatic ‘silhouette’ (an ‘underexposed subject’ in the shadow area against a bright background) is considered to be more artistic than a flat plain subject!

Photo courtesy: R.Preethaa Priyadharshini