A Short Review of Coen Brothers’ most celebrated movie. 'No Country For Old Men'

The story line is very ordinary . I wasn’t very convinced initially about it’s supremacy in the line up for path-breaking movies . Then I started realising it’s mastery . A suspense n fear is developed through outstanding cinematography n sound designing. The killer is apparently gawky carries a huge gun wears a weird hairdo ,and the bell bottom trouser adds to his oddity on every front . I would give a ten on ten to the make up artist and art director , people whom we often forget. Javier Bardem ( Husband of Penelope Cruz ) has delivered an extra ordinary performance like Elba in Beast of No Nation. An exceptional motion picture, this one is.

10 ways to improve your portrait photography

I have been shooting portraits for last few years in different conditions with a variety of cameras and lenses. The lighting has also varied from uncontrolled bright sunlight to the controlled atmosphere of studios. Even for the daylight, I have experienced wide variations in sunlight in hilly areas, compared to the plain land when the shooting time remained the same. Therefore, the experience of shooting under varied conditions has made me realise that portrait photography is much more challenging than what we think.

Recently, I have been shooting for a calendar to be launched by my Production House, Hashtag Dinajpur. Altogether, I have shot 8 models- 1 in outdoor location under bright sunlight, 2 in my drawing room only with LEDs and 5 in studio with strobe lights and remote trigger. This calendar shoot has exposed me to certain challenges which finally I could overcome, albeit with slight difficulties here and there. The idea of sharing my experience of portrait shoot has come to my mind as I have found most of the tutorials to be either over-cluttered or skirting the real issues. The 10 practical tips and tricks will certainly take your portrait photography to the next level.

01. Choose your camera carefully I prefer Canon, although any camera can do wonders if handled properly. Having said that, it must be admitted that a full frame camera allows you greater maneouverability than a cropped sensor. If you are shooting at f/7 with a cropped sensor, the amount of light that the sensor absorbs will be different from the f/7 of a full frame shooting with the same lenses. Normally, at the same aperture (f) value, full frames offer better illumination of the subject, which allows you to reduce the ISO, resulting in a better noise free end product. Therefore, when shooting outdoor, you may still rely on a cropped sensor, but shooting in a studio requires a full frame, in order to allow greater flexibility in terms of ISO and shutter speed, when shooting with the same aperture (f) value.

02. The choice of lens

Being a die-hard fan of Canon’s EF 24-105mm L, I have shot more than thousands of portraits with that lens because it provides great clarity of picture and the scope to compose your frame. But gradually I have realised that shooting with a prime, like 50mm or 85mm, is more comfortable when the camera is hand held. 24-105mm is a moderately heavy lens and when attached with the body, the combination creates some strain on the forearm and may result in slight shake, however steady the hands are. On the other hand, primes are light, with great optics (particularly with f/1.4 and f/1.8 variants) and therefore results in sharper picture. Of course, there is a challenge to compose a frame and you have to move back and forth a little bit to get your composition right. I would always advise you to use 2 cameras (if available) with 2 prime lenses mounted on them. Use the 50mm prime when shooting full body of the subject and the 85mm for close-ups and extreme close-ups or headshots.

If you use a tripod, then you can use 24-105mm comfortably, or for even better result, a 70-200mm (f/2.8), which is one of the best lenses in the market.

03. Make-up

An area more often than not overlooked. A whole day’s work may come to a naught due to a bad make-up. The make-up should be compatible with the theme and the make-up artist should be present throughout the shoot because mopping of sweat which appears on the face during the shoot, is extremely important for perfect focusing and sharper image. If you miss this, you may repent for wasting the whole day and money after the shoot.

04. Costume

Never ask your subject to choose a costume. You choose it because you are shooting. Decide whether you want to shoot in ethnic or western, chic, or traditional. Before deciding the costume and its colour, go through at least a few good photographs of the model in each of the attire and see how she looks like. Never leave it to the last moment when the model has appeared with her own costume in the studio, and you do not have time to ask her to get a replacement even when you find that its not at all going with her. So, the homework is necessary.

05. Posing

In order to create a remarkable portrait, you have to ask your subject to pose perfectly. Nowadays, many pose books are available online and it’s a smart idea to get one and show the model in the studio during the briefing. That will make her understanding complete, of your preference and she may even try to copy the pose depicted in the pose book. Many photographers try to demonstrate in the studio which more often than not, doesn’t work. A feminine posture (assuming the model as a female one) can hardly be accurately created by a man’s body (assuming that the photographer is a male) and therefore, it creates great ambiguity and may result in dissatisfaction. If you don’t have a pose book, at least keep some poses ready in your laptop and show her exactly what you want. There must be some poetry in every image and every photograph must speak a language. Merely taking a sharp photo is tantamount to image capturing and cannot be called portrait photography.

06. The background

When shooting indoor, choose the background colour carefully which should go with the theme and costume. Many photographs turn into sheer disaster because of the faulty choice of background. The background should complement the subject and should not be an irritation for the eyes in any case.

While shooting outdoor, choosing background is much more creative and challenging. Use depth of field judiciously by increasing or decreasing the aperture in order to include or exclude certain background.

07. Depth of field

In continuation of the discussion under the head ‘background’, I would like to flag that some photographers are obsessed with the bokeh effect which triggers their preferences for a low aperture value. You have to remember that bokeh looks good at times but ignoring a breathtaking background like a tea garden in Dooars or a majestic mountain in Darjeeling would be complete denial of aesthetics in photography. So, take a decision according to the situation while shooting outdoor and select depth of field accordingly.

08. The camera settings

Keep the ISO within 400. When shooting in a bright sunny condition, it may come down to 100-200 and in studios with strobe lights, I prefer 200 as ISO value. There is no harm if you go beyond 400 with a capable camera, but then the other parameters need to be readjusted.

The shutter speed is always a great challenge and there can hardly be any thumb rule for that. The normal rule of keeping the shutter speed minimum at 2.5 times of the focal length value (like if the focal length is 100, the shutter speed should be minimum of 1/250) is a fundamental for avoiding the shake. Shooting at a little higher shutter speed would make your image a bit sharper but there is no point in over clocking unless you are shooting from a moving object or shooting a moving object. In a controlled environment, you don’t need to go beyond 1/250 to 1/320 mark as most of the photographs are shot at a distance of 4-5 feet with an ISO around 200 and aperture according to the situation. If you plan to increase the aperture value in order to get a greater depth of field, you may consider improve the lighting rather than slowing down your shutter speed, which may cause a blur. If you are shooting in aperture priority mode, then the camera decides the shutter speed while you decide the ISO and aperture value.

09. Which camera mode- Manual or Av or Tv?

Tv is a good option when you are shooting from a moving vehicle, if you are traveling around 60-80 kmph speed, try to keep the shutter speed in the range of 1/800 to 1/1000 with an ISO of 200-400 and the camera decides the aperture or depth of field. Av is a good option while shooting outdoor with no flash because then your camera can adjust the shutter speed according to light made available to it by your set parameters of f and ISO. Never be careless about the decision made by the camera and always make sure that you press half shutter, look through the view finder and make sure at which shutter speed your camera is going to capture. If you find that the camera has decided to shoot it at a lower shutter speed than optimum, either increase the ISO slightly or increase the illumination.

Shooting at Manual mode is the best option, particularly when shooting with a flash or strobe in the studio. Because if you shoot at aperture priority with a flash or strobe flash, then the camera decides the shutter speed and accordingly the flash is triggered into action. So, when you see that in Av mode your meter reading is normal, actually you are going to end up in an over exposed photograph because after the triggering of flash, more light would be thrown on the subject and the camera would be clueless. Here comes the importance of Manual mode, where you can keep the meter reading slightly negative, which will eventually be compensated with the extra amount of light that would be thrown on the subject when the flash is triggered. It is imperative to take a few test shots with slightly negative meter reading before finalizing the settings.

10. The lights and lighting technique

While shooting outdoor, what all you need is a good reflector. Make sure your assistant holds the reflector against the sun, so that the reflected light illuminates the face of subject with some dramatic effects. Make sure that you press the back button focus at the right level of the subject and entire depth of the subject's head should be captured by the photograph unless you deliberately try to create some effect by blurring it partially.

When you are shooting in a studio, don’t get carried away by the number of strobe lights, but just use what you require in a planned manner. The trigger normally remains in sync with the 3 or 4 lights. So, positioning would be the key. Put your light at a height in different angles in a pre-planned manner to ensure that you don’t mess up in producing a flat light and over exposed image. The 3-point lighting techniques so often referred to, is certainly good with 1 key light on the face, 1 ring light on back of the head and another light in slight tangent to illuminate specific portion of the body which you want to highlight. I have once used a strobe light on a black background, and it has produced beautiful result. Even lighting with 1 strobe light, used as a rim light may create the drama. Never be too jealous to remove all the shadows because that would make your photograph look unrealistic. You have to remember that photography is not all about light, but light and shade. The shades are as important as lights to make a photograph come alive with a hidden language. Be creative with your lighting because that separates the grain from the chaff.

I have tried to describe the dos and don’ts in a simple manner to help the future photographers who normally get lost in a plethora of materials available online. But this is only indicative and not exhaustive. I wanted to keep it brief and simple and omitted points like HDRs, burst shooting, white balance settings, focus point settings which would have made this article much more complex for the beginners. In my next blog, I promise to come back with all these advanced nuances of camera settings and some more tips and tricks of lighting and composition.

Link for my calendar: https://35a7d6aa-e8fe-42cf-a86e-d85f76d478a9.filesusr.com/ugd/818e3d_a90e834def4142c5b6d970b0cfb5ea9e.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3H6HjdwVKtM7PkzlCzLgC4wKTfIpP3tf7QrNEqrKQSiuCW8DvlovvEqag

Bertolt Brecht’s Play

My realization

I am currently working on a play by Brecht (translated into Bengali by Utpal Dutta).

This is my first direction of Brecht’s play and I have noticed certain interesting elements in his plays- which I have read so far.

The most striking one is a lack of names for characters and the liberal use of songs to set the tone. This particular play (Bangla adaptation named ‘Samadhaan’) betrays no emotion of his life-long leaning towards Communism, rather jabs the communist system in the rib cage on a number of occasions.

The second unmistakable element is the use of spass or comedy as a technique to highlight political message of the play.

To be honest, I am still not fully aware of the Brechtian acting methods. It will be really challenging experience to Break The Fourth Wall by allowing the characters to directly address the crowd. The relief is that according to Brechtian prescription, songs have to be played in the background, so the difficulty in finding out a singer-actor can be dodged to a great extent. Unlike the dramatic theatre, this epic theatre format of Brecht require distancing of the actors from the characters- an art which very few could master. Overall, a political, linear, minimalistic and unemotional display at the risk of loosing popular applause presents a very challenging situation to the director and the actors. Can we survive this ruthless prescription? - Let’s see.