Thaipusam in Singapore

Today marked the annual Thaipusam festival in Singapore. A traditional Tamil hindu festival where devotees, after undergoing a period of abstinence, demonstrate their devotion by undertaking a pilgrimage carrying kavadi of varying forms.

The festival starts with the preparation of the kavadi the evening prior, and the procession starting at midnight and progressing through to 6pm to allow all devotees to  complete the pilgrimage path. The most elaborate of these kavadi involve piercing the body with spikes and hooks to help transport the offerings.

As a photographic exercise this can be quite challenging with the temple brightly lit with fluorescent lighting, tight streets with a bustling spectator crowd and a complex subject surrounded by supporters and a complex device that obscures the facial features of the bearer.

However, with the ability to push the ISO to fairly high levels and exceptionally powerful white balance and noise correction capability in post-processing, it is fairly straight forward to extract great images from difficult lighting circumstances.

Getting that perfect street character portrait

Here's a cool little tip I picked up recently from Mark Stennett when tromping the back streets of Saigon. Its a simple tip for getting the best expressions out of characters who are happy to pose up for a shot - and avoiding the inevitable frozen cheese look.

Before : The Frozen Pose

This guy was perfectly happy to pose in front of the camera but as you can see from the shot on the right, the expression was just not there.

So to get from this to the final result above is quite simple.

Firstly, frame and take the initial shot, engaging the subject - you dont really need language - I am not sure if this guy spoke any English at all.

Then hold the camera in exactly the same position, while moving your head away from the viewfinder, and make eye contact with the subject. This will allow the subject to relax and their expression will open up. Even a quick thank you, smile and a nod works for me. A couple of shutter clicks later should result in a capture who's quality is far better than the original stiff pose.

OK - so your framing may go a little awry, because there will probably be some movement, but if your initial frame has been kept a little loose you will not lose too much image. 

Kurilpa - A bridge in Brisbane worth seeing

I have just posted up a small project and gallery from my 2012 winter in Australia. While randomly looking for stuff to shoot in a not-very-interesting-city (I lived there for two years myself so please enough with the defense !!) I stumbled across a piece of architecture that was simply a visually inspiring and intriguing structure that caught my camera's eye.

Go here on this site for a description and the gallery of the bridge.