Re:Veal

Re:Veal is a multi-layer pun in English intended to invoke the emotional controversy of the Western treatement of young cows (calves) against the abstract resemblance to a Bird of Paradise, in context of the (photo)graphic/cinematic definition of a reveal. In wider context of secular and religious pluralism with regard to sacred cows, the nude legs of women and the revelation of profound secrets, I like very much the depth of your focus that incorporates pores and evidence of erotic vitality, even whimsy (ankle bracelet) in an image that plays ideational abstractionism against corporeal precision.

I think the enigmatic properties intrinsic in this photograph allude to Western fantasies of the seraglio or harem, and to idle odalisques; simultaneously likening those fantasies to the Western nightmare of veal cultivation, against a backdrop of the botanical elegance of the Bird of Paradise. This variety of representational, yet abstract pluralism strikes to the root of every culture; the glamorization of women (shaved legs) and the reactive triggers to libidinal imaginings. The extent to which this form of embrace is sexually gratifying to the participants is left entirely to the eye (and engaged mind) of the beholder.

I’ve always believed that each lightsource can contribute as much information to a scene as another pair of eyes. Your placement of light on both sides of the viewer effects three dissimilar viewpoints, all presenting to the camera a singular shadow of doubt at the center of the photograph that rhymes with the negative spaces, the more intense darknesses, to create a multiplicity of interpretations. I think the two lightsources contribute to a sense of temporal perspective, as though the quest for information in this frame converges in shadow and intense darkness at infinity (the Eschersque Moebius form [or figure-8] at center-top). And sacred mysteries contained by the legs of women are central to the pursuit of erotic exploration. I think E.J. Bellocq might have gone with sepia for the conventional connotation, the conceit of timelessness in these mysteries.

The pose is also definitive of young girls since the late 1940s drooling over their private and collective fantasies of pop idols, so Bobbysox is an intriguing alternative.”

WOW!! I am completely floored by the interpretation given to the picture by Scott Tellington on my request for suggesting a title as I was not able to come up with a suitable one….

Crappy weather

It is dark, cold and wet – in short a very crappy weather. I hate this kind of weather makes me feel depressed no thats not the word…. anyway something like that, hopefully by late afternoon it will clear up.

Yesterday night we had the opportunity to listen to Pandit Swapan Chaudhari, that would have also been more enjoyable had the program started on time and Aasim was well enough to stay for the entire length of the concert.

Lastly we have been cashtrated for an amount of Rs78K – we were forced to order that new UPS 🙁

[update]
God must be really loving me – the sun is out and the Paypal check which I had requested arrived in mail today and it is payable at par at all Citibank branches in India
[/update]

Light her with 7:20 and 5 seconds

Following questions about setup for my pictures I mentioned to Vivek that I plan to now regularly take pictures of the setups In response he told me a very simple idea…

Use the clock face as the notation!

The model/subject is in the center facing six O’clock, the position hour arm is where your primary light light is located, the minute arm denotes the fill-in light or reflector and the second arm is the hair light if used. I am sure most experienced photographers will not need anything more. The elevation of the various lights can also be denoted using a second clock face but is not really needed.

Thus the Octopode is lit with 4:45 and the Garlic is lit with 2:40 scheme.

Yesterday we also went out and bought a whole lot of plastic paper 70 meters in 7 colors in pieces of 10 meter each. I intend to use it as a cheap backdrop material… Not sure how it will turn out but at just Rs17/- a meter it is almost a disposable single use backdrop.

Muttony gluttony

Garlic

Friday was Bakr-Id this meant an entire long weekend of muttony gluttony. Swati has really perfected her Briyani to the exact way I like, that I cannot describe in words how I like it will give you an idea of what was involved 😀

Since it was a weekend people and relatives who usually do not drop in also did and not to be left behind we also reciprocated with the same. I feel that I have eaten enough to not want to see any kind of meat in my plate for a long time – arrrrghhhhh!!! DO NOT OPEN THAT FREEZER DOOR

Despite all the happenings I did manage to steal 20 min and play in my new studio with my new lights, for lack of an interesting subject I just grabbed a couple of garlic pods, placed them on a mirror and tried to get the texture of the skin, after a dozen or so shots I did manage to click one which was presentable. Lighting still life setups is an art in itself, guess finally this 20 year old book will be utilised to its fullest.

I also played a bit with mod_rewrite rules and now pictures at my site can be accessed with a much shorter URL like https://tariquesani.net/image/1010 instead of https://tariquesani.net/displayimage.php?pos=-1010 this is an admin settable feature which will be in Coppermine NG

The temperature in Nagpur has dropped to a minimum of 10C, this is making the afternoons very pleasant, working while sitting in sun, sipping hot coffee… aaahh!!

One bit of business wisdom which struck me today was that

“You should never take what your clients say too seriously – However you should be very serious about your work”

The corollary which follows is “Your clients would not hire you if they had your skills”

I also discovered a teeny weeny downside of working on a popular project https://www.google.co.in/search?q=tarique this no longer returns my site as the first result. I also seem to be suffering from a writers block, how so ever hard I try I cannot seem to write more than half a page, may be too much of my scarce creativity is being channeled into photography – Well so be it 😉

The Great LiveJournal
Outage of 2005

During the outage I discovered something called physical interaction. It was most pleasurable.

What did you do?

Brought to you by geek-foo

Taken from

Copied creativity and random ramblings

I have always maintained looking at the works of others is a great way to learn and experiment, but Swati alleged that I have been doing that a bit too much and that I have not really come up with an original image in a long long time. Never the one to defy her statements and never the one to miss out an photo opportunity I proved her wrong to her satisfaction with the image adjacent – I am yet to come up with a title for this one though. Since I was already into the mode I created this Octopode picture which though not 100% original pleases me more.

In a related note – these pictures are the first ones from the two new lights which I got last week, they work well 🙂

Watched the 1981 comedy classic “History of the world Part I” once again.

Since the 1st of this month we have been following a daily “De-Cluttering” regime in our house – this has indeed given good results and we now have an extra 90 mins to ourselves on Sunday – I sincerely hope we can stick to it forever.

Also since 1st of this month I have seen to it that my programmers take the internal seminar presentation seriously and the last Saturday’s presentation was on phpTAL which is a php implementation of Zope Page Templates (ZPT). There are still many things which I would like to see in phpTAL but over all it is a good implementation.

Money Money Money

Finally stole some time out to go and shop for some things… Among the things not originally intended are two studio flash lights which have a 10 step potentiometer to vary the light intensity, despite the original glee at being able to shoot at very high speeds it turned out that the lights which I have are just too bright for my camera. Have also ordered two wall mounted light booms

Vivek is urging me to exhibit a couple of my pictures in a show in Mumbai I am still sitting on the fence about it, I am not sure whether I want that criticism / appreciation as yet.

In some interesting Google Adsense trivia I found that “digital photography” is a $2 keyword, I estimated that Google is sharing approx 65% with the publisher and that I am now clicking on Ads found at friend blogs and sites – not because of wanting to help out BUT because they do have interesting stuff many times.

The electricity situation is fast getting out of hand in the region – we were suffering daily load shedding of 3 hours that has been upped today to 4 hours, did I mention that the region is a major electricity producer for the state. If this continues we will have to get at least another 2 KVA online UPS – We are staring at Rs75K down the drain. 🙁

Proper Props

My studio stuck for a want of a proper backdrop system, just not getting the time. This is in a way good – it simply means that I have more work which means more money which means a better camera sooner….

Wait a min – I do not get paid for working anyways 🙁

A backdrop did not prevent me from having a photo shoot however – this time it was using available light and experiments with shallow DoF, this(NWS) was the result, I would have really liked the picture to be in color with the vase being in one of the primary colors but in this case the vase was almost the same as the model’s skin tone.

Aasim already knows at least 2 things better than me

#1 Flying kites
#2 Playing tabla and identifying the taals

Makes me feel proud – Guess we are still doing pretty well as parents 🙂

Paypal now sends cheques to India

We had wished that this would happen.

Paypal now sends cheques to India, there are few riders like the amount is remitted in INR (read you don’t get benefits of getting FOREX in), there is no electronic transfer to your account (read takes very long), there is a charge of US$5/- per cheque, the conversion rate is about INR 0.5 less than what our bank give (read you get less money than you would like) – But still it means that we can get money in.

Hmmm… would I trust my cheque to US and Indian Postal Services!