Setting up a daylight studio for portrait photography is not as difficult as I used to think. My grandfather was a photographer in Poland before the war and I remember stories that my mother used to tell me about how he set up his own daylight studio using the glass on which the light sensitive chemicals used to be applied. He had built a kind of a glass house and used dark curtains that were opened selectively to create different lighting effects. I had a commercial studio for years and I’ve always dreamed of having a daylight studio. I finally made one but it not as fancy or difficult to set up as I used to imagine.

Why do I need a daylight photo studio

I am working on my new project these days, shooting portraits of the young generation in Delhi using an old wood camera. I have already written two posts about it; Maharaja Portraits in 21st Century India where I explained the photographic process, and Video Killed The Radio Star about my own project using this wood camera.

The most interesting and innovative thing about this camera is the use of b&w paper as the negative. The camera is also a dark room and inside there is a tray containing homemade developing fluid, and a tray of fixer. We prepare the chemicals in the morning before starting and I’ll write about this in another post.

Using a paper as the negative requires a relatively long exposure as the iso of the paper is very low. This is the reason why it is only possible to work with this camera in full day light.The paper is exposed by taking off the lens cap (there is no shutter) and counting to guess the exposure time – 2-3 seconds in daylight and 15-20 seconds in subdued light. During the exposure of the paper, the person being photographed must stay still and not blink or else the image will be blured. To end the exposure the lens cap is placed back.

My daylight studio is made of a bamboo frame that I cover with white fabric for diffusion of the light. The morning pictures look different than the afternoon images as the sun moves in the sky and the light comes from a different direction. The backdrop is a simple red curtain. Red seems to be the best color to give a good contrast on the B&W paper.

Here are a few iPhone pictures from this Saturday’s shoot.

Sometime back I wrote a post about street photography in India titled Maharaja’s postrait photography in 21st centure India . The post was about what today is considered an alternative photographic process that was invented in India and used for decades by many street photographers across the subcontinent, mainly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

I have been fascinated by this wonderful apparatus since the first time I saw these street photographers on my first visit to India, back in 1996. Little did I know that fifteen years later I would actually be taking a personal project using such a camera.

I had bought my camera a few years ago from a photographer who used it in Delhi until he realized that ‘Video killed the radio star‘, as the old song goes. Here it was the age of digital photography that killed his business. He started using a simple digital camera but business was never the same anymore. The camera I bought from him has been in use since 1949 and was in pretty good shape when I got it, but naturally needed some minor repairs. The lens is very old and ‘soft’, with dust that has not been cleaned for ages. The first stage in my work was to run a few tests with it and make sure I can really use it to produce images. (if you want to know more about how the camera works please read the first post from April 2009).

When I decided that I wanted to start working with the camera again, I made a trip to old Delhi and had the lens cleaned as much as possible.

Using the camera is not an impossible task but I decided that it would be in the better interest of my project if I recruited a photographer who used such a camera for years to assist me in my project. Bharat Bhushan Mahajan, probably the last photographer in Delhi who still keeps such a camera, had agreed to come on board and we had our first day of shooting last week on my roof in New Delhi. His son had accompanied me to Old Delhi to buy the chemicals for the developer and to find someone to clean the old lens.

My assistant, Atul, records the exact mixture of chemicals that Bharat Bhushan Mahajan uses to prepare the developer. We bought the chemicals in Old Delhi the day we went to clean the lens. Rs 85 ($1.8) for everything.

A view into the camera itself. Atul seen from inside the camera as he poses for the test shot

Bharat Bhushan Mahajan and Sephi Bergerson examine the first results. Mahajan actually prefers digital cameras. "Less work, more money" he says. He does not have to make chemicals every day, or get his hands dirty anymore. it is the new age of 'Fata fat' (quick) photography.

The paper negative and the positive

The idea of the project is to use this camera to document the generation of young Indians who visually represent the change that Delhi is going through in the last few years. It would be a requiem to this camera and this photographic technique through the documentation of the people who live in Delhi at the time when it is quickly fading out of sight.

I.D Singh (31), DJ and event promoter, in front of the camera

The result, paper negative and positive.

I have made a list of people that I am going to photograph but this list is still open. If you have an idea of someone that can fit the project please feel free to write and suggest.

Technorati code: B42W6UAXGB92

A pair of Spotted Owlet (Athene brama) in the tree in front of our window in Delhi

And some information about the Spotted Owlet from Wikipedia:
The Spotted Owlet (Athene brama) is a small owl which breeds in tropical Asia from India to Southeast Asia. They are very common species and have adapted to living in cities. They roost in small groups in the hollows of trees or in cavities in rocks or buildings. This species is a part of the larger grouping of owls known as typical owls, Strigidae. The Spotted Owlet is a common resident bird in open habitats including farmland and human habitation. It nests in a hole in a tree or building, laying 3-5 eggs. Nests near human habitations were found to show higher breeding success with the young being fed a greater number of rodents.

I am often asked what ‘kind’ of a photographer I am. A photojournalist? a commercial photographer? a food photographer? am I a wedding photographer? travel? lifestyle? what is it exactly that you do? This might not be a smart marketing strategy, but i have always refused to get into any of these boxes. I am a photographer. this is what I do.

My late mother used to say in Yiddish; “A sach meluches, a kleine bruches”, which would roughly translate to “you cant get any blessings in your work if you are not focused”. In other words, if you sell sardines than don’t be selling tissue paper. let your clients know what you sell and come for that. Be an expert. You must be asking yourself why am I saying this here?  well, because I am not one of those photographers who do one thing, and I often think of what my mother had said. It would be very simple if I decided to be a food photographer, or a travel, or wedding photographer, but I can’t. I love photography and I love doing different things all the time. Like I wrote in my previous post, this is what I learned, on the negative way, from Ansel Adams.

How focused are you as a photographer?

So, I ran across Clayton Cubbit‘s website yesterday. A very interesting and inspiring fashion photographer. I don’t do a lot of fashion photography, but used to do more in my earlier years as a commercial photographer in Tel Aviv. Looking at Clayton’s work brought back some good memories, and reminded me of this fashion project I shot last year for Lecoanet Hemant in India, and have never actually put on my website. The reason was because I didn’t want to spread the website to thin,and maybe try to focus it a bit more. But then, it is who I am, and I also do this kind of work. A blessing or a curse?

My wife, Shefi, is in the last stages of pregnancy with our twins and is due any day now. We are of course super excited! Knowing that this is the last chance to take some pregnancy shots, I was planning to go out to the nature but the great outdoors is not so easy to find in Delhi. Anywhere you go there are people around. I liked Jeff Newsom’s picture of his pregnant wife and thought I’d play along these lines, but like I said, Delhi . . . so, I reverted to the confines of our small living room

How I did it at home with some help from PhotoShop

Being a documentary photographer, I usually don’t play with PhotoShop effects in my work, but here I decided to give it a go and use some techniques that I wanted to experiment with.

The first picture, about two weeks ago, natural light coming form the door on the left side of the frame. Slow shutter speed. To get the color effect I first converted the image to Grayscale and then applied ‘Antique light’ filter in LR. Further enhancement in PS to give some more depth and contrast. I then superimposed a second shot of a sheet of brown paper to achieve the texture on the wall and her body.

The second session, a week later. On the same wall in our living room but this time using two Nikon Speedlights, an SB900 on the left, and an SB800 on the right. Again, image was then converted to Grayscale and exported to PhotoShop. Worked with filters to achieve the metal blue body color. I then stepped out to the roof, took a shot of the concrete floor and used it for the textured wall.

If you like what you read please leave a comment, Digg it, Stumble it, Facebook, Twitter and share this post with others . . .

]]> http://www.sephi.com/personal/two-simple-maternity-shots-and-how-i-did-it/feed/ 9 http://www.sephi.com/personal/maharajas-portrait-photography-in-21st-century-india/ http://www.sephi.com/personal/maharajas-portrait-photography-in-21st-century-india/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:59:26 +0000 sephi http://www.sephi.com/?p=1369

A new exhibition at the city palace museum in Udaipur explores the portraits of the Maharajas and their families taken by their personal photographers, but only a few people know that the same kind of photographers, although a dying breed, are still around in India using more or less the same techniques as in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Not so long ago, street photographers using big old wooden cameras where a common sight in India. In Jaipur, right next to the wall of the Palace of Winds (Hawa Mahal) there used to be at least ten photographers only a few years back but now there is only one left. The rest must have found some other way to make a living now that everyone has a digital camera, and only an occasional tourist would sometime be interested in these old style pictures as a memento of India.

A few weeks ago, when my friend Philippe Lopez was visiting Delhi, we went looking for the photographer from whom I had bought such a camera a couple of years ago, only to find that his shop was gone and that he had mysteriously disappeared one day never to be seen again! I don’t even know his name. I do however have his old camera and a wonderful collection of some wonderful b&w basic cut-and-paste collage images.

Another photographer, Bharat Bhushan Mahajan, could very well be the last such photographer in Delhi. His ‘shop’ is in the park behind Birla Mandir in New Delhi. He has been using the same wooden camera and the same backdrop since 1949. The camera shows obvious signs of wear and tear and when we came for the session that was arranged two days in advance, he needed to first fix the camera using a hammer and some glue. this took about an hour. The price of a finished black and white photo here used to be 30 rupees (US$0.60) for 3 pictures but there are no customers these days for this style of photography. He took the camera out especially for us. Mahajan learned his trade as a young man from his father who was master photographer in what is today Pakistan, and it is indeed a remarkable trade

How does this camera work?

Alec McHoul describes the process very well in the wonderful article about Street and Studio: Popular Commercial Photography in India and Bangaladesh where he explores the exact same technique and compares it to the Calotype, one of the earliest photographic processes known.

The camera he uses, he writes, probably stems from the turn of the century or even earlier and operates in an intriguing way. Mahajan loads the camera with negative paper (Kodak commercial photographic paper) and then exposes the paper by taking off the lens cap (there’s no shutter) and counts to guess the exposure time – 2 to 3 seconds in daylight and 15 to 20 seconds in subdued light. During the exposure of the paper, the client must stay utterly still and not blink or change facial expression or else the picture will be blurred. To end the exposure, he replaces the lens cap. To develop the print, he uses the back of the camera itself as a kind of darkroom. Inside there is a tray containing homemade developing fluid. He pulls the paper out from behind the lens and dips it in the developer while looking at it through a red glass panel (which prevents white light from reaching the negative paper). Once it is sufficiently developed, the paper is removed from the camera and dipped in a fixative tray (held underneath the camera) for a few seconds; then he washes the paper negative in a bucket of clean fresh water. He dries it as much as he can and then mounts the negative print on the frame visible in front of the camera lens and re-exposes the print for 10 to 15 seconds, again depending on the light conditions. Because he is re-photographing the original negative on to a further sheet of negative paper, he ends up with a positive print which he develops in the same way (back through the two solutions in the rear of the camera, washed in water and dried). It is then ready for the customer to take away. The whole process is while-you-wait – about 20 minutes from start to finish, no film, no plate.

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Sephi Bergerson (left), Bharat Bhushan Mahajan (right) and his son (center) at his studio, New Delhi

the paper negative and the finished picture in a bucket of clean fresh water

A couple of samples form my collection. unknown photographer.

]]> http://www.sephi.com/personal/maharajas-portrait-photography-in-21st-century-india/feed/ 11 http://www.sephi.com/personal/street-food-fotowala-in-old-delhi/ http://www.sephi.com/personal/street-food-fotowala-in-old-delhi/#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:23:33 +0000 sephi http://www.sephi.com/?p=544

I have been walking around old delhi with a couple of friends visiting from Hong Kong. we went out looking for some interesting painters and old style print shops for my friend’s project and of course sampled some street food. I was clicking some pics of a chhole kulch wala and blocking the traffic of the bicycle rickshaw when one of them yelled at me, “arre fotowala!” trying to grab my attention and clear the road. after all these years in India, this was the first time I have noticed anyone addressing me as ‘fotowala‘ :-) nice coincidence.
here is the picture I was shooting:

A street food vendor selling Chhole Kulcha on the street of Old Delhi as bicycle rickshaw passes by.