Sharing energy space

Bird n grass, originally uploaded by mukul.soman.

Hey, wassup buddz? I have been really held up with my last week of the semester...so classes and exams kept me so busy! I had not touched my camera for over 2 weeks! Damn!

OK, I am now back taking pictures and also, back to my blogging ways. So what I want to share with all of you is, some thing that I learnt from one of the world's best documentary photographers, Colin Finlay, the joy of sharing energy space with your subject...be it an animal, a person or an inanimate object. Well after listening to his super charged talk at my university, thanks to BADA, I realized that it's a myth that only a long zoom lens can get you close ups of your subjects, the above pic is taken with nothing more than my 50mm prime lens which to me, was very satisfying. For those of you who are not too sure of what is a prime lens, well it is a lens that has no zoom. The only way to zoom in is..err move closer to your subject and to zoom out ..yeah you guessed it right, move back! OK brilliant, read on!
So when using a lens like the 50mm prime, which is so restrictive, it pushes me further and compels me to move in closer and closer to my subject, like how I shot the bird you saw in the above shot. I was at San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf, just lying down on the grass, relaxing. That's when i noticed this little bird walking on the grass, looking for grub. I just slowly got up on my knees, reached out for my camera and started moving close to it. I was very slow and calm in my movement, which probably made the little bird realize i was not out there to eat him or create trouble! I could feel the pleasure of it letting me share its energy space with me! And that positive energy has such an influence on the bird and on me - A while later the bird was literally on my hand...and mind you I had no food on me to attract it. The bird just did not seem to mind my presence at all, and once our energies were so positive, it felt so comfortable and even came and check out my camera! As a result I ended up with some really close shots with nothing more than my prime lens.

Now this is not just a one off incident. I have had a similar interactions with some other chaps as well. For instance, take this shot of a crab i clicked while i was lying on the rocky shoreline of the San Francisco pier...almost nosing the crab.

This crab image was also taken with nothing more than my 50mm prime lens. Usually crabs are very shy animals that quickly scamper across and hide into crevices once they sense human presence. I followed my same slow approach to get close to this guy and check out the results!

Also, this ground squirrel and the butterfly shot below it was shot with a lens with even shorter focal length! The 14-24mm wide lens.


This was clicked with my 50mm prime lens, i got incredibly close to the peacock, almost a meter away!!! Was amazing! It took time, almost an hour to get that close...i really now feel that the intensity of a shot is more when u r in the energy aura of your subject...rather than always rely on long zooms. In this case i entered the cage of the peacocks personal space and it let me too!(thanks to Finlay)

Here, this one with the mouth open, was giving out the famous loud peacock call when i took this shot inches away from it.

The experience of getting so close to these animals and taking these shots, just redefined photography for me. Its no more a "stay far and click close" game for me!

Well if its a tiger or a salt water crocodile that's my subject...err I would not be trying this out ..hehe, you see i need the most valuable asset of my camera in tact, yes you guessed it right, I cannot risk my head :) But I know one person who can come up with an incredible close up of either of these animals, Mr. Finlay. No wonder he inspires me.

Signing off,
Mukul Soman.