This time I took a couple of Contax Zeiss lenses, 25mm f2.8 and 135mm f2.8. I felt that the two lenses were a good contrast to one another in terms of focal lengths and being able to capture a variety of moments, closer and further away.
Photowalk DTLA 9/6/2023
Photowalk Melrose
A walk around Melrose Ave with an ultra wide Laowa 15mm f4, a few shots from a Canon 40mm 2.8 trying some not great autofocus, and some night shots with a Contax Zeiss 50mm f1.4 all on a Sigma FP.
Photowalk Chinatown Los Angeles
Some photos from a walk through Los Angeles’ Chinatown. I experimented a bit with cropping and a few photos felt best in black and white.
Photo Walk DTLA
Another photo walk in downtown Los Angeles. This time I took an old Hasselblad 50mm f4 medium format lens and and Pentax 67 165mm lens. When I walk around, I feel more comfortable with a wider lens than something longer like the 165mm. I’m figuring out how to frame shots with the longer lens, in the moment. With this set of photos, even more than previously, I played around with cropping and found that it really helped to bring out a more compelling story. A longer lens could help me get some of that in camera, but in the moment, it is so much easier to get all the compositional elements in a nice wide shot, which gives me more to work with. This is a big part of what I am doing with these photo walks, is to see what I can capture in the moment, and then create from that in post to complete some images of fleeting captured moments.
Photo walk Little Tokyo and Downtown Arts District
Here are some photos from another photo walk in Downtown Los Angeles. This time, we went to Little Tokyo and the Arts District. With street photography, I am working on finding images that tell stories in my surroundings, rather than creating images from a story that I have created from nothing as I do in animation. This time I went out with the Sigma FP, Carl Zeiss 25mm f2.8 and Mamiya 150mm f3.5 lenses.
Grand Ave Street Photography DTLA
I took the Sigma FP, an old Vivitar Close Focus 28mm f2, Soligor 135mm f2 and a Laowa 15mm f4. I caught the sun as it shone through the buildings by Figueroa and 7th before joining the group behind the Central Library, up through Grand Ave, Grand Park and back again. Here are some of my favorites from the night. One of the highlights for me was while walking down Grand Ave, we saw some well dressed folks taking photos in the center lane of the street. Not wanting to intrude, we just kept taking photos around, when they invited us to photograph them. Those were a lot of fun and of course I made sure to send the photos to our wonderful models. While looking at the rest of the photos, it was fun to see which were more interesting to me. There are moments where a figure completes the composition of buildings and streets or a car slides into frame in mid turn that I feel make for a more interesting, captured moment.
Verdugo Park Painting
Plein air watercolor painting in Verdugo Park.
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Ali Sethi and Discostan at Grand Performances
It has been a while, but it was so much fun to see a live music show at Grand Performances, and what a night, with Discostan whom I have missed for a long time and to see Ali Sethi. Thanks to the Pakistan Arts Council, Aga Khan Museum and Grand Performances for sharing such a wonderful night of music. I was too busy dancing the night away to take many photos, but to hear Discostan meld music from across the subcontinent with driving beats that move your body, then Ali Sethi, bringing such warmth and history along with his own incredible songs as well as beautiful poetry and disco was just a perfect night. Dancing the night away to all of that with a kid obsessed with Pasoori, singing it all the time and loves dancing is about the best thing in the world. Thank you.
Ustad Anb Jogi
In memory of my dear friend and collaborator, Ustad Anb Jogi.
Read MoreAnamorphic Play at Kenneth Hahn Park
After a good rain, the sky clears up for a moment in Los Angeles. Here are some photos from a walk in Kenneth Hahn Park, using a Sigma FP with a Contax Zeiss 45mm f2.8 pancake lens and an Isco Ultrastar anamorphic projector lens. I had to shoot in crop mode, and noticed quite a bit of vignette on anything shot stopped down.
2021 Year in Review
A look at some projects from 2021
Read MoreCamping in Idyllwild
After filming for about 5 weeks, in every free moment I could manage, I took a break and went camping. I wanted to try out the Sigma FP for stills as I had been using it for filming “Ramkali”. I also ended up using Dark Table for all the color work afterwards. I shot with no color profile and made my adjustments after the fact. It was actually quite impressive to see what could be pulled out of these images with some simple editing.
The stars in the clear night sky were beautiful. I used a combination of Laowa 15mm f4, Vivitar (Komine) Close Focus 28mm f2, Zeiss 50mm 1.4 and a Zeiss 300mm f4. Focus is more challenging off a screen in the bright sun. Other than a few missed shots due to that, I really enjoyed it.
Filming begins
After over a month of focusing on the animatic (storyboards in motion set to music), and weeks of additional camera, puppetry and lighting tests, I began filming ‘Ramkali’, the short excerpt of my feature film ‘Risalo’ for my Hand Made Puppet Dreams Micro Commission. It is a daunting task. I always wanted to film with the actual Rajasthani puppeteers, Puran Bhatt and his group and work with a crew, but this is the way to move forward.
Every morning I put in a few hours before work. I categorized shots by difficulty 1-4 and am starting with the 1s. I've found that shooting with the camera (Sigma FP) at its native ISO (in this case 3200), with aperture set to how much depth of field I want and variable ND filter to bring the exposure down to 0 on the camera gives me grain free images that I can color grade later. The Mamiya 645, medium format lenses are beautiful to work with, and a few Aputure lights, some cheap soft boxes and I’ve got what I need to tell this story.
I even managed an overhead shot and one with a slider and rack focus. It is actually a lot of fun and exhausting work to create these shots and come up with creative ways to make each of them possible.
Lighting Tests 07/15/2021
I’ve started to put some more pieces of the setup together. Here I used a couple of Aputure lights and some simple soft boxes. The softboxes did a good job of illuminating the backdrop, without casting shadows from other objects. This also meant that the gel colors were less intense on the background, but I think it works.
I used an Aputure light as a hair light to pull the goat puppet off the background and look like the early morning sunlight.
The Sigma FP, camera works so well in low light and at higher ISO values that it was really easy to shoot most of this at F8 to get a deeper depth of field (more depth in focus). It also worked well at ISO 100 at F1.9 on this Mamiya 80mm medium format lens I was using.
I added a crumpled cloth underneath the set ground on the table to give it some shape and interest. This will be a useful way to create variety.
I have an optical snoot that I am interesting in experimenting with custom disks to get some stylized looks.
Thanks to Hand Made Puppet Dreams for giving me some support to push this journey forward. It’s a tall order to have to do the filming, light and puppetry by myself on top of everything else, but it’s the only way this project will move forward.
Bran and Park Kathputli
This was a test assignment or Cohort Challenge for a micro commission that I am a part of thanks to Hand Made Puppet Dreams. This was a test of some puppetry manipulation, lighting and editing.
PUPPETRY TESTS 06/08/2021
I experimented more with hands movement of the puppet in this session. I saw how without an additional white lights, the gel covered lights can be a bit overpowering. Manipulating the hands, and keeping the head and back under control is tricky with direct manipulation of the strings. There was some progress, but the kind of nuanced movement I am striving for is still out of reach.
Puppetry Tests 06/07/2021
I added some Aputure 60D lights and began looking at some of my lighting diagrams from past tests. I really like the lights. They seem to be a good replacement for the Arri 300w fresnels that my friend Cinematographer Peyton Skelton had generously lent me in the past. These LEDs are nice as they do not heat up, but give me the bright lights and many qualities I liked about the fresnels.
I brought out the backdrop designed by myself with my friend Muhammad Umar. We sourced used cloth for it from the landa bazar in Lahore, which Umar skillfully put together with meticulous cutting and hand stitching.
I tried some helpful suggestions from Daniel Luce, by creating space behind the backdrop to puppeteer from and using foot contact with the table to keep the puppet from floating or swimming around. I also added the equivalent of a sturdy apple box to stand on, which makes it easier to keep out of view and control the puppet from the back.
I’m going to work on using some of the phone apps to control the camera and lights next, in addition to working in some other set elements, and practicing control of the puppets arms next.
Puppetry Tests 06/04/2021
I spent some time watching the videos Puran Bhat sent me to see how he manipulates the strings. I learn more each time I watch and practice. I have some basic control for walking and head movement, but I have more to learn about doing that and being able to control the hands at the same time. I saw that closing down the camera lens to f18 does give me more depth of field (more in focus) using a long lens. I used the Mamiya 210mm, Pentax 67 165mm and the Mamiya 80 1.9 (this one wide open with a single light bounced off the wall).
I adjusted the strings on Bijal a bit to connect the head/back strings with a loop to the hands. The hands can be slid on either side. I do need to figure out how to stay out of frame while puppeteering on a wider shot. From a distance, 80mm can give me a pretty good wide shot. I need something more sturdy than a chair to stand on. I think that would help me lean over, out of view of the camera. Perhaps some apple boxes?
Puppetry Tests 06/03/2021
As I build my puppetry skills, I am creating these tests to learn about puppet manipulation and filming. Here I worked on basic head, walking and some hands motion. Camera was a Sony a6500 with focal reducer. Lenses Mamiya 55mm and Pentax 67 165mm both set between f8 to f11. I was able to get deeper depth of field (more depth in focus) with the lens further away than closer up. It makes me think I may be using longer lenses where deeper depth of field is needed. I'll try larger fstops like f16 when I have more light as well.
Uyghur Genocide Awareness
So, I tried to see where I could help with raising awareness about the conditions of Uyghurs in China back when I did a series of paintings featuring cultures from the region in 2013. I held a several nights of music and storytelling around the gallery show with talks about travels and connecting around music. It was very difficult to connect to Uyghurs abroad as the Chinese government is watching and retaliating against their families. In the last few years, things have gotten even worse with so called re-education camps which are concentration camps with Uyghurs, Krygyz, Uzbeks and Kazak people from Xinjiang imprisoned, brainwashed, gang raped and murdered.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/10/chinas-war-on-uighur-culture/616513/
Now, there is no choice but to speak out and stop this. To start, here is a little effort I am working on: http://www.madguru.com/uyghur
Please join in. What one government does and gets away with today on one group will be emulated by others tomorrow. These innocent victims deserve human compassion that they have not been afforded over 70 years. It will take a huge and overwhelming public outcry to bolster the growing number of governments that have begun to call out this genocide and force real action and change. Please help.
