Saurabh Chatterjee is a trek and travel freak and his obsession is photography. He runs regular weekend classes on photography at Hyderabad,  SIA Photography. He has been trekking with Indiahikes since its inception. Saurabh’s photography blog will appear twice every month on the Indiahikes website.

Leave your comments/questions at the end of the blog.

Shooting People on a Trek

Capturing people in the hills can be one of the most interesting subjects that can make your pictures memorable.Though you will always find less people during a trek, the ones you find can make absolutely amazing pictures.

Here are some tips that will help you take better people pictures -

Tell a Story

A picture speaks a thousand words. A story-telling picture is one which conveys emotions or mood or tells a story. Most people (including me) just take tight portraits. Some other people don’t just capture the face but the whole environment and tell a story. If you see the works of Raghu Rai, you will find the strong messages that his pictures convey.For story telling pictures, make sure you have enough of the background at a good depth to convey your message.

In this picture, shot at Kedarkanta base camp, the shepherd had just cut the wool fromsheep. He is making them into threads. He will later give it to a shop in the nearest town to make a coat out of it (like the one he is wearing).

He lives in the open where night temperatures often reaches sub-zero. This is all what he has - some water, a blanket, a pressure cooker. His dinner is being prepared. You can  see the pressure cooker going psssssssssst......

Establish a Comfort Leveland Ask for Permission

People in the hills do not have much contact with the outside world. Hence, they can be shy in front of the camera. At times, they might also get offended when taking pictures, especially of women. It is always advisable to break the ice by engaging your subject in a conversation before taking a picture. This will make them comfortable and will help you to capture a great expression. Even better if you can learn how they say – ‘Can I take your picture please?’ in their native language. It really does wonders.

This picture has been taken in a small village on the way to Rupin pass. By talking to her and making her at ease, I was able to get the good expression on her face.

Aim at the Eye

When you are shooting tight portraits, make sure your camera is focusing at the right place – the eyes. If the eyes of your subject are lacking critical focus, the picture will not look quite impressive. If you are shooting from close, you will find that the camera focuses on the nose most of the times. To overcome this problem, try the technique of locking the focus on the eyes and then recomposing your frame. To lock the focus on the eyes, keep them in the middle of the frame, press the shutter halfway and recompose the picture. When you are using this technique, make sure you change the angle but not the distance. Doing so might render your main focusing spot to be out of focus. You can also choose a manual focal selection point on your camera.

 Shot en route to Valley of Flowers this Sikh had wonderful eyes.

Use Fill Flash

When shooting people in harsh sunlight, there are times when we get faces with dark areas and bright areas which can spoil the picture as in the case below. One good technique to get rid of this is to use ‘fill flash’. As the name suggests, it fills the dark areas of the frame where there is less light, typically on sunny days. Using a fill flash has another advantage – it removes the shadows cast by facial features like nose, chin, etc. Most dSLRs have an option of increasing or decreasing the flash output by ½ stops. Adjusting this will enable you to get just the right amount of light that is required.

This picture has been taken in harsh sunlight without a fill flash. You can clearly see the dark and the light areas which spoils the beauty of the picture.

Know Your Camera Well

 The purpose of photography is to capture the essence of the situation. Most of the time, those magic momentscomes and goes in a jiffy.To make sure that you don’t miss that critical moment, you should be very well aware of all the controls in your camera. When required, you should be able to change them fast. It comes with practice of using the controls frequently. You don’t search for the breaks of a car when you need to apply it, right? J

To be continued…

Neelima Vallangi is a travel photographer and blogger. (The Wandering Soul's Wander Tales..). She has trekked extensively across the mountain ranges in India, including the Himalayas. At a young age her photos have appeared in the Getty Collection. Neelima’s photography blog will feature twice a month on the Indiahikes website.

Saurabh Chatterjee is a trek and travel freak and his obsession is photography. He runs regular weekend classes on photography at Hyderabad,  SIA Photography. He has been trekking with Indiahikes since its inception. Saurabh’s photography blog will appear twice every month on the Indiahikes website.

This article is in continuation to series on Shooting night landscapes. If you have not read the first part, please have a look here - Shooting Night Landscapes Part 1 

Leave your comments/questions at the end of the blog.

Shooting Night Landscapes Part 2

Compose Well

Composition plays a very important role in making a great picture. It is particularly difficult while taking night shots. Since you have to wait for several minutes and sometimes hours to judge your composition, it can be very frustrating at times. How to get the right composition in minimum possible time? I generally take a picture at the highest ISO with the widest open aperture just to decide a good frame for the picture. Once I am happy with the composition, I choose the settings as required.

User Narrow Apertures

Narrow apertures (higher f values) give a good depth to the picture. It also enables you to keep your shutter open for a longer time period without over-exposing the picture. To start with, f/8 is a considerable value. You can modify it depending on the light conditions and the results you get.

Make Sure You Have Enough Battery

Battery power is a big problem in the hills, especially on a trek, where you don’t have access to electricity for days altogether. You have to be very tight-fisted every time you switch on the camera. Choosing to shoot long night shots is a decision you have to take. Also, you have to make sure that you have enough battery to keep the camera running for the duration your shutter is open. You will lose the image and more important, the time, if the battery dies in the middle of the shot. To make sure that you have enough power during your shoot, you can invest in a battery pack.

Use the Histogram

Like I mentioned in one of my previous articles, histogram can be a very useful tool during night shoots. Since there is very less ambient light, even under-exposed pictures would look bright enough. Make sure your histogram shows enough data in the mid-tones area. If not, try changing the settings and try again.

Wear Warm

Shooting in the hills at night is not for the faint hearted. The temperatures may decrease to sub-zero degrees Celsius. Hence, make sure you are properly insulated from the cold winds. If you don’t protect yourself, you might fall sick and you won’t be able to take pictures.

Carry a Torch

Having a torch at night is an absolute must. Besides helping you to make your way in the dark, it will help you to place your tripod on the correct surface and level your horizon. In many cameras, the settings dial is not backlit, a torch can come very handy in these situations.

Be Patient

Night photography requires you be very patient. It takes several minutes and sometimes hours before you can see your shot.We can’t do much during the time but just wait… Night photographers often end up spending the whole night under the stars.

Know the Position of the Pole Star

If you want to take stunning pictures of large arcs made by stars, pay a visit to a Star-gazing enthusiast. This will help you getting some knowledge on the different stars and their positions. It is particularly important to know the position of the Pole Star (DhruvaNakshatram) since all the stars the circle around it.

Beware of the clouds

Clouds can be a big spoil-sport if you are trying to shoot star trails. If you see lots of clouds coming in, it is advisable to quit and go to sleep. I have lost hours of sleep without any results because of the clouds. But do come back and try again next day. You will succeed!

"If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it."

Jay Maisel

Saurabh Chatterjee is a trek and travel freak and his obsession is photography. He runs regular weekend classes on photography at Hyderabad,  SIA Photography. He has been trekking with Indiahikes since its inception. Saurabh’s photography blog will appear twice every month on the Indiahikes website.

This article is in continuation to series on Shooting landscapes. If you have not read them , please have a look here - Shooting Landscapes Part 1 , Shooting Landscapes Part 2, Shooting Landscapes Part 3 

Leave your comments/questions at the end of the blog.

Shooting Night Landscapes

For many of us Night photography is an unexplored territory but if you have some interest, a trek can kick-start your passion for this genre of photography. Due to minimal air and light pollution in the hills, it’s a great opportunity to take great night shots.

Night photography in the hills can be very interesting. When exposed for a long time, the camera can see what our naked eyes cannot. One thing good about night photography is that the light situation does not change at all. Thought it’s a practice to sleep early in the hills, if you are passionate about night photography, you might end up spending the whole night under the stars!

Here are some tips on how to take great night shots.

Carry a Tripod

For night photography, the importance carrying a sturdy tripod for cannot be stressed enough. I call it – a night photographers’ best friend. Though it’s cumbersome to carry a tripod on a trek, it’s an absolute must if you are keen to take some good shots.

Most new lenses are equipped with a feature called Vibration Reduction (VR) or Image Stabilisation (IS) or Optical Stabilisation (OS). This will just allow you to shoot at a couple of stops slower and will control the blur but it cannot eliminate it altogether. Hence, this is not particularly helpful for night shots.

Mounting the camera on a tripod does not ensure that your pictures will come out sharp. Pressing the shutter release button while your camera is mounted on a tripod can result in slight shakes, enough to ruin your masterpiece.

If you don’t have a tripod and still want to shoot, try to find a rock or keep it on the ground. Low angle shots can look very interesting at times.

Self timer is a very handy utility that all cameras are equipped with. This can come as a very handy tool when shooting at shutter speeds as slow as 30 seconds. For longer exposures you will need a device to control the shutter externally.  

This picture was shot at 9:30pm without a tripod by keeping the camera on the ground for about 3 minutes. Aperture f/11.0

Use Manual Focus


 
 Most professional photographers prefer using Auto Focus for most cases, but for night shots, Manual focus is the preferred way.

Before getting into more detail, let me explain what this Manual focus means. It is the process of adjusting the focal point by rotating the focusing ring yourself and not using the Autofocus. This has no correlation with the Manual Mode (indicated by M in the modes dial). The Manual Mode (M) in your camera is to allow you to set Aperture and Shutter speed arbitrarily to control the amount of light coming in.

Your obvious question will be - why use Manual focus? This is because the camera’s auto-focus won’t work at such low lights. So, when we cannot see anything using our eyes, due to the darkness, how can we set the focus manually? Most lenses have a focusing distance indicator. (Unfortunately, the 18-55mm kit lens does not have this) To make the camera focus to infinity, rotate the focusing ring till the focusing distance indicates infinity (). This will make sure that even the distant objects will be in sharp focus. 

This picture was shot at Keylong. I spent almost the whole night under the stars! ExposureTime - 501 seconds FNumber - 14

Shoot in Manual Mode

Since the light at night is very low, the camera’s light meter won’t be able to determine the Shutter speed or Aperture while using in Aperture priority (A for Nikon and Av for Canon) or Shutter priority (S for Nikon and Tv for Canon) mode. This is one of the situations where we need to switch to Manual Mode (M) and take control of the Aperture and Shutter speed.

What settings should you choose for the exposure? There is no way we can tell you the exact settings. You will get know this using trial and error. An aperture of f/8 or f/10 is good enough to start with, for getting sharp pictures. You need to experiment with the shutter speed depending on what you want.

Since light at night is very less, an exposure of 30 seconds might not be enough especially if you want to capture star trails. In this case you need to use the BULB mode. This is a setting that is available only when you shoot in Manual (M) mode. If you keep decreasing the shutter speed in Manual mode, you come across this setting. In BULB mode, the shutter can be kept open for an infinite time period, provided your batteries don’t run out! To use this mode, you need a wireless or a wired remote to control the opening and closing of the shutter. Pressing the remote for the first time will open the shutter and pressing it again will close it. Wireless and wired remote controls – required for shooting in BULB mode.

Wireless and wired remote controls – required for shooting in BULB mode.

This picture was taken at Loharjung in the Roopkund trek. Occasionally, I saw the clouds glowing and wanted to capture it. Exposure 30 Aperture f/4.2 Focal Length 34 mm .