OCA – People and
Place
Assignment 5: People
and Place on Assignment
This
assignment is the last in this module and it required you to act more like
a
professional photographer within the structure of producing an assignment to
order.
This means
that you would be working from a brief, you may have little chance to
express
yourself depending on the brief and you would need to fulfil that brief to
meet
the client’s wishes.
I thought
about this for some time and I spoke with a few friends over a few weeks
to see
if they knew anybody who would need photographs for an article, the web
or a
personal project. After some time, I was contacted by a Peterborough Hindu
family
who asked if I could meet with them to discuss photographing their
daughter, Kaushicaa’s
‘Coming of Age’
celebration. This is a celebration
that is performed after the girl
reaches puberty; in Hindu it’s called ‘Ritushuddhi’.
The
‘Vaseeharan’ family are originally from Sri Lanka and speak the Tamil language.
Their wishes were to not have a large celebration, which is traditional in the
Hindu
religion, but to have a personal celebration at home with a Hindu priest,
who was called
Ramanatha Kruckal.
It was
explained to me that as the family had lived in the UK for a long time and both
the children were born in the UK, they did not want to have a large
celebration,
but a small ‘westernised’ celebration for Kaushicaa’s
‘Ritushuddhi’, to keep the
tradition of the Hindu religion relevant with their
children.
The
‘Vaseeharan’ family gave me a full brief, they wanted all the photographs to be
in colour, the celebration would take place in one room in the house, the
priest
was not to be disturbed during the celebration and they wanted the final
images
to show their daughter through the celebration from start to finish,
telling the story of
her day.
I felt that
even though this was not from an actual publication, the option as
explained in
the assignment was there to choose a ‘notional client’. This would be
a
Peterborough magazine called ‘Only Peterborough’ and the article would be
one
of many highlighting the wide and diverse ethnic population of Peterborough and
their religions and festivals.
The actual
brief from the ‘Vaseeharan’ family does fit in with ‘people and/or the place
they inhabit’ as the photographs were taken at their home.
‘Only Peterborough’ brief
- To complete
the photography for a series of magazine articles, this will help to
highlight
the diverse multiethnic and religious population of Peterborough.
- To communicate
with the articles journalist and agree a plain for the
photography layout and
storytelling aspect.
- To stay
within the clients brief and respect any cultural or religious limitations
when
carrying out the photography.
- To check the
location limitations and provide required photographic equipment
to fulfil
brief.
- To work with
the agreed start and finish times.
- To act
professional at all times.
- Provide a
minimum of 12 finished Hi-res JPEG photographs per article.
- To carry out
all HSE assessments on the day of the shoot.
Photograph 1
I had arrived approximately half
an hour early for me to look at the area from
where we would be photographing.
Mr Vaseeharan had explained to me over
the telephone that it would take place
in the living room of their home.
I knew that I would require the
use of flash or studio lights during the day, so this
gave me the time required
to set up within the living room.
Equipment Used
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70mm lens
Light meter
Elinchrom studio lights x 2
Softboxes x 2
Remote trigger
I set up the two studio lights at
one end of the living room, away from the
area that had been dedicated to the
celebration of the day.
Photograph 2
The first two images are of Kaushicaa.
I wanted the first image to show how relaxed she was before
the celebration was
to begin, hopefully expressing a more relaxed persona, but
still in her celebration sari.
The image above was a more formal pose, within
the setting of the celebration and
the nerves had just started to show. This
image shows the full sari and jewellery for
the celebration.
Photograph 3
I knew when planning the
photographs that one of the images must be at the start
of the celebration.
This image shows the family sitting down with the priest,
who is praying. The
foreground shows the items that are offered, including
bananas, banana leaves,
rice, fruit and milk (curd).
Photograph 4
The priest is offering a prayer
to his driver. The priest was from London and
was brought to the house by a
driver, all paid for by the Mr Vaseeharan.
Photograph 5
Photograph 6
As the celebration progresses,
more gifts are offered to the daughter, each
gift has a different meaning
within the ‘Ritushuddhi’ celebration. I felt very
humbled at this point within
the ‘Vaseeharan’s’ family home on this special occasion.
Photograph 7
The full celebratory dress is so colourful, the beautiful
sari, with gold and matching
coloured jewellery.
The nerves were starting to settle now and the family as a
whole were starting to relax
more and enjoy their occasion.
Photograph 8
I found the priest, Mr Kruckal to
be one of those people you would love to photograph
again. He had an amazing
character and as long as I did not interrupt the
important parts of the
celebration, then he kept on smiling! More gifts are being offered
to the whole
family.
Photograph 9
This image shows the final
moments of the ‘Coming of Age’ celebration. The
family and the priest throw
flower petals over the daughter. The chair is also
significant within the
celebration and was brought in by the father earlier
at a time I could not
photograph.
Photograph 10
This image depicts the parents
celebrating the end of the ‘Coming of Age’
celebration with their daughter.
All the images were taking with
an ISO of either 100 or 200 and an aperture
range of between f3.2 and f9.
Photograph 11
The image above now shows the
daughter after the ‘Coming of Age’ celebration
is over. I could tell she was
tired, but I knew I need another image at the end to
make sure I could tell the
whole story of the celebration. The celebration took
around two hours from
start to finish, there were times when I could not photograph
as per the brief
from Mr Vaseeharan.
Photograph 12
A final image showing the priest,
Mr Kruckal congratulating Kaushicaa after the
celebration had finished. Mr
Kruckal was then driven away and taken back to
London for another celebration
that evening.
Conclusion
I was given a clear brief by the
client, who has subsequently viewed the image
and is very happy. Mr Vaseeharan
has now asked me to provide an album of
the day for them to view. The brief from Mr Vaseeharan was kept to and
I took
in to account that this was a special family moment. I made sure I was
in
the background, not interfering in the celebration and taking the images
when I
thought the timing to be correct.
The images in my opinion do tell
the story of a Hindu ‘Coming of Age’
celebration, within the constraints I was
set, and including it being a small family
affair in their home.
Perhaps if the celebration had
been a full traditional event, then the outcome
would have been different and
there would have been more opportunities for
varying the type of images taken.
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