To Holi or not

[Manfred M]

Some more images from the third day of Holi festivities in Nandgaon, India. What struck me, as we wandered the streets is how some of the people in the village (population just under 10,000) were immersed in the Holi celebrations while others were just going about their day to day activities.

In this series I try to contrast these two opposites.



1. Enjoying a cup of tea and Holi





2. Two women going about their daily business waiting for a delivery of milk





3. A Holy Man with his begging can





4. A village tailor at his sewing machine taking a short break





5. Taking a break from the festivities, leaning against a wall on the street





6. A farmer coming back from the fields





7. Some village boys ready for Holi action with their dye filled water guns in hand

[Rainforest]

Another wonderful, colorful series to enjoy. :-). I like walking these streets. #7. is a standout for me - you've definitely engaged this young group. The saying boys will be boys delightfully comes to mind. Do you have a 'standard' set up when you walk about with these types of images in mind especially with the bright sun?

[rpcrowe]

Really nice collection... What memories they must bring back to you as you are processing them. That is the neat thing about photography to me. I visit each place and meet new people several times: First when I shoot them, then when I process the images and after that whenever I revisit the images. I can look at an image and regain the feeling I had when I shot it.

[Manfred M]

Another wonderful, colorful series to enjoy. :-). I like walking these streets. #7. is a standout for me - you've definitely engaged this young group. The saying boys will be boys delightfully comes to mind. Do you have a 'standard' set up when you walk about with these types of images in mind especially with the bright sun?

Yes - unfortunately, the harsh tropical sun is a reality. I know some of our group members asked their subjects to move into more shady areas, but I find that this loses a lot of the spontaneity in the poses, so I tended to go for the less posed looks.

When I shoot, I try to stick at or close to base ISO to give me the maximum dynamic range and colour depth. I will shoot raw, knowing I will want to get data out of the file at both the extreme dark and extreme light end. There were a number of photographers who were deliberately underexposing by between 1/3 and 1 stop, but when I checked the cameras they were shooting, these had lower maximums in both these characteristics, so it is not something I felt was needed and when I look at my image files, this seems to be the case.

When I open the files in the raw converter, I push up the shadow detail quite hard and in some cases I end up hitting the highlights quite hard as well. That tends to flatten the contrast a bit too much, but I recover that later in my PP work. I also use a custom camera profile and find that works well especially in the red channel where the defaults tend to clip.

I do most of my work in Photoshop and often use the Nik Collection Color Efex Pro filter. I bring up the contrast with the Pro Contrast filter. If the top of the image tends to be too bright, I add a gradient and in these shots I often use a setting of 2% - 6% Detail extractor, again to pull out the shadow detail a bit better.

My final step is dodging and burning,. I will dodge the dark areas, especially on the face, neck and eye sockets. I will burn in hot spots. I will also locally desaturate the dodged areas as required as dodging will increase the saturation in the areas and this may need to be toned down..

[Mike Buckley]

This set of photos really nicely conveys the impact and lack of impact, depending on the situation, the celebration has on the locals' lives. Very well done!

[bje07]

Nice series of very expressive people in well performed environment and nice PP.

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[Rainforest]

Manfred thanks! It's quite nice of you to take the time. I'm smiling as I'm actually doing a lot of these things but not with confidence and full understanding - one step at a time and this information is one more step. Someone else on the forum told me about Pro Contrast (thank you John!), and I learned from your post I can use it even more effectively. It's a pretty wonderful tool. I'm just beginning to use the detail extractor as well (judiciously) - anyway, thanks again it's all very helpful and appreciated.

[Manfred M]

Manfred thanks! It's quite nice of you to take the time. I'm smiling as I'm actually doing a lot of these things but not with confidence and full understanding - one step at a time and this information is one more step. Someone else on the forum told me about Pro Contrast (thank you John!), and I learned from your post I can use it even more effectively. It's a pretty wonderful tool. I'm just beginning to use the detail extractor as well (judiciously) - anyway, thanks again it's all very helpful and appreciated.

No problem - we are here to share our knowledge. After all CiC is a learning site.

I would suggest you are on the right track with Detail Extractor (and also with Tonal Contrast). I find that the defaults are set far too high and can get you an image that is right over the top if you are not very careful, but a few percent on either filter can often be quite effective in improving the image.

[Rainforest]

No problem - we are here to share our knowledge. After all CiC is a learning site.

I would suggest you are on the right track with Detail Extractor (and also with Tonal Contrast). I find that the defaults are set far too high and can get you an image that is right over the top if you are not very careful, but a few percent on either filter can often be quite effective in improving the image.

Yep, you are quite right and I usually err on the side of not enough. Tonal contrast is my friend ;-) but I really like the color cast correction on the Pro Contrast. thanks again.