Sankar Ghose
Thank you “Photography Kolkata Platform” for the cordial invitation to feature my images in your publication. I would like to take this opportunity to share a few words and images related to your recent two themes – “Light and Shadow” and “Juxtaposition”.
Light and Shadow :
“The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say”.... Gregory Maguire.
Light is a fundamental aspect towards creating an exemplary image. Light brings not only brightness or darkness, but also it creates tone, texture, luminosity and the ambience of an image. Light is the basis of photography, we must pay a great deal of attention to light.
Usually we focus more on light, however we often forget that darkness and shadows are equally important. The drama between light and shadow and the variation between different shades of light can have a significant impact on any photographic composition.
Shadows can help to pay attention to a specific area in a scene. Light and shadow together can reveal specific features of an image. One may effectively use light and shadow in an image to create drama, mood, interest, mystery and visual effect. Shadow can emphasize the light, drawing attention to the highlights of an image.
Soft early morning and late afternoon lights are all great opportunities to create beautiful aesthetics in our images. When the sun is closer to the horizon, the shadows become longer. In the same way, while photographing using an external light source or an off-camera flash, the closer the light source is to the surface, the longer the shadow will be. The night ambience adds a new dimension to street photography. There are so many interesting light sources to work with such as street lights, traffic lights, car lights etc. Sometimes it’s all about the shadow, and the subject casting it does not even require to be completely included as part of the scene. This method, if well executed, will add an element of mystery to the overall visual language.
For street photography the quality of light or timing of the day may not be considered as a restriction to shooting. Rather if creatively used, different light conditions can add different dimensions and different aesthetics to the images. We should always experiment with different lighting situations to bring novelty to our works.
Juxtaposition:
Juxtaposition in literary terms is an act or instance of placing two or more elements close together or side by side. This is often done in order to compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences, etc.
In different art forms, juxtaposition of elements is used to elicit a response in the viewer's mind. It is well known to the world of art and is used by everyone from architects to painters.
In photography juxtaposition is placing two things, concepts of ideas together to show contrast or similarities. We can use different composition techniques, forced perspectives, props etc. to create the contrasts in a photograph. However, it’s not just about putting multiple contrasting or complementing objects together. We need to tell a story and create interest through the objects we put together.
In Street photography. to compose this kind of images, we will need two things. For eg:
A tall and a short person or someone fat vs. skinny
Big and small
Happiness and sadness
Nature Vs Man or Man Vs Machine
Past and Present or Old and New
Contrasting colors, shapes etc.
Basically Juxtaposition can be used in a number of ways:
Physical objects (e.g. a big elephant next to a little dog)
Moods (e.g. a stormy sky over a calm pastoral scene)
Concepts (e.g. vintage vs. modern)
The idea is when juxtaposing two elements to convey a concept, someone should not take the easy route with a cliché. We always should try to be original with new and unique ideas. Juxtaposition is a very creative composition technique that we can use intelligently in our street photography to tell unique story in an interesting way that has a wow factor.
Short bio :
Sankar Ghose is an art educator, visual artist and event photographer by profession. An alumani of Indian Art College, painting remains his first love, though photography has become his integral part of his life at the same time. Though his main interests are people, street and daily life he also Loves to shoot travel, nature and wildlife photography as and when opportunity permits.
He is the founder member of in-street collective. His works have been published and recognized at different platforms like National Geographic ( Night Vision: Magical Photographs of Life After Dark book ), National Geographic your shot, Nat Geo Traveller India, Nikon, Photovogue Italy amongst many others . He is the Grand Prize winner of CRU’s 2016 International Photography Contest.
He has participated in multiple Photography Exhibitions at Lalit Kala Akademi - NewDelhi, Centre d’animation curial - Paris , London Street Photography Festival –UK, Indian Photo Festival – Hyderabad, Academy Of Fine Arts , Gaganendra Shilpa Pradarshashala, ICCR, Gallery Gold, Victoria Memorial Hall , Chitrakoot Art Gallery etc. His Photographs are also part of different private collections in India and abroad.
Social Media Links
Website : www.sankarghose.com
Instagram :
www.instagram.com/sankar.27
www.instagram.com/sankar_street
Facebook: www.facebook.com/sankarghose27
Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/sankarghose
