Making of the Little Gods

The biennial Thakurani Yatra is going on in the silkcity of Odisha (formerly known as Orissa) in India. And you can see a world of changes in the cityscape and there are many a good things that one can notice about this yatra and one of them being the visuals of kids dressed as various mythological characters roaming in the various streets of the city on cycles, bikes and vehicles. Various characters like Krishna, Balram, Ram, Hanuman, Parshuram etc can be seen in most unexpected ways in the city. You can come across a human tiger cycling in the city while a little krishna is being taken home by his parents on the bikes, while Hanuman is walking in the streets.

The thakurani yatra, during which the reigning goddess of the silkcity maa budhi saantani comes to her parental home for a brief visit for about a month. And during this the citizens of the city visit the maa in her makeshift temple in the Desibehera street for paying their visit, devotion and to also to thank the goddess for her blessings. Some people however have an other way to do this by decorating themselves or their children in various mythological and some common characters and bring them to the temple. This a form of Manasika (a promise that the devotee makes to maa for blessing him or her that he or she will dress up or make his or her kids dress up as some gods or goddesses and bring them to the temple for blessings.

There are a dozen or more number of chitralays in city which cater to the needs of such devotees and they take the responsibility of dressing the kids and adults in different characters for some brisk business during this festival in city. Normally while these establishments charge about 200-300 rupees for dressing a kid as Lord Krishna, demand a whopping 800-1000 during this festivals.

The process of dressing the children begins with the children coming over to the Shop and then the experienced artists make up the kids to look like Krishna, Balram, Radha, Hanuman etc. And then some other artists put fitting clothes on the kids and they are good to go.

It takes almost 20-30 minutes to make up someone as Krishna or Radha and a little more for Hanuman and other characters. Some characters like Pilakhai Dahani may take upto a couple of hours and some more characters like Tiger may take almost half a day of time and labor.

The artists who have been decorating the people for almost decades are in need and demand during this festivals. And they make a good earning during the festival too. On an avarage a dozen or more number of kids come to each chitralaya to make up on the first few days of the festival and on sundays the number may reach half century or more and during the later part of the festival each day hundreds of people come to the chitralaya to make up.

This is a rich cultural tradition which has been popular in the silkcity for more than a century and the people who have been in the business of make up artists have been the silent spectator of the events.

This in future will also flourish as the devotion amongst people for Maa Budhi saantani will never end tells one of the eldest artists. Whatever may be the tradition is truly a beautiful one and it should be continued with the same spirit and devotion as it has been continuing for the last more than a century.

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My First Portfolio Photoshoot experiment

How to shoot a star trail ?

As a child I always liked the way the stars blinked in the night sky. It is always amazing looking at the stars. And then we were habituated to looking at falling stars and praying for our good.

When I got my first dslr, I wanted to see and shot the moon which was amazing experience and then came the stars. I did see some stars as a kid too, through the telescope our school had in the science laboratory, courtesy our science teacher. Frankly speaking  I did see nothing except darkness. And when I saw on internet that we can shoot the stars as they move (Or should I say the earth moves, because the stars are stationary objects, as per the scientists).

I had been trying a lot to do this and failed miserably a couple of times too. Although I am writing this now, I am not sure whether I have succeeded in shooting a star trail or not, that my readers will judge.

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/spectacular-australian-star-trails

My Preparation :

A DSLR with long shutter speed facility and burst mode. (I took many shots of 30 seconds duration). And then stacked the images on above the other to get the shot. Also some people suggest you take a BULB mode shot. I tried that too, but did not find suitable results.

A steady tripod is a must so that the camera does not move a bit.

A silent and dark sky is a must, so I chose a night before new moon so that there is no moon in the sky. Also disturbances from light sources should be avoided. Unfortunately I could not do that, because I am in the heart of a city. Anyway I positioned my camera in such a manner that it focussed only on the sky and did not got distraction from city lights. My house fortunately is at a part of city where darkness prevails.

I needed a remote shutter release mechanish, which I purchased form ebay for 300 rupees. It works well.

And last but not the least PATIENCE is the key to the shot.

PROCEDURE :

I mounted my Nikon D5100 DSLR on the tripod and set the aperture to f/5.6 and shutter to 30 sec and multiple shots mode. I chose the ISO to be 1000 and took a test shot of 30 seconds and then adjusted the focus by looking at a distant source of light and then kept the camera still and with the remote trigger I pushed and locked it so that the camera goes on taking 30 seconds shots till I let it do it.

After almost an hour I remembered that I had left my camera outside and rushed and stopped the trigger and found it had taken some 100 shots.

Then I downloaded the images to my computer and used a freely available software called Starstax (DOWNLOAD) to compile the single image. I chose the gap filling mode on the software.

After the single stacked image came out I created a new document in photoshop of 900px X 596px and pasted the image and reduced the size and then improved the contrast and color and added some sharpness and got this result.

I know this is not a big image compared what people have got, but I am glad I have found a good quality star trail. My experiments will continue though.