"Books"... a DPS Weekly Assignment

UPDATE:
I'm very glad that my assignment got a 3rd placing. To see the First, Second and judges' comments on the three works, click HERE. Thanks for all the compliments and let's work towards being better photographers!

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Took this picture for the Digital Photography School weekly assignment. The topic for week 18 Aug ~ 1 Sep is "Books". Browsed through the postings by other forumers and many are very interesting. I looked to my bookshelves to see if I have any interesting book to feature and "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" written by Sogyal Rinpoche caught my eye.


I have had this book, as well as the Chinese version, for close to 10 years now. The edge of the pages are uniformly stained by the high humidity we have here in Singapore and they gave some character to this well-aged book. I started to brainstorm as to how best to bring out the book's feel and thought of my 80+ year old grumpy granny and her well-aged hands. She's still reasonably healthy and had chosen to follow the Buddhist spiritual path some years back.

Asked her to be my model and promised her that only her hands will be in the picture and she willingly agreed. A black background and a short burning red candle completes the picture.

The small light from the candle itself wasn't enough to show the details of both the book and the hands. Following Joe McNally's example, I put a CTO onto my flash and placed it behind the candle facing the book to provide enough illumination for the details.

Here's a ugly sketch of the lighting diagram:



Please understand that I'm not trying to have any religious or moral debate here... just a short explanation on how I want my picture to turn out.

Although the book deals with dying, I don't want the picture to have a morbid feel. I want to give it a realist touch, that all of us will face death one day and one should not feel its taboo to read up on it. What we don't know or understand scares us and by reading to understand, fear of the unknown can be better handled or managed.

I decided to give the scene more light to:

1. Dispel any morbid feel
2. Allow me to shoot at f11 for more details
3. Allow me to shoot at my preferred 1/125s for sharp image
4. Allow me to use ISO100 for least noise

The 580EX II was fitted with the Sonia Optical Slave and was fired via a trigger flash by an old Sunny 500 simple flash (with DIY deflector) hotshoe mounted on camera.

I would have wanted a dark brown grainy wooden table top as the background but I don't have one at home. Chose black so that the mood is solemn. A short burning candle is used to project how life is constantly slowly burning away. 

Spent some time in preparing the set and had some test shots taken to confirm the picture before inviting granny into my room for the shoot.

Because I had to close the windows and switch off the fan to steady the candle flame, the room gets warm & stuffy fast (here in sunny Singapore) and... she's rather impatient... so its better to have everything done up before getting her over and complete the shoot in less than 3mins.

I really hoped that I had managed to bring out the character of the book and one of the book's notion of "spiritual practices for the moment of death". This is really the first picture that I had given much thought, planning and preparation... all the while I'd been just a trigger happy "snapper".

Walking my journey to be a "thinking" photographer  :)


Shooting Notes:
Camera Body: Canon 40D
Lens: EF 50mm f/1.4 USM with Hood
Mode: Manual - Av @ 11, Tv @ 125
ISO: 100
Focusing: Auto
Monopod: Manfrotto 680B with Manfrotto 678 Universal Folding Base
Ball-Head: Slik 800 Quick Release
Flash: Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash
Diffuser: Gary Fong Lightsphere Universal
Flash Gel: Rosco’s “The Strobist Collection” #3401 Roscosun 85 (5500K to 3200K)
Optical Slave: Sonia Optical Slave
Trigger Flash: Sunny 500 with DIY deflector