If you are a photo enthusiast and are planning to visit the most popular tourist places in India to capture them in all their fervour, the best time to do so is when the city or town is celebrating a local festival. With a number of opportunities to take some exciting portraits and create enchanting photo essays, here is your essential guide to taking pictures during festivals in India.
- Choosing the Right Gear
Festivals in India, like anywhere else in the world provide a range of opportunities for great wide angle shots to even telephoto perspectives. It is thus recommended that you bring with you two cameras with two different lenses. Make sure you also bring with you faster memory cards and an extra battery. Having a pocket point and shoot camera can also prove to be handy on your photo journey.
- Choosing the Right Photo Mode
Most expert photographers recommend that you use an AI Focus with a continuous shooting mode. This will help you take some great candid pictures and also easily capture subjects that are in movement. Many photographers also prefer to shoot in the aperture priority mode since it helps achieve the right depth of field as well as composition.
- Research the Location and the Festival
With a number of enchanting places to visit in India, even during national festivals, make sure you do you due diligence on which part of the country provides the most extravagant form of celebrations. For instance, Dusshera celebrations in Mysore are known to be gorgeous, while you may want to be in Gujarat during Navaratri. Witnessing a festival in India is a life time experience you want to optimize. Make sure you do some research about the setting, the type of people you can expect, the dressing styles, languages and rituals followed. This way you can make sure that your camera doesn’t miss any critical moments worth capturing.
- Note the Sunrise and Sunset times in the City
Often considered to be the “magic hours” research the hours in advance and find out if there are any type of rituals or celebrations that take place around this time of the day. This way, you will be able to get some perfect shots during the key hours of the day.
- Shoot By Yourself
Even if you may be on your trip as a part of a larger group, when you are working, it is recommended that you do so alone. Considering how challenging it is to find original shots, having other photographers following you around may hinder your creativity. Furthermore, subjects too, tend to get nervous or confused when faced with too many photographers in one go. If you are travelling with a group of photographers as a part of a workshop, try to venture out and get a different angle or point of view.
When exploring a city that is burst in celebration, it is easy to get carried away by the sheer number of people, colours and things going on around you. Especially if you are not used to such sights in your home country, it is important that you find ways to control yourself and save your memory space and battery for pictures that will be more meaningful. Instead of simply going on a rampage of taking pictures, soak in the scenes around you and assess what is going on before you start to shoot the pictures. Since you may not have much room for staged pictures, you will want to make sure that your composition is planned to the tee but within moments.
