Facing the World: December 2018

30 December 2018

Sharing Photos on Flickr

Flickr is a popular image hosting website for international users to share and embed personal photographs, and a successful online community. Its service is widely used by both amateur and professional photographers as well as photo researchers in order to host images that they embed in blogs, websites and social media. Flickr has a total of almost 100 million registered users who share about one million photos every day. Photos can be accessed from Flickr without the need to register an account but an account must be made to upload content onto their website. I’m an active member of the Flickr online community: Matt Hahnewald - Facing the World.

Until the 31st of December 2018, as shown below, the following Top Ten of my more than 2,000 uploaded international portrait photographs were rated on Flickr as the most interesting ones, according to the views, faves and comments from all my Flickr friends and followers (and Flickr's interestingness algorithm):

matt hahnewald photography; facing the world; photography; photo; image; psychological; amazing; spectacular; dynamic; lively; nikon d3100; nikkor af-s 50mm f/1.8g; prime lens; 50mm lens; 4x3; horizontal format; street; portraiture; double portrait; half-length portrait; closeup; full-face view; yellow, red; outdoor; color; colorful; world cultures; cultural; character; personality; real people; human head; forehead; human face; makeup; painted face; face painting; third eye; sacred ash; vibhuti; urdhva pundra; human eyes; facial expression; lived in face; wrinkles; eye contact; full beard; long hair; sadhu; headwrap; prayer shawl; body language; gesture; blessing; raised right hand; consent; empathy; rapport; respect; encounter; relationship; travel portrait; hinduism; vaishnavism; durbar square; kathmandu; nepal; two people; male; old man; posing; awesome; beggar; red; yellow

matt hahnewald photography; facing the world; people; character; head; face; forehead; dark; complexion; skin tone; eyes; catchlights; sunglasses; sunnies; shades; mirrored; reflexion; mirror; expression; looking camera; short; short beard; full beard; body language; pose; right; hand; fingers; sunglasses on forehead; consent; rapport; fun; concept; humanity; living; lifestyle; fashion; style; roadside; bundi; rajasthan; india; indian; asia; asian; individual; one person; male; young; man; hairstyle; photography; photo; detail; natural frame; background; nikon D610; nikkor afs 85mm f1.8g; 85mm; 4 x 3 ratio; resized; 1,200 x 900 pixels; horizontal; street; portrait; half length; closeup; seven eighths view; outdoor; color; posing; smiling mouth closed; handsome

This is the final blog entry in my photo blog on Blogger/Blogspot. It will be replaced by my regularly updated Flickr account: Matt Hahnewald - Facing the World. Thank you for following, until now and from now on.

10 December 2018

Romancing Colourful Indian Gypsies

The Indian Banjara gypsies aka Gor, Lamans, Lambadi, Lambhani, Lambani and/or Gormati are a community of nomadic people who originate from the Marwar region of Rajasthan. They have spread gradually into Karnataka and Kashmir and are now found all over India.

The Banjara people’s culture and art form a significant aspect of their identity and include rangoli, embroidery and tattooing. The women specialize in lepo embroidery, which involves stitching pieces of mirror, decorative beads and coins onto their bright and colourful cotton attire. Their headscarves are also embroidered decoratively. Banjara women wear many heavy, often white, bangles aka bandiya on their arms. Their jewelry consists of nose rings, necklaces, beads, silver rings and hair clips which are often mistaken for large earrings when they are in fact tied to the woman’s plaited hair.

The nomadic desert gypsies of Rajasthan are one of the most colourful tribal communities in India. Their bright colours, piercing gaze, henna hands, stylish headscarves and traditional jewelry scream everything "gypsy", as they refer to themselves, and their traditional attire tells the long story of these people's history in the sand dunes of Rajasthan. The origin of the tribe dates several centuries back. The people of this Rajasthani tribe belong currently to the lowest step of India’s socio-cultural and socio-economic ladder. They live a nomadic life and travel as dancers and musicians like a caravan from place to place. There is no permanent residence for them. They sleep under the open sky some times and in the shade of trees...

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2018-12a Romancing Indian Gypsies
Flickr Album 2015-03a Colouring Vibrant Rajasthan

What's a Portrait?

About Street Portraiture:

(i) The Street Photographer’s State of Mind

Get yourself into a resourceful, open-minded and relaxed state of mind, leave your hide-out and interact with the world. Use any silly hat, have a drink, or apply any of those fancy “think-positive” techniques. Your own state of mind will spread to and infect your portrait subject...

(ii) The Street Photographer’s Intention

Release the shutter with the deliberate intention of “Right now, I'm producing a distinctive portrait photograph”. Find your individual style by applying self-imposed technical constraints (e.g. of the theme, of the aspect ratio, of the techniques, of the lenses, of the composition); less is more...

(iii) The Street Photographer’s Waiver

Decide if it’s better to give it a miss instead of taking a bad photo. In the field, if there is a shred of doubt, don’t take this snap. It’s probably better to take a cerebral snapshot and to enjoy the situation. At your computer, if there is a shred of doubt, delete the image; it’s probably better to download a good image from the internet and to learn from it...

(iv) The Street Photographer’s Attitude

Trust the viewer's active mind. Your photo is just a small trigger for the bigger and better internal picture inside the viewer’s mind. Allow the viewer’s mind to create interesting internal pictures (and movies) by offering images of (a) parts and details, (b) symbols and logos, (c) contrasts and contradictions. Co-operate with the viewer’s creative mind, keep the viewer’s mind busy and seduce your viewer to complete your photo, to improve your photo, to add (her or his) sense to your photo, to fantasize about your photo, and to mentally exceed your own photo...

(v) The Street Photographer’s Tools

Remember the meaning of the word photography and master the light with your eye, with your camera and with your computer: (a) see the light, (b) harness the light and (c) bend the light. But, bear in mind, your shoes are your most important piece of equipment. Use them liberally to get closer (or further away, sometimes), to play with angles and to find your unique point of view...

About Portrait Lenses:

The first thing to consider is focal length. If you're using a camera with a (cropped) APS-C format image sensor (e.g. the Nikon D3100), a 50mm lens will give an effective focal length of around 75mm to 80mm. This is very close to the 85mm focal length for a full-frame camera (e.g. the Nikon D610) that's considered ideal for portraiture. Both enable headshots and half-length portraits to be taken from a comfortable distance of around 3 m, so you can direct your subject without crowding in and making them feel awkward.
One particular advantage of using an 85mm lens on a full-frame camera (or a 50mm lens on a cropped-sensor camera) for portraiture is that the short telephoto focal length has the effect of slightly compressing any prominent facial features (think noses and chins) for a bit of added flattery.
Generally, prime lenses offer superior image quality to zoom lenses, which makes the optics on test instantly appealing. Their killer feature, however, is a wide maximum aperture that's usually between f/1.4 and f/1.8 (e.g. the AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G and the AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G both from Nikon). This enables a tight depth of field, so you can blur fussy backgrounds and make the person you're shooting really stand out in an image.

Whereas most texts are Wikipedia-based, all the photographs used in this photo blog are copyrighted by © Matt Hahnewald (Facing the World) and cannot be copied, saved, re-produced, blogged, edited, cropped or printed without my written permission. Most of my portraits are available as high-res images (without any watermarks). Just ask and send an email specifying exactly your planned usage of this photo, or license/buy my photos directly from Alamy.

Thank you for respecting intellectual property.

Places

30 December 2018

Sharing Photos on Flickr

10 December 2018

Romancing Colourful Indian Gypsies