Lens – GMB AKASH

Invincible Faces

“I am fascinated to some faces, some characters who are incredibly important to me as a photographer or as an admirer. Many of these faces are invisible but their spirits for living life makes them invincible. Journey of portraying these invincible characters starts long ago when I find out there are certain people who are icons of heroism and enthusiasms. Over and over again I go back to them, find them out and by portraying them able to keep a part of these victors with me.” – Gmb Akash

© GMB Akash / www.akash-images.com

Often get inspired by these faces I go to isolated group/people who are ordinary or I can say by having an urge to go to these people is my practice for understanding them. As an individual they are available around us, living life in troubled climate every day. But their willingness to over come difficulties titled them Invincible. My characters are raw, picked from a sticky street or from an isolated brothel or even from a dumped factory. Every face is passing a message of anticipation. I have learned to run my photography equipments; I have studied to learn to take portraits or getting a best environmental portrait. But when I concentrate beyond technical things, these characters become icons to me. I looked into them through the lens and I tried to pick the message of anticipation into the photograph. This is the biggest challenge which has no rules, which can never be taught, which can be only a self taught rule of getting invincible faces into photograph.

© GMB Akash / www.akash-images.com

I emphasize the character. I want to present them vividly. I go to very close to my characters. Apart everything, I focused them. In spite of taking environmental portrait, often I try to present the environment differently. When the characters become focused, my concerns packed to represent these faces as a representative of their own environment. I would like to make imagine the audience – where these faces are come form, where they live in, what they do. Inviting questions can be way of portraying significant things which we mostly over look.

© GMB Akash / www.akash-images.com

Most of the time, I have to work in very compact situation. Often I been located, where life is put in a box of measured 8 feet by 8 feet room or in a distressed noisy factory or even in an abandoned colony where I have to pass by three feet narrow road. I need to be patience and keep trying to work in these compact situations. Often I hardly get changes to use lot of lens. I am comfortable with 24mm and besides habituated I believe it is good to work with one kind to work fast and flexibly. For taking portrait I use 70mm. I do not like lot of distraction. My image should be clear and focused.

© GMB Akash / www.akash-images.com

For taking environmental portrait, placement of the character is hard thing. I keep in mind environment should not disturb the character, I am taking in. It has to be supportive to each other. But I prefer to believe in my photos, character is presenting the environment; environment is not presenting the character.

© GMB Akash / www.akash-images.com

– I always use natural light. No flush gun and no manipulation. Even in a bad light day I tried to use the available light into the character little differently so that it creates a different mood.

– Simplicity and be straight is my rule. Be focused, use simple background, experiment with color and get closer to the character.

– However near or far is my character, however intimate or distant the gaze my camera directs, I always keep in mind the elements of composition and the technique that will best help me to communicate what I am trying to say.

© GMB Akash / www.akash-images.com

– I prefer to intimate with the character I am going to portrait. Relation and building trust is important. Many times people refused me to take photos, but I never gave up, I always make them understand what I am doing, telling the effectiveness of the shot. And if I failed I do not force but I never fail to try.

– It is helpful to get environmental portraits by finding out where they spend their time, what the rhythm of their life is like and observing their personality.

© GMB Akash / www.akash-images.com

“I think the art of photography is to observe and document in your own personal way. On my way I found these invincible faces which are inspiring to keep my searches on. These insignificant characters are inspirations to win over all chances of life. Connecting these invincible souls in photograph has no rules. Besides photography, I learnt from them, we need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We should think that we are invincible because we are.”

– Gmb Akash

© GMB Akash / www.akash-images.com

Unseen Existence

“Environs can explain much. You can feel the existence without presence. & sometimes absence is required to feel this presence more intensely. I started believing these things while I captured few moments of nonexistence. Yet these moments profound very much in exist of living being. I have taken these moments from various part of my world, however they are all alike. These are like footprints of a missing thing; you can assume the missing focus through edges. Welcome you in the puzzle. Fill in the gaps by your thought” – Gmb Akash

In the middle of the field, crops are baking by sun. These harvested crops are waiting to be carried to home. The field is reflecting efforts of an unknown farmer. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

Rofiq ( 28 ) is a daily labor in his dream city ‘Dhaka’, Dreams pushed him here & reality left his identity far in a village, where his wife, children Shohel and Shaila & their parrot counting days & nights for him. In every six months reality let him go to where he left his heart. In Dhaka city, wall of a room of a slum is whispering his silent pains. In the walls he draws his feelings with the scratch of reality. He, his wife, their children & the parrot a family, all accommodated in the brick of lonely wall. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

Bended trees remain to tell the tale of a nightmare of Cyclone. Aila hit the top of these trees & gave the mark of an unseen ferocity. The silence of the place is claimed by broken trees, miles after miles. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

Circus gradually loses its heritage for convergent entertainments. Still empty chairs of Circus are hoping to accommodate the vast missing audiences. Thus these refers the lost crowd & as well state for the hope of gaining back. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

In every week slum dweller waits eagerly to take the taste of chicken. Fortune gives them the chance. In Rayerbazar- shop keepers sold chickens to restaurants & they left the head of those chickens for those waited people. Slum dwellers buy those chicken head once in a week. Fortune gives them a chance to take the taste of chicken by having these chicken head. Dhaka. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

In the bank, the boat is waiting to sail. A family of eight members is dependent on this boat. The boat is stand for the arrival of the fisherman. A family exist behind this single boat. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

This cassette player is a very dear thing for its slum dwellers. They have no space for placing this. So they hang from the top to manage space. Behind this cassette player, hundreds of slum dwellers entertainment awaits. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

An old car standing at door step of its owner. Manila, Philippines © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

Under the severe water crisis, inhabitants of shatkhira stand are line at mid night. Their water pots represent their standing in the queue. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

Cyclone Aila ruined the house & the lives of inhabitants just before three days. People of this house have to leave their home. Aila force them to live on embankment. They family still tried to dry their children books on the roof of the house. After the devastating calamity they could not totally leave the hope to live in their house. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

Day laborers of Philippine are drying their cloths outside their living place. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

This is the living space of a rickshaw puller’s family. They bought the old TV from a second hand shop. At evening along neighbors, they happily straggled with the old TV to watch. © GMB Akash / www.gmb-akash.com

“Life – a one way journey….We should not regret any moment which make us smile…We should make our self happy with all little pleasure of our life ….even if we have everything, we haven’t had tomorrow…Lets fill our all gaps by our presence of love, appreciations & thoughtfulness. We may leave forever, & then our environs might tell our tale ceaselessly. Let the light lit our absence.” – Gmb Akash

Faces Tell Stories

“Among all – Human faces are most attractive to me. Every face has a story. We as photographers reveal that undiscovered story through our lens. Faces tell stories, tell the situation of the person, and tell the story of the place the person lives in. Wherever I go somewhere I always come across to faces those are different and eventually try to find characteristic of the community; every place has its own perception, story of smell, a person bears these things in his/her appeal. I search for story behind the face, so faces are incredible to me. Through out searching the portrait we could find strange stories of lives of people from different places that we never recognize before. I am going to share my experiences during the journey of finding unnoticed faces”

– Gmb Akash

I search for getting an interesting character, a face that is unusual. I search such face in the middle of crowd. My first prior attention is the selection of the person, choosing the right character. Before I take any portrait I try to be familiar with the person. I talk to him/her and try to build a relationship with the person I will photograph. I give them time to be normal in front of my camera. I introduce myself to them. When the person gives his/her most natural expression to me, I take out my camera then start shooting. I believe it is the strongest factor which I practice so far to get a close snap of a human soul.

For me light is the most important element for getting an excellent portrait. I try to use different type of light; I try to shoot in different time of the day to get different colour and mode of light. Every light has its own appeal for creating different portraits of an individual.

Technically I use 35mm (f 1.4), 24-70 mm (2.8) lenses. But I take portrait with all kind of lens I have. Truly to say I do not care about my equipments much. For me the most important is – the person. Some times I also use very open aperture like 1.4 to get very low depth of field. So my eyes only go to my subject. As in some cases the surrounding environment is very important, so in that time I use aperture 8 to get all the elements in focus. But I do not like using very wide angel lens and I do not like a lot of distortion on the photo. I saw many people use wide angel lens for most of their works. If you use very wide thing, the picture look interesting because of the distortion. But in my opinion then the picture looks like it has taken by the wide angel lens not by a photographer. So I don’t use too much wide angle. And thus I try to make my images clean and direct.

I have strong affection for color. I am a color photographer and I believe color photography is more challenging so as complicated. When I can meet the challenge I feel relieved. I am always very careful for using light and color. I love shooting in the early morning and late afternoon. But while I take portrait in the mid day I try to shoot them in the shadow, indoor or under flat light. It creates mystical environment.

I try to use very simple background while I am taking close up portrait, so that the background might not disturb the subject and I try to use lot of – window soft light. Eyes have significance to me. One of the most important things in my images is eyes of the person. Eyes tell the story of that person. Eyes tell the unseen background of the person which I always hunt to discover.

– For me the most prior factor is the character of my portrait. The light, color, eyes & the person must have to be blend with me. I align four factors together for taking a special portrait they are – the person, the light, eyes & color.

– Attention is the most hidden factor to get a good portrait. The person need to be familiar with you and the camera, it will be your prior duty to make the person natural as well comfortable for getting a best shot.

– Several rules applied by photographers for getting experimental portraits. Every photographer has his/her own style of taking portrait. Often the most remarkable portraits are those that break all the rules, so it’s important to create your own rules to get a master copy which might never done by some one before.

– Expression indicating the direction of the person’s eyes which can impact an image astonishingly. For me it’s important to observe the right moment of the direction of eyes.

– For creating interesting images you need to give trial, for creating interesting placement of your subject. After Creative thinking, creative placement can sometimes create out of the ordinary images.

– There are almost unlimited possibilities when it comes to use light in portraits. Input of light could make a portrait more or less powerful, as well side lighting, back lighting, silhouetting can spot specific features.

– Never fail to align your mind, eyes & lens together to find the inner beauty of the portrait.

“Any Book or text or any experience sharing can not demonstrate “Portraits” practically. Pick your camera explores faces to get a good portrait. And you are welcome if my single practical example or feedback could uphold your knowledge”

– Gmb Akash

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: