NEW - Ken Gilbert

A B
THE OUTTAKES: These guys (A) give you
a sense of how hard it is to breathe, but
what’s really missing is the energy of the
festival. Still a great shot (B), but without
the fl ying powder, it’s not the winner.
During the day it’s very intense:
People hug strangers, people throw
powder at each other. All shapes
are covered in powdered pink,
yellow, green—any color you can
think of. When it all mixes together,
it looks like smog. In this picture
you’re seeing a mix of purple, red,
and yellow. That’s why you can’t
really tell what color it is.
HOLI MOLY! This Canon
EOS-1D Mark II lived to
tell the tale.
Q. How did you keep your
cameras clean?
A. I tried to cover them with
plastic bags, but it didn’t work.
You cannot shoot when you cannot
reach the controls. Plus the camera
immediately gets dirty with the
powder. It’s a mess. Luckily I had two
Canon EOS-1D Mark II cameras.
They’re water-tight and dustproof. I
was able to go through this madness
without any mechanical problems. I
had a fi lter, and that’s what saved the
lens. The entire day I was shooting
nonstop without any protection for my
cameras. Afterward, I couldn’t clean
them the traditional way—I put them
under the hot water tap and scrubbed
them with a toothbrush. There was no
damage. That’s why I have so much
respect for Canon engineers.
Q. What lens did you use?
A. The Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L
tilt-shift lens. That’s why the powder
is sharp and the kids in the middle
are sharp and everything to the left
and right is blurred. Because Holi is
so often photographed, I wanted to
shoot it like no other photographer
did. People are used to such sharp,
bright pictures that are so correct that
they’re no longer interesting. When I
use the tilt-shift, it’s a little puzzling
and people can’t fi gure out right away
what they’re looking at.
Q. How did you set exposure?
A. The light changed constantly
because the streets were narrow and
fi lled with powder. I changed my ISO
from 100 to 800 and then to 400. Then
I had to change my white balance from
Auto to Daylight and then to Shadow
to get at least remotely correct color
reproduction. Eventually I ended up
shooting everything with the Cloudy
setting, then tweaking it in RAW
conversion. This exposure was set in
aperture-priority to f/4.5 at 1/800 sec.
Q. What makes this one
the best shot?
A. It has the color and the emotion
and it gives you an idea how crazy
the festival is. The powder that you
see fl ying through the air is actually
fl ying at me. The next moment I
was covered in it. p
POP PHOTO MAY 2009 WWW.POPPHOTO.COM 19