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It’s My Best Photo Ever! 38 PRACTICAL PHOTOGRAPHY
PHILIP LEE HARVEY TRAVEL A young monk boy in traditional dress, Ladakh, India What’s the story behind this image? I took it back in 1998 in the Indian Himalayas. It was a self-funded trip to shoot the Festival of the Sun in a town called Ladakh. There’s a monastery there called Lamayury, and I found this young monk, who was in traditional dress. I grabbed my camera and managed to get three frames of him, and then he left, and I didn’t see him after that. I’ve no idea what his name was or how old he was, and he’s probably never seen this shot, which is a shame. This was one of those fortunate moments where I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Two minutes later, and I would have missed it. Back then, most photographers would have used a Polaroid first and taken meter readings. I didn’t do either, so I had to guess at the exposure. I was always pretty good at getting it to within a stop. Was there a language barrier? We didn’t say a word to each other. I assume he didn’t know any English and I certainly don’t speak Ladakhi (similar to Tibetan), so I had to rely on visual communication. He knew I was taking an image of him, and didn’t seem to mind, but it was such a fleeting moment “THIS IMAGE HELPED ME REALISE WHAT I COULD ACHIEVE” there was no time to interact. I didn’t even pose him – he just happened to be standing in the perfect position under a veranda outside a temple, which gave me that lovely sidelighting on the face. The fact that I didn’t set the shot up is what makes the expression so natural. What do you think makes this image so visually appealing? This shot works on so many levels. It’s perhaps most striking because of the minimalism of its colour – this is a classic less-is-more image where the frame isn’t overcomplicated. I’ve always been big on colour theory, and I’ve always tried to give my shots a painterly look. It probably comes from my Dad, who was an artist. As well as the colour, it’s really important that the viewer has direct eye contact with the subject, which almost always makes for a really striking portrait. Compositionally, I love the way the lines on the hat and in the fabric help to draw the viewer towards the face, and the rule-of-thirds is at work there too which gives the shot balance. This image is timeless, and it really makes you ask questions about the subject. Who is this person? Where’s he from? What’s his story? Travel photography can work out like that sometimes, and that’s the reason I love it. How was this shot edited? I took this image on a medium-format film camera, so of course it wasn’t digitally edited. Even though I could now take it into Photoshop and tweak it, I love it exactly as it is. Sometimes, it’s the imperfections that can give a shot its character. To be honest, I don’t do much editing even these days. This image is actually cross-processed. For the film geeks out there, I used Fuji 64T tungsten transparency film, then processed it as C41 to produce a negative. I then printed it onto a flat transparency film that wasn’t even designed for photography. I shoot everything digitally now, but I’m so glad I learned the ropes on film cameras – it gave me an amazing understanding of how images work that you don’t always get when shooting digital. On a personal level, why is it so special to you? Not only was this the best shot I took on my trip, but it was a turning point in my career. It was the first image I took that helped me realise what I could achieve. It actually changed the way I approached travel photography in general – I stopped relying on going to dramatic places to get dramatic shots, and realised I could get them anywhere. It was great for my career too, as it won lots of awards. THE GEAR I USED... HASSELBLAD 503CW 35mm film wasn’t good enough and if you’re investing that kind of money in a trip, you want the best results possible. I wanted to bring a higher production value to travel photography. At the time the Hasselblad was the best quality ‘portable’ camera on the market. 120MM F/4 LENS On mediumformat, a 120mm focal length is the 35mm film equivalent of an 80mm focal length, making it ideal for portraits. It also allows a shallower effective depth-of-field than an f/4 lens used on a standard 35mm camera, so photographers can achieve a blurry background. Philip Lee Harvey is a multi-award winning travel photographer. His journey has taken him to 120 countries, including some of the world’s most inhospitable locations. Prints of his images are available on his website. philipleeharvey.com PRACTICALPHOTOGRAPHY.COM 39
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