The "ORGANISM"

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 3

A single "ORGANISM". That's what Tanmay Sir wants us to be. Instead we keep insisting on proving that we are merely a ten individual thrown together. Two days have passed and not much improvement.

As everyday, the wake up call happened. And we were there on time at 9:45 and everyone was there! Achievement of its own! While I smiled and became happy God chuckled and said, "Not so easy you fool!" 

CUT TO 

Three people standing outside. Supposedly revolting! How? One by not writing the blog! One by revolting through the writing on the blog! The other refusing to write on blog at all (He would rather use PPT)! Everybody was there but Sir wasn't and as time passed the negative vibe in the class started boiling up.

Sir stood outside the department observing us. Some of us stood outside too. We didn't do anything to handle the situation which we should have. 

Sir entered and by then already I had a sinking feeling in my stomach saying things were about to go south(which again no one did anything about it!). As predicted, since one of has not written the blog Sir would not proceed. What commenced was a verbal conflict between Sir and the "Discontented Ones".

The "Discontented Ones" were not happy. JJ sat in the middle fuming. Mainak by his side poking him to take the lead. Sreecheta on the other hand was showing various kind of displeasure in her dance drama expressions. While JJ started ranting about how he has been highly frustrated and he was almost verge on tears and how he wanted to probably commit suicide, all I did staring at him was to figure out how the JJ I knew had vanished completely. The JJ I knew was a very brave person not afraid to tread a difficult path and here he was sitting and throwing big words being the most coward person. Mainak was still stuck and kept on arguing that it was not possible to tread the path which was being suggested by Sir. Sreecheta being the ex journalist came forward with big fat terms like anarchy, free will and how this forum was just about throttling them down. Sir sat there with patience. Suddenly he said stop, and everyone fell quite. Sir said that for this to go on there needs to be a decorum that needs to be followed and whenever he said stop people had to stop. This continued for quite some time when The "Discontented Ones" would be stopped by Sir in middle of the sentence. This made them more angry.

And here we, "The (supposedly) Contented Ones", were having our own hang ups. Some were getting angry, one was getting frustrated, while I don't know for what joy I was going on a guilt trip thinking why was I not being able to make them understand the basic simple point.The whole situation became very heavy and negative by the time we broke for lunch.

I was very angry and frustrated to that extent that I actually locked myself up and started crying. At that time I thought I was angry on JJ and Sreecheta and probably that's why I cried. But later once Kirti got me out of the toilet and I had some fresh air the answer hit me. I was stunned. I thought I was tolerant. I thought I was big enough to extend my arms and take all of them in. But I realized I was nowhere near. I realized I had to be bigger. And I was angry because as all the other people who were not understanding to leave their egos behind even I was somehow stuck there. The realization taught me that no matter how much you think you know yourself there is still many layers to peal. There is still chances where you will be exposed and then comes the defense mechanism that hits. The ego stands and grips you and won't let you move until you stand up and push it out with all your might. And I kept repeating to myself that this was my test. I had to push real hard. If in my life my motto was really to touch people's life then I have to rise above my EGO! I have to stick it through. I knew in my heart of my heart that if I could stick it through then I would be a better person and much closer to what I want out of my life.

Anyways, second half started again with verbal conflicts, it just felt very desolate.

The ORGANISM at work
1/25, f 3.5, 35 mm, ISO 400

One of "Discontented Ones" just didn"t turn up. One by one people started going to call him. Sir remained calm. Said that either he would come or the class will go to him. But everyone had to be together. On the other hand Hari's situation kept going on and on. Would he leave or not. Did we want him to leave or not. Did he want to leave or not. But somehow Hari was stuck. After sending three people to fetch JJ, Sir suddenly told us to take our pin hole camera and head out. We went out and checked out our cameras. After a while Sir said that all of us would now go to call the person who have not yet come. So we picked up all of their cameras and was just about to go when we saw all 4 of them coming to class. Good God! Miracle! The "ORGANISM" got down to work.

So, we started experimenting with the pin hole cameras again this time inside class.

Hindol checking his pinhole camera.
1/50, f 4.5, 35 mm, ISO 400

We started checking with a camera with one pin hole. We had a bulb for a source and we figured that once we point it to the source we get an inverted image of the bulb filament.

The source used by us

f-stop- f/9, focal length- 79mm, shutter speed- 1/200sec, ISO- 100

Our camera with one pin hole

f-stop- f/2.8, focal length- 50, shutter speed- 1/50sec, ISO- 1600

Inverted image of the bulb filament

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 106mm, shutter speed- 1/20, ISO- 1000

A modern day camera actually sees the image inverted but there is a mirror to invert it and show it to us in the view finder so that we can see an upright image.

What happened now was some of us had a longer hood and some one had a shorter hood to their pin hole camera. We saw that the people who had a shorter hood that sometimes when we place our eye very close to the hood we see an out of focus image but as we move our eye a bit back, the image comes to focus.

This is implemented by the diopter setting in the modern day camera. In pin hole camera it is about the physical distance but with diopter setting that distance is created by a particular lens.

Now Sir told us to remove the hood of our pin hole camera. As we did that we felt that the image formed was getting diluted. We realized that this was because the hood was cutting the light coming from the outside (noise). So, once we remove the hood, the light from outside dilutes the image and thus it starts looking hazy.

The diluted image once the hood is taken off

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed- 1/80, ISO- 2000

This just shows why we need the eye piece of the view finder.

Some of us were really confused now why only the bulb was seen and why not the other things in front of the pin hole camera. 

The brightest object makes an image

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 57mm, shutter speed- 1/20 sec, ISO- 1000

Sir explained that the camera sees the brightest object compared to the objects in its vicinity. Now that I am writing it I realize I am not that clear regarding it.

Now we came to a point where we moved our pin hole cameras to right and left keeping the object in frame. Sir pointed out to us that the image moves in the opposite direction as the image is inverted, ie. if we move to right the image too exists from right. It is same for top and bottom too.

Now Sir insisted that we make another hole in our pin hole camera. Once we did that we got 2 inverted image in the pin hole camera.

Pin hole camera with 2 holes

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 41mm, shutter speed- 1/20sec, ISO- 400

2 inverted images

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 35mm, shutter speed- 1/13, ISO- 800

We learnt that 2 images are formed because light enters from each of the pin holes and form individual images.

Now, the question came how could we make the image brighter? So, we suggested we could make the hole bigger. So, we did that but we realized that the image becomes blurred.

Pin hole made bigger

f-stop- f/4.5, focal length- 18, shutter speed- 1/60sec, ISO- 1600

Blurred Image

f-stop- f/4.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/60 , ISO- 6400

Now the question rose that why would it become blurred. To explain this Sir took another camera and made multiple holes in it. He made 1 hole separate and other 3 hole very close to each other.

Multiple pin holes with 1 hole separate and 3 holes close to each other

f-stop- 5.6, focal length-  79mm, shutter speed- 1/20sec, ISO- 500

Image formed by the multiple pin hole camera

f-stop- 5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed-1/6sec , ISO-3200

Here we see that 2 images are getting formed. 1 clear image is getting formed by the 1 separate pin hole while the 3 pin holes create 3 images but as the holes are very close together the images overlap and forms one image but it is distorted because of the overlapping.

So, from this explained that one big pin hole is nothing but many small pin hole bunched together. Now, each of these many pinholes makes an image each and these images overlaps and thus becomes blurry.

The question still remains how to make the image brighter without loosing the focus? But I have not been able to find the proper answer. The only probability it seems to me is to make the source intensity more. But I highly doubt that would be the right answer!

We tried with two pin hole cameras with different tube diameters.

Two cameras with different diameter

f-stop- 4.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/60sec, ISO- 1600

Image formed with the smaller diameter camera

f-stop- f/4.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/60sec, ISO- 1600

Image formed by the bigger camera

f-stop- 4.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/60sec, ISO- 1600

We had kept the source size same and also the distance of the camera from the source same. What we observed was that in the smaller diameter camera the image fills up the whole screen while in the bigger diameter camera it looked smaller. This was because here the screen was behaving like the sensor. As the sensor size increases it is possible to capture more in the image.

We now took 2 cameras of different length.

Two cameras of different length

f-stop- 5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed- 1/100, ISO- 1600

Image formed by the longer tube pin hole camera

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed- 1/100sec, ISO- 1600

Image formed by the shorter tube pin hole camera

f-stop- 5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed- 1/100sec, ISO- 1600

In this we realized that as the length of the tube increases so does the image size. This was happening because in the longer tube the light was travelling for a longer time and was thus making a big angle on the screen. This is what would happen in tele lenses.

We learnt about diffraction. It is the process by which a beam of light is spread out as a result of passing through a narrow aperture or across an edge, typically accompanied by interference between the wave forms produced. 

Refraction is the bending of a wave when it enters a medium where its speed is different. The refraction of light when it passes from a fast medium to a slow medium bends the light ray toward the normal to the boundary between the two media. The amount of bending depends on the indices of refraction of the two media and is described quantitatively by Snell's Law.

Then Sir taught us how to take a macro picture using a magnifying glass in front of our camera. We realised that we could go closer to the object using the magnifying glass.

A pic with max wide and close focus of my camera

f-stop- 3.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/30, ISO- 3200

Same picture now using a magnifying glass behaving as macro lens

f-stop- 3.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/30, ISO- 3200

It was a great ending to a very very frustrating day! In the morning Pakajda had come with the register and had asked Sir to mark who were absent. Sir had sent him back, nodding to himself saying that he will mark everyone at the end of the day, then smiled to us and said that he knew everyone will be there by the end. During the day there were so many times that I wondered that this might not come true but somehow Sir knew it would. I was proud of all of us. In pursuit of happiness this was when I was happy. In fact we even proposed to push a holiday for the coming Sunday. Tanmay Sir seconded it too. Hindol took up the work of calling up Subhodro da to check if it was possible to take a holiday on Sunday.

But the moment didn't last long. As we came outside, Hari who had already informed us that he would be anyways going, now posed the question if we would allow him to be an observer in our set when he comes back. We were very happy in that moment and being benevolent we, unanimously said we would accept him back. But that was not such a right decision, as we realized soon enough as Hari didn't even stand there for a moment more. So, ORGANISM had already one organ less.  

The lesson I learnt from this day was that no matter how tolerant you think you are there would always be scope to become more tolerant. I learnt that when there is a fight somehow both the parties gets hurt. I learnt ego can be the biggest hindrance of ones life! I learnt the path chosen by us is not easy......but definitely something to be proud of!!

At the end of the day Tanmay Sir's "Organism" came out of the class with a smile. I hope this smile lasts!!