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Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 5

What happens when you have a backlog? Ask anyone of of 12th batch Direction Department!

Finishing 3rd and 4rth Days blog, almost all of us stayed up almost the whole night and the limit was stretched by Hindol and me, we spent the whole night in the internet room of the direction department trying to finish our work. But the beauty was, everyone did it willfully. Nobody complained. We all understood that we had to do it and why we had to do it. 

An interesting thing happened though, late at night when almost all of us sat in the internet room, Sreecheta's blog arrived. This was unexpected because few hours back also we have spoken to her about her situation and she had not only failed to have understood the situation but have completely been blinded by her self. The blog that came dripped with apparent self realization and she projected the image of a prodigal son. But the reality lied somewhere in between the lines. each of her apparent smooth word was loaded with malice. She had understood nothing. Now why I had to tell this back story was because she sauntered in to the class thinking we must be going gaga after reading her false self realization thing. It was awkward and we didn't know what to say.

We all finished our blogs (Though some of us, including me, posted the blog right at the end but believe me we were all trying our best to be as fast as possible!). Sir was not there at the given time, but now all of us knew what was this about. We went about doing our own work. Some of us were editing our blogs, some were going through the terms we were supposed to know about while some of us were finishing reading others blog. It was a well oiled mechanism now and each part did their own work while all of us exactly knew what was happening. 

Subhodro da came in the middle and popped his head in the internet room and and with raised eyebrows(like he does!) looked at me and inquired if Tanmay Sir was late. I had a half smile on my lips (Having fun with the chosen word late and its connection with The Organism.). I told Subhodro da, "No he is not late, this is also a test. He wants to see if we know what to do with our time." Subhodro da chuckled and commented, "It seems he is gonna get even that done what your father and mother couldn't do for you!" Probably it was true!

Sir came and went to the group sitting in CRT first. He saw Sreecheta, accompanied her outside the department to have a chat. Then he came to the lot of us who were re working on the blogs in the internet room. He stated that he wanted to review what we were writing on our blog. He started with Mainak's blog. He went line by line explaining to Mainak how his condescension was showing through. How through the whole blog he was doing nothing but ranting and stroking his own ego.

This led to a class gathering where is was decided that Mainak and Sreecheta had to do a task each as they were not understanding the essence of what we were doing. Mainak was still stuck with his ego while Sreecheta had no clue at all as she has not even ventured to step out of her comfort zone facing her own faults and taking responsibility for them - ego was a very far word for her case, first she needed to understand her self.

Mainak's task was to go to one of our lake islands and build a tower with stones(28 as he is 28 yrs old), which would be taller that him. Sreecheta's work was just to observe him doing that. The only common rule for both of them was that they couldn't speak to anyone or make eye contact. After they had taken our leave to do their respective task, we thought how vain can one be. Mainak was an intelligent guy, I failed to understand that how he could not understand that Sir was telling him to build a representation of his own ego which would be taller than himself. This was just process to make him feel humble. And in spite of him understanding that he was still so stuck that he actually went ahead with the job. Sreecheta on the second day from when the discontent had started from her part had a problem- one of her questions was not being answered. The question was "Why couldn't the human eye zoom in even though it has a variable focal length?" Sir remodeled the question for her and said that after this task she would find her answer to the question only sir stated the question as "why we can't look in closely, even though we have all the faculty to do that" that was the twist in attitude that we were looking for in her.

Anyways, back in class we delved upon how to capture the image now that we were till now seeing though our pin hole cameras. We needed a sensor. So we converted our DLSR cameras into a pin hole camera. We opened the lens and placed a black paper with a pin hole in its place. The camera stated behaving like a pin hole camera. We had control over the shutter speed and ISO.

My first click
1/50, ISO 400, f00

 I started experimenting by varying the Shatter speed and ISO

1/80,ISO 6400, f00

1/40, ISO 3200,f00

1/10, ISO 800, f00

1/3,ISO 200,f00

Then I set out to take my self portrait.

ISO 6400, 1/50, f00

Fun with my pin hole DSLR camera

1/30,ISO 6400,f00

ISO 6400, 1/30

ISO 6400, 1/50, f00

1/40, ISO 6400, f00

1/40, ISO 6400,f00

After lunch Mainak was back. Sreecheta was no where to be seen. Then we sat in the lawn to make an apparatus with which we could get a fully focused image. With black paper, gate way paper and a magnifying glass we achieved that.  Since this aparatus didn't have a name we derived it from Tanmay and Bazooka. We had our first |'Tanmooka'.

We then into class and started doing our experiments with it.

EXP 1:

If the source is further the focal length is lesser than if the source is nearer to us

Tube to be a further object
Shutter speed- 1/20 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 800,  image- focus at infinity.

We see that Hindol's hand holding the magnifying glass is at a certain distance

Bulb to be a nearer object
Shutter speed- 1/30 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 800,  image- focus at nearer object.

Now if you check his hands where he is holding the magnifying glass. 

You will notice that it has now moved further away from his body.

EXP 2:

If a stop is created in the same Tanmooka, how would it vary the foreground and background.

This experiment was misunderstoody by us and with different tube sizes we used different magnification to check for the foreground backgrould relationship. We will be repeating this experiment on Day 6.

Shutter speed- 1/50 F stop- 7.1, ISO- 800,  magnification – 95 mm.

Shutter speed- 1/6 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 800, magnification: 65 mm

EXP 3:

What happens if you move the tanmooka closer to the subject and try to keep the subject in focus – The foreground changes rapidly and the background gradually – this is basically what happens in a dolly zoom.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image- long distance.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image of long distance.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image of middle disatnce.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image of middle disatnce.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image at the closest distance..

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image at the closest distance.

We had worked our ass off. We were dead tired but we were Happy!

Baby Step...

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 4

The day started with a question that Tanmay Sir asked, "Are you late?"

For the past couple of minutes all of us except Sreecheta (her's is a complete different chapter we will delve into later), were loitering around thinking we were waiting for Sir to turn up. We all gave slanted look towards the watch to find it is 10:10 am. We were not in class so technically we were late. So we all nodded. But the googly was yet to come. Sir's next question,"Am I late?" With a very confused stance we all kind of replied with an yes. And then came the next question, "Bosses are never late! So, who do you think is the boss here?" Except for me and Hindol probably everyone else got where this was heading but we stood at "All of us". It took time to realize that we all wanted to bosses but for the time being Sir was the boss- this led to a discussion about if we were seriously our bosses we would have known what to do with ourselves for the time when Sir was not there...but none of us had any clue. I realized what fools we all are, we try to claim that we want to be film makers- the head of the crew, knowing exactly what everybody is supposed to be doing at any given point of time and here we were standing like dodos not even knowing how to handle ourselves for hardly few minutes. 

Sir kept on saying we were late and then it seeped into all of our brains what he was talking about. We were physically in time but were we actually ready. We had it in our mind that we needed to be in time so by hook or by crook we made it on time- without brushing, without breakfast, without bathing etc. Was that being ready? Half of our attention was on food that we didn't eat or probably sleep that was incomplete. Half of us were still posting their blogs at the last moment. We were just being in time because we had to be. This was not a part of us and it would die the moment Sir left. So weren't we late? Yes, we were being very late. But, I just hope we were not too late to mould ourselves to what Sir was trying to teach us!

Once we established that who was the boss, Sir asked me to Salute my Boss and I did. Now he wanted all of us to salute him at once. We started our efforts to to sync our movements for the salute. Even in this simple things where all of us were out of sync, we were not stopping to point out and say that others were not in sync, in the process trying to hide our own fault. Sir compared Film Making to military regime and asked us to choose a leader and Hindol was chosen by us. Now started our training. Suddenly in front of the department door we were lined up in two lines and Hindol stood at front giving us commands of attention, at ease and hoping this would lead to a synced salute at some point. It was so difficult to fall into any physical routine. Everybody thought he/she was doing a perfect job when in actuality the group was performing as a team very badly. Hindol with his misplaced sense humility could not move ahead and passed the baton to Ashok. Though its started off in a better not, it unraveled again. Mainak was the next to play leader and did it for a long time but still did not reach the salute. Neither we were capable to lead neither to follow.

At this special juncture, "The Sreecheta Case" happened. We had to now collectively decide what was to be done with Sreecheta as she had chosen to be somewhere else in spite of knowing that there was class today. Not only that she had written a pompous mail stating how we were at fault as we didn't inform her of class early, she got it all wrong. The bigger purpose for what ever was going was eluding her completely. On a collective census it was decided that she was at fault and she should not be attending rest of the days of the workshop. Though the measure was taken to make her realize but we knew at that point that this will create a hell lot of hullabaloo.

I had always stated to myself that taking a stand was important. There can not exist a person who is neutral. But probably I realized yesterday to come up with the right stand is equally difficult. While everyone chose that Sreecheta should be out of the team, JJ and Ashok thought she should be given another chance. Sir asked a very important question to them. He asked that if that was their stand would they also be thrown out of the group along with her because of this stand. Immediately their answer changed. We as human beings are very self righteous. It's a process of stroking our own egos. telling to one self that we are above than the others. It is also a fear that we should not held responsible for someones misfortune. But when push comes to shove self righteousness doesn't hold good, and u run tither hither to save your ass. JJ and Ashok's case was a classic example of that. They immediately changed their stand.

We had just got that over with and Sir had just started explaining how our blog had dropped its standard. How we were avoiding discussing our problems. How we were not even up to the mark with the technical part of it too, when Sreecheta appeared. I was send to tell her of our decision. I was scared not of Sreecheta but of the situation this would lead to, but anyways I went forward. I told Sreecheta as a group this decision was taken. Even before I had a chance to explain anything more, she just left. I returned empty handed. I was sure Sir had sent me so that probably i could make her understand but that didn't happen.

Back among the group, Sir showed us a video he had made about us. It started with the footage of our first day's Stick finding, then went in to the part where we were using our pin hole cameras outside and the last parts had a voice over to it. It was Himel's voice. Himel had somehow confided in Sir what he felt. He spoke of his friendless situation and his craving to make more friends. And it struck me how all of us were in the same situation. Maybe some of us had few people the spoke with, maybe some other had few more people and then there was Himel who said who didn't have any friend- but the crisis remained same. This institute is actually too big a place for us. We all have our idiosyncrasies and quirks. Some of them we r comfortable to showing others but for some of the other ones, we are not even comfortable to admit to ourselves, thus in the process we have all made ourselves into an island each. And to justify we have erected so many walls of reasons. Until and unless we were to break it like Himel did, probably we wouldn't move an inch.

Sir stated clearly if we do not finish our blogs we don't proceed. So we started with our blogs. Hindol and me were sharing a smoke when JJ came over and asked us if we thought if What was decided about Sreecheta was justified. We tried to explain to him that it was because she needs to understand certain things and if she did it would be her success. So by stating whatever we did to her case we were actually rooting for her to rise above the situation. JJ was confused and said for him this work shop was very important and we stopped him there and simultaneously said that it was not about the workshop. it was about life. And suddenly JJ understood. He turned as if in slow motion talking to himself that it was about life and he hadn't realised it yet. JJ was a transformed man!

For the first time in SRFTI 12th batch history, the whole direction batch went to have lunch together. As we crossed the bridge in front of the guest house, I instinctively knew that Sir would be definitely looking at us from his room balcony and like in movies right in time he came and stood in the balcony. It was a nice sight, the commander looked on as his soldier marched together for the first time.

We came back and started finishing taking pictures for the previous days blog. We needed to brush up the previous day's blog. Sir came by and we started to go through the different terms that we encountered while using our cameras.

Metadata is the information of every image that we take - it consists of the aperture, f stop, histogram etc, there is a little button to guide us there.

Modes on a camera are the different modes in which we can shoot – it is like how we want our camera to work – do we want to shoot it in aperture priority mode? or automatic mode? or manual mode? 

Shutter speed is the time for which the shutter is open – and is represented in fractions of seconds or in seconds. This is a factor in controlling the light of the image. By controlling shutter speed we can also do motion blur and motion freeze photography.

F stop is the ratio of the focal length to the diameter of the entrance iris. Exposure is measured in terms of f stops. 

Aperture is the opening through which light travels, greater the aperture the lesser the depth of field. This we already realized in the pin hole experiment when we increased the diameter of the hole. 

In traditional (film) photography ISO (or ASA) was the indication of how sensitive a film was to light. It was measured in numbers (you’ve probably seen them on films – 100, 200, 400, 800 etc). The lower the number the lower the sensitivity of the film and the finer the grain in the shots you’re taking.
In Digital Photography ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The same principles apply as in film photography – the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain.
Higher ISO settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds.

Exposure meter is the scale that tells us the exposure. It is a linear scale which has a pointer and it can move left and right showing if the picture was getting under exposed or over exposed depending on the various setting of shutter speed, f- stop and ISO.

Picture style are some pre set styles that can give the picture certain look, like monotone, duetone etc.

White balance is how the camera treats white. Now white is a color that is usually not confused. We need to pre decide how we want the camera to identify which is white. We did a small experiment on this – We tested shooting a tungsten source of light with tungsten white balance and then with fluorescent white balance. The result was – the one we did with fluorescent white balance was much better. 

Taken with white balance as florescent

In this video what happens is that, the light from the from the tube light is taken as white. So, we can still see the tungsten light as yellow and thus the skin colour also remain the actual skin colour.

Taken as white balance as tungsten

But in this video what happens is that the camera takes the tungsten light as white.

This is till where I have been able to explore. Maybe as I explore the other terms which still remains I would be able to understand them as well.

This was followed by our truthful and whole hearted attempt to started our journey of getting ourselves exposed. We made up our mind to hide nothing to go for the whole log! 

I know there would be many more hurdles along the way and this was just a Baby step but still I am very very proud of us for getting this far. Kudos ORGANISM........ one baby step at a time and we would reach a long way!

NB: The biggest congratulations of all to Himel, not only for buying the brand new camera for making so many friends!

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!!

Magic follows you...if you let it!

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 2

After the first day's class on philosophy and insights about greater things in life, I personally thought we as a group had made some progress. But that was my biggest mistake, and I realised it just now that I have actually written it down. It's the word "personally" that made sure that there was no improvement at all. While Sir was trying to teach us how to be a single organism instead of being a team of ten individuals, we were still thinking individually that if each of us did what we were assigned to then that person would not be blamed if something went wrong. While the whole effort should have been to work as a team and and get the result what was needed.

Now that's a loaded, self imposed, introspective "gyan" which makes no sense if the context is not given in place. So, with all GROUND RULES set we had to reach class at a given point of time. We had devised wake up calls and everything to prove that we could work as a team. God knows to whom because Sir is here for only few days but eventually Sir will be gone....so no use trying to prove anything to him! It should have been more about Doing it rather than proving it!  Which was a complete pretense and it fell through at the slightest shake. One of us did not reach in time for class so as per rules the whole day's class would be dismissed and Sir very well intended to do exactly that and settled for minimum first half of the day being off. 

But what was the point? Few of us got irritated coz they felt we were wasting our time by not learning (day by day this learning theory is becoming as bad as the IT rat race that I tried to leave behind!) technical and more important things in life other than learning how to work as a community.

Few of us tried to grasp the situation. The one who was late took a dive for guilt and instantly said sorry and insisted that the others should not be punished for her fault. And Sir said, "But its not your fault it's their fault. Tum to apni aadat se majboor ho but what about them?" Seriously, did we really do much to ensure that the whole group reached on time? I gave a wake up call but was it the best that I could have done. Was whatever we did as a group including the person who was late, the best we collectively could have done? The answer was a resounding NO and I knew then that it was our fault.

Though the majority of the class remained skeptic to Sir's ideal and philosophy(whatever you choose to call it), I realised something much more vital. To make something happen you got to do something about it. I realised that this issue was not an issue of the moment. This issue have been lying dormant for ages and everybody knew it - us as well as the other faculties. But all of them played it the easier way. I made a wake up call...my work was done-easy way! "They" didn't come when needed....let's give up on them- easier way! All of us took the easier way. No body took a strong stand. But here was a man who not only questioned this issue but also thought of teaching us how to tackle it. And here we were being the intellectual film makers that we claim to be, and presenting him with 101 reasons why we were being skeptical about his process. Guys, atleast he came up with a process while none of us or the other faculties did!

His question was very simple, "Do you trust me?" 

What I believe is that at some point of time you just have to take a leap of faith. Time will prove it- true, but if we sit and wait saying that lets first see if it works, then definitely it won’t work coz we are not working for it. Just lets take the leap of faith, zyada se zyada bura kya hoga that it won't work……fine, anyways it's not working….. but think what if it does…magic! Though my answer was a clear Yes, I failed to hear another voice echo my thoughts. 

Sir said a very important thing, that we are at film school we would some how or the other get to know how to work with lenses and lights but the person he wanted us to be, if we could become once....we would be a much better human beings and thus a better film maker. 

After the whole lot of heavy discussion and Sir's futile attempt to make things a bit lighter afterwards, we suddenly were sitting in the lawn with chart paper, paper cutter, cello tape and the other assorted stuff of arts and craft class. Anyone passing by had a good laugh, validating the fact that the direction department had at last gone completely bonkers! We sat around making our life's first pin hole camera. And suddenly the ten people worked as a team unknowingly. I saw people having disagreements otherwise coming together. 

Once the pin hole camera was done our faces were something to see. We all were smiling.... all skepticism, dissatisfaction, blame games and the whole bag of big words gone.... this was Magic!

The class ended with a discussion about yesterday's question about eye being of variable focal length. The moment this controversial topic came there was again split opinion. Though we concluded that eyes do have variable focal length we got again tangled in the question that if it did have variable focal length then why can’t we zoom in as we do in a camera? 

The difference between a normal human eye and a zoom lens in a camera , in spite of the fact that they both have variable focal lengths, is the field of view. When we zoom in, the field of view becomes narrower which in turn crops out the periphery gradually to give a feel that we are reaching closer towards the subject. Whereas, for human eye the change of focal length can not change the field of view. For the same reason the focus ring and the zoom rings are completely different entitity on a camera zoom lens, as the mechanism of zoom has nothing to do with the focus. But from human eye, the “accommodation” mechanism is all about setting the focus than narrowing the field of view.

The other question that came up was that, if the accommodation technique is solely responsible for the focus of a subject then what happens after the replacement of lens in an eye surgery? 

During a surgery, we replace the human lens with IOL (Intraocular Lens). Generally they are  monofocal lenses and are matched with distant vision. No “accommodation” qualities are present in these lenses and neither the ciliary muscles can help them to perform the accommodation proccess which it did for human eye lens. Thus a pair of spectacles becomes must to attain near-vision regardless of the age. Though nowadays we can get an expensive IOL which does have multi focal length which can accommodate far and a bit of near vision, still the ciliary muscles remain non functional.

"Magic follows you... if you let it!"- this has been my favourite quote for a very very long time. Today perhaps I realised that it was not only true for magic it was true for anything we set our heart to. TRUST follows if you set out to trust. Happiness follows if we set out for it.

Hoping tomorrow would be a better day and probably again even if for a flashing second I would be able to see the magic of all of us again I take a leave from writing anymore!