meadmaker

A photo of the nobleman’s Ganesha at Hampi, Karnataka, India. This Ganesha was in a single-room structure that sheltered the statue from the elements, and provided more protection over time than some of the other statues in the area. Off the top of my head I can no longer remember exactly how large the statue is, but it was pretty big.- it looks like my head comes up to about the mid-belly of this statue. I was somewhat awed at the moment that I first saw the statue - which is pretty appropriate, I think. It’s obvious that people still respect it today, even though (as I recall) this is one of the many buildings around Hampi that were profaned by invaders around 1565.

This was photographed with ambient light, because my flash wasn’t working for some reason. Actually, I think it turned out better without the flash - I would not have gotten the effect of the statue being lit but the background fading to black without it. The EXIF tells me that it was made at 1/20 and f/3.5; I think I had cranked the ISO on my D70s up all the way I could, to 1600. The dark areas near the bottom are probably the shadows of other people in the area.

This image was taken in my house, using a mirror and a single flash.  The result was far too bright and well-balanced for the effect that I wanted, so I brought it into PSP (Paint Shop Pro Photo XI) and darkened it with a couple of multiplication layers.

Strobist lighting information: Lit with a single Vivitar 285HV, set camera right but to the left of the subject (me).