PHOTO ONE

Collated below are testimonials about Photo One from various participants.

Sourav Das

Being a Science graduate and a software consultant, my thinking always revolved around formulas, codes and theories. I like to get involved and familiar with new technology, products, and techniques. That’s how I started reading about photography around two years back and with the course of time, the interest got intense. So much so that I slowly started buying photographic gear. I knew what my gear’s capabilities, specifications, and disadvantages. However, I never paid attention to the light, never knew light. But, that’s what ultimately counts.

I believe that we can always learn, no matter how well you are aware of the task. There is always something you can learn to make it easier/more efficient/more creative… This led me to be in touch with Shailan and Jogi & join their workshop. The pace of the workshop was fast and I enjoyed what they taught. There were many minute details, to which I never paid attention while taking photographs. Or as they’ll say ‘making’ photographs. I always asked them about techniques and formulas to take a snap. I always too often asked: “What were your camera settings when you took that picture? It would really help me to know that.” or “What were the aperture setting and shutter speed on that photo?”. I believed that knowing what the camera settings were for any given photo will help me learn something, or give me some guidelines or insights on how the photographic process works. However, Shailan and Jogi instead made my thinking to take a completely different approach. It was of seeing light. The workshop had three good techniques that were absolutely necessary and without any one of them, the whole purpose could have failed –

1. a) Understand Basic Technical Principles
2. b) Apply them with your camera (Shoot and Experiment)
3. c) Critique

While experimentation is the key to improvement, it’s the critique that enables this improvement to take hold. Getting photographs (clicked during the workshop) reviewed by Jogi, was a complete nightmare the first time. But later on, it was really fun because I knew where I had to improve upon and could feel a sense of satisfaction of improvement in the due course, very matter of fact but still very inspiring. That’s what my objective was. Now, I don’t have confusion between vision and critique. They have nothing to do with one another. There is no right or wrong in taste; it is what differentiates us from each other. Now I believe in a famous quote by Albert Einstein – “Creativity is learning to hide your sources.”

Lubna Sen

It is said that feedback is the best gift that you can give to someone. So here it is – the parting ( ? or maybe not ! ) gift from my side :

1. It was an extremely well-packed workshop with just the right balance between theory and practical.
2. The theory part was very well laid out with each aspect having a photograph as an illustrative example. I still remember vividly each an every example of the elements of composition you illustrated in the first class. This is etched in my mind whenever I take any photograph.
3. I particularly loved your home-work: I am an avid follower of art and frequently surf the net for contemporary art. But for the first time, I actually surfed the net for photographs and discovered an equally beautiful and artistic world out there.
4. The class atmosphere was informal and friendly: given such diverse backgrounds of the students, this was an essential ingredient in making it happen.

The only negative is the fact that it is over !!! Must say getting up early to learn more about light was becoming addictive !

A couple of suggestions :

1. One small note covering the basics of focal length, lens etc can be helpful for absolute camera illiterate people like me. Alternatively, if you could suggest one good site or one good book, to clear our understandings.
2. Since the sessions happen every weekend in a row, we do not get much time to explore and practice and also fumble ( which is important )on our own, during the length of the workshop. This is very relevant for people like us whose work-life from Monday to Friday is far away from colour and light!

Can there be a final day session after a month, when the students bring a selection of their own photographs after applying all that they have learnt? This gives them time to explore on their own, correct their mistakes, educate themselves further and maybe cross-check with you on their doubts.

 All in all, as I have mentioned earlier, the workshop rocks.

Ilan McKenna

Price of workshops: A bargain! I think the workshops were worth far, far more than I paid for them. The tangible and emotional gratification was priceless, really.

Workshops: 4 weeks felt short, but an intermediate class, or a follow-up class, would fix that! I would join in a heartbeat. I liked the flexibility in the shooting sessions, that sometimes we would leave early and go eat breakfast, or just leave early. I felt comfortable being able to be tired of taking pictures. The Saturday in-studio classes were great. I really needed all of that background information about how cameras work. I still feel like I don’t understand everything, but I am learning little by little. What an idiot I was to buy my camera without knowing a thing about it. Greedy American, thinking I need all the high tech stuff. It was perfect to learn something one day and get to practice it the next. I didn’t like looking at everyone else’s pictures, but only because there were sooo many and my judgment gets skewed and lazy when I have too much to look at. That happens in all areas of my life, it’s nothing personal.

Random notes:

1. I liked being blown away by new information every Saturday.
2. I felt like I finally earned my camera since I could finally use it a little.
3. I saw parts of Delhi at a time in the day I never would have managed otherwise. I hadn’t been to any of the places we went to, so they were more than photoshoots for me.
4. I am actually interested in looking at photographs now.
5. I met some cool people, saw a cool exhibit, and listened to a Bedi brother speak.
6. I felt comfortable taking pictures with guidance. Less intimidating and less intrusive I think.

Leave Out: I can’t think of anything to leave out.

Include A few more days. I would be very happy if I could visit every historical site in Delhi with a PhotoSensitive workshop instead of on my own. Also, maybe do the camera care lesson during the first class when you explain how to hold a camera properly. I was kind of embarrassed during the last class when I realized how haphazardly I’d been carrying my camera around.

Lastly, I want to know how you become comfortable taking pictures and about photography ethics. Is it ethical to take a picture of a sleeping homeless person? Or anyone without their consent, for that matter? I struggle with that. I also struggle with carrying a camera around as if I am someone with lots of money. It seems a little pretentious, especially because I am very new to the art form. I guess I need to start thinking more about light and less about how people perceive me.

I could write about the workshops all day. I grew a ton from the experience. You inspired me to look around me and take pictures without being so shy, to visit places and really look at them, to learn about my camera and photography, to think about composition and light and shadows and colours, etc. I think, for my time in India, the experience was priceless. I can’t imagine how much of the country I would miss without those workshops.

Thank you thank you thank you!

Sravanti Kommajosyula

May I begin with…it was a great experience meeting both of you and both are wonderful teachers!!

 My journey with the SLR began quite recently…about a year and a half back (finally when I could afford pumping my savings on it….) but my interest in photography is almost as old as two decades….but way back then it was an expensive hobby to have and my father with his humble salary could not afford to either buy me a camera or send me for learning classes. (it was no digital era then and each bad photograph meant money going down the drain…:-) ) Thanks to the people who invented microchips, life in the digital world has become less expensive….(i would like to believe so…but the lenses and cameras featured in ‘Better Photography’ give me a completely contradictory picture).

 Photosensitive is my alma mater and will always be as far as photography is concerned!!!! After the classes got over, every time I have taken a picture and stood back and looked at it and smiled….(because the picture was worth a second look…) I have thought of both of you and said to myself….it’s because of them…

 You’ll have given me the first step to looking through the lens in the ‘manual mode’ unlike my auto mode that I was using till I joined the classes…. I have immense gratitude for that!!!

 As far as the workshop goes, I have found the classes extremely well designed and executed. The presentations and the topics containing illustrations (in terms of the photos included in them) absolutely appropriate to demonstrate various technicalities (like the photos demonstrating the varying shutter speeds, focal planes and aperture settings).

 The practical sessions were good and were timed right (the very next day after the theory classes)..it personally gave me the chance to incorporate what I learnt the previous day into the pictures I was taking.

 I was just wondering if among the practical sessions, different genre of photography could be explored…like we did two architectures (Qutub Minar and Jantar Mantar), one Lodhi gardens (architecture and nature maybe), Phool Mandi (again people and flowers maybe)….if instead of the overlap, we could have had architecture, in house (maybe studio portrait/product photography), nature, people (purely street photography) etc….. You as teachers are the best judge of that….but having said that, I still mean it when I say that each of those sessions has been extremely fruitful to me.

 I would like to close by saying that it was a wonderful experience learning and also interacting with everyone and seeing that when 16 people are left to take pictures in the same location….no two pictures are alike (makes me want to look from other’s perspective too…or should I say viewfinder??)

 I would also like to thank you for allowing to make up for the missed sessions…(i would like to attend the last presentation in the Nov session because I could not attend the previous one due to a family emergency). I am also hoping to be a part of the practical sessions with your new batch of students and the summer trek….whenever that happens!!!

 Here’s wishing you the very best for the next session and many more to come.

 Susanne Maria Kraft

“After buying my DSLR camera I felt helpless and in the dark about its various functions and possibilities. However, I was very lucky to find out about the workshop at photosensitive with Shailan and Jogi!!! The workshop was extremely well structured – a perfect mix between theory and practice – and I learned a lot!!! Not only about the technical possibilities my camera has but also about composure, patterns, light and shadow! I simply began to SEE.

Jogi and Shailan did a great job as trainers! The theory lessons were very interesting and everything was explained along with practical examples which were extremely helpful. They were always there for questions and I was impressed by the professionalism both of them showed while conducting the workshop. The group was great and the lessons were always fun, too.

I most appreciated the constructive feedback on the photos we shot as this feedback enabled us to improve from week to week.

Therefore enthusiastically recommend this workshop to everyone!! Thanks, guys!”

 Shalini Baisiwala Anand

I was one of those who was very sceptical about this workshop and was finding the fees very high; and after speaking with Shailan, I just decided to go ahead. I didn’t even call any of the earlier attendees, even though Shailan had sent me the numbers.

 I had bought the SLR a year back but was using it in AUTO mode throughout. I was unable to figure out the manual at all. I had even attended a couple of the sessions at the CANON centre but the funda of aperture, focal length, metering – all went over my head. This was largely due to the fact that I didn’t even know all the controls on the camera also.

 Through the workshop, I was able to figure out the controls of my camera – this was a prerequisite for me and I had been looking for someone to teach me this first. Thank you so much for this.

 You guys have a lot to give to people like me. The step by step explanations and the outdoor shoots were a big help. Just some points :

 1) Found the duration small – maybe a six weeks thing especially for beginners like me; rather the whole group.

2) Maybe you can work out an extension to the four weeks as an option for some people; who would like to continue for another two weeks wherein the prerequisite would be a telephoto lens/fisheye / or a basic 50mm – I mean it would basically be for ppl who want to seriously do more. We had gone to the zoo today, and most of us realized how a telephoto would have helped us all. Now suddenly, there is a rush to buy one

 3) A portrait session would have helped too – we could have all posed for each other for say 15 mts and then we review. It would be similar to the exercise we did at Lodhi garden.

 4) Exercises such as the above would be a great big help. Maybe these could be worked into the class sessions only esp the ones with the light, etc. If we had done these things before going out on the photoshoot, I think we would have been far more imaginative. It’s just that these tricks didn’t settle in until we did the exercises.

 5) The review with Jogi for the pics where he asked us which one we liked and why – this was great. We should have had more of these; maybe section-wise – that is architecture, food, people, landscape, etc… It helped to understand the perspective of a photographer.

 6) Maybe given homework to all in the form of review a particular genre/photographer style before going for the photoshoot the next day. Like before the Qutub Minar shoot; we could have seen some other work online to get an idea. The basic problem with all of us was – what to shoot? and this led to the prob how to shoot as we realized at the Jantar Mantar and Phool Mandi. In fact JM we had already seen Sanjay’s pics; so we’re able to see some form in the geometry; though not very successfully. I realize that one drawback of this would be that we would copy stuff – but even that is not easy. As we realized after seeing Sanjay’s pics – we were all wondering how he framed all this. But it gave us some idea as to what to try and shoot.

 7) Part of the exercises – underexposed and overexposed pics – Basically a lot more exercises for raw beginners like us to appreciate the nuances better

 Maybe for really raw beginners, you might need to do a different kind of workshop altogether.

 In case you are planning a workshop – part 2; please let me know. I would be very much interested in joining up again. Or if you do mini photoshoot sessions for a weekend only with a specific subject in mind – please let us know.

 I want to thank you guys for your amazing patience and forthrightness in teaching us and refusing to give us ” formulae” as some of us seem to have been demanding.

Noni Chawla

First and foremost the thanks should go from all of us to you for having taken the trouble to conduct this workshop. Your dedication to photography, your enthusiasm, and your patience are all admirable.

I found the workshop very useful. Since you have asked for feedback, here is mine:

I think that your style is very good – casual, informative, interactive and patient. Key attributes of a learning environment.

I also think that the design, in terms of theory followed by practical work on location is a very good idea.

My suggestion is that, as far as possible, if you have people of the same level of proficiency in the group, the learning will go up. There was a fair amount of variation in the skill levels in the group, and, inevitably, your communication has to be for the least informed participant.

I would have liked to spend more “supervised” time while shooting, which would have helped me to learn more about composition, light, etc. while practising in real-time. In order to do this you gentlemen may have to sacrifice your own shooting, but….c’est la vie!

I would have valued more time on critiquing pictures (ours and others’) which would have helped me in composing better and shooting better.

I would have also liked more time on “What makes a good picture an outstanding picture” kind of input.

Maybe because I missed some sessions on account of my travels, I felt I would have liked to spend more time with you folks.

Belinda Nishball

First, thank yous are never enough–I thank you from the bottom of my heart for conducting the course in English! What a relief! I could not have sat through 4 sessions of Greek!

Second, I enjoyed yours and Shailan’s constant presence. In my previous course, our teacher was on a pedestal (deserved or undeserved, you tell me) and there was no real interaction or exchange of ideas. He told us what he knew and that was that. Though still a bit hesitant to ask for fear of being thought a fool, I was very comfortable about seeking information or clarification. I wish though that during the outings, you could do a little more hand-holding. I witnessed the transformation of Jyoti’s photos after Shailan’s gentle guidance. I recognize that you (a collective you) want us to learn and develop our own style but I personally need some “hand-holding”, a little “spoon-feeding.” I enjoyed a taste of it during our Jantar Mantar outing, many thanks. Perhaps on your next trek to the flower market, we can do a little of that? I should have taken it upon myself to bug you but did not. I ask your permission then to bug you in the future. 🙂

Third, I felt the course was just technical enough for me. I understood almost everything you explained during the slide show and maybe I should credit my previous instructor for that. I wonder if you could up the aesthetic component of the slide shows? So intangible, how exactly does one learn to see?

Fourth, I quickly warmed up to the critique portion. I think, for the most part, we know when we’ve done well and when we haven’t. However, it was good to hear it from the pros. I think it would help to hear from the budding photographer first about his/her thoughts on the shoot. Which does he/she feel is the best shot and why? What would he do differently next time? Maybe having 36 photographs is too much because in many cases, we ignore a lot of them and focus on the best or worst 6 to 7? (Oh yes, but how is the photographer to know that?) On the other hand, there are always the surprise favourites that the photographer may not have noted. Oh well, keep it at 36 then. I think that the critique should be emphasized more. Budding photographers comments and specially yours and Shailan’s are very very welcome. It is good to feel that you’ve done a good job and even better to realize the possibilities in future shoots.

Fifth, the course is too short. I am sure I speak for the group, way too short! Expand it! Take this suggestion as testament to the enjoyable four weekends we’ve had.

I can only count to five so I’ll end here. I had a great time at the course, I would very much like to be a part of the online forum.

You and Shailan are a fantastic team! Congratulations!

Nitin Arjun

I would have spent more than a hundred thousand rupees on photography past many years. These eight thousand rupees that I invested a month ago was my most sensible investment in this hobby, which will pay me dividends for the rest of my life. I thank you and Shailan, both of you are true lovers of photography as you wholeheartedly want to spread this wonderful hobby.

Till date I was shooting either on auto or on aperture/shutter speed priority mode, wondering why the results were so bad. And now I can never go back to auto. your workshop has been like giving eyes to the blind.

One thought maybe for future workshops. It would be helpful if you could prepare a handout of your slides, especially the technical parts, to be kept by us for future references on say lenses and filters etc.

I look forward to our future association as part of the Photosensitive family and would love to be part of the yahoo or any other platform that you have. I will of course bother you in the future to share notes and ask anything that still boggles my mind on photography.

Thanks once again and maybe see you guys soon on an early morning shoot somewhere interesting with lots of interesting light and shadows.

Shubhra Chaturvedi

To start with a big thanks for the lovely session.

I know its a little late but here’s the feedback. I can’t think of any brickbats as of now but good or bad some thoughts that come to my mind…

-It was a nice experience and I got to learn a lot about my camera and how it has so much to offer to me.

-The session where we learnt basics with a display of a manual camera was very enlightening.

-The presentations more or less covered most of the things and were very enlightening, especially the 1st one where u showed us diff pictures and asked us to tell how did this happen.

-Maybe you could have covered a bit more abt composition. That was a bit rushed up and I feel that’s really key for a good picture.

-The photoshoots were good exp, especially with a digital camera, u could know instantly what u were doing and why and how.

-However I feel that if we were asked to show our pictures on computer in the session, it wud have been nice, everyone would have gained from that… more from what went wrong to what went right.

-Even though I tried to listen to the feedback of all others but it wud be nice to see how the same thing was captured by the other person…

-I know time was a constraint but if something can be worked out to that effect then it may be a good idea.

– In photoshoots, if one evening session was also organized than it wud have been a nice exp.

-If u had also taught us something about flash and night photography, it wud have been useful. Reason being, most ppl have flash in the camera but have no idea when to use it and how.

-I know my list is getting long and all of it may not be possible, time is a constraint, but I feel if these can be incorporated than they will add immense value to the sessions.

-Maybe I am a hungry student. I wouldn’t mind coming for 4 more sessions 🙂

Overall I had a great experience. Maybe you could have a review session after 3 months and tell all the group members to do a photoshoot. You can see how they have used these skills and also places where we get stuck… we can get clarity. Of course, whatever I am saying is subject to a lot of time availability but I hope something can be worked out.

I will keep shooting and get back to you whenever I can.  It was nice knowing you and I hope it’s just the beginning.

Darilang Mary Rymbai

Appreciating things of beauty was all that I thought I could do. That it was the only contribution to creativity from my end. The idea of creating it was something I simply dismissed.

I always wanted to give photography a shot. Visual images have never failed to stimulate me, both intellectually and from an aesthetic standpoint. Having said that, my love for the camera is but natural. Come 2006, in Delhi, I chanced upon “photosensitive” in a newspaper. After a series of emails and an 8 month waiting period, I finally enrolled for the workshop. Running the risk of being labelled dramatic, I can state that my experience with your organization was amazing to say the very least.

My perception of my surroundings has changed; I still see the same things but in a different light. Today I am in a position to better appreciate things of beauty – something I thought I was well accomplished in. Simple things that I had long ago stopped noticing have become much more interesting. I now want to create the beauty I see and appreciate so much and immortalize that beauty in a picture. And I do this simply for the love of it and for nothing else.

Though I enjoyed both the theory and the shoot sessions, I loved the photo shoots more than the presentations. However, I realized that one cannot be done without the other. To take a picture is not so simple as just ‘the click of a button’. I painfully found this out when I had missed a presentation and went for a shoot. The results of the shoot is not worth a mention, but I guess you figured that out.

My interactions with both of you have been one of the most pleasurable experiences that I had. I used to be apprehensive and uncertain before a shoot. But you guys had this way of putting all that to rest. You have both been very patient. I loved the way you have explained the intricate nuances of photography and have made it all so much fun. So, from the girl who thought she should be content with just gazing upon beauty and never create it, today I can confidently walk down that road and work towards being an artist in my own right . I would like to say thank you.

Ravi Kiran

First off, it was a really wonderful experience getting to learn from pros like you & Shailan. The theory sessions were very informative & useful in learning the basics of the camera, its internals, appreciation of light, composition, etc. The on-field sessions were also great in that we could apply some of the techniques, if not all, that we learnt in the previous classroom session out there in the field.

Things that could have been incorporated into this workshop, according to me are:

How to shoot in low-light situations

Flash photography

I really liked the concept of evaluating photographs & discussing the nitty-gritty.

Just felt that you could add at least a couple of more sessions to make it 10 sessions.

Sangeetha Vaidya

I had been planning to attend your workshop for the last 2 years and I regret not doing it earlier.

Your workshop completely met all stated/unstated expectation that I had from you guys except that I thought you could have been a bit harsher on improvement areas for us. As a result, while I am comfortable exploring the manual modes, I am not sure if I can leave my job and start doing photography for a living

More specifically, I think when we review pictures, we should categories them as excellent/ good /could have been better/deserves to be deleted… or some such thing so that we know our handicap in BLACK and WHITE. You may also want to warn all first-timers about the crazy dog at Qutub

Priyanka Dev

First of all, a big thanks to both of you for helping us (like I said on Shailan’s card as well) “see’ light in a whole new way. It’s really amazing how many “new” things I see around me now– they were always around – just that I think I never really “saw” them!! – and that itself should tell you that your methods were very effective

About the workshop – I thought for a long while but I still can’t seem to be able to come up with any concrete criticism…so I’m just penning my thoughts as they come…

I really think though that taking us out for an outdoor shoot on the very second day really helped in opening up inhibitions – at least for me – I was a bit taken aback at first when you said we would shoot ONLY in manual mode – since for me, it was the very first time with my SLR and hence, of course, I had no idea what shooting in manual would be like. But I think I surprised myself because once you get there and with whatever you have gathered in the first class – it’s really a lot of fun going manual and experimenting with capturing light and shade – it really opened my eyes to the effect of light and shade on things around us.

Then I also think the Phool Mandi was another really good thing – I really felt like as a beginner, I had been thrown into the sea and told to start swimming – and that’s a very effective way to learn!!

But then I also think that on that particular day if I had had an opportunity to talk to you earlier than I actually did it would have changed my entire perspective – I saw this in not only my own pictures but also in pictures of a lot of other people – there was such a BIG difference in the pics of those who had been told to see the “light” and others who were either told a wee bit late (like me- I was already quite tired by the time I ran into you )– I’m not sure if you got to talk with everyone that day at all. I couldn’t focus on the flowers because there were soooo many people around – and then I started including them in my frame.

Maybe a little talk about backlight and sidelight on Saturday would have helped take much better pictures on Sunday….

I also think that now I need some reading material – just like that card for the aperture readings – a few more cards eg about the depth of field through different lenses and something about different kinds of lenses (macro, fish eye etc) would help.

Is there a book that I can get for reference??

I do feel that I have a long way to go …but then I also know that I’ve had a good start thanks to you guys!

Akanksha Gupta

I enjoyed the workshops a lot, they were very helpful…and I must say that I’ll miss them even if I hated waking up at 7:30 in the morning on weekends.

Being a student of multimedia, I was taught the basics of photography in college, not by just one teacher but three and with all three of the teachers, because of one thing or the other, could not really get the hang of it. If with one teacher we were taught the practical, the theory part was missing, the teacher who taught us the theory, did not teach us how to implement it in practice and so on. In these workshops, I could do both. The method of teaching the theory part through a visual presentation helped me to understand the art of photography very well. And again, since we were asked to get the prints even if we had a digital camera, for the first time I got to know how important a role printing plays in photography. All in all I would say that the Photosensitive workshop is ideal for anybody who is keen to learn photography.

Vikram Pratap

Firstly, thank you for the great time and all the knowledge that you have shared with us over the past 4 weeks. It has definitely changed my view-point on photography and is making me see my camera in absolute new light.

I had a good time… the presentations were well composed and executed. The shoots were exciting and the review of the prints was the real learning experience. The time was sufficient for the topics covered. However, I would like to request you to please include Indoor Photography also in the future workshops. Portraits and profiles, familiarity with specialized equipment and usage…. well, given the time, I guess that would be tough, but an extension of 1 more weekend would be great. That is I guess what I want to share for now.