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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Creating the Photograph

Creating the Photograph: Trupal Pandya’s “Heads were to us what Money is to you!”

Chris Gampat
No Comments
01/17/2017
3 Mins read
02-Final

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they conceived an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

Photographer Trupal Pandya is quite the photographer. He’s documented head hunters in Nagaland, and soon plans to go back to continue documenting these people in an attempt to keep a working record of their culture. But he’s also got room to bring other people, and those that wish to go with Trupal can sign up for his workshop at his website.

In this piece, he talks to us about how he shoots some of the subjects.

The Concept

The full name of this image is: “Heads were to us what Money is to you!” – Luhbong Wang, 76

The concept and motivation behind Trupal’s work is to revive the sense of pride and capture the striking personalities of the last living headhunters in Nagaland, India.

Understanding the ways of people living miles away from civilization have brought about a sea change in my approach to photography: I use stark white backdrops that places the tribesperson at the center of focus, shorn from their natural settings. I think this style would encourage viewers to embrace, confront, and accept the person and let the distractions of culture and geography fade into the background.

The Longwa village is situated on the eastern edge of India’s north-eastern province of Nagaland. With Myanmar on one side and India on the other, this village is home to the fierce Konyak Naga Tribe. Konyaks have been known as ferocious head hunters for centuries till the 1970s. Killing an enemy and bringing back their head was considered a right of passage and was rewarded by a tattoo on the face or the chest of the warrior. What money is to us is what heads were to them.

Animal skulls and bones decorate the walls of every Konyak house, showcasing the pride and respect of the warrior. Human skulls too adorned the walls before the Konyaks converted to Christianity. Many of the tribes traditional practices and cultures have nearly vanished. The most feared warriors of yesteryear have almost diminished into just being a few old men with faded tattoos who can now be spotted smoking opium around the village, and sharing stories about their glorious past.

My goal was to revive their sense of pride and capture their striking personalities to tell their story.

The Gear

  • Nikon D800e
  • 24-70mm Nikkor Lens
  • 2 Profoto B1 Flashes
  • 1 2ft Rfi Octa for the B1
  • Grid set for B1
  • 1 White background Screen
  • Profoto Air Remote
  • stands.

The Shoot

I normally like to tell a story of a person using multiple lighting setups. I take a very formal portrait on a white background with a simple side light and a back light and then I take a portrait of the same person lighting them in a way which tells their personal story. In this case they were the headhunters and I wanted to portray them where I could capture their striking personalities and their sense of pride.

Post-Production

Camera RAW, Contrast, saturation, and level adjustments in Photoshop

Before/After

Final
Before
Before
Final

Popularity of photo stories like the one published about Nagaland has many tourists traveling to remote tribes in great numbers, making a workshop like mine of a particular importance to helping preserve these cultures. It would be a great help if you could spread the word about the workshop I am leading; or sign up!

headhunters nagaland Trupal Pandya workshops
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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