Pixiq

One of the most exciting photo events I’ve had the pleasure of shooting is the fashion carnival in Jember, Indonesia. My photo tour group were blown away by the images they were able to capture. The costumes are truly outlandish.  Anything goes in creating wild, beautiful, and sometimes bizarre outfits,  and the face painting matches the creativity of the designers.  No one wore a mask.  All of the face decorating was makeup, paint, and jewelry.

Children also participate, and some of my favorite pictures are portraits of girls as young as five that looked like stunning little dolls.

 The photography was a serious challenge because the display of costumes – around 200 of them – took place during the middle of the day in harsh, contrasty light. Indonesia lies on the Equator, and this means the overhead sun is especially unattractive for outdoor photography.  The costumed participants prepared for the show and parade in a partially shaded area behind the stadium where the event began, and this is where my group and I took our pictures.  If a subject was in sunlight, we asked him or her to move into the shade and that made all the difference.  The background had to be shaded, too, because sunny highlights behind a darker subject are terribly distracting. The people were happy to be photographed, and it was a fantastic experience both artistrically as well as on a human level.

For the lighting, I used only available light.  Some photographers used fill flash, but I prefer the soft, diffused lighting of shade because flash -- even if it's diminished  -- flattens some of the contours of a face and it isn't as flattering as natural light.

 I’m still in Indonesia right now, and when I get home I’ll work at separating some of the models from the background to do some unique composites.  One such image I’ve already worked on is below. It seems to me that these remarkable costumes deserve a visually arresting background. I run the risk, though, of the background becoming too vibrant and too graphic such that attention is taken away from the model, and I'm still experimenting with many ideas.