Night....,A Blackboard...;

The Malaysian Twin Towers At Day

By the end of a midsummer nights' walk around the city of Kualalumpur ,the Malaysian capital, I had stopped near my resort and watched the city in a retrospective from that corner of the lane in the vacuum of the night roads; the streets were almost plain and the roads were silent.So as to enhance the solitude of the night the slight fogs and its cold had filled in the air of midsummer...the night cover over the city was almost thick and the lights from the Petronas had been penetrating that density of air since the fall of darkness..!.The twin towers that had been held up as a manual erection of artistry and architecture in the plain brightness of the daylight had been changed into a sparkling mold of dream in the form of illumination in the background of that  midsummer night ....!
I took my Nikon FM10 (roll film- manual SLR) and tried to translate that night in film rolls in the glow of the Petronas, the twin towers in the foreground of some faded old structures of the city under dim lights aloof around the shadows of the streets !

The Capital Street That Lost In The Late Dense Night of  Summer

The Towers Brooding In  Solitude

 In the vastness of the night sky,I was able to convince the blackboard effects of night in the glowing streams of light piercing through the slots of  the man-made structures in the isolated time of darkness after finishing two three shots of the towers lost in that density...!!

The Petronas in the Foreground of the night streets of oldness

Classical Performances in Color Roll Films Taken a Decade Ago...!

A decade ago, during a season of classical dance drama performances on the stages at the temples in Kerala, I had exposed color roll films to shoot many of them as possible ..and the story went dramatic to a certain extent in the life of  film photography also...and many of the prints were either faded or destroyed as the time went on....! The story of my manual shooting with color film rolls could be better described as follows:-
I set out with my NIKON FM 10 loaded with ISO 200 color film rolls in many evenings of the season when the percussion filled the summer evenings , from the temple-theaters  of the classical dance drama of Kathakali in the southern part of India during the summers:
The lamps were lit and the plays begun with innumerable stories; all taken from the anecdotes of Sagas in the remote past ...a play begun with the story of love and life of a beloved pair of the royal breed ;the lady had a charming performance on the stage and the glow in her eyes and face under sparkling apparels and ornaments were caught up in my NIKON FM:

 

 

 

The Beloved Lady called 'Damayanthy'

The turn of the hero was majestic and vibrant and the stage was enlightened by his presence.It was a king of good qualities with a heart to love his counterpart till the end of the play and he was called 'Nala',a man of good qualities:

The Hero with good qualities

A character with evil qualities is inseparable in a dramatic play and here the character with evil commands appears on the stage in full red face frilled in with black and white outlays..

The Face of Evil Qualities

  The hero finally overcomes the catastrophes posed by the evilness and triumphing over all sorts of evil commands and wins his intimate with a pledge of love by the end of the night :

The Final Pledge of the Hero

An Era Fades But Never-Fading Experiences In Black & White..!!

Film Rolls In Black & White, Playing Off The Legends!An era of photography in film rolls was to end by the end of the 20th century,especially to that kind in black and white film rolls.It was at this time that I find my time (13 years back) to mingle with my old Minolta7SII which I had retrieved after a thorough service from an expert technician at my reach..and I started the operation with color film rolls at ISOs 100 and 200 in my family circles...After a few months,there came the festival season here in the south of Kerala (India) and I decided to capture some night performances on the stage in the Temple and thus planned to make captures on the performances of Kathakali (the classical dance dramma) that took place at night and which was one of my favourite items among the stage programmes during the festivals...Then I thought of experimenting the shots with black and white film rolls instead of color films so as to get the nights as such!!

My MINOLTA7SII as now, experiencing an Era of manual photography

So I bought a roll of black & white then available in the market (I think it was with an ISO range of 100-125)and went to the temple at night with my MINOLTA7SII having its compact 40mm wide angle lens loaded with that roll...the first shot was that of a combination of a male and female characters on a lyrical comversation...conceiving a shot just as per the apperture value and timing was not at all confusing as a beginner and I put my hand on the shutter release button and continued  winding up the camera several times regardless to the lights and the foreground effects...thus born several beginning shots on Kathakali at my firsthand black and white experince!!

one of my first shots in black & white

The main intention then was to take action shots of the performers live when the movements go unpredictable;I had awaited for the more vibrant moves of the dancers and it was rather convenient to capture solo performing characters in the play..;the wait was fulfilled successfully when I had the chance to get the random movements of the grand character of Bali (the wild king from the epic Ramayana). The entry of Bali in the play entitled as BALIVIJAYAM (the Triumphing Bali) is highly dramatic and visually enchanting...so I took it severally under the stage lights and under the normal flash light accessory provided in addition to that of the camera.When the negatives were washed out and the prints were made off,I felt it amusing to see the results in the well laid out lights and shades of the night, in many exposures and that were highly remarkable and as a beginner in black and whites then I could not forget the experience that made me tp pursue my Minolta7SII further for live action shooting and to subsist with manual photography for a long time and still at the high time of Digital Imaging Era...so it would be quite joyful moment to bring back my playful shots of that festival night playing a legend !!

The Vibrant Moves Of Bali At The Outset

The end of an era  of manual film photography along with 20th century was of course earmarked by the time but the efforts and enthusiasm oriented with film rolls are still  evergreen as the episodes in a  legendary  play, full of heroic antecedents !

The Thoughtful Hero In B@W

Juxtaposing the night in the dense backdrop of the night;the character of Ravana from Ramayana