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Diwali comes as a blessing for your Instagram feed. Here are some tips to help polish your technical knowledge and gain those followers.

In the words of Ralph Hattersly, “We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us.” They are little packets of recollections that we can always go back to for joy and comfort. The essence of Diwali lies in the words ‘family’ and ‘bonding.’ Here are some tips to capture those memories and resurrect them through photographs.
Bokeh
Bokeh is the light which is not focused, so the sharp edges get blurred, creating aesthetics which are unmatched! This is a no-brainer because Diwali translates to light, and what better way to capture it than using Bokeh? Turn on your manual focus and slide that focus ring until you see beautiful Bokeh on your screen/viewfinder. A very interesting way of clicking Bokeh is to mix other elements than light. For example, water or fire. You can cut the shape you want your Bokeh to be on a piece of cardboard, place it between your camera body opening and lens and get your own Bokeh.

Bokeh3_Surabhi

 

Image Credits: Surabhi Khare for DU Beat
Street
With all the decorations that go into the festival, it is highly likely that you will find good shots at random public places. You can use techniques like time-lapse and still life on the street. You can set your shutter speed to 3-5seconds and aperture at f/18-22 at 100 ISO for some time-lapse photography at night. This will help you achieve crisp photographs with movement in them.

street1_Vaibhav

 

 

Image Credits: Vaibhav Tekchandani for DU Beat

Décor
The hours and days spent on the Diwali décor must be immortalised by being captured. You can give different backgrounds while clicking a macro shot of decorations. It is easy to identify different patterns in the decorations. Another way to amp your aesthetic is to collect different objects together and arrange them in an artistic manner. Rangolis can give the best pictures if shot from the top down (flat lay) angle. Lights can also be used to create leading lines in your picture. A simple way is to hold one corner of the light string in your hand and lead the focus of the picture towards the other corner of the string.

Decorations_Surabhi

 

Image Credits: Surabhi Khare for DU Beat
Long exposure
While clicking the picture, the photo is continuously being captured for an extended time, ranging from 1-30 seconds.
The scope of clicking long exposure photographs increases significantly during Diwali. Especially with crackers, each cracker will give you a different picture. Set your camera with a shutter speed of 10-15 seconds, aperture f/20-22 and ISO100, after clicking the shutter you can go crazy in front of your camera along with a sparkler for beautiful trails of sparklers. Use different crackers for different results.

Long Exposure 1_Surabhi

 

Image Credits: Surabhi Khare for DU Beat

 

Food
Indian food is colourful and dramatic. To get perfect food pictures, you have to take the shot from the perfect angle. Overhead, 3/4 and the horizon angles are the best three angles to capture food. Overhead angle is 90 degrees and is extremely popular on Instagram. It can be easily captured with phones as phones have a wider angle camera. The 3/4 angle is when your camera is placed anywhere from 25 to 75 degrees in relation to your subject. The horizon or the straight up angle is the best when you are shooting tall foods. To ameliorate the effect, decorate your food and the space around it as well. Using rustic table surfaces, visually appealing candles, or just creating negative space on the platter will do wonders for your photographs. Thus equipped, the pictures will turn out great and you will have bragging rights over the best Diwali pictures. Have fun, keep clicking, and happy Diwali!

Food2_Surabhi

 

Image Credits: Surabhi Khare for DU Beat

 

Feature Image Credits: Surabhi Khare for DU Beat

Maumil Mehraj

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Vaibhav Tekchandani

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Surabhi Khare

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