Gauri wanted to play the
Holi.
All preparations were done. Herbal colors, water sprayer were bought and kept
ready. On holi morning, she was very excited.
I applied some oil on her face, hair and hands. Now she is ready. I too
applied oil and got ready. One set of cloths, water bottle and snacks were kept
in a cover. I was in dilemma, whether to carry camera or not. Holi, is color
(dust) and water, both are not good for a DSLR. Finally I decided to take it. I
placed the camera in a plastic cover and made a two openings for lens and viewfinder. I mounted Canon 85 mm 1.8 on my Canon 50D, a fast prime lens, should be good for portraits and blur the background. I
set my camera, in AV mode (aperture priority), F 2.2, iso 400 and +1/2 EV ,spot metering, auto focus in AI servo mode and continues shouting. Due to plastic cover, I may not able to change the settings in a
holi setup! My anticipation was perfect. As soon as we entered the battle
field, colors were flying and water was sprayed from everywhere. Gauri was with
one of my friend and I could concentrate on photography!! Still Gauri was not
very comfortable with so many unknown people and hence she wanted to put colour
only to me!! . Very soon water sprayed on my lens barrel, and also I could see
some colours on my lens. One hand was engaged in managing the Gauri and so I
had to shoot with one hand only. Using plastic cover was very clumsy, the
finger used to slip from shutter. Very often opening made for view finder was
out of alignment, and hence many were blind shots. I shot for 20 min, and later
I kept camera back in my scooter box (hand was paining and was worried about
lens). After that, whole morning I enjoyed playing holi and loved the way Gauri
played the holi and she enjoyed thoroughly. Few pictures are here from this
small adventure. ( Double click on the photo, you can have a slide show!!)
