Photography - Principles, Tips, Gyan, Yada Yada!

Before we begin, let me clear some things out. I am not a professional photographer or in any way an expert on photography. What I am, is a guy with a camera, who loves to party and travel, who also thinks he's a bit arty. I love clicking pictures! I am writing this to share with people what little I know about photography. That said, you will find elsewhere on the Internet, better and more detailed info on everything that I talk about here. I must give credit to Ken Rockwell, from whose website (www.kenrockwell.com) I have learned a lot! Ken is a great guy, who's been into cameras and photography since he was a kid and he's played with and reviewed almost all the top selling cameras and equipment out there. I highly recommend that you visit his site to find out specific details of cameras / lenses that you have or plan to buy.

OK. so now that we have that out of the way..

What is photography?

You see a moment that you want to keep with you and cherish. You capture it and save it for later. That is the essence of photography. The camera is a tool. People used film cameras earlier, now we're into digital and god knows what tomorrow will bring. But photography, like sex, is in the head! Don't buy into BS from a camera sales guy who tells you to buy a camera that is twice your budget because he tells you that its the one all the pros use and it'll have you shooting like a pro! Like all technology, chances are that your camera will be obsolete in less than 5 years!

What kind of cameras are there?

Today's popular cameras can be classified into 4 categories - DSLRs, Point & Shoots, Mobile Cameras and Micro Four Thirds.

DSLRs – (Digital Single Lens Reflex)

Image Quality: High

Portability: Low

Price: Medium to High

These are the cameras that have an interchangeable lens. They have the biggest image sensors among all camera types and usually the best quality of glass on the lens. With the right settings one can get the best image output from DSLRs. This is the one that all pros would use for most of their shooting. DSLRs are usually priced over $1000. However a lot of manufacturers have been making low end DSLRs for the photography enthusiast and that are priced under the $1000 mark. (e.g. Nikon D3100) If money is not a constraint, then by all means buy the best DSLR and lenses you can find. The greatest advantage of DSLRs is the simple fact that you can change lenses. Cameras can become obsolete in a couple of years, but lenses are where you should put your real money. Initially, its a good idea to make do with the 18-55mm kit lens that comes with your camera. Play around till you get comfortable with the camera and its settings. Then once you find out what kind of photography you are inclined towards, you can decide whether you want to get a prime lens or a macro or a wide-angle.

The disadvantage of DSLRs (apart from higher price) is the size. DSLRs tend to be heavier and bigger than most point and shoots.

Point and Shoots (PS / P&S)

Image Quality: Medium to High

Portability: High

Price: Low to Medium

No really much to say about Point and Shoots. You probably own one or two. This is the most popular kind of 'camera'. Point & Shoots are what average camera buyers go for when they want to click pictures of kids, travel or just partying. Mostly in the price range of $100 to $500, they have smaller image sensors when compared to DSLRs and don't come with an interchangeable lens. But when in comes to quality imaging combined with optimum portability, there is no beating a good point and shoot. Even professional photographers cant do without a good point and shoot and they are know to use it to quickly take pictures to evaluate a setting without having to fish out a full blown DSLR.

Mobile / Cellular Phone Cameras

Image Quality: Low to Medium

Portability: Very High

Price: Low to Medium

This is the most widely seen and used form of imaging technology today. Everybody on this planet owns a cell phone (unless they live under a rock!) and its most likely that they own one with some form of camera on it. The phone is the biggest convergence device of our times and is becoming the go-to device for everything that we want to do. The cameras on cell phones have become a gateway into photography for an entire generation. They are the most widely used (I'm willing to bet that most of the pictures that people have of themselves on social networking sites are taken from mobile phones) and also the most portable (lets see, I need to shop for some milk, do I have my wallet and cell phone? OK we're good to go!) camera devices today. That said, cameras on cellular phones tend to have the smallest and lowest quality of image sensors among the 3 camera types that we are discussing. They also typically don't use the best quality of glass on their lenses and the action of their lens is restricted by the size (they need to fit well into the sleek bodies of the phones that they are part of). So if you are going out on vacation or celebrating your kid's birthday, you don't want to rely on this as your primary camera. Imagine shooting a stunning Mediterranean sunset with the 3.1MP camera on your phone! Ouch! But that said, there are a host of situations where camera phones are indispensable – use it to take notes at meetings, while traveling or just to remind you of stuff. See something interesting, just take a picture of it. Find it hard to remember where you parked your car in a busy mall? Just take a picture of the place where you parked! The list is endless. And some of today's phone manufacturers are putting some serious camera capability into their devices. The Nokia N8 for example, has a 12MP sensor that is on par in size with most Point and Shoots. The image quality is excellent for a camera phone and can give Point and Shoots (and dare I say, some of the Low-End DSLRs?) a run for their money!

There is a saying that the best camera is the one that you have with you. So your $2,000 worth of DSLR camera and lenses are of no use if they are sitting locked away in a shelf at your home when you are witnessing the photographic moment of your life! In such a situation, your trusty mobile phone is your best camera!

Micro Four Thirds

Image Quality: Medium to High

Portability: Medium to High

Price: Medium to High

This is a new and emerging form factor in cameras today. It basically seeks to merge the best of both the DSLR and Point & Shoot worlds. It features a smaller camera body (like a point and shoot) but a high grade interchangeable lens (like a DSLR). So you get a camera that is more portable than your DSLR and at the same time more competent with image quality than the Point & Shoot. However, the sensors are smaller than DSLR grade. So serious photographers might still stay away from this form factor. Currently Sony and Samsung have a few models out in the Micro Four Thirds range. I havent had a chance to play extensively with one, so maybe when I do, I will write in more detail about it!

Photography Principles

Most of us would have read about this in school - normally objects around us don't produce light of their own. They are just bouncing off the light that is falling on them. So, when we ‘see’ an object, we are actually processing the light that is bouncing off it, in our brain! Photographing (Digitally) an object is nothing but capturing this light and saving it into a digital file format, which can then be accessed from a computer for viewing or printing. The most important aspect of photography is getting the amount of light right. Too much light will lead to “over-exposure” (the photo is too bright and everything looks washed out and faded) and too little will lead to “under-exposure” (the photo is too dark and visibility is low)

There are 3 variables that go into getting the right exposure levels for a digital photograph regardless of whether it is taken by a DSLR or Point and Shoot or a Mobile Phone Camera.

Exposure = (Shutter Speed + Aperture + ISO)

Shutter Speed and Aperture control the amount of light falling on the camera’s image sensor and ISO refers to the sensitivity of the sensor when it comes to processing the light that falls on it.
Let us see what each of these mean and how they matter to us in getting the right exposure.
Shutter Speed:

This is the speed with which the ‘shutter’ behind the lens operates. To be more precise, the shutter speed number denotes the time for which the shutter remains open, allowing light to fall onto the sensor, when the camera button is clicked. Shutter speed is denoted in seconds, generally ranging from 1/4000th of a second up to 30”. Notice that time under 1 second is denoted as just a fraction while time greater than 1 second is shown as a number followed by (“)
Smaller fractions indicate faster shutter speed and are generally used to capture moving objects by freezing them in time. For example, you can freeze the blades of a moving fan if you shoot with sufficient speed.
Larger fractions and whole numbers (multiple seconds) indicate longer exposures with slower shutter speed and are generally used in low light photography or to get artistic effects with light trails. It is generally advisable to use a tripod stand for the camera when shooting at slow shutter speeds. This helps in avoiding blurring of the image due to camera shake that can occur when shooting handheld.
Aperture:

This refers to the size of the opening that allows light to fall onto the sensor in a camera and is denoted by an “f number” (e.g. f1.8, f3.5, f5.6, f11, etc.) The smaller the f number, the bigger (or wider) is the opening and greater is the light gathering ability of the camera at the given shutter speed and ISO. As the f number increases, the opening becomes smaller and the light gathering ability falls. When shooting in lower light conditions, normally one would use lower f numbers and increase the width of the aperture; much in the same way that the pupils in our eyes dilate when we move from a bright to dark environment.

Aperture also controls the “depth of field” in a picture. This in simple terms refers to what components of a picture stay in focus during a shot. At very wide apertures (small f numbers) the plane of focus is very narrow and only the subject remains in sharp focus and everything else appears out of focus or blurry. Photographers normally use this kind of setting when shooting portraits where they want to draw attention to the subject and blur away the background. Good lenses also render the blurry-ness in a very arty way which is called bokeh. On the contrary, when using smaller apertures (bigger f numbers) the camera tends to widen the plane of focus and brings more of the picture (subject and background and things in between) into focus. This brings about less blurring or bokeh and more of the picture appears to be in sharp focus. Typically, photographers use this kind of setting for landscape shots where they want everything to be in focus.

ISO

This refers to the sensitivity of the image sensor on the camera and is measured in numbers ranging typically from 100 to 3200. Normally the sequence goes as 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 to 3200. Lower numbers indicate lower sensitivity and higher numbers indicate higher sensitivity. In simple terms, higher ISO increases the light sensitivity of the sensor and allows the camera to capture a “brighter” picture in the same light setting as compared to a lower ISO. So, one would want to use lower ISOs in brighter or outdoor daytime shots and higher ISOs for low light or night time or indoor shots. But the trouble with most sensors is that when the ISO is increased beyond a certain level (800 – 1600 and above) the images they capture tend to have digital “noise” and colors can be distorted. As an extension of this principle, images shot with lower ISOs tend to be “cleaner” with less noise and distortion.

Now going back to exposure. As mentioned earlier, one of the key things about taking a picture is getting the exposure right. And as we have just learned, we can use a combination of settings on shutter speed, aperture and ISO to accomplish this. The exact combination that is needed would depend on the desired effect that the photographer is looking for.

Most modern cameras come with an Auto-ISO setting where the chip in the camera automatically chooses the best ISO for a shot. This might be a good option for beginners where you can leave the ISO part of exposure to technology and work on getting the shutter speed and aperture right. Sometimes it is possible to set the ISO to auto with a cap on the maximum value that it can take.

In bright light one can use faster shutter speeds, smaller apertures and lower ISO numbers. (small shutter speed numbers, generally bigger f numbers and smaller ISOs).

For example:

An outdoor landscape might use settings like 1/80, f 11, ISO200.

An daytime / outdoor portrait might use settings like 1/200, f 3.5, ISO100.

In low light / night time / indoors, one can use slower shutter speeds, wider apertures and higher ISO numbers. (bigger shutter speeds numbers, generally smaller f numbers and bigger ISO numbers)

For example:

A night portrait might use settings like 1/40, f 1.8, ISO 800.

A night landscape setting would look like 1/5, f 9, ISO 400. In this case we would use a tripod to avoid camera shake since we are looking at slower shutter speeds.

Well, thats enough theory for the day. Get out your camera and start shooting! Practice makes man perfect! :)

Some jargon, tips and tricks

• As mentioned earlier, the best camera to shoot with is the one that you have with you! So if you want to make good of your photography hobby, carry your camera wherever you go and practice practice practice!
  
  
• SHOOT! Unlike film cameras which had a limited number of shots per roll, digital cameras can shoot endlessly as long as you have a big / spare memory card and spare battery. There is also no cost involved in developing photographs. So there is nothing holding you back from clicking away to your heart's content! I normally leave my camera in 'burst' or 'sequential' shutter mode so I can click multiple shots back to back. When you are not in control of your subject, the more shots you take, the greater is the chance that you will get a perfect shot. If there are others that you don't like, you can always delete them on your computer later.
  
  
• Avoid shooting with the light source behind your subject. Unless you are planning a silhouette, this can lead to bad shots with poorly lit faces. If you must, try using flash.
  
  
• Avoid the mid-day sun when shooting. Its harsh on your eyes, harsh on the subject, harsh on your camera sensor and it will show on the pictures that you shoot.
  
  
• MOVE! While most cameras come with zoom, it sucks when you see somebody trying to shoot everything around them by standing in just one spot! Walk around, if you want to get closer to your subject, walk closer to them instead of zooming! Also, don't do all your shots at eye level. Try high shots (hold your camera above you or climb onto something – works well when shooting a crowd) and low shots (get on your knees and crawl! :P good when shooting kids) You will get different perspectives and end up with some interesting images! :)
  
  
• DO NOT USE DIGITAL ZOOM! DSLRs that I know of don't come with digital zoom but unfortunately a lot of camera manufacturers put this as a key 'feature' in Point & Shoots and mobile phones. Unlike optical zoom where there is no deterioration in image quality, digital zoom merely crops your existing image, and blows up the pixels to fill the screen resulting in bad looking images. The cropping is something you can do on a computer later anyway. If you are out of optical zoom, walk closer to your subject to get a better shot. Some cameras (like newer Nikon Coolpix P&S) come with an option to turn off optical zoom. If your camera supports this then please turn it off!
  
  
• Megapixels: Dont get swayed by Megapixels! When you are buying a camera, you might be tempted to get the one with the most megapixels. But trust me, if you are a casual photographer or even an enthusiast like me, 6 – 10 megapixels is more than you would need for normal usage. To put things in perspective, think about the images that you normally upload on websites or social netoworks. These are probably shot from a point and shoot but the original size would be too heavy for uploading. I'm guessing over 2-3 MB per image. So you resize them till they get under 1 MB and upload them. At this point, they are probably the equivalent of a 2 or 3 Megapixel image! People no longer print photos like they used to in the past. Even if you plan to blow up a landscape that you shot, a 6 Meg shot should more than suffice! You might want to consider a 16 MP camera if shoot pictures that you want to blow up onto 30'x40' billboards, but for everything else, pixel quality is better than pixel count. So get a camera that has a sensor with better image quality rather than the highest number of pixels!

• Whitebalance: This refers to the coloration of the pictures and the way the sensor interprets colors. Good whitebalance will result in accurate reproduction of real life colors. Faulty whitebalance can lead to pictures that are too warm (red / orange) or too cold (white / blue). Cameras automatically set the whitebalance to suit the shot but can be off sometimes. So you can use the various other settings like Cloudy, Beach/Snow, Incandescent, etc. or use manual whitebalance configurations to arrive at the desired whitebalance.
  
  
• Flash: Flash can be harsh and throw off the whitebalance and cause overexposed sections to occur in your images if used when there is already ample light for a proper exposure. In such cases, just turn off the flash! But sometimes, when parts of the subject are not lit properly (say when the light source is not correctly aligned), it can be helpful to shoot with flash to 'fill' the otherwise dark areas of the shot. In any case, if you find the flash intensity to be too high for your liking, try using an external flash that you can 'bounce' or use a diffuser or just stick on a piece of 3M scotch tape over your flash to get gentler lighting on your shots.

Photography - Afterdark

An Android journey with the LG Optimus One

          I recently made a jump to the Android bandwagon. Most of you have probably heard of it. It is Google's mobile operating system that is built on open source Linux. In the last year, several top phone manufacturers have started making Android handsets in various configurations and Google reported this week that they are seeing over 3,00,000 Android activations daily! Android has beaten the Blackberry OS in market share and is giving the iPhone OS a serious run for its money.

The advantages of an Android smartphone are:

• Slick user interface and awesome integration with Google services. You key in your gmail ID and password and everything just works!
• Like the iPhone App Store, the Android Market has thousands of applications, free and paid (a lot of great free applications too! I haven't paid for a single app yet!) that you have access to.
• Unlike the iPhone or Blackberry where you have limited choice of hardware to choose from, Android comes on a range of devices from the entry level to the super premium.
• You don't have to pay the Apple tax! An iPhone 3Gs can cost upwards of Rs.30,000 in India. You can get Android devices with similar hardware for half the price! Or for the same price you can get a top end Android phone which blows away the iPhone! While Blackberry does have its place among business users, for normal users like you and me, Android again wins with price per feature.
• Android is highly customizable. You can tweak practically everything about the phone and the way it functions to suit your liking and usage.

My earlier phone (which I still have and use as an MP3 player!) was a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. A real sturdy handset with great hardware but an aging OS (Symbian^1) and resistive touchscreen. While shopping around for a new phone, I was really impressed with the hardware on the Nokia N8, which I still maintain to be the best phone hardware in the market today. But the Symbian^3 OS didn't quite cut the ice. Nokia needs to get their head out of the sand and start putting Android on their devices.

Anyway, I did not want to spend upwards of Rs. 15,000 on a phone since the technology changes so fast and we get bored of our handsets and change it every year or so. I had been keeping an eye on the 'budget' section of android smartphones for sometime now. I had some basic criteria in mind for what I wanted in an Android phone:

• All the bells and whistles of connectivity – 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, USB
• Capacitive touch screen – far more responsive compared to the resistive ones (like the one on Nokia 5800). Read more about it here: http://bit.ly/hLgVbB
• Run the latest available version of Android (see below). Many manufacturers sell phones with older versions of Android and may not bother to roll out upgrades. Typically phones with 1.6 cant upgrade beyond 2.1. And only 2.2 onwards support installing apps on memory card.
• At least HVGA screen resolution (see below)
• 3.5mm jack for audio output.

There are currently 5 active versions of Android (of which 2.2 is the most current version available on commercial phones at this time)

Version	Codename	Availability
1.6	Donut	Currently being phased out, most manufacturers have 2.1 updates
2.1	Éclair	Galaxy S/3/5, Moto XT3, Xperia X8/X10, HTC Legend
2.2	Froyo	Nexus One, HTC Desire, LG Optimus One
2.3	Gingerbread	Announced, Will be available by early 2011 with launch of Nexus S
3.0	Honeycomb	Not formally announced, demoed on Moto tablet, Available by 2011 end.

Android Screen Resolution:

Resolution	Rating	Devices
QVGA – 240x320 WQVGA – 240x400, 240x430	LOW	Samsung Galaxy 5 / 3, HTC Wildfire,
HVGA – 320x480	MEDIUM	Moto XT3, LG Optimus One
WVGA – 480x800	HIGH	Nexus One, HTC Desire, Samsung Galaxy S

So running through the list of requirements I had, when the Optimus One was announced, I found an almost perfect match. You can check it out here: http://bit.ly/i07mau It retails for about Rs.13,000. I got mine for Rs.12,600 at Devendra Telecom. The best deal around presently is Rs. 12,990 at Total along with a free pair of Reebok shoes. I've had the device for a little over a week and here are my impressions so far:

The Positives:

• The phone's build quality is amazing. It has rubberized plastic and metal around the edges. Feels very solid unlike other 'budget' phones and the rubberized plastic also serves to provide grip and avoids fingerprints. The design is very simplistic with just the power and volume keys along with android buttons at the bottom. The only ports are the 3.5mm music jack and a micro USB which serves as charging port too. Overall great design. Some might call it bland but it grows on you.
• The touchscreen is a 3.2 inch capacitive affair. Its not Gorilla Glass (like the Nokia N8 or the Moto XT3) but comes with some kind of screen guard pre-installed. The screen is very responsive but showed some lag initially. This was more to do with the 600Mhz processor being loaded than the screen itself. I installed LauncherPro to replace the LG Home stock UI and cut down the home screens to 3 and the lag is almost completely gone! Turns out the LG UI is not the fastest and having too many home screens with too many widgets saps your processor. I would recommend LauncherPro (available in the Market) for all Android phones. For more tips and tricks on speeding up your Android click here: http://lifehac.kr/fF3w15
• The phone comes with 512 MB of RAM which is on par with top end phones like the the Nexus One, Galaxy S, etc. There is no question of running out of RAM and there is no need to run Task Killers. Android manages memory in a way very different from what we know in Windows. Read about it here: http://lifehac.kr/cg8qb0
• The phone came with LG keyboard as default and was a pain to use. But thankfully the stock Android keyboard is very much there and all I needed to do was set that as the default and I was back in business.
• The phone's sound quality, both in call and for music playback on speaker-phone or headphone is top-notch.
• The GPS is real nifty and gets a satellite lock in no time! This was definitely a big move up from the GPS on the Nokia 5800 for me. The phone comes pre-loaded with Google maps but since they have yet to introduce turn-by-turn voice navigation in India, there is also a voice navigation app called Ndrive installed. The maps initially reside in the 2GB card that comes bundled with the phone and you can choose the India map when you install it. Be careful if you are upgrading to a bigger size memory card and make sure to copy all the contents of the 2GB card before you junk it. Ndrive is not as user friendly or polished as Nokia's Ovi maps but is functional and its nice to know that a 'budget' phone comes with a free navigation solution. (At least until Google's navigation launches here anyway!)
• If you are listening to music using a headset and yank it out from the phone, the music player pauses playback and prevents the sound from playing on the phone's loudspeaker. This can prevent embarrassment if you are in a quiet place (at work or a library for example) and accidentally pull out the headset from the phone.
• The phone uses the same micro USB port for both data transfer and charging. So when you are copying music from your computer, you don't have to worry about your phone dying because it is also simultaneously charging!
• The phone supports Divx and Xvid video formats. Which means you can copy all your DVD rips and other videos directly onto your memory card and the phone will play them as they are with no need for any conversion! The 600Mhz is quite up to the job. Initially there was some stutter when playing full length videos, but after a few tweaks that freed up the processor (installing launcher pro and reducing the number of home screens to 3) the videos play flawlessly!

The Negatives:

• The phone's camera is a 3MP affair and takes decent photos but lacks an LED flash. This obviously limits the use of camera in low light and one wonders how much money LG saved by leaving out a simple LED from the handset!
• Also the lack of camera flash means that one would have difficulty in using the phone as a torch. (There are several apps available in the Market that allow users to turn the LED into a torch for use during power outages.) But there are apps that can use the screen to provide a glow that kinda overcomes this issue.
• The phone accepts a normal 3.5mm headset to output audio and the sound quality is great. But plugging in a regular headset disables the phone's microphone. So if you are using a headset other than the one bundled with the phone and you get a call while listening to music, you can hear the person talking at the other end but they cant hear you until you unplug the headset. This is a real bummer! What is even more surprising is that even when using other headsets with an in-line Mic (I tried out my Nokia 5800's headset with music remote) neither the phone Mic or the headset's Mic works! I'm not sure as of yet if there is an app that can overcome this or if there is a software fix that will roll out in the future. But for ease of use, I would advise that you stick with the stock headphones that come with the phone. But some people who connect the phone to their car stereo's aux input would find this to be an issue.
• The phone does not have an ambient light sensor. So if you have set the display brightness to the lowest level, you will find it hard to read in sunlight / bright light. But thankfully you can use the Android Power Control widget to manually adjust the brightness (there are 3 levels of control) and when you crank up the brightness, there are no issues with readability.

Tweaks that I have implemented and apps I have installed to improve usability and performance:

• Installed LauncerPro. This is one of the best home screen apps available for Android and is better than most of the custom UIs that ship with todays Android devices. The interface is highly customizable and provides a noticeable increase in speed of operation. It also frees up the load on the 600Mhz processor and as a result you see better overall performance on the device. LauncherPro also allows you to enable landscape mode on the homescreen and virtual looping on homescreens.
• Reduced the number of homescreens to 3. The LG launcher allows you to choose only between 5 and 7 homescreens. By having lesser number of homescreens and only essential widgets running, you can minimize processor usage and increase overall phone performance and battery life.
• Installed Tweetdeck. The phone comes preloaded with Facebook and Twitter apps. But Tweetdeck allows you to integrate Facebook, Twitter and Buzz into one place and do common status and photo updates and also shows you all the friend updates from all three portals in a common timeline. In addition to the convenience of using a single app for all your social networking needs, this also means that your phone uses less data and battery by having just one app syncing data instead of multiple apps.
• Installed Emergency Light. This is an app that provides a white screen with full brightness to use as a torch. Works pretty well in the absence of an LED on the phone.
• Installed No Lock. When enabled, this app prevents the screen from locking once the display times out and goes blank. It saves you from the trouble of having to unlock the phone each time if you are say, sitting at your work desk.
• Installed Dropbox. I cant say this enough. Dropbox is an awesome file syncing software that runs on Windows, Max, Linux, iPhone / iPad and Android. Basically it allows you to have a common folder with synchronized contents across all the devices that you own. Plus, it saves a copy on the dropbox server, so you can access it using a web browser from any computer. Get it using this link: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTIwMzI2NjI5?src=global0 and you can help me earn referral points! :)

Thats it really! For its price, the LG Optimus One is the best hardware you can get and its truly great value for money. One can spend twice the amount of money or more and buy a flagship android device like the Galaxy S or HTC desire. You will end up with a slightly bigger better screen (Super AMOLED, 3.5 – 4 Inch) and a faster processor (1Ghz) but in the end it is entirely up to you if you want to put down extra cash for those benefits. For normal every day use the Optimus One is a real winner!

Happy Diwali 2010

Wishing you all a wonderful Diwali!

Today has been a bit of a bummer with the rain refusing to relent... here's a few shots of color and light that I hope will warm up your evening!

Cheers!

Wishing my buddies Vishnu and Shru a very happy birthday and a great year ahead!

World Music

Prem Joshua

In a world where the boundaries of language and culture grow increasingly blurred, a blending of musical influences was inevitable. Out of the melting pot was born a new sound, now known as “world music” - a fusion of genres. Prem Joshua is credited for being one of the pioneers of world music and is considered the guru of Indian Fusion. A tale of east-meets-west, Prem Joshua is a multi-instrumentalist musician, composer and singer who draws inspiration from the deep wells of eastern tradition and infuses it with the pulse of contemporary western music, to create a sound that transcends. Moody, meditative, yet highly energetic and even danceable to!

Born as Luke Joshua into a musical family in Germany, he learnt to play the flute and saxophone as a child. In his early teens he played with several local rock and jazz bands, always looking for ways to express his inner self through his music. But there remained a certain “discontent” which led him onto his quest for spirituality. At age 16, he remembers listening to a sitar performance by Ravi Shankar, an experience which left him mesmerized. “It was beyond my musical grasp and experience but was something of such immense beauty and depth. It felt unfamiliar and mysterious - yet at the same time like a remembrance of something I knew very well”, he says.

In the late 70's, still a teenager, he left home, traveling over land to India. Along the way he became involved in the local culture and the music of the countries he traversed. Across Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, he drowned himself in the indigenous folk music, learning and performing with the local musicians.

When he reached India, it seemed as if a void had been filled – he felt, he says, “as if I had come home!”. But this was not an end, but the beginning of a much longer journey for Joshua. He learnt to play the Sitar from Ustad Usman Khan. He was also deeply inspired by Osho. In the presence of this man with a long white beard, eyes as deep as the ocean and a strong sense of humor, he came in touch with the art of the “inner music” - Silence.

He assumed the first name “Prem” which means love, which, according to Joshua is what we all need today. He spent several years in India learning hindustani classical music and exploring spiritualiy, the effect of which can clearly be seen in the music he creates. Prem Joshua plays the Sitar, Soprano Sax, Dilruba and Bamboo Flutes in addition to doing vocals. Over the years he has collaborated with several musicians from across the world to share his learnings and has released over 14 albums.

Some critics may argue that fusion is “degenerative” to the existing musical forms. But Prem Joshua says “I love fusion – It comes naturally to me. We like to unite different cultures and their sounds. One needs sensitivity to do fusion, otherwise it becomes a 'hotchpotch'. Fusion comes naturally when you respect culture and sounds and give listeners something new, contemporary. The fact is that Hindustani music has also been to a great extent influenced by Persian music. So, Hindustani music is actually 'fusion' music since it has its roots in both India and Persia. Without the influence of Persian music, Hindustani music would not have been where it is today. As musicians we have the duty to translate the music with time. We have to make music for people who are living 'now'. The world moves together and similarly, music should also move.”

I had the pleasure of meeting Prem Joshua before one of his live performances. I saw him walking around dressed in flowing indian robes, like a sagely messiah, exuding warmth and energy, mingling with the audience that had gathered. When he took the stage and began his performance, he started with an invocation that he chanted in Sanskrit. What followed was musical divinity. Indian temple chants with urban jazz, sufi poems set to reggae rhythms, unfettered and complex Indian classical music on sitar and tabla, and soaring melodies on the bamboo flute over driving trance loops sending the listener effortlessly spinning into dervish-like heights of ecstasy. The songs from his upcoming album include works inspired by Meerabai, Kabir and Jhule Lal. I was filled with a sense of both pride and Irony that a man from the west had so much to share with us about our own music, culture and spirituality. Prem Joshua says that he might be born German, but his spirit is Indian, and anyone who has borne witness to his live performances would agree with him.

Shakespeare once wrote 'All the world is a stage', Prem Joshua brings the stage to life, with his music flowing like water down the ganges!

Footnote:

Prem Joshua's current band line-up consists of Satgyan Fukuda – bass player from Japan, Raul Sengupta – on drums, tabla, dholak and vocals, along with Chintan Relenberg on loops, keyboards, Darbouka and vocals.

This writeup was published in the March 2010 edition of Eclectic Vibes. www.eclecticmag.com