Kulwant Ji

How did you do that? What lights did you use? Who is that? These are the most often questions asked of me when people see this portrait. For this post, we’ll take a small departure from food and jump another passion of mine – Portraiture – to let you know how it was made and why.

Kulwant Ji

First, I’ve been involved with Indian culture for many years, partially, because I’m married to a wonderful, Sikh/Punjabi lady. So, I visit the local gurudwaras (Sikh temples) in my area specifically, Bridgewater and Carteret, to shoot portraits of the ragis (musicians) and the giannis (priests). It’s more of a humanitarian service since many have never had their portrait taken. After the portrait sessions, I’ll return after a week or so with the hard copy prints and they’ll send most of them to their families in India. They’ve all got some great character about them that makes for a very dramatic portrait, but I ended up doing something different this time.

Back in early March of this year, I was at the Carteret gurudwara and did a larger-than-normal session with about eight or nine ragi and the gianni.  Kulwant, the man in this portrait, is a type of gianni. He interprets the Guru Granth Sahib (the Sikh holy book) and conveys the wisdom in a way the general public can understand. Kulwant was somewhere else and missed this session yet, when I first met him, he had this beautiful energy and the facial character that I needed to capture before he went back to India (patience, we’re getting to the point). I stopped by unannounced the following week to visit and have some tea with the group and wasn’t  prepared for a shoot.  In other words,I didn’t have my Elinchroms (studio lighting) with me only some Nikon Speedlights, the SU 80 commander and some diffusion and light-weight grip equipment. That’s when I found out that Kulwant Ji was leaving in a few days and this was my only chance to shoot his portrait. No Elinchraoms – a Speedlight – let’s make something of it…

By looking at the setup image below, there wasn’t much to it. It was shot with a single SB 800. But, I needed to diffuse the heck put of it. I hung a beat-up Gary Fong lightsphere on the 800, shot it  through the Lastolite softbox that had a baffle and the outer diffusion material, and finally, through a diffusion disc. It may sound conceited, but there are a few things that I really love about this image. Kulwant is so immersed in his natural character that it just works. He went someplace in his mind and the essence shone through. Then there’s the light that frames his right side. It has that beautiful northern window light effect that ignites his cascading beard and offers an ethereal glow. Five frames and we were done.

Given the choice, I still prefer to use the larger studio lights where I have more control, but in a pinch, one can do some pretty cool things with these little lights – or in this case – light. I’ve done some of the ragi portraits with the Nikon Speedlights and just a single piece of diffusion material on my portrait and beauty website (to see them, please visit www.davidverdini.com and click on the Sardar Ji link). They’re punchy little lights that need a lot of diffusion to create a soft look.

Thanks for your attention. Stay well and I’ll be back soon…