Photography - It’s all about the light : Ronny Sequeira

WallMag : Could you give our readers a bit of information about you, where you’re from, and tell us a bit about the kind of work that you do?

Ronny Sequeira; in the photography world, is a name that is known to frame brands in the correct line of sight. Yes, most often with a celebrity that lends to the aura.

His work for Adidas, LG, Yamaha, Lays, Pepsi, Hindware, Voltas, Horlicks, Nescafe Airtel, Gulf, Castrol, Kellogg’s, Samsung, Dabur, Ford, Haier, Dettol, Fanta, Kurkure, Toyota, Sonata Watches, Mirinda, Toshiba, Philips, Microsoft, Mountain Dew, ESPN, Kit Kat, Gold’s Gym, Pizza Hut, Aircel, Liril, Maggi, Britannia etc. speaks that over the years.

He started off making it to the Society’s Young Achievers Award in 2000. In 2008, he made it to the India TOP 10 Indian Photographers (Asian Photography) list and since has been creating epochal moments with superstars as enigmatic as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Parineeti Chopra, and just recently shot with John Abraham for Yamaha.

With 18 years of experience in advertising photography, he still has the same desire as when he was a 10 year old using his dad’s reflex camera to shoot his pet Alsatian. He is happiest when behind a camera or astride his Triumph motorcycle exploring the country.

WallMag : Can you share a photo of your favorite project?

This image was done for the Autumn Winter collection of 2012 for L'Officiel magazine in my studio. 

Technically, it was very different from what we normally do because instead of flash lights we used 5 baby lights. 

Baby lights are 1000W tungsten units that are now pretty redundant in the world of film making today; but because they have an "old world" charm to it, I have one permanently kept in the studio. The light quality on these lights because they are "Point Source Lights" is very sharp and hard, unlike flash which is more suited to soft / diffused light. 

We did conventional Hollywood Lighting where we had 1 main light, 1 fill, 2 kicker or edge lights and 1 extra garment fill.

The only drawback with this lighting was that it needed to be shot at 400 ISO with the Shutter Speed of 60 and an Aperture of 5.6; thus the use of a Tripod was necessary and the models could not do any rapid movements. The main light along with the 2 fills interestingly caused a lot of crossed shadows in the background which added to the drama of the light on the subject. 

The post work on this was handled by one of my earliest digital assistant - Deb; who did a fantastic job not just in finishing, but also in the use of "Alien Skin - Exposure" where he mixed and matched a few de-saturated colour looks and some cross processes. This particular image was something called Agfa Optima cross processed.

WallMag : Can you share a picture that makes you happy?

This image was again done for L'Officiel and the theme was "Colour Blocking". 

Interestingly, we used another continuous light this time - a 2K HMI with the hardest filter No1. This was the main light that we also cut interestingly in a "V form", using flags from the subject and the rest was filled in with a flash from right of camera.

If I had not filled the shadows, the contrast would have been 4 to 5 stops which meant all the dark areas would be almost black. The flash opened up the shadows about 2 stops thus, letting us see the interesting colour play and shadow play of the 2 lights. 

The hair and make-up person was the "Saviour" of us in this shoot; the model had long wavy hair and it would not have worked because the light was nice and sharp. When I showed her the reference, she immediately pulled out a beautiful wig from her bag and proceeded to cut it to the required blunt that you see in the final image. 

This was the "Piece De Resistance" of the shoot and made a big difference in the final image

WallMag : Can you share a photo of yours which holds your eyes for a moment to think deeper?

In my formative years, I was a big follower of the great "Richard Avedon". Infact my first most expensive book then was "Evidence" bought in LA in 1997. Richard Avedon had a distinct style of shooting with one light against grey background and he shot a lot of male nudes / semi-nudes for the designer "Versace". 

This shot was done in the film era and I distinctly remember shooting two Polaroids before I shot the final one roll in black and white. The model - David, was a German with a great body but, his body language was very rigid; almost like a German Solider. Thus, most of the shots looks like he is marching and not running. 

This was the 2nd last shot in the 10 frames of the 120 rolls that I was lucky to get, all others had either him looking too "stiff " or like he was marching. 

There is no Photoshop on this and his privates was actually taped with masking tape to stick to the inner thigh (Of the leg facing the camera) 

This image sat proudly on my studio wall for many years in a near life size 4ft x 5ft print.

WallMag : Can you share a photo of yours on your home wall which always makes you proud?

This image was shot for a series of exhibitions that we photographers were part of in the initial days of PGI - Photographers Guild of India!

The idea was for us professionals to shoot completely different images than our usual commercial work and basically good enough to sell as art. This image was inspired by "Wolfgang Pietrzok" a German photographer who used a square plate of glass against which he shot his models pressed against. 

We emulated the same by placing large 6ft x 4ft glass on the studio beams and poured ink on the top to give that "watery" feel. It was technically again a challenge because it was mostly backlit with flashes bouncing off the ceiling and me on the floor shooting upto the subject.

This again was shot on film and the final images were printed on canvas paper to give a more "painterly" feel to the outcome. 

Though the images did not sell, they are very proudly sitting in my Pune home and most importantly, the model is my Wife. 

WallMag : How your photography has changed since you started out?

In a nutshell it has become more easier to become a photographer because, one does not need to be technically so sound. When we started out as assistants we had to learn all the technical bits of the camera - the films, the processing, the printing and the use of equipment like the flashes. 

Today any youngster with the decent digital SLR has a wider access of creating good images without even knowing the basics. For Eg: a lot of photographers I come across don't even know that there is something called a Light Meter! Even today I use a meter in all my shoots to calculate the correct ratios in all the lights so as to not leave anything to "Judgment".

But as much as it has become easier to shoot images and become a photographer; the competition because of the number of photographers being out there brings it down to if one is really good at their job or not? It is very easy to see the people who are not technically sorted just by one glance at their Insta pages.

I tell all my boys who assist me that its very important to have their foundation strong before they move up to the more complex shoots; thus knowledge of Depth of Field, knowledge of Angle of View of lenses, knowledge of Perspective of Different Lenses is the basis of later on becoming a good photographer. 

I feel today, there are a lot of "Instagram Photographers" who by and large do work only for Insta and are not really doing paid jobs. Its a bubble they live in because it's quite easy to get a large following of people if one is putting up the "correct" type of pictures but what they don't realise that, if they call themselves professionals sooner or later they need to make money out of photography.

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