We share with you five tips that can make your visit to the world-famous Pushkar Fair a memorable one.

1. Be Early to Rise and Late to Retire

Early to rise Pushkar

One of the best details of being in Pushkar during the fair is the golden light that touches everything mildly at the break of dawn and the onset of dusk. This magical stretch of time is quite brief, which is why you must rise early in the morning and head towards the fair venue, and stay late in the evening. You can capture some of the most evocative pictures of all the human activity and other animals around, all of them enveloped in the gossamer fabric of the golden hours – if you’re early to rise and late to retire, and stay in a place that allows you to do this.

2. Strike a Rapport before You Ask Them to Strike a Pose

Pushkar 1

Before you make your own stories in pictures, try to strike a conversation and get to know the subject you are shooting, especially if it’s a portrait of a person. The way people of Rajasthan dress is interesting, with their vibrant colours speaking volumes unabashedly. And their culture and ethnicity can be better understood by building a rapport before you begin to shoot with your camera. Smile and speak and make it a ‘Fair Affair’.

3. Stay Attentive to Every Opportunity

Pushkar2

You might want to be attentive to the stories that are always becoming during your very journeys from where you stay to the actual place of the fair. And certain clichés are too important to let go, and one is that sometimes the journey itself can be more interesting than the destination. And Pushkar is a place where both the journey as well as the destination matter, and that’s a rare experience for your senses if they are longing for something new.

4. Carry a Range of Lenses

Pushkar3

The exotic landscape of Rajasthan – in Pushkar itself – renders itself into beautiful frames, to do justice to which you might want to carry a range of lenses and capture disparate perspectives.
Specifically:

  • A good wide-angle or ultra-wide-angle lens (10mm to 18mm on crop sensor, or 14mm to 28mm on full frame)
  • A portrait lens, such as a 50mm, 35mm or 85mm lens, to make high-quality portraiture
  • A short or medium fixed telephoto or zoom lens (70mm to 200mm) for ‘compressed landscape’ images, abstracts and candid people or street photography

5. Unwind and be undone

Pushkar 4

Don’t forget the need for repose in a place where something or the other is always happening and is even worthy of being recording as a memory. Relax and take it all in without the camera when you have to, enjoy with your eyes before the eye of the camera pleads for its turn. Let the beautiful chaos etch its fragrances and colours on your mind and settle in their places and form their own homes.

(Content courtesy: Toehold)

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