The photograhpy thread-Exciting Places of the world

I've played with flashes tonight (creative lightning system of Nikon).
I have used my sculpture which I have purchased on Bali from the artist personally. It's made of hibiscus wood.
I liked it and now I am using it as my new Avatar.







Whole sculpture.

 

I am glad to share it, also the story behind...

Balinese woodcarving is famous for its tradition and fine details.
This one is surreal art (my only one), with organic round shapes and rather less details...I like the grain in the wood, green hibiscus has nice texture....
It is important to me to meet the artist personally. He invited us to his father's house. His father has retired as an active artist. The family has a long tradition of woodcarving passed on from father to son generation by generation.
When interested in a piece of art then you have to bargain. It is unfamiliar to us westerners having fixed prices.

But to bargain itself is also a tradition there. It usually takes several hours and is used to get to know each others.
We had some coffees and talked about our life. It was funny since he suddenly told me another price which had been less than his last of course. Then it was my turn to offer a price which has to be higher than my last of course.

What impressed me most is when I asked him: How do you start, is there a special idea before or inspiration and you realize it then or do you start without a detailed idea and the result unveils later...

He laughed and said: You are thinking in a too complicated way, the figure is there inside the woodblock all the time. I simply remove the excess of wood to release it. Most people think of a figure, but it is there already before one can think of it.

Later he said he has no concrete idea of a price before, he only knows the price he's paid for the wood. It depends on the communication and feeling and where it will be its (the sculpture's) destination...




It has been my first attempt to experiment with 2 flash lights, it is truly underestimated. I wished I had a second remote besides of the master flash, though.

I encounter that since I've started to photograph, I almost never did flash / portrait photograph. Have learned that flash exposure and camera exposure can be used totally independent. The pictures originated in my well-lit living room, strongly underexposed at manual camera exposure, to let the distracting background vanish in darkness, lol.
(I know it's nothing special to other photographers, but to me it had been, you can 'simulate' night time by manually underexposing background and exposing foreground [main object(s)] with different flashes.)

I have one bigger sculpture made of crocodile wood, traditional Balinese art. It's quite old already and the wood has darkened. It is very very detailed almost unbelievable how it's made.
It has got the central place in my living room.
If I can manage to photograph it in an 'appropriate' way then I'll post it here as well someday. She is really graceful...

So when visiting Bali or generally Indonesia and one is interested in traditional art one can get woodcarving, stone-carving, paintings and batiks with an affordable price and in a very good quality.
But be careful there are also crooks. Selling bad quality sculptures and false wood.
Most are impressed by such sculptures already and do not feel ripped off. But they do not know what is available from a real traditional artist.