Cats in the Cradle

Today is the Swasti/Ipaan Thaaba (ceremony held on the 6th day of birth of a child) of the first born son of Jefferey, my guitarist friend.

He wanted the ceremony to be a grand event by inviting his friends and relatives to a grand feast and a concert performed by him, his musician friends and other invitees from the guests. (Jeff is a band member of our rock band, playing lead guitars).

He also wanted the event to be covered on video and photographs. The person of his choice for the photography works falls upon me. So reach his place earlier before the distinguished guests arrive, armed with my DSLR and two Speedlites to beat the backlighting normally found in such outdoor set-ups where a large tent covers the roof only and there are harsh lights all round rendering the subjects inside too dim. Capturing the subjects perfectly means a blown-out highlights of the outdoor ambience, a typical situation faced by us mortals.

The two Speedlites were used as remotes placing them in their proper hideouts controlled by the built-in flashgun from my D-700 (Commander Mode). These three sources of lights do wonders inside the mini auditorium when the event begin much to the amazement of the guests who watched upon me and the gadgets in awe describing me as a wizard of some kind!

The concert begins with unplugged and plugged acoustics with percussion given by these Tablas. Here, I have intentionally used a low shutter speed to catch the movements of the hands.

Today, Jeff is so happy in getting his first son and this made me recollect in mind the song 'Cats in the Cradle' by Ugly Kid Joe - when the son was a kid he wanted his father to play with him but his father was too busy in his work. When the father retired from his work, he wanted his son to be with him for a while but his son's then too busy with his work and his kid's having the flu' etc. to spare time for his retired father.