Sean Drakes

A sprin­kling of fete pho­tos ar­rive in the first few posts. Next comes Panora­ma mo­ments. Then, the fre­quen­cy of fes­tive pics on my so­cial me­dia feeds am­pli­fies.

Dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son, mil­lions of so­cial me­dia users ob­serve T&T’s most pop­u­lar fes­ti­val through the lens of lo­cal pa­trons. For those of us un­able to jet to T&T, drop­ping cri­tiques and likes on am­a­teur mo­bile phone pho­to post­cards is the next best thing to be­ing there.

Every­one with a mo­bile phone can take pic­tures, but not every­one is a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Not every­one can ef­fort­less­ly as­sess the best place­ment for sub­ject, light­ing and com­ple­ment­ing ob­jects. Not every­one can shep­herd a fleet­ing mo­ment in­to a com­pelling cap­ture.

Smart­phones and iPads make tak­ing pho­tos ex­treme­ly easy. But by ad­her­ing to sol­id ad­vice and com­mit­ting to proven style rules, you can el­e­vate your mo­bile phone pho­tographs and ex­plore rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing ex­po­sure that trumps two dozen likes on “ma­co­book”.

Dur­ing my tenure as pho­to ed­i­tor at the Trinidad Guardian and con­trib­u­tor to Caribbean Beat and Get­ty Im­ages, I doc­u­ment­ed T&T Car­ni­val over two decades. Soon, my eye and style earned my Car­ni­val pho­tog­ra­phy place­ment in ad cam­paigns for T&T tourism, Heineken, Dig­i­cel and Hy­att Re­gency. But the great­est and most en­dur­ing achieve­ment my Car­ni­val pho­tog­ra­phy has at­tained is that of the cen­tral char­ac­ter in the new, el­e­gant art book THE LAST MAS: Min­shall in the Car­ni­val of Trinidad & To­ba­go (Da­payo Edi­tions, 2024), which was gen­er­ous­ly spon­sored by First Cit­i­zens Bank and the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts.

To de­vel­op the fol­low­ing point­ers to help any­one make al­lur­ing cap­tures of Car­ni­val, I leaned on the stamp of ap­proval my Car­ni­val pho­tographs re­ceive from re­spect­ed me­dia out­lets, such as Condé Nast Trav­eller, CNN, Lone­ly Plan­et, BBC and Trav­el + Leisure.Whether pho­tog­ra­phy is your hob­by or side hus­tle, you’ll like­ly feel a deep­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion for your pic­tures when you prac­tise these in­sights.

SI­LENCE THE NOISE:

On days with mul­ti­ple Car­ni­val events, there’s end­less fre­net­ic en­er­gy in the streets. An­i­mat­ed limers, hov­er­ing par­ents, and rov­ing ven­dors can be dis­trac­tions when shoot­ing pa­rades and com­pe­ti­tions. I crop out ex­ces­sive back­ground noise and keep on­ly taste­ful com­ple­ments that ac­ces­sorise the fo­cal point of the pho­to­graph. Aware­ness and smart use of back­ground ob­jects like an artis­tic sign, gin­ger­bread house, clus­ter of spec­ta­tors, or colour­ful snow cone cart can lend tex­ture and in­ter­est to a pho­to­graph, so ad­just your com­po­si­tion wise­ly.

AIM HIGH:

A blue sky with a sprin­kling of cot­ton ball clouds is my go-to back­drop when I shoot a mas­quer­ad­er in a vo­lu­mi­nous cos­tume on the bustling Sa­van­nah ‘drag’. Mag­a­zine ed­i­tors shop­ping for pho­tog­ra­phy to de­sign a dou­ble-page spread of­ten grav­i­tate to im­ages with head­room to place bold type. In the ab­sence of con­ve­nient el­e­va­tions to shoot from along the pa­rade route, I squat for a dra­mat­ic up­ward an­gle that makes the sky a can­vas when a sub­ject has mass or needs a con­trast­ing back­drop.

KEEP IT MOV­ING:

Sway, chip and wine down low with your sub­ject. I pre­fer to keep a mov­ing sub­ject on the move to get a dy­nam­ic pho­to­graph. Your eye must an­tic­i­pate the body’s nat­ur­al move­ment and catch the mo­ment an arm un­folds, a leg bends or a neck swivels to re­veal spon­ta­neous ex­pres­sion. Get­ting one can­did shot no one else has is more re­ward­ing than four dozen posed por­traits.

MIN­IMISE EYE CON­TACT:

My best por­trait of Miss Uni­verse 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam graced a cov­er of Caribbean Beat in-flight mag­a­zine. When a mas­quer­ad­er is not gaz­ing in­to your lens, the view­er gets the sense of hav­ing ac­cess to a rare or in­ti­mate mo­ment. As Wendy swirled on the Sa­van­nah stage, her gaze float­ed and flirt­ed like her feath­ered crown with­out fix­at­ing on any cam­era. Every im­age in The Last Mas demon­strates my pur­suit of can­did mo­ments of the au­then­tic ex­pres­sions of mas play­ers.

CROP, DON’T PHO­TO­SHOP:

The bar­rage of over­head ban­ner ads on Ari­api­ta Av­enue and bev­er­age ads plas­tered on ven­dor stalls can be un­flat­ter­ing de­trac­tors. Crop­ping be­gins when I aim a cam­era. Be­fore press­ing the shut­ter but­ton, all four cor­ners of the viewfind­er must be tidy and trimmed. Crop­ping in Pho­to­shop will re­duce the file size, and many pho­to agen­cies avoid pho­tog­ra­phy with AI en­hance­ments or heavy Pho­to­shop.

PIC­TURE THE STO­RY:

As you shoot, imag­ine the cap­tion each im­age in your sto­ry in­spires. This can min­imise mak­ing du­pli­cates. Your pho­to es­say can show­case the style ob­served at a fête: the dé­cor colour scheme, graph­ic fash­ion state­ments and ac­ces­sories. The food and bev­er­age served can al­so in­spire a pic­to­r­i­al. Post­ed as a col­lec­tion, with a lead im­age, this ap­proach will im­prove your sto­ry­board­ing and quick-think­ing skills.

Prac­tise these point­ers this Car­ni­val. As you de­vel­op com­fort and see im­prove­ments, sign up with stock pho­to agen­cies to put your pho­tographs to work.

Find THE LAST MAS by Sean Drakes on Face­book Mar­ket­place and at Pa­per Based Book­shop in St Clair.