Interview of Aboo Khadaroo

Through The Lens Of

Aboo Khadaroo

Name: Aboo Khadaroo

Watermark: Aboo K.

Age: 37 years old

Years active in photography: 5 

Current location: Coromandel

Classification: Landscape, Family portrait, Close-up

1.  How did you discover photography? What got you started?

When I was 17, I read the Amateur Photographer magazines at the British Council. After that, my mother bought a compact and much later, my father got a telemetric (viewfinder) Yashica cam as a gift, when I was around 19. But in 2000, I bought a SLR Pentax Mz5n and really got started then.

2.  What are the camera and pieces of equipment do you use?

Initially, I had a Pentax Mz5n body and because I had opted for the wider 28-80mm instead of the 35-80mm I had to wait. I bought myself a manual Hoya Zoom 100-200mm for only Rs 1200, it was the lens I liked most I think. I got myself a sigma 70-300mm too and last was a Hoya 24mm too which I never had the chance to use since the body broke down. And now for over a year I’ve been using a Canon 1000D on which the critics are quite severe. I only have the standard 18-55 for the moment which is why I refrain from making portraits above shoulders to avoid spherical deformation and because I’m never satisfied with the bokeh no matter how wide I open the lens at 55 mm.  I also use a UV filter and a linear polarizer along with that for all my outdoor shoots.

Sunset on Medine

by Aboo K.

3. What do you consider a good picture?

It is one that does not distract. If it has a central subject then let it be central and let the rest reinforce the centricity. You can create centricity by focus, contrasting background and eliminating distracting elements or make a bokeh.

I believe a good picture does not necessarily have aesthetic beauty in it but it has to leave the viewer emotionally captured.  The emotion may not always be a sunny one, it could be suffering but if one has captured it rightly then I believe it’s a good picture. When I was younger, I asked myself why they call photography an art when people are creating nothing but merely capturing. But later I learnt it’s not so easy and that for example by cropping the unnecessary and by creating focus, one can give petty things importance.

Azeena's smile

by Aboo K.

4.  How do you take pictures of landscapes? You cannot create here.

Landscaping is the most difficult. You don’t control the elements but you have to do with them, find suitable angles. Sometimes I have to crop and get a better frame so that a monotonous foreground isn’t left. Inclusion of some attractive details in the foreground also always breaks the monotony but the exact opposite is true when depicting perspective.

Les champs de cannes

by Aboo K.

Pirogues 

by Aboo K.

5.  Seeing some of your pictures, one may think you have got a fascination for minimalistic landscapes. What do have to say about this?

I would not go that far by calling that a fascination. But from time to time when I come across simple scenes often with one subject and a background with contrasting colors, it definitely appeals me. It’s like the CMT Warehouse picture; I noted the pure red color of the warehouse. I didn’t shoot that time, but came one month later when the sky was all blue and cloudless like I wanted it. I had told my family: “Today is the perfect moment to go and shoot that CMT warehouse. 

I called those JKD pictures. JKD means “Jeet Kune Do”. It is the ultimate style which Bruce Lee designed. In his book the Tao of JKD in the second chapter “Qualities” he opens the subject with “It’s not daily increase but daily decrease – hack away the unessential!” Though I’m not a practitioner of JKD yet I’m a fan of hacking away the unessential. The truth is I’m fascinated by landscapes; on this I say YES in all caps, but not always minimalist landscape, a term which Frederic Melotte has coined for one of my shots in the JKD album.

CMT Warehouse

by Aboo K.

GRNW

by Aboo K.

6.  You are a great lover of classical music, have you ever associated music with pictures?

I consider both photography and music as arts. My opinion is that the function of art is to convey emotions apart from aesthetics. Of course people prefer brighter moods just like people like Mozart pieces, for they are often bright, happy and easily accessible. I started with Beethoven deliberately to understand music rather than to appreciate melody and Beethoven is indeed profound in his message. Composing a picture can be treated alike but with the difference that you cannot always choose all your elements. It’s up to you to omit certain details and making others more pronounced.

We have a panoply of possibilities to achieve that; by using selective depth of field to shift focus or coupling wide apertures with longer focal to build a bokeh on which you lay your subject in focus and in color contrast as examples. 


It's like the Canon of Pachelbel where the bass string plays a continuo that‘ll become the main melody on the violins later and then appears the second melody with shorter notes that contrasts in timbre. A picture should be just like this; its background preparing for the subject to be laid down upon. Where to lay your subject is an element of utmost importance that enters in composition too. For me colors I chose and the ones I omit in a photo are like the scales on which you compose. You cannot have all in one; musical scales do represent one mood more than another.

7.  Software editing can be perfect, if you know how to use it. You can remove all flaws. But what are your true thoughts about Photoshop and the like?

I hate those who overindulge in Photoshop when they blur the human skin texture until it looks like that of an inflatable doll. Some photographers have gone to the point of adding aura of shadows to on their mountains for example to create 3D effect.

Personally, I do not play with filters like Gaussian blur or sharpen. I don’t even have Photoshop! My greatest use of paint software is to crop the unnecessary or to redefine a frame and place subjects differently. I also use color balance because with Polarizer plus the UV filter and a reputed warm camera you get a nasty a yellow cast. So I cool that down when too pronounced.

I believe one should use Photoshop to save a picture from going into the recycle bin.

8.  What do you think of fashion photography?

On fashion photography, I think many times women are reduced down to an accessory. If I should shoot women for the purpose of photography, I would make them look more feminine. That is my personal view.  And if you ask me if I can do fashion photography one day, my answer would be yes but I would not do so because I’m afraid of myself and my harming potential.

9.  There are many pictures of your family, children and friends, are they a kind of inspiration? 

I take pictures of my family to capture moments as I want to remember them later when I’ll be older. I’m a nostalgic when it comes to joyful moments. Those of Madalina and Azeena are both people whom I know very well and who wanted to be photographed by me.

La malicieuse

by Aboo K. 

Madalina Cecan

by Aboo K. 

Imaad at Trou aux Cerfs

by Aboo K.

10. What is your opinion about people having G.A.S?

I would tell them first to see if they have learnt enough with their actual equipment. If they don’t, maybe they should buy books first, master the technique and practice the art second. Keep your camera, but buy yourself lenses. A bad worker often blames his tools and thinks he can comfort himself for his failures by casting hopes that he could have done better with better equipment. I myself never thought I could do macro at 55mm but at 55mm, I have a better depth of field. I capitalize on that. There are some great photographers who have worked all their life with their Leica 35 mm. Others used a 85mm lens for all their portraits and coverage. Of course, they belong to a different era.

The Rose

by Aboo K.

Red flower among green leaves

by Aboo K.

Onions

by Aboo K.

 A Snail

by Aboo K.

11. Do you have a role model or specific things you like to picture?

No, I don’t. I just like taking pictures of the small things in nature. I use to make a lot of macro photography with my sigma which had the macro option but actually with my Canon 1000D, I’m very limited with the standard lens I have for the moment.

A rose in my sister's garden

by Aboo K.

12. What would you like to portray one day?

I’ve always dreamt about going in the America in the plains of Arizona for example and in New Zealand in the vast green pastures. I like Ireland too, because it’s interesting though it's a bit gloomy. There is also Richelieu, a place where there is a lot of misery. I would like to picture that one day and help the people. But I’m afraid that I could hurt them if they feel that I’m exploiting them for glory with pictures of their misery.

Some portraits pictures made by Aboo K with his Pentax.

Mooneerah and daughter

"Bits of laughter"

taken with the 100-300 on Pentax Mount

13. Can you give me 5 words that describe you?

Inscribable.

Believer.

Honest.

Sensitive.

Intrigued.

14. If there was one ambition you could achieve, what would it be?

That of becoming a doctor who retains all about his pharmacology.

15. What are the 2 pictures you love most?

Well, there is a picture that I took at the birth of my daughter Imaad with her brother and sister. And there is also that of my elder daughter Yusrah that I like very much. These pictures are memories and they are dear to me.

Les trois au monde

My elder daughter, Yusrah

16. Is there anything you want to say to photo amateurs?

Practice a lot but don’t things for granted and if you want to improve, try to understand everything first; from technical aspects to artistic aspects of composition, there are a lot to learn from books.

17. My last question, what would be your wish?

To be loved and understood.

... And such was her joy

by Aboo K.

Yusuf

by Aboo K. 

{Interview carried out by Sakura}