Chalo chalein Funland

“Pyaari ammi pyare abbu, Fauzia, Nazia, babli bablu,Chalo chalein Funland, Chalo chalein Funland.”

This was one of the most frequently aired jingles back in the 1980s, when having only one TV channel meant that just about everyone who watched PTV saw this ad for Funland approximately one million, eight hundred and fifty-nine thousand times. Some 30 years later, many of us still can’t get it out of our heads!

Well, in 2012, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture’s photography postgraduate diploma batch took a trip to Funland amusement park to photograph the park their parents are probably still humming about under their breath.

Students Amna Ansari, Aysha Ahsan, Mahmood Ali, Minail Adamjee, Naila Mahmood, Sana Agboatwala, Shazre Shahid and Zeeshan Ali each used a different perspective to photograph the park located inside the Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim. What they all had in common was that almost all of them used a slow shutter speed to create colourful blurs of light on the moving rides. Slow shutter speed photography is the process of closing the aperture and capturing less light, allowing a photograph to be taken over a longer period of time without becoming washed out or overexposed.

IVSAA was the first institution in Pakistan to offer a postgraduate diploma in photography. The programme is the brainchild of Farah Mahbub and is spearheaded by acclaimed photographer Amean J. Renowned professionals such as Arif Mahmood, Asif Raza, Kohi Marri, Shalalae Jamil and Tapu Javeri routinely offer their services as visiting faculty and share their knowledge with the students.

HOW TO: When it comes to Ferris wheels and carousels, the photographic fun begins when the sun goes down and the lights come on. A good place to start is in Aperture Priority mode: Set your lens at the smallest aperture (biggest f/stop number), which will automatically result in the slowest possible shutter speed for the given ISO and light level. Then try another photo or two with slightly larger apertures (thus, resulting in faster shutter speeds).

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, September 30^th, 2012.

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