The photo agency VII is hosting an expanded three-day workshop in downtown Brooklyn on May 16, 17 & 18.
Some of the sharpest shooters for $50. Not bad. Not bad at all. Wan your portfolio shred, um reviewed? That'll be $200. Again, a worthwhile investment.
And, oh, the New York Photo Festival runs May 14-18. So, it's a two-fer.
I shot a wedding in California and have posted images here and here. Both are on my wedding and portrait blog, Saffron. Check it out. I'll be posting at least four more posts with a ton more images to view in the days to come. So, bookmark the site – http://www.seshu.net – and visit the blog!
Place a comment under either of those two posts and your name will be entered to win a CD by the Veena virtuoso, Dr. Krishna Raghavendra called "Rare Pulse."
Evidence of My Existence is a book and a short documentary by photojournalist Jim Lo Scalzo. It's necessary viewing and reading if you are in the business of documenting the world. Here is an excerpt. [Links via MediaStorm]
The America India Foundation is hosting a photo exhibition by Prashant Panjiar, the uber talented photojournalist out of India whose work I have long coveted. Well, the wait is over. Panjiar has a book and an online gallery (hosted by India Picture) that invites fans like me to buy his prints. The added benefit is 50% of the proceeds go to help The America India Foundation. Everybody wins and wins big.
And for the record, this is the image that I want to grace my wall at home. At Rs. 35,000 (for the largest size) it comes to a very reasonable $890. I am still tempted to pass the hat around.
I am running the annual SAJA Photoforum again and can use your help. Here are the instructions:
For the 2007 SAJA Photoforum we are doing things a little differently. Instead of sending us your images on CDs and filling out forms, we are asking that you simply submit your images for the annual exhibit by emailing them to us at – sajaphotoforum@gmail.com.
Please note that the images you send us need to be at least 9 inches on the long side at 72 dpi. Anything less will not be considered. So, please scan or crop your images accordingly. Only JPGs will be accepted. Not all images will be selected and we reserve the right to edit for quality and content.
Each photographer may only send in 15 images maximum. You are welcome to include caption information as well. When you send your images, you must mention the following in the subject line of each of your emails (especially if you are sending us multiple images spread across several emails), so that we may group your images easily: "your full name, number of images being sent, publication name if any"
Deadline for your submissions is: July 6, 2007, 5 pm EST (US).
Fees: ZERO!
What we are looking for: The very best photojournalism – single images, photo essays or stories created by South Asian photographers OR images created by anyone documenting the South Asian diaspora worldwide. Please be sure that your submission adheres to either of these two criteria.
By providing us your images for the exhibit during the convention, you implicitly approve of their display also on the SAJAPHOTOFORUM.org web site.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
Please visit the first post in this series to find out more about this project.
This photo-essay by Robert Bailey and the accompanying text by Naeem Mohaiemen is a long time coming. One delay or another, caused by some mystical external or internal force, prevented me from posting this to Tiffinbox back in August 2006. [Robert and Naeem - Sorry!]
These images have been exhibited at the Asia Society and the text and some of the images have also appeared in the terrific Nepali progressive publication, Himal.
Robert Bailey is a freelance documentary and commercial photographer living in New York City. His assignments have taken him to locations across the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia. He has photographed extensively in Bangladesh, India , Nepal, and Pakistan and his work has been exhibited in both solo and group shows across the United States. His style of photography has led him to clients such as Unicef, Merck, City Harvest, and United Airlines. Robert?s work has been featured on the Discovery Channel, Today Show, NBC NIghtly News, and at the Sundance Film Festival. He has lectured abroad and also here in New York at the International Center of Photography and the School of Visual Arts. Robert will be teaching photography this fall semester at Ohio Northern University.
Naeem Mohaiemen is a filmmaker and media activist. He is director of VISIBLE COLLECTIVE, an artist-activist collective that works on film-art interventions on migrant impulses, hyphenated identities and post 9/11 security panic. Project excerpts have shown widely, including the 2006 Whitney Biennial. His film on impact of image politics on struggles inside political Islam, MUSLIMS OR HERETICS, screened at the British House of Lords. His essays include the forthcoming "Hip Hop's Islamic Connection" (Sound Unbound, MIT Press, DJ Spooky ed.), ?Invisible Migrants? (Men of the Global South, Zed Books, Adam Jones ed.), "Shiraj Sikder: Terrorists, Guerillas or Icons" (Sarai Reader, RAQS Collective ed.), and "Why Mahmud Can't Be a Pilot" (Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, Matt Bernstein ed.)
Please click the link below to read Naeem's story about this enigmatic industry.
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As I mentioned in this post, for the next 31 days, I'll be posting one image a day from Munem Waif's somber photo essay on tea plantation workers in Bangladesh.
The images are intentionally dark; they provoke me into really looking at the people in them. Feel free to leave your comments below.
Reported in Boing Boing
Mark Frauenfelder says that Miami police didn't want their photos taken and so instead arrested photojournalist Carlos Miller. The arresting officers apparently told Miller, "‘If you don’t shut up, I’m going to tase you.’” Nice.
Read Thomas Hawk's blog post about it here.
Magnum Photos, the classic and venerable photo agency has a blog. Welcome to the blogosphere!
I for one have to have a cup of tea [even better if it is chai made with all the right spices] every morning. But after a trip to Munnar, in Kerala, I was interested by its production. More than how it was produced, it was who produced it that intrigued me the most.
Check this commercial out for Snapple's White Tea. Like most consumers, we are loathe to know where our food comes from. We poke fun at what we don't know.
But the business of tea is a serious multi-billion dollar industry spanning a great many nations. Munem Wasif, a photographer based in Bangladesh, has been quietly working on a project documenting the lives of tea plantation workers.
Come back to see Munem's images, one-a-day beginning on March 1.
Meanwhile, here is his statement:
First, I'd like to say that this didn't begin as an assignment for me. I was photographing my friend's wedding in Habiganj District in Bangladesh. After finishing the assignment, he told me that I should visit a tea garden. I said okay.
I had the typical visual of tea gardens in my mind; what we saw on TV ads – an exotic, green, 'travel' look. It was a rainy day and we were going by motorbike. When I entered the tea garden, my preconceived ideas broke down, because then I was seeing how the people really lived and worked. A huge community… they were also citizens of my country, but I didn't know them. Yet I drink tea every day for refreshment. So it was a striking thing for me to do this story.
When I started working on this story, it was really tough because there was no access for journalists there. You can take a picture of beautiful tea estate and leave it there. However the real problem arises when you are talking to the workers, visiting their house, breaking bread with them and talking to them about their problems. A very different picture emerges then. I worked in various gardens, so that the management couldn't notice me. Meanwhile, I was learning about the colonial structure and political framework of the tea garden – the meaning of 'estate', the colonial dress code, even how the garden was mapped. For me, it is a modern form of slavery.
The tea garden authorities want to isolate the workers from the mainstream media and workers live a hidden life so that we can't see their sufferings. None of the management wants to cooperate to show us the workers life. Another huge problem is that I cannot go to the same tea garden frequently. Contacts dissolve. So every time I go to a garden I have to make new relationships, which may not always be renewable.
I have been working on this story for almost two years. The conditions in Ratna are very bad, and it has been closed for almost one-and-a-half years. So the workers have nothing to do. Many have died because of a lack of medicine. But Lashkarpur produces tea steadily. The cycle of oppression will continue, like in many other tea gardens in Bangladesh.
While we met once, and only very briefly, in Dhaka several years ago, I saw in G.M.B. Akash's work the kind of depth and breadth that I wished more photographers in the region could emulate. And now, he is clearly on a winning streak.
Just because you haven't seen it does not mean it doesn't exist. There is a plethora of talent in South Asia, waiting to be discovered. What makes Akash shine is of course his vision, his use of color, his sense of timing and light. All those things one would expect from a photographer. But those skills alone will limit your beautiful images to be stored away in shoe boxes or hard drives, never to be seen or appreciated by anyone.
What differentiates Akash is his pluckiness in putting his work and his name out there in front of people who matter most in this business: photo editors. Every month or so for the past year, I have received emails from Akash saying that he has either won or has been considered a finalist in one photo contest or another. For serious artists of the medium it is easy to tell yourself that you create art for yourself and contests don't mean a whole lot. That's fine, if you want to starve. But if you want to survive and continue creating work that is useful to society, you do now have to, well, promote yourself. And, Akash is very good at that. Entering and winning contests means putting his images and his name out into the real working world where editors and photo buyers are perusing, and perhaps persuing, new talent.
Here is a typical note from Akash. It's simple and to the point.
Dear Friends and colleagues,
You will be happy to know that i have won First Place, Color in Photographer's Forum Magazine's 26Th annual photo contest. USA.
This year 20,000 images were submitted from all around the world. As a award i will receive 1000 USD and a canon Digital SLR camera.
Due to Bangladesh’s large population, inadequate seats on the trains and poverty, it is quite common to see a thick layer of people occupying the roof of a train. Frequent accidents, which occur when a free rider slips, are not enough to deter these stowaways of the railway.
If you are a finalist or won a contest send me a note. And if it has helped you garner more assignments, definitely let me know the name of the publication. Email me the contest's name, your winning image(s) and a link to your website.
Steve Raymer, a professor at Indiana University [my alma mater] and a former National Geographic photographer has been on a vision quest, documenting the Indian diaspora. Looks like he has made some headway with his project. He is shopping his book around and hopefully we'll see it in print.
The morning light at 6.45 is terrific; with not much traffic on the roads there is no smog or dust to muck up the air. The drive from Bangalore to Mysore now is a pleasant one. The road, divided by Hibiscus flowers, caters to cars, trucks and buses that rush through towns in a blur. We passed by coconut trees, rice fields and sugar cane farms and lots of people carrying idols of Ganesha on the back of three-wheeled pickup trucks [It's Ganesh Chathurthi here in India today].
We arrived in Mysore in good time. Mr. T.S. Satyan wasn't expecting us till about 10 a.m. so we scooted out to my parent's new apartment in that city to check it out. Though completed, the walls were stark white like a hospital and with no cabinets or any furnishing, the flat looks naked.
The directions to Satyan's residence left us a little perplexed because the road he lives on is an unmarked one-way street. Arriving at 10.30, we were met at the gate by Satyan's son, Ravi, who ushered us in. Mr. Satyan, in a chekered half-sleeve shirt, shook our hands and drew us into his living room.
While we had traded emails now for almost four years this was our first meeting. Several years ago, my mother had gifted us Satyan's book, In Love With Life, a retrospective monograph. The images were single black and white frames showcasing Satyan's love of people. It's easy to see what makes them special. I had never seen, at least in a photographer that matches Satyan's experiences in the business, a sense of intimacy or place with his subjects. They appear to be patiently visited, not the usual grab shots that we are so prone to making these days with digital cameras. It is indeed unfortunate that Satyan's work is largely unseen in the West as it provides a greater perspective of India's people and culture than any of the recent cliches that we are so fond of using in our publications.
We chatted about cameras [we are all closet geeks at heart] and he confessed that he had never shot anything with a digital camera. When he worked as a photographer, his gear included nothing more than a Nikon FM-2 with either a 28mm or a 105 mm lens. His images reveal that he used his feet to zoom in and out of people's lives. The book, In Love With Life, whet my appetite to see his work and he readily welcomed the idea of showing us more of his prints.
In sets of about 20 prints, neatly organized in about five or six large bags, were some of the most glorious black and white RC prints I have seen to date. The inescapable hint of photo fixer was still evident in them, but there were no stains or fingerprints. It didn't take me long to ask Mr. Satyan whether he would sell any of them to me. He said he offered his images for sale to art dealers and collectors, but offered them to me at a steep discount. I took my time selecting about 12 prints that spoke to me personally. If Mr. Satyan agrees, I'll be happy to share them with you here in this space.
The weather was warm but pleasantly so. We stepped out for a bit to visit in his garden, a place of refuge for him. The cozy lawn was punctuated by red and pink Hibiscus flowers. Even the outside walls of his home hosted small potted plants that were a source of great pride for him.
Talk turned to lunch as it was 1 p.m. by the time we were done discussing his prints and his experiences as a freelancer working for the famous Black Star agency. The simple but delicious lunch consisted of some Karnataka favorites: bissi belle baath, beans palya, yogurt rice with cilantro, rasam and some sundigei.
Post lunch, Mr. Satyan patiently signed each of his prints and also gifted us a couple of extra autographed copies of his memoir, Alive and Clicking, published by Penguin India.
Satyan and his wife Ratna were gracious hosts who made us feel welcome and really at home. I feel honored to have been able to meet them and look forward to our next meeting after my parents move to Mysore.
[I'll update this post with images as soon as I get back to the US. As usual, I shot images in RAW and don't have a way of converting them to JPG here on this laptop I am borrowing!]
Looks like the news wire service Reuters is in quite a bit of trouble because of an altered image from Beirut, Lebanon. While it has been yanked out of circulation, the use of Photoshop to manipulate the truth now creates an unsaid suspicion of all that we now see in the news. It adds to the pessimism that is clearly rampant in our world today.
[Via Micropersuasion]
Updates here
Via G.M.B. Akash
"Babu, 22, the main earning person of his family, lost a leg in a grenade attack on the main opposition political party office in Narayanganj, during a general meeting. 2005. Since 1999, Bangladesh has experienced a spate of ‘unexplained’ bomb blasts and grenade attacks, killing at least 300 till the end of 2005. Since August 17, 2005, a new wave of attacks have begun.
The victims have received no compensation or any form of assistance from the state."
Via G.M.B. Akash
"Babu, 22, the main earning person of his family, lost a leg in a grenade attack on the main opposition political party office in Narayanganj, during a general meeting. 2005. Since 1999, Bangladesh has experienced a spate of ‘unexplained’ bomb blasts and grenade attacks, killing at least 300 till the end of 2005. Since August 17, 2005, a new wave of attacks have begun.
The victims have received no compensation or any form of assistance from the state."
Yeah, I have been putting a lot more energy into my other blog, Bliss, than this one. The allure of paying off academic loans through wedding photography is much too great and I have got to get my name out there. I have been assisting photographers, working on a few weddings on my own and even signed on to work with a national wedding photography agency called Bella Pictures. So, if you don't see anything new posted here, head on over to Bliss and check it out. I'll be sure to get back to Tiffinbox as soon as this wedding season starts to quieten down. Thanks for your patience.
Please check out Prashant Panjiar's photo essay on TIME's website about a Florida man who travelled to New Delhi to have an expensive heart operation for fraction of the cost it would have cost him. This says a lot about how far medicine in India has come and how other organizations with exemplary track records can also help other desperate patients in the West.
Scott Kelby's books are legendary for their simplicity, their wit and their quality. Look in your bookshelves right now and if you are a photographer, graphic designer or someone in between those two professions you are likely to own at least one Scott Kelby book. Now you can own more. Kelby has a new website with all his books listed in one place.
Devalina Guha Roy wrote in to say that she and a group of other photographers are showing their work in Philadelphia. The show, an Asian Arts Initiative called A Different Lens runs from now through June 3.
“A Different Lens exhibition, a collaboration with the Philadelphia chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), focuses on the unique perspectives of Asian American photographers and challenges the distinction between photography as an art form and photojournalism. The Asian Arts Initiative is interested in how Asian American photographers depict and portray Asian and Asian American culture and experience, particularly in terms of people, locations, and objects/artifacts.”
Documentary photographer Srinivas Kuruganti tipped me off about the Alexia Foundation announcing their 2006 fellowship winners; Balzs Gardi for the professional grant and Melanie Blanding of Western Kentucky University for the student grant.
Also, Pictures of the Year, International or POYi have also announced 2006 winners. The POYi winners gallery is here.
Speaking of winners, photographer G.M.B. Akash from Dhaka, Bangladesh chimed in modestly with some great news. He says, "You will be happy to know that I have won third prize from World Press Photo 2006 contest in daily life single category." Bravo! This is well-deserved accolade for one of South Asia's rising photojournalism stars. Keep an eye on this guy. He is off to doing some incredible things in the years to come.
Here is G.M.B. Akash's winning image of a child laborer being threatened bodily harm. I can't think of a better image that so lucidly illustrates the abuse these young garment workers face every day.
Clemente Bernad wrote in yesterday to tell me that he had updated his website and that he was being represented by Contrasto, the Italian photo agency. Skimming through the names of the other photographers at Contrasto, I came upon Shobha's name.
Shobha's biography is impressive, though I have to confess I haven't come across her work here in the US. That's rather typical, though, as most media outlets in the US are hard pressed to look beyond their own Atlantic coast for the talent that lies beyond. She was born in Palermo and appears to mostly work out of Italy.
If anyone reading this has any contact information for Shobha, please email me at tiffinbox [at] pipalproductiions [dot] com. I would love to introduce her to Tiffinbox and of course the SAJA Photoforum.
Jason Taylor is a Delhi-based photojournalist. Sometime last year, he mailed me a CD of his most recent work, Driven, "an exhibition of photographs revealing the solitary and nomadic existence of North India's truck driver population, the nature of their complex personal relationships, and their vulnerable position on the fringes of society, where the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections are becoming increasingly important issues."
Driven is the culmination of a 5-month sojourn with the truck drivers and was supported by the Naz Foundation International.
Today is World AIDS Day. I felt it only timely and appropriate that Jason's work finally gets published here on Tiffinbox. You can send Jason your comments and feedback directly by emailing him at nomad_is [at] hotmail [dot] com.
Mallika Dutta, Executive Director of Breakthrough.tv, emailed me a link about their campaign. Mallika, as a part of a panel this evening at the Rubin Museum of Art, will discuss AIDS in India, with particular focus given to the Himalayan region. The panel discussion begins at 7 pm and goes through 9 pm. There is a $10 fee.
Via Mahesh Bhat
Reza, the Paris-based, Iranian photojournalist writes:
Dear Qasim [sic]
Your action brings in my mind a Persian saying :
“All the darkness of the world together can not extinguish the light of a small candle”
Yes the world and it's decision makers has forgotten many devasted nations, but all is needed in this era of communication and media is one person like you, “one small candle,” that will break all the darkness.
Great work , continue.
All my thoughts with you and Keshmiri people .
Warmest regards,
Reza
Reza is talking about Asim Rafiqui's dark and gripping images from those areas of Pakistan affected by the earthquake.
In Asim's own hand:
Dear friends,
The tragedy in Pakistan's northern areas and Kashmir continues to unfold though less in the media's eye today than perhaps a couple of weeks ago. Regardless, the situation remains dire and a major donor conference is about to begin to address the threat of the coming himalayan winter. I am continuing my work here in Pakistan and some of my initial images of the situation are now online here.
(Select top picture to see the full set – images are being uploaded every few days)
This is still a work in progress and I will be in the Kashmir region for another couple of weeks at least. Please feel free to share the work with your friends as a way to keep this issue on their minds and in their hearts.
Nothing I write, nothing I photograph can capture what I have seen here. I am currently working in Balakot. The only way to describe that city is to image what an urban center would look like if a giant road rolling machine drove over it. 7 seconds that have devasteted over 3 million people, killed nearly 20,000 school age children alone, and thousands of bodies are still lying under rubble.
More soon,
Asim
A short report about this year's Visa Pour L'Image via Matt Shonfeld
Visa this year was exceptional. I can only speak of my personal experiences of course, and this year was only my second time. I guess the first time you go to Visa you are so eager to meet everyone you NEED to meet, you don't really relax and enjoy the event. Now without the worries of having an agent, I had the opportunity to meet photographers and editors from all over the globe. The exhibitions were truly inspirational and the event gives you the option of hearing these photographers recount their lives and answer questions about their reasons for taking on such projects and photographing them in the way they did.
As always, even the talented veteran of photography picks up something. Canon unveiled their new toy the 5D to an appreciative audience in Perpignan this year. Philip Blenkinsop collected the Visa D'or for the second time quite deservedly and the parties were magnificent especially the closing party funded and sponsored by Canon.
This year was also the first time the night shows were presented digitally. The photographs were beautiful, with such incredible reproduction quality.
A few years ago there was some doubt to the survival of Visa pour l'image but I can't see that there is any issue for the foreseeable future. Photographers call this Mecca and they make their annual pilgrimage to this small Catalan town. Hotel beds were being reserved for next year and for sure unless barring an earthquake, tsunami or war I'll shall return.
The 2005 Korea International Documentary Photo Awards have been announced. There are two sections, a general section and one for students. Domestic and foreign professionals and students can apply. The theme is open to any general documentary photography, black and white or color, digital or film, and the deadline for applying is 31 October 2005. The awards are sponsored by Olympus Korea, The Chosun Ilbo, one of South Korea's leading newspapers, and The Society of Korean Photography.
Complete information and downloadable application forms are online.
Via Melanie Light
Fotovision is pleased to offer the first portfolio of fine prints for photography lovers. You can help us continue to invite important photographers to teach and lecture, fund our efforts to capture their teachings on film and to produce our documentary workshops by purchasing gelatin silver prints at below market prices. Fotovision offers several ways to buy either a portfolio of five prints in a handmade case or individual prints. Please visit our website for more information.
The image above, by documentary photographer and teacher Ken Light, is my favorite of the bunch. I absolutely love the way he has timed and layered the image. The cotton choppers, whose faces we do not see, have their heads bowed down to the ground and hard at work. It is an ominous reminder of how life once was and how sometimes things continue to be for an often ignored section of society. The image was shot at the Sherard Plantation in Sherard, Mississippi, in 1992.
I urge you all to support this fine print program and start collecting some great art!
I am thrilled to share with you some great news. I have been chosen to be a part of the Wedding Photojournalist Association. Open only to photographers with real photojournalism experience, this association promises to connect me with discerning cosmopolitan clients who know the difference between traditional [read = boring] photography of weddings and the much more exciting world of wedding photojournalism that I promote and offer through my company Pipal Productions.
If you or someone you know is interested in my wedding photojournalism services, please have them contact me. As a way of saying thanks to you, I offer $100 for every referred couple/client who signs on for my services.
The SAJA Convention begins on June 16. Hope you have registered and will be attending all the events. It promises to be the best convention yet!
As a sort of sideshow, I am arranging for a meet up for fellow photographers and photo editors on Thursday, June 16, 2005.
Here is the plan – we'll meet between 4.30 pm and 6 pm, before the official SAJA opening reception that night.
Here is where we will be:
Chelsea Grill
135 8th Ave
New York, NY 10011
Wed-Sat 11:30am- 4:00am
Sun-Tue 11:30am- 2:00am
Tel: (212) 242-5336
The Chelsea Grill is conveniently located near the Rubin Museum of Art where the SAJA receptiion will take place [a block and a half is my estimate].
Please email me at – sajamail [at] pipalproductions [dot] com to let me know you will be coming. Tell me who you are, whether you are a photographer or a photo editor and whether you are on staff or a freelancer. The subject of your email must be - SAJA PHOTO MEETUP.
You can bring friends, but please know that this gathering is limited to those working in the photojournalism business. If you have a particular affinity towards South Asia, great. If you would llike to work there someday and want to meet photojournalists like Shahidul Alam of the Bangladesh-based Drik photo agency, do come along and join us. Either way it should be fun.