Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts knows what it means to have friends in high places.

I have 16 Gmail invites to give away. Interested? Check this link first.

Make a donation (it's a worthy cause), send me an email saying that you have done the right thing, once I confirm your donation I'll send you an invite to join the Gmail cult.

If you can't make a donation at this time, then email me a short list of six photographers, writers, designers or editorial illustrators whose web sites aren't already listed on Tiffinbox. The more number of URL's you send me the better your chances are, and if they happen to be desi, even better.

There are no free lunches.

Via Harikrishna Katragadda

My friend Kiran Rao will be on the season premiere of the hit WB show Charmed. Set your VCR's or your TiVo's and watch it.

I have had quite a bit of Polaroid Type55 film in the closet. Don't ask me why I hoard these things. I just do. Though their expiration dates had whizzed past me, I was convinced that I would one day use them all up. Couple of weeks ago, I got my chance. I decided to experiment with an old WISTA, 4×5 field camera. Larger the negative, sharper the image when enlarged. That's if you have a negative at all. I didn't. Read on.

I set out to do some portraits of my family at a birthday party. I brought in studio lights and my brother, Ananth, meticulously pulled the negatives off of this special Polaroid film that creates both an instant positive and a very brittle black & white negative. It's a messy process, replete with toxic gooey paste dripping off the film. I must admit I hadn't this before. I had shot with a 4×5 camera, but the film I had used was transferred quickly onto paper; a process entirely different from what I embarked on this time.

The sodium sulphite solution that the exposed negatives were supposed to be dunked in must have been terribly concentrated and I sure didn't clean the negatives right away as prescribed. That aside, we were all very happy with the results. Instant image = instant gratification.

The negatives were all toast, though. I left them in a box full of water and that's exactly what I am NOT supposed to do. I picked one negative up from the water bath and the emulsion slipped right off of it. The emulsion was gone. Poof! I think I will be a whole lot better prepared next time around. If anyone of you has worked with this Polaroid Type55 film, please email me. I would love to tickle your brain with questions.

I must be on a nature kick. Minnesota photographer Jim Brandenburg's images are breathtaking.

I felt like reading aloud the poetry of Robert Frost when I stumbled across David Lesson and Kim Ritzenthaler's Field & Forest web site. You will see images like the one below there.

It is a great place to seek refuge from all the eye candy that the net or your television has to offer. In addition to a community space and a photo gallery, members can submit their poetry too.

Via Harikrishna Katragadda

Take a piece of chalk and a tape ruler. Now find a spot around your home were you can create a 20 inch by 24 inch box with the chalk. Now, just for kicks lay down in such a way where you are smack dab in the center of this box. Have a friend take your picture, top down. You'll have a life-size photograph of yourself. Or, would you?

Well, anyway, Polaroid is making it a tad bit easier for us to get those life-size mug shots, if not of ourselves certainly of someone we admire or love. Now through September 30, 2004, you can sign up to photograph at the famous Polaroid studio in NYC where the size of the film, get this, is 20″x24″. Folks, if this hasn't hit you yet, sit down to figure it out. It's staggering! This is large-format photography at its best and people like William Wegman have used the studio to achieve fame and perhaps fortune over time. The 1:1 resolution this special camera offers is amazing.

The cost for a half-day rental is $400 (a discount apparently). You get six free sheets of film, so use them wisely. A technician on deck makes the session go smoothly. All you are asked to bring are props and models. I sure am tempted to get a few people together so that we could split the costs down the line. If four photographers got together, we could buy two extra sheets of film so that each of us would have two images to take home. That would make it about $100 per photog, plus the cost of two extra sheets (I don't have a clue how much they cost) divided by four people. What do you think? Interested? Email me – tiffinbox(at)pipalproductions(dot)com.

Via Hemali Dassani

“From who-knows-where, a sudden wind blows grit into my eyes. When I raise my hand to rub at them, it snatches away the paper I am drawing on. I lunge for it but the wind is too quick. The sheet tumbles over the sill and disappears under the feet of the multitude of passersby below. Involuntarily, I shiver. Is this the Bidhata Purush’s chill, vindictive breath warning me not to stitch my life into patterns he has not placed there?

Stubbornly I pull out another sheet and begin to draw again. I WILL prove myself. I WILL be in charge of my fate. I WILL pattern a new life for myself. I swat away the superstitious unease that buzzes in my ear like gnats.

The new design is even more beautiful than before. Concentric circles of lotus buds, the spiral of death and
rebirth, and in the center, a single opened flower to symbolize freedom from this earth-bound life that we humans have crowded with our complex sorrows.”

“Sister of my Heart,” pg. 273
Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni