This is a guest post by Trudy Hamilton, a portrait and lifestyle photographer and blogger, originally from Florida and now residing the the San Francisco Bay area. She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Most photographers that I know enjoy the adventure that travel brings into their lives. Whether it be personal travel, such as visiting family, or business travel, such as the destination wedding or a location commercial shoot, travel is both a pleasure and necessity. However, unless we're all Joe McNally, we probably don't travel as much as we'd like to.

One of the best reasons to travel is simply to experience the culture of another, hopefully though an open mind, heart and camera. However, you don't have to travel all of the time to experience and photograph another culture. An exciting and economical way to do so is to explore the cultural events of your community. I photographed my first community cultural event in 2006 and I have been interested in them ever since. The beauty of people, music, food, fashion and uniqueness has always excited me and appealed to me. This is why I travel, but also why my mind and heart can travel even when I am home.

A few good reasons to embrace your local community cultural events are:

1) It's a learning opportunity. If you are open to it, a community cultural event can be a learning experience for you. Certainly I could have read an article on the Obon Festival, but I chose to attend one in Japantown of San Jose, CA a few weeks ago. I have been to Japan, but certainly couldn't pick up and go again a few weeks ago. But by attending the festival, I chatted with and photographed Japanese, Japanese Americans and others at the event, listened to the powerful yet soothing sounds of the San Jose Taiko and enjoyed gyoza–some of the same activities I did while I was actually in Japan a few years ago. For several hours, it was like I was transformed from traditional Bay Area Cali and merged into Japanese culture.

2) It's a photographic opportunity. Certainly most photographers desire paid work versus unpaid work, especially the ones running a business. However, sometimes it is good to photograph truly for the sake of creation. Cultural photojournalism differs from my portraiture work. I use different camera settings, I have different compositional ideas and a different intent and message with every photograph that I create at a community cultural event. It's great exercise for me for when I do have paid event photography and great exercise in my creativity and storytelling, in general.

3) It's a networking opportunity. I am an introvert. Though I am not shy, as introversion does not always equate to shyness, I am usually uncomfortable and drained by traditional networking events and conventions. However, at a community cultural event, such as one I attended a month ago in San Francisco, Juneteenth, I can stay below radar and only photograph if I choose, or chat with people who ask me about my work simply from seeing me with what they call a big camera. At this aforementioned event, someone came up and talked with me. I ended up booking them as a client on the spot. So not only was it a great cultural experience (even just to embrace stories of Black people in America–ones that I could see in the very skin of the men I photographed below, who are only a few generations removed from slavery) but it was a business opportunity as well.

Acknowledging, embracing and understanding the cultures of others doesn't just make us better photographers, it makes us better humans. So I encourage you to view your city's website or a site like Yelp and look for the next event in your area, whether it be a Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Filipino, Jamaican or Irish festival (I've been to all of these types) and check it out. It may truly be a learning, photographic and networking opportunity for you as it has been for me. Embrace the true beauty within yourself, by embracing the beauty of others.

Back in January, I posted about Selina Maitreya‘s audio program for serious photographers: The View From Here.

If you haven't had a chance to read it, I suggest you go there first and then come back here. It's a quick read and it will outline why you may want to buy this MP3 program for your photography business.

Recently, I had a chance to speak and record Selina (who now has an amazing blog called OneView). What you will hear below was my first attempt at recording a podcast (go easy on me will ya?), but the takeaway from it is still very good.

So, hit play, sit back and relax as you listen to Selina Maitreya talk about her background as a photo consultant and why she launched The View From Here for photographers like you and me.

Remember to use the code: FOSSES to get it for only $99 (original price is $199).

Full FTC disclosures: I received a complimentary copy of the entire program from Selina Maitreya. That, however, in no way alters my perception of it being a stellar product that you will find useful. If you use the code supplied above, I do receive a minor affiliate commission (enough to keep this website going every month).

[podcast]http://www.tiffinbox.org/tiffincast/042010/selina-maitreya-the-view-from-here.mp3[/podcast]

Did you like this podcast? Would you like to see/hear more from other photographers? Please let me know in the comments section below. I look forward to hearing from you.

David H. Wells is a photojournalist with over twenty five years' experiences in photography. Since 1986 he has focused on in-depth photo-essays for publication and exhibition. Between 1986 and 1996 he produced 16 photo-essays for the Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine. His photo-essays have also been published in Aramco World, the Chicago Tribune, Geo Magazine, Life Magazine, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, National Geographic Publications, Newsweek Magazine, the New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, U.S. News & World Report and the Washington Post Magazine, among other publications.

Wells has extensive work experience in India, working on assignment for Aramco World and the Ford Foundation, among others, during numerous trips to India since 1995. Wells spent five months in India in 1999-2000 on a Fulbright fellowship. During 2001-2003 he was working in India on an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship photographing the winners and losers in India’s globalization. In 2005-2006 he was on his second Fulbright fellowship, photographing the impact of globalization in rural South Asia.

This David's first guest post here on Tiffinbox. Please make him feel welcome by commenting below. Thank you!

This work explores the fluctuating encounter between the eternal and the newly global in South Asia. Some images show physical manifestations of globalization’s forces for change interacting with local culture. Others use the play of light and shadow to highlight the eternal magic and beauty at the core of daily life in South Asia. The work is assembled to mimic the visual cacophony that is so much a part of life across the region. Some images are presented as singles, and other as diptychs or triptychs, collectively recreating South Asia’s omnipresent visual noise. Interspersed within the pages are blocks of text that allude to the dissonant sounds, ideas, names, faiths, places, cultures, and people that are encountered across the region. The complete photo-essay encourages a better understanding of the powerful, duality of forces that are vying to shape the future of South Asia.

Streets in South Asia offer patient observers an infinite number of dualities including; compassion and greed, hope and fear, wealth and poverty. Over the last eleven years, I have encountered these same dichotomies as both an insider and an outsider. While I am shaped by my Western upbringing, I am also married to an Indian woman. Her experiences and those of her extensive family network have helped me better understand India, and South Asia in general. Three grants (two Fulbright fellowships and an Alicia Patterson fellowship) as well as magazine assignments have expanded my appreciation of South Asia’s many cultures. Also, extensive reading of the popular press and academic publications, both Western and local, have informed my understanding of the area.

When working there, I have observed moments where the timeless in South Asia confronts the newness of globalization. I record these instances, creating images that highlight the changes sweeping across the region. The photographs explore the swirling human milieu that is unique to the local cultures, but is also being reshaped by globalization. The images show the physical manifestations of globalization’s forces for change interacting with local cultures in both urban and rural areas. Interspersed within these dichotomies, I also use the play of light and shadow to highlight the eternal magic and beauty at the core of daily life in South Asia.

The work I am producing explores these dualities, focusing on the continuously fluctuating encounter between the eternal and the newly global in South Asia. When I am exploring the newly global in the region, I emphasize the color that is common to so many global logos. With others, I compose my images in order to extract the color from the images, highlighting the simple play of dark and light.

The work is assembled to mimic the visual cacophony that is so much a part of life across the region. Some images are presented as singles, and other as diptychs or triptychs, collectively recreating South Asia’s omnipresent visual noise

Globalization is clearly trickling into the lives, villages, and the psyches of people across South Asia. Though the forces of globalization are external and frequently visual, the internal process of change is largely unseen. Far too many discussions of globalization focus on efforts to somehow “stop” the historically inevitable force that has been shaping and reshaping humanity for centuries. Rather than being fixated on opposing globalization, this photo-essay encourages a better understanding of the powerful duality of forces that are vying to shape the future of South Asia.

Like so many photographers I “meet” today, Matt Brandon and I came to know of each other thanks to Twitter. His passion for photography, people and travel intrigued me. Scanning his blog one day, I stumbled upon the beautiful multimedia show you see below on Bangla Sahib. What I liked most about this slideshow was Matt's use of ambient sound and interviews as we are taken through the lives of those who visit this beautiful Gurudwara (a Sikh temple).

Matt Brandon has a special eye for portraits of people set in their natural environment. He photographs images of the forgotten, the unknown and the helpless. He shoots beauty and sees it everywhere. The beauty in the eyes of a seven year old street girl of Old Delhi, an eighty year old shepherdess in the Himalaya. He sees the beauty in the face of the over worked 60 year old Indonesian farmer or the Buddhist monk Cambodia. He sees value in telling their story. These are stories that most people would over look. The cultures of the “other part” of the world have a special draw for him, ever since he was a child in Alaska.

Matt spent over thirteen years living in India and now resides with his family in Malaysia. He shoots often for international faith based NGOs and non-profits. He takes assignments regularly. Matt's images have been used by international clients such as Partner Aid International, NeighborWorks, the BBC, Honda Motor Corporation, and the Bombadier Transport Corporation. If you are looking for a photographer for your next assignment, no matter where, please give Matt a call or email him.

It was a magazine clipping that my mother handed me on my way back to the US that first introduced me to Homai Vyarawalla, India's first woman photojournalist. In a field that is clearly overrun by men, I was easily charmed by her tenacity and resolve to also bear witness to India's first waking moments as an independent nation.

Check out this film – it's rather long at 70 minutes – to get acquainted with a legend in the field of photojournalism.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Post your thoughts below in the comments section. I look forward to hearing from you.