One Shot: Mahesh Shantaram

Image Copyright © Mahesh Shantaram-All Rights Reserved
Mahesh Shantaram lives in Bangalore, India and earned his diploma in photography from the Spéos Institute, Paris. He currently is an independent photographer. Having spent seven years into a career in technology media and publishing, he worked as a tech research analyst in Washington, DC, but returned to India last year.

As a photographer, Mahesh is dedicated to working on modern themes, especially on the phenomenon that is Bangalore, with a contemporary style of art-meets-documentary photography that is firmly rooted in the here-and-now.

I chose this image of bus commuters in Kandy, Sri Lanka...I chose it because of its mix of lighting: inside the bus and from a street lamp. An urban street scene, with just the right amount of blur to indicate the passenger getting into the bus.

For further images and blog thoughts from Mahesh, go to The Contrarian.

National Geographic: 2007 Photo Contest

'Tis the season of contests! The venerable National Geographic Society is inviting photographers to share their vision of the world through their own photography. Entry submissions can be done online in any of these four categories: people, landscape, animals, or photo essay.

There are two types of contests:

English Language Competition:
The prize is a digital SLR camera kit and the winning photograph published in the pages of National Geographic magazine. Winners of the English language competition are automatically entered in the International Photography Contest.

International Photography Contest:
The First Place winner in each category will receive a trip to National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C and have their winning entry published in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

Before you send anything out, read the rules carefully...especially the one that says:

"By entering the Contest, all entrants grant an irrevocable perpetual non-exclusive license to Authorized Parties, to reproduce, distribute, display and create derivative works of the entries (along with a name credit) in connection with the Contest and promotion of the Contest, in any media now or hereafter known, including, but not limited to: Display at a potential exhibition of winners; publication of a book featuring select entries in the Contest; publication in National Geographic Magazine or online highlighting entries or winners of the Contest."

NGS' Photo Contest.

Sanjit Das: Indian Kashmir

Image Copyright © Sanjit Das-All Rights Reserved
Sanjit Das lives in Delhi, and has worked for various international newspapers, magazines, corporates, UN agencies and NGOs. He regularly works for Bloomberg News and is also a member of OnAsia Pictures.

His work principally tackles social issues in the backdrop of changing economic and political scenario in India, and his powerful images reflect the changing India through the lived experiences of people, especially women and children. His photographs are published in books, book covers, newspapers and journals in India and overseas.

Out of Sanjit's impressive body of work, I chose his photo essay on Dardpora, the Indian Kashmiri village which is also called 'the village of widows". Sanjit's writes that the village is not far from the Line of Control...the boundary that divides Kashmir and its people. The long years of conflict has taken its toll, and men are rare in Dardpora.

"Almost every corner has a graveyard with the day of death written on cheap tin sheets. There is an eerie silence and it’s as if one can smell fear in the village. Mothers keep their children indoors. There is only one dilapidated school in the village. There are 200 orphans in the village, but few go to the school."

Sanjit Das' Dardpora photo essay.

Zenfolio : An Upscale Flickr?

I was intrigued by a recent post on Photopreneur on Zenfolio.

Zenfolio's website (below) is slick and well designed, and is essentially a hosting service for online photo galleries. It claims that it shows photographs with "uncompromising quality using professional looking page designs and easy to use organization tools, along with unlimited storage space for full size photographs"

As far as the terms of service go, Zenfolio offers a free trial of two two weeks, and fees ranging from $25 a year for the Basic service to $40 per year for the Unlimited service (which gives photographers unlimited storage space for their images).

I decided to try Zenfolio, and found it to be really quite simple to upload photographs, and to display them in gallery format and slideshow. Photopreneur however, makes the point that Zenfolio does not yet have the capacity to sell images directly, so photographers are mostly using the site to create easy-to-build portfolios. In other words, marketing and promotions are all in the hands of the photographers as Zenfolio is not an image bank nor a stock photography site. This may come in the future.

Zenfolio has definite advantages, so give it a try if you're on the lookout for a quick and easy-to-build portfolio. You may find it well suited to your needs.

Further details are here: Zenfolio.

Editor & Publisher: Photo Contest

I received an email from Editor and Publisher inviting entry to its eighth annual Photos of the Year contest. The Grand Prize Winner will receive $1,000 and a Canon EOS-1 D Mark III digital SLR camera. Winners and Honorable Mentions will be presented in our November issue and online gallery at the Editor & Publisher website on October 29, 2007.

You may submit photographs that have been published in a newspaper or on a newspaper's Web site since October 1, 2006. The Photos of the Year constest is an international newspaper photo contest, entries are accepted from all countries. Entries are $35 for single entry or $60 for a photo essay/series (3-10 photos).

For further details, visit E&P's website.

New York Times: Culinary Vietnam

Image Copyright © Chang W. Lee/New York Times-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times brings us a short slideshow of photographs by Chang W. Lee on various culinary styles in Vietnam. Street food is extremely popular in Vietnam, and it's well represented here in this feature.

The post's photograph above of a typical Vietnamese restaurant reminds me of those I visited while photographing in Vietnam for a well-known NGO. The patrons ate without talking much, and spat chicken bones and gristle on the floor. Naturally, I did the same.

The NYTimes' Culinary Vietnam.

Bangkok Photo Workshop

Image Copyright © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
James Nachtwey & David Alan Harvey will hold a workshop from 18 November 2007 to 23 November 2007 in Bangkok. Students will have the opportunity to shoot an assignment for one week with either instructor, depending on personal preference and photographic style. Students will be expected to produce a photographic essay as if working on an assignment with a major magazine—like National Geographic--complete with a looming deadline.

For further details, visit the workshop's website.

Stuart Freedman: Shadipur Depot, Delhi

Image Copyright © Stuart Freedman-All Rights Reserved
Stuart Freedman has been a photographer since 1991, and his work has been published in, amongst others, Life, Geo, Time, Der Spiegel, Newsweek and Paris Match covering stories from Albania to Afghanistan and from former Yugoslavia to Haiti.

His work has been recognised in many awards, from Amnesty International, Pictures of the Year, The World Sports Photo Award, The Royal Photographic Society and UNICEF. Stuart's talents as a photographer and writer are in clear evidence through his work shown on his website. I'm extremely impressed by his work in Shadipur, an artist colony in the slums of Delhi, where he photographed. His literary talents are as eloquent as his photography, and from his introductory essay on Shadipur. I am pleased to quote a couple of paragraphs that I found particularly beautiful:

"Shadipur is home to most of Delhi’s traditional entertainers - acrobats, magicians, dancers and the like, and here, to India’s shame, they remain - stuck between poverty on the one hand and international stardom on the other, consigned to their fate by bureaucracy and the ineptitude of the authorities. A place forgotten or unknown to most Delhi residents."

"Barefoot children are running through the open sewers and those that have no facilities in their shacks are relieving themselves over the embankment. There’s a great commotion of spitting and hoiking of phlegm and a man is lying where he lay last night, dead drunk, covered in vomit. Then you hear the drums starting up. Like a rough dawn chorus, someone is practising a tabla , then someone else joins in, then there’s singing. Then bedlam. Walking becomes nigh impossible down the crowded, twisting, narrow lanes. Children run screaming past and push into you. Men with instruments in cloth bags hurry down to the main road to catch a bus for a gig. Bejewelled Rajasthani women start their daily grind of washing and cooking."

Stuart has photographed the Maha Kumbh Mela of 2001, in Burundi, in Somaliland, Ghana, Mauritania, Sierra Leone and Rwanda as well.

Stuart Freedman's website.

DP Review: New Canon Bodies

DPreview has just posted Canon's announcements relating to the launch of the new Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III and the new Canon EOS 40D. Phil Askey is pre-reviewing both models with specifications and photographs of the new bodies.

Read the previews here for Canon EOS 1DS Mark III and here for Canon EOS 40D.

New Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III

Engadget also reports that Amazon has inadvertently activated the page for Canon's 21.1 megapixel EOS 1Ds Mark III. If true, and there's no reason to disbelieve this, it's an 11 megapixel jump from their EOS 1D Mark III. This camera is designed for fashion photographers and commercial photo studios.

The new Canon sports a 36 x 24-mm self-cleaning CMOS sensor; a pair of DIGIC III image processers operating in parallel; improved 45-point advanced autofocus; 5fps continuous shooting (for bursts of up to 45 Large/Fine JPEGs or 15 RAW images); sRAW image support; 3-inch Live View LCD with 5x or 10x magnification; and CF, SD/SDHC storage options.

Amazon's website listed its price at $8,000 and that it will ship on December 10th.

Read Engadget's post on the new Canon EOS 1DS Mark III.

New Canon 40D Out on September 20?

Engadget reports that Amazon may have "unofficially" posted the specs and delivery for Canon's EOS 40D, and lists a September 20th availability for the true 30D successor. The specifications are a new 10.1 megapixel, APS-C sized, self-cleaning CMOS sensor; 30% faster, 9 point AF; DIGIC III image processing; ISO 3200 max sensitivity; improved 3.0-inch LCD with Enhanced Live View; 6.5fps continuous shooting (bursting 75 Large/Fine JPEGs or 17 RAW images); 35-zone metering system; and CF card storage.

The Canon 40D's body is apparently just slightly larger than the EOS 30D at around 1.4-ounces (40-grams) more beef. It also supports an "sRAW' mode which trims the number of pixels to one-fourth that of a standard RAW image (cutting file size in half) while retaining all of the flexibility of full-sized RAW images. A definite 30D upgrade for those of you who've been holding out.

Read Engadget's post on the new Canon EOS 40D.

POV: Rule of Thirds

Image Copyright © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
One of the fundamental rules of photography is the much vaunted Rule of Thirds. According to Wikipedia, the "rule of thirds is a compositional rule of thumb in photography and other visual arts such as painting. The rule states that an image can be divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines. The four points formed by the intersections of these lines can be used to align features in the photograph. The application of the rule of thirds to photographs is considered by many to make them more aesthetically pleasing and professional-looking.

Rasmus Rasmussen in his blog (link below) recommends that anyone starting out in photography ought to use the Rule of Thirds. This applies not only to stock, but to photography in general. He also provides excellent advice for stock photography...this one for example:

"Saving room for copy is a stock favorite that ties in nicely with the rule of thirds. Copy space is where the designer can plop his client’s logo or whatever text needs to be in the ad. Like everyone else, designers are lazy people, and they like not having to move stuff around too much, in order to get the space they need for their copy. As a stock photographer, you can help them along. If for instance you have a still life shot, featuring a lovely rustic vase and some fall flowers, you could place that on the left third of the image and make sure that your background has a nice gradient to it, that will support being used for text.

Read the rest on Rasmus Rasmussen's blog.

Oh...and why did I choose this slanted photograph of Balinese dancers for this post of the Rule of Thirds? Well, it's because once you know what the Rule is, go out and break it with impunity when you feel like it.

Carolyn Drake: The Uighurs

Image Copyright © Carolyn Drake-All Rights Reserved
Having recently heard a piece on NPR's Leonard Lopate's show on the Uighurs and China's discrimination against this ethnically divergent group, I decided to bring some related photographic coverage to TTP...and I chose the excellent work of Carolyn Drake to do it.

Carolyn Drake is a Brown University graduate who worked as a concept designer and producer of multimedia projects in New York before deciding to become a photographer. She studied at the ICP and obtained a masters in Visual Communications. She was chosen by Magenta Foundation as one of the emerging photographers in 2007. Carolyn currently lives in Istanbul.

China's Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims, and are mainly living in Xinjiang where they make up about eight million of the 19 million people. Uighurs are increasingly worried about Chinese immigration and erosion of traditional culture, especially during the post-September 11 environment. China claims that individuals disseminating religious and cultural messages in Xinjiang are terrorists who have simply changed tactics.

Carolyn Drake's website. Click on Uighurs gallery.