Ever since the digital AF-S lenses and my deteriorating eye sight (I’ve been making jokes that very soon I will be known as the blind photographer, but the truth is that it is only the fact that I have crossed my 40th and need specs) I found it easier to use the fast auto focus lenses than try to play around with a manual focus one, as incredible as it might be. Call it spoiled but I succumbed to technology quite lovingly. Honestly there are not too many bad things I can say about the 24-70/2.8 lens. I’ve had it for a while and used it extensively. It is a good lens but I end up using it mostly on the wide end, and let’s admit it; it is quite big. I’ve been feeling the urge for a change and a few months ago finally pulled out my old and trusted manual focus prime 35mm from the bag and started using it again, only to rediscover how much I love it. I have quite a few reasons, besides the stunning speed and amazing low light performance of this particular lens, for saying that if you are looking for one great lens, the 35mm lens should be it.

Why choose the 35mm lens

If you haven’t figured it out yet I am talking about the super wonderful Nikon 35mm/f1.4 AI-S Nikkor Manual Focus lens. This lens has been around so long that it has reached legendary status (The current Ai-S version was introduced back in 1982 which is amazing considering how much technology and cameras have evolved from that point). The lens was originally created for press photography and is one of the fastest wide-angle lenses that you can buy even to this day.  This lens has one of the most superior color renditions of any lens out there and creates great contrasty images with amazing depth of field when you dial the aperture to its lowest levels. It might be old but Nikon still manufactures it as it is as fine, if not better, than any lens out there, even the more expensive options.

Fewer images but a better yield of great ones

In a way somewhat similar to going back to shooting film in the digital age, going back to a prime manual focus lens will change the way you make photographs. You will surely shoot less images but the yield of great ones will be considerably higher. It takes some time to get used to the fact that you do not zoom, but after a few months of using only the 35mm lens you will start feeling that you can anticipate the image and composition even before picking up the camera. You will get out of the comfort zone and the lazy habit of zooming in and will start positioning yourself better in relationship to the subject while being forced to engage and interact instead of shooting from a ‘secure’ distance. When the subject is farther away and you are unable to get close enough without a zoom you will need to look at the entire frame to create a composition that incorporates the environment along with the subject. In many cases your frame will be way more interesting than a close up. Your mind will start opening up to other possibilities and you will learn to move around the subject while you shoot in a way that does not happen when you can simply zoom. Robert Capa once said, “If your pictures are not good enough you are not close enough” and he did not advocate using a long telephoto lens. Using a 35mm lens will draw you into the action and will get you actively involved.

The 35mm is a great choice for environmental portraits and photojournalism as it pulls you in to the frame giving a very realistic feel. It is wide enough but not too wide to create a distortion and is the closest to the focal composition of the human eye. It is small enough to carry around and not take too much attention so is wonderful for street photography. You can basically shoot anything and everything with a 35mm focal length, from travel to real estate, product shots, close-ups and of course weddings. Many wedding photographers will take a 35mm lens over any other lens because of its versatility and compactness. As a matter of fact I would not come far if I said that it is probably the focal length used for all the wedding family portraits worldwide.

Once you get over the fear of giving up your zoon lens you will have to work harder but I guarantee you will come out with some amazingly surprising images that you simply could not even see otherwise. As if this is not enough, just imagine not having to think which lens to take with you when you go out. Wouldn’t that be great?

As the world becomes a global village, a larger percent of weddings take place away from the couple’s home area, and many times even out of the couple’s home country. This small but growing segment of the wedding market is not always made up of the wealthiest of clients as you might expect. Some couples actually choose a destination wedding to save money while others plan a wedding abroad because they want a small wedding with only a few guests or none at all. In any case, the extra work and money these couples often put into putting together their dream wedding in India, Thailand or anywhere else in the world make them that much more concerned with finding just the right photographer to capture their special day in a way they will cherish and be happy to share with all of their friends back home.

Goa has long become a desired destination for weddings and honeymooners, but very few people know Goa in the monsoon time. The showers bring an amazing transformation to the landscape and the state of mind of the people, making Goa a quiet paradise. With the rains the colors change to a lush green and every wall becomes a living entity. The palm trees swaying in the coastal monsoon breeze and the gray clouds above give the rough Arabian sea a magical aura. At the end of August the rains are not so heavy anymore, the air is clean and the beaches are still empty. Taking a walk in the Portuguese quarter or sitting in a small quaint bar for a taste of the local feni is a wonderful way to experience Goa.

The intensive three day destination wedding photography workshop will be a good blend of lectures, discussions, and assignments in which participants will learn to tackle the challenges of being or becoming a destination wedding photographer, for all that it means. We will discuss marketing, branding, travel arrangements, airport tips, health issues, foreign work permits, pricing, contracts, business approach and much more. We will talk about low light photography, natural light vs flash and posing for the couple shoot. You will also be given tips on specialized equipment and digital concerns in different situations and learn to conquer your digital workflow, post production, color correction, creating lightroom presets, finalizing your images and archiving.

The weekend will include shooting a mock wedding on the beach as well as a live shoot with models in the Fontainhas, the old Latin Quarter in the city of Panaji, group and individual critiques, and one-on-one portfolio review meetings with Sephi and Christophe. The emphasis is on how to compete in this highly demanding market, build your brand, stay creative and on top of the game as the destination wedding photography market is starting to boom.

The Ultimate Wedding photography workshop in Bangalore is over and we are back at work and looking forward to the next one, a Destination wedding photography workshop in Phuket, Thailand, in April. For the Phuket workshop I will again join hands with my good friend Andrew Adams who was such an incredible help in Bangalore and gave his insight and shared his experience of working on Indian weddings worldwide. It was indeed a great get together of learning and lots of fun.

I had a GREAT time in Bangalore! What a talented group of people I had the good luck to meet and spend time with over these three intense days. I am already looking forward to the next workshop there. It was all really perfect and we really got some milage on the information as well as fun part.

We all met on the first day at the really cool Counter Culture in whitefield, Bangalore, and spent the day mostly inside going over the theory and practical issue of branding, marketing, pricing, contracts and more.. Andrew gave a short introduction and slideshow of his work followed by lunch, after which was a portfolio review that went on until early evening. We all went out for dinner and drinks at Opus where we discussed low light photography.

The second day was all shooting. We had two couples who came to model for us and we broke into two groups in order to give everyone a chance to work with both the couples and both the photographers. We started in the city and had a short introduction to off camera flash and PocketWizard radio triggers and then boarded the bus to go to the beautiful Grover vineyards for lunch, some wine tastings and an afternoon romantic photo shoot.

The third day was again inside and started with a talk by Lakshmi Ramohan of Dreamweaver Weddings on the relationship between photographers and wedding planners. After lunch we had a long session on digital workflow and post production.

Many thanks to Niketh and Sid, the great guys from Runway9 production who came along and shot a cool short video of the workshop which is now uploaded to our YouTube channel.

I'm showing my Dragon Kong-fu at the low lights photography session. Photo © 2011 Shreya Sen

And here we are (the guy with the hurting ear is Andrew ;) The pretty girl on my left (right of the pic) is my darling Puja Choksi who was an unbelievable, wonderful and valuable help before, during and after the workshop. Thank you Pu :-)

Off Camera flash with PocketWizard

The good guys at PocketWizard were nice enough to send me some gear to play with and boy did I put it to work. I got the MiniTT1 a couple of FlexTT5 for Nikon as well as the The AC3 ZoneController. It seemed like an unbelievable radio triggers system that, not like infrared triggers, enables the user to use the system in full daylight or behind corners without direct view of the commander flash. I shot a self portrait holding the two flashes, used them in a fashion shoot and at weddings and was very happy but I felt I needed to push it a little further. Not that there was anything wrong with the pictures I took but I felt that the freedom to place a flash practically anywhere, within sight of the camera or not, made me take pictures that looked somewhat unreal. I had light coming from different directions in a way that was not looking natural. What I wanted to do was make the light look real as if I was not using a flash.

The Japanese Fire Ninjas

I met Jonasun and his fire ninjas friends at a musical event near Arambol beach in north Goa last week. Their show was out of this world but was at night and I was with my wife and three daughters so could not really shoot. Joe’s image of the fire juggler on the beach was in my mind immediately but for this I would have to come to Arambol again. We exchanged contact information and finally managed to schedule something a day before they all leave Goa for Pushkar. We were to meet by the rocks on the north part of the beach but until they showed up I was not really sure they will come.

Make it look real

The idea was to get the fire juggler look as if he is lit by the fire alone while still being able to get the feel of the moving fire sticks. For this I needed to have a longer exposure interrupted by a flash boost that will freeze the image. Without the flash the image looks something like this:

The final image was taken with a Nikon D700 and a 24-70/f2.8 set to 24mm, ISO 280, f/5, and a shutter speed of 1/15 to get the movement of the fire sticks. White balance was set to Fluorescent to get a deeper purple shade of the sky. A green gel on the flash to counter the white balance overcast with an additional orange gel to warm it up. One flash from the left of the juggler and one small burst in the back to paint the rocks. Flash sinc was set to rear curtain followed by a diner and drinks on the beach . . .

* PocketWizard is still not available in India but will be shortly. We will be conducting workshops for advanced users although but in the mean time check out the great videos on the website. Great stuff!

I have always been someone who stood up for my rights in my copyrighted images as well as the moral right to be acknowledged as the author of the work. Some of you might know that I am running a court case in the Delhi high court against Roli Books, the publisher of my book ‘Street Food of India‘ for claiming copyright in the work.

So what can you do when you find your work used by someone else online? Here is one thing you SHOULD do, but mind you that if you want to shoot, shoot don’t talk. If you intend to go after such copyright thieves you should get in touch with an intelectual property lawyer. Another thing to keep in mind that this thing is time consuming and unless you have someone to do this work for you you will be spending your days chasing ghosts instead of working.

How to send a Cease and Desist notice

So, this is what you do. First of all get on a website like http://who.is/ and find the registered owner of the infringing domain so that your mail goes to a person and that person knows that you know who he is. Send a letter of request/demand to remove the unauthorised images and never use them again or face legal action. This kind of letter is called Cease and Desist letter and is available on various places on the net. Feel free to use the one attached below.

It is important to do the following:

1. Mention the exact place where the image was originally published/created.
2. Stick to the facts without bringing in any emotions. Don’t say anything like “I am hurt/ disappointed/ amazed” etc. It has no value.
3. Be direct with what you demand/expect and give a time frame for that.

I am the proprietors of all copyright in a number of photographic works on the subject of ___________ (The “Work”). I have reserved all rights in the specific Work which was first expressed in material form on my website <YOUR WEBSITE> and specifically on <THE EXACT LINK TO THE PAGE WITH THE ORIGINAL IMAGE> on  <DATE WHEN THE IMAGE WAS PUBLISHED ON YOUR WEBSITE>

It has come to my attention that your work entitled <THE INFRINGING WEBSITE WHERE THE IMAGE IS USED> uses identical images to my copyrighted Work. Some of the images containing watermark were also altered to remove the watermark and include a different signature which illegally deprives me of my moral right to be recognized as author of the work. Permission was neither asked nor granted to reproduce the Work and your Work therefore constitutes infringement of my rights. In terms of the Copyright Statutes, I am entitled to an injunction against your continued infringement, as well as to recover damages from you for the loss I have suffered as a result of your infringing conduct. In the circumstances, I demand that you immediately:

1. remove all infringing content and notify me in writing that you have done so;

2. immediately cease the use and distribution of my copyrighted material;

3. undertake in writing to desist from using any of my copyrighted Work in future without prior written authority from me.

If I have not received an affirmative response from you by the close of business on <TWO WEEKS FROM THE TIME OF YOUR LETTER> indicating that you have fully complied with these requirements, I will be forced take further action against you that will include, but will not be limited to: asking my lawyers to address this issue, reporting this to any ad programs you may have on electronic copies, and seeking proper copyright infringement litigation for any damages caused by this reproduction. This is written without prejudice to my rights, all of which are hereby expressly reserved.

Sincerely,

<YOUR NAME AND CONTACT INFO>

Try this one and let me know how it worked. I’d say that in about 90% of the cases your image will be removed from the infringing website. In some cases you will get an apology while other times the image will simply be take off which is actually good enough. Good luck.

Let’s call a thief by his real name

There are of course other ways to go about copyright thieves. For example we can all write a nice stinker to the infringing website. The image below is stolen by this copyright infringing website who is @LimoBroker on twitter and also here on Facebook. Not only that they lifted the image from my website but they also placed their own new watermark over mine and if this was not enough they claim copyright in all the material on their website!

This image of a Muslim bride originally published on my website on November 5th 2009 (click on the image for the original post) is very popular with copyright thieves and can be found in many places on the web.

The stolen image as used on an infringing website (Click on the image for the web page and feel free to mail them with some bad words)

The audacity

So I decided to let the social media know about the copyright thief called @LimoBroker and tweeted the following:
@LimoBroker is a copyright thief using my copyrighted image on their weddingcarhire.co.uk website . see bit.ly/sF2F6h Please RT

To which they have replied this unbelievable tweet calling me childish and saying that all I needed to do is write them and request a credit or removal of the image! :-)

P.S The image of Beware of Dog used for this post is taken from a free for any use webpage HERE

There are quite a few blogs I like reading and one in particular is Don Giannatti’ posterous stream (@wizwow) where not too long a go I came across a wonderful link to a post on a photographer’s website called ‘We have no budget for photos‘. I’m sure many of you have received this kind of mail in the past. Needless to say I never give my images for free but I absolutely loved Tony Sleep’s post as it was right on target and saves me the time to write all of it again in reply to these clients.

I knew I’d one day come back to that wonderful post but I have just done more than that. I have answered a mail with only a link directing to this post! I’d like to share the little correspondence with you all to see how smooth the person on the other side was. I am not going to be apologetic about sharing the full details of this ‘client’ so feel free to write to them if you so please.

here it is:

Subject: Greetings from Wedding Affair magazine

 On 16-Dec-2011, at 3:57 PM, Priyadarshini Das <priyadarshini.weddingaffair@gmail.com> wrote:

 Hi Sephi,

 I am writing to you on behalf of the Wedding Affair magazine, New Delhi. We are a bi-monthly magazine concentrating on Indian tradition that encompasses wedding rituals, weddings of the season and lifestyle stories.

 For our Feb-March issue, we are doing a story on the Kashmiri (Hindu Pandit) community wedding. I happened to chance upon your work on the same on the internet. I would like to know if it would be possible to get the images featured on the website (we would require high resolution images) to facilitate the story. We would like to confirm that our magazine will give image courtesy to all the images used.

 Looking forward to a positive response.

 Warm regards,

 Priyadarshini Das

Editorial Assistant

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 4:51 AM, FotoWala | Sephi Bergerson Photography <sephi@fotowala.in> wrote:

 Dear Priyadarshini,

 Thank you for this mail. Is your magazine distributed free of charge?

 Sephi Bergerson

Fotowala | Photography & Archive

 On 17-Dec-2011, at 3:26 PM, Priyadarshini Das wrote:

 Hi Sephi,

 Thanks for your response. This is to inform you that our magazine is not distributed free of cost and is priced Rs. 100 per copy. If you allow us to use your pictures, we will surely send you complementary (free of charge) copies for your reading pleasure.

Warm regards,

Priyadarshini Das

Editorial Assistant
Wedding Affair

Did you get this?  they will send me complementary (free of charge) copies for my “reading pleasure”. I might be wrong but the last time I looked in the mirror I had nothing on my forehead saying “Mother Teresa”. I was going to write a really nasty mail back but instead I simply replied by directing Ms. editorial assistant to Tony Sleep post. After all, what a lovely post it is. read it HERE
Another great post is Reasons Why Professional Photographers Cannot Work for Free which is maybe more polite but conveys the same idea.

Happy to hear your views and comments on this.

(Featured image of pile of money via Meta B)

Source of inspiration can be many things but what makes one a Muse?

I floated this topic on twitter and naturally got a whole discussion going. The first answers came in suggesting that a muse would have an influence on the whole photographic career not like a regular subject that might or might not do that. I insisted and pressed that in this sense what about a subject that influences us over a year of our career. And how about a month, or a week? Can a muse be defined by the length of time she inspires?

Another person suggested that the subject is what we photograph while the muse is what makes us pick up the camera to begin with. I like this explanation as it has a link to the divine which connects back to the origin in Greek mythology. But can we tell a muse from a subject just by looking? A fiend said there is doubt the realisation is that abrupt and complete unless the person sees a body of work with the muse. I tend to agree. It makes sense that there has to be a continued interaction and exploration of the relationship with a muse to identify it as one.

There are still so many questions open. Can the relationship with the muse be professional or does it always come from or lead to the erotic? Can the subject choose to become a muse by inspiring the artist or is it only for the artist to be inspired or not.

Have you ever had a muse? Do you have one now? Let’s take this one step further. To celebrate the photographer’s muse we are running a small photo contest and have gotten our sponsor BlackRapid to donate some gear as prizes. The contest is open to anyone who’s ever been inspired to take a picture. Here are the details.

SEND US YOUR BEST SHOT OF YOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC MUSE

At home, on the beach, in the forest, on vacation; we want the emotion,
the dignity, the inspiring force, the erotic power, the love,
the beginning, the end, the one that is many.

AMATEUR OR PROFESSIONAL

ENTER THE CONTEST

Having moved to Goa and as the twins Eva and Amber are already walking and running we thought it would be a good idea to have a family portrait and show our friends and family in Israel how we all look like. We all got dressed in the traditional white Rosh HaShanah style and headed for the beach. It was a beautiful afternoon and by the time we were on the cliff overlooking Vagator the sun was just were it was supposed to be for incredible light. It was hard not to start shooting myself, and I did take a few shots of course, but for the card we needed something with me in it. My trusted intern Neha was put in charge of my own Nikon and somehow managed to get a decent image out of us. With a little post production we almost got it to look good. Just kidding, we absolutely LOVE it! :-)

Eva was having a great time in the field and I could not resist it

Over the weekend we headed down to our favorite beach in South Goa to remember how nice it is to actually live in this part of the world. Liah, still only ten years old, was looking simply glamorous in the last light.

SHANA TOVA and a Happy New Year to you all.

Ten photo tips that can change the way you shoot

Now, more that ever, digital cameras have reduced the technical limits to producing high-quality images. Almost everyone who has a camera and a small amount of training can make satisfactory photographs. Yet, despite the ever-growing popularity of the medium, and the billions of photographs created all over the world on a daily basis, very few images reveal the unique personal style of the photographer. Finding your own voice and identity in the photographs that you make is possibly the most challenging aspect of your photographic journey, and remains one of the most difficult tasks even to the very experienced photographer.

Photography is about WHY not HOW

Being a photographer is not about the camera or the technique, it is about what you have inside your mind. It is the sum of all your life experiences and your point of view. It is where you’ve been, how much you cried, how much you’ve loved and been loved, how much you have experienced pain and how much you care. Photography is not about the HOW but about the WHY. It is about the reason behind your images and not about the exposure or the focus.

Finding your Style and Identity as a Photogrpaher

Don’t go looking for a style. Instead go look for your identity as a human being and let your style develop on it’s own. If your journey is sincere and continuous, if you do what you do because you are committed, because you have no choice, if you keep asking the difficult questions and keep getting up when you fall, your style will be a reflection of who you are as a person and so will certainly be unique. You must strive to find your own identity as a photographer in order to create your own visual style, and not the other way around.

What is an original photograph? Do you create original work?

Now here is a big challenge. How will you tell if a photograph was copied, if there was any influence or if the two photographers just happened to be at the same place and see the same image? And how will you tell who was there first? Will the senior photographer always get the credit due to his seniority? Will one of them risk loosing his reputation?

Where does Influence End and Creativity Begins?

When I was a young and inexperienced, yet-to-go-to-school photographer, I loved the amazing landscapes captured by Ansel Adams in the US southwest. I actually took a road trip to go visit all these locations in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Texas and all over the southwest. I remember trying to find the exact angle that was used by Ansel Adams and take the exact image he took.

The image of the number 5 used for the post is Charles Demuth, The Figure 5 in Gold (1928), Museum of Modern Art, New York as it appears on the blog OBJECTS-BUILDING-SITUATIONS MUSINGS ON ARCHITECTURE WITH SPECIAL FOCUS ON MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY

We are thrilled to announce the ultimate Indian wedding photography workshop this January in Bangalore, India. Applications are now open through December 15th, 2011.

This intensive three day workshop on Indian wedding photography will be a good blend of lectures, discussions, and assignments in which participants will learn to tackle the challenges of being or becoming a wedding photographer in India, for all that it means. We will discuss ways to identify your niche in the market, pricing, contracts, business approach, as well as technical challenges of shooting at a wedding. We will talk about working alongside other photographers, how to handle harsh video lights, use of natural light vs flash and more. You will also be given tips on equipment and digital concerns in different situations. You will learn to conquer your digital workflow, post production, color correction, creating lightroom presets, finalizing your images and archiving.

The weekend will include a live shoot with models, group and individual critiques, personal assignments, and one-on-one portfolio review meetings with Sephi. The emphasis is on how to compete in this highly demanding market, build your brand, stay creative and on top of the game as the Indian wedding photography market is starting to boom.

Who Should Attend: Advanced Amateurs and Professionals

Class Size is Limited to 2o participants

We believe that some of the value of a good workshop is also in the close contact and personal relationship you forge with the workshop leader. Limited class size and selective enrollment ensures that topics covered may be adjusted for the needs of the group and participants receive individual attention.

We support emerging photographers and will offer sponsorship to two local photographers who do not have the financial means to afford the workshop but show a promising tallent. Please see in the application form.

Application Deadline: December 15, 2011

The workshop will be conducted by Sephi Bergerson, an award winning documentary and lifestyle photographer with more than twenty years of experience. Working on his book on traditional weddings in modern India, Sephi has arguably witnessed and documented a larger variety of Indian weddings than any other person on earth. See Sephi’s wedding photography website at www.FotoWala.in

The workshop will be conducted by Sephi Bergerson, an award winning documentary and lifestyle photographer with more than twenty years of experience. Working on his book on traditional weddings in modern India, Sephi has arguably witnessed and documented a larger variety of Indian weddings than any other person on earth. See Sephi’s wedding photography website at www.FotoWala.in

The Contact Sheet

I was in Mumbai this weekend for the Ganesh Chaturthi seminar workshop. I didn’t really shoot much this time and tried to pay more attention to the workshop participants. When I shoot I actually live in a sparate world and see everything through the viewfinder. Having a group of people with me really made it impossible for me to focus on my own process. It is this process that I want to talk about. I had shown the following sequence of images at the seminar but I feel that it is a good reminder for the participants, and a good thing to share with others as well. Many people shoot single images and do not go beyond that. It is said that Isaac Newton got the idea of gravity when he was hit on the head with an apple while sitting under an apple tree. It is not necessary to sit under trees and wait for an apple to fall – we can get up and shake the tree. We can produce our own chance events.

You must climb the tree or at least shake it

The reason I’m showing this sequence is to emphasize the fact that good images don’t just fall off the tree. Many times it is not enough to just point your camera at a subject and come out with a great image. It is a process, and I have many like these, where I saw a potential for a good image and had to start moving around it, explore it and dig in until it presented itself the way I was hoping it would. I notice, especially with young and inexperienced photographers, that this process is not a part of the way they work. Shooting a lot is the way to go.

I was in Mumbai for Ganesh Chaturthi in 2009 to shoot for my book ‘Horn Please‘ on trucks and trucking in India. I saw the orange flag and knew this could be a strong element in the picture and started moving around it so that I could capture all the desired elements in one picture. I wanted the flag, the idol and the truck to be close enough. It did not happen until the ninth shot out of ten that I got what i wanted. In the selected image the hand that holds the flag creates a frame inside the frame for the approaching truck, the flag looks good and so does the idol which gives me the sense of location. I took another picture after that but I already knew that I got what I wanted.

Here is the sequence of shots that lead to the final one (above) which is number 9 out of 10. (Click on the image to move on to the next one)

Behind every great photographer stands a great retoucher

There was another saying that I recently heard again around the talk on James Nachtwey’s post processed images of 9/11 , that behind every great photographer stands a great retoucher. Not everyone is aware of the role post-production plays in some photographer’s style, and not everyone is able to easily spot and identity such retouching. This example could start a debate about what is allowed and what is not allowed in documentary photography so let me just tell you right away that I do not intend to get into this debate. I am not a news photographer and the way I see it is that if it can be done in lightroom than as far as I’m concerned it is allowed. Introducing flash in a dark situation is also interfering with the ‘truth’ of a photograph, whatever this might be. Let’s leave it at that.

I am showing the before and after post production so that young photographers would understand that post production is an inseparable part of the work in today’s photography. Most of what we shoot is crap and many times the selected images are ‘cooked’ and dressed to look good. It is not the only way to work of course but cards on the table,  many times it is the way that things are done. So go out there, shoot a lot and come back home to make a selection. Make yourself a cup of coffee or open a cold beer and start learning post production.

You must have already noticed that I have a special relationship developing with my iPhone. I have already written a few posts about it and I find myself more and more often choosing the iPhone over my other cameras as my preferred method of shooting. It feels more like a vacation than work and I like the unexpected results. It was funny to walk around with two D700 bodies attached to my R-Strap and be using a small camera phone. You should have seen the surprise on people’s faces looking at me like this. It was worth it even if only for this reaction.

I have been to Mumbai for Ganesh Chaturthi festival in 2009 and came out with a few shots that I think capture the essence of this festival in a pretty good way so I had no real urge to go get the same images again. I was, as always, looking for something else to say, another way to shoot something that has already been shot to the death. If you don’t want your images to look like the images of all the other photographers on location you must change the way you look at things. Walking around with the iPhone was just what I needed. There is also something beautiful about the square format that is such a huge change for a DSLR shooter. Makes me think that it might have been a good idea to keep my old analog Mamiya 6, but it is way too late to lament. I should probably consider buying a Hasselblad again . . :-)

Photo © Neha Pande

A creative talent is not a vendor

Not like in the editorial or the advertising world where a photo editor usually has more experience of working with different photographers and creative talents, a wedding client is likely to be looking for a professional photographer for the first time in her/his life. You are looking to purchase services from an artist and it is a mistake to confuse him with a vendor. It is a very easy mistake to make. In the day to day life you are used to buying services from the telephone company, your insurance guy, your local store. Maybe you work in the service industry, an investment banker, a travel agency. However, a photographer is not a vendor. He has a talent, a magic that a vendor does not possess. A vendor is there to sell something and many times it doesn’t really matter what they sell as long as there is a financial transaction at the end of the process. You can haggle, compare prices, make a bid, do what you want basically and as long as the contract is signed properly you will get what you ordered and the quality of the service or product that you purchase will not be affected by the negotiating process. The coconut water will taste the same. Not with a photographer. The quality of the work you get from a photographer changes based on how you work with him and this is the biggest difference between a vendor and a creative talent. If you treat a photographer like a vendor you are shooting yourself in the foot and are likely to get a mediocre result in return. On the other hand, if you treat a coconut vendor like an artist you’ll be wasting your time and money.

The fact  is that vendors are easier to replace than artists

Vendors could spend the day in office cubicles under fluorescent lights and wait for that call to come and an order to be placed. They will be happy to fill out the forms and spend time negotiating the terms and conditions. They could stand all day in the sun on the streets of India and sell the same chai every day without a difference in quality. They could be indifferent about what they sell as the focus here is volume and continuity. While a photographer is also paid to take pictures he is not a vendor and is not motivated in the same way. The fact  is that vendors are easier to replace that artists.

Capturing the perfect moment is the magic

Getting the perfect moment, or creating the perfect picture, takes more than owning a new camera and having a website with pictures. Even if your wedding planner created the most beautiful setup and all the elements are there, it is still up to the photographer to make his magic. The next guy will be selling the same coconut but another photographer will not take the same pictures. The industry, every industry, is built on relationship and many vendors expect, and sometimes value, an impersonal nature of relationship. The flower vendor really does not care and many times not interested in who buys the flowers. The same goes for the catering and all other service providers, but not with a photographer or an artist. Yes, of course you should treat vendors with respect. All human beings deserve respect and will do their best work if treated fairly, but when you want someone to dig deep and bring something out that is beyond the number of pictures that you get at the end of the day, you’re going to have to respond in kind.

BLACK STAR RISING  is an online extention of the Black Star photographic agency. This is a group blog featuring articles to educate professional photographers, aspiring pros, and photography buyers alike. The stories offer advice and viewpoints on the art and business of photography, based on the personal experiences of our contributors. The bloggers have the freedom to write about issues of interest to them and address substantive issues.

BURN

CONSCIENTIOUS Winner of LIFE.com’s 2011 Photo Blog Awards Conscientious is one of the longest-running photo blogs out there, and since its founding in 2002 has offered countless profiles of photographers and their work. The blog is packed with in-depth interviews, news and commentary on exhibitions and book reviews. There’s not an ounce of fluff here, which is why Conscientious is rightly seen and lauded as one of the very few essential photography destinations on the Web.

EYECURIOUS  

(NOTES ON) POLITICS, THEORY & PHOTOGRAPHY “What we need is a critique of visual culture that is alert to the power of images for good and evil and that is capable on discriminating the variety and historical speciefity of their uses.” – W.J.T. MITCHELL. PICTURE THEORY (1994). is a political theorist with neither experience as, nor any real aspiration to be, a photographer. His interest is in the task Mitchell identifies in the passage quote in the header. It remains, in his estimation, woefully neglected.

THE RUSSIAN PHOTOS BLOG – Corporate and Editorial photography in Moscow, Russia and the formet Soviet Union. Written, photographed and thrown together by Jeremy Nicholl who specialised in photography of the former Soviet Union for a wide range of clients for nearly twenty years. He’s also worked in the UK for the British national press, in particular the Sunday Times and the Independent. The blog is updated regularly, usually on Mondays, but sometimes more often. 

LENS  is the photography blog of The New York Times, presenting the finest and most interesting visual and multimedia reporting — photographs, videos and slideshows. A showcase for Times photographers, it also seeks to highlight the best work of other newspapers, magazines and news and picture agencies; in print, in books, in galleries, in museums and on the Web.

RAW FILE  is WIRED magazine’s photography blog featuring incredible photo interviews, stories, single images and assignments “exposing the WIRED world one photo at a time”, Fantastic blog.

RESOLVE is the photo blog of LiveBooks and is a collaborative online community that brings together photographers and creative professionals of every kind to find ways to keep photography relevant, respected, and profitable.

TIFFINBOX News, Reviews and Interviews For Photographers. Tiffinbox, the only ‘India related’ blog on the list, is a blog for image makers – those who use photography or moving images to express and communicate their vision of the world, with the world. Tiffinbox is a container [a glorified lunch-box] used widely in India to conveniently carry yummy food to work, school or a picnic. Seshu, the blog owner, grew up in India where he carried one to school everyday. Lunch, may have been the highlight of his day, because of the surprises that awaited him inside. Tiffinbox hopes to be a feast for your eyes and mind and promises to feed you only small, healthy spoonfuls of information that you’ll find useful.

I would also recommend having a look at the following two lists for the Best of the Best: SOURCE and LIFE.com 2011 Photo Blog Awards. Also check out Strobist, Joe McNally, Lighting-Essentials, Chase Jarvis, Zack Arias . . . Please feel free to link to your own blog, recommend another special one and most of all, add to my list of Indian photography blogs.

Back in 2009 (yes quite some time back) I posted a list of  Ten Movies Every Photographer Should See and it is a high time we now look at photography books that we should all read. While there are thousands of photography books in the market it is not such an easy task to make a list of ten books on the subject of photography. I could think of four or five off the top of my head but the rest were a problem. Starting with the books I’ve already read I asked friends and colleagues about their own favorites. The search  came up with some very interesting results, some of which I have not heard of before and are now on my wish list.

The Ongoing Moment / Geoff Dyer

“‘I am not a photographer … I don’t even own a camera.” Says Geoff Dyer in the beginning of this book, but as one who holds no camera the insights into the world of photography will change the way you see the world forever.

Benches, roads, doors, blind people, hats, fences, streets and road signs are only some of the common subjects he explores while comparing the works of some of the canonical figures –many of whom never met– like Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, André Kertész, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus, and William Eggleston to mention a few. Dyer constructs a narrative in which these photographers constantly encounter one another along his journey to identify their signature styles. The result of this study is an original work of extraordinary depth and insight. I could not leave this book alone and read it with a pencil while under lining about half the sentences in the book. A simple MUST READ book, this is one of the best books I have ever read, in any genre!

Camera Lucida / Roland Barthes

This book, as well as the next one on this list, were two that I read in Hebrew while still in photography school at the recommendation of one of my professors.

Barthes, as Geoff Dyer,  is not a photographer. Camera Lucida is a philosophical reflection on the medium of photography. He argues many subtle idea about that technical skill being entirely irrelevant to the photographic process while going deep into the meaning vs the effect of the photograph. Barthes was in morning over the death of his mother at the time he wrote the book and indeed while the first half of the book is spent musing over the significance and appeal of photography, the second half is spent reminiscing over photos of his mother. A slow but a very interesting read in the time of digital photography.

 On Photography / Susan Sontag

This collection of essays by Susan Sontag originally appeared as a series of essays in the New York Review of Books between 1973 and 1977. On Photography won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for 1977 and was selected among the top 20 books of 1977 by the editors of the New Times Book Review.

In the book, Sontag expresses her views on the history and present-day role of photography in capitalist societies as of the 1970s. Sontag discusses many examples of modern photography. Among these, she contrasts Diane Arbus’s work with that of Depression-era documentary photography commissioned by the Farm Security Administration. She also explores the history of American photography in relation to the idealistic notions of America put forth by Walt Whitman and traces these ideas through to the increasingly cynical aesthetic notions of the 1970s, particularly in relation to Arbus and Andy Warhol. This is probably the most famous and the most read book on photography that was ever published.

Ways of Seeing / John Berger

This is arguably one of the most stimulating and influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times critic commented: ‘This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.’ Berger’s scripts were adapted into a book of the same name. The series and book criticize traditional Western cultural aesthetics by raising questions about hidden ideologies in visual images.

The Camera / Ansel Adams

This book along with the two others; The Negative and The Print, and one should probably also mention Ansel Adams: An Autobiography, are simply a must read.

Ansel Adams (1902-1984) was one of the great artists and environmentalists of the twentieth century. In a remarkable career spanning more than sixty years, he made over 40,000 photographs. This legendary technical series has been the primary references from which most other technical photography books and magazines derive for decades. Adams was a master teacher as well as a master photographer, and in these books, an ever  lasting contribution to the artistic, practical, and technical aspects of black-and-white photography, he reveals how he did what he did. Every paragraph is packed with more useful information than entire chapters of lesser books, these are a must read for every photographer.

The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present / Beaumont Newhall

Beaumont Newhall (1908-1993) was an influential curator, art historian, writer and photographer. In 1935 he became the Librarian at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1940, he became the first Director of MoMA’s Photography Department. He served as Curator of the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House from 1948 to 1958, then as its Director from 1958 to 1971. While at the Eastman House, Newhall was responsible for amassing one of the greatest photographic collectionsin the world.

Since its first publication in 1937, this lucid and scholarly chronicle of the history of photography has been hailed as the classic work on the subject. No other book and no other author have managed to relate the aesthetic evolution of the art of photography to its technical innovations with such an absorbing combination of clarity, scholarship, and enthusiasm. Through more than 300 works by such master photographers as William Henry Fox Talbot, Timothy O’Sullivan, Julia Margaret Cameron, Eugene Atget, Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Man Ray, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, Brassai, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry Callahan, Minor White, Robert Frank and Diane Arbus, the author presents a fascinating, comprehensive study of the significant trends and developments in the medium since the first photographs were made in 1839.

Looking at The Photographs /  John Szarkowski

Originally published in 1973, this survey of The Museum of Modern Art’s photography collection explores the evolution of the photographic medium using specific examples to illustrate its development. In concise analyses, John Szarkowski investigates the aesthetic, formal, social and historical issues of 100 photographs selected from “the Modern’s” collections. This archive of pictures contains a vast range of works from familiar and not-so-familiar photographers. Included are some the of most recognizable pictures of the past 150 years by acknowledged masters of their field such as Adamson, Cameron, Stieglitz, Weston, Cartier-Bresson, Cunningham, Arbus and Frank.

For further readin: The Online Photographer had written a nice informative review of this book when the new edition came back to print.

The Photographer’s Eye /  John Szarkowski

The Photographer’s Eye is a twentieth-century classic and an indispensable introduction to the visual language of photography. Based on a landmark exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in 1964, and originally published in 1966, the book has long been out of print but is now available again to a new generation of photographers and lovers of photography. Szarkowski’s compact text eloquently complements skillfully selected and sequenced groupings of 172 photographs drawn from the entire history and range of the medium. Celebrated works by such masters as Cartier-Bresson, Evans, Steichen, Strand, and Weston are juxtaposed with vernacular documents and even amateur snapshots to analyze the fundamental challenges and opportunities that all photographers have faced. Szarkowski, the legendary curator who worked at the Museum from 1962 to 1991, has published many influential books. But none more radically and succinctly demonstrates why, as U.S. News & World Report put it in 1990, “whether Americans know it or not,” his thinking about photography “has become our thinking about photography.”

Photographers on Photography / Nathan Lyons (editor)

A small (23 images) book not many people seem to know about but looks very interesting. It is one of the only books where photographers from Ansel Adams through Edward Weston (actually Berenice Abbott through Margaret Bourke-White) express their views about photography. It is potentially much more interesting to read what photographers have to say about photography than what other tell

Circles of Confusion / Hollis Frampton

Another book I have not even heard of before and also seems to be one that is hard to get. Only a few copies are available via amazon and they are quite expensive. However, it seems like it would probably be a very interesting read based on a few reviews I received. Note down for future reference.

As Hollis Frampton’s photographs and celebrated experimental films were testing the boundaries of the camera arts in the 1960s and 1970s, his provocative and highly literate writings were attempting to establish an intellectually resonant form of discourse for these critically underexplored fields. It was a time when artists working in diverse disciplines were beginning to pick up cameras and produce films and videotapes, well before these practices were understood or embraced by institutions of contemporary art. Circles of Confusion assembles eleven articles in which what Frampton does as a critic is much like what he does as a filmmaker; strip the creative process down to its basic elements and then arrange and display the components. He always comes back to basic ontological questions: What is photography? Film? Video? What are the properties that make them unique? What has film to do with narrative? Photography with space and time?

Please feel free to comment on any of the photography books on the lost if you read them, and of course add other books of your own so that we can all benefit and expand our knowledge.

Digital photography was a huge step but it made things too safe. I have grown a bit tired of my DSLR camera lately. It is so great I can hardly miss. There is no uncertainty in my work. I go out and I produce work that is pleasing and accepted by my clients. It’s almost boring. The iPhone reshuffled the cards for me. I’m not sure anymore and I keep being surprised by my own images. I feel more connected to my iPhone portfolio than I have ever been to any of my image portfolios.

Monsoon in Goa, Ramadan in Old Delhi

I’ve been using the iPhone camera more seriously for a little over a year now. The first time I used it exclusively was on a trip to Sinai in June 2010. I had the iPhone 3G at the time and I was blown away. I later upgraded to the 3Gs and now to the iPhone 4 which was my camera on the trip to Ladakh in June 2011. However, it was only recently in Goa that I finally realized how incredible the change is. I’ve been taking pictures here during the monsoon season and came up with a few images that look totally different from anything I’ve ever shot before. I feel closer and more intimate with my subjects in a way I’ve never been able to do with a larger camera. I am still shooting in Goa of course, but the images I came back with from Old Delhi this last weekend were the ones that finally rang my bell and made me realize the revolutionary effect of the iPhone camera. Not like in Goa where I am relatively new, I have been to Old Delhi dozens of times but somehow never made it look quite like this.  I can’t wait till the iPhone gets a 12mp camera and higher sensitivity and I will be happy to use it on a commercial assignment. The day cannot be that far. The world of photography will never be the same again.

The following images were taken using the Hipstamatic app.

“When you start out in photography you will experiment with numerous styles and genres. This is necessary, and desirable too. You will also imitate the styles of photographers whose work you have liked. This is natural. However to graduate to becoming a photographer in your own right you must not be content with being a clone. You must find your own expression. There is great merit in being able to do different kinds of photography competently and particularly useful if you are going to make a living out of it. However, you must identify what you are most interested in. Once you have discovered the kind of photography you wish to do, pursue it with resolve. As you progress in your career, you must strive to create your own visual style to give yourself a distinct identity. But always remember, you must constantly reinvent yourself and your style should continuously evolve, or you will find yourself stagnating.”

Wonderfully put but where I would like to add is the point where he says “you must strive to create your own visual style to give yourself a distinct identity.” I actually don’t think that this is something that is possible to do. One cannot strive to create a style. This is something that needs to slowly evolve and show itself through the accumulative process of selection that a photographer applies to his work.

For me style and identity are two different things that are indeed interlinked but do not necessarily come together. One needs to find his/her own identity and photography is a great medium for self exploration. Once a photographer finds his or her identity their images will start showing that identity and people will start recognizing their images as a distinct and unique visual expression of an individual photographer.

You cannot copy what I do because I don’t do anything

It so happened that a few days ago I saw a great movie called ‘Four Beats to the Bar and No Cheating’ about the legendary photographer David Bailey. I had to stop the movie for a sec to note down a fantastic thing he said about style; “This is what I like about my pictures . .” said Bailey, ” . . You cannot copy what I do because I don’t do anything“. I love this quote because I feel the same about my work. I don’t do anything. I am there with my camera and I take a picture (Sorry Prashant. A force of habit like you said). David Bailey also says, and I agree with that statement as well, that he never wanted to have a style. His was the fact that he had non. From a creative point of view, Bailey did not want to limit himself to looking at his images and making a selection based on whether an image fit into a certain box or not.

Find your own identity as a photographer to create your own visual style

Now don’t get me wrong. Having a distinct photographic language is a great thing and will surely be a marketing advantage. Many photographers out there run workshops in order to help young photographers find it so surely there is a demand for it. If you have one, and if you recognize it, it is easier for you to find the right clients, and it is also easier for a client to book you for what you do best. However, having one can sometimes be a great limitation. I am often asked what ‘kind’ of a photographer I am. A photojournalist? a travel photographer? a food photographer? am I a wedding photographer? It has always been a very difficult question for me to answer and I end up saying something about personal projects and making a living. Do I have a style? Maybe. Is it important to me? No.

What I’m saying is don’t go looking for a style. Instead go look for your identity as a human being and let your style develop on it’s own. If your journey is sincere and continuous, if you do what you do because you are committed, because you have no choice, if you keep asking the difficult questions and keep getting up when you fall, your style will be a reflection of who you are as a person and so will certainly be unique. You must strive to find your own identity as a photographer in order to create your own visual style, and not the other way around.

House-to-house combat training targets. Israel. copyright © 2000 Sephi Bergerson

For further reading on the same subject have a look at my earlier post Photography is not about HOW you take your picture but about WHY you do that .

The great thing about the iPhone camera is the fact that it is the first time in the history of photography that we can post process our images in the camera. We can use PhotoShop Express or apply some cool effects, and those are only getting better and better, with filters and predefined sets with other apps. It all started for me with The Best Camera but as great as that app is, and it certainly is, I am quickly moving to play with new apps that come out every second day. One that I like in particular is Hipstamatic and I will be posting some nice images with this one very soon.

The following images are a few that I shot in Udaipur earlier this year. I published some of them before with other effects on my facebook page but with the new ScratchCam app they suddenly look even better so I decided to share them with you here. This app adds great-looking film and print stress to your photos, making them look like the negatives were dragged across a sidewalk or photo prints that were folded up and spent a few weeks in your back pocket. I found this app on a great iPhonography blog that I came to know about via @glyn_e  on twitter. This cool dude runs a great iPhone resource blog which is a candy store of ideas and inspiration.

Here are some from Udaipur and one from Jaipur, all processed with SratchCam app. It seems that landscape images with open sky and pictures with a clean backdrop work especially well on this app, but even other images get a nice touch. Go play and enjoy.

Every year, sometime in August or September, the city of Mumbai goes crazy and in almost every house people perform their annual worship of Lord Ganesha, celebrating the birthday of the elephant God. Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Shiva and Parvati, is widely worshiped as the supreme god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune. The Ganesh Visarjan 2011 will take place on September 12th and will be witnessed by tens of thousands of people who will gather on Chowpati beach for the culmination of this eleven-day festival and the immersion of the idol.

A festival like this, with it’s incredible number of people, the processions, the colors and the mess on the streets is a fantastic, high adrenaline, photo opportunity. How do you approach such a subject? which equipment will you carry? what are you going to say about it in your pictures, and how? Join me for a seminar workshop in Mumbai and learn the difficulties of shooting in a crowded area, acquire new techniques, focus your story-telling abilities and understanding of the photographic language, and learn how to make your images stronger and more compelling before going out to document the great event.

When: September 12, 2011  |  Where: Mumbai, India  |  Price: Rs 1,500

Register to Event

The International Guild of Visual Peacemakers (IGVP) was created to build bridges of peace across ethnic, cultural, and religious lines through visual communication that is both accountable to an ethical standard and created by those who authentically care about people. I am honored to be a part of this group and encourage you all to come on board.

The guest post titled Where I failed describes the unique short encounter with the nomad woman and compares the iPhone image to a famous image by Dorothea Lang of a farmer in California during the depression. I think you might enjoy reading it. Please feel free to comment here or on the IGVP blog.

A nomad woman near Tsomoriri, Ladakh. June 2011. iPhone image © 2011 Sephi Bergerson

Dorothea Lange Jobless on Edge of Pea Field, Imperial Valley, California 1937 Copyright The Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California,