Street Food of India is now published in the UK with I.B Tauris publishing house. Have a look at some of the pictures, recipes and early reviews.

“Some of the photographs in this book are so beautiful they look like carefully crafted dishes made for a glossy magazine shoot. Bergerson has lived in India for the past seven years, and this book is an impressive reflection of time well spent. The recipes are delicious and can easily be recreated using ingredients easily found in the West, but it is the photographs that make the book stand out. Bergerson has a strong visual feel for Indian street life and the food that makes it distinctive, and he rarely takes a bad shot. There are some particularly arresting images of the street life in Calcutta, and of the colourful juice stands of Delhi. Many images are accompanied by text with fleeting details of how certain recipes are cooked, or the traditions surrounding them. Eating street food in India can be a slightly nerve-racking experience, but this book turns it into a pure pleasure.” (The Telegraph UK)

STREET FOOD OF INDIA by Sephi Bergerson (IB Tauris, £17.99)

From Meetha Lassi to Bhel Puri, from Paneer Tikka and masalas to chutneys, biryanis and samosas, visitors to India are greeted by an astonishing variety of street food, full of intense sights, smells and tastes. Acclaimed photographer Sephi Bergson has been tracking down the very best street food in the country, combining the vibrant and colours and mouth-watering sights with over 50 authentic recipes in his new book Street Food of India.

“From the teeming lanes of Old Delhi to the hot, dusty streets in the remote countryside.  It is painfully hard to resist the smells and sights and tastes of this roadside food, prepared in front of customers’ eyes with the freshest ingredients and a good helping of panache and showmanship. The acclaimed photographer Sephi Bergerson has been tracking down the very best street food in the country, which has been his home for the past seven years. This book is a celebration of this splendid everyday cuisine and a virtual feast in itself. With authentic and detailed recipes for the simplest and tastiest dishes in the repertoire, using ingredients easily found in the West, this serving will inspire and intoxicate in equal measure.” (Macmillan)

Not long ago I wrote a post called ‘The Photo Nazi’ with some advice for a new photographer. This post generated a lot of traffic and comments, not all of it so positive. Some people thought I was a arrogant and had no tact. I have no problem with being controversial from time to time, but I thought I should make up for that post by giving some good advice for a change.
The thing is that the number of people who want to be professional photographers grows every day. With the new incredible digital cameras, many people can now produce decent images and feel they are only one step away from going pro. All they need is a little advice for the road but all they get is a serious lecture and talk about commitment, patience and persistence.
Why can’t we make it simple for these aspiring photographers? Does everything have to be so hard?
There are enough photo bloggers out there giving this kind of heavy-duty advice on how to become a professional photographer but no one is giving the right answers. Here is a list of some simple shortcuts; a few REAL tips on how to become a professional photographer, or at least FEEL like you are already there, which could be a good substitute for some.

How to become a professional photographer

1. BUSINESS IDENTITY is the first thing in the list. Make a business card saying ‘Professional Photographer’. You might want to include a picture on the card. Getting a logo using an old film perforation, a camera design or an image of and eye can make it simple for those who can’t read. Everyone will know immediately that you are into photography.
2. ONLINE PRESENCE. Get a website with lots of flash galleries and effects to stun the visitors. Use shock and awe effects. Use music to leave an ever lasting impression. HTML is way too simple and people might think you are cheap. Get an interesting splash ‘page loading’ effect.
3. DISCOVER THE ARTIST IN YOU. Once you have a website, you must create a ‘My Art’ gallery. Everyone has it. After all, you don’t want people to think that you are not creative enough, right? It is very simple to do. A few B&W pictures, a snap of a blue wall with a lock, a red door or an interesting reflection and you are there.
4. EQUIPMENT. Get a Canon camera. All the pro’s use Canon. buy two if you can afford it.
5. ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE. Start talking only about equipment and which camera is better, Canon or Nikon. it is a very important question and you will never run out of words or people to talk with. Learn all you can about cameras and lenses, and make a wish list for the gear you want to get. If you see a picture that you like by someone else, try to find which camera he/she used and what was the settings.
6. CREATE YOUR IMAGE. Rent or borrow a BIG lens and get your Facebook profile picture taken holding it. It will draw tons of comments and people will envy you.
7. SOCIAL NETWORKING. Carry your camera bag to openings of photo exhibitions and photo fairs so that people don’t think you are just a regular visitor. It is best if you wear a photo vest. If you don’t have one you can hang your camera on your shoulder instead.
8. COMPLETE THE LOOK. Want to be a photographer? Start looking like one! If you are into photojournalism, buy a bandana, a white kafiya or light scarf and use it to complete the  grunge ‘look’. 
If you smoke, start rolling your own cigarettes. Get an iPhone.
9. ASSIGNMENTS. Tell everyone you are loaded with work.
10. YOU ARE READY. Get an assistant!

This is not a complete list and not all the tips fit everyone’s needs. Use what you think is good for you and disregard the rest. This might sound funny to you but believe me, it worked for many people out there who are now busy traveling all over the world taking pictures and making money. What if it doesn’t work out? well, you can at least say you tried, or you’ll have to work really hard.

Travelers visiting Delhi are often surprised to see how late this city starts it’s day. Delhi wakes up early alright, people go for morning walks or yoga practice, but businesses will never open before 10am. If you are up before dawn looking for some adventure, there is very little to do at this early hour. You may want to go for a run in the park, or you could pay a visit to a surprising spot that will not wait for the late morning crowd. India’s biggest wholesale flower market in Connaught Place comes alive at 4 am and disappears without a trace by 9 am.

This morning, instead of coming back home after dropping my daughter to the school bus, I went directly to the huge pavement flower market in front of Hanuman Temple on Baba Kharak Singh Marg. Hundreds of traders set up their temporary shops at this spot every day of the year, displaying flowers and decorative items flown in from all over Asia. The customers are mainly retailers and decorators who come to stock up for their own customers, but some private customers who want flowers for their personal use will always be around.

Some tips for taking travel photographs

I was at the flower market on assignment, shooting for a travel feature on Delhi. The images will not be the main images of the story and I only needed one or two decorative shots to give some color to the story. I needed to get in and out and go on with the day to get the rest of the images. I used three very simple and easy tricks for getting the job done quickly. Getting a busy market image would have taken more time and concentration but I didn’t need it. For a quick morning shoot this is more than enough. The three elements I used are 1. the shallow depth of field with the portrait of the vendor holding the flowers, 2. the close up on dirty hands, 3. The wall. Three elements can be found in any situation and harnessed to produce good images that will make any travel magazine’s photo editor happy. I hope you like them too.

Ever since we came to live in Delhi in early 2002, we have always lived in Nizamuddin, not far from the wall around one of the most beautiful parks in the world; the World Heritage Site of Humayun’s Tomb and its beautiful gardens. There is a special entrance to the tomb complex for residents of the neighborhood and we are allowed to go in from about an hour before sunrise till two hours after. Early birds can take a walk around or practice yoga on the huge lawns but if you are not one of the early morning walkers you could walk around one of the parks later in the afternoon when the children and their Aya (Nanny) go out to play.

Nizamuddin is a very small neighborhood with many little parks and not too many cars but the morning is the noisiest time of the day. The kabadi wala rides his bicycle and calls out loud for people to sell him their used newspapers; the kuri wala comes to your doorstep to collect yesterday’s garbage, and of course the subzi walas; the vegetable and fruit vendors bring their carts and call for people to come out and buy whatever fresh vegetable or fruit they need for the day’s cooking. Later in the morning other street vendors on bicycles will offer to fix your pressure cooker or sell you a new broom stick. One gets used to these noises and could even find them comforting in a time when Delhi is changing so fast and rapidly moving into the 21st century.

In the last few years the neighborhood has become very ‘posh’ and land owners have discovered the potential of renting to expats (foreigners who come to live and work in India and have their rent paid by the company that employs them) who are willing to pay a lot of money for a nice location. The old houses are slowly being demolished to make way for new three, or even four-story high buildings that provide a nice view of the tomb.

In the first few years we  lived in one of the older houses where the landlord and his family occupied the ground floor, as in many of the houses in the neighborhood and in Delhi in general. We used to ask them for a small jar of their special mango achar (mango pickles) so often that at one point we felt a little uncomfortable asking for more and started making our own.
The house was a two story building where the elder son and his family lived in the first floor and we had the Barsati – the second floor apartment on the roof. If you took a ladder and climbed to the roof of our own home you could see the dome of the main tomb of the Emperor Humayun not very far away.

As in many barsatis in Delhi, the kitchen had a separate entrance and its door opened to the roof and not into the house itself. It was a simple kitchen but very cozy and well organized. In the hot days of summer it was not a big delight to be there and when the monsoon had finally arrived to bring some respite from the heat, we needed to wait for the rain to stop so that we could go to the kitchen without getting wet. In the winter it was the warmest place in the house and no extra heating was needed, so we often found ourselves crowded there over a cup of hot chai with lots of cardamom and cloves. It was in this small kitchen that Asha, our beloved cook, started working for us and made all the amazing food that helped us feel at home away from home.

Asha at Bhogal market near our home in Nizamuddin east

On the first day that Asha came to work with us she wanted to know what food she should make so we told her to go to the market, find the nicest vegetables that are in season and make the best food she can make out of what she buys. It is already our ninth year in Delhi, and Asha is still with us and has become a real member of the family. About five years ago Shefi, my wife, started writing down the recipes and I started taking pictures of the dishes. The idea was to make a recipe book with all her food so that if one day we would have to leave Delhi we could still recreate the magic.

Styling the food and creating the images

We set up a studio in the living room and every day shot the picture of the dish before we sat down to eat it. For styling we collected old plates from various stores around Delhi, and the table cover are pieces of the cheapest plastic covers I got for seven rupees each (about $0.15) at Kotla market. I wanted to recreate the feeling of a home and not go to the new, already seen food styling. To light the set I  used a couple of tungsten garden lamps along with a collection of small mirrors to reflect the light. Very basic, very simple and very quick.

The Recipe Book

You will not find long lists of ingredients in this book, or long and complicated methods of preparation. Using fresh products from the market and not more than a few selected spices, this is simple, good and tasty vegetarian home cooking that we have been eating daily for already more than seven years.

There might be other ways to cook any of these recipes and it is most probable that anyone who grew up in Delhi would know most of them. Asha does not pretend to have invented any of them, but there hasn’t been one person who came to our home and did not have something good to say about her food. There will always be the story of another woman and her recipes and the food that she makes at home for her family. This is one of them.

Cooking Indian food can be very simple if you relax into it

It is always good to prepare in advance and there are a few things that you can do before you start cooking that will make your life in the kitchen a lot easier. A good pressure cooker is one of them.
Most of the food is prepared in a Kadhai and you will also need a simple iron griddle called Tawa to make chapati (or Rotti as they are called by some). Other than that you have everything in every semi equipped kitchen.

Before you start cooking it is good to make sure you have a few special ingredients; Ghee (or a lot of butter), mustard oil, cardamom, ginger (fresh or dry), saffron, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, turmeric, cumin seeds, red chili powder, cinnamon, cloves and aniseed. In some of the recipes you will use tamarind and jaggery which is whole, pure, unrefined sugar that has a specific taste and texture. Coconut milk is also not a bad idea to have. Curry leaves are available in special Indian stores and really make a difference in some of the recipes. Garam masala is one spice mix that varies from place to place but generally consists of cumin, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and bay leaf.

Other than that there are no rules for cooking and you do everything by taste. The quantities for chili powder and garam masala are very flexible. If you like your food spicy add more chili, if you like it less spicy simply put less of it. The same goes for garam masala. The recipes in this book are not too spicy but to an untrained pallet it might be a bit too much.
A few years in India got us used to the tastes but if the food is spicy you simply take more Dahi (yogurt) with it.

Most of the recipes in this book take not more than 20 – 30 minutes to prepare and Asha makes about three or four dishes for lunch every day. A full meal will include either a rice dish or chapati (or another bread), two vegetable dishes, one kind Dal and a fresh salad or Raita in the summer.  Paratha makes a mean breakfast and there are a few amazing sweet dishes that you can play with and discover.

Asha has been taking good care of us; it is her book as much as ours and we hope you will enjoy it as much as we do.

We are Looking for a publisher

We are now looking for an international publisher for this book so if you know anyone who might be of any assistance in this then please write us. We would be forever grateful.

Here are a couple of recipes to get you started, and a few pictures to open the appetite. Enjoy :-)

Barwa Baingan – stuffed eggplant

Cooked in a small wok (kadai)
Serve 4-6 people:

12 egg-shaped eggplants
1 big onion – cut in half and sliced
3 garlic cloves – crushed
¼ glass sunflower oil
2 medium size tomatos

For the filling:

1 full tsp of coriander powder
½ tsp of garam masala
½ tsp of red chili powder
1 tsp of mango powder (optional)
½ tsp salt

Mix all the spices well in a small bowl.
Slit each eggplant lengthways, empty some of the inside and keep for the sauce.
Fill each eggplant with half to a full tsp of the spice mix.
Heat the oil in a small wok and fry the eggplants from all sides.
Add the onion and garlic and keep frying for another 2-3 minutes.
Cover and cook on medium flame for another 15 minutes till the onion is soft.
Add the tomatoes and the remaining spices.
Stir well, cover again and simmer until the eggplants are well cooked and water is gone
Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves

Kesar Chawal – Saffron rice

Ingredients:

1 cup Basmati Rice
2 cup water + extra water for washing and soaking rice
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp Saffron strands
2 tbsp hot milk
1 bay leaf
2 Cinnamon sticks (about 5 cm each)
4 green cardamoms – broken
2 tbsp raisins
1 tbsp cashew nuts
1½ tbsp pistachio
2 tbsp ghee or clarified butter or oil for frying

Method:
Wash rice thoroughly, drain and keep aside.
Soak saffron in 2 tbsp hot milk for about 15 minutes, till milk is a deep orange-yellow color. Depending on the quality of the saffron you might have to use different quantities to get the same color effect. A little more might be needed if the saffron is not of very good quality.
Heat oil/ghee in a cooking pot and fry the cashewnuts and pistachio for about 1 minute – or less – until golden. Drain and set aside.
In the same pan, use the remaining oil/ghee to fry the bay leaf, cardamom and cinnamon for a minute while stirring. 
Add the rice and salt and stir till ghee coats every grain of rice so that it looks glossy. 
Add the water and bring to a boil. Add the raisins and stir.
Reduce the heat to minimum and cover. 

Check occasionally and when holes appear on the surface and water has almost evaporated, use a fork to lightly make wholes in the rice surface and sprinkle the saffron milk on top. Keep cooking for 2-3 minutes until all the water evaporates.
Add the fried cashewnuts and pistachio and mix gently into the rice.
leave the lid on for another 5 minutes before serving.

As much as I intended to keep updating this blog on a regular basis, it really has been a while. I’ve been traveling outside of India, visiting family in Israel and waiting for my new visa to India to come through. It took more than a month and we actually didn’t really move much, except the trip to Sinai for a couple of wonderful weeks. Other than that, having the twins and all, it was not a very active vacation. I’m happy to be back in India and in the last couple of weeks have already been to Bangalore and Jaipur.

Now that we have a long term visa we can start planing the move to Manali and we are super excited about that. The plan is to start a center of photography in the Himalaya and offer more workshops and photo expeditions.

While in Delhi, I still need to get the trucking book out of the way and finish the other two that are in the making. The Indian wedding book is finished and I’m editing and captioning it now with the hope to get it out early next year. The ‘Fata Fat’ portrait project has passed the half way line and will be finished before we leave Delhi in April.

Here are a few pictures from last week’s trip to Jaipur. The feature, written by Fiona Caulfield, a travel writer living in India and the creator of the Love Travel brand of guidebooks, will be published in an in-flight magazine next month and I will load a PDF with all the pictures and text once I have it. I must admit that It was a very new way of looking at Jaipur, nothing at all like most tourist would probably see if they only follow the lonely planet. Fiona knows Jaipur and have compiled a list of some great places to stay, eat, drink, shop and relax. It is obvious that it is possible to discover the soul of the city in original and engaging ways.

More to come soon . .

I took my daughter to the Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv this afternoon. Good vibes, techno beats and body paint reminded me a bit of ‘Hotel LaChapelle‘. Street parties are always a terrific opportunity for pictures but this time, being responsible for a nine-year-old, I was not so free to shoot. Never the less, it was wonderful to see how open minded this city can be, bringing a message of peace, love and tolerance in the midst of all the tension and turmoil Israel is constantly going through. For a moment one can easily forget about everything, grab a beer and have a good time. I thought I remembered this parade used to be a lot bigger in the past but my friends reminded me that I must be thinking about the Love Parade, which is apparently different. I guess I’ve been away from Tel Aviv way too long. Anyway, we had a great time.

Travel photography and the search for the best camera to take along on vacation continues. I have been struggling with this issue for years as the idea of going on vacation with my big set of cameras and lenses started being a little too much to handle. Why would I want to have the responsibility of carrying and caring for this expensive heavy set when I want to take some time off work and relax?

I have just come back from a ten-days vacation at Ras-el-Shaitan (view on Google Map) on the red sea in Sinai and have taken my iPhone as the main camera for the first time. there are a few reasons why I decided to do this, one of which is an amazing new application called ‘The Best Camera’ that allows you to creatively edit and share your iPhone images more simply than ever before. I started playing with it a few weeks ago and loved the results. Along with Photoshop app for iPhone I can now get some really cool results from the phone’s camera.

The other reason is that I am a bit exhausted from the perfect image and results of the pro cameras. Digital photography had become so advanced that there is almost no chance of making any mistakes anymore. The iPhone camera, being imperfect and slow at times, enabled me to have to play with the uncertain again. It is difficult to see the screen from an angle, especially when shooting in mid-day light, and the shutter is not as fast so one has to plan well before pressing the ‘click’ button or miss the moment.

On screen, after editing, the images look fantastic and I was very happy. When downloading to the laptop after coming home, there was a bit of disappointment. The image size is not enough for printing although still OK for internet purposes. Being used to the full frame D-700, the images of the iPhone have a lot of noise. I must say that I am still using the iPhone 3G and it is possible that the camera on the new model is far better.

The plus side is that no one suspects you are a photographer and so it is sometimes easier to get close to people and have a good picture without taking too much attention. I can’t wait to have an iPhone with a really high resolution camera that will enable me to actually work like this.

So here it is. For more images go to my facebook gallery or my Flickr page

Moonrise over Ras el Shaitan on the day we arrived. I played with the image color saturation but the vignette creates a circle in the center of the image that almost looks like the sun. I love the colors but the circle is too strong for me.

The low tide exposes the reef completely so people can walk over it looking for sea urchins and star fish.

I actually walked to the edge of the reef during low tide and took this picture standing over the corals and the blue sea. The water is so clear that you don’t even need to dive in order to see the fish. Simply and amazing experience.

My daughter held this inflatable chair against as she was going into the water and I shot directly into the sun using the plastic chair as a filter, hence the dark underexposed colours.

These are the real colours, believe it or not!

Photography is not at all about the technique but about the reason. My friend Seshu had just published a blog post about how to make your photos sing. it is a good post but many photographers don’t even know how to make their photos talk.

A few days ago I went to the Delhi FCC for a farewell party and ran into Prashant Panjiar, a photographer whom I like and respect. Prashant had just completed a very interesting  multimedia presentation of his latest work on farmer’s suicide in Vidarbha and it reminded me of a somewhat similar story I had worked on in Punjab in 2006. It was a good time to catch up and discuss the changing realities of the photography industry and what makes a good photograph.

Photography is not about HOW you take your picture but about WHY you do that

We agreed that a good photo is not necessarily elaborate or difficult to make. It is in the simple moments that the beauty or power is found. It does not have to take a long time to produce if – and it is a big IF – you connect! If you have the sensitivity to feel the moment and to empathise. If you love your subject and if you have something to say about it. It is true for documentary photography but also for any other aspect of photography, be it portraiture, nature, food, fashion or weddings. You must have something to say. You must bring yourself into the picture or it will only be another picture out there and will never shine.

For his story on the farmers’ suicide Prashant had traveled for three days between villages looking for homes where a suicide case had just happened or for a family that had suffered. “We had a deadline and had to deliver the pictures fast” he said. “Sometimes you come to a place and you only have fifteen minutes to take a picture. You can’t wait for the good light or build trust as you must get to the next village before dark. This is where experience comes to play . . . I have been there before, I’ve seen this pain somewhere and can recognize it intuitively”.

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.

Many photographers are more concerned with how to take pictures then with why they do it and what they want to say. A good picture is very simple to find but you must look for it inside first, and for this you need to experience life.

Setting up a daylight studio for portrait photography is not as difficult as I used to think. My grandfather was a photographer in Poland before the war and I remember stories that my mother used to tell me about how he set up his own daylight studio using the glass on which the light sensitive chemicals used to be applied. He had built a kind of a glass house and used dark curtains that were opened selectively to create different lighting effects. I had a commercial studio for years and I’ve always dreamed of having a daylight studio. I finally made one but it not as fancy or difficult to set up as I used to imagine.

Why do I need a daylight photo studio

I am working on my new project these days, shooting portraits of the young generation in Delhi using an old wood camera. I have already written two posts about it; Maharaja Portraits in 21st Century India where I explained the photographic process, and Video Killed The Radio Star about my own project using this wood camera.

The most interesting and innovative thing about this camera is the use of b&w paper as the negative. The camera is also a dark room and inside there is a tray containing homemade developing fluid, and a tray of fixer. We prepare the chemicals in the morning before starting and I’ll write about this in another post.

Using a paper as the negative requires a relatively long exposure as the iso of the paper is very low. This is the reason why it is only possible to work with this camera in full day light.The paper is exposed by taking off the lens cap (there is no shutter) and counting to guess the exposure time – 2-3 seconds in daylight and 15-20 seconds in subdued light. During the exposure of the paper, the person being photographed must stay still and not blink or else the image will be blured. To end the exposure the lens cap is placed back.

My daylight studio is made of a bamboo frame that I cover with white fabric for diffusion of the light. The morning pictures look different than the afternoon images as the sun moves in the sky and the light comes from a different direction. The backdrop is a simple red curtain. Red seems to be the best color to give a good contrast on the B&W paper.

Here are a few iPhone pictures from this Saturday’s shoot.

The way i see it, food photography should make you hungry. Anything else is simply not good enough! More than that, food photography is all about the food itself and not about styling. Think about it for a second and you’ll see how photographing food can suddenly become very simple.

What I look at when I photograph food

By saying “not about the styling” I may annoy a few food stylists, but the truth is that I seldom use food stylists. I like working with the food the way it is presented to me to eat and not beautify it beyond recognition. More than about styling, photographing food is about passion. I like talking with the chef, try to see the dish through his eyes, ‘taste’ it through his buds. I focus on the feeling that I get from looking at a dish rather than looking at the flower pot or the wine glass next to the plate. I know this is over simplifying things and I am not trying to belittle anyone’s work or make him/her redundant, but be it a chef at an expensive restaurant or a vendor on the street in Old Delhi, they both try to cater to your taste buds, and this is exactly what I am looking for. I want you to feel that you can eat the picture, that you WANT to eat what is in the picture. More over, I want to create an expectation that can be fulfilled if you ever come to eat this very dish.

I used to think that food photography is something very difficult that takes a lot of practice, but I changed my mind about it. Taking pictures of food is as simple as eating it, and taking a good food shot should actually take less time than to eat the dish. Shoot it quickly before it doesn’t look fresh, and then eat.

Food styling, Yes or No?

Let me make it right for the food stylists before I continue. There is of course a need for good styling in food photos but there is a limit to what a stylist can do. Getting the right plates, table cloth, color matching takes a good eye and expertise, but once your sandwich looks soggy no one can revive it. What I’m trying to say is not that we should get rid of the stylists but that making a good picture is about something else. It is as simple as can be. Work with your heart. Focus only on making the food look good and forget about all the rest.

I personally like to work with available light as much as possible but I sometime carry  a couple of simple garden tungsten lights that I bought a few years back for $10 each at a local market. I feel that the warm color of tungsten is fantastic for food and I don’t correct the white balance. I also like working with an open lens at f/2.8 to get a shallow depth of field. I feel it leaves something for the imagination and that it is good for everyone.

Here are a couple of images shot in Delhi last week for a story in a Spanish magazine. For the record I have to mention that I am a pure vegetarian so did not touch these specific two dishes, but having lunch after the shoot was a long and enjoyable process :-)

Sizzling hot Stone Baked Cod served at 'ai', an oriental restaurant in south Delhi

Gnocci with Soft Shell Crab & Tiger Prawns at Olive Bar & Kitchen in south Delhi

Some of you might call me a Photo Nazi but i think it is important to put the discussion out there. Every now and then I get emails from young photography enthusiasts or aspiring photographers asking for advice or showing me their portfolio seeking opinion. It sometimes takes me a few days but I always answer these mail, trying to be as constructive and respectful as possible, but I suddenly realized that this is no help to anyone and decided to change my approach. I call it the honest and brutal truth!

Here is a mail I received a couple of days ago from Sunil (real name and contact information with me):

Hi

Now I know you get mails like these a lot and I am pretty sure you wouldn’t read it. But sir I have heard a lot about you and am in love with your work. Actually I want some help from you. I am resident of Delhi pursuing my engineering from here. I have a passion of photography. I know its just a hobby but I quite know I am not made to do what i am doing right now and will do ahead. I took some photographs and here’s a link to my gallery.
(flickr gallery attached here)
It would be an honor if you could just take a look at them and comment if they have got some life or are worthless. For once I wanna work in this field of photography and want to know if should give it a try as a professional. I do not quite have any knowledge about it and the photographs were taken by myself using a 4.1 mp digital camera. Looking for help from you in any way.

Thank you!

Sunil Agarwal

This is how I replied:

Dear Sunil,

You are right, I do get many emails like this, and the truth is I usually answer as politely as possible but I do not think this helps anyone.

The fact is that I think it is disrespectful to me and to this profession for you to be writing with a ‘portfolio’ like this, with images of sunsets and dirty children.

It is probably not your fault as you are a victim of the digital age, but I’ll give you this alarm clock now that will hopefully wake you up.

Everyone suddenly has a camera and wants to be a photographer. You take pictures and they are immediately transferred to your computer for you to upload to facebook. Easy. You don’t even have to spend money on film and processing, not to mention wait for the film to come back from the lab. Do you even know what shutter speed and aperture means? So you are an engineer, a hotel manager, a housewife or whatever, and you fell pray to the culture of quick satisfaction. You want to know what your pictures are worth and instead of picking up a book or professional magazines and reading to learn a bit about photography so that you know what you are actually doing, you write to someone you know has done all this and ask him to give you a shortcut. Well son, there is no shortcut! I have spent two years of sixty hours a week at a photography school, and more than twenty years of hard work after that to get to where I am right now, and I respect my profession very much. Go out there and learn something on your own first before you write to me again. There is nothing in your pictures that I haven’t seen before from hundreds of people who did not even want to become photographers.

I know this is not what you were hoping to hear but believe me, this is the most constructive criticism anyone will give you for a long, long time. If after this you continue on your own than maybe, just maybe, you have what it takes to become a photographer.

Good luck!

Sephi Bergerson
Photographer

And I haven’t even mentioned photoshop and all other photo manipulation techniques that people mistake for photography . . .

The thing about travel photography has not always been clear to me. Who are these people that do this kind of work really?  I mean, travel to all these amazing places just to take pictures and show us how beautiful the place can look. You know, just go, stay at a five star hotel or a luxury resort and show us how much fun they had. Some people do this of course, while others simply enjoy taking pictures on their holidays travel and happen to be damn good at it. I really wish I could do this sometime.

I am not really serious about this question of course. Travel photography is a challenging kind of assignment and some photographers out there are really very good at it. Me? I started my photography exploration in the 80′s by reading Popular Photography and Outdoor Photographer magazines and trying to learn all the tricks about working with a wide angle lens for landscape, and shooting interesting travel pictures, but my carrier hadn’t really taken me in this direction. Not only that, but I must admit that just traveling and taking pictures has never been something that I really do. I either travel on assignment, or on vacation. On assignment I would have my full camera bag with me, and the focus would be the assignment and the brief. When I travel on vacation I carry my small Lumix LX3 and shoot my family. The reason why I bring this up is because my last post was about a personal photo walk I did at the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabd in 2001, but I really cant remember when was the last time I simply went out shooting like this in India. Going somewhere with no brief is not something that I do very often, and this is why the pictures here are so different for me.

I was on assignmen in Kerala and on a day off I decided to take a short trip to Kanyakumari, also known by its former name Cape Comorin. Kanyakumari is located at the southernmost tip of the Indian Peninsula, at the confluence of the three water-bodies – the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Mannar and the Indian Ocean. Here are some of the pictures I took on that day trip. I had a great time :-)

I’ve always been attracted to street food and the instruments that are used to prepare it. Here is the very common sugar cane juice stall decorated with the yellow limes in the foreground of the Thiruvalluvar statue. I loved the way the blue, yellow and orange colors of the juice stall were mirrored in the colors of the saris of two women, framing the famous statue in the distance.

There was a large group of women students from a teachers college visiting the beach, all wearing uniform pink saris. I shot them sitting on the wall above the beach and slowly came down to the water edge with them. I sat quietly behind them as they were completely fascinated with the sea and the waves, oblivious to my presence. At one point someone called from behind, alerting them to the fact that I was taking their picture. They turned to look and I clicked this picture, just before they actually noticed me. The next picture was slightly less interesting as the lady on the left had put her foot down. There was no time for another as they immediately dispersed.

I left the beach just before sunset and the driver took me to the ‘sunset point’. there was no sunset as the haze had covered the horizon, but the clouds were painted this amazing pink. A group of women were sitting on the dunes praying next to a small church. I got out of the car and slowly approached them. They were singing quietly and the dune was glowing in the purple color of the sky. It was a wonderful moment and felt so far away from the reality of the busy beach only a few hundred meters away.

Sunset pictures are the most obvious to take, but I loved the simple palm tree catamaran boats on the beach that made this a different sunset picture than anywhere else.

The Kumbh Mela, the largest religious gathering on earth, is taking place these days in Haridwar and everyone makes plans to go. I recently read a post about the fact that photography is now prohibited at the Kumbh grounds, which I feel is completely ridiculous. It seems the Indian government has gone a little too far with all this ‘teror’ security and is making everyone’s life more difficult while not really securing anyone. The same thing is happening in the UK now, and only last week a huge gathering of photographers at Trafalgar square was calling to protest English cops’ continuing harassment of photographers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act.

So all this brings back memories of the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad in 2001. I am not sure I will be going to the Kumbh in Haridwar this time, but in 2001 I came to India for this reason alone. I was a commercial photographer in Tel Aviv at the time, and the plan of moving to India was already shaping up. I had just bought a new camera; the Nikon F100 and new lenses, and was going to India to play with it a little.

Thinking back about this trip now feels like it was in another life time. The F100 is of course a film camera, and I carried a bag of 200 rolls of film with me, to be used in India over a period of one month. I had only used about 80 rolls but this was an expensive trip anyway. The amount of money it took to process these rolls could have gotten me a digital camera today!

I went into my archive and dug out a few of my images of the 2001 Kumbh Mela in Allahabad. It is very interesting to look at one’s work in the perspective of time, especialy knowing now, that I had no idea what I was doing at that time. Being a commercial photographer, I had no clue of how to tell a story and how to properly document the event. I was simply walking around looking for nice pictures and hoping I manage to get a few. I must admit that I was mostly disappointed with my results at that time. In that sense, it would actually not be a bad idea to go back to the Kumbh Mela today and see what I come up with.

Anyway, here are a few pics from my trusted F100 that served me so well until it was replaced by the D70 when I stared shooting digital. Good or bad, it was simply an unforgettable experience!

Painting with light is something that I used to do in the time when I had my studio and was shooting still life in large format, but it is as easy to do with hand held flash and a DSLR. You have to have an image of what you want to do of course, but the practice is not so difficult. Here is an example.

How to find a boring image and make it beautiful

I have just come back from Punjab where I was shooting a feature for a science magazine about the depleting level of underground water. Farmers in Punjab are facing problems of depleting levels of underground water that in some places is already as deep as 700ft! They complain that the state government does not supply enough electricity to use the pumps. They only receive 3-5hr of electricity per day and have to use diesel generators to pump the water for their fields. I got all the images of farmers and water pumps that I needed but I was looking for an image to illustrate the story and saw this painted wall. This is basically an advertisement for water pumps painted on a shed on the Chandigarh-Ludhiana highway.

iso 200, 1/400 sec at f/10

Not a bad image as it has all the elements of the story; the field, the water pump and the electric pole, but it just doesn’t look good enough, not to say boring! I decided to come back to it later in the evening and see how it looks in better light.

This is how it looked just after sunset. Hmm . . mud city! terrible.

iso 200, 1/15 sec at f/9

I had to underexpose to get the sky back in, but then it looks like this. Beautiful sky, but no detail in the building.

iso 200, 8 sec at f/22

A flash on camera is out of the question so I had to think creative. I have two speedlights with me, SB-900 and SB-800. both very reliable, but no one to hold them and I do not travel with stands. I decided to ‘paint’ the scene with a long exposure. I zoomed my SB-900 to 200mm and clicked the shutter with 5sec delay. You can see me on the left side of the picture holding the flash.

iso 200, 6 sec at f/5.6

ok, this is going to look good eventually but I have to be more accurate with the exposure, as well as my location. I also have to bring in the grass and the electric tower into the light. Light is changing fast and it is getting dark so I play with the exposure a bit to save time and keep the longer exposure for the final shot. Low flash from the left of camera to light the grass.

iso 200, 10 sec at f/4.5

Ok, I got it. I need three flashes, one for the building, one for the tower, and one for the grass. Quickly before the color of the sky is gone as it is already way after sunset.

The final shot. iso 200, 13 sec at f/5.6

Sometime back I wrote a post about street photography in India titled Maharaja’s postrait photography in 21st centure India . The post was about what today is considered an alternative photographic process that was invented in India and used for decades by many street photographers across the subcontinent, mainly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

I have been fascinated by this wonderful apparatus since the first time I saw these street photographers on my first visit to India, back in 1996. Little did I know that fifteen years later I would actually be taking a personal project using such a camera.

I had bought my camera a few years ago from a photographer who used it in Delhi until he realized that ‘Video killed the radio star‘, as the old song goes. Here it was the age of digital photography that killed his business. He started using a simple digital camera but business was never the same anymore. The camera I bought from him has been in use since 1949 and was in pretty good shape when I got it, but naturally needed some minor repairs. The lens is very old and ‘soft’, with dust that has not been cleaned for ages. The first stage in my work was to run a few tests with it and make sure I can really use it to produce images. (if you want to know more about how the camera works please read the first post from April 2009).

When I decided that I wanted to start working with the camera again, I made a trip to old Delhi and had the lens cleaned as much as possible.

Using the camera is not an impossible task but I decided that it would be in the better interest of my project if I recruited a photographer who used such a camera for years to assist me in my project. Bharat Bhushan Mahajan, probably the last photographer in Delhi who still keeps such a camera, had agreed to come on board and we had our first day of shooting last week on my roof in New Delhi. His son had accompanied me to Old Delhi to buy the chemicals for the developer and to find someone to clean the old lens.

My assistant, Atul, records the exact mixture of chemicals that Bharat Bhushan Mahajan uses to prepare the developer. We bought the chemicals in Old Delhi the day we went to clean the lens. Rs 85 ($1.8) for everything.

A view into the camera itself. Atul seen from inside the camera as he poses for the test shot

Bharat Bhushan Mahajan and Sephi Bergerson examine the first results. Mahajan actually prefers digital cameras. "Less work, more money" he says. He does not have to make chemicals every day, or get his hands dirty anymore. it is the new age of 'Fata fat' (quick) photography.

The paper negative and the positive

The idea of the project is to use this camera to document the generation of young Indians who visually represent the change that Delhi is going through in the last few years. It would be a requiem to this camera and this photographic technique through the documentation of the people who live in Delhi at the time when it is quickly fading out of sight.

I.D Singh (31), DJ and event promoter, in front of the camera

The result, paper negative and positive.

I have made a list of people that I am going to photograph but this list is still open. If you have an idea of someone that can fit the project please feel free to write and suggest.

Technorati code: B42W6UAXGB92

The growing middle class is the face of the Indian upswing.  Excellently trained, ready to perform and happy to consume, the young social climbers liberate themselves from the burden of the past. But what do they believe in? What do they dream about? What keeps them going?

These are the opening lines for the feature about the growing middle class in India, written by Sebastian Matthes and published by the German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche. I was just informed that the feature is nominated for a CNN award, which made me very happy naturally, only that unfortunately I have not been able to read it as I do not speak German!

Never the less, I find the Indian middle class a very interesting subject to document, and I enjoyed traveling and shooting. As in many cases, the magazine does not always choose to publish the same images as the photographer would consider as his first choice, so I am attaching some of my options here. I think it gives a nice perspective on the process of work on such editorial assignments. The pictures where taken in the span of three days in five cities in India, Chennai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Delhi, and Noida.

Ramya Chandrasekaran, 30, PR Manager at a local bar in Chennai. "My present life would have been unthinkable in India two decades ago". Ramya Chandrasekaran lives alone, has affairs, gone through a failed Marriage and makes a career. She regularly commutes between Malaysia, Bangalore and Chennai, and has friends who live all over the world. She is very proud of her being independent: "We are children of a new, exciting time."

Saurabh Adeep (30) is a software engineer with a degree from a good college, and several years of professional experience. People like him are in great demand in India. In six years his salary grew almost tenfold. First, he covered himself with brand clothes, and bought watches and expensive accessories for his motorcycle. Today, all that is not important for him anymore. He wants to get ahead professionally, do an MBA and acquire international experience. (next to the Motorola building at a Bangalore industrial park)

Bonita Vaz, 27, designer at her home in Delhi. Raised in a working class family managed to they leap into the modern Indian Elite upper education. Since her studies at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad Bonita Vaz is one of the most sought after creative directors across the country. She works for magazines and agencies and lives with her friend Jofree Shimray in Delhi.

Sarath Babu, 29, Entrepreneur, next to a mask against evil eye in the Chennai slum where he lives with his mother. In earlier times people like him would live their life in the shadow of a heavy stigma. He comes from a slum in the eastern Indian city of Chennai, and worse, he was born to a low caste family. But he has worked obsessively, passed the entrance test to India's most prestigious Indian Institute of Management. After graduation he has received many high-paying job offers but decided to go back to the slum and open his own catering business in university campuses across the country. He now employs more than two hundred people.

Text by Sebastian Matthes, Photography by Sephi Bergerson, published by the German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche

My book ‘Horn Please – Trucking in India’ is almost finished and we are scheduled to go to print in a couple of weeks. It’s been a year of extensive work and it was funny to see that some of the images that we all like the most were captured only in the last month or so.  The layout design by Yogesh Gajwani looks amazing. Some of the images are spread over a whole double page and it is so lovely to see.

wait for the book in January. In the mean time, here are some new images. I hope you like them.

People load a truck with sand from a river bed on the way to Gangotri in the high Himalaya mountains

A truck driving through a forest road in the state of Uttarkand, in the upper Himalayas

Worshipers unload an idol of the Hindu goddess Saraswati from a truck during celebration of Durga Puja festival, some forty km from Delhi

An idol of the HIndu goddess Durga being transported on the back of a truck to the site of immersion during the Durga Puja festival, some forty km from Delhi

A decorated truck is featured in the Bollywood movie 'Dil Bole Hadippa' (2009, Yash Raj films) seen from the projection room of a cinema hall in Noida (UP). The movie projector is reflected in the glass window of the projection room.

A women catching a ride on a back of a loaded truck on the Delhi-Jaipur highway bids farewell to the setting sun.

Is the NGO distributing micro loans to women in Chhatisgarh actually a front to a new Christian mission in disguise? I have just returned from Raipur, Chhatisgarh, shooting a feature about microfinancing for a German consumer magazine. The shoot was very simple and straight forward, but we have found some remarkable facts about the NGO that distributes the loans.

So the story goes like this; a German company (let’s not mention names here) wants to improve their reputation and decides to spend some money in India to help the poor. They check and find a legitimate NGO that works in the field of microfinancing and contact them. The loans are very small in European standards, but are exactly what people in Raipur need, so all looks well.

The NGO appoints CROs (Client relationship officers) that go to the slums and form groups of women who already have a small business but need some help to grow. The loans will be given to carefully selected women that will be responsible for the other women in the group as well, thus ensuring that the loan will be paid back.

The initial loan given is of Rs 5,000 (€ 72) and the weekly return on this loans is Rs 224 (€ 3.2). This is enough to enable women like Devo Bhagel (48) to grow her small scale business, selling Gupchup, a famous street food savory delicacy, on the streets of Raipur.

Devo Baghel (48) at home, preparing Gupchup, a savory street food snack, that she sells every night on the streets of Raipur.

Devo Baghel (48) and her husband work together at her Gupchup cart on the street of Raipur, Chhatisgarh.

So far so good. Once the initial loan is returned, Devo will be able to apply for another loan of up to Rs 25,000. She already has two helpers and it seems that her business is going in the right direction. So, what else you must be asking? well, this is what happened.
We (myself and a journalist) arrived in Raipur on Sunday night and checked into our hotel, where we also met the NGO coordinator, Vinney Vani. He was a very pleasant man, and obviously very eager to help. We explained what we were looking for and he said he will help locate a woman that could be a good example for the project. “We cannot just go anywhere looking for people” he said, “as people might think we are trying to convert them” (!). Now what would Sigmund Freud have to say about that? I could feel my left eyebrow raised.  Anyway, before we parted, he suggested that we join him and the other office staff at their office in the morning for “Devotion”. “it is a half-hour program” he said, ” we pray and sing for the Lord”. I was not very excited, but could not really refuse.

Vinney Vani from Growing Opportunities (India) Pvt. Ltd. at Devo Baghel's home in Raipur, Chhatisgarh. "My wife is originally from a Hindu Brahmin family, but she had found the Lord"

The morning program was a bit embarrassing. We were seated in front of the twenty or so workers and were garlanded with flowers. Prayer and devotional christian singing followed. As it turns out, Growing Opportunity (India) Pvt. Ltd., a legitimate and reputed organization with a head office in Chennai, seem to be a very religious Christian organization spread all over the country.

I would not want to jump to conclusions here, but a quick internet search brought up a story on the NYTimes Christian-run companies increasing in almost every corner of the globe. NY Times: Their Mission: Spreading the Word Through Business (click to read). An interesting read!

Innocent? incidental? only good people trying to help? I leave it up to you to judge, but it does look a little suspicious.

* Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services.

India is one of the largest and most populated countries in the world, with over one billion inhabitants. Of this number, it’s estimated that around 2.3 million people are currently living with HIV. Never the less, in India, as elsewhere, AIDS is often seen as “someone else’s problem” – as something that affects people living on the margins of society, whose lifestyles are considered immoral. Even as it moves into the general population, the HIV epidemic is still misunderstood among the Indian public. People living with HIV have faced violent attacks, been rejected by families, spouses and communities, been refused medical treatment, and even, in some reported cases, denied the last rites before they die. In a country where poverty, illiteracy and poor health are rife, the spread of HIV presents a daunting challenge.

UNDP works with the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) to respond to HIV and AIDS in India and reduce its impact by supporting the national efforts and offering knowledge, resources and technical expertise to effectively implement the National AIDS Control Program.
Almost 15.6 million people across India were provided with information, training and services to improve their capacities to deal with HIV. People living with HIV as well as trafficking survivors receive livelihood training to expand their employment opportunities and skills.
On an assignment for UNDP in Orissa I visited an HIV clinic in a town about twenty kilometers from Bhubaneshwar and met some of the people who need to live with HIV.

Usharani Behera (30) and her daughter Rani (3) at the community care center at Cuttack, about 20km from Bhubaneshwar, Orissa. They were tested HIV+ in 2007 once her husband was seriously ill. © Sephi Bergerson / UNDP India

Bipin Das (42) is an HIV+ truck driver. He now receives the HIV pension thanks to the advocacy of UNDP as part of the HIV mainstreaming project, and uses the money to travel for his ARV treatment. © Sephi Bergerson / UNDP India

Mandakini Behera (22) at the HIV community center at Cuttack, Orissa. She has tested HIV+ in 2004 and now receives the HIV government pension. © Sephi Bergerson / UNDP India

After so many years of not exhibiting any work at all,  I am participating in a second group exhibition within a span of a month. The exhibition titled ‘Wide Angle’ and organized by WonderWall.co.in  is coming up at the gallery Romain Rolland at the Alliance Francaise de Delhi on October 24th, 2009.

The list of photographers mentioned in the invite, and I am certain most of you will recognize many of the names. Each photographer contributes two images. I am going to show two images titled ‘Gods of Earth and Heaven’ 1 & 2. Print size is 20″x30″, limited edition of 10 prints.

A poster of Shirdi Sai Baba and a street food vendor's sieve, on an MTNL telephone box in down town Mumbai. 'Gods of Earth and Heaven 1'. Print size is 20"x30", limited edition of 10 prints.

A village God on a construction site of a new temple in Vallapalam, Tamil Nadu. 'Gods of Earth and Heaven 2'. Print size is 20"x30", limited edition of 10 prints.

Please come by the gallery to view the exhibition. I look forward to seeing you there.