Sanjit Das: Indian Kashmir

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

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

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

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

Sanjit Das' Dardpora photo essay.

Zenfolio : An Upscale Flickr?

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

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

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

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

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

Further details are here: Zenfolio.

Editor & Publisher: Photo Contest

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

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

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

New York Times: Culinary Vietnam

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

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

The NYTimes' Culinary Vietnam.

Nabbed in Iran

Two Chinese citizens were arrested in Iran. The two were carrying out survey work for property owners but were mistaken for spying. Police detained them for having allegedly taking photos of Iranian military facilities in Arak, a town in central Iran. A year ago, Iran had also sentenced two Swedish men to two years in prison for taking pictures of military facilities. Such news sent shudders down my spines. It could be Shah and me who ended up in prison. The two of us had backpacked to Iran in 2005. Originally, about 6 others were supposed to go with us but somehow or rather, they could not make it for one reason or another. Shah who planned the trip would go even if he had to go alone and I don't mind tagging along if it meant visiting the magical Persia of old that I had often read in books. The two of us thus landed on Tehran, Iran's capital on the slpe of the Alborz Mountain in the north -central part of the country. We arrived at the International airport very early in the morning and later took a cab to the city, passing the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini on the way. After finding a backpacker hostel, we lost no time in exploring the vicinity. I remembered Tehran to bit drab and dusty and as we walked on, we came to a delightful street with shops selling various things ranging from fruits to fishes, really, really big fishes which I heard were from the Caspian sea up north. A big beautiful dome of what we believed to be a mosque caught our attention just then and soon, we were busy snapping photographs. There was a big window with iron grilled of a drab old building and when we peeped through it, we saw several men in light brownish khaki uniforms. Just then too, a young man grabbed my hand. Shah and I were accused of taking photographs of a forbidden place. I think I must be handcuffed, if not the young man who took away my camera must have had held my hand and had not let it go for as long as we walked the distance to see his superior. The superior went through the pictures we had taken with our digital cameras and whew! We were let go and now, I could be here, writing! It seemed that in Iran, one is not allowed to take photographs of government buildings including military facilities and police stations.

Travel tips: Do not take photographs if there is a sign nearby that prohibits it.

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YouTube - Qom and Khomeini mausoleum

Fairy Land

Chin Heng just paid me a visit. I had spent my recent March holidays with him and his buddies, Yong Sheng and Poh Xiang and now, he had brought along photos which his friends had taken when we were there in Macao. I think the pictures of the four of us in a little park just opposite the famed Hotel and Casino Lisboa were just fabulous. The park is not very big and does not catch the eye during daytime but come night, the park or more accurately the city centre becomes a fairyland in its own right. I remembered our plane from Kuala Lumpur had been delayed that day and instead of reaching Macao at 5pm, we reached there one or two hours later when the sky had turned dark. Taking a bus to our hotel, the only thing that had attracted me then was the big dome that dazzled a million colourful lights. The dome reminded me of domed city from the America TV series, Logan's Run but this is not a city of the future. This is Macao, the former Portuguese enclave at the estuary of Pearl River in South East China and now a special administrative region in China famous for casinos. The dome is actually egg-shaped and spectacular LED lighting display had been build around it. The structure incidentally is also part of th Grand Lisboa Hotel which was responsible for installing the intelligent lighting system, using LED technology from Daktronics, that combines outdoor lighting effects with the ability to create and display custom text messages, graphics, animations, and video images. Grand Lisboa Hotel is undeniably one of the best five-star hotel with a 24 hour casino. The building of the Grand Lisboa which is shaped like a giant bright yellow lotus plant, the official emblem of Macao Special Adminitrative Region was still being constructed when we were there. Under the glare of daylight, the latter was an ugly sight and the magic of the night wore off.

Bangkok Photo Workshop

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

For further details, visit the workshop's website.