Candace Feit: Darfur

Image © Candace Feit
I hesitate to describe Candace Feit as an emerging photojournalist, since her remarkably striking photographs are as powerful as those I've seen from many more experienced photojournalists.

I read that she only took up photography seriously 2-3 years ago, and took the opportunity of traveling to Dakar in the Senegal to photograph its streets on a daily basis. She then hooked up with a couple of photo agencies, and suddenly was covering the Darfur conflict, Togo, Liberia and Ghana. Her photographs appeared in the The New York Times, Le Monde, Le Figaro, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and Time magazine, among others.

For this post, I've chosen one of her striking photographs in which the contrast between the starkness of the landscape, the darkening sky, and the colors of the woman's clothes (just look at her flip-flops!) is testament to Candace's skill for composition and her color sense.

Except for countries of Northern Africa, the Sudan and Ethiopia, I haven't traveled in Africa...and it's talented photography like Candace's which tells me if it's high time to start. In the meantime, keep an eye out for Candace Feit...she'll keep impressing us.

Candace Feit

Dinesh Khanna: Living Faith

Image Copyright Dinesh Khanna
Dinesh Khanna is an Indian photographer, who specializes in travel photography, and showcases his love for color in his two books, Bazaar and Living Faith. I'm impressed by the perfectionism of his imagery...but let me also make the important distinction that he is more of a 'commercial' travel photographer than a documentary travel photographer. His images are stylized and beautiful, and his color sense among the best I've recently seen. Reaffirming his style, he describes some of his successful photographs as being staged. You'll see in one of his gallery an image of camels wading through the Yamuna river behind the Taj Mahal. While obviously color-enhanced, this image was used very successfully in advertisements for India Tourism.

Here are excerpts of what Dinesh says about color:

" Color is almost a language in India. It's in food, clothes, on walls, in architecture. Color is such an integral part of life that to take it away would be killing a part of the story. As a photographer, I find color challenging. Black-and-white photography is easier because it makes the image alien to the way the mind sees things. Color is always around us. To transcend that, to show reality the way it is, and yet, have an interesting composition or an interesting moment is far more challenging.

Absolutely! Color is a language in India...it's a way to communicate, influence and swamp the senses. Color is what pulls many photographers to this wonderful country. For me, India has three irresistible magnetic fields: its people, its art of devotion and its language of color. Language of color...yes, I'm grateful to Dinesh to have shared this expression.

Dinesh's website is here. I recommend his galleries which are titled Staged Street and Books.

POV: Semantics?

From Laos: Monks & Wats-Image Copyright 2005 Tewfic El-Sawy
One colloquialism describing a photographer that I personally find particularly irksome is the word "snapper". It's mainly used in Britain, and it's irritating that even some of the broadsheets and dailies use it. Even worse is to hear it spoken. I know....I know...some photographers freely use it to describe themselves, but I still cringe when I hear it. Another word commonly used is 'shoot'...as in 'he is shooting in afghanistan' when describing the whereabouts of a photojournalist. I don't think that pressing the shutter of a camera is akin to shooting of a gun. I must admit culpability in using the equally grating term of 'photo shoot'.

However, this is not what I'm going to vent about today. No, today's about the difference between 'making' a photograph and 'taking' a photograph. Generally, the action is described as 'taking' a photograph (or taking a picture) but, to me, here's the difference:

Taking a photograph is when I photograph a spontaneous scene or portrait. There's no prior preparation, and I just see a scene that makes visual sense to me, and I take its photograph. But making a photograph is different, because making implies a degree on personal involvement. In other words, when I spend time with a subject and direct him or her to stand in a certain way, then I'm 'making' a photograph. Some people use 'create a photograph', but I find it rather pompous sounding.

While photographs that are made or taken are equal, they require different skills...interpersonal skills, pre-visualisation skills, and predictive skills. Taking a photograph requires predictive skills, while making a photograph requires interpersonal skills....that's my personal take.

Having said all that, I leave you with this: is it a photograph, a picture or an image?

Darvis: Burma

Image Copyright Darvis
Darvis (he seems to use one name only) has been a freelance photographer for over twenty years. He traveled extensively and is keen to document our disappearing civilization. He shoots his pictures then reinterprets the original images through the media of toning and water colour.

This creates a finished image which is a blend of photography and painting. This was originally an option used by traditional artists to make a portrait affordable. Only the rich could commission an original painting.

Darvis says "Although it is already too late to turn back the wheels of industrialism and technology to a simpler age of handcrafting I hope that by documenting and photographing our disappearing civilizations with their time honored methods of worship, ritual and festival that we can begin to nurture a compassionate affinity with the ways of our ancestors."

His website showcases a number of galleries; Burma, Laos, Thailand, etc, but navigating it is rather annoying. I was disappointed in his Indonesia gallery, but thought his images of Burma were really artistic. I wonder whether my preferring the Burma gallery is because the country's isolation give more 'credence' to his hand-tinted photographs with the retro look to them. I don't know...maybe.

All in all, it's too bad that that his website's navigation doesn't do any justice to his craft.

Darvis Photography

Compact Flash Cards on eBay?

For those of you tempted to buy Sandisk Compact Flash and/or SD cards from eBay, be cautious. It seems there are many eBayers who have already been deceived by inferior quality, unpopular cheap CF disguised as SanDisk Extreme III as more than 95% of all 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB CF listed on eBay are counterfeit items and many have fake capacities.

Here's the link to the eBay webpage: Fake CF Cards