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

]]> http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/food-photography-should-make-you-hungry/feed/ 1 http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/the-photo-nazi/ http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/the-photo-nazi/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:50:03 +0000 sephi http://www.sephi.com/?p=3166

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 . . .

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

]]> http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/painting-with-light-how-to-find-a-boring-image-and-make-it-beautiful/feed/ 4 http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/10-photographers-who-have-influenced-me-over-the-years/ http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/10-photographers-who-have-influenced-me-over-the-years/#comments Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:49:53 +0000 sephi http://www.sephi.com/?p=2297

Who are the most influential photographers of our time, and what makes a photographer influential? The other day someone asked photographers on Twitter to name 1 or 2 top of the classic photographers that they think one must get to know. My immediate reply was to ask why only 1 or 2, and then I thought that after more than twenty years as a professional photographer, I should actually make a small list of my own.

Interestingly, PDN had recently published their own list of twenty most influential photographers and have obviously listed many of the photographer that have been my influence, and would most probably made it to my list.  Helmut Newton, especially his book Polaroids, and his clear vision of how he directs models. Marry Ellen Mark and her project Falkland Road: Prostitutes of Bombay,  Nan Goldin who pissed me off when I first saw her book, but then I saw her exhibition in Prague and understood her simplicity and greatness, and of course all the rest of them. Albert Watson who’s book I actually shop-lifted one day (a long long time ago) as I had no money to buy it but could absolutely not bring myself to leave the store without it. Wow, there is something fantastic to say about every single one of them, but as I said, I do not want to repeat the same list.

I have decided to make a list of photographers who are not on the PDN list. A list of photographers who have made an unforgettable impression, and have made a mark on who I am today as a photographer. Some are really famous, and some who are maybe less famous, but were there at major turning points of my career. This list is far from finished and there are many others I would have loved to mention if I had more space, and if I thought you would want to read… So here it is, and not by order of importance :-)

Ansel Adams - Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941

1. Ansel Adams – Who doesn’t know Ansel Adams!? why would I mention him, right? Adams was my first idol as a young photographer, and made me drive all the way down to White Sands national park in New Mexico looking for what he saw. He is important on this list because from him I learned not only the zone system, but also not to do the same thing all my life. He was the greatest master of black & white photography but did the same thing all his life. With all my respect to his work, I knew that I would not go the same way.

W. Eugene Smith - A Country Doctor, 1948

2. W. Eugene Smith the grand master of photojournalism who was the hero of my first B&W teacher in photography school, Glen Richmond. His refusal to compromise professional standards and his amazing feature stories, the most memorable of all to me, maybe not his most famous, is the one about the Country Doctor from 1948. This was in my mind when I was working on the Polio initiative in India.

Joel-Peter Witkin - Gods of Earth and Heaven, Los Angeles 1988

3. Joel Peter Witkin Finding beauty within the grotesque, Witkin pursues this complex issue through people most often cast aside by society — human spectacles including hermaphrodites, dwarfs, amputees, androgynes, carcases, people with odd physical capabilities, fetishists and “any living myth … anyone bearing the wounds of Christ.” His fascination with other people’s physicality has inspired works that confront our sense of normalcy and decency. His constant reference to paintings from art history, including the works of Picasso, Balthus, Goya, Velásquez and Miro, have always intrigued me and set me on a quest into art history books. Witkin seeks out his collaborators visiting medicals schools, morgues and insane asylums around the world. The resulting photographs are haunting and beautiful, grotesque yet bold in their defiance – a hideous beauty that is as compelling as it is taboo.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard - Cranston Ritchie, still life, mannequin

4. Ralph Eugene Meatyard Regarded by his peers as among the most original and disturbing imagery ever created with a camera, Meatyard’s images had nothing to do with the street photography of the east coast or the romantic view camera realism of the west coast. His best known images were populated with dolls and masks, with family, friends and neighbors pictured in abandoned buildings or in ordinary suburban backyards. Meatyard’s work challenged most of the cultural and aesthetic conventions of his time and did not fit in with the dominant notions of the kind of art photography could and should be. While others roamed the streets searching for America and truth, Meatyard haunted the world of inner experience, continually posing unsettling questions about our emotional realities through his pictures. After his early death at the age of 47, It was left to friends and colleagues to complete an Aperture monograph on Meatyard and carry through with the publication of The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater (1974) which he had laid out and sequenced before his death. He was from Normal, Illinois.

© Joyce Tenneson

5. Joyce Tenneson is an American photographer known for her distinctive style of photography, which often involved nude or semi-nude women. Tenneson shoots primarily with the Polaroid 20×24 camera. She has had her work displayed in over 100 exhibitions around the world. Her way of working with Polaroid, the amazing use of light, and the angel-like portraits, have all set me on an experimental journey that lasted throughout my years as a commercial photographer. Even today I sometimes find myself building my frames with her images in mind.

photo: Ireland 1972. © Joseph Koudelka

6. Josef Koudelka Throughout his career, Koudelka has been praised for his ability to capture the presence of the human spirit amidst dark landscapes. Desolation, waste, departure, despair and alienation are common themes in his work. His characters sometimes seem to come out of fairytales. Still, some see hope within his work — the endurance of human endeavor, in spite of its fragility. Koudelka’s sense of balanced composition and his way of dividing his frame has always been a subject of fascination for me.

Trichur, Kerala, 1985 © Succession Raghubir Singh

7. Raghubir Singh is considered a pioneer of color photography. In the 1970s he was one of the first photographers to reinvent the use of color at a time when color photography was still widely disconsidered. His photographs, acclaimed for their organization of space, reflect the multiple aspects of contemporary India. Raghubir Singh was the first Indian photographer I ever heard of, when I was still living in Tel Aviv. I had bought his book River of Colors online, and still to this day I keep trying to see images through his eyes. He had showed me how to work in the chaos of India and still make sense and put it in order.

Alex Levak, Jerusalem 2001

8. Alex Levak is a one-of-a-kind street photographer of the old school. Awarded the ‘Israel Lifetime Achievement Award’, (Pras Israel) in 2005, he is maybe the photographer who best captures the irony of the Israeli life. Committed and disciplined and with a sharp eye, his work belongs to the ‘decisive moment’ genre. I met Alex as a student of photography when he came for our school’s documentary series critics. Not everyone liked my work that day, but Alex said that it was “good photojournalism” and ‘saved’ me. I never forgot that, and probably never will. I met him a couple of times after that day, a simple, down-to-earth man who simply “works in photography” as he says. He gets up in the morning and has work to do. A wonderful man.

© Amir Weinberg

9. Amir Weinberg I met Amir Weinberg when I was still a commercial photographer in Tel Aviv and admired his freedom and his ability to travel and shoot the subjects that he likes. My decision to give up the commercial studio and come to India in pursue of my dream has so much to do with him. He is also the one who gave me the courage to print my work in large size. The first big size print I made after seeing his work is still hanging in my living room. Born in Israel. Studied at  ICP (International Center of Photography) in New- York. Weiberg was a Press photographer for Time Magazine, Yediot Achronot, Stern Reuters Agency, AFP and Sygma. With inconceivable obsess, Amir Weinberg creates a photographic frame that provides the viewer with a new concept of the visible and invisible in nature. The concept of light and space created by Weinberg offers the viewer a brand new world, sometimes hallucinated and sometimes accurate.

Philippe Lopez - Pushkar camel fair, 2003

10. Philippe Lopez A long time staff photographer and photo editor for AFP, Philippe is now chief photographer in Shanghai. We met in Delhi when I first arrived in India and had really no idea about photojournalism and working in the field. Philippe’s experience and dedication to his work, as well as his amazing ability to deliver great ‘sellable’ images out of every situation, had given me a very strong base for my comfort and ease of work today. From him I learned not to neglect myself in the name of getting a good image. Have a proper lunch, and only then go to work.

I have only mentioned ten people but cannot close this post without at least mentioning Gary Winogrand, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, and of course, James Nachtway and Sebastiao Salgado whom I recently had the pleasure of meeting in person here in New Delhi. I am forever grateful.

P.S Oh my God! I’ve been so serious :-) how could I forget David LaChapelle and Pierre et Gilles?! they deserve a whole new post just for them! :-) who is on your list?

David LaChapelle

Pierre et Gilles

My wife, Shefi, is in the last stages of pregnancy with our twins and is due any day now. We are of course super excited! Knowing that this is the last chance to take some pregnancy shots, I was planning to go out to the nature but the great outdoors is not so easy to find in Delhi. Anywhere you go there are people around. I liked Jeff Newsom’s picture of his pregnant wife and thought I’d play along these lines, but like I said, Delhi . . . so, I reverted to the confines of our small living room

How I did it at home with some help from PhotoShop

Being a documentary photographer, I usually don’t play with PhotoShop effects in my work, but here I decided to give it a go and use some techniques that I wanted to experiment with.

The first picture, about two weeks ago, natural light coming form the door on the left side of the frame. Slow shutter speed. To get the color effect I first converted the image to Grayscale and then applied ‘Antique light’ filter in LR. Further enhancement in PS to give some more depth and contrast. I then superimposed a second shot of a sheet of brown paper to achieve the texture on the wall and her body.

The second session, a week later. On the same wall in our living room but this time using two Nikon Speedlights, an SB900 on the left, and an SB800 on the right. Again, image was then converted to Grayscale and exported to PhotoShop. Worked with filters to achieve the metal blue body color. I then stepped out to the roof, took a shot of the concrete floor and used it for the textured wall.

If you like what you read please leave a comment, Digg it, Stumble it, Facebook, Twitter and share this post with others . . .

]]> http://www.sephi.com/personal/two-simple-maternity-shots-and-how-i-did-it/feed/ 9 http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/ten-photo-tips-that-can-change-the-way-you-shoot/ http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/ten-photo-tips-that-can-change-the-way-you-shoot/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 12:24:28 +0000 sephi http://www.sephi.com/?p=1593

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.

I believe that photography is a language, and if you want to be able to express yourself in this language you must learn its rules. You cannot say that your B&W print that came out gray is a style unless you know how to produce the perfect B&W print. You need to know the rules to break the rules. Learning the rules is important in your formative years, and often helps to create very pleasing photographs. Nevertheless, you will never create anything new if you always do what is expected of you.

I have discussed the three sources of knowledge in a previous post and I will try to enhance on this theme in this post, and give a few tips that will help you explore your own creative process.

I have been a student of photography for more than twenty years and these are tips that worked for me. Some are quick to implement while others will take more time to develop and learn from. Some will have immediate results and others will have a slow and accumulating effect on your style of work.

Use rear-curtain flash sync

1. Start working on a long term project. I think that every photographer must be engaged in a long term personal project. When you work on a long term project the subject stays the same and you can slowly start noticing how your style changes around it.

2. Choose a subject that is close to your heart. Concentrate on something that you like and is accessible. If you are not a volcanologist don’t start a project about volcanoes. Your family can be a great subject to start with. Decide what you want to say and start shooting regularly, at least once week. Keep your mind open to see how the project develops beyond your initial ideas. A personal project could be a three-month-long project that will result in a series of 8-12 images, or a much longer one that might even become a book.

3. Study the work of other artists. Watch movies about the masters of photography and how they work. Study the history of photography and the techniques that were used before the digital age. Study Ansel Adam’s zone system. Start going to book stores and sit with books to get inspiration.

4. Try shooting with both eyes open. this will give you the ability to see beyond your frame and be prepared for changes. This might prove a bit strange at first but you will get used to it very fast.

5. Shoot from the hip / shoot without looking. Break the way you see the frame and let yourself be surprised by what you shoot. This will also enable you to shoot people form up close without making them look into the lens. Don’t be afraid to get bad results. If you don’t take risks you will never get great images.

6. Pattern plus. Look for patterns and break them. This is a simple exercise but will help you open your eyes to patters around you. A mountain of green apples and one is red is a simple example. Try to find others.

A+B=C

7. A+B=C. is a technique of using an ironic juxtaposition of two elements in the composition (A+B) and the relations between them to tell a story and lead the viewer to understand the subtle statement (C).

8. Frame inside a frame. Create frames inside your composition and position your subject inside it. Open a window into another world that lies beyond the two dimension of the photograph and emphasize your statement.

Frame inside a frame

9. Change the settings in your camera menu to use two separate buttons for the AF and shutter release so that you focus with your thumb and release the shutter with your shooting finger. This is a simple trick that will help you frame better and prevent your focus from changing when you shoot.

10. Use rear-curtain flash sync

11. I know, I said ten :-) Smile and have fun. A smile will get you out of almost any tight spot, especially while shooting in foreign countries where you do not speak the local language.

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If you go into a book store in India looking for a recipe book, you will find many books about the Indian kitchen and a few imported ones on foreign cuisine. An Indian made Italian recipe book is something a little out of the ordinary. Italian Khana, Ritu Dalmia’s ‘desi Italian cook book with a soul’, recently published by Random House India, is an attempt to show how easy it could be to cook Italian in India.

When I first heard about the project from Chiki Sarkar, the editor in chief of Random House, I was a bit hesitant as I was told that the budget for the photographs was very small. She wanted photographs of the kitchen, of dishes and of people eating, something I estimated in about 6-7 days of work. Never the less, I wanted to meet Ritu and see what she is all about, and see how I feel about the project. We decided to all meet for lunch and discuss the options. Ritu came first , after all it was her own restaurant, and it was love at first sight. She is a fun and energetic soul running a few very successful restaurants in Delhi, the most famous one is of course DIVA in GK2 market. By the time Chiki had arrived I already knew I would be happy to work on the book but the concept was still not decided.

We had a great green salad, raviol (I had two portions), and penacotta with a strong espresso. Chiki and Ritu were discussing the number of images that they wanted and I suddenly thought it could actually be very simple. I suggested that we do it the ‘Italian way’. Organize a big Tuscany-style lunch for about thirty people and I would shoot the entire book in one day, starting in the kitchen in the morning with Ritu cooking, then take a few pictures of dishes and then shoot everyone eating and enjoying a winter lunch. This would enable us to get all the images that we need and also fit the budget. They loved it!

It was just before Christmas and we had to get things in motion fast to avoid the winter fog that would delay the project by a few months, so we scheduled for three weeks away. A location was found in one the farm houses outside of the city and the guests were invited for a Sunday lunch. It was wonderful.

I started with Ritu at her home kitchen very early in the morning, shooting with available window light and trying as much as possible not to interfere with her work, moving around her and getting the feel of the kitchen. From time to time I would take a ready dish to the other room and shot the plate in the sun coming from the open window. I used a few small mirrors to fill in the dark shadows but no artificial light. I wanted to keep it simple and real.

When we finally reached the location with all the food and people started coming, I switched to a longer lens (80-200/f2.8) and shot the entire lunch like this. Close up shots of the food on the table as well as the people talking and enjoying the party. by 4PM we were having desert and the I had what I wanted.

All the images form the book are available on my ARCHIVE.

Click HERE to order the book online.

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There are three sources of knowledge that are available to us in this world; perception, inference, and what is referred to in India as Vedas – the sacred texts.

Perception, or first-hand experiences, are of course the best teachers. You put your hand in the fire and it is most likely that you will never do this again. Inference would be our conclusions based on evidence and reasoning, most often evidence given to us as facts by our teachers, whom we trust have had their own experiences to learn from. We must be very conscious who these teachers are because many times even our teachers only read their so called ‘knowledge’ and did not acquire it on their own. but this is another issue.

When we talk of Vedas, we do not necessarily mean ‘sacred’. It would be better understood as the text, or knowledge, that is passed on to us from the masters whom we KNOW have had personal experiences. The reason we need to learn form Vedas is because those master teachers are not personally available to us. The Vedas would be the knowledge we can access even if the masters are not here with us.

This short list of photography movies belong to what I consider as the Vedas of some of the greatest masters of our times. There have been many great movies over the years, of course, but these have visually inspired me and contributed to my career. Most of these films are easily available on DVD, while others might be hard to find but are surely worth the effort.

So here is the list in alphabetical order:

Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens (2007)

This documentary takes an in-depth look at the influential career of iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz, from her earliest artistic efforts to her storied tenure at Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair magazines and beyond. Intimately filmed by Annie’s sister Barbara Leibovitz, the program features interviews with the artist as she works at home, along with telling insights from many of the celebrities she has photographed, such as Mick Jagger.

Ansel Adams: American Experience (2002)

Few American photographers have reached a wider audience than Ansel Adams, and none has had more impact on how Americans grasp the majesty of their continent. In this elegant, moving and lyrical portrait of the most eloquent and quintessentially American of photographers, producer Ric Burns seeks to explore the meaning and legacy of Adams’ life and work. At the heart of the film are the great themes that absorbed Adams throughout his career: the beauty and fragility of “the American earth,” the inseparable bond of man and nature, and the moral obligation the present owes to the future.

Blow-Up (1966)

Blow-Up (1966) is writer/director Michelangelo Antonioni’s view of the world of mod fashion, and an engaging, provocative murder mystery that examines the existential nature of reality through photography. Antonioni’s first film in English, it quickly became one of the most important films of its decade, and a milestone in liberalized attitudes toward film nudity and expressions of sexuality. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (with no wins): Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay (Edward Bond, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Tonino Guerra).

Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank (1986)

A documentary about the life and work of the influential photographer and filmmaker of the Beat Generation, Robert Frank. The film combines a retrospective of Frank’s output over four decades, interviews with people he has worked with in the past, and his current view of his life and art.

Helmut Newton – Frames from the edge (1986)

Follow influential photographer Helmut Newton — whose strikingly erotic portraits of nude women shocked the fashion world — as he jet-sets from Los Angeles to Monte Carlo to Berlin, where he escaped the Nazis in 1936. Along the way, the charismatic artist holds court on life, love, art, family and more. Portrait subjects Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, Sigourney Weaver and Karl Lagerfield reflect on their experiences with Newton.

Paul Strand – Under the dark cloth (1989)

Two types of art — photography and film — converge in this documentary that provides a fascinating picture of the life of famed photographer Paul Strand. Directed by John Walker, Strand: Under the Dark Cloth takes an in-depth look at Strand’s his work, his relationships with his family and contemporaries and his isolated way of creating his art.

Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light (1966)

The son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant, Richard Avedon became one of the most famous photographers in the worlds of fashion and celebrity. Beginning with his work in the postwar Paris fashion scene, the documentary follows Avedon’s 50-year career photographing both the famous and the not so famous. Avedon himself provides commentary on his signature black-and-white style in this documentary created for the “American Masters” series.

Sebastiao Salgado – The Spectre of Hope (2000)

The Spectre of Hope is a moving documentary about the present moment on our planet, based on the internationally renowned photographs of Sebastiao Salgado. Salgado spent 6 years traveling to over 40 countries, taking pictures of globalization and its consequences – most notably, the mass migrations of populations around the world. In the film, Salgado presents his remarkable photographs in conversation with John Berger. Essential viewing for anyone concerned about the state of humanity at the start of the 21st century.

War Photographer (2001)

WAR PHOTOGRAPHER is the compelling portrait of the man considered the bravest and most important war photographer of our time, James Nachtwey. In this engrossing, Academy Award-nominated documentary, director Christian Frei follows photojournalist James Nachtwey into the world’s combat zones as he fights to capture the struggles of those who face harrowing violence in places such as Kosovo, Indonesia and the West Bank. Nachtwey skirts through murky politics to tell the stories of the suffering in hopes that he can bring attention to their plight, one picture at a time.

W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult (1989)

The life of W. Eugene Smith is re-created in this docudrama, with Peter Reigert playing the esteemed photojournalist whose World War II images defined the photo essay genre. Interviews, footage and reenactments chronicle Smith’s remarkable career. A daring news photographer who sustained serious wounds while on assignment in Okinawa, Smith captured arresting images that appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, Life and many other publications.

If you wish to add a recommendation please feel free to leave a comment.