Students of photography should check out the Student Photographic Society. Annual membership is $29 and you get a slew of goodies for that low fee.

Via Adithya Sambamurthy

Life magazine is being resuscitated … again. I guess Time Inc. can't run away from such a well-known brand, but neither has it had any luck turning a profit. Life, as some of you know, was a wonderful venue for photojournalists to publish their photo essays or stories. It has had many up's and downs and avatars in between. We'll have to see what this one will be like. According to Mediabistro.com, “as Life magazine gets set to relaunch October 1, New York's International Center of Photography hosts a retrospective of the magazine's most iconic prints.”

Some of you may remember the UNITY convention I attended a little over a month ago. The highlight of that conference for me was not George W. Bush or John Kerry; in fact it was running into two desi photojournalists – Adithya Sambamurthy and Nick Oza. I have been in touch with both of them since then. Nick is an award-winning photojournalist now based in Georgia. He has promised to send me sampling of his best images. I'll post them here just as soon as I get them.

Starting today with Adithya's words and images, I am launching a special category called DISPATCHES. Friends of Tiffinbox who wish to display their work from the field, report on an event, write poetry, illustrate a concept or an issue, or generally want to have their voices heard in any conceivable creative way please contact me. I promise your life in the limelight will last more than 15 seconds.

Adithya is currently in India working on a self-assigned documentary project. When we met in Washington, D.C., he shared his portfolio with me. I knew right away that sitting in front of me was a very talented and enterprising young man. I think you will agree.

What follows is his first dispatch from India. It gives you an idea of how complex documentary work can be. The image at the end of this post is one of eight that Adi sent me. I did say he is talented, didn't I? If you wish to send him feedback, email him at adi18(a)hotmail(dot)com. Please tell him Tiffinbox sent you. And please read his essay (click the link below) about his experiences doing documentary work in India. It's an interesting read.

Capturing the Home Away from Home: First Time Explorations in Documentary Photography in India
By Adithya Sambamurthy

I've been in India a few weeks now, arriving first in Mumbai, then going to Bangalore and finally arriving in Chennai about two weeks ago. The purpose of my visit is to begin working on a documentary photo essay on the repatriation of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, back to their home villages near Jaffna and the surrounding areas of Northern Sri Lanka. I have spent the last two weeks interviewing a number of people on the subject, but have also begun doing some street photography around the area where I am staying.

I am 23 years old, and have spent almost 20 years of my life outside this country, having grown up in Germany and the United States. I have had some experience as a newspaper photojournalist, but have never developed a project of this magnitude before. In the last week, I have come to find that, in India, who you know is more important than what you know, but have also found the local journalists to be extremely friendly and helpful. I have always considered myself an Indian photojournalist, but have realized now more than ever that I'm not really Indian. In fact, no one here is, as everyone seems trapped in sub- categories of religion, ethnicity, caste and wealth, which seem to dictate how people relate and communicate with each other. The word “Indian” in India seems to be an empty word, a construct solely fabricated for the outside world to classify a disparate mass of people, and so that those in the Diaspora, such as myself, have a word with which we can define our identity.

This provides a difficult set of challenges for the documentary photographer, as I believe good documentary work is not contingent upon having fancy equipment, or good aesthetic judgment, but on the relationship the photographer has with her/his subjects. This may seem contradictory, as documentary work is supposed to have distance and objectivity, but my experience covering community beats for newspapers has shown that the best work usually results from the subject's willingness to ignore the photographer, while letting her/him witness and record intimate moments. This requires a level of trust, which is bred by a sense of community, but how do you work in a community that is so fragmented, where social norms seem so restrictive?

During the first few days in Chennai, I have been too intimidated by the hustle and bustle, the sheer volume of creatures (people and animals) squeezing into the narrow roads, to begin taking pictures, and just wanted to observe the sites and sounds of the city. I was especially terrified of the people, though everyone I talked to on the street seemed friendly. How would they react to my taking pictures of them?

I find my language skills to be better than I had initially feared, though still barely adequate. How am I to explain what I am doing, if I am confronted by someone about taking pictures?

Since this isn't assignment photography, I want to be a discreet observer while I am here and not call too much attention to myself. In accordance with the 6th Commandment (“thou shalt not ruin the documentary feel of photographs with heavy-handed use of fill-flash”) from the 10 (+2) Commandments of Lighting, which was written by some wise person whose name I no longer remember, I have chosen to keep the equipment simple. The objective is to look for good light and document every day life in the city. No fill-flash, and only two lenses. I'm also trying to stay away from the clichéd images of India I believe we are all familiar with: no religious festivals, no temples, no weddings, just everyday people doing everyday things.

After several days of simply walking around my neighborhood, I have begun taking my camera with me. It is amazing to see how sheltered I have been during my previous visits to India, usually to visit extended family and friends. Simply walking the streets has exposed me to a different India, a vibrant one, where life happens in the streets, out in the open, with no fluorescents, no tungsten. People selling produce, shoes, books and fixing machines, all in little stalls where natural light just seeps in. Without wanting to unnecessarily romanticize it, I am smitten. A photographers dream, right?

Well… not exactly. Unfortunately, I have quickly found that the narrow alleyways are situated so that these little stalls are perpetually in the shade cast by the buildings. What makes perfect sense for the people working in these shops, and the passers by who are their customers, has made things tough for me, as the light is always flat, giving very little definition to my pictures. What am I to do? The only solution is to find buildings that are not quite as tall, and, through trial and error, visit these areas during different times of the day, to see when the sun is at an angle which creates directional light in these little patches.

The next step is to be able to enter people's personal space, camera in hand, as they go about their daily lives. This is something I am still finding very hard to do. Initially, I would simply shoot everything with a medium long (70mm) lens, which spared me the problem of actually getting in peoples' faces. Even then, I would often be keenly watched, not just by my subject, but by a multitude of people, who crowded around to see what this foreigner was doing, essentially making it impossible for me to take the kind of natural pictures so prized in photojournalism.

People ask me questions like: “Why are you doing this?” “Where is this going to run?” and “What is your native country?” I think the reaction is natural and legitimate, and in response to the former two, I usually try, in broken Tamil, to explain what I'm doing, but in response to the latter, I'm usually quite perplexed.

What do I say? Germany? America? India?

Well, probably not India, since clearly no one here thinks I'm Indian, or they wouldn't have asked me this question, but, in Europe or the US, when asked something similar, the answer seemed much clearer.

Since my first few days shooting, things have gotten somewhat better. I have become more courageous in my approach, using wide angles lenses and getting in close, and my Tamil has gotten to the point where I can even pursue I little small talk with the people that question me on the street. I still am hesitant about really getting in close though. As you will be able to see, the pictures on the site lack a sense of intimacy, as I still am trying to find that connection with my subjects. I hope, over time, that this will change. My approach has been to simply make prints at my grandparents' home, which I give to my subjects subsequently, and believe that with this simple gesture, I open the door to talking to them, and thereby can also gain caption information. Especially the shopkeepers, some of whom I have photographed and given prints, now know me is the foreign kid with the camera, and usually smile and wave when I walk around this neighborhood.

In editing my pictures however, I also have realized that I seem to be most comfortable photographing those that are most like myself, that is male, Hindu, young to middle-aged. I still am hesitant to get in close with a wide-angle when photographing women, and Muslims, for fear of offending them. This, I believe, will be my next challenge, to work up the courage to begin documenting those in this community that are different from myself.

I leave on the 13th of September for Thirunelveli, Erode, and Rameswaram, little towns in the South, where three of the 103 refugee camps in this state are situated, and where I have arranged to meet a few of the families, who I hope will be gracious enough to let me into their lives. However, the towns are situated almost at the tip of the sub-continent, a 12-hour drive away from Chennai. If I have had problems assimilating with a camera in a big Indian city, what are my chances going to be in the small towns of rural India?

First a story about how adolescents are experiencing sex earlier than before, now this.

Some of you may be wondering why I have posted this under the category of “culture.” Well, if you don't think AIDS is or will be affecting the fabric of a nation, think again. There are several approaches to this issue and I hope some of you out there will enunciate them to us so we will be better educated about this major, devastating issue.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's India Country Report on Population and Development has found that Indian adolescents are having sex at a younger age than before.

“The report further says that misconceptions aside, a large number of teenagers don't even know the correct way of using a condom.”

Time for parents to wake up and smell the chai and start talking to their kids about the birds, bees or whatever else that makes them comfortable. Time to flush those old taboos, I say.

By Melanie Light, Director, Fotovision:

The Photojournalism Festival at Perpignan was exciting, intense, disturbing and fun. 3,000 professionals converged on this lovely town in southern France for a week. 45 agencies had booths, throngs of photographers were showing their work and important deals were being cut. There were symposia and press conferences. 30 photographers had shows in venues about town and every night there was a slide show of even more work by yet more photographers. They were held outdoors on giant screens. Numerous prizes were awarded to photographers.

Much of the work involved crisis photography and so, despite the idyllic setting of this town, the subject matter was very intense and very disturbing, at times. A certain portion of the stories would never be printed because the subject matter is much too grisely. It seemed that the quality of the images were somewhat affected by pressure to shoot the sensational shots. When I compared a lot of the contemporary work to that of the two retrospective shows of work by Willy Ronis and Charles Harbutt, it seemed that a certain lyrical, or simply earthy quality has been lost in favor of a dramatic aesthetic.

The industry, as judged by this festival, is under stress. In the same way that the music industry has become monopolized, so has the media. Consequently, there has been a big squeeze on the photographers and the agencies. There is a ton of great talent out there and competition to get printed is fierce, with most work done by freelancers. Even the most heralded and highly skilled photographers have a hard time getting their long-term projects funded and published. They do a lot of assignments they don't necessarily want to do in order to shoot their “real” projects on the side. I also noticed a trend for many photographers to live in Asia because it is so much cheaper than living in Europe or the U.S.

After a week of immersion in this environment, I realized the two best skills a photographer can have are to be able to edit his/her own work really well and to get a grip on the business side of the industry. So many of the young photographers I met had spent a lot of time and energy getting to Perpignan, but really were not prepared to negotiate and operate like a professional. One of the least popular symposia was probably the most important one for this group. It was a lecture by an international copyright lawyer who works for Corbis. There were a handful of middle-aged, mid-career people who were there because they had had first hand experience with the many pitfalls of copyright infringement. A photographer's pictures are all he or she has. That creative body of work must accrue over time and will become a source of passive income and a retirement plan, if protected. Most young photographers are desperately trying to get their foot in the door, but it just doesn't make sense to sell oneself out for a tear sheet.

The other thing I realized after a few days of viewing all of this crisis photography is that I was beginning to feel battle fatigue. Story after story of unbelievably graphic human suffering washed over me and through me until I felt emotionally numb. And then, it hit me. These photographers must be profoundly affected by this work. I began to ask some of the well-known photographers how they handled the stress. At first, most of them said it didn't bother them, or that their families were a safe refuge. But slowly, they admitted that it was very difficult. One photographer said that after his first assignment in a war zone, he kept waking up at night in a full sweat. He thought he was sick, until he realized he was having nightmares and suffering the aftershock of his experience in war. Another photographer says that she will be flooded with images at unpredictable times, like when she is brushing her teeth.

These photojournalists and their counterparts, writers, should have some help dealing with these symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The military has a psychological unit on the frontline to assist the soldiers and treatment available for them when they return. But the media workers have nothing. If they are freelance, they might not even have health insurance at all. Not only are they pressured to file one story and start another, but the whole culture of journalists is to be very macho.

How would anyone even begin to set up counseling services for them – journalists are a herd of cats. My husband jokingly suggested that I set up a new foundation called Therapists Without Borders and it became a running joke for the entire week at Perpignan. But, in fact, it wasn't such a bad idea. Instead of the trailer that Doctors Without Borders set up so we could all experience a refugee camp (very, very cool, but very, very redundant), Therapists Without Borders could have set up a trailer to educate journalists about coping with trauma: symptoms they might experience, how to prepare for a crisis situation, resources for their return.

All in all, this was a fascinating experience for me, as an observing outsider. I learned a lot, met some really wonderful people and really hope photojournalism finds its way through these dark times.

Via Harikrishna Katragadda

Bangalore-based photojournalist Mahesh Bhat visited Perpignan this year for Visa Pour L'Image, the world's premier photojournalism gathering. This is his report:

There is a saying at VISA POUR L'IMAGE that you'll never know who you are sitting next to. It could not have been more evident than on the evening of September 5th. The La Poste bar at Perpignan was full of photographers,editors and agents. Well past midnight, the table on our left was team National Geographic, on our right was VII photographers and Magnum. There was Kent Koberstein, John Stanmayer, Jonathan Bendickson and many more top names. VISA, arguably the greatest festival of photojournalism is held every year in Perpignan, France. This year it celebrated photojournalism for the 16th time.

I was attending VISA for the first time. As the TGV speeding towards Perpignan from Paris attained its maximum speed, the French country side became a blur. It was almost midnight of August 29th when I reached my hotel. The next morning registration was at the Hotel Palms in the city center. Palms is in a historic building with oodles of old world Europe and a court yard with trees, plants and all on the first floor! Day 1 of the professional week, things were slow in true French style. Members of the Association of photo editors (ANI) were there to look at the portfolios of freelance photographers and point them towards the right agennts who were congregating at the Palais De Congress, a short distance away.

Day two was slow too, most of the agencies hadn't arrived and some were kind of busy setting up their stalls on the second floor of the Palais De Congress. I was fortunate to meet Ken and Melanie Light and a talented young photographer, Louie Palu at breakfast on day two. Ken is a well known documentary photographer and adjunct professor of photography at Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California Berkeley. Louie is a staffer at the Toronto Globe and has done a wonderful photo feature on a family migrating from Peshawar to Toronto.

There were 29 photo exhibitions at the various historical places in Perpignan; that was some treat . The evening screenings, on a 20'X60′ screen were awesome. Over 4000 people attended the screenings every evening! The images shown were mainly on the various conflicts raging in Africa and the Middle East and AIDS.

By Thursday all the top agents had set shop and many of us were busy setting up appointments to show our portfolios. Well the pace was hectic.

It was an intense experience for me. I felt fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet several talented photographers and top editors. I came back to India with my passion for still images reignited! I am sure I'll be there again in 05.

Via Prashant Mullick

“Knives that will draw blood hours later string into picture.

In bunches at the end of chains, they will be used to lash backs and remind Muslims of the massacre of the prophet Muhammed's grandson, Imam Hussain.

Other dagger-like knives will be held in the hand to cut vertically into the forehead.

Here, they're put on display, for sale. Imamwada Road, deep in the heart of Bombay's traditional Muslim stronghold, is lined with thousands of knives, and buyers, every year.”

I know I am in good company when I see quotes from Pablo Neruda, Matsuo Basho and Wynton Marsalis sprinkled across a photographer's web site. Pinaki Chakravarthy has been at it for a long time. His images from the flower market are my favorite as he has let the ambient light dictate the colors in the frame.

But the one above arrested my attention for the most obvious reason of all – curiosity. What were they and how were they to be used? In my opinion, an image devoid of people in its frame can still make it a portrait. This one speaks of a community. This image of knives slung across a wire in pregnant anticipation of skins, blood and passion is terrific. I would love to see more of these kinds of images in this young photographer's portfolio.