Via Shahidul Alam

The World Press Photo Foundation, based in Holland and Bangladesh's Drik photo agency have made it possible to showcase the work of hundreds of world class photographers in Dhaka.

It's an amazing feat that the exhibit is again back in Dhaka. Had it not been for Alam's persistence and a stern letter to the organizers over 11 years ago, the exhibit would have as usual catered only to the countries in the West (rendering moot the words “World Press”). It's to Alam's credit that WPP has made Dhaka an almost annual stopover. This year's chairperson of the jury happens to be Alam!

Alam says, “With hundreds of people seeing the show every day, and excellent media coverage, it might appear as if the staging of WPP photo in Bangladesh was a smooth well organised affair. As Marc will testify, the reality was very different. For those of you who have seen the show at the gallery or online, this behind the scenes look will provide an amusing take on a potential disaster.”

The crates had arrived at Zia International Airport on the 24th of December 2003, but the journey from Zia to Dhanmondi took considerably longer. The opening was at 4:00 pm on the 7th January 2004. By 3:30 pm, the crates hadn't arrived! We did know they had left the airport, and was able to tell the Dutch Ambassador that it was safe for him to come over. The head of the caretaker government, our chief guest, Justice Habibur Rahman was already on his way. The adrenaline was flowing!

The exhibit will run from January 7 through January 29, 2004. Read more about it here.

Two photojournalists to watch out for at this exhibit are the American photojournalist based in New Delhi, Ami Vitale and the Belgian photographer Bruno Stevens who shot a story on the Hindu-Muslim riots.

Via Arul Louis and the soon-to-be-defunct Mediaah.com

Want to write fiction and get published by Penguin India? Contact Shobhaa De, Penguin's new Consulting Editor for Fiction.

If any of you out there has a hot idea to write fiction but don't know whom to approach, worry not. Bestselling writer and columnist Shobhaa De is now board Penguin India as Consulting (Fiction) Editor.

Shobhaa's mandate is to source new writers and manuscripts. There will be special emphasis to first-time authors and women's fiction. If you have an idea, or have written already, this is what you should do: please send a synopsis (ideally not more than 10 pages) or an entire chapter to her at shobhaa.de@penguin-India.com.

Beginning today, I invite all of you to submit an image (.jpg, 72 dpi, no larger than 300 pixels wide and no larger than 80 kilobytes) or a URL (web link) that showcases your recently published work (as long as it falls in the following categories: photography, art, design or writing).

I call this section TOOT! for a reason. It's your space for bragging rights, to toot your horn. Send me an image or a link to the following email address: tiffinbox{at}pipalproductions{dot}com.

And since this is my site, I'll go first – the image you see below appears in this week's India Today (January 19, 2004). I shot it in Brooklyn Heights, NY, for a feature on overseas born Indians. Special thanks to Anil Padmanabhan of India Today (akin to Time or Newsweek and published in India) for making it all possible.

When submitting your work, please comply by these simple rules: The obscene and vulgar will get shot down and the downright offensive or pornographic will get you banned. So please do the right thing and keep it clean. Copyright will ALWAYS remain that of the creator – you (assuming you aren't swiping it from somewhere and calling it yours) – not me.

With your submission provide your name, a valid email address and a telephone number. If you email me without this information, I'll have to delete it. Spammers and thrill-seekers need not apply. This is fun but also serious business. I think a lot of us just don't get our due in the limelight. Help me get the word out about our small achievements. Let's do this together!

I'll pick and choose the ones that are appropriate for this site. If your work is South Asia specific, you are that much ahead of the game. If you have any questions, email me. Spread the word and good luck!

Well, yeah, phones and cameras are an odd mix aren't they? They feed our need for instant gratification. Pick a cellular phone company and you can bet that at least a few camera-phones (hereafter to be called “campho”) on the smorgasbord. As a photographer, it's tempting to see what they are capable of doing. But given their small file sizes and the limited amount of space on the LCD's of these phones, the gratification is well, limited to our eyesight and attention span for all things small.

Steve Outing, Senior Editor at the Poynter Institute is all for camphos. His posts about how they can revolutionize reporting by the common citizen is refreshing, but the practice comes at a cost. Imagine Jane Doe walking along the streets of Timbuktu and coming upon an accident where true to the sense of what's news (if it bleeds, it leads) a man is on the ground with no paramedics in sight. Jane Doe is no photographer but she whips out her Nokia 6000 (or whatever model) and starts clicking away. She doesn't help the poor chap out, but is busy documenting the scene. Question is why and for whom? Would the phone not be better served to call the police and the paramedics? Even as a photojournalist, my first impulse is to get the man some help and then start working on what I do best. But leaving these choices to someone not in the business, and unaware of protocol, is troubling. It's one thing to send cute pictures of grandma on her birthday blowing out 80 candles and quite another to make images that are socially relevant. In my mind, the ethical choices compound.

Add to this, in the last few weeks, I have heard stories that camphos are being misused and are a threat to privacy. Despite the bans in several well known sports facilities (where the phones were being used to photograph people working out), Alan A. Reiter defends their use.

“The ability to take photos might not be a “right” per se , but the more restrictive a society, the greater the chance of banning photographs.”

He is talking about Saudi Arabia and Cuba who have apparently crimped the plans of many a campho toting tourist to snap willy-nilly at whatever comes their way. I am all for press freedom, but I sure wouldn't want to be photographed in a private setting and in an uncompromising situation. The image of me lifting weights ain't pretty follks!

I am sure you have heard of the term moblogging, or mobile blogging. It's the ability to quickly scribble a note on one's PDA/campho or, I guess, photograph, and post it to one's blog site. I haven't tried doing that yet, but that's because I don't have a PDA that's wi-fi enabled or a campho. If you want to learn more about this phenomena (fad?) check Picturephoning.com out.

A Reuters story augurs the hope that people will use camphos with some restraint, if only due to their technical limitations. But megapixel camphos are on their way. It's going to get very interesting.

Via Steve Outing

Eastman Kodak announced it was going to stop selling film based cameras. While this hardly affects me and my work, I am a tad bit worried that the company's next move will mean cutting back on their film products for professionals. That would be disastrous. Call me old-school, but I still shoot film. Sigh!

“The move comes amid Kodak's controversial plan to focus on high-growth digital products, such as medical imaging systems, and reduce dependence on its declining film business.”

From the financial aspect of things, Kodak is trying its best to stave off the accountants who have seen red for far too long. Just as soon as the announcement was made, Kodak's shares were up by 1.33%. That should keep both the accountants and the shareholders somewhat happy.

“Kodak said that it plans to continue making reloadable cameras that use 35-millimeter film in emerging markets, such as China, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America and that it will introduce six new cameras in those markets this year.”

In America no matter how much is written or photographed of the Kennedy clan, they are still an enigma. Charming, famous, mysterious and political to the core, no other family (sans the Buckingham big wigs) receives as much attention while they are living or even after they are dead.

“If the cancer hadn't killed Jacques, the loss of the negatives would have.”

Fred A. Bernstein writes in the NY Times today that the negatives of the late photographer Jacques Lowe, which were destroyed in the horrific September 11, 2003 WTC terrorist attack, have been resurrected thanks to scanning technology and Adobe PhotoShop.

Six weeks of tweaking and cajoling old decrepit contact sheets resulted in a book, Remembering Jack: Intimate and Unseen Photographs of the Kennedys, which is now out in bookstores.

Via d2r

{The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” but “That's funny …”}

— Sir Isaac Asimov

I know what you are thinking – this has absolutely nothing to do with photography – but I beg to differ.

In photojournalism, for instance, it's when we allow ourselves to discover images as they unfold before us (versus manufacturing them) that we get a greater sense of our subjects and, indirectly, of who we are.

Several years ago, I was photographing in Maine's oldest African-American church – A.M.E. Green Memorial Church. The photo-shoot had felt labored and quite frankly pointless, because I just wasn't feeling the images. When I pointed my camera, I wasn't entirely sure if the folks who were dressed in their Sunday best were posing for me or mocking me. The pastor hadn't understood why I was documenting the church and its parishioners. But several weeks into the project for Salt magazine (unpublished, unfortunately), I photographed Floyd Zell holding a basket for offerings in front of the church.

It may have been his first time in front of the congregation. Zell's tiny legs were crossed, his expression one of wonder. The gospel music in the background was electric. He stood there patiently for the music to wrap up. I remember people clapping their hands and declaring halleleujahs, Amens and praises to Jesus. Some had moved out of the pews and into the aisles where they began speaking in tongue.

For me, it was an epiphany. That was the moment when things came together and I knew what I was doing there. Access is usually the first stumbling block to an assignment or a project. But it is the more insidious, lack of purpose, that can have one swerving like an uncontrollable kite. Once purpose was established, I could somehow let my creative juices flow.

And, yeah, I did say to myself – “That's funny …”

Via Melissa Lyttle

Photo District News, the industry's best trade zine has issued a call for entries for 2004. Last year's winners here. Deadline is February 15, 2004.

Tick, tock … hop to it!

On a whim, I went looking for the word TIFFIN in Alexa.

Michael Quinion has this to say:

Tiffin is a word that perhaps more than any other evokes British India. It entered the language at the very beginning of the nineteenth century, perhaps because the fashion for eating dinner mid-afternoon was giving way to a main meal taken later in the day, requiring a lighter midday meal and a name for it.

We are just taking the first bend into the new year and it's perhaps a little early to engage in navel gazing. But in the past four months or so that this blog has been in existence, I have had the pleasure of getting to know several of you. Thanks to Kaushik Banerjee, some of my posts now also appear in a wonderful community called Living In India. Do check out the other writers who contribute to that site. You will be impressed.

Tiffinbox is light fare for those interested in South Asian photography, writing, design and art. If you have links, ideas, suggestions or know people and events please let me know. Send me a note at: tiffinbox {at} pipalproductions {dot} com.

Thanks for continuing to visit. I urge you to subscribe to Tifinbox (or ask your friends to join).

Via Andrew J. Ensor

Carnegie Mellon creates smart system to automatically enhance underexposed photos

PITTSBURGH–Carnegie Mellon University robotics researcher Vladimir Brajovic has developed a tool that automatically improves the appearance of darkened or underexposed photographs by digitally adding light to dark areas. The Shadow Illuminator, funded through a $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, was developed originally to help robots see better. Using principles based on the physics of how optical images are formed, Shadow Illuminator imitates the vision processes that take place in the human eye. It examines the content of a photograph, estimates the illumination conditions and then brightens shadows. It also enhances details within the shadow. “Shadow Illuminator is intelligent and works consistently for all pictures,” said Brajovic, director of the Computational Sensor Laboratory in Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute.

“It provides the same results quickly and eliminates the hassle of manually adjusting photographs.” According to Brajovic, traditional image-enhancement tools manipulate the color and intensity of the pixels of an image regardless of its content, relying on human judgment to determine what parts of an image need adjustment. Applying this process to each image can become tedious and time consuming. “While there are other programs that enable users to manually produce similar results, you have to figure out what works for each individual picture,” Brajovic said. The Shadow Illuminator, which has a patent pending on its technology, is being commercialized by Intrigue Technologies, Inc., a company formed by Brajovic that specializes in software and hardware for electronic imaging under difficult lighting conditions. Visitors to Shadow Illuminator, a free site can upload pictures and apply Shadow Illuminator to achieve brighter, clearer results. For visitors who sign up for a free account, the site also creates a personalized album to hold their uploaded photos.