Back here I got the ball rolling on the debate between shooting RAW or shooting in the compressed lossy JPEG format. Ken Rockwell says JPEG is sufficient. Harikrishna Katragadda thinks that's heresy. Well, I sent Rockwell a link to the post and here is his response:

It's sad people think there is a debate; there isn't. Use of RAW or JPG is an easy choice for any experienced photo pro knowing what's being shot. Actually even JPG BASIC is fine for many uses.

The debate comes from people not realizing each is optimized for one or another use. The argument comes from people trying to convince others that one or the other applies to all possible uses, which they don't. Feel free to post that if you like.

Read more about Rockwell's theories about JPG vs Raw vs TIFF. There appears to be two very distinct schools of thought. The first says capture everything as RAW and then tweak them down to however the images will be used. The second school of thought is to capture images according to how they will be used in the end, JPEGs if that's all will be needed.

I understand Harikrishna's take on this; to have in hand what is widely considered a digital negative is a boon. It allows one to go from there to just about anything one would want to create. But I also see Ken's point of view that it makes little sense to subject yourself or your equipment to the processing power or time to capture everything in RAW when JPEGs in some situations will more than suffice.

I am pricing some Sandisk 2GB cards for my imminent D70s purchase. With a 6.1 megapixel camera how many RAW images can I capture? How many JPEG (fine) images will I have in a full card? What file sizes are we talking about here? And, at the end of the day, how much computer work will we be committing to if we shot everything in RAW v. JPEG? If I am a wedding photographer [and I am], should I be shooting everything as RAW or would JPEG [in fine mode] be sufficient?

South Asian photographers face an uphill battle if they want to have their work published and eventually recognized here in the West.

Some try their hand at photography contests, some others cold call magazine photo editors and float their project ideas. My friend Abir Abdullah who has consistently proven himself as a serious photojournalist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh asked me again to sponsor his submission to the annual Gordon Parks International Photo Competition. Just the other day, Mahesh Bhat, also a friend and photographer based in Bangalore, India wrote in asking to spread the word about his project: Heroes Of India.

Producing great images doesn't come easy and it definitely doesn't come cheap. Photojournalists often place themselves in some very precarious situations to capture moments that are historic, evocative, inspirational and wholly necessary for our understanding of the world.

I am asking for your financial support. I am asking for your help to create a revolving account of at least a US$1000 to be used ONLY to support credible photojournalists or documentary photographers in their contest entries or their photography projects. If the corpus balloons to something larger, great, but the very minimum we wish to raise is $1000 before disbursing it.

Please look to the top right of this page to see how you can use PayPal to donate $10, $20, $50, $100 or the entire $1000.

Please Note:

We will be held fully accountable for all disbursements. They will be made at the sole discretion of a small panel of judges from the photography world. All decisions are final.

For Photographers:

Here is what we will be looking for: (1) South Asian photographers with serious interest in photojournalism or documentary photography via an online portfolio review [please send us a web address that works], (2) the name and entry details of a specific, highly regarded photography contest that requires an entry fee, with at least a 1 month left before the deadline or a synopsis of your project and (3) the actual contest entries or project samples in electronic format [72 dpi, 9 inches wide or high] that are numbered and captioned. Entries can be sent to us at – tiffinboxmedia[at]gmail[dot]com. Please comply by these rules and follow these steps. Incomplete applications will be deleted.

By submitting your application you agree to provide Tiffinbox.org non-exclusive web/online rights to your images, so that they may be used to highlight the Tiffinbox Photo Fund. All copyrights belong to you, the photographers. Credit will always appear on or next to your images.

If you win a photo contest, you agree to send us a high-resolutiion digital image [300 dpi, 11″x17″] for our archives. Once you complete a photo project that was at least partially funded by the Tiffinbox Photo Fund, you agree to display the entire series on Tiffinbox.org within one month of completing it.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Are you a 501[c]3 organization or can I get a tax break for supporting your cause?
No, we aren't a non-profit entity. At least, not yet. If this starts to roll, we might just have to be.

Is the Tiffinbox Photo Fund open only to South Asian photographers?
Yes, this is about advancing the work and careers of highly skilled South Asian photographers wherever they live. If you know of any South Asian photographers, please let them know about this opportunity.

How often can I submit my work?
You can submit your work any number of times throughout the year but you can expect to be funded only once per year. Afterall, we want to make this fair and have more people participate.

How much of my project or contest fees will be covered?
This is left to the discretion of the judges and dependent on how much we have left in our corpus fund for the year.

Can I let other people know about the Tiffinbox Photo Fund?
Need you ask? Of course! Please let your friends, colleagues, family know about it.

Do I have to pay Tiffinbox anything to submit work to be considered for the Tiffinbox Photo Fund?
Absolutely NO! You pay nothing. Just follow the steps to submit your work accurately. That would be payment enough.

Why are you doing this?
The Tiffinbox Photo Fund was partially inspired by Shahidul Alam during his recent trip to NYC and my recurring dreams of supporting other South Asian photographers who are struggling to make ends meet.

Do you give away cameras, film, other tchotchkes?
Sorry, no. Until we have sponsors, all we are going to be about is a funding house for photographers who want to enter their work into photography contests or have extended unfinished documentary photography projects. But we are working on an annual awards program. Stay tuned.

Kaaya: 1, 2

Imaging Self,
by Parthiv Shah
Director
Centre for Media and Altrernative Communciation (CMAC)
Delhi, India

As a photographer, I always find it challenging to work with marginalised communities. One of the reasons they are marginalised is due to the way they get represented in society. Whether it is the transgender community, sex workers, the diasporic community, tribal groups or religious minorities, they all face similar problems. Living on the periphery of mainstream society not only a physical reality but also invades their psyche. And due to little or no information about them they are regarded “Exotica”. Things that are unknown often romanticised. This then is an issue of identity, pushed outside of the normative – the parameters of which are determined by the mainstream society.

Transgender communities are a part of our society and have created a world of their own. They have their own kinds of relationships, unusual means of livelihood and importantly an identity which constantly underlines their exclusion. For many years now the community has been subjugated to roving eye of anthropologists, photographers and their ilk who made them subject of their study and represented them most of the time in a context which is not theirs. A single photograph projects an image of a person/ situation mostly out of context. Even a small article with few images cannot in most instances do justice to this community.

Hijras or the transgender community enjoys the mystery which surrounds them. This helps them in their business of cruising in zones created by them for themselves. They not only like to appear different in the body sense but also their mannerisms are idiosyncratic. They use this performance/act to iterate the identity that mainstream society has cast them in. To represent the true character of such a group for an outsider is a humongous task. They might allow you to help them in their territory on their terms and conditions for a purpose which they have no control over. In other words they might seek an outsider’s help for lets say health care, education or even legal advice but they never are sure about how they would like the world at large to look at them.

In the 1990’s I conducted a workshop with children in Mangolpuri, a resettlement colony in outskirts of Delhi. In that workshop I had given aim and shoot cameras to participants who were in the age group 9 to 15. The participants – all children, had not taken a photograph or even held a camera in their lives. It was my first attempt to understand how children look at things through a camera, how they frame their subject and how they perceive things. The results were astounding. We first printed and exhibited their prints in a Baarat ghar (Community Centre) where they proudly invited their parents for the inauguration. The exhibition traveled to one of the most prestigious galleries in India at the Centre for photography as an art form at NCPA, Mumbai. I am not sure how much my participants from the workshop learnt about photography but they sure had lot of fun exploring the world of looking and telling! For me – I discovered a new vision – a vision that was beyond my own.

When I started on this project I had imagined that the Mangolpuri experience would give me some directions in working with the transgender community. But that was clearly not the case. As I started out I discovered that there have been many attempts to showcase transgender community through photographs, documentaries, books and exhibitions by outsiders. It took several discussions to explore the idea that they are perhaps in a better position to communicate to the world outside of theirs the many facets of their existence. Unfolding the layers of misinformation, exposing and showcasing their lives would perhaps be the best way to bridge the disconnect. In the process they got involved thoroughly and had one goal in mind that they should be seen as human beings and no less or more.

For the first meeting when I entered the SAHARA clinic at Yamuna Pushta, the largest slum of Delhi, with Anjalee and Shantanu from SAHARA we heard lot of music and laughter. Not knowing what to expect, I found we were greeted by a room full of hijras. They were as anxious as we were. As I greeted them I realized in this project there are going to be no directors, no experts, no subjects and no underdogs. To break the ice I had taken few books which I shared with them. As they started looking at images they got interested in the costumes and makeup of people in those images, the situation in which it was taken and started laughing and sometimes even quarreling. After some discussion they told me that they would like to do this project. They were very willing to participate but will have to take permissions from their respective Gurus.

I took this to be a good sign as they were all willing and excited about this newfound activity. This was not just to be an experience of clicking photographs and looking at themselves only, but also about meeting new people like us. In next meeting we discussed further about how to proceed. We discussed some themes which would allow them to look at things around them. The group of participants was never the same. They would come and go. I realized that this is going to be pattern and I will have to accept the situation. The good rapport that Sahara had with the community facilitated the discussions on many instances. The Hijra community lives all across Delhi and they have their areas marked for their business/work. It became easy for us to distribute cameras according the area they stayed. We made pairs of two and they took their first film rolls with great excitement. Two weeks later I received about 10 film rolls, each one labeled with names. When I saw prints I was amazed with the results, also because I did not know what to expect! I took these prints for our next rendezvous and I shared them with both the groups the one who shot these images and the next group who would be shooting. They were really excited and wanted to shoot more. They talked about each of these images they had selected and why. This was then recorded and translated for the catalogue and exhibition. They were asked to select two to three photographs, which they would like to exhibit. They also created the narration for each of the photographs that they selected.

When I see these images which are photographed, modeled and selected by Hijra’s themselves I feel reassured that our decision to make them part of this entire process was completely valid. These images work at many levels. For one in it allows you to journey into their lives from their point of view. It is clear from the pictures that they want to share, want others to know how they live – that this is how they eat, bathe, dance, feel sad, and survive. I kept my role as minimal as possible as I wanted very little outside influence in this venture. This visual journey defines their very identity. The transgender community in this project has unveiled their lives into the public space. This is one of those rare instances where they have modeled, photographed and written about themselves for a book and exhibition which is meant for a world outside their own. I personally believe that this effort will contribute to doing away with stigmas. An increased understanding of their lives, will foster the realization that they are people first and transgender afterward.

Kaaya: 1

Imaging Self,
by Parthiv Shah
Director
Centre for Media and Altrernative Communciation (CMAC)
Delhi, India

As a photographer, I always find it challenging to work with marginalised communities. One of the reasons they are marginalised is due to the way they get represented in society. Whether it is the transgender community, sex workers, the diasporic community, tribal groups or religious minorities, they all face similar problems. Living on the periphery of mainstream society not only a physical reality but also invades their psyche. And due to little or no information about them they are regarded “Exotica”. Things that are unknown often romanticised. This then is an issue of identity, pushed outside of the normative – the parameters of which are determined by the mainstream society.

Transgender communities are a part of our society and have created a world of their own. They have their own kinds of relationships, unusual means of livelihood and importantly an identity which constantly underlines their exclusion. For many years now the community has been subjugated to roving eye of anthropologists, photographers and their ilk who made them subject of their study and represented them most of the time in a context which is not theirs. A single photograph projects an image of a person/ situation mostly out of context. Even a small article with few images cannot in most instances do justice to this community.

Hijras or the transgender community enjoys the mystery which surrounds them. This helps them in their business of cruising in zones created by them for themselves. They not only like to appear different in the body sense but also their mannerisms are idiosyncratic. They use this performance/act to iterate the identity that mainstream society has cast them in. To represent the true character of such a group for an outsider is a humongous task. They might allow you to help them in their territory on their terms and conditions for a purpose which they have no control over. In other words they might seek an outsider’s help for lets say health care, education or even legal advice but they never are sure about how they would like the world at large to look at them.

In the 1990’s I conducted a workshop with children in Mangolpuri, a resettlement colony in outskirts of Delhi. In that workshop I had given aim and shoot cameras to participants who were in the age group 9 to 15. The participants – all children, had not taken a photograph or even held a camera in their lives. It was my first attempt to understand how children look at things through a camera, how they frame their subject and how they perceive things. The results were astounding. We first printed and exhibited their prints in a Baarat ghar (Community Centre) where they proudly invited their parents for the inauguration. The exhibition traveled to one of the most prestigious galleries in India at the Centre for photography as an art form at NCPA, Mumbai. I am not sure how much my participants from the workshop learnt about photography but they sure had lot of fun exploring the world of looking and telling! For me – I discovered a new vision – a vision that was beyond my own.

When I started on this project I had imagined that the Mangolpuri experience would give me some directions in working with the transgender community. But that was clearly not the case. As I started out I discovered that there have been many attempts to showcase transgender community through photographs, documentaries, books and exhibitions by outsiders. It took several discussions to explore the idea that they are perhaps in a better position to communicate to the world outside of theirs the many facets of their existence. Unfolding the layers of misinformation, exposing and showcasing their lives would perhaps be the best way to bridge the disconnect. In the process they got involved thoroughly and had one goal in mind that they should be seen as human beings and no less or more.

For the first meeting when I entered the SAHARA clinic at Yamuna Pushta, the largest slum of Delhi, with Anjalee and Shantanu from SAHARA we heard lot of music and laughter. Not knowing what to expect, I found we were greeted by a room full of hijras. They were as anxious as we were. As I greeted them I realized in this project there are going to be no directors, no experts, no subjects and no underdogs. To break the ice I had taken few books which I shared with them. As they started looking at images they got interested in the costumes and makeup of people in those images, the situation in which it was taken and started laughing and sometimes even quarreling. After some discussion they told me that they would like to do this project. They were very willing to participate but will have to take permissions from their respective Gurus.

I took this to be a good sign as they were all willing and excited about this newfound activity. This was not just to be an experience of clicking photographs and looking at themselves only, but also about meeting new people like us. In next meeting we discussed further about how to proceed. We discussed some themes which would allow them to look at things around them. The group of participants was never the same. They would come and go. I realized that this is going to be pattern and I will have to accept the situation. The good rapport that Sahara had with the community facilitated the discussions on many instances. The Hijra community lives all across Delhi and they have their areas marked for their business/work. It became easy for us to distribute cameras according the area they stayed. We made pairs of two and they took their first film rolls with great excitement. Two weeks later I received about 10 film rolls, each one labeled with names. When I saw prints I was amazed with the results, also because I did not know what to expect! I took these prints for our next rendezvous and I shared them with both the groups the one who shot these images and the next group who would be shooting. They were really excited and wanted to shoot more. They talked about each of these images they had selected and why. This was then recorded and translated for the catalogue and exhibition. They were asked to select two to three photographs, which they would like to exhibit. They also created the narration for each of the photographs that they selected.

When I see these images which are photographed, modeled and selected by Hijra’s themselves I feel reassured that our decision to make them part of this entire process was completely valid. These images work at many levels. For one in it allows you to journey into their lives from their point of view. It is clear from the pictures that they want to share, want others to know how they live – that this is how they eat, bathe, dance, feel sad, and survive. I kept my role as minimal as possible as I wanted very little outside influence in this venture. This visual journey defines their very identity. The transgender community in this project has unveiled their lives into the public space. This is one of those rare instances where they have modeled, photographed and written about themselves for a book and exhibition which is meant for a world outside their own. I personally believe that this effort will contribute to doing away with stigmas. An increased understanding of their lives, will foster the realization that they are people first and transgender afterward.

“Transgender communities have existed in our society despite continued marginalisation they face from mainstream society. They have created a world of their own comprising of relationships, unusual means of livelihood and importantly an identity which constantly underlines their exclusion.”

An exhibition of photographs by the transgender community of Delhi ran from May 5th to 23rd at Max Mueller Bhawan's Siddartha Hall in New Delhi. Parthiv Shah, Director at the Centre for Media and Alternative Communication (CMAC) wrote to me asking if a selection of those exhibited images could find their way on Tiffinbox. I promised to post them here in the beginning of June and well, it's July 1st today. I suppose it's better late than never.

When Parthiv wrote to me, I was reminded of Dayanita Singh's landmark documentary work “Myself Mona Ahmed”. I found it to be a sad book, but Dayanita's humane view of one transgender person's life helped me peel away some of the built-in stereotypes [and as Parthiv says – stigmas] I had stored in my mind.

Well, this collection of 20 images you are about to see will hopefully motivate you to shed your fears, anxieties and insecurities about hijras, or transgender people.

Thoughtful and sincere comments are always welcome.

Imaging Self,
by Parthiv Shah
Director
Centre for Media and Altrernative Communciation (CMAC)
Delhi, India

As a photographer, I always find it challenging to work with marginalised communities. One of the reasons they are marginalised is due to the way they get represented in society. Whether it is the transgender community, sex workers, the diasporic community, tribal groups or religious minorities, they all face similar problems. Living on the periphery of mainstream society not only a physical reality but also invades their psyche. And due to little or no information about them they are regarded “Exotica”. Things that are unknown often romanticised. This then is an issue of identity, pushed outside of the normative – the parameters of which are determined by the mainstream society.

Transgender communities are a part of our society and have created a world of their own. They have their own kinds of relationships, unusual means of livelihood and importantly an identity which constantly underlines their exclusion. For many years now the community has been subjugated to roving eye of anthropologists, photographers and their ilk who made them subject of their study and represented them most of the time in a context which is not theirs. A single photograph projects an image of a person/ situation mostly out of context. Even a small article with few images cannot in most instances do justice to this community.

Hijras or the transgender community enjoys the mystery which surrounds them. This helps them in their business of cruising in zones created by them for themselves. They not only like to appear different in the body sense but also their mannerisms are idiosyncratic. They use this performance/act to iterate the identity that mainstream society has cast them in. To represent the true character of such a group for an outsider is a humongous task. They might allow you to help them in their territory on their terms and conditions for a purpose which they have no control over. In other words they might seek an outsider’s help for lets say health care, education or even legal advice but they never are sure about how they would like the world at large to look at them.

In the 1990’s I conducted a workshop with children in Mangolpuri, a resettlement colony in outskirts of Delhi. In that workshop I had given aim and shoot cameras to participants who were in the age group 9 to 15. The participants – all children, had not taken a photograph or even held a camera in their lives. It was my first attempt to understand how children look at things through a camera, how they frame their subject and how they perceive things. The results were astounding. We first printed and exhibited their prints in a Baarat ghar (Community Centre) where they proudly invited their parents for the inauguration. The exhibition traveled to one of the most prestigious galleries in India at the Centre for photography as an art form at NCPA, Mumbai. I am not sure how much my participants from the workshop learnt about photography but they sure had lot of fun exploring the world of looking and telling! For me – I discovered a new vision – a vision that was beyond my own.

When I started on this project I had imagined that the Mangolpuri experience would give me some directions in working with the transgender community. But that was clearly not the case. As I started out I discovered that there have been many attempts to showcase transgender community through photographs, documentaries, books and exhibitions by outsiders. It took several discussions to explore the idea that they are perhaps in a better position to communicate to the world outside of theirs the many facets of their existence. Unfolding the layers of misinformation, exposing and showcasing their lives would perhaps be the best way to bridge the disconnect. In the process they got involved thoroughly and had one goal in mind that they should be seen as human beings and no less or more.

For the first meeting when I entered the SAHARA clinic at Yamuna Pushta, the largest slum of Delhi, with Anjalee and Shantanu from SAHARA we heard lot of music and laughter. Not knowing what to expect, I found we were greeted by a room full of hijras. They were as anxious as we were. As I greeted them I realized in this project there are going to be no directors, no experts, no subjects and no underdogs. To break the ice I had taken few books which I shared with them. As they started looking at images they got interested in the costumes and makeup of people in those images, the situation in which it was taken and started laughing and sometimes even quarreling. After some discussion they told me that they would like to do this project. They were very willing to participate but will have to take permissions from their respective Gurus.

I took this to be a good sign as they were all willing and excited about this newfound activity. This was not just to be an experience of clicking photographs and looking at themselves only, but also about meeting new people like us. In next meeting we discussed further about how to proceed. We discussed some themes which would allow them to look at things around them. The group of participants was never the same. They would come and go. I realized that this is going to be pattern and I will have to accept the situation. The good rapport that Sahara had with the community facilitated the discussions on many instances. The Hijra community lives all across Delhi and they have their areas marked for their business/work. It became easy for us to distribute cameras according the area they stayed. We made pairs of two and they took their first film rolls with great excitement. Two weeks later I received about 10 film rolls, each one labeled with names. When I saw prints I was amazed with the results, also because I did not know what to expect! I took these prints for our next rendezvous and I shared them with both the groups the one who shot these images and the next group who would be shooting. They were really excited and wanted to shoot more. They talked about each of these images they had selected and why. This was then recorded and translated for the catalogue and exhibition. They were asked to select two to three photographs, which they would like to exhibit. They also created the narration for each of the photographs that they selected.

When I see these images which are photographed, modeled and selected by Hijra’s themselves I feel reassured that our decision to make them part of this entire process was completely valid. These images work at many levels. For one in it allows you to journey into their lives from their point of view. It is clear from the pictures that they want to share, want others to know how they live – that this is how they eat, bathe, dance, feel sad, and survive. I kept my role as minimal as possible as I wanted very little outside influence in this venture. This visual journey defines their very identity. The transgender community in this project has unveiled their lives into the public space. This is one of those rare instances where they have modeled, photographed and written about themselves for a book and exhibition which is meant for a world outside their own. I personally believe that this effort will contribute to doing away with stigmas. An increased understanding of their lives, will foster the realization that they are people first and transgender afterward.