Imagine the conversation around the dinner table at the Vadukul home. Lights, lenses, f/stops, cameras, fashion trends, the next trip to Milan, perhaps? I love it when I stumble over a desi photographer who has done well. But a pair of them with the same last name? What are the odds?

Max and Nitin Vadukul have captured the American imagination when it comes to fashion and editorial work. Max has shot for Rolling Stone, Vogue, Armani Exchange and ID, while his younger brother Nitin's portraits of hip-hop's who's who is simply staggering.

At Hip Hop Immortals Volume 1:

“Max Vadukul was born Manoj Kumar in Kenya in 1961 to Indian parents. In 1969 his family immigrated to Britain, where they settled in a “hideous” London suburb. He ran away from home at sixteen.”

In fact, they were both born in Kenya. Nitin appears to have lived in Paris before training his sights on New York City where his brother also lives.

Julia Dean is a dynamic photojournalist and teacher based in Los Angeles, California. Apart from being the driving force behind the Child Labor Photo Project, she also conducts workshops around the world. The most recent workshops have been in Guatemala, Paris and Budapest.

While most of us will travel to a new environment, take a few images and be content by throwing them into a shoe box or relegating them to the nether regions of our hard disks, Julia encourages photographers to actually go through the process of printing the images and exhibiting them. These workshops are extremely popular and the next one is coming to New York City. It will be from April 4 to April 10. The one after that is in Barcelona, Spain, from May 29 – June 5.

This workshop is all about shooting on the streets of New York. It's for those of you who have never been to New York, but always wanted to go, and for those of you who have been there but never found the time to shoot photos all day.

Each day includes shooting, critiquing the work, private consultations, and lectures on various technical topics, such as how to approach people and how to shoot on the street. One of the greatest things about this workshop is that I'll bring in a different New York photographer (and good friend) to help us critique your work and to share their work as well. You'll be meeting photojournalists, commercial photogs, and a wedding and event photographer too.

We're staying downtown — in Greenwich Village — at the Washington Square Hotel. We'll arrive and gather for the first time on Sunday, April 4th. Our last day together will be Sat., April 10th. And yes, we plan to have an exhibit too.

Workshop Fee: $1,995
Includes tuition, double room occupancy for six nights, a classroom (in a terrific gallery space!) , special guests, goodies from Eastman Kodak, and an exhibit opening at the Julia Dean Gallery.

For more information contact Julia Dean's studio:

Julia Dean & Associates
The Julia Dean Photo Workshops
3111 Ocean Front Walk, Suite 102
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
310-821-0909 phone
310-821-0809 fax
email: julia@juliadean.com

Platon is a NYC-based photographer. But as they say in the business, he has the edge, the look, the feel – the whole nine yards.

“You sit there and there's this camera pointed in your face. People are at their best when they can be natural. And that's the hardest thing as a photographer. It's nothing really special, it's not important in terms of world events, but it is a big challenge to get the magic of someone.”

Remember this controversial Esquire magazine cover image of Bill Clinton? Platon shot that.

“From the first shoot I did to the shoot I did a week ago with Jude Law, there's always this moment where it's all down to me. The bullshit goes out the window, the glamour goes out the window, and I've got to deliver. I've got to push myself to confront this person and confront them in a very truthful way. I go to this lonely place where I pace up and down, getting my head straight, checking that I'm focused on all my technical stuff, and opening my mind to be ready for anything this person's going to throw at me. After it's over, then the bullshit comes back and you can brag about it.”

Want to know what makes him tick? Read this interview on Mediabistro.com – “So, What Do You Do, Platon?“

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I remember mentioning Subhankar Banerjee‘s name once before. This may have been in the days before Tiffinbox was in existence, when I slipped an occasional email through the SAJA Yahoo! Groups photojournalists forum.

Banerjee's name popped up again in my inbox, thanks to Blue Earth Alliance's most recent newsletter. BEA is a wonderful group which I urge all you documentary photographers to check out. For several years now they have played an important role, as an umbrella organization, to collect funds for freelance documentary work. It's the brainchild of Natalie Fobes and Phil Borges, two very compassionate photographers I have had the pleasure meeting when I lived in Seattle.

But back to Banerjee. Leave aside for a moment the fact that his images are absolutely beautiful. It's the activist in him that piques my interest. His work (you will read of more of this when you click the link below) convinced law makers in Congress to stall oil drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. His work apparently threatened those whose interests lie in plundering the wilderness. His work was censored by the Smithsonian and the resulting media attention only jolted his name and work into the limelight.

“For his relentless pursuit to protect the Arctic Refuge ecosystem and its native cultures he was awarded the first Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation in November 2003. Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowships were established to help individuals who have demonstrated leadership on behalf of world cultural freedom, by promoting cultural diversity and strengthening cultural traditions and ties. The purpose of the Fellowship for Cultural Freedom is to encourage and support leaders in American and foreign communities to contemplate, reflect, write, and study. This $100,000 fellowship is given to Banerjee to continue his work in the Arctic Refuge and study other topics on social and environmental impacts of globalization. In addition the foundation gave a $400,000 grant to support his continuing educational outreach through additional exhibits and lectures around the country.”

His first book, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land was finally published in April 2003.

“Before Banerjee started this project he had not published a single photograph anywhere.” Inspired?

[Read more…]