Beyond Phototips

This is a guest post written by Aarathi Edward, an avid photographer and media relations expert. She is totally in love with the film dark-room and has, at my behest, consented to share the magic that she experienced when first introduced to the gloomy, un-illuminated side of photography.

Photo: WhiskygonebadThe first time I really took notice of a photograph was when I was about 8 or 9 and my Dad had taken a picture of my sister sitting on a tree. Looking at it, you could make out just what kind of person my sister is – prim and proper (even then – on a tree; aged 12 or 13) and always responsible.

I later found another one he had taken when we were much younger. This was also a posed photograph; not much scope for creativity – and yet, he managed to catch the little imp dancing in my eyes with the mischievous tilt of the head and the responsible, seriousness that always was my older sister (she has lightened up a lot in the last 5 years though). One glance at this picture and you knew which kid was the brat and which one the good child.

I think you get by now what I’m driving at. It always amazed me how just one static, two dimensional 5×8 frame could tell so much. Dad’s old Yashica range-finder was hallowed and we were never old enough or responsible enough to ever touch it… So I was thrilled when, in the second year of college we had a whole year devoted to the study of photography. This was when I discovered how to develop film… and began believing in Magic!

Photo: Violator3It kinda dragged in the beginning when we had to sit in class, look at the camera and learn the physics behind it when we were itching to load up and go clicking! Though appreciated a lot more now, it was with great delight that we finally abandoned our books to replace them with the third hand Pentax that the college loaned us. Armed with this and all the black n white film our allowances could buy, my classmates and I were off to make our pictures speak a thousand words.

The golden triangle, the rule of thirds, leading lines, depth of field, perspectives… everything we’d learnt so far had to be brought to life through that tiny viewfinder. Every curved corridor and staircase was photographed to death; every flower had its insides examined in great detail; every single arrangement of stationary, fruits, pretty glassware… Finally when all our rolls were exhausted, we were lead in groups of six to the dark room!

Photo: galo/*The boys were delighted at the opportunity to scare the living daylights out of the girls. The girls were apprehensive about wrecking their carefully manicured nails. I, being the most claustrophobic person I know, just wanted to get out! Not wanting to ruin the film and be made to start over again on a fresh one, I strained to remember everything I’d learnt on those boring afternoons at my desk. To my great surprise, I realized I actually had paid attention. The chemistry was taking over!

The only perfectly developed roll of film of my batch was my reward. The compliments of the faculty and the jealousy of the classmates helped me forget some of the claustrophobia and I was eager to get on with the printing process.

Photo: PujaThe next day I wrangled a spot in the first group so I wouldn’t have to use someone else’s used developer. The icy cold of the water mixed with the crystals made me a little skeptical; for some reason creating images always felt more like a warm process, full of energy. Anyway, we got the machine set up and the tubs filled with chemicals and water. The negative was slipped in place and the photo paper was taken out of its cover. Every single eye was on the timer.

Suddenly you could cut the silence with a knife. As the photo paper was exposed and then immersed in the developing solution, there was not a sound in the room. It was as if the whole bunch of us had stopped breathing. And then it appeared. MAGIC!

I knew immediately that I was hooked for life. I don’t have my own dark room yet; I just hope they still sell B&W film when I do!

Susheel’s Recommended DarkRoom Books and Tools on Amazon.com

I’ve had the opportunity to interview Suchitra Vijayan, founding member of Lines of Grey, an NGO which helps street children find a means of expression. Lines of Grey gives the children disposable cameras and asks them to take pictures of things that influence their lives… or just to take pictures. The goal being to experience the world through their lens, and not the lens of someone who comes to that part of the world just to take photographs.

Here’s what she had to say about a variety of topics, including their recent exhibition of photographs at the British Council lifestyle lounge.

Susheel: What is Lines of Grey? What does the name signify?

Suchitra: Lines of grey is an NGO that seeks to take photography to the doorsteps of marginalised children in communities around the world. Our NGO is founded on the belief that “Every Child is an artist”.

To answer why “Lines of Grey ” I need to talk about my fascination with the colour Grey. This goes back to my own love affair with black and white photography. Like all great love affairs, it started with this heady feeling of getting the wind knocked out of me and I was in an expedited hurry to learn and discover everything there was to know about this medium. In that process I came to understand this subtle but complexly layered colour called “Grey”. Grey is an achromatic colour between white and black that exists in the state of great lightness, caught between the lighter side of black and darker side of white. Lines of Grey represent the street children who are a part of this project; each shade with its complex mixture of shadows, highlights and mid-tones. They are the product of economic and social injustice that is rampant in this world. These children are prisoners of prejudice, social attitudes and numerous negative associations. Just like the shade Grey, these children live on the marginalized edge of extremes. They are the existing reality and a beautiful abstraction.

Susheel: How did you get the inspiration/idea for Lines of Grey?

Suchitra: In early 2007, I was at a point where I felt frustrated with my own growth as a photographer and often had a nagging feeling that I was photographing clichés. This sense of unrest translated into conversation with a friend of mine, where we discussed how images of third world often portray poverty and misery, and the people who tell their story are often people who have ever experienced the circumstance themselves first hand. Our conversation shifted to the Tsunami victims and we wondered what would the children and the people affected by this crisis photograph? This thought process was the begining, “How would the afflicted photograph their stories ? What would they photograph? How would they choose to tell their stories?”. This was around the time when I was leaving for Tanzania and even before I left, I decided to experiment with this concept. Lines of Grey was born as a result of that curiosity.

Susheel: Why did you pick photography as the medium of expression, and not one of the other creative media such as painting, writing, poetry or song?

Suchitra: Two reasons actually. First, photography is personal to me. Photography is a medium that I grew up with and it was easier to work with a medium that I was familiar. Second, photographs posses the power to shock or to idealize, they create in us a sense of nostalgia and act as a memorial. They can be used as evidence or to identify us. Images affect the way we view the world and rely upon them to create own reality of the world we have never experienced. In this context photography is an ideal way of bringing to the worlds attention the inescapable act that children have a unique perspective. Whether children grow up in luxury, on the cold urban streets or in a denuded rural area, their take on life reflects a world in which hope is the primary element.

Susheel: Doesn’t photography have a rather steep learning curve? How do the children deal with it?

Suchitra: Children are motived by humour and play. The philosophy at Lines of Grey is to let the children have fun and enjoy the process of learning through artistic discovery. Children are excited about the process of capturing what is around them, rather than learning they place emphasis on documentation. I don’t think the children are consciously aware of this learning curve.

Susheel: The equipment used must have been rather simple, can you specify what you used for our more technically inquisitive readers?

Suchitra: We used Kodak Disposable cameras the first time around and now we use Kodak KB – 10.

Susheel: Your exhibition at the British Council in Chennai was a great success. Is this the first exhibition that you’ve conducted?

Suchitra: Yes

Susheel: For those of our readers who are thinking of showing their work publicly, what experiences do you have to share with us about putting together an exhibition of photographs?

Suchitra: Get your ideas together. Clarity of thought is essential. Invest time in what you want to showcase , how you want to do it and what you intend to gain from the whole experience. Get your technical details right , how to frame , what size. What works with what. Talk to people, discuss your thoughts. Think of permutations. This process helps to iron out the creases and fill gaps in your ideas. Start early, this is essential. In situations like this , Murphys Law will set in the moment you start planing. Give time for last minute mishaps.

Ask. This is your chance to ask the dumbest questions. Its ok not to know. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is ask others. Finally , have fun enjoy the process. When faced with passion , talent is a very poor competitor. If a lawyer can pull off a photography exhibition, anyone can

Susheel: Most of the work on display was not your own. How did you select the pieces that you finally showed? Was there any particular criteria?

Suchitra: Photography is very personal, what appeals to one might not to others. I picked the first set of images that appealed to me. Then took it to other members of the Lines of Grey team. We narrowed it down to 20 images. We tired to have a eclectic mix. That would encompass the range of subjects and images the children had shot.There was no one formula that we followed, if there was one it was to put the best images forward.

Susheel: What is Lines of Grey’s most recent endeavour? When can we see the results?

Suchitra: Our recent work is with 10 girls from the Government Juvenile Centre for girls in Purasaiwalkam. We just started the project and got the first set of contact sheets. The results will be out in the next couple of months.

Susheel: Your photographs of the children at Arusha are often from the perspective of a person in communication with the children, thereby making the viewer feel the same communication. The pictures are also very “natural”. How do you manage to keep the children from feeling self conscious?

Suchitra: I spent over 6 months in Arusha (Google Earth Link, Google Maps Link) and at least a couples days a week with the children. I think it is about the comfort level that we shared with each other. Children have a natural flare in front of the camera.

Since the children themselves were experimenting with photography they understood the process of looking through the lens. That could have been the reason why they weren’t conscious.

Susheel: When it comes to photography, do you bother a lot about the knobs and buttons on the camera, or do you just go at it in “auto”?

Suchitra: Photography is reflexive to me, I don’t know the rules , so I don’t know if I have broken them. I think I am some where in between. So sometimes its in the auto mode and sometimes its settings am familiar with.

Susheel: Can you share with us some of your sources of inspiration in photography?

Suchitra:The list keeps changing off course. I don’t call it inspiration, I call it obsessions. I go through phases where I am obsessed with a certain photographer and I read up almost everything about that photographer: skill , technique, style , mood, stories behind their greatest work.

For a long time it was Salagado. Then there was this time when I was smitten by Koudelka. E.J. Bellocq followed. Currently I am obsessing over Nachtwey.

Lines of Grey is an on-going effort to improve the lives of children through photography. If you would like to learn more, Visit the Lines of Grey website. The photographs taken by the children at Arusha can the viewed at the Gallery page. The gallery also has short essays written by the children, some of which are soul touching.

There are also pictures of the children taken by Suchitra. You can also Donate Money or Books, Sponsor a Child’s education, Help raise funds, or write a Blog post to help support their cause.

Greetings everyone… Welcome to a new phase in our journey, and thank you for making it such an interesting journey so far. I hope you’ll be as excited about this new phase as I am…

Out with the old; bring in the New

Sometime late, late last night (in India), Photography Tip became Beyond Phototips. It was moved to a new domain name: http://www.beyondphototips.com/ with a brand new layout, (the new layout based on the Grid Focus theme) and blogging platform (we’ve moved from a free Blogger account to a self hosted WordPress platform). Not everything is as it should be at the moment, and links are still pointing to the old website, and some references need to be changed, but rest assured that they’ll all be set right in the coming days of this transition. Please bear with us in the mean time.

The old website will remain as it is, for now, and will not be updated. If you have bookmarks pointed to the old site, please re-mark this new domain so that you don’t miss out. If you have posts with links to the old website, don’t worry they wont become invalid. I’d like to point out to you at this stage that all of the content from “Photography Tip” is also available on the “Beyond Phototips” website too, and if you wish to, you can re-link your posts to the new website.

If you’re viewing this in a feed reader, worry not, you don’t have to do a thing. Your feed url will be automatically redirected to the new website’s content and you should have no trouble in reading it. There may be a delay between the stream being redirected and the time that feed readers have their cache updated, but hopefully this will not be too long. In any case, here’s the new URL for the RSS Feed http://feeds.beyondphototips.com/photographytip/

So what does this mean to you as a subscriber / reader of the blog?

I’ll be maintaining my old(er) schedule of three posts a week. But it does mean that you have a much nicer interface to look forward to when you visit the website. There is a simpler, less cluttered interface (though the old one was quite simple by itself), making important links very accessible.

The Archives are accessible via all the categories right on the main navigation menu; along with other important information that will make its way there eventually. The center column has links to posts that were among the most popular on “Photography Tip” and which I hope will continue to interest you on “Beyond Phototips”. There are also links to the popular categories of posts for quick access.

The third column has links to the home pages of the various Series posts that Beyond Phototips is running. This is so that you can find all of these links in one place.

I guess that’s it for now. Do let me know what you think of the new theme in the comments, and please do let me know if you spot any bugs. I’ll be ironing out the kinks over the next week or so, and you can also expect a number of new posts to come flooding in.

EDIT: This post originally Contained images taken by Andrew Zuckerman. The Images have since been removed because the image source no longer exists. Please visit Andrew Zuckerman’s website at the link mentioned below. It is worth your while.

Andrew Zuckerman’s Website

Micro stock, is that stock photography of only Macro photographs or photos of microscopic thingies?

Nope, its the new rage across the photography scene. They’re websites which accept photographs from everyone, and their babies, given some very simple quality criteria. These photographs are accepted over the internet and are given a looking over by people on the other side of your monitor for quality. They’re then sold to buyers who would potentially use these photographs in publications, ads, websites or whatever….

So what’s the big deal? The big deal is that traditional stock photography websites usually have a more rigorous selection process when it comes to selecting photographers. Their photographs are then sold at much higher costs because the photographers have taken the time and effort to set up, and photograph the various shots using their expensive photographic equipment (which sometimes runs into many tens of thousands of dollars).

Typically, photographs on a stock photography website would sell at around $300 – $500 depending on what the photographs are going to be used for.

Microstock websites sell the photographs for between $1 and $20 depending on the file size. Some micro stock websites now also sell vector art and video at similarly low costs. The difference is that microstock websites accept photographs from almost anybody who can produce images that meet their quality standards.

Everyone’s popping up with new stock photography websites almost every other week, so what’s the big deal with these eight websites? Well, I’ve looked through quite a few of them, and in my opinion, these are the more popular ones among the lot.

Here they are, in no particular order:

• iStockphoto – The granddaddy of them all… Now owned by Gettyimages
• Shutterstock – Another popular microstock website
• Snapvillage – Corbis’ new microstock and proving ground for entry into Corbis.com
• Bigstockphoto – variable pricing of credits… depends on how many you buy. Now with vector graphics
• Fotolia – now with a re-designed interface
• Dreamstime – another popular microstock website
• Stockxpert – Microstock website which has affiliation with sxc.hu, a free stock photography site.
• 123 Royalty Free – A new entrant into the market, but look like they have good potential with a good library.

Remember that all of these websites have different rates of payment to photographers. Most offer 50% of sale cost to exclusive photographers and a lower rate (usually around 30%) to non exclusive photographers, while others offer a stepped rate based on how well your images sell. Do remember to check their agreements for all the details.

Microstock websites do business on the basis of a large number of images, so photographers upload a great number of photographs every month. If you want your photos to stand out among these, you’ll have to make sure that they’re good aesthetically. You’ll also have to upload (and sell) quite a few of them if all those $0.50 are to add up to anything substantial.

With the number of websites coming up, and thoughts of Flickr entering the market too, things are bound to change drastically in the near future. This list is by no means a compilation of the best or the most popular microstock websites, simply of the ones that I’m most familiar as a Photographer and as a Graphic Designer.

If you have a website, you could potentially benefit from the affiliate programs that some of them have. If you found this post informative, do subscribe to our free RSS feed by clicking here.

Note: some affiliate links above.

How do you derive inspiration for your picture-taking? How do you stay creative? How do you get creative to start with? I’m hoping to open up some answers here, but you’re welcome to add to this list in the comments section.

Keep your mind open

by ‘SeraphimC

There’s nothing on this planet that can ‘not inspire’. If you look at a piece of trash and say “How could I possibly be inspired by this?” you’re not looking beyond the obvious. Here’s a couple of different ways in which to look at a piece of trash:

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