2011 : A New Decade begins

We would like to thank all our participants and friends for your support in 2010, and we hope to be able bring more coaching sessions to you, making the process of learning photography fun.

Tomorrow sparks a new dawn of the next decade. For explorenation in 2011, Andy and I are planning a new series of workshops, with Cuba and Rome for the first half of the year.

Just quickly posting this photograph taken at dawn in Pushkar, at the camel festival, during our recent workshop to Rajasthan. I particularly like the mood and the setting of this image and its depiction. These are camel breeders come together once a year to these barren hills outside Pushkar, about 150 kms north of Jaipur, bringing with them over 30,000 animals, camels and horses too, to trade. Pushkar opened my eyes in many ways, to new experiences only gained through the act of travel and being there. No matter how many guide books I read about the festival, it does not really do it justice. I'm sure for those that came along, it was the same for you, a truly extraordinary experience.

Happy New Year!


Stay focused!

Happy Christmas to all my readers!!

Apologies for not having posted for a long while. Since my last post, we have traveled to Rajasthan and back. The group o f participants had a real blast in India, bu there were some rough edges too. India surprises the traveller. Explorenation is planning new and exciting destinations for 2011. Please visit www.explorenation.net for the latest. Cuba is scheduled for June, and there will be a weekend in Rome also.

Rajasthan, back for more.

We leave for Delhi next week to begin a 10-day photography workshop around the historic cities of Agra and Jaipur, Pushkar and Jodhpur, in Rajasthan. It will be a fantastic tour as Andy and I visited the region exactly 12 months ago as a recce trip and absolutely loved it. India is slightly special, as it is a whole new continent of colours, experience and culture for all of us.

The Istanbul trip was a high, for everyone that came along. Istanbul Edge, the book I had put together with the best selection of photographs from all our participants is a treat, and I must say will be hard to surpass! And we made great friends too.

It's photography, not rocket science

A stolen kiss, Bosphorus © Steven Lee

Having come back from our Istanbul photo workshop for a week now, I am able to contemplate how it all went, and how all 9 of our participants had a wonderful time, photographing in new surroundings. Being in an exotic and photogenic city like Istanbul had been a great catalyst for creativity. The challenge however is to continue photographing creatively at home, in more familiar circumstances. It is often said that one does not need to travel for miles across continents to get good photographs, and yes, there is some truth in that. However, as travel broadens the mind, it also broadens the visual vocabulary within our minds, helped by recognising new and unfamiliar situations, colours, people, architecture and scale.

In 'scale' I mean an imaginary comfort zone of the ability to handle the camera proficiently by the photographer and the subject. ie. how comfortable one is to photographing in public. As a visitor to a foreign city, photographing as a tourist get can you quite far, in terms of approach. A smile, a gentle nod of the head can open doors to wonderful street portraits. The ability to recognise interesting compositions in new cities perhaps comes from typical guide books and postcards. We instinctively see 'postcard' images first because we are familiar with it. Unfortunately, that isn't how it is in our home cities, I usually find. We are often afraid or timid to even hold our spanking new DSLRs out in the open in public let alone find interesting subjects to photograph, for fear of robbery, theft or God forbid, accidentally dropping it!

If one masters the operational aspects of the camera, then the picture taking part becomes easier. Less fiddling, and more shooting.

Minaret, Blue Mosque © Steven Lee

It usually takes some time, for me, to get into the 'zone'. During our trip, it took me at least 24 hours before I began to see pictures. And another 36 hours to decide on the theme of my 'mini-assignment'.

Iron gate, Blue Mosque © Steven Lee

My eureka moment only came when I was walking back to our hotel alone from the waterfront at 11:30pm on the third evening, shooting the sodium lit streets and monuments with a compact, set to black and white and a high ISO. The streets which were teeming with tourists and locals, traffic and noise, only hours before had turned silent and eerily still. The Hippodrome I was walking on alone, now known as the Sultanahmet Meydani was contructed by Emperor Septimus Severus in AD 203 when the city was called Byzantium. Built as a horse and chariot track for sport and leisure, it was estimated to hold 10,000 spectators along its U-shaped configuration. Now, a soft orange glow lights up the park and garden which stands adjacent to the Blue Mosque, it feels totally surreal to me.

Hippodrome Obelisk at night © Steven Lee

We always set a mini-assignment on our workshops. It helps to focus the mind through a concerted effort on the part of the photographer, to enable creative thinking, story telling and fine editing. All the participants' assignment slideshows can be seen here. I think they all did particularly well, including the few who have literally picked up a digital camera just months ago.

Thinking Inside the Box

The Young Turks, aka "Edgies" outside the steps leading to the courtyard of the Blue Mosque, Istanbul. Thank you all for joining Andy and I in Istanbul. We had a fantastic time there sharing an enjoying your company and the raki too. I probably won't eat a kebab for a long while, and the fish at KIYI is most memorable.

Turkish delight

I met Salim, a local Turk, fishing off the Galata bridge this morning at 6:30 AM. He is fishing off the bridge along with several other seemingly 'regulars'. The fish, little sprats, they catch is sweet to the taste he told me. From our brief 10 minute conversation, in broken English, hand-gestures and lots of head nodding, I gathered he used to be in the Turkish navy, in the 50's, and had been to Singapore and Beijing during his service.



This was our early morning shoot on Day 2. The group got up at 5:30 AM and left our hotel to photograph dawn breaking from the bridge. It was magical. Photographers often speak of the Golden Hour, which is 1 hour after sunrise and before sunset. The light seemed to change upon every minute we were on the bridge, looking out towards the Bosphorus.


A giant cruise ship, the Queen Victoria had docked across the Beyoglu side Istanbul, and the local ferry boats were spewing out morning commuters from the port every few minutes, disappearing into the narrow streets and alleys, like ants searching for their food. A lone fisherman stood precariously on a heaving floating jetty, bobbing up and down in the huge waves that often crashed along the embankment caused by the ferry boats.


Back on the bridge, we encountered friendly and obliging locals, who allowed us to photograph them. We sampled tea and pastry from the passing vendors that ply its length.



Last night, the review of the group's first day of selected photographs were projected onto a white bed sheet taped up onto Andy's hotel room wall. The word of the weekend is definitely 'edgy' to describe non-cliche, 'experimental' or even accidental images that a few of us had taken. We looked through many tilted horizons, unintentional blurs and raw urban photographs and a few of us discovered that interesting photography doesn't have to be perfectly executed and sharp images all the time.

Young Turks

The Egyptian Obelisk at the Hippodrome © Steven Lee

Revealing the interiors of the the magnificent Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia Basilica is a real challenge, but our participants sailed through their tasks today with flying colours.

We set mini tasks ahead, the first was setting manual exposure controls with an external light meter and judging exposure values and combination manually instead of relying on the built-in meters in our cameras.

The Blue Mosque was already teaming with visitors from all over the world and by 10am the queue of tourists groups circled the huge courtyard as we photographed the amazing minarets and arches within it. The mosque was built on the commission of Sultan Ahmet I in early 1600's and remains one of the most famous in the world, with the interior dome and walls completely tiled with the signature Iznik floral tiles.

Inside the Blue Mosque © Steven Lee

Young Turkish women strolling outside the Blue Mosque gardens © Steven Lee

Following a light lunch at a roadside restaurant alongside the Hippodrome, we set off for the Hagia Sophia. Built as a church around 530 AD by Emperor Justinian, this 1,400 year old building is one of the world's greatest architectural achievements. In the 15th century the Ottomans converted it into a mosque but some important religious artwork and mosaics still remain under its huge dome.

Hagia Sophia © Steven Lee

It is often said that the reward at the end will test your patience. How true is this. Photographing in crowded places where everyone is aiming their cameras at similar targets only result in repetitive imagery. The challenge is to find that sweet spot where hand, eye and heart unite in an instant to make that special photograph. Try and try, often the moment is elusive. Surprises also come in small and large doses. After spending and hour inside the Blue Mosque and another good hour at the Hagia Sophia, a few of us developed 'shutter fatique', and could shoot no more, including myself.

The results of the group after Day 1 shooting astounded Andy and I. Our Young Turks have surpassed even themselves. And you know who you all are.

Merhaba! Istanbul

Merhaba! Istanbul.

The group has finally assembled at the Garden House hotel in Sultanahmet, despite a few of us having literally to traverse across the world from Asia to be here, and some traveled through Europe by bus and plane for 12 hours due to the Belgian air strike yesterday.

Most fittingly, East meeting West in this magnificent city. The Sultanahmet area is the old part of the City where narrow cobbled streets crisscross in a tightly packed half a square mile, just south of the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia. We are literally a couple of hundred meters from the Hippodrome, the oldest part of Istanbul, built in 230AD, during the reign of Roman Emperor Septimus, and made famous by Charlton Heston in the flick Ben Hur racing horse drawn chariots.

The hotel has a shady dining courtyard, and we had our intros over drinks coupled with a make-shift slide show projected onto the off white plastered perimeter wall, to the amusement of the local staff.

Iconic London : Photography Workshop

Two weekends ago, Andy and I completed our first London workshop in Introductory Digital Photography. It had been brass-Monkey weather throughout, but thankfully, no equipment froze or malfunction, only some very chilled fingers were the result. The group met on a chilly morning at the National Cafe in Trafalgar Square, a relaxed modern restaurant and friendly East-European waiters. We discussed camera handling and equipment over a hearty breakfast, then we were off to photograph the world!

I set everyone a mini-task, working on Themes as I always do. 'Iconic London' was the theme, and the camera its author. The participants could interpret this as they liked, within the given time frame, location and route. It was certainly a learning experience for a couple of people as they had just bought their cameras, or handle a digital SLR for the first time. Nevertheless, the scene before us offered great opportunities with experimentation, with different focal lengths, shutter speeds and apertures, creating new vistas and effects. As we were in the Westminster area, architecturally grand buildings, fountains, the Thames, and tourists and street performers gave us all the visual fodder for our cameras.

See the result from the group here, I think you'll be impressed.

Photos from the Weekend

Digital Editing Workshop : 9 & 10 January 2010

Photos from the Weekend

We started the weekend workshop photographing Portobello Road market on a freezing cold and snowy Saturday morning, but the session soon warmed up with crunchy croissants and hot black coffee back at ‘class’. By the next day, participants were churning out super A3 prints that were jaw-droppingly gorgeous and highly artistic !

Lightroom is a powerful and intuitive app that is simplistic to use, apart from ‘cataloging’ utility, which got a few confused as to where the original files were kept. I think Mac users outnumbered PCs but Andy’s latest Sony Vaio won the ‘coolest’ gadget prize. Running LR on a 10″ screen is brave. Thanks again to those that had to catch trains and planes, hope you all got home safely in the icy conditions. Well done.

http://explorenation.net/2009/12/17/digital-editing-workshop/

Digital Editing Workshop, London

UPDATE : For those joining us in the weekend Digital Editing Workshop in London, we will be using Adobe Photoshop CS, CS2 and Adobe Lightroom 2. However, Lightroom 3 BETA is available free to download until April 2010. It is a fully working version, with some processes being tested until they release the actual version in April. It is similar to Lightroom 2, with several improvements. I have just downloaded it to test it. You can, too by registering with Adobe below :

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/

FROM SHOOT TO PRINT : We are holding a weekend of Digital Photo Editing in Central London, for photographers who want to adopt a logical digital workflow. Topics covered include : RAW conversion, colour workspace, archiving, basic Adobe Photoshop editing, preparation for printing. Includes : use of A3+ Epson Photo Printer, paper, lunch and use of iMacs. We will be using Adobe Photoshop CS, CS2 and Adobe Lightroom 2.

Require : Digital camera, own laptop with necessary applications. (see above)

We start off with a walk and shoot in nearby colourful Portobello Road market on a Saturday morning. Shooting in RAW mode will enable you to have a ‘digital negative’ which you can then apply processing parameters to ‘develop’ your image without damaging the original file. Participants will be able to adopt a suitable workflow by using Lightroom or Photoshop on their selected images and prepare them for large scale printing on an Epson A3+ printer supplied for use, including photo paper. Some basic ‘photographic’ corrective or enhancement techniques will be demonstrated using Curves, Levels, Cloning, Colour Balance and Sharpening tools.

Extra date scheduled for 23/24 January (to be confirmed). More details on the explorenation.net website here.

Chai with friends

On the last evening in Jaipur, our auto-rickshaw driver, Ram Hotla invited us to meet his family, in his home, just outside our hotel. Earlier during the day, Ram drove us around Jaipur, up to the Amber Fort and stopping at a few places of interest before leaving us at the City Palace. He also acted as our guide, briefly at the King's Tomb on the way to Amber Fort. He speaks great English and was a very informative guide.

He lives in a community of buildings including his extended family, all with the Hotla surname, some 200 members in all.

That evening, we met his 3 daughters who were all watching a Hindi soap on satellite TV, his wife and son. Mrs Hotla made us freshly brewed chai and posed for photos.

We chatted about his daughter's schooling, his son's job and his other extended family members. Ram has been an auto-driver for 35 years, and his wife is from Delhi. His daughters go to a local private school and are taught English there. He takes them to school every day in his auto-rickshaw which I thought was great!

He also invited us to visit his home village situated on the road to Agra. That will be for another time. Ram, we hope to see you again next year in Jaipur.

(Click on the photos to enlarge)

Waiting to exhale

Back in London, as I shake the Delhi dust off my shoes, and still fresh to my memory, I want to put finger tips to keyboard, and post some thoughts about my short 7-day trip to Delhi, visiting Jaipur and Pushkar.

Andy Craggs and myself made a brief exploratory visit to India to connect with local contacts and friends, with the plan of holding a photo-workshop in Rajasthan next year, complimenting the other 3 destinations on our 2010 program. We stayed with Poh Si, (www.pohsiteng.com) an Award winning energetic videographer and multimedia journalist, and Mayank, a Supreme Court lawyer and awesome ping pong-er.

On the way home in a taxicab from Heathrow, I contemplate my past week spent in the dry and dusty climate that surrounded Delhi and Jaipur in North India. It is eerily quiet, cruising on the M4 motorway. So different from riding the open auto rickshaw cabs that toot their hoots at every possible opportunity, their little 2 stroke engines throbbing along in earnest, whilst zigzagging in and between overloaded lorries, decrepit buses, other auto rickshaws, the odd private car, and camel carts. Camel carts?





Yes, this is India and the streets aren't paved with gold, but mounds of garbage, decaying vegetation, dirt, dogs, pigs and street people. For Delhi, with its 13 million inhabitants, you would think the draw of India's financial and administrative capital would offer the many millions that come to find solace, shelter and jobs there, its share of the pot, however infinitesimally small, it may be. But it appears that the pot is near empty. Many have nothing apart from the loin cloth they wear around their waist.




Air India has projected a loss for 2009 at USD1 Billion and is expected to cut its loss-making routes by the end of the year. The city is straining to complete its Delhi Metro subway system in readiness for the Commonwealth Games to which it plays host in 2010. Not having read up on India in detail, I cannot even begin to delve deeper into the social, environmental and financial let alone the religion and caste practices that makes up the ever-so complex fabric of Indian society.



I just observe. As a first time visitor and with my camera. A week of casual observation is insufficient to make general statements in a country that is home to 1 billion people, but first impressions and gut instincts help. Some figures are staggering.


Indian Railways apparently run 14,000 services every day, shifting over 20,000,000 passengers from north to south and east to west, and everywhere in between. Granted, many do not pay but ride the roofs of carriages precariously as we discovered on our train ride back from Jaipur the other day. Just like the Chinese, Indians are survivors.


We took a walk down some side streets in Jaipur and saw all manner of trades, from meat sellers, carpenters, metal workers, mechanics and 'chai' vendors working away. Stalls carts spring up from no where, selling samosas, chapati and lime drinks, every one it appears is selling something or know of someone that sells something.





One evening in Jaipur, we met up with some local English contacts at the Rambagh Palace Hotel, a magnificent historic palace set in acres of lush green and sprinkled lawns, with own polo field. The Maharani of Jaipur still lives there, in a separate annexe. We had G&Ts and Singapore Slings, made plans and chatted over wasabi crackers, canapes in the dimly lit air conditioned Polo Bar. In contrast, on the way there by auto rickshaw from the old city, we passed by many destitute homeless street people who had no faces, and witnessed a scrawny frame corpse being carted away in what looked like a municipal vehicle. Such is Life and Death in India. It is probably impossible to come to terms with the situation that is the Cycle.



My fondest memory of the trip was in Delhi on second evening. Poh Si brought us to dine at Connaught Place or CP as it is better known. This is 'downtown' Delhi, and is the place to hang out in the evening for food, cinemas and watering holes. We went to an Indian Restaurant called Amber and ordered tandoori chicken and briyani rice, sweet nan topped with chopped pistachios of which the name escapes me (delicious,...Poh Si..help, I want that name..) and Kingfisher beer.


After chow, we hopped on and off several auto rickshaws (another story.. video below) and made our way to India Gate, a sort of Marble Arch or Arc de Triomphe. It was a pleasant evening, and the light was good. The streets radiating from the monument were lined with ice cream vans and foodcarts, and the whole place was radiating energy.



For the first time, I saw there were more women than men outdoors, families, old and young were simply enjoying the sight, men were selling glowy, flashy twinkling toys, bubble-machines, bangles, bead necklaces, balloons, it was great! The journey home was equally enthralling. Trying to hail an auto-rickshaw at that time was near impossible, and when one did appear, trying to get the driver to 'unbreak' the broken meter always ensued with shouts of "meter-ON!, meter-ON now!, nen, nen you cheating hah! Nen!" Our tenacious and principled host Poh Si always attempts (and succeeds!) to threaten them by logging an immediate call to the Auto-Complain hotline, which she has programmed to speed dial on her mobilephone.

All this makes for great comedy for us visitors, but I can imagine the frustration setting in if it is a daily occurence, even for local Indians, as Mayank confirmed.



All is not lost however, and there are promising signs. The nation's future is in the hands of the Indian youth and we had first hand experience of this. Cliche as it may sound, this seems to be the only way out. We were lucky to come across an honest auto rickshaw driver by the name of Ram in Jaipur. He acted as our 'tour guide' whilst driving us to the Amber Fort 11 kms north of the pink city, without seeking more 'baksheesh'. Ram is 44, and have been driving rickshaws for 30 years, he tells me. On our last evening in Jaipur, he invited Andy and I to visit his humble rented home, which is situated just outside our hotel compound, on land owned by the hotel owner. Pretty basic but cosy, Ram lives there with his 3 daughters, wife and son of 20. The girls go to private school nearby instead of the local government school because English is only taught in the former. The fees are naturally higher but he values their ability to speak the language of the 'farang' or white skinned people.

Delhi is also home to many outsourced call centres, and these jobs require a good command of English.

We also made an impromptu day trip to Pushkar from Jaipur. Pushkar is a small town north or Ajmer and hosts the world famous camel fair ever year around November. Hundreds of thousands of visitors descend on this town along with thousands of camels from all over India. Trading is the keyword. Camels and horses also.


Tourists flock there to witness the sight in the surrounding desert landscape. The town also houses the (apparently) only Hindu shrine dedicated to Lord Brahma. We had missed the festival, and the Pushkar lake was dried out. It felt like a travellers town, a cowboy outpost for backpackers and hippies. Hell, I even saw a turbaned Caucasian on a Harley.. We will definitely add Pushkar to our desitination for the workshop.


Colour is the second keyword in Rajasthan. The saris are deep red, blue and yellow and most local women wear them with pride, often adorned with glittery accessories. I wonder why the menfolk have adopted simpler or Western attire. If the women we saw mending the roads and tending the fields can do it in their saris, surely the men too?







My Indian experience then, is only a glimpse, a starter course, a blink of an eye. Delhi's Red Fort, the serenity of Humayun's Tomb, Lotus Garden, the alleyways of Chandi Chowk, the blue city of Jodphur, the sand fort Jaisalmer, the magnificence of the Taj Mahal in Agra, there's plenty more. It has made me even more curious to see and photograph the rest of Rajasthan.

India, we will be back for more. The Rajasthan workshop will be an interesting one.


Rajasthan! 12-Day Photography Workshop is planned for November 2010. See www.explorenation.net
For more images and videos please visit the facebook group page. Click on photos to enlarge.

Delhi, here we come!

This Friday, Andy and I are traveling to Delhi and Jaipur on a reconnaissance trip to work out our itinerary for the 2010 Rajasthan Workshop. With trusty Lonely Planet in hand we have several meetings already planned in both centres. The landscapes should be fantastic and the colours vibrant.

More to come...

Paris in the Fall : The Book is now available!

PARIS IN THE FALL

World Travel Photo...

By explorenation.net

Book Preview

(Preview some sample pages by clicking the Book Preview link.)

BRAVO EVERYONE!

Recipe : Mix together group of photo enthusiasts, a few cameras, a long week in Paris, a good pair of shoes, some great food, ADD the autumnal Parisian air and VOILA! this is what you get..Paris in the Fall : a collection of images captured by the participants of the recent photography workshop by explorenation.net, who are Steven Lee and Andy Craggs.

Places visited include Palais Royal, Le Lourve, Passages Couverts, Pere Lachaise, Bastille, Tuileries and the Seine.

This is the second book featuring the best of our workshop participants' photographs, the first being Sarawak, Borneo earlier in May 2009. We were SO impressed with the visual skills our early adopters gained so quickly..ah..and Paris is as photogenic as ever!