They way I see it

All of us have at one time or another written essays seeking a 'compare and contrast' between two or more subject matters. They could be theories, or objects or points of views. In contemporary photography, critics and non-critics alike are always comparing and contrasting, evaluating the unknown with the known, to form an identity of that which is shaped by how much understanding, knowledge or intellect one has in a particular genre to be able to say, "I like this photograph...it reminds me of a...(name of famous photographer)... ."

Unfortunately, the honest gut feeling of what a good photograph is - what it represents, the subject matter, its composition, its context, its purest aesthetic form, it seems, are no longer so important, but rather " .. it looks like a Stephen Shore, a Gursky or an McCurry", even.

Because of modern digital media today allows almost every camera owner to post and receive feedbacks instantly, the saturation of imagery on the internet has allowed the comparing and contrasting to go awry, with no real judgment passed except perhaps limited to a few words like to "great shot!"or "nice photo!" There just isn't the time and knowledge, to give a more constructed analysis and critique of the hundreds of thousands of pictures that get posted daily. Besides, what if you don't like a photograph? You simply ignore and move on to the next one.

A lot photographs I see now tend to be emulations rather than creations and although this isn't so bad in a sense, since "everything has been photographed" as Sontag puts it, and imitation is the highest form of flattery, it begs me to ask then, why photograph? Aren't collecting perfect picture postcards sufficient ? What do we photograph at all?

It must be because we can add value to the image through our personal expression and understanding of what surrounds us in our daily lives. Just like a painter and brushstrokes, the camera operator can mark his or her expression with the click of an f-stop, or the turn of the zoom ring, or even shoot off the hip!

Can photographers become critics and curators? I can only recall a handful of art curators that have been established photographers in their own right. As far as I know, curators and critics are nearly always taught from an art background, subjected to art history as a major or even developed their visual skills as picture editors or journalists. Perhaps curators have to be all-encompassing in their visual interpretative skills, and can see instantly what a good image is, its intrinsic 'commercial' value. Whether the general public 'gets it' is anybody's guess. This can be said of contemporary conceptual works. Working as the artist's pundit, curators must be able to enter the artist's mind and skillfully scrape out the hidden messages and meanings which often, are securely embedded. The way I see it, photographers can never be good critics, especially of their peers. Curators, cannot be great photographers, as their remit is too wide.


The Camera is your Third Eye

Unexpected things happen when you least expect it. I was going through some of images shot in Rajasthan, India recently and came across this 'odd' photo of a black cow lying on the sandy ground, with a heavily cast shadow, of which must have been from our minivan. I don't remember taking the picture but must have been one of many, shot through the vehicle's window as we drove from Jaipur to Jodhpur. I nearly hit the delete key, but had a second glance at it. Then I knew I had a keeper.

Road to Jaipur, 2010

Daido Moriyama, Stray Dog, 1971

One of the strangest and most disturbing photographs which I have come across is the image above of the stray dog by Daido Moriyama, whose work I greatly admire. This photograph at first glance, a high contrast print, grainy, seemingly unbalanced and oddly out of proportion stuck in my mind. Once you have seen it, you will never be able to erase it from your visual vocabulary. Its menacing stance and almost perceptible growl affected me subconsciously and everytime I face a barking mutt, the image of this stray comes to mind. My image of the resting cow of India reminded me of the stray dog!

Similar, yet miles apart. The perception of blackness and negativity that emanates from both images evokes the same feeling for me. A feeling of brooding intent, a kind of fearful apprehension. In breaking down the images, I see mainly dark geometric shapes in both photographs, over-laid by the image of the dog's head and in my picture the texture of the sand from the tyre marks. Positive and Negative space. Dimensionally opposed to each other, one recedes and the other approaches. It is this 'tension' in the photographs which creates the drama much absent in many photographs today. Robert Frank's photographs of American suburbia have spades of it. So has Klein and in Ralph Gibson's works.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

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.

Istanbul : East Meets West

In 2 weeks time, I will be in spending 5 days in the great city of Istanbul, Turkey along with Andy Craggs and our workshop participants.

I visited Istanbul in 1998, on a 10 day tour which took me to the shores of Gallipoli, where many casualties were taken during WW1 when the British and French army joined by their Australian and Kiwi counterparts fought the Ottoman Turks which failed. This Campaign was made into a movie of the same name and launched the career of a very young fresh actor called Mel Gibson.

I also visited Izmir further south, Ephesus, and Pamukkale, with the amazing white terraces of calcium carbonate cliffs.

I am really looking forward to seeing and photographing Istanbul again, with a fresh eye on things. The city is the literally split up between Europe and Asia, and sits on the tip of the European continent. The busy Bosphorus river is the lifeline of Istanbul as it brought in trade by sea from places as far as China and India during the Ottoman years and also beyond that, when it was the centre of Christianity founded under Emperor Constantine. Not surprising since it was also known as The Second Rome.

How to stay relevant to your photography

Penang, 2010

Being relevant

I have been meaning to write this topic for a long time now, and finally, I am able to put my thoughts together. This past year, I have been traveling to and from the UK to Malaysia and Singapore, working on photography related projects, namely, the KL Photoawards, in its second year, and Silent Wall, a book project, documenting the Pudu Jail mural.

From this perspective, I have given much thought to how one can make photography work for you, or rather, how to stay relevant to one's own photography. I keep a watch on my friends' Facebook wall updates regularly and notice a pattern of postings that has become slightly predictable. Camera ownership has become saturated amongst social media users, taking the form of cameraphones to high-end Digital SLRs, and sites like flickr and Facebook have become a virtual instant gallery, showcasing one's latest photographic endeavour, seeking feedback, commentary and 'Likes' within minutes of one's postings. The instant sharing capability of photography today with the advent of broadband and mobile technology has, in my opinion dulled the very nature of picture-taking to the detriment of personal expression through fine editing skills. We tend nowadays to post even the mundane, lacklustre, unoriginal compositions and banal contents to provoke response. (Guilty as charged!)

Amidst these plethora of images, I see much repetition, and although they say that 'imitation is the best form of flattery', it does not lend to one's own creativity. People keep telling me "I have nothing to photograph", "There isn't anything worth photographing", "I need to travel to new locations to photograph", " I'm too busy working everyday" can be so easily answered with "What do you want from photography?"

Nice, Cote d'Azur, 2010

Many newcomers to photography often develop a passion after having thumbed through some exotic travel magazine spread, noticed some great witty advertisement campaign, have seen some peer's successful career in shooting weddings and simply want to jump in, or are simply tech-based, i.e. they have a passion for photographic equipment rather than photography. All are legit forms of entry but none I know entered photography to change the world.

Yes, you read correctly. Change the world. I qualify that by adding, 'change the world through the better understanding of the human condition'. Social photography, is the genre where it all started in the first place. As the camera was invented, photography replaced paintings of the upper classes, and brought a new media to the masses, enabling self-portraits, images of families and workers, to be recorded with much ease and lesser expense. Thus, to cut a long story short, social documentation became documentary photography, with added text, became editorial, news gathering, and only most recently, artistic and fine art photography became prevalent.

My love for the 'act' of photography, that is, the ability to operate the camera to record my surroundings and the people I react with began when I first saw amazing portraits of mercury poisoning sufferers in Minamata by W Eugene Smith in the late 70s.

© W Eugene Smith

The above image moved me to no end, and so I thought, I'd too, want to change the world. Having noble intentions is one thing, but having the ability to execute it is another. However, there's always a starting point, and this would, for most people, be their nearest and dearest. I regret I had not sufficiently photographed my own parents, uncles, aunts and cousins whilst I had the chance. I truly regret this. Not just mere casual holiday snaps in Port Dickson or Chinese New Year family portraits, but thought out and planned portraits. It always seemed that the camera is a tool for taking pictures of the 'outside', but never the 'inside'. Family pictures are sacrosanct.

I'd truly recommend any newcomer to set yourself a project to photograph your family members or close friends, just so that you would get into a zone that you are familiar with already without making things more complex than it should be. Once you begin to look at formal portraiture of family from a deeper, aesthetic angle, then the process would become easier venturing further afield.

However, being relevant doesn't mean not experimenting with or sharing new ideas with your fellow practitioners, but understanding one's limitation, knowledge and skills. Aspiration in photography is the linchpin to greater things, whilst execution is the only way to success. For without execution, all great aspirations will not see the light of day.

I find that in photography there's no shortcut. Some might well disagree with this, but I'm being general here. Photography, as in any artform, is an acquired skill, not only in the technical ability to operate equipment, and even guess the correct exposure without a lightmeter! Like the painter and his strokes, it is a learned process. One can only photograph what one knows and recognises. Kind of like the theory of solipsism. The greater one's visual vocabulary, the better one can photographically compose. After all, it is one's mind that 'sees' the image, but the finger operates the shutter release. The camera never takes the picture.



Formulate, not Emulate

London, 2010

Set your sights a little ahead of you. But always move the ahead by the same amount. That way you will make little 'progressive' steps, but progress it will, rather than setting an impossibly difficult goal that you neither have the time or motivation to achieve. I see many photographers strive to be included only within certain 'delineations' of practice, be it salon, weddings, or travel, or whatever genre they appear to be interested in. Why limit one's creativity at an early stage? A fluid but systematic understanding of the photographic processes within all fields of practice is just as important in determining one's stand in using the camera as an image capture tool. I was once told that "A good photographer can and must photograph everything". This saying still hold true. Having a personal style and visual signature however, is the key, like in art. We instantly recognise a Matisse, a Rothko or a Warhol.


Cameras today have simply become too cumbersome, and a burden to most photographers, who seem to liken them as boxes of (clever) tricks rather than picture taking machines. The 'pixel-peepers' who clearly have never printed large format have become the guru's of digital photography amongst their peers through endless on-screen comparisons. They see the pixel but miss the picture.

Apologies! I've been tied up

It seems like only yesterday, but my last posting was in April! I have been in Malaysia for awhile, organising the KL Photoawards finalists, Winners Awards evening and other side projects, and have not even been photographing in KL, apart from a half Saturday morning.

All these are water under the bridge, so to speak. Just last weekend in June, the Pudu Jail wall on the Jalan Pudu flank was demolished to make way for a road bypass and the rest of the prison is scheduled for demolition soon, to be replaced by another anonymous retail complex. You may wish to follow our readers photos and videos of the demolition here. I foresaw all these some two years ago when the papers reported the redevelopment of the site, and began The Silent Wall book project, documenting the external wall mural piece by piece, with the help of photography enthusiasts Roziah, Joanna, Li-Ling and Jerrica. The book will be published, in one form or another, following the working copy which is also available for sale at Blurb.com, but we are tying up the loose ends and researching into a few more items.

I have also started tweeting, and signing myself up (!) to the 365Project which I'm attempting to document 1 year with photographs on a daily basis. Please do visit and pass your comments.

More soon!

KLPA2010 : Finalists Gallery is up

I'm finally back in London after a hectic 3 weeks collating, sorting and organising the judging of the 2nd Annual KL Photoawards 2010. The Finalists Galleries for Individual and Story Categories are now up on the website. Take a look and be pleasantly surprised.

I have not been photographing much over the past month, but intend to this week. Also, am caught up in training to get fit(!) as we will be climbing Mount Kinabalu next month.

Seeing the wood from the trees

The British weather has been struggling to 'change modes'...Winter into Spring, after all, we are now in March. Officially, Spring begins on the March vernal equinox which falls on the 20th. In Scotland, some parts are still covered in a layer of snow. Down in the South East, the days have been bright but chilly, with day temperatures hovering around 4 - 8C.


I took my nephews to Richmond Park last weekend to cycle. It was a brilliant sunny day but the wind was blowing easterly, hence bitterly cold. There were so many people in the park, running, walking, cycling and just deer gawking. Yes, this is a Royal Park, and was once the hunting ground of the Monarchs. The deer here are protected today, and can be quite fierce, but by and large they leave us humans alone.





I was walking in amongst the trees and photographing the deadwood that so often abounds at this time of year, when the grass is still brown and dried, and the ground is sodden from the recent rain and snow. I love dead wood and trees. I love the texture of wood grain in the low slanting light especially in black and white.

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.

Road Trip : Snapshots

Last weekend, I was on a road trip to Northern France, in the Region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Only a short 1 hour drive from the Calais tunnel to our destination, a small bed and breakfast in an even smaller hamlet called Heuchin. The period house now run by a British couple Richard and Vanessa deserves special mention.


The Maison de Plumes (House of Feathers) is a charming stand alone bungalow which has 4 distinctly themed rooms based around the 'plumes', and as you can guess, is wildly decorated with extraordinary detail for a b&b. 5-Stars I would say. The courteous hosts also serve up a 5 course 'gourmand' cuisine which is superb.


The snow was still on the ground as we drove towards the coastal resort of Le Touquet. Passing fields and fields of open snow-covered farmland in this stark countryside, I saw hundreds of windfarms generating renewable electricity. This region is known for its strong Westerly winds coming off the English Channel, and how I marvel at the French for utilising this form of clean energy harness. It was a majestic sight to see these giant windmills spinning in the distant horizon, and as you approach right beneath them, the sheer size and scale of each structure simply amazes.

Le Touquet is a quaint little Victorian resort with its magnificent shady tree-lined Boulevards and large mansions, befitting something from a 1960's Californian suburb. On the coastal edge, the town is lined with charming period buildings, mock Tudor-esque designs, steeples, mini-castles, palaces, and Hansel-n-Gretel cottages. All very strange, and a bit Disneyland. We stayed at the Novotel Spa hotel which is right on the water's edge, amidst the sand dunes and wind swept grasses. Basically a 80's prefab concrete box structure, it is nonetheless comfortable, equipped with a sea-water indoor spa pool with panoramic views of the sea.



This is low season for Le Touquet, and its easy to see why. The sea is at its roughest when the wind is blowing, and the high winds blow fine sand all over you, and surely, cannot be good for cars left out for long in the open. It is also freezing cold and wet. About 80% of the accommodation in town is closed or unoccupied. It would be very different here in the summer months. The stretch of open beach in front of the town plays host to windsailing competitions.

A passion rekindled

(Click on the photographs to enlarge)

I recently 'acquired' a vintage 1971 film camera from eBay, an 35mm Olympus 35RD rangefinder and just had it back from Camera City repairs in Fitzrovia, just off Museum Street. It had taken them, actually, him, Pany, a stocky built, possibly Greek descent-of-a guy 3 weeks to clean and service the sticky shutter blades, and now it triggers smoothly with a purposeful 'click' you can barely hear. Just perfect for street photography.


I still have several rolls of expired (read 2007) colour and black&white film stored in my fridge sharing the same compartment with my acidophilus tablets, so I promptly loaded a roll of Fuji NPH400 and went out with no expectation whatsoever, except I had 36 shots to prove the worth of this little charming camera.



It was a Saturday and possibly the worst Saturday this year. The winds blew horizontal rain pellets across your face, and any umbrella opened was rendered useless within minutes. Still, the brave must shop, and we ended up at Primark in Oxford Street (which is another story) bargain hunting for Christmas goodies, (yes, we shop cheap). Incidentally, one can buy a full tuxedo suit for £14 and 6 pairs of socks for £2, trendy 'Che' T-shirts for £3.50. I kid you not. (Hah! Petaling Street, you've got a serious rival).


The focusing on the 35RD is accomplished with a 1/4 turn, short and smooth and the rangefinder patch is still bright and clear of fungus etc. What I find great about using this machine is the size and stealth ability, that is, I can be right up against people's faces and no one really notices me. Ah, it's just a toy camera, its an old silvery thingy, its retro. Most of all, its quiet. Much more quiet than the clunky M8 but not as low pitched as the M6, which I think is still the third king of stealth of all time. (The quietest and quickest camera I have used is the Konica Hexar 35, followed by the Digilux 2)



I am presently in KL and just managed to get the roll of film developed and scanned onto a CD. for £4.00. The scan was way too over saturated by the film quality came through as expected. I was astounded by the sharpness and clarity of the 40mm F1.7 lens! Exposure seemed to be accurate as well and the selective focusing technique produced great bokeh too. The shots reproduced here were grab shots, pre-focussed and random, to capture the shoppers with their umbrellas on Oxford Street, so there are lots of movement and fluidity in the photographs. Most were shot from the hip which is a technique I often use in street photography.






Since then I have loaded another roll of film to finish off, possibly today in KL. Hmm, perhaps this little film revival of mine may just last a little longer, a passion enkindled 30 years ago by the draw of the tiny Olympus Trip 35 my late father gave me.

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)

Head out onto the streets... Part 2

Point 3. Get in motion

Take a walk, and observe the passing scenery before you. Because you are now in motion, reality is quickly taking on another dimension, it becomes 3D in your mind’s eye. Your pace and your choice of lens will define a virtual bubble of space that you will encounter these ‘conjunctions’ and hence photograph them. Objects, people and scenes will flicker in and out of your space, and it will be at this moment that you begin to see photographs. I recommend a semi wide-angle lens, 35mm to 50mm is ideal, and pre-focus to 3m to get you real close to your subjects. If you have studied what the angle of view is a 35mm lens will cover at 3m, you will have these mindframes in your sight at all times.

Point 4. KISS !

Everybody asks me about equipment. So here goes. KISS! Keep-It-Simple-Stupid ! If you have just bought that brand spanking new D3X body with a super fast zoom lens that weighs 5lbs, then you will hate me. You might have arms the size of tree trunks to carry the monster but, you will surely annoy several, if not everyone you photograph because, discreet and anonymous, you are not. Stick to simple, light cameras with a short zooms, or fixed wide-angle lenses that let you concentrate less on settings, and more on the scene. Know your equipment well to avoid fumbling with Modes and settings etc. Don’t shoot and chimp. Chimping is the habitual act of looking at your LCD screen after every shot, which takes you away from your scene. Turn the auto review off! It will save on your batteries and you won’t look like a monkey! Chimp when you have finished a scene or when you are taking a rest.

Point 5. Be invisible!

Do not hang your camera like the ubiquitous tourist – round your neck. Firstly, you will stick out in the crowd. Wear it around your wrist with the strap. It would be more discreet and you will be ready to lift your camera to your eye in an instant. Walk with the flow of the crowd in a busy street but be prepared to retrace your steps if you spot something of interest. Be flexible with your shooting angles. By dropping to your knees, or crouching, you can alter the viewpoint instantly without too much effort. Blend into the scene by dressing in similar styles to the crowd.

Point 6. What to shoot?

The street throws up many layers of activities, often unseen by passers-by. Go off the main track and you will see more. Look out for anything unusual : human behaviour and stances, dress, hair styles, animals, colours, people in conversation, shopping bags, market activities, road signs, funny signs, store windows. Juxtapose the obvious with the interesting or its contrast. Watch for people at road junctions waiting to cross, at the bus stops, on the sidewalk cafes. There’s plenty of fodder for your camera. Remember to place the picture. This means that the photograph must show the environment and its subject. Its no use photographing an old coffee mug close up, better to show an elderly man drinking coffee in an old coffee shop.

Point 7. Tell a story

Link up your images to weave a storyline, however loose it might be. Once you have ‘locked on’ to a story, your images will begin to speak to you, and hopefully, your viewers. You may want to photograph specific stories like store keepers, street vendors, five foot way signs or old coffee shops in your town, or get a broader picture of urban life in the city, depicting subway users going to work, the rush of people in suits, or at a railway station.

Whatever it is, prepare your walk with your ‘point of departure’ in mind. This is a mental exercise and preparation to train how you see, without the inevitable added distractions. By fixing in your mind what are you going to photograph on your outing only, your ‘keep’ rate will increase without the burden of shooting everything that attracts you. Unlike photojournalists who have a brief to adhere to, you don’t, but you still need one.

Point 8. Editing

In all respects this is most crucial step in the whole process. After a day’s shoot, you would have gotten possibly several hundred images. How do you whittle them down? The obvious favourites will stand out and those can be picked off easily. Delete the truly awful, meaningless images that are out of focus, blurred and simply rubbish! Be brutal and honest.

You will be left with perhaps 3 categories: ‘great’, ‘maybe’, and ‘maybe maybe’. Keep them as they are and revisit them after a week or so. In each image there will be some element of the picture that you will find interesting, even in the ‘maybe maybe’ category. After all, you pointed your camera at the scene and clicked the shutter! You must have, consciously or sub-consciously recognised some gem, and took the shot.

After several gallivants in the street, you will have made a reasonably large collection of images, and you can begin to piece together a storyline or theme that links your best street photographs. Lastly, enjoy your shoot.

Go to Part 1

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!

Photo Workshop : Paris In The Fall

06/10/09 Update : Ah..Paris!


After a marathon long weekend pounding the streets of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th and 20th arrondissements of Paris, and many kilometres covered in the process, we are now back in our respective home cities. To our participants, thank you for joining Andy and myself in Paris, thank you Vero for the bubbly, Crystele for your company and support in getting some video of us at La Bastille.

Our itinerary on the first day included the atmospheric 'covered passages' in the 1st and 2nd arrondissements, as well as the Palais Royal and a visit to the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery where luminaries such as Chopin, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and numerous others were laid to rest. The cemetery is set to the east of the city surrounded by a high wall, on hilly land and is beautifully acacia-tree lined with with crypts and tombs on long avenues, some in desperate state of decay whilst others are brand spanking new.


The second-day we photographed at the Seine, Louvre and Tuileries gardens, Place Vendome before heading back to the Musee d'Orsay for a fabulous lunch stop. We encountered a lone sax player under a road bridge which was just the perfect picture for an urban portrait. Mind you, he was a few Euros richer after our group of photographers passed by!


On Sunday morning, we congregated at the steps of the Bastille to photograph the amazing street market on Boulevard Richard Lenoir, a short stroll away. This amazing Sunday market is one of Paris's finest, offering fresh produce, meats, fruit and veg, cheeses and cooked food.


This group photograph was taken outside the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie
at Le Marais. There were several exhibitions on-going which were well worth seeing, including Ferdinando Scianna's'Geometry and Passion' collection and Ara Güler's amazing vintage photographs of Istanbul taken in the 50'-60s.




30/09/09 : Paris, here we come!


I'm off to Paris on the 09:01 Eurostar tomorrow morning to prepare for our workshop commencing Friday to Sunday evening. Will post updates from the City of Lights.