The hunter, the cook, and the photographer

Ask someone to list three art forms and the answer will invariably include at least two of the following: Painting, Dance and Music. Of course, world cinema may scrape in alongside sculpture and literature. But the likes of Hollywood blockbusters, graphic art and graffiti are left by the wayside, as is photography.
When photojournalism emerged in the late 1920s it was broadly defined as a spontaneous and topical photographic narrative of human events. Over the decades the narrative flowed, almost to a standstill as motion picture grabbed the baton and sprinted to the finish line. Then, in the 1950s, photographers looked to the fine arts for inspiration and found it in composition, lighting, and of course emotion. These so-called value adds were leapt upon by newspaper editors, and the photojournalism as you know it today, was born
The 50s and 60s was also the golden age of Indian photojournalism. The greats like the TS Satyan, N Thyagarajan, Kishore Parek, S Paul and Raghu Rai, to name a few, brought images that melded informative content with emotional impact, even as they stuck to the journalistic values their artists embodied. These ethics held pride of place over aesthetics.
These great photojournalists put the use of perspective into practice. They gave their photographs a makeover using lighting, new angles, off-center frames, and had their subjects look away from the camera, rather than staring into it like they would in a rogues’ gallery. These greats also raised the bar for all the photojournalists that were to follow.
Photography and its informed criticism is still a nascent discipline. Technological advancements have meant that the study of photography has become a lifelong venture, rather than one that can be mastered in just a few years.
Museums and art galleries in this country have yet to recognize, and give prominence to the works of Indian photography and photojournalism masters. Unfortunately, in India we only tend to recognise the rich talent our country had, has, and will have, only after critics from the West have discovered them.
Like the father of modern photojournalism Henri Cartier-Bresson once said, “Actually, I'm not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I'm not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren't cooks.”

In a digital world, the oyster is no longer a delicacy

A visual journalist will be far more knowledgeable about photography as an art form, than any of his predecessors

It’s a strange feeling when you bump into long-lost friends while on assignment and they ask you what you do for a living. My stock reply is that I’m a photographer working at a newspaper. The word ‘photographer’ in itself has morphed over the past decade into the ever-so-slightly presumptuous ‘photojournalist’. Now, as we approach the end of the first decade of the third millennium, the latter term is changing.

The tweens will be dominated by the ‘visual journalist’ or the ‘visual reporter’, and these sound a tad more apt with imagery taking the Indian newspaper industry in its stranglehold.

A visual journalist will be far more knowledgeable about photography as an art form, than any of his predecessors. He will be equipped with tools that will enable to carry out his duties with speed, accuracy a digital élan; he will move beyond the static and into a dynamic world where images break into molecules, each telling a story.

Digital technology has levelled the professional photography playing field. Photographers are no longer bound by newsroom hierarchies. The internet and sites like Flickr and Facebook means that they can get their pictures to the public without battling a interpersonal minefield.

The future photography department will have professionals in specific areas in the field, like sports, conceptual, entertainment, and portraiture, to name a few. While the numbers of photographers increase exponentially with advancements in technology, the rush to fill slots in newspapers will become a crush. And for photo editors, the so-called gatekeepers of a newspaper’s visual element, the job will take on an intensity heretofore only bragged about.

As with any field, a quantitative rise does not necessarily translate into a qualitative one. Photo editors will have to sift through the imagery looking out for those diamonds in the rough, and believe me the rough will be overwhelming, but the gems will shine so much brighter for it.

Journalism, however, will remain at the roots of photography, but the imagery will be broken down into pixels. The primary colours will serve to highlight the graphic lure of each composition, just as writers use each letter to manifest a phrase that conjures thought.

The visual journalist of the future will also be equipped with additional knowledge of the computerised pagination processes, web design, and digital workflow systems thus ensuring that the newsy, stylistic and aesthetic perspective will have never looked better.

Bright are images of the future

When I joined DNA in August of 2008, the launch was still four months away. I knew little of the organisation that had just sprinted into the leading pack of the country’s newspapers with fervour in just a short period of four years.

But as the launch approached I knew that the editor would ask the photo department to pitch in by putting out a picture page to keep cheques balanced till the advertisements started to flow into the newspaper. Then, or so I presumed, the ‘much-vaunted’ picture page would shut shop with a sign on the front door, saying, ‘no space’.

The design process was set in place, and the name ‘Pic Me Up’ suggested by a former senior editor. And the rest, as they say, is history. Visual themes, photo essays, and news in pictures, would run six days a week. The sign stayed firmly in the box.

Of course the page has had its fair share of hiccoughs, as is to be expected when you are trying to up the ante in terms of quality on a daily basis. But for Indian journalism a daily photo feature page was pathbreaking, and the readers stood up in their support of the initiative.

In September, 2009, Pic Me Up launched the i-Pic, a daily space where readers could send in their photographs, and win a prize. I take this opportunity to thank them for the great response we received, right up until the competition closed on November 15. We received more than 1,000 entries.

But if you were to ask me what Pic Me Up epitomises…it’s the spirit of the team. This page would have been impossible without the tireless efforts of DNA’s photographers, and it is a testament to their resilience and their talents.

As I sign off, I humble request the picture-loving readers of DNA’s Pic Me Up to keep watching this space as we enter another year. This page is yours, and the future is going to be brighter than ever.

Citizen photojournalism is the future of new media

The print media as seen a sea change over the past two decades from the typical newsroom sound of tapping tickers and typewriters, to the present day buzz of CPUs all humming to a technological conductor.

‘New Photojournalism’ has also seen an impressive change from the good old days of time-consuming film-based, dark-room processed and printed SLR camera photography to the present day digital time-saving D-SLR photography. This shift in technology has added more responsibilities to present day photojournalists, forcing them to give an increasing number of concept-based pictures to suit a report and ensure it has a clear edge over rivals in the newspaper market.

With fixed lens digital cameras and mobile phone cameras flooding the market in large quantities the age of the citizen photojournalist has truly arrived, and it’s here to stay, eventually replacing the professional news photographer.

Amateur photographers have been highly-prized for decades. Take for instance Abraham Zapruder’s motion pictures of the assassination of John F Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, which fetched him $150,000 in those days. Then you have the citizen photojournalism images taken of the London tube bombings where a citizen pulled his mobile camera to film people escaping from smoke-filled bogeys soon after a blast rocked London’s mass transport system.

In yet another incident a 17-year-old was paid a whopping $40,000 for a grainy image taken on his mobile, which was the first photograph taken of one of the cars used in the London bombings. It showed a Green Mercedes parked outside the Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, and next to it, one of the gas canisters that the car contained.

And now Reuters and Yahoo! have jumped on the citizen photojournalism bandwagon with gusto; in the hope of turning millions of people with digital cameras and camera phones into citizen photojournalists. These image will be distributed, through a special package, to hundreds of print, online and broadcast media subscribers across the world.

The professionals who deal in breaking news have a big problem on their hands in the future, one with which they can’t possibly compete. When the tools of creation and access are so profoundly democratised, the best professionals fight a losing battle to save their careers.

Like Kyle McRae the founder of Scoopt, one of the first citizen photojournalism online stock libraries (who later sold its collection to Getty images) had said: "Because the potential, or the reality, is that the first person on the scene is going to be you or me or somebody like us. It's not going to be a professional photographer or a news journalist. So it's not enough for you and me to dedicate the rest of our lives to chasing down news stories. We do need the power of the crowd."

In the race against time, a question of ethics

Modern newspapers work to a clock that deals in seconds and minutes, rather than days or weeks, and so must photographers

In the previous week’s column we discussed how the digitalisation of photography has changed the face of photojournalism and how this has, at times, had the photographer at an ethical crossroads.
Modern newspapers work to a clock that deals in seconds and minutes, rather than days or weeks, and so must photographers. Gone are the days when a photographer could spend a few days searching for that perfect picture, not as rails against time, he sometimes has to rely on sheer talent and luck to get a printable photograph. These time constraints can sometimes force him to chose an unethical path, doctoring or embellishing an image to suit the editorial.
There has been a trend of late in the print media where photographers are increasingly asked to concentrate on the aesthetics of composition, rather than content. Their roles have become akin to creative visualisers rather than documenters of news. Celebrities, lifestyle and other ‘soft’ topics have become the rule, and social photography the exception.
Take the case of the photojournalist who was asked to cover a fashion show in the morning, and then a portrait of losing mayoral candidate just one hour later. The photojournalist needs time to move from one frame of mind from where lighting plays a major role while snapping pictures of models sashaying down a ramp to another, where a man is at one of life’s many cusps. If he’s not careful, he could end up with a sashaying politician.
Many say the camera cannot lie, and that is true only in the sense that the images it captures must have existed in one form or another in time. But it is not always clear if those images have been manipulated to alter, or to stage an event that never actually happened. Staging a photograph only adds insult to the already injured ethics of photojournalism, and it is all the more injurious when one knows that ‘staging’ has been done by some of the finest photographers in the world.
Though photographers in the West have suffered its fair share of lapses on the ethical front, in India, it has become an epidemic. In one of the most macabre incidents, three of the country’s top photographers dug up a four-day-old grave of a small boy to highlight the catastrophe of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. That the boy was in no way connected to the event seemed to not have bothered them in the least.
Digitally manipulating a photograph is as bad as staging one. Digital manipulation is relatively easy to accomplish, hard to detect, and perhaps more alarming, is that the alteration takes place in the original image, hence checking authenticity is virtually impossible. This is why courts these days tend not to use photographs as evidence, and why they probably won’t do so in the future either.
Photographers will use numerous arguments to defend themselves. They’ll say reporters cook up quotes, sub-editors use blatantly misleading headlines, and feature writers plagiarise, but there’s really no excuse…for any of the above. The reader is your god, and if you fail him, then there truly will be hell to pay.

The noughties and the age of photographic digitisation

Visual messages have the power to persuade, educate and entertain and thus put a great responsibility on the photographer

It may have been 1993, when American photojournalists got their hands on the Digital Lens Reflex (D-SLR) camera in large numbers, but it was way back in 1973 that the technology was created by Kodak in Rochester, New York.

Kodak’s body was big and scary enough to put any professional ill at ease. This, however, was the R&D model and nowhere near what it would look like when it entered mass production.

The first commercial digital SLR (Kodak DCS-100) was launched in 1991, it had a modified Nikon F3 SLR body, a modified drive unit with an external storage unit connected via a cable, and a 1.3 megapixel that cost a whopping $30,000.

Through the decade (1990 to 1999) numerous players jumped into the digital photography market: Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Pentax, Fuji to name a few. But in 1999, it was Nikon that took the lead with the launch of the Nikon D1, which marked the beginning of the end of the film camera era (I was very lucky to have used the D1 in its launch year during my stint with a newspaper in North India, though it was only meant for very important assignments).
In India, forward-thinking newspapers — which up until than had been using negative scanners or print scanners for pictures to be digitally transferred on to their Quark pages — grabbed at this opportunity by ensuring that their respective photo departments went digital. But it was only in mid-2002, when Nikon launched the D-100, that the death rattle of film, turned into rigor mortis.

Newspapers that hadn’t cottoned onto the virtues of digital photography now swiftly converted to D-SLR in the hope that by cutting down on film purchase and printing they would in turn cut overall costs. It worked, and the shift would become a pivotal moment in the publishing industry.

But with the invasion of technology into the artistic field came with it a crisis of ethics and photography took a hammering. Images started appearing having been digitally manipulated to catch the viewer’s eye.

Visual messages have the power to persuade, educate and entertain and thus put a great responsibility on the photographer. Take for instance some of the recent images taken after the advent of D-SLR and Adobe’s Photoshop; an increasing number of manipulated pictures have started to find space on magazine covers, in newspapers and on wire services.

But ethics in photography is a whole other column

Keep still, can moving pictures ever tell the full story?

Over the decades the talk has been about how television and all its trappings, are sounding the death knell for photography

August 19, 1839 is the day Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, Joseph Nicephere Niepec and Henry Fox Talbot are credited with ‘discovering’ photography. They would have borne a perplexed look had you told them then that their innovation would lead to motion pictures, courtesy Frenchman Louis Lumiere, aptly nicknamed Cinematographe.

Lumiere’s pathbreaking invention debuted in 1895, but even if you subscribe to the view that it was Edison, rather than Lumiere who invented the motion picture, you can’t deny that without still photography, movies would have been but a glint in a producer’s eye.

Enough with the history lesson, and down to some fighting talk. Over the decades the talk has been about how television and all its trappings, are sounding the death knell for photography. But proponents of that theory forget one niggling factor, that photographers have virtually no margin for error. And out of a lack of margin, often comes excellence. The ability to capture a scene or an emotion in one frame is not one to be taken lightly.

Take for instance the Godra riots. Although TV channels beamed graphic images 24x7 into living rooms across the country, it was the photograph by Arko Dutta, of a man with folded hands, blood-stained shirt and tears welling in his eyes that captured the world’s imagination and struck a blow that rocked our moral turpitude. In 2005, Arko, incidentally won the WPP award for his picture of a tsunami survivor weeping by a dead relative on a beach in Cuddalore.

In the modern era the intense competitiveness between the TV cameraman and the photographer has increased manifold with both vying for better space and an insight into the human condition

In the modern era the intense competitiveness between the TV cameraman and the photographer has increased manifold with both vying for better space and an insight into the human condition. A TV cameraman’s job is more strenuous than that of a print photographer in that his images have to follow the reporter’s thread, and at times have to tell a story on their own. Print photographers have to be more aesthetic, constantly looking to capture passion and emotion. Photographers, however, must remember that their image have a much longer shelf-life, and hence to be qualitatively superior in all respects.

Talking of photographic longevity, Spencer Platt’s photograph for Getty of a convertible full of gorgeous Lebanese women, dressed to the nines, driving through a bombed-out Beirut suburb, told a million tales, that are etched into the consciousness of all those who had the pleasure of seeing it.

The argument between still and moving, however, will be one that rages for many more years. You, the reader, shall be the final judge.

On the road, life is but a blur of pictures

Towards the end of his travelogue, The Innocents Abroad, written aboard the USS Quaker City, the incorrigible wit Mark Twain noted: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” He meant it for his
American bedfellows, but the statement could apply to almost every living human being. The tourist, as the traveller has come to be known in our day and age, can be seen in almost every city. The flashes of their cameras light up nights from Rio to Tokyo.They attempt to soak in a foreign culture, using snapshots to emblazon their memories. But in the rush to capture every image, the eternal ones slip by, lost in the flash frenzy that often accompanies these wandering souls. But some see rather than simply look, and they are the true captors of heritage and life.
Take for instance, the great picture taken by amateur photographer (he was until May 18, 1980, anyway) Gary Rosenquist. His all powerful picture, taken on that day, of Mount St Helens erupting at dawn captivated the world.
It cast nature in all her fury on a canvas the size of our imaginations. The photograph was good enough to be snatched up by those two colossi of photojournalism: National Geographic and Life
magazine. Travelling is essential to great photography.
During my Reuter’s Foundation Fellowship at the Missouri University in Columbia, Missouri, I was adamant that I wouldn’t save any money. Rather, anything I had would go into travelling around the US; be it a weekend jaunt to a nearby town, or a road trip following the tyre tracks of Kerouac or the wagon trails of Steinbeck. And thanks to the Greyhound, all this was possible.
During my second week at the university, I set off to see the beautiful Lake Mykee town in Callaway County — a part of Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri. The trip, which spanned the weekend was spent in the company of my German colleague Liz Van Hooser. We went to visit her grandparents, who lived in Lake Mykee, and it turned out to be a photographer’s dream. Not only did I get to photograph the Jefferson County skyline, but spent hours walking through the vineyards, run by the Hoosers.
Another memorable trip was to Zion, where I managed to hone my still photography thanks to its wonderful 18th Century church. Then there was Carthage (not of Hannibal Barca fame) with a population of under 5,000. It’s a wonderland, aptly termed by Walt Disney as, ‘Some Place Else’. It was at Springfield that I photographed that icon of popular culture, Route 66,which runs from Chicago to New York. I also had the pleasure to meet, Larry Bornbazine (the surname means, Keeper of the Flame), a Native American. He sat next to me on the bus, and by the end of my journey, we were fast friends. He invited me to his home in Chesterfield, where I met his extended 18-member family who had gathered there for the weekend.
I offered to stay in an inn nearby, but Larry was having none of it. So I spent the weekend in their small but large-hearted home. It was to be a fortuitous meeting, as I learned volumes about a community that, up until that day, I had read about only in my school textbooks.The Bornbazine family portraits I took, are some of my most cherished.
My advice to you fellow traveller, is to ensure that you keep that small camera with you always during your travels, be it from home to office or on that trip across Europe. Who knows what the future may throw up for you to photograph.
I will end with a quote from one of the greatest travellers of his time, Jack Kerouac: “So long and take it easy, because if you start taking things seriously, it is the end of you.”

Politics, photography and a question of mood

Unfortunately, my camera has, at times, got me a front row seat for the soap opera, that national and state-level politics can often be

The famous military strategist, Clauzewitz, once said: War is nothing but an extension of politics. And anyone following the city’s front pages over the last week could be excused for wondering how akin the state CM’s office was to a 21st Century Stalingrad.
Unfortunately, my camera has at times got me a front row seat for the soap opera, that national and state-level politics can often be; with egos and riches being the pivots around which political worlds turn.
Money-hungry MLAs, their superegos filled with delusions of grandeur have often reached for the golden chalice, overlooking the plight of the common man, who are left to fend for themselves after pre-poll promises are ground into the dust of dishonesty.
The latest crisis to afflict Karnataka was pretty much a battle of nerves, and as I look back on the coverage across newspapers, only a few images, I feel, told the story of the crisis from a human angle.
One of these images was the one that showed the CM, sitting alone in his office, prior to leaving for New Delhi to learn his fate. It was a grim image, but the situation indeed warranted such seriousness.

Anyone following the city’s front pages over the last week could be excused for wondering how akin the state CM’s office was to a 21st Century Stalingrad.

The second picture showed BSY feeding JR. Their expressions were priceless. Both looked like they had got the better of the other, while AK’s smugness as he stood next to them spoke volumes about how the whole shenanigan had worked out for him.
Going back to the days when the state was ruled by the many avatars of the Janata Dal, I was fortunate enough to be the only local photojournalist based in New Delhi. My assignment was to keep the newspaper supplied with images every time one of the state’s politicians walked through the halls of power in the capital.
It was during this stint that Karnataka went through a period of intense political turmoil. And while the state was proverbially burning I managed to photograph the incumbent CM, JH Patel, relaxing at Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi. I found him relaxing in bed with a plate of cucumbers and a glass of wine in his hand, while updating himself on the news on TV. The picture made the front page, and the accompanying headline was as witty, as it was pertinent: Cool as Cucumber: When the whole state burns.
But the one photograph I still cherish came from a rather unique opportunity to snap two big-time political leaders (one former chief minister who was known in political circles as the kingmaker, along with a union minister from the powerful Yadav group) standing at urinals (backs to the camera!) with their face visible on the mirror in front of them, all the while discussing how they were going to convince a humble farmer prime minister to step down and ensure they keep their front united. The newspaper ran with it in seven columns, with the classic headline: ‘Toilet Politics’.
My advice to young photographers is to keep an eye on the mood of the crises, and the pictures will follow. My advice to politicians: Service to the people is service to the gods.

The power of photography is its ability to tell it like it is

Even the best writers will attest that no matter how powerful be the prose, a picture is worth a thousand well-chosen words.

The power of photographs was once again brought into sharp focus (pun intended) after China arm-twisted the Bangladesh government into shutting down a photography exhibition entitled Tibet 1949-2009.
The exhibition, which was organised by the Students for a Free Tibet, showed a myriad of images of the Himalayan nation with all its ups and downs. The photographs were at times graphic in their depiction of an oppressive China, and on others magical in their imagery of one of the most beautiful countries on Earth.
But China doesn’t seem to be able to differentiate between the aesthetics of politics and the politics of beauty. China, and its penchant for ‘history-as-we-know-it’, however, is not up for debate here. Every country has its own way of dealing with a chequered past. This column is about the power of photographs.
Even the best writers will attest that no matter how powerful be the prose, a picture that cuts to the heart of the matter – whether jovial or devastating – is worth a thousand well-chosen words. Photographs know no language, and require the viewer to possess only one faculty: The ability to see.
Photographs have been used to document ‘the real story’ throughout most of the tumultuous 20th Century. From the Great War to Vietnam, the horrifying ability of humans to kill innocents has been portrayed with a graphic sense of foreboding. Our innate predilection for cruelty is unfathomable, and so we must keep snapping away in the hope that wisdom will someday dawn.

Photographs are apolitical in as much as they are amoral, as they should be. Like music, photographs transcend man-made barriers. They are beasts of their own device

Closer to home, my pictures have been used to bring fraudsters to book. When I worked in a national daily based in New Delhi, I was asked to cover drought-affected villagers in 1996.
On assignment I got a picture of an elderly farmer sitting in his arid farm, the soil cracked wide open by the blazing sun. The picture was published, and not long after I received a telephone call from the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). They wanted to know where exactly the picture was taken as, they claimed, the farmer in question was dead and his children had claimed the insurance money four years before this picture was taken.
They then asked me if I could take them to the farm so that they could see this modern day Lazarus for themselves. I did and they saw him, alive and kicking. Needless to say the case was kicked straight into court – the photograph used as evidence and me as a witness.
Photographs are apolitical in as much as they are amoral, as they should be. Like music, photographs transcend man-made barriers. They are beasts of their own device, and that is why governments across the world would rather choose to hide images than words. Words can be misinterpreted, but how could you say that the picture of a young Vietnamese girl, her body burned as she ran from her village, was anything short of murder.
You can’t, and neither did the American public.

Taking dirty pictures is my job

Newspaper photography is a grind on more occasions than it is glamorous.

If there’s one thing my professional visits to drains and cess-pits has taught me, is respect for those who wallow in them every day

It was during one of my morning walks that I overheard two 40-somethings yabbering on, between rasping breathlessness, about how media photographers have a field day shooting celebrities day in, day out.
But, it got me thinking…do most readers share this sentiment? If they do, then I have to set the record straight. Newspaper photography is a grind on more occasions than it is glamorous (if it ever is).
Recently, during the tragic incident of the young Abhishek who was swept away in a storm water drain, DNA’s photographers had to get down and dirty in a storm water drain in order to convey to readers the dimensions of these uncovered dangers.
Later, after a daring robbery, the same photographers clambered down a narrow hole — used by the thieves — to bring the derring-do of the act into focus. Apart from our grossly under-appreciated conservancy workers and intrepid fire-fighters most Bangaloreans would baulk at the idea of clambering into a stench-ridden canal of slime, but for photographers it’s just another day on the job.
The thing is, the images that these forays into the garbage-filled underbelly of the city provide are not exception — rather, they are the rule. Following the BBMP around as it makes its circuitous course of the city — above and below ground — doing and at times, shirking its job of keeping the city hygienic is a photographer’s job, for most of the time. After all if you don’t walk by their side, how will you be there to document it when they fail.
Which brings me back to the two ‘dialectics’ pondering the ‘glorious job’ of the city’s news photographers. To simply stand by and listen to their ill-informed opinions was far beyond my natural instinct. So I walked up to them, introduced myself, and told them that I too was a photographer.
I asked one of the men what he would do if he had the misfortune of living or working next to an overflowing sewer or a pile of uncleared garbage. He told me he would go to the nearest civic office and request the authorities to clear it up. And if that failed? I asked. Well, he said, then he would go higher deeper into the bureaucratic labyrinth. And if that too met with failure? He would then go to his local newspaper, so that they could highlight the issue.
I smiled and told him that in order to highlight the issue at hand, the newspaper would first need a photograph of the errant stick-pile, and that brought us right back to the ‘glamour boys and girls’. Dirt and delving into it, I told him, is part of a photographer’s life. Celebrities and hip parties were merely the sideshow.
If there’s one thing my professional visits to drains and cess-pits has taught me, is respect for those who wallow in them every day, out of compulsion, rather than choice. Our conservancy workers get no bylines for their job. They don’t complain about the sorry lack of equipment, and they are rarely recognised by the people they serve, which is you and I.
So although I may love to correct someone’s facts, I also know that there are those who can’t. And this column, more than anything else, is a salute to those brave souls.

I once saw the sun, but not anymore

As Bangalore metamorphosed from a farming community to a tech-savvy metropolis, out ability to view the solar orb from every roof top in the city soon diminished

On most occasions interacting with old friends from the same fraternity is an enriching experience. During one such discussion a friend asked me if today’s photographer had the wherewithal to capture a sunrise or sunset, as his compatriot could back in the 70s and 80s? I shook my head in the negative.

As Bangalore metamorphosed from a farming community to a tech-savvy metropolis, out ability to view the solar orb from every roof top in the city soon diminished. As realtors and those flogging an Icarus agenda reached for the sky, the city’s skyscape was soon blotted out by concrete giants.

My mind meandered back to childhood days when I watched the sun rise and set from my Baldwin Boy’s School hostel window. Later on, in the 80s and 90s, I would sit on the banks of Ulsoor Lake, along with many victims of Cupid’s arrow, and watch the setting sun.

It was during one of these pensive moments that I captured an image of the sun setting ‘neath the horizon. It may have made the front page, but when I was asked by the editor to shoot another ‘city connect’ picture with a touch of twilight in it, I was nervous. In the 80s the era of the all-colour newspaper was just a glint in a publisher’s eye. I was stumped as to how I was going to get the twilight spectrum conveyed through greyscale.

I left the office at 5.15pm and wandered the streets looking for that definitive, and far too often, elusive, picture. At last, around 6pm when I reached Ulsoor Lake I photographed a couple in a paddle boat, with the setting sun looming over them like a protective saint. It was good enough for me, and thankfully, good enough for my editor too.

Years later, when I returned to the city after a series of jaunts that took me across the country, I returned to Ulsoor Lake. I was hoping to capture the past in the setting sun, and in doing so return to the less frenetic roots of the photographer. But where once I could see the lake sprawled, glistening, before me, I now had concrete behemoths blocking the last rays of a sun bidding us its daily farewell. The colours were still there, the vibrancy still pulsed, but it was no longer seen by any mortal. It was now meant for the stone guardians of the city. I realised then, that in the new Bangalore, nature’s colours would only be appreciated in memory.

I return home and reach for my old photographs, they show a city I once knew and still love. My memories are intact, my son, however, will just have to take my word for it.

Snapshots of destruction: Photographing the floods

DNA’s photjournalists ran, walked, drove, and paddled their way across North Karnataka, pipping everyone to the pictorial post

The drizzle became a downpour, as levees broke across North Karnataka and floods washed away a million hopes and dreams. Newspapers awoke to the calamitous news beaming from every TV, and the race to find the best angle to a story already told began.

It was then that my colleague Mohan Kumar BN came up with an idea that eventually proved to be brilliant, in that it gave us the edge over our friendly rivals. “Send us out there,” he told me, “and let’s go now.” He, of course, became the first to volunteer to go out into the maelstrom, as it were.

Over the next six days, DNA’s photojournalists ran, walked, drove, and paddled their way across North Karnataka, pipping everyone to the pictorial post. Images flooded in from Raichur, Bellary et al, encompassing the human tragedy that unfolded.

Sending photographers into the field is only half the job, ensuring that their images get through to the office via water-logged lines and unreliable power supplies is the other half. Most of the districts they visited had lost electricity, and many villages had been sent back to the pre-Internet days

The day after Mohan left, the full extent of the flood damage became apparent and we decided to send in another photographer. Anantha Subramanyam K was rushed to the site in an IAF chopper ferrying relief material. Road were virtually non-existent.

And as the images ‘flooded’ in another problem began to rear its irksome head. When selecting photographs that depict a natural catastrophe, a photo editor must keep two things in mind: the context of the picture and the Breakfast Test. The context must suit the news; gratuitous images of sorrow and devastation don’t always match the context. The Breakfast Test is quite simple. You imagine a family sitting at their breakfast table, and then ask yourself: “Would you like to see that image while you’re eating your breakfast?” If not then the picture doesn’t make the front page (there are exceptions to this rule, however, but that’s another column).

Ensuring that our paper stood out from the rest of the print pack was a tough task; it was one of those times when everyone is bringing their A-game to the table. I learned the art of picture editing from Julie Elman, former picture editor at The Missourian, and AFP Picture editors Emmeanuel Dunnand and Christophe Archambault, and this proved to be time well spent. All three told me that picture editors have to chop, crop, and many times drop good images to suit readers’ interests. And with photo essays this maxim is even more important as one has to look at the overall sequencing of images, which in the final output should complement each other.

After Anantha and Mohan, Nishant Ratnakar and Selvaparakash L were dispatched to capture the human angle to this catastrophe. They did so with aplomb.

An editor is only as good as his team, and I salute my boys and the job they did during these dark hour in Karnataka’s history. I also take this opportunity to thank the IAF and others who pitched in to help us out.

Effecting change, one snap at a time

Through this process of change, have newspapers lost sight of their main goal…to effect change?

I got into photojournalism expecting to change the world. But that was over 20 years ago, and the newspaper — The City Tab — has long since gone to the recycle bin in the sky.

Throughout my career I have witnessed a number of changes; the shift from analog SLR cameras, to multiple-framing motor-driven analog SLR cameras, to the current multi-frame SLR digital cameras. Newspaper themselves have undergone a massive transition. Black and white have given way to a spectrum of colours, and articles have clipped down to meet the shortening time and attention spans of the current urban reader.

But through this process of change, have newspapers lost sight of their main goal…to effect change?

Some two decades ago I was on assignment on Mysore Road, when I saw school children hefting heavy school bags, making their way across a water-logged, filthy drain. They had deigned to take off their shoes as they made their way through the water. Once on the other side, they put on their shoes and trotted off to school.

I found out they did this six days a week. There was another route that avoided the drain, but that would add an extra three kilometres to their journey…so through the water they went. This was one picture I was not going to miss, so I shot a couple of frames and returned to the office.

The next day the picture appeared on the front page of my newspaper. The then acting Governor Justice, Shanmughasundaram Mohan, called my office the same morning and asked my editor if I could accompany him and his team of advisors to the spot where the picture was taken.

On reaching the spot, Justice Mohan saw first hand the plight of the children, and even had a word with some of them. He then asked his advisors to request the Madras Engineering Group (MEG) to build a floating bridge at the spot, as soon as possible. The MEG reacted in record time finishing the ordered job in 24-hours flat. Later that month a permanent bridge was constructed for these children.

The fact that it was my photograph that effected this change filled me with a sense of pride few moments have been able to duplicate. This was what I, as a journalist, was meant to do.

A few days ago, a friend and I were discussing how newspapers ignore reportage on the state of basic civic amenities. The bridge over the gap between civic authorities and the end user remains at the bottom of the ravine. Let us hope that in the future, not only will that bridge be rebuilt, but that it provides a path to a greener, healthier city

Stage-managing life through a lens

Staging a picture is all right, provided your reader knows it has been staged

There’s more truth to some clichés than one might think. Take, for instance, the barber shop as the centre of rumour and conversation. The barber’s truly is one of the best places to get a feel for what’s going down around the city, and what’s shaking the proverbial gum tree.

On my last trip to the salon, I happened to overhear a conversation between two young men. They were discussing the day’s newspapers. As I was lathered up for my shave, they wondered whether photographers staged photographs to fit the story.

Babu (my barber) smiled at me when he realized that I was listening in to their discussion. You see, Babu knows what I do for a living, and he seemed amused about the scene unfolding.

One of the young men claimed to know a photographer who ‘admitted’ to staging pictures to meet ‘readers’’ needs; a statement that brought an unhappy grunt from his compatriot. They then took it upon themselves to pick at every picture in the papers. From sport to civic, they assumed the shape of two vultures sizing up a not-long-since-dead treat.

Back in 2004, I took a photograph of a victim of the Bhopal gas tragedy. It was a posed shot, that aimed to show what the girl had lost due to the gross negligence of an industrial behemoth. It was staged, yes, but it won me the World Health Organization (WHO) award on disability in 2005.

I can recall hundreds of staged pictures taken by top international photographers, some are dead, but their images live on.

Staging a picture is all right, provided your reader knows it has been staged. If you lead him to believe that the circumstances in and around the picture are natural, then you’re basically lying…and we all know where that gets you.

Even legendary photographers are not immune to the short-cut that staging provides. Robert Capa’s photograph in 1936 showing a solider falling to the ground after being shot from behind, fetched him some of the most prestigious awards. But it all came crashing down last year, albeit posthumously, when a Spanish newspaper that had recovered the original film sequencing the falling solider realised that the picture was staged.

Babu tapped me on the head to let me know that was done with embellishing nature’s work. I got up from the chair and headed towards the two men. I introduced myself and learned that their names were Somashekar and Dilip. They were surprised to know that most photographs that won awards in this day and age were staged.

Staging a picture may not be the ideal option for a photographer, but it can often be a magnificent canvas on which to capture the emotion and texture of life that can at times get lost in a natural shot.

Karma chameleons: Sensitivity and the photographer

It is a question I am often asked: “Do photographers have an emotional side that brims over when they cover events that claims the lives of people?” In fact, it was only last week that this was asked of me again. The answer is that photographers are more emotional than your average Joe, who runs the rat race on a routine track, mimicking a well-oiled machine.
The question, however, did transport my mind back to two events that shook me and those around me. One was the plane crash on February 14, 1990 which claimed more than 90 lives, and the second took place at Charkhi Dadri — a mid-air collision between Saudi Arabian Flight 763 and an Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907, which left no survivors, killing 349. On both occasions, I was ‘un’fortunate enough to reach the epicentre of the carnage before other photographers. Also, one can’t help but remember the nightmarish scenarios thrown up by communalism; a pot far too often stirred by those political machinations that claim to prevent the broth boiling over.The only answer I had, to the query, was, “We [photographers] have a very big heart and that is why we keep doing what we do.” The questioner nodded, but looked at me rather quizzically. I explained to him that a photographer covers a human tragedy, or attempts to, without sympathy or bias, unlike the writer who has the option of detaching himself from the scene, far too often geographically. The photographer has to be ‘kissing distance’ away from the dead and maimed, but yet be stoic in his documentation of the scene.

The photographer has to be ‘kissing distance’ away from the dead and maimed, but yet be stoic in his documentation of the scene.

During the 1990 crash, I photographed rescue workers removing the remains of a young girl, charred beyond recognition. At the time, the image before me had not impact on my psyche. It was much later, as I was making the prints that the gorgons in the image emerged and emblazoned themselves in my mind. It is something I will take with me to the grave.
This is every photographer’s Dharma in this Karma, and if given another chance, in another Karma, to perform the same Dharma, for most photographers, the answer will be a vociferous ‘no’.

Let there be light

The dark city streets hide a number of demons

During a discussion over lemonade with my fellow journo friends, it came to light that the city streets can be safe at night, if they were well illuminated. An elderly member of the group started by saying how he had been an eyewitness to a mobile snatch-and-run incident in the Indiranagar area, where the victim was a woman in her teens. Now this is an upmarket and up-marked area by civic authorities.
As the discussion carried on from one incident to another, the dim lights in the smoky bar started to get brighter. Another friend added that during the 70s and 80s women in the city could freely walk the streets, even in the darkest of places without being troubled by shadow attackers or stray dogs of whom one finds in large numbers, as the city has grown from a garrison fort to one where monkey-top roofs have given way to multiplexes, with tech-filled, ear-plugged human robots.
The immediate thought that crossed my mind was the superb street light conditions fotog’s had in the 80s. My memory raced back to a rain picture I had taken for a leading English daily, and some midnight fires and spot-crime scenes, without the help of a strobe. These images tell a tale of their own, since for any good journalism a picture requires a sense of aura to keep the reader’s view fixed to the image.
Over the past two decades, as the city grew from one phase to another, the civic authorities have not been able to upgrade the civic amenities at an equal pace, or rather they have preferred to turn a Nelson’s Eye on these very basic needs of a growing metropolis.
I, for one, have missed most of the city’s growth over the past 15 years or so, as I moved to the nation’s capital for better career growth. I returned to see the city’s backyards cramped for space, vanishing lung space, bad roads, paucity of water, and to top it all, badly lit lanes.
In my opinion, using the recent sanction of Rs22,000 crore for the development of the ever-bulging city, the civic bodies should look to brighten the streets which will enable the night walkers to walk free from stalking and being barked at, and at the same time provide sufficient light for fotogs like me to take a decent image without the use of my strobe.
The last thing I will like to add is that if the streets are well lit, working women in this 24x7 city will be able to take their night back with pride, rather than the present scenario where they are forced to hide by chide.

Look, the painting’s finally on the walls

Could it be true? The city’s public walls are being dressed up in robes of colour? Well, if the BBMP’s new initiative is anything to go by then true it certainly is. The corporation has given over the city’s walls to a team of artists, hoping that the images on them will deter those who feel a wall’s primary use is as a urinal.
But hidden within this artistry is a photographer’s muse. Those of us who have spent time on the streets photographing the city, as it went from sleepy town to bustling metropolis, have watched the imagery change, but not get more vibrant. Shades of green have given way to the harsh greys of the concrete jungle and all its structural trappings. It is in that light, that this new initiative is so appealing. Colour is making a comeback into our lives.
In 2003, when I was working with an leading Bhopal-based English daily, the then district collector, Anurag Jain, began a similar move to paint the city’s walls with civic awareness messages. The seed had many takers, but after he moved on the ides was shelved, for reasons best known to the white-collared officers.
In Bangalore, the message on the walls will be religious and also feature scenic spots promoting tourism, rather than conveying a social message. While in Bhopal, school children were given free paints and brushes to showcase their artistic talent, here the BBMP has tied up with the Ken School of Art for the talent.

Picture courtesy - Anantha Subramanyam K. DNA

Most of the artists working on the walls are those who have lost their jobs to under the wheels of the modernisation juggernaut. They were the ones for whom computers never replaced oil paints, and whose talents can only be seen in the huge film cut-outs and billboards, that met their demise nearly a decade ago.
It is nice of the BBMP to use this artistic talent for civic use, but I would have been happier had the message been social rather than touristy. It will also add more value if the BBMP thinks on the lines of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation to induct children artists to do the work on these larger than life canvases, thus ensuring that the future generations are expose to public art.
But all said and done, the present BBMP commissioner’s decision to make the erstwhile ‘Garden City’ look presentable is commendable. One only hopes that his successor does not shelve the idea. After all not only does it benefit the lay passer by, but also helped those in my profession cut through the drab days with a splash of colours and ray of art sorely missing form modern day life.

OP, the man who started it all

Today, the world celebrates World Photography Day, but few actually know where the seeds of the day were sown. In fact, it was an Indian photographer based in New Delhi, OP Sharma (fondly known as OP) who was the man instrumental in getting over 150 photography clubs and associations across the globe to celebrate August 19, as the birthday of photography.
All through the year, all over the world, holidays and birthdays are celebrated. However, no one ever designated a day for photography; until OP came along. From research work and entertainment, to documentation and art, photography is everywhere.World Photography Day was launched in 1991 by the Indian International Photographic Council (IIPC) of which OP Sharma is the founder member. Later, in 2002-03, the Photographic Society of America (PSA) with its multitude of members across the world, joined in and also started to observe August 19 as Photography Day. The first official photograph ever taken was on August 19, 1839. Photography was arguably one of the most important inventions of the 19th Century. Had this unique medium not been invented, our world would have been much darker than it is today. Let us not forget this fact and let World Photography Day see light! As for the news photographers working in modern-day newspapers, their task is often tedious, sometimes life-threatening (as in covering a war zone, or tracking a flu pandemic), but it is also always rewarding.
The photographer stakes his life on every image; especially the one that you, the reader, see every morning. Photography has grown manifold over the past 170 years, and today every family in the world has a picture adorning a wall or a shelf in their home. The medium is such that everyone can become professional, thanks to the advent of the digital camera. The future will see further enhancements in photo technology, but whatever it may bring, one thing will remain unchanged: The emotions one feels when one looks at a photograph. So this World Photography Day, sit back, take out an old family album and let your mind wander through its memories. After all that’s what photography is all about: capturing history as it happens. On a footnote, it is important to stress that photography is an art, and as such, it’s high time the Government of India recognises it as a fine art. After all, capturing emotions takes a level of skill.

It’s time photography is recognised as a fine art in India

It was a field day for members of the Photojournalists Association of Bangalore (PJAB) at the Chitrakala Parishath where more than 120 photographs representing the many facets of human and animal life were displayed. One thing that struck me while looking at the photographs was how digital cameras have harmed the art of photojournalism. When I started my career with a leading national English daily in the late 80s, I was handed an Orwo, and Agfa-based black and white film by my senior Sarangapani, who asked me to cover 10 assignments, and to get the best pictures within the limited 36 frames.Well, more often than not, I landed up with some good pictures, but on some days, I failed miserably. In the old days, one could not preview images, like one can with the current digital cameras. Hence photographers were not sure if they had that 'page one' image until the film was processed.

'Only when the Indian government recognises professional photography as fine art, will the community get the respect they have been denied thus far'

But today, one has the ability to preview, edit and colour correct their images, which makes the present day fotog shoot first and decide later. The last and most important point I would like to make (and its one that I have beaten on about over the years) is that professional photography be recognised as a fine art. One may ask why? Why not! When countries from the US, to the UK and the Far East have accepted professional photography as a fine art form, why hasn't the Indian government done so? Only when the Indian government recognises professional photography as fine art, will the community get the respect that is due to it, and which they have been denied thus far. It is this community that has produced greats like S Paul, N Thiagarajan, Kishore Parekh, SN Sinha, Raghu Rai, Prashant Panjiar, Pablo Bartholomew, Sondeep Shankar and Hoshi Jal, to name but a few, who set the standard for younger fotogs to follow.

Photo Editor’s Verdict
I have visited and organised many a photo exhibition, but this one, organised by my old friend and president of PJAB, Mohammed Asad and his team, needed to be more assertive when it came to the selection of images for the final display. What a visitor to such an exhibition requires is that the exhibition should be short in viewing, but long in memory. That's something this exhibition lacks. But in the end it offers the public a glimpse into the art of the photojournalist, and that’s what matters most

How I snapped the prize-winning pic

The Sunfeast World 10K Marathon, organised by Procam, which was
held on May 31, was a photographer's feast (pun intended). We turned out in large numbers; each of us having chosen
our spot from where we hoped to get the best possible images for the next day's newspapers. I chose to stand on Kasturba Road as I had taken a picture last year of the runners forming a panting serpent.
That picture won me the second prize.
This year, I opted not to move around too much.When the race began, I refused to get snap-happy, rather I waited for that enduring image. Photographing sport is an art in itself, since it requires a lot of
concentration to get that split-second moment frozen in time.
Now, back to the moment that fetched DNA the prize photograph at this year's World 10K edition. I was just about to pack up my camera and leave when I noticed a girl with her face colourfully painted, with trendy tattoos on her arms, and a peacock feather atop her charming
tribal head gear dashing down the road at top speed to catch up with her friends. The lighting was superb, with the sun's rays cutting through the shady trees on Kasturba Road. The girl's attitude was one of single-minded determination, and she exuded the passion that comes with being part of a major sporting event. I quickly switched from my
normal lens to a zoom lens and had only about 60 seconds to ensure that I got a decent frame of her sprinting down the road.
Well, the rest is history. I also take this opportunity to congratulate my esteemed fellow fotogs, R Samuel and Syed Asif for bagging the second and third prize respectively.

THE STATE’S IN PLAY

WHERE HAS ALL THE POLITICAL COLOUR GONE?
It’s turned out to be the dance of democracy. Yes, the biggest pop show in the world has become listless. For years I have covered numerous election at both local and national levels, and they've always proved to be colourful and exciting. But things are changing. Over the years, the Chief Election Commission has tightened the screws on candidates' expenditures. This has, in turn, robbed the photojournalist, or fotog, of the nuances and quirks of campaigns. We have been forced to delve deeper into politics to find those defining images newspapers desperately clamour for. What differentiates a good political fotog from the rest of the snap-happy mob is timing: Those seconds as he lines up the perfect frame; the frame that showcases the mood; the frame that leaves no space for the editor's ego to crop the image. In the past, a fotog had the fanfare and festive atmosphere of the trail to use as props. Paintings, posters, banners have now gone, leaving a rather stark canvas. Today's Pic Me Up covers the campaign in places like Mangalore,Mysore et al, and DNA's fotogs have managed to capture the colour of an election that takes me back to the days of poll pomp.
So, here's my two bytes:Remember that every time you cut back on poll expense, you hit fotogs as well. The lack of colour and vibrancy will leave us bereft of that image that personifies our democracy. It will drain the poll of entertainment