Varanasi, holy city for photographers (Part 1)

Varanasi, also called Benares, Banaras or Kashi, is the holiest city in the world for Hindus and Jains. It’s also the place where Buddhism was founded. Every year countless pilgrims visit the city by the Ganges to remit their sins or to die and release their souls for eternity.

City of Shiva, City of lights, City of temples. Varanasi with its labyrinth streets, its ghats on the river shores, its poetic fog, and its mystical spirit is also the destination of pilgrimage for many photographers visiting India. And of course every person who has crossed this place once in their life can understand. There is something magic about Varanasi. Not just something that you see but something that you feel. And that’s where the real challenge for photographers is.

In a way it’s easy to take good pictures there, there is so much going on, the place is so extraordinary that everyone can capture incredible moments and unbelievable scenes. But how do you describe its strange beauty and celestial energy? How do you give a new vision of a place that has been photographed so many times that it became its own stereotype? How do you show its soul?

Many photographers have tried; here are a few who succeeded in creating their own story about the city of thousands histories and faces.

The Magnum Photographers and Benares

Marc Riboud, 1956. After bathing in the Ganges.

Over the years many Magnum photographers have given their own interpretation of Benares. From Italian photographer Ferdinando Scienna with his contrasted black and white or subtle color images to Steve McCurry with his vibrant vision of the world, they have contributed in building the universal image of the city. This couldn't be done in one visit only. They had to come back several times to start understanding the essence of this Indian world. Steve McCurry has been to India 75 times and he admits to have only scratched the surface. Benares feels like the place where all "Indianity" comes together. It feels like a theater where every subject - pilgrims, children, dogs, cows, gods and death - are on stage. Year after year Magnum photographers have managed to make their way back stage to tell the true story of the holy city. 

Bruce Gilden. Varanasi. 1998. Dog on Banaras street curb.

Steve McCurry. Varanasi. 1996. Floating offerings.

Steve McCurry. 1996. Astrologer.

Steve McCurry. 1996. Boatman on the Ganges River.

Steve McCurry. Varanasi. 2010.

Ferdinando Scianna 1972. beggars

Ferdinando Scienna 1972

Ferdinando Scienna 1972. Dog on the ghat.

Ferdinando Scienna 1997

Ferdinando Scienna 1997

Ferdinando Scienna 1997. Cremation on the ghat

 

In 1985, 86 and 87, photographer Carl De Keyser has also traveled India to give his own interpretation of this incredible country. He chose to travel during the Monsoon with the objective of producing ‘artistically responsible images’. The images he brought back from these trips revealed him before he joined Magnum agency. Of course he spent some time in Varanasi, and his pictures give a new perspective of the place where movement and lights create an intangible environment between dream and reality. He reveals images of a complex society, of a profound belief between optimism, resignation and mysticism. Carl De Keyser ‘wants to question the images that are in our memory. There is always a double level in [his] work; what [we] see is true and at the same time not true.’

Carl de Keyser - 1986

Carl de Keyser - 1985

Carl de Keyser - 1985

Carl de Keyser - 1985

Carl de Keyser - 1986

 Check Magnum website for further details on these photographers: magnumphotos.com

Help save Photojournalism with Emphas.is

This blog is not supposed to be about the news and topics that everyone discusses in the Photography world, as I’m sure brilliant journalists and well trained bloggers can do it better than me. However I had to do a quick post on the new Emphas.is initiative. A brilliant idea that can save Photojournalism!

Yes Photojournalism is in danger. In a very similar way to the crisis in the Music industry, we’re seeing good magazines disappear, famous photo agencies go bankrupt, and the quality of news stories and images drop. Photo reporters don’t often have the time or support necessary to build a detailed project, to get involved with their subjects, to create their own opinion and tell their own story about the subject they’re covering. No one is any longer willing or able to pay for in-depth on the field stories.

The model has to be reinvented.

Emphas.is is can be one of the solutions.

‘Emphas.is is a platform for photojournalism that offers a unique bond between photojournalists and their audience, and in the process aims to create a new financial model for photojournalism in the 21st century.’  

 It’s basically a crowd-financed enterprise to help photo reporters go and get a story wherever it is happening. The idea is not to ask people to pay for the photo itself, but for the process of making the photos. The reward for the people getting involved is not a financial investment, the reward is to be able to build a relationship with a photojournalist and follow him through his story. People will be able to ask questions to the reporter, see previews of the work and so get really engaged in the story they’ve selected.

The beta site is now live, projects selected by professionals are ready and waiting for you to get involved.

Here are a few of them, discover them all on the emphas.is website.

21st Century Communism - Laos by Tomas van Houtryve

Watch the video on Emphas.is

Besieged. 
Four young women want to give a face to Congo rape victims
Sarah Elliott, Benedicte Kurzen, Ying Ang, Agnes Dherbeys

Watch the video on Emphas.is

Sarah Elliott

Benedicte Kurzen

Ying Ang

Agnes Dherbeys

Pine Ridge Billboard Project by Aaron Huey

Watch the video on Emphas.is

So choose your project (or many projects) and get to the heart of a news story as if you were traveling in a passionate photojournalist’s camera bag. I’d love to help them all, but I can’t. So help them too!
Emphas.is

An evening with Leah Gordon… in Haiti.

Once a year for Mardi Gras, as in many places around the world, the town of Jacmel (South coast of Haiti) dresses up and goes to the streets. But what makes it so special in Jacmel is that Kanaval here is a way for the people to relive their own history - the History of the people of Haiti. 

With their papier-mâché masks, charcoal and syrup painted bodies, and traditional home made costumes, the people of Jacmel transform into these grotesque, mystical, intriguing, sometimes frightening characters to retell their story and to remember. From generation to generation they keep the tradition alive. They tell about slave revolts, political history, aids, economic issues, natural disasters and of course Vodou. Rather than a parade with loud music and sexy dancing, it’s chaos and creative improvisation with groups of performers and little theatrical stories in every street corner.

Every year since 1995 Leah Gordon has taken part in this chaotic experience to give her own very personal testimony. Kanaval is the book that says it all.

Far from trying to capture the live effervescence of the streets and the perfect moment of craziness, she walks the streets with her 50 year old Rolleicord and asks the participants to stop for her in Creole. Her camera is totally manual, the process is slow and when people accept to have their portrait taken they have to be patient. In a world where everything goes fast, where snapshots of street life became so easy, Leah Gordon makes time stops around her. She sets up a little old fashion street studio.  This creates a gap between her and her subject, a moment of silence and mutual examination during which the characters step out to reveal their souls. Far from all the images of Haiti published by the media since the earthquake, her photographs make us understand the humanity, the suffering and the pride of these strong people. They show the reality behind the masks.

I met Leah Gordon last week at a book-signing event at SF Camerawork. Over a glass of wine we had time to share a few words about the rain, London, Rock & Roll in the 80s, The Arcade Fire, Carnivals, her intimate passionate and nearly mystical relationship with her Rolleicord, film photography and the people of Haiti.

"... if you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic. You know that it really is totally fantastic that we look like this and you sometimes see that very clearly in a photograph."

- Diane Arbus (as cited in Kanaval)

 

Kanaval by Leah Gordon is published by Soul Jazz Publishing.You can also get the book on amazon.com. 

Learn more about Leah Gordon on  www.leahgordon.co.uk

An unusual sports photographer: Thomasz Gudzowaty

You might have already heard of Thomasz Gudzowaty, a photographer from Warsow (1971). He has won 2^nd prize again this year in the World Press Sports stories awards for his essay ‘Mexico’s Car Frenzy.’ And it’s already the eighth time that he wins a World Press Award!

 

He has the talent to transform sports images into social documentary essays. Using traditional black and white his images tell the stories of people in love with their sports. Not celebrity soccer or basketball players but non-famous everyday people engaged in atypical, intriguing sometimes mystical sports. Through his work and the proximity he creates with his subjects he draws strong portraits of modern heroes devoted to their arts: hard work, sweat, strength, willpower, self-control, passion. It’s a lesson of life to learn from these people from around the world.

It’s also a lesson of Fine Art Photography. The Art of creating amazing elegant sport images, the Art of telling stories of our times in black and white, the Art of sharing emotions by capturing moments of life. 

Wuqiao Acrobats

Wuqiao Acrobats

Shaolin Temple

Shaolin Temple

Freerunning - The Art of Movement

Freerunning - The Art of Movement

Urban Golf in India

Urban Golf in India

 More amazing images and incredible stories on: www.gudzowaty.com

An exclusive exquisite visit to Pier 24

Pier 24 is a 28,000 square foot exhibition space in San Francisco dedicated to Photography.  

‘Born out of the desire to reinvent the ways in which photography and photographic ideas are presented, Pier 24 is a distinctive environment where art has the freedom to be seen and thought about differently.’

It means that you have to book in advance (and it’s often full), that they only allow 20 people inside at the time, that you have 2 hours to wander around the exhibition and make your own self-guided tour. It also means that there are no signs explaining the images or even stating their titles or authors. It’s only about the photographs.

Of course you can ask at the entrance for a small catalog of the show with all the names and context you’ll need, but I recommend that you first just wander around freely and open-minded. Just walk through the different rooms in no particular order and let yourself be overwhelmed by what you see. If you arrive on time, you might even be alone in most of the rooms and have the photographs to yourself. It’s a wonderful and unique feeling to stand on your own in a room full of photographic masterpieces. Of course you will recognize some of them and identify their authors but try first to look at the pictures without thinking of their syntax just for the thrill of the experience.

Then get the book and give yourself another chronological tour. The current exhibition is ‘From the Collection of Randi and Bob Fisher’. (For those who don’t know - and I didn’t, maybe because I’m not an American - Bob Fisher is the son of Doris and Donald Fisher, co-founders of the Gap.)

Part of the exhibition is dedicated to contemporary German photographers giving us a good representation of the Dusseldorf School of Photography with artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky.

The main show however takes you on an incredible journey through American Photography. From Man Ray to Diane Arbus, from Alfred Stieglitz to Robert Frank, from Edward Weston to William Eggleston, not forgetting Walker Evans, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander or Garry Winogrand. In less than 2 hours you can enjoy more than 100 years of American Photography by some of the best American photographers.

Here are a few random pictures of the exhibition and of the photographs you’ll see there. No title, no photographer’s name, no particular order. You might know these photographs but I don’t want to spoil your experience before you go.

 Learn more on Pier 24: www.pier24.org