Participants of Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square. London. UK. 2004.

A very quick post to wish all my friends a very happy Diwali, should you be celebrating this amazing ‘festival of lights’ where you are in the world.

The above image was taken in Trafalgar Square, London, during celebrations in 2004. I am sure London will be awash with colours again, as will all those places throughout the world that are marking this very special occasion. Get your cameras out. It’s a great festival to photograph!

Beijing, China. 2005

This week’s image comes from my first ever trip to China, back in the autumn of 2005. I had just finished an internship at Magnum in their London offices and I decided to go to Beijing, to start to photograph some stories I had been forming in my mind during my internship. One of the stories I worked on during my first six weeks in Beijing was on the destruction of the old ‘hutongs’ in the centre of the city. Hutongs are old courtyard communities, based around mazes of alleyways and form an integral part of the character of old Beijing. In recent years, many of these hutongs have been destroyed in an attempt to modernise the centre of the city.

I was out wandering the hutongs one day, as I had been doing a lot during the trip, when I cam across a family moving out of their hutong home. The surrounding area was being demolished and their small community was one of the last that was left. As I watched them start to remove tables, chairs and other items I decided to position myself down one of the small alleyways outside their home. I was hoping that I may be able to catch an interesting moment when someone walked past with an item from their home. I couldn’t hoped for better when for a brief second, someone walked past with a large classical Chinese painting depicting a group of cranes underneath a tree. I managed to capture two frames before the person was gone. Compared to the regular chairs and tables I had seen pass me, this image was the obvious choice from the situation I found.

Camera Info: Canon 20D | 20mm lens | ISO 100 | f4.5 | 1/60th

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I was surprised to learn the other day that a friend of mine and fellow photographer, Lance Rosenfield, had made it onto CNN. I wasn’t surprised that he was in the limelight because he is an excellent photographer…see proof here and here.I was surprised  because he was on CNN since he had just been detained and harassed whilst on assignment photographing a BP oil refinery in Texas.

The above video is an interview with Lance from the Anderson Cooper show on CNN a couple of days ago. Lance outlines his experiences of being followed by the police, detained and quizzed after having taken pictures of the refinery.

It’s understandable that sights such as this will be sensitive to people randomly turning up and taking photographs. It’s equally understandable that they may stop people and ask what they are doing. What isn’t understandable is the way that those people can then be treated by the authorities as was outlined by Lance in his interview. The fact that Lance’s personal information was given to BP security by the police, despite his protests, is worrying. The fact that he was also intimidated by the threat and subsequent arrival of a Homelands Security Officer sounds excessive and uncalled for. Was this really needed when I am sure Lance outlined he was a professional photojournalist working for a reputable publication?

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CHINA. Beijing. Muslim men worshiping at Niu Jie Mosque during Eid ul-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan. 2005

<<Return to the Learning Zone During our workshops over the past few months, I have often been asked the question “Where is the best place in Beijing to photograph….?” Now, you can insert pretty much anything you like into the last part of that question, as queries have come in to me about a myriad of different things. So, I thought it would be interesting to start a new series of posts that answers some of these questions about where I think are the best places to photograph in Beijing.

I have chosen Beijing for this focus, purely because I have lived in this city for nearly 4 years and like to think I have a good idea where things are and where are the best places for taking pictures. I would like to expand this concept to other cities in China, but I’ll start with my ‘home’ city first.

So, for the first part of these new posts, I answer the question “Where is the best place in Beijing to photograph…religion?”

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Tianmo Desert Workshop

We are delighted to announce our upcoming workshops for May 2010! We have two workshops planned, “Shoot-Edit-Photoshop” and “Beijing Desert Workshop”. We hope each one will cater to whatever you current goals in photography may be. Please find the initial outlines below. For more details and detailed itineraries, please head to our Workshop page (via the tab at the top-right of the blog) .  We look forward to seeing you on one of our upcoming classes!

This new workshop titled ‘Shoot-Edit-Photoshop’ is aimed at beginner/intermediate photographers who are looking to improve their digital workflow from the shooting stage, through to editing and finishing images in Photoshop. We all know how it is easy to lose control of all those images you take, so you will learn effective ways in which to edit and categorize your images to improve you skills at managing your photos straight after a shoot. After categorizing our images, we will take them into Photoshop to learn how to get the best out of them through simple alterations such as cropping, changing colour balance, levels, contrast and saturation. Photoshop can be very daunting but we will break it down and show you the few essential functions you can use to get the very best out of your images.

Editing Session: Weekend Workshops

“Beijing Desert Workshop” - Dates: Saturday 5th June and Sunday 6th June 2010 (Please note these dates have changed)

During this workshop you will explore and photograph the little-visited desert of Tianmo. Located just 80km from central Beijing, next to the Longbao Mountain Range, it is the closest desert to the capital and offers visitors a glimpse at the spectacular desert regions that now dominate 20% of northern China. Sean Gallagher, whose images of China’s deserts have appeared in National Geographic China, will guide you during this workshop helping you capture this unique environment. You will have a chance to shoot side-by-side with Sean and learn how to capture landscapes, natural scenery and photograph daily life in this dry but fascinating area.

St Mark's Square | Venice | Italy

This week’s ‘Photo of the Week’ is one that I have dug out of my archive from possibly the most photographed city of all time…Venice, Italy.

I made the obligatory photographers/travellers pilgrimage to this city for a short weekend break and was overcome, mostly by the hordes of visitors there at the same time as me. Luckily, I had a good friend who was a local, who was able to steer me away from some of the more heavily visited areas.

When you visit a place like Venice, which is photographed constantly, it is sometimes hard to create something that is perceived as unique or different. You try to avoid visual cliches that have been reproduced by hundreds of other photographers before you.

Whilst I was happy with a lot of my photos, my favourite photo actually came from the most visited part of the city, St Mark’s Square. As anyone who has visited the square will know, it is normally inhabited by large numbers of pigeons all vying for the food which tourists happily feed them. This one girl donned in a cat’s mask, patiently waited in what almost seemed like a trap for the unsuspecting avian residents. Did she catch any? I can’t remember but it was fun to watch as she created this visual idiom before me.

Chinese New Year Special Workshop: White Cloud Temple Fair

February welcomes a very unique time of the Chinese calendar; Chinese New Year! To mark the most important holiday of the year, we are running a special workshop to coincide with the celebrations here in the nation’s capital. We continue in the vein of trying to introduce our workshop participants to less-visited and authentic locations, therefore will be holding this workshop at the White Cloud Temple, in XiCheng District on Tuesday 16th February from 11:00 a.m. to 16:00 p.m. This spectacular Taoist temple is over 1000 years old and is one of the city’s hidden cultural gems. It will be the perfect place for photographing the true, authentic and traditional new year celebrations. To find out more details about how to join us on this special workshop, please head to our workshop page here.

For those of you leaving Beijing for the holidays and won’t have a chance to attend the Chinese New Year workshop, do not worry! The increasingly popular Hutong Photography Workshop is back again on Sunday 28th February from 10:00 a.m. to 18:00 p.m. and will again offer participating students the chance to explore the maze-like hutongs whilst improving their photography. We were delighted to learn that this month a former student from this workshop was featured in Beijing City Weekend Magazine talking about her experiences taking this class. Read a snippet of her interview here and then find out how to book your place here through our workshop page.

We look forward to seeing you!

Hutong Photography Workshop | Beijing | China

The temperature plummeted in Beijing this month but that didn’t stop us from heading out into the chilly hutongs for another “Hutong Photography” Workshop this weekend. Luckily for myself, guide Jessica Zheng and our students Bonnie, Scott, Tina and Kirsten the thermometer crept up over the weekend, hovering around 1-2C making it a perfect winter day to explore the hutongs.

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Along with our class in the morning introducing everybody to the key, fundamental technical aspects of photography we had two shooting sessions in the morning and afternoon. The hutongs are a constant inspiration and you never know what may be round the next corner. For this month’s workshops students encounters included photographing a 98-year old hutong resident, bicycles buried in snow, conversations with pipe-smoking locals, coal deliverers and many more unique characters.

Thanks again to our students Kirsten, Bonnie, Scott and Tina who braved the threatening cold to make it another memorable workshop!

Weekend Workshops Beijing

This weekend saw our WEEKEND WORKSHOPS continue with the second of our “Hutong Photography” classes. Braving the bitter cold in Beijing were Anne, Charlotte, Frank, Chelin, Jenny and Josh. The weather was against us, but a great day was had by all in the end, as we were determined to explore the hutongs against the dropping temperature! Below is a selection of images from the day.

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As in our first “Hutong Photography” workshop in October, our schedule began with a class introducing the basics of photography, making sure everyone was comfortable with how their cameras worked and providing everyone with advice about how to approach people to take pictures in the hutongs. We then had a ‘Photography Chinese’ class taught by Jessica Zheng before heading out into the cold to begin our first shooting session.

We had two shooting sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Both were followed by group editing sessions where we sat down and looked at everybody’s photos, sharing ideas and thoughts about how we could improve. In between the morning and afternoon sessions, the usual hearty spread of food was layed on by the Far East International Youth Hostel, to keep us fuelled for the day’s work.

Even though it was a bitterly cold day in Beijing, it was great to see everyone’s passion for photography keeping us going (although the heater in the hostel did help…see gallery photo of everyone franticly trying to warm hands!). A big thanks from me and Jessica to Anne, Charlotte, Frank, Chelin, Jenny and Josh for making this another enjoyable and successful “Hutong Photography” Workshop!

Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square, London. UK. 2004

A friend of mine reminded me this weekend that it was the Hindu festival of Diwali this week. In case you don’t know, Divali (or the Festival of Light as it is also called) is a celebration held over 5 days by Hindu communities throughout the world. Lights are lit, fireworks are set off and families come together for this important day.

Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square, London. UK. 2004

This week’s ‘Photo of the Week’ comes from Diwali celebrations, not in India, but in London. I took them in 2004, during my one year paid internship at Magnum Photo’s London office. I remember having only been at Magnum for a couple of months when this festival came about. Having been inspired day-in-day-out (as I was for most of the year) I headed out onto the streets to try and capture some of the colour and fervour that surrounded the festival on the streets of the UK’s capital. I’d like to share five of those images with you taken during celebrations in 2004.

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