Archives for February 2017
Shweta Agarwal
Street Chat
Please tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from, where do you live now? Your background with photography, how and when you were drawn to the street genre.
My name is Shweta Agarwal, and I am born and raised in Patna, Bihar, India. Since childhood, I have been into sketching, and after my graduation, I was very much into charcoal portraits. I have also exhibited these in different cities in India, but gradually it no longer gave me any excitement and I stopped doing it.
Photography started for me when I got a camera as a gift from my family in 2002. It was a movie camera, but I mostly used it to take still pictures. I started really loving the process of taking pictures, and people used to appreciate my skills. My real photographic journey started when I bought my first DSLR in 2008, and I started to go for photo walks with my friends in Ahmedabad, India, where I later relocated.
Somehow when I would be on the streets, I used to take people’s pictures, and this made me more excited and happy. I got to know about APF (Art Photo Feature) street photography group in Facebook, which motivated me to shoot more street photography, and post one street shot everyday.
Being a teacher in school didn’t interest me as much as photography did, and so in 2013, I decided to take a photojournalism course from the Udaan School of Photography in Mumbai. That was the turning point of my life, to becoming a professional photographer.
How do you define “street photography” for yourself?
For me street photography is my soul. The moment I go out for walk with my camera, I feel completely different energy which is full of excitement and joy. I love to interact with people while I’m shooting, to make friends with them, and to capture the essence of that place — which can include light, shadows, texture, the moment, and some story or mystery. Nothing is as exciting as street for me, it’s full of surprises and every day new things to shoot that I won’t have the next day. I love taking candid moments, and don’t like to make people pose for me. I love to take pictures, the way my eyes see, and I love to observe. That really makes my street pictures special.
Does your local situation affect your work?
We Indian photographers are very lucky to be in India. Indian people are very friendly and they don’t mind if people take their pictures, some get really happy if you take their pictures, especially people on the street. All famous photographers from all over the world long to be in India, and to photograph the people and different cultures here, as it’s so colourful and diverse. So I am really blessed to be a photographer in India. If I am very friendly and make people feel easy, I can get very good pictures. Interaction with people is very important, and a smile.
In what ways do you think being a woman has affected your work?
Being a woman really helps a lot and I am blessed to be a woman photographer. People are very easy going with women, and trust can be built easily. When there is a sensitive situation, people are much more friendly, and are calmer with women photographers in India.
I do wedding photography, and I have realised brides, and even grooms, feel much more comfortable interacting with a woman photographer. In the wedding photography industry in India, there are many more women photographers than male photographers.
Even in documentary photography, women photographers can cover any sensitive situation much more easily, because people trust them easily.
Recently, some of my street pictures were published along with some amazing street photographers from all over the world, and one of the reasons (other than my pictures) is that I am a woman street photographer in India. Gradually here, street photography is being taken up with huge interest by women photographers, and one of the reasons is social media — the different groups and handles on Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr, which inspire them to shoot street photography.
Color or black and white, digital or film?
I love color, it really excites me, and allows me different varieties of subjects to shoot. I am always more enthusiastic about color photographs.
As it’s a digital world, I also go along with that, and use a digital camera. I have only used a film camera during my initial photography period, when digital was not yet available. For my street photography, I only use a compact camera, a Ricoh GR2, which is very small in size, and easy to carry anywhere.
What photographers can you name who are the most inspirational to you?
In my initial stage of photography, I used to get inspired by portraits taken by Steve McCurry.
Gradually as I have gotten into street photography, I have been inspired by many street photographers. I love the work of Sonia Madrigal, Amruta Dhavale, Prashant Godbole, Swapnil Jedhe, Rammy Narula, Suresh Naganathan, Sreeranj Sreedhar, Kaushal Parikh, Ania Klosek, Yoriyas Yassin, Vinita Barretto, Muhammed Moheisen, Anushree Fadnavis, Gauri Shetye, Soumya Khandelwal and many more, the list is long, will be tough to put it here.
Is there a special project you are working on? Or recurring themes you are often drawn to?
From this year, 2017, I have started ‘Project 365’, for which I go out and shoot daily and get at least one good shot. This project is completely focussed for my own growth as a photographer, and it’s really giving me some amazing experiences already. Also recently, I have been gifting people with their pictures, and then taking a portrait of them with this picture of themselves in their hand. Seeing my initiative, a well known photographer from India approached me for the project, where photographers from different regions will join in, and they will give people their picture, then take their portrait with these. By the end of this year, there will be exhibition of this project at the Serendipity Arts Festival, which will happen in Goa, India. Hoping for the best.
Shweta Agarwal |Website | Flickr | Instagram |
Natalie Opocensky
Street chat
Please tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from, where do you live now? Your background with photography, how and when you were drawn to the street genre.
I was born and grew up in Vienna, Austria. This is also where I live at the moment. I have lived in New York in 2000 for one year, and in Marrakech for 6 months just recently. I started with photography around 2000, although I remember that taking photos was already something I was interested in when I was a child. When I lived in New York, I took a photography class to improve my technical skills. Since then, photography has always been part of my life. Street photography started a bit later — I would say around 2006 — when I recognized that capturing daily life situations is what fascinated me most.
How do you define “street photography” for yourself?
As I mentioned above, street photography for me is much about daily life. Bits and pieces that we come across when following our own daily paths and routines. It keeps my eyes open for what is happening around me — when I go out intentionally with a camera but also in my everyday life, when a camera is only an iPhone I carry with me.
Does your local situation affect your work?
I guess it affects it in the way that I live in a big city. To me it’s much easier to shoot street photography in a big city than in the countryside. Taking photos of people in public places is and will always be a grey area, probably everywhere in the world. Marrakech is a perfect example — I remember several situations that reflected daily life in Marrakech to me, where I would have loved to take a photo, but there was no way to get approval of the people who would have been in my photo. I don’t pay too much attention to the legal situation about taking photos in public, but I try to be sensitive about the people who are part of my photos.
In what ways do you think being a woman has affected your work?
That’s an interesting question and to be honest, I have never thought about it. I really can’t say if my gender has affected my work in any way.
Color or black and white, digital or film?
All of the mentioned above. For me, it’s not about the type of camera or film I use. It’s about what I see and how I frame it within my photo. The rest in my opinion just additionally characterizes the photo. Even though I love to shoot in black and white, Morocco for example will always be mostly color for me. And I do love taking photos with my iPhone as much as I do with my old Olympus OM1.
What photographers can you name who are the most inspirational to you?
This brings me back to the question above, about how my being a woman has affected my work. I tend to be more inspired by female photographers. It’s very often not only about the photos, but also the circumstances or their stories. I’m inspired by early female photographers like Inge Morath or Eve Arnold, who managed to make their way as photographers in a male dominated profession. Also, for example, I recently saw an exhibition on the photography program of the Farm Security Administration during the European month of photography in Bratislava. There, the photos of Dorothea Lange inspired me most. Of course because I liked the photos, but also because I was inspired by her story. I’m also very much inspired by Fatemeh Behboudi, a young documentary photographer from Iran.
Is there a special project you are working on? Or recurring themes you are often drawn to?
I love reflections and whenever there is puddle or a reflecting surface, I’m checking different perspectives to see if there is anything interesting to see. Last year, I did not have a lot of time for photography at all, and my aim at the moment is to get back to it and make time for it. I just started an additional Instagram account showing my analogue photos — old ones as well as recent ones. I also have an ongoing project called Wien/Berlin, in cooperation with Berlin based photographer Thorsten Strasas, where we share film to shoot double exposures combining Vienna and Berlin.
Natalie Opocensky | Website | Wien | Berlin | Instagram: @digitalnomadin @natalie.shoots.film |
Pretty in Pink
Jan. 21st Women’s Marches around the world — in pictures
co-curator Lisa Guerriero
Sonia Madrigal
Street chat
Please tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from, where do you live now? Your background with photography, how and when you were drawn to the street genre.
I am based in Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a big city near Mexico City, and I have lived in this city since I was born. Neza is an eclectic place because of its multicultural nature, since it was founded by people who immigrated from other states of the country, and this aspect is evident when you walk in it. Many great memories that I have, and that have marked me, have to do with the streets.
I studied B.S. in Informatics. I started to work in different companies, but one day I realized that this did not make me happy. So I went backpacking, and when the trip ended, I started searching for what to do — I had always been interested in artistic issues, but never could start at it. Soon, I found a community cultural center where they taught a workshop of basic photography and digital photography, and that’s when everything began. During these workshops, I took a class with Mark Powell, and this was when I began to experience the pleasure of hunting photos in the streets of my own city, and in the places that I frequented — nearby cities, and public transport. That was my beginning.
How do you define “street photography” for yourself?
Street photography for me involves relearning how to look — at my environment, at others, and even at myself. I am amazed to appreciate in the small details that surround me, the accelerated morphology of my own and other cities — and this speaks a lot to who we are as its inhabitants. Doing street photography has also involved having a moment to think, and to reflect while on the road — during these journeys, there is a constant stalking not only of photos, but also of ideas, to continue creating.
Does your local situation affect your work?
Currently in Mexico, one of the biggest human rights crises is being lived — the rights of women. This country has become a hostile ground for Mexican women to such a degree, that we have failed to guarantee the right to life. This not only affects me as a woman who does street photography, but also as an inhabitant, and as a human being. That is why in my work, the themes around women are kept present, so that I can continue to observe this situation from my trench.
In what ways do you think being a woman has affected your work?
It affects me in many ways, not only in the themes I approach, but also in the moment in which I am facing an artistic discipline where only men have space. From the fact that men consider that we women have “advantages” in street, to the fact that they do not allow, or they invalidate our own ways of looking at and living the street. The challenges that exist, or exist in street photography, are just one example of all the schemes and stereotypes that we have to bring down in so many other areas. Men have always spoken for us, it’s time to shout that we can do it for ourselves.
Color or black and white, digital or film?
I try not to limit myself. In addition to street photos, I try to do experimental work mixing different genres, so I do not limit myself too much in technical aspects, because this always depends on what I want to say.
What photographers can you name who are the most inspirational to you?
Definitely the work and history of Vivian Maier and Diane Arbus, as well as Martha Cooper, are a great inspiration for me. But whenever I meet women who do street photography, I like to read what they have had to face in this world of men to continue taking pictures, that motivates me a lot.
Is there a special project you are working on? Or recurring themes you are often drawn to?
Yes, my current focus is on violence against women, especially in danger zones around Mexico City. I have been working on this subject to bring more awareness to this great problem that exists in my country and in my city, and my perspective is from the street. Along with this, I’m also doing my street photography and street portraits, where the central characters are normally women.
