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Camera Odyesseys

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Camera Odyesseys

NEPAL INTO BHUTAN PHOTOGRAPHIC ADVENTURE

Date: October 14, 2020

Nepal and Bhutan are alive with mystery, color and culture.  The history is all around you.  Creating images with the locations and people will be unlike any other place in the world.

Bruce Byers, Professional Photographer

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has worked extensively with great guides in Nepal, Gopi Chandra Bhusal and in Bhutan, Kinley TTshering to design this trip to ensure that you will be able to create once in a life time images. The streets, countryside, people, festivals and much more will be alive with color and mystery. Bruce will lead you on an adventure of a lifetime. Come create. Photographers of all levels and those that enjoy to capture where they travel are encouraged to sign-up.

It will be the rice harvest season giving us the yellow fields at festival time. The places we will go are off the beaten path at the right time of day. The history of Nepal and Bhutan will inspire you to create. The friendly locals and rich culture will embrace you with its kindness, music and art. We’ll travel from the busy city, to a private farm, all while being transported to the villages of the past.  Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or just want a group of like-minded people to travel with, this trip caters to all.

NEPAL:

Home to the majestic Himalayas and ancient Kingdoms, Nepal is more than just about mountains and trekking! Experience century old Hindu and Buddhist practices, colorful villages dotted with ancient architecture and temples, and luscious jungles filled with wildlife. With 131 ethnic groups, Nepal is one of the most cultural diversified countries in Asia and every corner has its own unique story to tell. Come discover this magical land of ancient traditions and several World Heritage Sites.

old man from Nepal or Buhtan holding a bell
Bruce Byers Photography

This tour has been designed to enjoy Kathmandu City (1,350 meters), capital city of Nepal and also called as city of UNESCO, hosts around 7 world heritage sites and Chitwan National Park (CNP) in the south. CNP covers the total area of 932 squares km in the Terai region. Visit to CNP provides travelers to enjoy culture of local Tharu People, Jungle Safaris, Canoe Ride, Crocodile breeding centre, visit to local Tharu Villages and many more in the lust green area.  CNP hosts famous for one horned rhinos, Bengal tiger, deer, snake, Gharial and many other species of flora and fauna. This is the perfect tour to experience local culture, people, food, heritage and specially, the time of rice harvesting season. Pokhara, which is around 210 kms from Kathmandu on west is a natural and adventure hub. This is the gateway to Annapurna Region and considered as one of the cleanest cities of Nepal. From every corner of town, the close proximity of mountain gives you the feeling of just standing in front of mirror.

BHUTAN:

This beautiful tour around Bhutan’s most scenic places takes us to the country’s finest locations with an unparalleled diversity. We will be in the right places at the right times to capture with our cameras. This is the perfect trip to experience the delight of crossing high hills as well as the wide windswept meadows filled with wildflowers, across sleepy hamlets, through fragrance filled forests, rice fields and orchards. There is no real trekking that requires outdoor camping with exhaustive long day walks; but it has moderate hikes and excursions to villages from the comforts of your Hotel. An active vacation without roughing it! The itinerary covers the regular tourists’ sites, as well as many off- the-beaten places. Walk out to visit villages, farms, and monasteries and ancient temples from the towns of Paro, Thimphu, Punakha, Wangdue Phodrang and travel as far interior as to the Bumthang District. Between the drives, we shall make unplanned stops at local villages. All of our small group departures are scheduled to attend the local festivals and therefore some parts of the itinerary may be revised slightly to incorporate these colorful.

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BUMTHANG JAKAR FESTIVAL-2020

Bumthang Jakar Tshechu Festival lasts for three days. Its official Jakar or Bumthang District’s Official Festival of the year and the Festival happens inside the gigantic Jakar Dzong. The whole district of Jakar or Bumthang remains closed for three days to witness the annual Bumthang Jakar Tshechu Festival. Tshechu are always conducted or ending on the 10th Day of a Bhutanese Calendar month as the term Tshechu means the tenth, which is widely celebrated as Birth Anniversary of Guru Rimpoche, The Second Buddha. Tshechu’s are organized in all 20 Districts of Bhutan and each district performs at different months from one another and its more like a New Year Celebrations and it’s both happy celebrations for the citizens as well as big day of offerings to the Guru Rimpoche and other local deities.

There will be both mask dances by the Buddhist Monks as well as songs and dance from the local villagers. It’s an annual event and during Tshechu period all Govt and Private including schools and farmers remains holiday. It is an important event as all related folks from across the country comes together and discusses the important issue and prays together for a successful year.

BUMTHANG JAKAR FESTIVAL IS FROM 24TH TO 26TH OCTOBER, 2020.

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Paro International Airport, the only Int’l Airport in Bhutan, has a very good connection with Kathmandu International Airport with just 50 minutes flights passing by alongside of the Himalayas including Mt. Everest, Mt. Kanchenjunga in Nepal and Mt. Jhomolari and many others in Bhutan. The flight itself is a life time memory for those who are fond of mountains and natural landscape.

Price of workshop  $6550 Double occupancy

$620 plus for single occupancy

Sign-up by June 20th for $150 off trip cost.

Camera Odyesseys

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Camera Odyesseys

Travel to the Tobacco Harvest of Cuba

Date: February 1, 2020

When we visit some of our favorite remote places, like Cuba, we’ll be sure to give you a trip with a twist that no ordinary group would offer. For instance in Cuba, we’re not just going to visit magnificent urban and rural areas, we’ll be following the tobacco harvest with some of the most famous growers and cigar makers in the world, across the country, a trip equivalent to being on the ground for the great wine harvests of Bordeaux and Burgundy.

The trip will start in Havana where we will explore the city and it’s people.  We will have Carlos Rene Aguilera Tamayo as our guide to take us into the culture and the world of Cuban art.

We will drive to Vinales on the western end of the island.  The valleys of Vinales hold the greatest tobacco fields in the world, which will be in full bloom.  The farmers have opened their farms to us to photograph and learn about the famous Cuban cigar. The sunrises and sunsets will be taken while looking over the farmland.  The artists of the area have invited us into their homes to listen to great music and talk art.

We will also travel to Trinidad to the south. Stopping along the way for a portrait workshop with local farmers.

Leica Akademie

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Leica Akademie

Book Making Workshop – Ralph Gibson

Date: January 24, 2020

The photography book remains the foremost delivery system of a photographer’s vision.

In the book the sum equals more than the parts. In the world of photography all the leading practitioners have made their work and their names known by way of a major publication. For many serious photographers, however, the book is a goal difficult to realize. Often the technical steps in making a book remain a mystery.

This 3-day workshop and will deal with all aspects of the book making process. We will focus on the book “dummy” as an object in and of itself. An object developed to the level of presentation for final publication. Aspects of layout, design, double-page spreads, book cover impact and editorial thrust as well as binding, typography, separation for plate-making, distribution formulas and more will be addressed.

Workshop participants will have the opportunity to view books by Ralph Gibson and their hand-made dummies, created via this same process. Ralph’s position has always been that an accurate facsimile of the book intended for publication is the optimum approach.

Ralph strongly believes that these are the golden years of the photography book. This workshop is designed to help you explore the process with guidance from a true master of the craft.

Doug Menuez and Sandro Miller on Staying Relevant as Professional Photographers

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Doug Menuez & Sandro Miller ©Doug Menuez's Leica
Doug Menuez & Sandro Miller ©Doug Menuez’s Leica
Doug Menuez and Sandro Miller continue to be creative, successful, and relevant after almost 40 years in the business of photography. On June  22, 2019, Doug Menuez and Sandro Miller generously shared volumes of valuable and entertaining information in an event hosted by Digital Silver Imaging and PhotoPolitic™. About 30 photographers and industry professionals gathered in Sandro’s beautiful Chicago studio. Also present was special guest Jim Stallman Senior VP and Creative Director of Leo Burnett and four industry movers and shakers, Patrick Rynell, EVP/ECD, Ainara Del Valle, ACD/AD, Jennifer Meinders, ACD/AD, Jon Lueken, Sr. Producer. So how do these successful photographers define “The Art and Science of Staying Relevant?” The take away is condensed into these few brief paragraphs.

Stay Creative

Personal Projects | Pro Bono Work | Fine Art | Get out of your comfort zone Both Doug Menuez and Sandro Miller pursue personal work as part of their work/life balance. Doug believes that working with nonprofit organizations can give an editorial photographer like himself the ability to photograph new and interesting subjects with fewer limitations. Doug has also published 4 books, most notably Fearless Genius, his unprecedented documentation of the digital revolution. Fearless Genius was #1 on the Amazon Bestseller list and it continues to provide exposure as a multimedia project, film, and a traveling exhibition of prints all produced by Digital Silver Imaging.  Sandro Miller’s expansive personal work often starts with a project that becomes an entire large format fine art book. Projects like the one he did with John Malkovich or his trips to Cuba became books and many of the images end up as fine art prints for gallery sales and exhibitions. Although Sandro has a distinct style, and can be considered a portraitist, he is constantly finding new paths and subjects for his work.
Sandro’s spacious studio ©Andrea Zocchi

Stay Organized

Make a business plan | Strategically target your customers According to Doug Menuez what put him on the path to success was a solid business plan and the discipline to stick to it. Both photographers emphasized that having the business acumen and the right people in that field was invaluable. Sandro Miller stressed focusing your promotional efforts on a manageable group of targeted clients/agencies and galleries. Casting too broad a net often doesn’t work and can result in work the photographer is not excited about executing. Miller stated that he focuses on about 20 potential customers at a time.
Refreshments ©Doug Menuez
Refreshments ©Doug Menuez

Stay Above the Crowd

Use prints and printed media to stand out The consensus was that regular posts on social media were necessary but didn’t necessarily get you work. Doug said that one of his most successful and expensive promotions was his “F…You Book.” It was a portfolio of work he loved (not work that everyone advised him to show, that’s where the “F…You” comes in). He said that this piece got him more and better jobs than any other promotions. The advice from Sandro was to send a signed print, as he said, “People just can’t throw away a signed print.” He also uses his books as a way to rekindle art director and ad agency interest in what he’s doing. Both photographers have an active fine art presence, with gallery representation and the print sales supplementing their income and increasing their exposure. Jim Stallman Senior VP and Creative Director of Leo Burnett echoed what both photographers said. He underlined the point that as a creative director he is overwhelmed with emails and electronic communications. His advice was to do something tangible that shows your own creative genius, something that represents you, not what you think someone wants to see.

Stay Informed

Research your customers | Know the brand | Be prepared for the shoot Before you start a job, or start to promote your work to a client, know what they do. In editorial, documentary, or product work the research is the first step. Sandro stated that he might shoot for an entire week before the actual photo session is scheduled. In the preceding week he will test lighting, concepts and other aspects before the client arrives in studio. Dig deep, acquire knowledge and be prepared.
Portfolio reviews were an optional component ©Doug Menuez
Portfolio reviews were an optional component ©Doug Menuez

Stay Personal and Connected

Pick up the phone | Meet people | Attend Events Doug Menuez, Sandro Miller, and Jim Stallman all agreed that photography is all about making personal connections and keeping them fresh. Don’t send an email if you can call the person by phone. Expanding your community in person makes you memorable. Knowing that you can work with a person and they can work with you makes all the difference.  This also extends to the photo shoot itself. Don’t just start blasting away. Talk to your subject. Again both photographers emphasized the pre-shoot preparation. If you know your subject you can make conversation and the shoot will be more successful. We hope that PhotoPolitic™, Doug Menuez and Sandro Miller will choose to repeat this event in the future. It might be the best $189 dollars that you can spend on your career. We’d like to thank Doug Menuez, Sandro Miller and Jim Stallman as well as Chris Armstrong from PhotoPolitic™ for asking us to play a small part. The entire day was videoed and is available to PhotoPolitic™ members. To stay informed about future events follow us, Digital Silver Imaging and PhotoPolitic™ on social media.

Documentary Matters

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Presented by Social Documentary Network and Digital Silver Imaging

Featured presenters: Karen Davis, Janet Jarman & Nicholas Pfosi

Karen Davis

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: A Family Portrait by Karen Davis, is a long-form, visual and textual portrait of a family moving forward in the face of a devastating childhood illness—childhood onset schizophrenia. Combining Davis’s photographs with the family’s contemporaneous words, the book provides an intimate window into a world turned upside down then righted by two shaken but determined parents. Twenty-five years ago, this family became a subject of Davis’s photographic exploration. As a new photographer and related through marriage, she was grateful for their accessibility, openness and patience. When the son’s condition worsened and the family found itself in the throes of fear and the unknown, they wrote and she photographed, which now makes it possible for Davis to tell their story. Davis’s talk will present an overview of the book and the steps she has taken to reach this point: a completed book draft seeking a publisher. She will share the process of conceiving (and reconceiving) the project, photo editing, discovering the “book proposal” and the research which that entails. Dedicated website for this project Artist Bio As a photographer, Karen Davis works in the space between documentary and fine art photography, chronicling family and their social milieu. Her prints and artist books are in collections of the Samuel Dorsky Museum/Center for Photography Woodstock (CPW) Collection; Lishui Museum of Photography, Lishui, China; Artist Book Collection, Houghton Rare Books Library, Harvard University; and featured in a permanent installation at MASS MoCA. She is the 2009 recipient of CPW’s Artist Fellowship Award and a 2018 Critical Mass Finalist. Solo and featured shows include: Homegrown,CPW; Unframed, NOBO Gallery, Hudson NY and The McCann Family, Griffin Museum of Photography. Work from her series, Strangely Attracted was selected for inclusion in Exposure 2018, the Photographic Resource Center, Cambridge MA. Davis is Curator/Co-Founder of Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson NY, now in its tenth year, specializing in photography, mixed media, and artist-published photobooks. She was a long-time teacher of a unique course for established and emerging photographers, Photography Atelier, which she taught at Radcliffe Seminars, Lesley University and the Griffin Museum of Photography. She currently teaches online courses in portfolio development and marketing for the Griffin Museum.

Janet Jarman

Photo by Janet Jarman Over the past six years, Janet Jarman has immersed herself in covering topics related to human rights and healthcare in Mexico. She is currently producing a book and a feature length documentary about this topic with the assistance of a MacArthur Foundation grant. Through deeply personal stories, “Birth Wars” explores conflicting visions between midwives and medical professionals about how to provide a safe and dignified childbirth experience to women. Many claim that midwives can play a central role in achieving these goals, if only their work could be formally recognized by Mexico’s medical establishment. For the book and film, Jarman follows the experiences of traditional and professional midwives who are trying to make a difference, and of some innovative health officials who are trying to reduce the antagonism between doctors and midwives. Artist Bio Janet Jarman is a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker. Since 2003, she has been based in Mexico where she focuses on topics such as the country’s ongoing security issues, immigration, access to healthcare, and water resource challenges. Jarman has worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, GEO, Smithsonian Magazine, nationalgeographic.com, Stern, Der Spiegel, amongst others. She has also worked for numerous international foundations and NGOs. Her photographs have been featured at Visa Pour l’Image, Perpignan and have received awards in Pictures of the Year International, American Photography, PDN Photography Annual, POY Latam, Latin American Fotografia, Communication Arts, and Best of Photojournalism. In addition to working on editorial assignments, Jarman has produced various long-term photo and multimedia projects, including Marisol and the American Dream, a two-decade story that chronicles the life of one Mexican immigrant girl; Aguas Negras, which analyzes Mexico’s many water related challenges; and Chaos and Corruption, which focuses on the burgeoning movements throughout Mexican society to force authorities to become more transparent. Jarman began her career in South Florida after graduating from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She worked as a staff photographer at The Miami Herald, and later obtained a master’s degree in environmental issues at the University of London.

Nicholas Pfosi

Nicholas Pfosi will present an ongoing project addressing dating culture in the queer community on the east coast of the United States and Northern Europe. The work has three chapters: looking, cruising, and high and horny. looking is a series of interviews and portraits with queer men focused on their experiences dating today, presented as an imitation Grindr app. 2019 is the 10 year anniversary of the infamous gay dating app which has had a profound impact on our community. cruising is a series of landscapes of locations used either historically or contemporaneously for (public) sex. Historically imperative for people of marginalized sexual identities, cruising is fading from the minds of a generation of younger queers as its necessity is subverted by shifts in social attitudes and technology like Grindr, Scruff, Jack’d etc. These images, intentionally relying on the banality of these inconspicuous places, were photographed using medium format film both for its detail as well as an homage to the technology of the time when cruising was more popular. They are accompanied by captions which describe experiences which occurred at these sites. The series is a reflection on this vanishing aspect of queer sexual culture. high and horny is an ongoing documentary project looking at the world of chemsex from about half a dozen individual perspectives. Chemsex is when gay men use, and often become dependent on using, crystal meth and sometimes GhB, during sexual encounters, often lasting hours or days. While the limited media representation of this experience portrays it as a hedonistic health crisis, the reality is considerably more nuanced than that, which this work aims to address. Artist Bio Nicholas Pfosi is a documentary photographer, web designer and filmmaker whose work reflects on modern queer identity. He completed a bachelor’s degree in Child Studies and Human Development with course work towards a double-major in Clinical Psychology and minor in Multimedia Arts from Tufts University in Boston before studying photography at the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX) in Aarhus, Denmark. Having interned for the Boston Globe, the Hartford Courant, and the Mail & Guardian (South Africa) Nicholas’s training and approach is grounded in a ‘hold-truth-to-power’ journalism yet grows colored by his view of storytelling as essential to the human social experience. While working under the mentorship of the Bombay Flying Club, Nicholas, along with collaborator Capucine Chardon, produced a short film Take Me As I Am about CJ, an American expat living in Denmark. Immigrating to Europe after having resigned himself to his family’s impenetrable homophobia, CJ pursues performance art, drag and companionship. The film was recognized by the Picture of the Year International (POYi) competition in 2018.

Documentary Matters

Documentary Matters is an initiative of the Social Documentary Network and Digital Silver Imaging to provide a place for photographers to meet with others involved with or interested in documentary photography and discuss ongoing or completed project. This is a free and open meeting for anyone interested in presenting, viewing, or discussing documentary photography.
You don’t need to be a professional, expert, or established–you just need to be committed to the documentary form and committed to learning from feedback from others. And you don’t need to be a photographer or presenting your work to attend. Everyone is invited to join us, look, listen, and comment. Still photography, multimedia, and video encouraged. Documentary required.

Documentary Matters Registration

Click here to sign up to attend.
 

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DSI Portfolio Awards – 2017

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©Dylan Everett 2018
©Dylan Everett 2018
The DSI Portfolio Awards is a shared platform providing three recent graduates of photography with financial assistance in printing a professional portfolio. This year’s awardees share a strikingly sophisticated and nuanced eye with a keen awareness of their concept and its context. Collectively each crystalizes their unique finds of specific investigations. Their discerning and original choice of final output formats complement and underscore their work’s intent. My appreciation to my fellow jurors, Debra Clomp Ching and Stephen Marc for their thoughtful and engaged contributions to the selection process. Dylan Everett recently graduated from Brown University and is now completing an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Structural Photography, is his series of aerial topographies. Seductively these engaging abstractions are at first a pleasing amalgam of color, form and texture. With time the viewer comprehends the actual residential housing mazes, agricultural industries and strip-mines within the capture. Everett concretizes our complicity in the development of this humanly altered landscape. Stephen reflects on this compelling work; “A strong and unique concept, containing a mystery, consistent vision, and bold use of white space.”
©Michelle Rogers Pritzl 2018
©Michelle Rogers Pritzl 2018
Michelle Rogers Prtizl has studied photography and earned three art degrees, most recently as a MFA graduate of Lesley University College of Art and Design. She is widely exhibited and known for her use of alternate and historical processes. In Not Waving But Drowning, whose title references Stevie Smith’s poem of the same name, Pritzl explores Fundamentalist Christianity’s tenets that serve to control and manipulate women. Her image titles reference Kate Chopin’sThe Awakening, and are a tribute to the artist’s autobiographical freedom from this restrictive belief system. The combination of the collodion process and an oval frame in collaboration with contemporary digital media practices mirrors her conscious choice to evolve, taking some aspects of the past while exercising her self-determination and embrace of the modern.
It was an insightful honor being one of the jurors for the DSI competition, and congratulations to the three award recipients. The process was challenging and rewarding due to the range and depth of the images submitted. I wish all the best to each of the entrants, and I hope that our paths cross again. – Stephen Marc
©Emily Schiffer 2018
©Emily Schiffer 2018
Emily Schiffer is a mixed media artist and photographer interested in art’s ability to initiate community engagement and foster social change. Kin is an intimate portrayal of family life. These unposed portraits capture moments in her interracial and cross-culturally blended family. Her images hold a space between documentary narrative and documenting feeling. Stephen’s comments: “Each could stand alone but tie in an intimate narrative. I was impressed with these documentary style portraits because of the alternating interactions, environmental details, and dynamic lighting that project a mood of domestic warmth.” J. Sybylla Smith   Postscript Award winners will receive $1250 in printing services from Digital Silver Imaging. The Jurors and Digital Silver Imaging would like to thank everyone who submitted work. Although we had our lowest number of entries for the 2017 award, we feel that the quality of the work was exceptional. In this slideshow, we’d like to recognize a few of the photographers who made excellent work, but unfortunately, did not win [photospace_res]