Just back from attending the Focus on Imaging show at the NEC centre in Birmingham. Caught up with one of our friends who lives close by the night before, nice dinner and talking about travel. Crashed at his pad.
The event is actually very good and despite the credit crunch, was very well attended. For us the main point of going is simply to look for ideas that inspire us. Highlights from today:
1. In advance of our Bonobo exhibition to the Congo in August, buying a ring flash adaptor for portraits. We know the Bonobos have seen flash before and so this will enable us to take even better shots.
2. Many, many, many stands offering to produce photographic books, photos on metal, on canvas and on acrylic blocks. We are looking at putting some of our best shots on some of these and once we get back from India will try some out. For us the stand that stood out was Mario Acerboni which had some stunning designs for photobooks.
3. A really funky new form of on-line slide production by animoto. In the next few weeks we will put one of the shows up on the blog and let you know what we think, although having just tried to sign up (yes it looked that good) the site does not seem to be working.
4. An expensive insurance quote for our equipment. Hmmm.
Anyway, great show and good to see Canon out in force (a much better stand than the Nikon one ... in our opinion).
Julie and Adam
Focus on Imaging - 22 February 2009
Mumbai - 3 February 2009
At very short notice, we had the opportunity to spend a few days in Mumbai as a warm up for our Safari to the Tiger reserves later in March of this year. Adam had been down in Hyderabad since the start of the year and we thought this was a good opportunity to explore Mumbai as a prelude to one of our photographic city-break tours. Mumbai is a wonderful city which has as many contrasts, colours, foods and vibrance as any you could name. As you would expect, it has its beggars:
What impressed us most was the Dhobi Ghat or Washers' Area, the City's largest laundry. This is where almost all of the clothes in Mumbai get washed, ironed and repaired. It is a photographers' dream with colour, movement and children who get to wash themselves at the laundry! The workers here are very proud of their profession and while the rewards appear low to us (2 rupees to iron a shirt) it is a proper job for all of them. We always like to see people who are very good at what they do and give 100%.
The clothes are washed in a concrete cubicle. This is a small area where a man (and it seems to be a man's job) spends his time washing (read beating) the clothes against a patthar or concrete block. It is very hard work and the guys become very fit!
There are many fantastic people around, most of whom seemed very happy to have their portraits taken.
And the children are so beautiful. Seeing these children playing delightfully as their parents washed their hair in the open-air laundry lifted any thoughts of our financial depression. While we spent over an hour there, we could easily have spent a day. Next time ....
All these photographs were taken with a Canon G10. This is an excellent "compact" camera with has the advantage of taking RAW images. Really excellent. The only disadvantage is that it cannot burst, ie take a sequence of shots. So for both of us used to rattling off 5+ images at a time to get the 'perfect' portrait, this takes one shot at a time. Julie's 5D SLR battery had died so we were stuck with the G10.
Food ... simply amazing. We would recommend Trishna for fish, Kebab and Curries for Northern Indian food, Konkan Cafe for a lunch on Banana leaves and Leopold Cafe for breakfast. Not the cheapest meals Mumbai has to offer, but exceptionally good value by London standards and no Mumbai Belly!
Thank you Mumbai!
Julie and Adam