https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-the-woman-photographer Over 26,000 Indians have perished due to COVID in the last four months. But is there an image of any one of them that is imprinted in your mind? A single photograph in your newspaper or magazine that you remember instantly, for its poignancy, for its pathos—for its display? *** Whether they are natural…
Category Archives: Photography
How 15 brave reporters and photographers have defended the evidence they collected of Babri Masjid demolition
Excellent story in The Economic Times today of how reporters and photographers staved off a bid to discredit their great work, the midst of grave danger to their life abd limb, during the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, by sangh parivar hoodlums. Screenshot: courtesy The Economic Times
Only ‘The Telegraph’ and ‘Deccan Chronicle’ have AP photographers in Kashmir winning the Pulitzer Prize on page one. For most of the rest, it is routine news. Any wonder India is No. 142 on World Press Freedom index?
There has been nearly nothing to celebrate for Kashmiris, or at least for Kashmiri media, after they were confined to their own homes on 5 August 2019, without phones, without wifi and without the internet. The Coronavirus lockdown on top of their own lockdown only compounded the misery. Naturally, the prestigious Pulitzer Prize being awarded…
“Preposterous, rank intimidation of a photographer whose pictures document the travails of Kashmiris”: Network for Women in India slams FIR on Masrat Zahra
Network for Women in Media India (NWMI) has condemned the FIR lodged against the award-winning photojournalist Masrat Zahra by the Cyber police, Srinagar, under provisions of the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Indian Penal Code (IPC). The FIR was lodged on April 18 against a Zahra for allegedly “uploading anti-national posts with criminal…
Remember that poignant picture of Nehru and Vinobha Bhave? The Bangalore lensman who shot it, T.L. Ramaswamy, is no more.
T.L. Ramaswamy, the Bangalore photographer who shot the iconic picture of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru with Acharya Vinoba Bhave has passed away, at age 89. The Nehru-Bhave photograph was published first by the Kannada daily Praja Vani, which pays a warm tribute to him on its pages today. “T.L. Ramaswamy was a calm, simple man who…
Only ‘The Telegraph’ has the courage to buck the law (and political correctness) to publish the chilling Reuters photo of ‘Rambhakt Gopal’, the “teenager” who shot at Jamia Millia students
*** Delhi Police initially put the age of “Rambhakt Gopal” at 19 before a marks sheet magically produced by a “news agency” showed the gunman who shot at Jamia students as being 17 years old began doing the rounds. That has been sufficient for all but one prominent newspaper to mask the identity of the…
Press Council chairman C.K. Prasad and ‘The Hindu’ chairman N. Ram get into a slanging match over PCI seemingly backing media curbs in Kashmir
The kerfuffle over the Press Council of India’s intervention in the Supreme Court on Kashmir Times Editor Anuradha Bhasin‘s petition seeking the lifting of curbs on the media in Kashmir refuses to die down. This, despite the PCI chairman Justice C.K. Prasad clarifying that far from backing the government, the Council was actually performing its…
In Jammu & Kashmir, is there a deliberate design to delegitimise photo and video journalists, and to remove them from the scene of action?
Keeping accreditated journalists out of government events and government offices, under one ruse or the other, has become such a norm in State after State that it barely attracts any more than momentary attention. But when six accomplished journalists are kept out of the Republic Day function in Jammu & Kashmir, a state the Narendra…
Kashmir’s news photographers were targeted despite their press jackets, cards, caps and cameras—and shouts that they were media men
The four Kashmir news photographers who were injured near Shopian in south Kashmir on Tuesday after being fired at with pellet guns by Indian security forces were all wearing jackets identifying them as media personnel and caps with “Press’ emblazoned on them. Accounts of the incident in Rising Kashmir and Hindustan Times show that the…
Why India’s position is not rising on the World Press Freedom Index: exhibit 139 and exhibit 140
Since modern Indian civilisation began in 2014, the Guinness Book of Records has kind-of replaced the Constitution of India and the Bhagwad Gita as the epics to emulate. Under Narendra Modi, the preferred goals are Olympian—citius, altius, fortius. Therefore, the world’s largest khichdi, the world’s tallest statue, the world’s largest yoga gathering, the world’s longest monologue…
Shajila Ali Fathima: the “unpliable” journalist to whose defence Arun Jaitley, the Editors Guild, and other Delhi gasbags did not rush
On the day “New Delhi”—as in Arun Jaitley, the Editors Guild of India, and other motormouths and gasbags—were angst-ing over Congress president Rahul Gandhi terming ANI editor Smita Prakash a “pliable journalist”, a more horrifying drama was playing out in faraway Kerala. A real physical assault. BJP-RSS hooligans attacked journalists and camerapersons covering their continuing…
Dayanita Singh’s #1 tip for young photographers
The photographer Dayanita Singh in conversation with Shougat Dasgupta of Tehelka: What also may appear archaic to young photographers is your insistence on reading. You advise photographers to take a course in literature rather than photography… I don’t think there’s anything to go to photo school for. I could teach you how to make a…
A ‘mile-high experience’ for the hack-pack
A picture tweeted by the prime minister’s office (PMO) of the media scrum accompanying Manmohan Singh, as he answers questions in mid-air on his way back home after a five-day visit to the United States. Among those identifiable, Raj Chengappa, editor-in-chief of The Tribune, Chandigarh (in suit, ahead of mikes); Jayanta Ghosal of Ananda Bazaar…
Portrait of a film critic at the cash counter
At Sooni Taraporevala‘s endearing exhibition of photographs of Parsis, chronicled since 1977, the very first exhibit is of Rashid Irani. On the left is Irani last year; on the right is Irani 25 years ago. Both pictures show Irani, the working partner of Brabourne, the eponymous Irani restaurant on Princess Street in Bombay with which…
How some Bombay-ites read their newspapers
Vachanalays or newspaper reading centres, where locals read the papers and discuss the day’s news, have been a familiar sight in (and an integral part of) most neighbourhoods in Bombay. Usually sponsored by the local ward of a political party or a mitra mandal (friends’ group), these informal newspaper points are stocked with the major Marathi…
They also serve who sort, insert and distribute
In the Bangalore neighbourhood of Ulsoor, newspaper vendors slip pamphlets, flyers and other materials into the Sunday papers before heading off to doo-deliver them. Photograph: M.S. Gopal/ Mumbai Paused Also read: So, how many journos cracked CAT 2012? Every picture tells a tale. Babu‘s tells a tome When Chamundi betta relocates to amchi Mumbai
Congratulations. We have the worst job on Earth.
Worse than a lumberjack, if you know what it means. Worse than a dishwasher. Worse than a garbage collector. Worse than a dairy farmer. That’s the job of a news reporter. The worst job on earth. That’s the finding, if you believe that kind of thing, of Career Cast, an American human resource consultancy firm.…
Learning photography 10,000 feet above sea
What can two photojournalists with enviable CVs do when the bug to do something away from the straight and narrow of daily and weekly deadlines, bites them? T. Narayan and Sanjay Sharma provide some inspiration to their kinsmen with a photography workshop 10,122 feet above sea level. The first batch will be held from April…
Indian Express 2-month course in photography
The TOI lensman who nailed Ajmal Kasab’s fate
Sebastian D’Douza, then photo editor of Mumbai Mirror, took 19 photographs on the night of 26 November 2008, including the iconic one of Ajmal Kasab striding across the corridors of Bombay’s Victoria Terminus station, spraying bullets. Now retired, “Saby”, as the lensman is known to friends and colleagues, testified before the trial judge, M.L. Tahiliyani,…
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