Schmapping in Sydney

It seems my photos have been spotted in Sydney, just a year after we visited.  This shot has been shortlisted to appear in a new guide to Sydney.  It's not the best photo I've ever taken - by far - BUT it was an historic day as England beat Australia!!!

PUBLISHED!

Fabulous Photography

I have made it my mission to get out and about more in Bangalore - and India - and really take advantage of the amazing cultural activities.  This week, I've visited two different photography exhibitions - Tim Hall at the Tasveer Gallery, and students from the Light and Life Academy  Tim's work is amazing!  He manages to make many of his photographs look like paintings; I was told that he did a lot of post production to make the colours pop on his subjects, and they do.  Amazing.  I think the real secret to Tim's work is, as my photography course tutor in London keeps telling us, GET UP EARLY!  Most of his work is clearly done before/around dawn; you have to be dedicated to your art!  The students from the Light and Life Academy had an interesting display and I'm considering visiting their facility in Ooty for a week long course in December.  Maybe if I'm lucky my pictures will improve - though I'm not sure whether I'll ever be able to get up before-dawn!

Snapped!

I found out today that I had been 'honorably mentioned' (is there any other way???) in the Pilsner Urquell international photography awards 2007. While I am not alone by far, it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling! The winning photographs are just stunning and something to aspire to. This, on top of being exhibited at the inaugural Bangalore Photography Festival earlier in the year - David Bailey, watch out!

And They're Up

So at last, some of my pictures are up in the Bangalore Photography Festival. There's still no explanation for visitors as to why the amateur section is different from the professional but I guess I should be happy that they've actually made it! Competition entrants had to pay for each print submitted, on top of paying for the prints and mounting, which means they look nice, and the money we spent probably went on staging the rest of the exhibition! So, I can now add 'internationally exhibited photographer' on my resume, alongside 'internationally awarded equestrian...' Well, I didn't spend 20 years in PR without being able to add a bit of puffery to my own situation!

Bangalore Photography Festival 2007

So, the 'BPF" as we shall call it kicked off in style yesterday... without my photos! Despite the fact I should have had a couple on display, in very Indian style, things didn't go according to plan and instead of posting photos in the relevant categories each day, the organizers have decided to post random photos on random days, making it hard to know when your shots will be up. The 'BPF' is on the lower level of the Leela Galleria and features five or six rows of 'professional' framed photos, then a couple of rows of 'amateur' mounted shots. Problem is, you don't know why they're there as there's no explanation about the 'amateur' shots, so you just think that those folk couldn't be bothered framing their pix! We shall wait with baited breath to see when mine appear...

Bangalore Photography Festival 2007

Tomorrow is the start of the first Bangalore Photography Festival at the Leela Galleria on Airport Road. Remarkably, seven of my pictures have been selected for the show (I just read on someone else's blog that seven of theirs had been accepted too, so now I know there are at least 14 in the show!!!) Seriously, they say that there are about 200 pictures in the amateur category alone.

The Festival runs from 3pm to 8pm each day, with categories changing every other day: Sports, Culture and Fashion (Apr 15 and 16)
Social Issues, Nature and People (Apr 17 and 18)
Bangalore Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Apr 19 and 20)
The best of the show will be exhibited on Saturday 21st from 12 noon to 5pm.

It is the first photo contest I have ever entered, so I am thrilled and looking forward to seeing what else is out there. I spent a frantic few days getting my pictures printed, mounted, captioned, etc., with a lot of journeys back and forth in the car to 'Van Gogh's Art Shop' (who were excellent and worked within deadline preparing the mounts) and G.K.Vale Photography (who were not so great, with varying colour results on my photos depending what day they were printed and even delivering photos covered in finger prints...). Let's hope the finished pictures survived delivery from the competition organizers to the Leela. We will see tomorrow...