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This month we have another amazing issue for you, featuring professional tips, reviews, and practical how-to guides. Here’s a sneak peek of what’s inside!

Digital Photographer Gear of the Year 2023

It’s that time of the year once again! We’ve rounded up the very best cameras, lenses, accessories and software in our annual Gear of the Year Awards, taking a look back on the favourite products to pass through our doors in 2024. James Artaius, who put this together for us, is an expert on all things camera tech, as Editor for our sister website Digital Camera World, and he walks us through his predictions for what we can expect from the photo industry over the next 12 months. Is your next dream kit on his list?

Hottest trends for 2024

After reading that, turn to our special feature on the top techniques you absolutely need to learn for maximum success in 2024. If the Gear of the Year looks to the past, this feature is set firmly with the future in mind. With help from the winners of the Photographer of the Year competition, we explore which skills and techniques are hot right now and how you can use them to stand out from the crowd in the year ahead. You don’t want to miss your chance to get the inside scoop on the styles that can help you go pro in 2024.

Shoot stunning starscapes

The darkest days of the year are behind us, but there’s still plenty of time to find great images in the night sky. In our Creative Project pages this month, astrophotographer Josh Dury imparts his essential advice on finding great Astro subjects and overcoming a problem most of us will encounter sooner or later – light pollution. If you want to get started in night photography this year, Josh’s feature is the place the begin your journey.

Furry frames

Many families will have seen furry, four-legged additions over the festive period, so now is the perfect time to catch up with pet photographer, Matt Elliot. He joined us for our Shoot Like a Pro feature in this issue to tell Kim Bunermann all of his secrets for characterful animal portraits on a budget. Maybe it’s time to cash in on the surge in interest in pet portraits right now and kick-start a lucrative side hustle. You’ll need to read this first! 

Alan Schaller: monochrome magic

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Andrei Bîrsan’s latest photo exhibition spotlights the generation of the 1980s, captured in sometimes lesser-known contexts while highlighting the attempt to live as normally as possible despite the hardships of the Communist period.

Andrei Bîrsan has always enjoyed taking photos. Carrying his camera with him almost everywhere, he amassed a vast collection of photographs depicting the transformation of Bucharest through the years and its people. He is known as a visual chronicler of the city, having started the association Bucureștiul meu drag (My Dear Bucharest), with a popular Facebook page and platform of the same name where photos captured in time by Bîrsan and others make up a ‘family album’ and visual archive of the city. He also founded the Center for Visual Memory, an initiative for anyone looking to get to know, visit or contribute to developing the city’s visual story.

At the same time, he has always been interested in photographing people. “My photos of the city have people in them. Most of them feature people,” he explains. This was a selection criterion for the photos included in the recently-opened exhibition The ‘80s Generation: A Photographic Journey. The images had to depict people to be included, in seldom photographed places and contexts.

The photos show scenes happening in high school or university throughout the decade of the 1980s: students playing liniuța – a game where players through coins against the wall, and the one who hits closest is the winner, attending sessions of PTAP – the Communist-era program designed to prepare the youth to defend the country, or harvesting potatoes, another part of Romania’s educational reality at the time as middle school pupils, high schoolers and university students were expected to perform various agricultural labours in a show of patriotism. The “voluntary” practice students had to do sometimes entailed cleaning up the streets from snow, a work where teachers joined in too, as captured in another photo in the exhibition.

His colleagues, whom he remembers fondly, didn’t mind being photographed, he recalls. It was the teachers he had to be careful about, but even they are characters in some of the images. He attributes part of the relative ease with which he could take the photos to the small size of the camera, a basic Smena model. “They probably thought nothing would come out,” he says.

This wasn’t the case when taking photos of the city, in areas where buildings were being demolished as Nicolae Ceaușescu’s urban redevelopment frenzy had reached peak levels. He had his camera confiscated twice while taking photos around the site of Casa Poporului, the current Parliament Palace, and another time at the District 3 Tribunal, close to Sfânta Vineri Church. “These were areas where demolition works were taking place, so it was, in a way, predictable,” he explains. Having his camera confiscated was when he understood “the city needed to be photographed as a form of memory because it was changing.” “I realized I could do something to show how it looked.”

The 80s generation

It’s the colleagues and teachers that are the main characters in the photos: Tomi, happy to have passed an exam; diriga, the classroom’s coordinating tutor; or the colleagues out doing agricultural practice. They are part of a positive side of the 1980s, a period of “youth and lack of worries.” “Parents helped us not to have any worries.” Although he doesn’t recall enduring hunger, he does remember the cold. “The cold was terrible.” As Nicolae Ceaușescu decided the country had to repay its foreign debt, a period of dire shortages followed, with food, gas, and energy rationalized.

As the pressure of cooking gas was very low, dinner would happen very late in the evenings because the food took longer to cook, and sleeping with extra layers of clothes on was the norm for many. It wasn’t just homes that were cold. He remembers taking his wife, Mihaela, to the cinema, where the film’s main character ends up freezing to death, while the couple endures very low temperatures in the cinema hall as well.

Befittingly, the exhibition is on display at Undeva în Comunism, a museum that opened last summer in Bucharest’s Old Town. The museum invites the public to discover how Romanians lived during the Communist period and explore key moments of the period in a setup dotted with items that could be found in many Romanian homes at the time.

The photographer is clear about the difference between the nostalgic look to a time of youth and Romania of the Communist 1980s, a period of severe deprivation. “We were trying to be normal. There’s no need to be nostalgic about that time; it’s absurd. It’s the nostalgia about the youth, about some beautiful moments.” One of those moments: watching pirated movies on a rented VCR in the university dormitory. “We watched five-six films in one night. Some of the tapes had been recorded over so many times that you could barely distinguish anything,” he recalls.

He is currently working on an album of photos he took in the 1990s in the mountains, where he would go every summer while at university. Another work in progress is an album covering the period between 2000 and up to and including 2007, when Romania joined the European Union, a moment he describes as fantastic. “There’s a huge difference between 2005-2007, when the Dacia Logan appeared, and the previous period. The entire city changed. Romania changed completely, for the better.”

“If you look at the photos I took over time, I captured ‘the nothing’. They are banal. They became interesting with the passing of time, valuable, but they are banal,” he says, rejecting labels of praise.

Meanwhile, he hopes those who visit the exhibition will “find themselves in the photos” and the various situations they show.

The exhibition is open until February 20th at the museum Undeva în Comunism, in Bucharest’s Old Town (6 Covaci St). Access to the exhibition is based on the museum ticket.

A selection of photos by Andrei Bîrsan is available at Bucurestiulmeudrag.ro. He has published several photo albums, including Iubita mea Mihaela (2021), the winner of the Antalis Awards 2020 jury prize, Trecut-au anii. Bucurestiul de ieri si de azi (2019), and Frumusetea revine pe Lipscani? Is Beauty Coming Back on Lipscani (2017). Among his solo exhibitions were ones dedicated to the 1980s, Vama Veche, and Bucharest. His photos of Bucharest were also included in ‘then and now’ exhibitions, more recently in an outdoor display at the Museum of the City of Bucharest (Suțu Palace) in September 2023.

(All photos courtesy of Andrei Bîrsan)

simona@romania-insider.com

In an effort to boost their already outsized Tourism Industry, La Junta de Andalucía —the body governing over all the Andalusian region in Spain— has decided to sponsor a photography project aimed to capture the essence of Andalusia’s cultural, ethnographic and architectonic riches. For this project, they’ve decided to hire ten renowned photographers to show the best of my home region to the world, in an effort to convince other photographers to come by and enjoy the possibilities the region offers.

And this is where the fun begins, because none of those ten photographers are Andalusian or even Spanish. None of them have grown surrounded by those possibilities, that beauty, that culture. We’ve got Alex Strohl, from France. We have Jason Kummerfeldt, Mitchell Kanashkevich, Nick Carver, and Taylor Pendleton, from the United States. Lizzie Pierce, from Canada. Robin Schimko, from Germany, and Luke Stackpoole, Mike Chudley, and Thomas Heaton from the U.K.

Why Does Their Nationality Matter? Photography is Universal!

Not so long ago, we were praising —with reason to do so— the World Press Photo Awards and their regional model. As you may recall, this model was aimed to improve the visibility and prestige of less-represented areas of the world.

This popularity contest is the exact opposite, and a complete unfairness to the region it aims to represent. I’ve seen many, many good photographers —among them, Iris Muñoz or myself— emigrate from Andalusia because the chances of earning a living through photography were incredibly scant.

Why do I call it popularity contest? I’ll let you judge through this direct translation from the official announcement.

This action is intended to increase the region’s visibility and reach, for which we have selected artists for their technical skill and the attractiveness of their online channels so we can get to a diverse and connected audience.

The short note goes on to explain how, through their accumulated four million Instagram followers, this will make Andalusia even more attractive to tourists.

In a way, I understand the decision. International photographers means international followers interested in visiting the area, which saves money on advertising; why go to the effort of helping a local achieve recognition when we can choose the easier path? Note that this is a rhetorical question.

A Different Vision

As I’ve experienced time and again, one of the things outsiders bring is freshness. They aren’t used to their surroundings; they didn’t grow up in the local culture, and that gives them a different way to see the region. Most of the time, there’s no one like an outsider to find beauty and magic in what locals are accustomed to.

At the same time, there’s no one like a local photographer, deeply enmeshed in culture and traditions, to bring out the true essence of what’s around them.

So, where’s the tipping point? Who should get a chance to represent the region?

Choosing Local

As someone who travels everywhere with her camera, I can’t hold any kind of grudge towards international photographers. It would be hypocritical of me. Everyone should be allowed to travel and picture reality as seen through their eyes, ideas and preconceptions.

In fact, there’s a long list of places I would like to visit with my camera in hand, both in Europe and outside of it.

What I —and a whole community of photographers born or living in Andalusia— disagree with, is the fact that these photographers are being brought here on a giant amount of taxpayer money that could be used to revitalize the local talent pool.

As photographer Oscar Romero says, “While neither the quality of their work or the fact that this is not a personal struggle are debatable, I don’t think this is a shame because they didn’t hire me as a photographer. It’s a shame because there are a number of amazing professionals in Andalusia who could’ve done a job as good as them”.

In the end, it’s all about encouraging and supporting the industry within your own community, the talent struggling to be known and heard of. And we can’t do that by spending millions on Instagram Influencers.

Picture by Lara Carretero, the author.

Headline’s Welbeck imprint will publish The Rolling Stones Rare and Unseen, a collection of photographer Gered Mankowitz’s images of the band, including shots that have never been published before. 

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has contributed a foreword for the book, and former Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham has written an afterword. 

Publishing director Joe Cottington acquired world all-language rights from Carrie Kania at Iconic Images. The Rolling Stones Rare and Unseen will be published on 28th March 2024 in hardback, and e-book to coincide with the start of the band’s major US tour. 

Mankowitz was first introduced to the Rolling Stones in 1964 and quickly struck up a personal and professional relationship with them, “capturing the band’s ascent to rock ‘n’ roll superstardom through the lens of his camera”, the publisher said.  

“Now, Mankowitz opens his archive to share rare, long-lost and newly recovered photographs of his time with the Stones, alongside his most iconic shots”. The images include record cover shoots and recording studio sessions, wild weeks on tour and the band relaxing at home. 

The book also features Mankowitz’s personal anecdotes, as well as essays including writer Will Hodgkinson, author Peter York and the New York Times’ Ben Sisario. 

Cottington said: “I have long been a huge fan of Gered’s photography and am very happy to be working with him to publish a book that should be essential reading for all fans of the Stones. 

“Gered had a backstage pass to music history – he was standing with the band as they took the world by storm – and it’s been a special joy to uncover his breathtaking images from that time, some of which have sat in his archive for the better part of 60 years. With the band releasing a new album and back on the road, it feels like the time is right to shine a light on these forgotten photographs and finally give them the attention they deserve.” 

Mankowitz said: “To be honest, the thought of going through hundreds of sheets of my Rolling Stones archive didn’t excite me much when the idea for this project first came about. However, I couldn’t pretend that I hadn’t noticed on occasion the shot next to the famous one and wondered if it wasn’t just as good – or even a little better. So, I began to go through the material, pulling out sheets of previously dismissed work that had been rejected – not, truth be told, after due consideration, but purely because we had previously selected an image from that roll, that venue, that moment. It was those initially chosen images that stuck and which were always shown. 

“Slowly, it dawned on me that I actually had a hell of a lot of material here which had never been released, but which was really good. In many instances, there were shots that had been completely missed and were even better than the original selection.”