Wildscreen ARK, the UK’s newest biodiversity content hub, has teamed up with the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority to invite young people in the West of England to tell their stories about nature in their neighbourhood through short films and photos.

Running from 10^th May to 31^st August, they’re calling on young people aged 13 –18 to make and enter short films and photos about local nature for the chance to win either a family winter lights trip to Bluestone National Park Resort (for age category 13 – 15) or a Canon R100 camera and lens from London Camera Exchange (age category 16 – 18).

Throughout their outreach, the Wildscreen ARK team has found that although young people do appreciate, care about and take photos or videos of the nature around them, they don’t often share their experience – and ARK want to change that with Wild West.

To further level the playing field for the competition, only entries taken on smartphones are allowed – making the competition accessible for the majority of young people. 

Every entry needs to have one species identified within it, as shortlisted entries will have the fantastic opportunity of having their work displayed on Wildscreen ARK’s nature education hub. Shortlisted entries will also be displayed publicly at Wildscreen Festival 2024 in October and locally to entrants in the West of England.

For more information including full Terms of Entry, FAQ and links to supporting learning resources visit Wildscreen ARK.

Scratch up on your photography skills

Alí Marín, Mexico, Carnival Night, Tlacotalpan, Veracruz

Adults, young people and children enjoy the nighttime carnival parade, one of the most anticipated celebrations, to the rhythm of salsa, reggaeton and current hits. Queens, kings, princesses, and princes parade through the main streets of the town to be cheered and accompanied by the community. Like the rest of Latin America and countries around the world where the Catholic religion predominates, Carnival is the festival that precedes Lent

Local photographer Terrance Haanen will show his beautiful photography here in our Portal Gallery at the Fuller Lodge Art Center. Terrance often photographs our beautiful landscapes in New Mexico in dynamic ways, giving new perspective to our familiar atmosphere here in the Southwest. The exhibit will run from July 12 to July 25. Stop by the opening reception Friday from 5 p.m. to meet Terrance and have some refreshments. For more information, go to https://terrance-haanen.pixels.com/

The idea of “home” and what it is to each of us is an intriguing concept. Several years ago, Magnum Photos put together a collection of images where their photographers described the idea through their art. It’s a very personal concept and, therefore, involves so many different backgrounds and emotional experiences. “It’s an ode and a love letter to my home of Hawaii and to all those who came before us and will come after us as Kanaka Maoli, the indigenous people of Hawai’i,” says photographer Mainei Kinimaka to the Phoblographer when speaking to us about her project. All shot using a Leica SL3, the photographs remind us that identity is often a major part of the photography we create.

This article is presented in partnership with Leica. All images by Mainei Kinimaka. Used with permission. All photographs shot on the Leica SL3. Please take a look at her Instagram @maineikinimaka and her Leica Profile here.

Luckily for Mainei, she got into photography when she was around 11 years old thanks to her uncle’s penchant for capturing moments. He used to take photographs of surfers on the beach with an old camera. Like so many others over there, Mainei used to go surfing every day. “I must have bugged him to use it enough times, because when he moved onto a new camera, he gifted me his old one,” she tells us. It’s through this perfect mixture of coffee and cream that Mainei went on to make the radiant images she does.

One could also say that he also gifted her his love of the art form and understanding of how a camera can make us closer to the moments in front of us.

Growing up in her part of Hawaii, you couldn’t just walk a few blocks to your local Radio Shack or Camera Shop. But that didn’t matter — because she turned water into wine by using her camera and deep emotional connections to what was around her. Blessed with the gift of photography, she focused more on making simple images and being as natural as she could possibly get. Much of her work revolved around those close to her.

Mainei also learned about how incredibly timeless photographs can be — and has channeled this into her work. The image of her father above is a testament to that. “When I think of black and white, I’m thinking of a story over the color,” she explains. But there’s so much more to this image that we don’t realize.

In that image, my dad is leaning over his canoe, with his back facing the camera. The paddle in the image was handed down to him by his elder brother who taught him to surf and to steer the canoe. The back bone is representative of our ancestors in Hawai’i. This image felt like it could transcend generations, and it felt like black and white was necessary for it. 

Mainei Kinimaka

Still, photography often has this power much more than natural video with ambient sound. Images allow us to ponder and contemplate a specific moment rather than processing tons of small moments together. Even though Mainei is also a filmmaker, she still understands the power of a still photo.

To make her photographs, Mainei kept things pretty simple. “I’m a terrible online shopper,” she jokes. Because of this, she sticks with what she’s got on hand. For the past 5 years, she’s shot on Leica cameras. Currently, she’s making her masterpieces with the Leica SL3, Leica SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 Vario-Elmarit ASPH, Leica APO-Summicron-SL 75mm f/2 ASPH. Lens, and Leica APO-Summicron-SL 90mm f/2 ASPH. Lens. The lenses help her be as versatile as she can as she often isn’t even sure what she’s going to end up photographing.

Mainei is surrounded by large amounts of natural beauty that many of us could only dream of. So it comes without saying that everything around her just looks perfect in her eyes. Because it’s Hawaii, there are lots of different situations that the island might give her. Sometimes it’s rain, mist, intense sun, etc. The Leica SL3, with its IP durability rating, makes it great for standing up to the elements better than the vast majority of cameras on the market.

“Their cameras and lenses have definitely aided me in my quest for ‘the natural,’” Mainei explains to us. “The way their systems are so refined, and the way their lenses (especially their vintage lenses and the glass on those lenses) are crafted, definitely lends a certain soul to your imagery that I don’t think is replicable.”

In fact, Mainei doesn’t even do much post-production. And to that end, she’s been mostly removed from everything going on right now with Generative AI and photography. “…I have more of a draw toward the natural environment. Therefore, AI tends to sound like the last thing I’d personally explore.”

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – Milestone events are usually captured by a professional photographer, and not just weddings. There’s an important celebration for young women in Latin culture, and several families in south Omaha paid for photos they’ve yet to receive.

A special dress highlights a 15th birthday quinceañera.

“It’s very important,” said Nelida Diaz. “It’s an event that’s only one time. One thing, one time in your life. You’re not going to relive that.”

So, Nelida, a proud mother, says she paid photographer Carlos Valdez to capture the memories.

“$2,600 and what did I get? Nothing, except one picture,” Nelida said.

A 24-by-36 portrait, but not the photo book, three hundred pictures, two DVD videos and other contracted items. So Nelida and another customer went looking for more at a studio where hey signed contracts.

That business, Expresiones Photography, has an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau.

“Just the same issues the customers are having, we’re having,” said Jim Hegarty with BBB. “The company is not responsive to these complaints and they involve thousands of dollars.”

Noemi Iniguez is 17 now. She says she’s waited two years for her quinceañera pictures.

“It’s like I won’t be able to look back on any of that and see the photos I got to take with my family and my court,” Noemi said. “It’s just like, all gone.”

“You pay a lot of money and you expect something,” said her brother, Juan Iniguez. “We didn’t even take videos or pictures that day because we thought he was going to turn it in.”

But there is hope in a message received by 6 News from someone once listed with Expresiones Photography. It says “I can assure you the photos will be delivered to the people.”

“It’s not the first time he’s said it,” one customer said.

6 News talked to photographer Carlos Valdez, who says his customers will get their money’s worth when he’s recovered. From what, he won’t say.

Nelida hopes a small claims court lawsuit will provide answers, if not photos.

“He says he’s back up by a doctor’s paperwork and he can’t deliver photos and videos to families because he’s really sick,” Nelida said. “I want to see those papers. I want to see proof that he’s sick.”

A south Omaha community leader says several other customers have complained on social media about paying for photos and not having them delivered. Some of them have waited up to three years.

“Let’s ask everybody if you were in this situation

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“I am not famous — my camera is very famous. This camera.”

Ramesh Shukla pulls out a Rolleicord camera, a birthday gift from his father 70 years ago. It’s the same camera he left India with in 1965; the same one that has snapped photos of sheikhs and political leaders; the same one that captured the formation of a nation.

Now 85, Shukla has told and retold his life story so many times that the details are hard to pin down, mythologized into a series of essential moments that tell the tale of a plucky adventurer setting sail in search of fortune and opportunity.

As he tells it, the then-26-year-old photographer boarded a ship from Bombay (now Mumbai), to the Trucial States — now the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but at that time, a collection of independent Sheikhdoms along the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. He arrived at the port in Sharjah with just a dollar in his pocket and a few rolls of film, and hitched a ride on a donkey cart, then a motorbike, to Dubai: not the glittering metropolis it is today, but a dusty fishing village with no roads, surrounded by huge, open expanses of desert.

“In my house there was no water, no electricity. It was very difficult,” says Shukla. It didn’t stop him from getting out and documenting the fisherfolk, pearl divers and camel drivers living in the small coastal settlement.

But change was on the horizon. The Trucial States, while not a colony, were part of a “British protectorate” that was soon to end, and oil had only been discovered in the Arabian Gulf a few years earlier, with the first exports beginning to create wealth for the small Emirati population. And at that time, there were very few people in the region with the skill, technical knowledge and equipment to produce the quality of photography that Shukla could.

His big break came when he attended a camel race in Sharjah in 1968. The sheikhs from the various emirates were in attendance that day, and Shukla snapped a photo of the group sitting along the side of the track.

Among them was Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the late emir of Abu Dhabi, who is often referred to as the “founding father” of the UAE. The next day, he returned to the racetrack and presented the photo to Sheikh Zayed, asking for his blessing — and it changed everything.

“When he saw the picture, Sheikh Zayed tells me, ‘You are Fannan’ (meaning “artist” in Arabic),” says Shukla.

Capturing history

After the camel race, Shukla found himself invited to official events as a photographer, accessing places and people he could only have dreamed of a few years earlier.

He developed a friendship with the royals, and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai until his death in 1990, encouraged him to stay in the Emirates — so in 1970, his wife and son joined him in Dubai.

“Where I grew up, we had one room which was our living room, our kitchen and the dark room,” explains Neel Shukla, Ramesh’s son. “We had thalis, for the Indian way of eating food — it’s a steel plate and you put your different vegetables and dal and roti on it. That same thali was used for eating and developing film.”

Neel recalls that resources were scarce — especially water, which was delivered by donkeys from wells in the desert. The water used to develop photos had to be precisely measured out, and Shukla’s wife, Tara, played a vital role in her husband’s work: while he was photographing events, she recorded technical notes that would impact how the pictures were developed later, such as the lighting, exposure and shutter speed.

“Without my family, my wife and son, I couldn’t do anything,” Ramesh Shukla says.

On December 2, 1971, Shukla was called to join a moment of huge historic significance for the region: the signing of the unification agreement that saw six of the emirates — Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Umm Al-Qaywayn, and Ajman — come together as the United Arab Emirates. (Ras Al-Khaimah joined as the seventh emirate just two months later.)

Shukla’s photo of Sheikh Zayed signing the unification declaration is instantly recognizable for those in the country — even 50 years on, thanks to its use on the new 50 dirham note, printed in 2021 to celebrate the nation’s 50th anniversary.

A ‘world-famous’ camera

Shukla continued to document Dubai and the Emirates through the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, although he still has “hundreds” of undeveloped rolls of film from this period. He’s still developing them, releasing unseen images of the sheikhs in exhibitions every few years.

In a bid to continue his legacy, Shukla — with the help of his son, Neel — has set up a darkroom lab to teach the next generation of Emirati photographers the technical skills of analog photography.

The year-long “masterclass” course, which will start in September this year for 10 students, is free through Dubai Culture, a government organization. Shukla hopes it will give young photographers a chance to gain skills that are being lost since the advent of digital photography.

“They’ll graduate under my father’s mentorship, and they will have that standing from (being taught by) the Founding Fathers’ photographer,” says Neel Shukla.

Over the years, Shukla’s photography has been compiled into books and showcased in exhibitions as a vital witness to the formation of the country. While it’s his name across the books and posters, he insists it was the Rolleicord that did all the work.

“I told my father, ‘Papa, I will make this camera one day world-famous,’” he says. “This is my dream.”

With millions of copies of his books distributed in the past few years alone, it’s safe to say he achieved it.