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The photographs by Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Kanu Gandhi, kick off the exhibition journey of a photo exhibition illustrating the socio-historical evolution of India, from Independence to the present day. It is titled “India Today: 17 Photographers from Independence to the Present” – an exhibition featuring over five hundred works displayed at the Magazzino delle Idee in Trieste, until February 18, 2024. The exhibition delves into challenging years, offering seventeen distinct perspectives on this theme. The photographers, all Indian, belong to different eras, allowing the exhibition to take viewers on a journey through seven decades of change, contradictions, and hopes captured through the lenses of artists who have made photography a tool for testimony and reflection.
It all begins in 1947 when India gains independence from Britain. From that moment, Hindus and Muslims engage in severe clashes leading to the exodus of many towards the two newly formed states – Pakistan and Bangladesh. This period also witnesses the assassination of Gandhi in 1948. The photographs by Kanu, his grandson, bear direct witness to the post-independence civil disobedience. The exhibition then proceeds chronologically. Through the lens of Bhupendra Karia, a teacher and theorist, we explore post-war rural India. Pablo Bartholomew guides us through the ’70s, a decade of enthusiasm and discovery on the streets of Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta. Embracing the ’80s and ’90s, we encounter the work of Ketaki Sheth, capturing the metamorphosis of Bombay during the construction boom. Subsequently, Sheba Chhachhi, a feminist activist, marks a significant change in the ’90s with the series “Seven Lives and Dreams,” breaking the mold of reportage to explore the concept of reality.
Raghu Rai‘s work, a member of the Magnum agency, spans from the ’60s to the 2000s, portraying the Indian subcontinent with a documentary eye. As we enter the new millennium, it’s interesting to see how Indian photography begins to address urgent themes such as LGBTQ+ rights, with works by Sunil Gupta, Anita Khemka, Serena Chopra, and Dileep Prakash transforming individual stories into universal narratives. Other poignant themes include Vicky Roy, who fled home at eleven, addressing the plight of orphaned children living on the streets, while Amit Madheshiya captures audiences of itinerant cinemas, symbolizing the rural and traditional part of contemporary India.
The photography of the new millennium also embraces environmental and social issues. Senthil Kumaran Rajendran unveils the conflict between tigers and humans, Vinit Gupta bears witness to the struggles of indigenous populations against industrialization, and Ishan Tanka documents protests against dam construction. Soumya Sankar Bose commemorates the past with the reconstruction of the Marichjhapi massacre in 1979, while Uzma Mohsin explores the consequences of civil protest in contemporary India. The exhibition is enriched by 15 audio-video interviews conducted in India, providing an in-depth insight into the vision and inspiration of each artist.
I am always stricken by Luis Gallardo of LGM Studio’s work! Today, our featured project takes us to a house in the forest, where Luis immerses us deep in a world of reflections, context, light, and mood.
Throughout this project, it often feels like Luis’s photographs are a magic trick, and the house is appearing and disappearing before our eyes. It is a joy to view and fits in with the autumnal feeling in the air where I’m writing this from, so I’m very excited to share it with you! Luis has graciously shared some information with us about this project, so let’s get into the thick of it!
Luis starts “This shoot for Casa Cono was truly a special one for me. My journey with [the architect] Estudio Atemporal began in 2003, when Paul Curuchet and I studied architecture together. Later in 2012, a couple of years after I first started my professional photography career, Estudio Atemporal approached me to document Auditorio Blackberry. They were one of our first clients and Casa Cono marked our 47th project together.
It’s been an incredible privilege to have such a longstanding relationship with them. Over these 11 years, we’ve grown together professionally, and we’ve had the unique opportunity to give voice to their diverse architectural creations through our images, including Licoreria Limantour, Bar Zapote at Rosewood Mayakoba, Casa Altos Visitor Center and Casa Mola. Like all their projects, Casa Cono is a statement to their relentless commitment to design excellence, and I couldn’t be more honored to be their dedicated photographer.”
“The shoot days for Casa Cono were both exhilarating and challenging, as it is often the case when working in architectural photography,” Luis muses. “We spent two days on-site, from dawn till dusk, meticulously capturing the essence of this magnificent structure. It was great for us that Luciana de la Garza and Paul Curuchet, lead architects at Estudio Atemporal, came to the photo shoot and shared with us their passion for the project.”
“The house is located 3 hours away from Mexico City, where our studio is based, so the first thing we needed to coordinate was traveling and lodging logistics,” he explains. “One of the primary challenges I encountered was covering in photo compositions the multitude of options, as this house has all its facades open and the interior spaces are also connected in every view to the surrounding context.
The house is nestled within a forest, requiring the photographer’s skill to find the best spots for tripod placement while navigating the complexity of the terrain, requiring physical demand to ascend and descend slopes with wet ground, branches and rocks while carrying tripod, camera, lenses, and drone, adding to the complexity having to deal with the wind, the morning chill and to fly the drone while avoiding trees and obstacles around the house. All of these while the sun advanced as time passed.”
He continues, “Another challenge was to deal with changing natural light throughout the day, which, for an architectural photographer, means that some moments of light and shadow are not going to be repeated.
You can’t come back, so you need to choose where to be at a specific time and you have to move fast.
Given my passion for natural light, it was essential to capture those perfect moments when the interplay of light and architecture created magic. To overcome this challenge, we meticulously styled all the spaces before beginning the shoot and carefully planned our shooting schedule to align with the best lighting conditions. At times, we had to exercise patience and wait for the perfect moment to arrive.”
Luis’s ability to immerse us in the landscape surrounding this home is a testament to his ability to truly understand the architecture that he is photographing. The sense of place and mood he can convey through a 2D medium like photography is just wonderful.
It is as if we can feel the heat of the sun and the coolness of the shady shadows on our skin, smell the forest, and hear the leaves fluttering down into the pool.
In addition to his ability to teleport us to Casa Cono, Luis also does a marvelous job of crafting little moments with the help of the human figure, as we’ll see below. We are able to understand the scale of the spaces, as well as understanding the functionality and story of Casa Cono.
I adore this next photograph, where the outdoors drifts seamlessly inside Casa Cono. Luis’s photograph allows us to feel both part of nature and sheltered from it, in this living space.
I always appreciate Luis’s approach to photography and his restraint in post-processing. Unfussy, simple scenes captivate our attention. Shadows and highlights carve out the space and inform us of the lines and shapes present. Nothing feels forced or faked. We view Luis’s work, and in turn, the architect’s, as they truly are.
Another thing I will always love about LGM Studio is how Luis captures the interior spaces at dusk, so we can see the house aglow with warm practical lighting. There is a relaxing air about these images, like we’re invited to a dinner party at Casa Cono or are spending the weekend there.
Back outside as the light falls, Casa Cono appears to blend in seamlessly with the surrounding trees. The reflections on the massive amounts of glazing, and the home’s materiality allow it to camouflage into the forest. Our brains work to gauge where the house stops and the woods begin, and I just love it.
I asked Luis about his favorite photograph and he shared, “There’s one particular shot that truly stands out. It’s a photograph of the main façade that faces the forest, allowing you to understand the structure’s modulation, the house’s placement on the terrain, and its delicate and thoughtful relationship with the surroundings, which was based on the premise of not cutting down a single tree.
From a technical standpoint, composing this photograph, which required to be captured from the lower part of the terrain, required the right equipment, including perspective correction lenses. Since the terrain had a slope, it was essential to balance the image and maintain vertical lines to capture the complete view of the façade. Regarding lighting, it was crucial to accentuate the harmony and warmth of both natural sunlight and the lighting design proposed by the architects. My work revolves around achieving the perfect balance between these two elements, without the use of flashes or additional lighting beyond what the space provides.”
“To fellow photographers embarking on similar architectural projects, I would offer these pieces of advice: First, immerse yourself in the architecture. Understand the architect’s vision and what makes the space unique.
Second, patience is key. Wait for the right light and moment —it can transform an ordinary shot into an extraordinary one.
Third, always pay attention to details. Architecture is all about the finer points, and capturing them can elevate your work.
Lastly, remember that your role is not just to document but to tell a story through your images. Let the design speak and create a visual narrative that resonates with viewers,” Luis says.
We’ll wrap this up with Luis’s parting words, where he says “I’d like to give a special shoutout to my partner, Adiranne, Ady, Montemayor. Her contributions to this project, and to all our work, cannot be overstated. She manages all the pre-production stages, handles art direction and styling during the shoot, and deserves a special mention when creating photographs because you need to move fast when it’s time to turn on/off lights, open/close windows and curtains, and light on the fire pit, especially at dusk when light changes so quickly.
She even plays a crucial role in all the work we do to final photographs through post-production and retouching of our images. Her dedication and creativity are an integral part of our success, and I couldn’t do it without her. Additionally, I’d like to express my gratitude to Estudio Atemporal for their trust and collaboration over the years. It’s been an incredible journey, and I’m excited to see where our partnership takes us next.”
What a team!
A huge thank you to Luis Gallardo, Ady Montemayor, and LGM Studio for sharing this beautiful project with us. You can see more of Luis’ incredible work at his website www.lgmstudio.com as well as his Instagram @lgmstudio.
If you have a project you’d like to be considered for Project of the Week, you can submit it here.
August 23, 1940 – November 10, 2023
Richard Britton, of Wind Point, 83, passed away at the Woods of Caledonia on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023.
He was born in Ohio on Aug. 23, 1940, to his parents, Willard and Lucille (née Young).
Richard served in the U.S. Army (1958-1962) before getting his BBA at the University of Toledo. After completing his studies, he went on to retire from Modine as an executive after 28 years of service.
He was a member of the Faithbridge Church in Racine, the Racine Yacht Club, and part of the Modine 20-year club.
Richard enjoyed traveling, sailing, movies, photography, eating chili dogs (with onions) and the desire to continue to learn about things that interested him in life. He cherished his time visiting with his grandchildren and was often seen laughing over many of life’s funny/not-so-serious moments. He very much loved his family and will be missed greatly.
Richard is survived by his wife of 31 years, Karen Van Lone; children, Steven (Jennifer), Shawn (Lisa), Christine (Pete Janovicz); and six wonderful grandchildren, Lauren, Amanda, Ryan, Sydney, Owen and Jacob.
A private celebration of Richard’s life will be held.
The family extends a heartfelt thank you to the staff at the Woods of Caledonia for the love and attention Richard received while under their care.
Obituary and photo of Richard Britton courtesy of Draeger-Langendorf Funeral Home.
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A striking image of stars shining through the branches of a mature tree in an Exeter park has been declared the winner of a prestigious photography competition.
Oliver Necesito’s night-time shot was judged to be the best image in Exeter City Council’s Tree Photography Competition for 2023.
The competition is held every year in the run-up to National Tree Week (26 November to 4 December), inviting people to take a picture of their favourite tree in Exeter.
Once again the competition proved extremely popular with organisers receiving 74 entries from budding local amateur photographers.
Yet it was Oliver’s moody and imaginative shot that impressed the judges.
Oliver wins a framed photograph of the image and a Haynes Tree Manual for his efforts. All of the competition prizes were kindly donated by the City Council’s arboricultural contractors, Devon Trees Services.
A close second was Rob Geare’s delayed exposure shot of a tree in the middle of a busy road junction at the bottom of Fore Street. Rob receives a framed photograph of his image.
In the Junior section, eight-year-old Raef Harvey wowed judges with his beautiful image of a young girl hugging a giant oak tree in Rougemont Gardens. Raef wins a framed photograph of his image and a Haynes Tree Manual.
Runner up in the junior section was 12-year-old Austin Lake for his shot of a tree on the Cathedral Green starting to change colour. He also wins a framed photograph of his image.
Cllr Ruth Williams, Lead Councillor for Place and City Management, said: “What an absolute pleasure it has been to be part of the judging panel! The range of images was remarkable – from the beautifully composed chocolate box ones featuring the trees along the Quay and the Exe, to the truly urban images featuring trees that gave the impression of surviving in amongst buildings and roadways. There were also the ‘arty’ shots where unusual camera angles created some quite intriguing results.
“It was a considerable challenge coming up with the winning images from over 70 submitted. In the end choosing the winners and runners up was down to those images that left an indelible mark on my memory well after I viewed them. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who submitted an entry.”
National Tree Week is the UK’s largest annual tree celebration, marking the start of the winter tree planting season (November to March each year). This year it will take place from 25 November to 3 December. Further information about national events can be found on the Tree Council website
Think before you click: Center for Mindfulness Photography in Easthampton teaches a new view of yourself in the world
One sunny afternoon this June, the artist Betye Saar was surveying a table piled with twigs and branches and strips of bark. In a large shed on the grounds of the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, curators bustled around the 97-year-old Los Angeles artist, offering for inspection materials they had gathered from the Huntington’s 207-acre estate: pieces of eucalyptus, dogwood, kiwi, palm.
Saar was creating a new sculptural installation for the Huntington, which opened to the public on November 11 and will remain on show in the museum’s Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art for two years. “How does it look to you, Betye?” enquired Robert Hori, the Huntington Gardens cultural curator and programme director.
Her white hair pushed up into a lilac baseball cap, clutching a stout walking cane, Saar peered at the display. “It looks like a lot of branches on a table!” she shot back, to laughter. “But we’ll work our magic on it.”
The centrepiece of Saar’s installation, “Drifting Toward Twilight”, is a vintage wooden canoe, 17 feet long, which appears to float a few inches from the ground in the middle of a dimly blue-lit space. Inside the canoe, three bird cages contain antlers; at either end, standing like guards, are heavy carved wooden finials (purchased by Saar from an LA garden store), also adorned with antlers.
Fixed under the canoe’s hull, strips of blue and green neon illuminate the bark and brushwood beneath, arranged by Saar to resemble flowing water. Subtly shifting lighting in the blue-painted gallery mimics the progression of dawn to dusk to night. The atmospheric effect of this immersive environment, as Saar intends it, is of being “at the bottom of the ocean”.
Saar has included ships and boats in her work before. To many, she is best known for her assemblage sculpture and collages, made from found objects and images, which comment on the history of African-American slavery and subjugation. In Saar’s sculpture “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” (1972), a figurine of a “mammy” — a racist stereotype of a head-scarfed black servant, the enduring mascot of Aunt Jemima-brand pancakes — clutches a rifle in one hand, and is foregrounded by a fist in a Black Power salute.
That work captures the themes running through Saar’s life and work: domesticity and political activism; feminism and racial politics. In a later installation, “I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break” (1998), she printed a copy of the infamous diagram of the British slave ship the Brookes, which depicts African bodies stacked like cordwood, on to a wooden ironing board. A white sheet, embroidered with the initials “KKK”, hangs on a washing line.
A few weeks after her visit to the Huntington, I am speaking with Saar at her hillside home in Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon, a leafy dell of winding lanes known in the 1960s as a countercultural redoubt. She has lived there since 1962 — before such colourful neighbours as Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison and Joni Mitchell moved in — and raised three daughters there. Her garage and a basement level serve as her studio, and are packed high with half-made sculptures and salvaged materials for possible future works.
I press her on interpretations of “Drifting Toward Twilight”, suggesting a narrative connection between the vessel, the caged antlers and the non-native plants now growing on the former estate of a railway magnate. Is this boat riding the waves of colonial history?
“It’s not that political,” Saar says. “That’s the easiest thing to think of — the ships that brought slaves over. But it’s pre-slavery.” With this installation, she is thinking of timescales grander than the relatively brief history of the US. “I suppose at one time the Huntington was covered with water,” Saar adds. “Most of the world was covered with water.”
She explained that her abiding fascination with canoes began in the 1980s, when she lived beside a lake while teaching at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Her interest relates, she says, to Indigenous and first peoples’ use of this simple form of transport, which was often carved from a single tree trunk.
Natural materials have always played a role in Saar’s work, alongside human-made found objects. The canoe in “Drifting Toward Twilight” is a wooden sporting model, built in Maine in the 1940s and shipped to the artist from a seller in Florida. Saar has customised it with two gnarled cypress “knees” (lumps that sometimes grow from the tree’s roots) which suggest the profile of a Viking longship, or a galleon with a carved figurehead on its prow.
The commission has additional personal resonance for her: as a girl, she lived in Pasadena, not far from the Huntington, and she remembers visiting the mansion and the gardens with her mother when she was about 13. Today, Saar’s granddaughter Sóla Saar Agustsson works at the institution; she was instrumental in bringing this project to fruition, serving as co-curator with Yinshi Lerman-Tan, the Huntington’s associate curator of American art.
Aside from dugout canoes and slave ships, the other kind of boat that “Drifting Toward Twilight” unavoidably suggests is the ferry that transfers souls between the realm of the living and the afterlife. At 97, Saar has remarkable reserves of energy and mental acuity, but she concedes that she will probably not tackle another installation of this scale and ambition.
For now, though, she is already planning her next projects. Shortly before my visit, she had been beachcombing on the California coast, north of Santa Barbara, and brought home several twisted pieces of driftwood that she was thinking of transforming into snakes: “I just love the idea of finding something and turning it around and making it into art.”
To November 2025, huntington.org
Who is the female night photographer who also happened to be the first published woman photojournalist in the United States? Let’s find out more about this fearless, intrepid force of nature.
The early 1900s were a time in which most women’s roles were confined to the home. If women were photographers at all, this was confined to indoor portrait studios.
This, however, didn’t stop Jessie Tarbox Beals.
Beals set herself apart by working outdoors and in situations thought to be “too rough” for a woman. She took some of her photojournalism photos from ladders, hot air balloons, and platforms, hauling fifty pounds of 8 x 10″ equipment and glass plate negatives with her.
Beals seemed indomitable. She photographed in all conditions, including fires, floods, and winds so strong she had to sit on her 50-pound camera to keep it from flying away. She straddled speeding cabs, scaled telephone poles, and climbed dusty bookshelves to get her photos.
During this period, Beals photographed suffrage marches, women’s jobs, female-run shops and restaurants, poor living conditions of immigrant families, and women’s rights. A go-getter, she also photographed Calvin Coolidge, Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Mark Twain, Ida M. Tarbell, General Pershing, and Fannie Hurst.
In 1902, Jessie became a full-time professional news photographer. The editor of Buffalo, New York’s two local papers, the Buffalo Inquirer and The Courier hired her, allowing her to freelance as well. She was proud of her ability to get into difficult-to-photograph places, some of which were proclaimed off-limits to news photographers. And she did this all while hauling her heavy camera equipment with her, taking pride in her physical conditioning and ability to promote herself.
She was probably best known for covering the 1904 St. Louis World Fair, where she was the first woman to be given credentials. Due to her ability to hustle and promote herself as well as her sheer tenacity, she ultimately became the official photographer at the Fair for the New York Herald, Tribute, and Leslie’s Weekly, three Buffalo newspapers, and all the local St. Louis newspapers as well as the Fair’s own publicity department. Here too, she climbed ladders and flew in hot air balloons to get her photos. She also photographed dignitaries at the event, photographing William Howard Taft and President Roosevelt through pure tenacity. She eventually accompanied Roosevelt as a member of his Presidential party and accompanied him to a reunion of the Rough Riders in 1905.
If one is the possessor of health and strength, a good news instinct … and the ability to hustle, which is the most necessary qualification, one can be a news photographer.
Jessie Tarbox Beals
Even after using hot air balloons, she was still denied riding one. At the 1907 International Balloon Race in St. Louis, she was told that she couldn’t ride one because it was too dangerous for a woman. However, as one began lifting off, “the huge crowd was thunderstruck to see [Beals], a camera slung over her shoulder, grip the top of a basket and pull herself aboard,” according to the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Of course, we had to get to her night photography. It’s in the title, after all.
She teamed up with freelance writer Harriet Rice, teaching herself to use flash powder to make photos at night. Naturally, she was one of the first female photographers to use this as well!
If you are thinking that using explosive magnesium chlorate flash powder to illuminate her photographs could get a night photographer in trouble, you’d be right on the mark. But Beals was not shy about using flash powder. She attempted to photograph a special group exiting a theatre from a stoop across the street, allegedly using two pounds of flashlight powder, about four times the usual amount. The New York American reported:
The explosion of an over-charge of flashlight powder set off by two photographers, one of them a woman, just as crowds were poring out of the Garrick Theatre, caused tremendous excitement and considerable damage. Windows in several houses were broken, scores of families, brought out of bed by the detonation, which rang through three blocks, came scurrying into the street, some of them in their bedclothes.
The New York American
The explosion was sufficiently terrifying that Palmer Hunt, head of the Iron Workers Association, thought this was an attempt on his life as his windows shattered.
In comparison, modern-day night photographers using an LED flashlight seems rather mild.
If Beals was willing to haul her cumbersome 8 x 10″ view camera up ladders, stoops, platforms, and hot air balloons, you can be sure that she used the same equipment at night. Already challenging during the day, such equipment would have been doubly so at night. Her basic kit included a large view camera, lenses, a heavy wooden tripod, holders, and heavy glass plates.
In light of this, it’s humorous to think about how we night photographers so often clamor for a mirrorless camera or a carbon fiber tripod instead of a chunkier DSLR or aluminum tripod.
The archive of her work at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University contains over 100 prints of her night images. These include photographs of New York and the World’s Fair, Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, and later, the Mission-style architecture in Santa Barbara after she moved to California in 1922.
Gifted night photographer and historian Lance Keimig at National Parks at Night notes that little is known about why Beals created night photos or how she may have been inspired to begin it in the first place. She may have been aware of night photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who was creating nocturnal images in the same area as she was at the time.
Regardless, Beals deserves attention for her pioneering role in photojournalism and night photography as well as the excellent quality of her images. And she certainly deserves enormous credit for accomplishing this while upending gender-based obstacles through her tenacity and courage.
After Beal’s passing, photographer Alexander Alland, Sr. purchased many of her prints and negatives. He published a biography about her, Jessie Tarbox Beals: First Woman News Photographer, in 1978.
“Her career was remarkable by any standard. But for a woman at the turn of the century, it was practically unheard of.”
Alexander Alland, Sr.
LAKE LOS ANGELES — California State Park’s Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park, 15701 East Ave. M, will celebrate Native American Heritage Month with five guest artists sharing their Native culture with museum visitors. The guest artists will have their art for sale.
On Saturday, Nov. 18, Judy Einboden will share her gourd art and pine needle baskets. Judy honors her mother’s Panamanian heritage by incorporating patterns from Mola textiles into her art. However, she adapts the Mola style to depict local California animals.
