GAJAN || The last festival of Bengali year by Soumo Das

Gajon festival in West Bengal has to be one of the most unique festivals. This festival is celebrated during the last week of month Chaitra, just before the Bengali new year. On this auspicious festival, the devotees dress up as various deities and perform various dances and other acts depicting scenes from the Hindu Mythology. This festival is known differently in different places in West Bengal.

Firstly in Bandel. Where people celebrate “Vel Vel”. This festival is celebrated to give tribute to Lord Murugan, who is depicted with a long spear or “vel”.The devotees perform rituals to fulfil their wishes, which include dreadful acts of piercing their body parts.

Secondly in Burdwan, Kurmun. Here Gajon is celebrated in a very strange manner where people take the decomposed dead skulls and play around with them. A large number of people gather around the fair area and enjoy the gruesome scene.

In a different area of West Bengal, people were assembled together and performed various rituals of hanging themselves up and piercing themselves. This marks the end of this festival on a very auspicious note, truly witnessing the essence of Bengali Culture.

This showcases our Cultural heritage and diversity, which we must respect and nurture in our hearts and mind.

I am a freelance photographer from Guskara, West Bengal, India. Currently living in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. I am trying all genres of Photography but mainly into the street, documentary photography. I started photography in my childhood days but took it seriously in 2014 and started learning about photography. Now, It's 2022 by profession I am an Animation Designer and by passion, I am a Photographer. I love to capture in the streets and want to tell the story behind the daily life struggle of people. I am still a learner and want to learn many more with all your support and blessings.

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Vel vel festival, 2022 by Tathagataa Ghosh

Every year before Chaitra Sankranti the Tamil originated people at Bandel of Hooghly district celebrate their prime Murugan festival "Vel Vel" in West Bengal, India.

This year it was scheduled on Wednesday, 6th April. During this festival, I documented many devotees and spectators. "Vel Vel" is performed by a devotee who has his cheeks pierced with a spear, and lemons on metal hooks around the skin of the chest. They also have metal hooks on their backs that pull the chariot. People seek their blessings from devotees and they walk with them toward sheetala temple to complete the ritual.

"Vel Vel" festival celebrates the spirit of austerity and heroism.

I am a freelance photographer from Gushkara, West Bengal, India, Currently living in Kolkata, West Bengal, India trying all genres of Photography but mainly into the street, storytelling, documentary and black and white photography. I believe each and every image has its own story. I love to capture stories on the streets. I loved clicking images back when I was a kid but took it seriously in 2017. I am still a beginner and a learner.

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La foule by Aurélien Bomy

“La foule”* is a series I took at an open air electronic music concert in Nantes in September 2021 on a sunny Sunday afternoon in a park near the Loire River.

During that period the health restrictions due to covid were less drastic and we could meet without masks as long as we were vaccinated. So people were happy to be able to meet again in such events. They were dancing and smiling.

There was a peaceful and joyful ambience.

This environment was for me the perfect context to try to approach a crowd from a subjective point of view in a quite close distance focusing on individualities and working on portraits.

For me, the challenge of this series was to bear witness to the atmosphere that prevailed at that time and place. Particularly after a long period during which meetings were restricted and these kinds of moments were very rare.

But how do you convey this kind of atmosphere in photography?

For this, I decided to treat the crowd not as a unity, a totality, but as an incomplete collection of individualities and personalities. I chose the subjective point of view. For the challenge was to capture something of the life that occurs in one-to-one relationships in encounters in the crowd.

My principle was not to turn to the stage, but to the public.
To do this, I had to adopt a different posture from that which generally consists of a photographer standing back and excluding himself from the situation.
So I joined the party. This is how I collected these beautiful attitudes and these many eye-contacts.

The choice of Black & White was obvious to unify the series and to focus the interest on the essential.

*La foule is a song performed by Édith Piaf in 1957. The lyrics are by Michel Rivgauche and the music by Ángel Cabral.

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Born in Nantes in 1978, Aurélien developed a taste and interest for the arts at an early stage. He is a clinical psychologist.

Our Challenge: if you’ve got a story you can tell in just a few shots, send it to us at Progressive: (progressivestreetphotography@gmail.com) This is a great chance to express yourself in a special way. You must have had sessions or days where you’ve got a real good feeling about how a story has played out. Could be people you tracked for a while or a day at an event. Your call. Let your pictures tell the story. Share it with us, no less than 5. We’ll share the best on our Website! But remember that words are also important for communicating sensations and your thoughts

‘Taking it to the Streets’ by Martin Ingber

Street Art- ‘Taking it to the Streets’

These days, it seems that artists have taken to the streets more than ever before; finding creative inspiration and expressive outlets in everything from graffiti, street murals, paper & paste projects (sometimes on a massive scale, such as in JR’s monumental ’InsideOut’) -and, of course, street photography. Even in advertising, we are seeing a resurgence of hand-painted billboards, sometimes on a building-sized scale. Almost everywhere, artists are out there, working on site, leaving their mark and sharing their creativity.

As an artist, I have always appreciated the charm of old, often weathered pictures and signage that functioned as homemade advertising in the days before neon lights and hi-tech billboards. The simple and sometimes crude rendering of the artwork (and frequent misspellings) give these images the feel of Folk Art, antique relics of another time.

Today, we are bombarded with a constant barrage of images- from the countless photos posted on the internet to magazines, movies, TV, and other media… and, everywhere, an unending flood of ads that utilize pictures to seduce and sell.

But Art is still with us, and many of those who make it are taking to the streets, subject to the gaze and comments of passers-by, to create and to share their vision. Some may possess more passion than skill; some are more concerned with a social or political message than with purely visual content; and many are talented and accomplished professionals. In embracing the street as their canvas, all are confronted with considerable challenges: from the availability of an appropriate wall to it’s accessibility; from the extremes of weather to legal concerns; and from the cost of materials suited to so large a scale, to the inherent impermanence of their work. After all, doing street art is a little like making sand sculptures at the beach: in time, even the most extraordinary of those castles will crumble to oblivion.

So here’s a street photography salute to those artists who dream big enough to get out there, take it to the streets, and share their work with the world.

Martin Ingber

**Inside Out crew shadows on West 40th Street**

Overall Murals

Sky High Generation

Vanilla vanilla

Parrot w profile

Double portrait- Dasic Fernandez

Big time portrait

Mona

Big eyes

Street artist with self portrait

NEW NEW NEW

Lola Blu

Painted by hand

Colossal sign painter

Orange vanilla coke

50 years

Pretty in pink- portrait specialist

Pink pants billboard

Billboard painters at sunset

RC w giant basketball

Sky High mural ...and the work goes on

Inside Out crew- on the Boom

Inside Out crew- Babak

Inside Out crew - Jenna

Inside Out crew- Luis

Inside Out - Jr

I am a visual artist and musician from New York, where I was a Life Drawing and Painting Instructor for many years. I also worked as an Art Director, Senior Design Director and Curator; and my commercial illustrations in mixed-media and collage have appeared in numerous publications.

More recently, I have begun to pursue an interest in street photography, and am gratified to have found in Progressive Street a passionate community of creative and inspiring artists, and friends. My thanks to the extraordinary force of nature known as Batsceba Hardy, and the wonderful Progressive gang, for creating an online oasis that enriches us all.

Mermaid Parade

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Souls in the Mist by Alexandre Duarte

This collection was not planned at all. I was going through a phase of lack of time and lack of inspiration.

Certainly, the pandemic was not helping. When you keep on being confined on regular basis (not being against those measures) it made me lose inspiration.

Writer's block happens to photographers too! Especially when you’re a street photographer and the streets are empty…

But on December 29, I saw this mist at night through my window and thought I need to go out with my camera.

Suddenly my inspiration came back.

We were in confinement again. I took this series of 4 pictures that night and they just blend naturally into what I usually portrait: urban loneliness.

Alexandre Duarte, a Portuguese national, was born in Brussels in 1965. Son of a diplomat, and a diplomat himself, he spent most of his life abroad. During his teen years, he discovered his passion for film photography and built his own darkroom. During the 1990s, for several personal reasons, he put his camera aside. Only in 2013, while posted in Kazakhstan, the passion for photography came back. Although being an aficionado of analogue photography and manual cameras he converted to digital. His work is in black and white as in colour and it started to get noticed in several photography communities, and awarded and published in some international photography competitions.

In 2018, he created his site “The World according to Me, Myself and Eye” and was invited as an editor for the online magazine “Univers d’Artistes”. In 2020 he edited his first book through crowdfunding and now is experimenting with photography in the NFT space.

Robert Cressy, a passionate amateur photographer

**Philosophy & Photograpphy**

**Robert Cressy**

In my late teens, I became interested in Philosophy and studied the subject for four years in the ‘Welsh hub’ of Wittgenstein, University College, Swansea. This philosophy, ‘a battle against the bewitchment of our minds by language’ (Wittgenstein) had a major impact on how I viewed the world and how I thought about problems of science, religion, psychology and the rest. However, I was never interested in only one thing and pursued other interests simultaneously.

Unlike Cartier-Bresson, who ‘burst in upon the world [of photography] with a Box Brownie”, I entered more sedately with a Nikon FG, an SLR film camera recommended to me by a friend in London, after he took my portrait. One of my earliest photos worthy, I thought, of at least a passing glance, was #1 Beatitudes (c.1978). In it, a ragged tramp passes unnoticed by the group of rich, privileged attendees at the Queen’s Garden party, smiling delightedly at the camera as they emerge from the Buckingham Palace grounds. They were annoyed, I felt, at the sequel when I immediately turned my back on them and walked away. So this was one of my first attempts at representing the English Class System, still alive today, although now representing a select group of New as well as Old Money.

It was never published. Had it have been, would it, as a social statement, have changed anything? Of course not. But there again, I never imagined it would. I, like many others, including the great film director Joseph Losey (The Servant, Accident, The Go-Between) and his young literary collaborator, and subsequent Nobel Prize winner, Harold Pinter, was just fascinated by the English Upper Classes, of which we were not a part and could never join, and felt compelled to represent it to others for what it was.

Soon after that, and with a day job as an academic, I was after work pounding the streets of London taking Street shots of people, trying to ‘say’ something about them and their surroundings. By then I had bought a few photo books and was now poring over them for inspiration. I had also bought a Leica CL, a 40mm camera that I instantly fell in love with. One of the more notable shots from this period was

A London bus has broken down and the mechanic has his head under the hood looking for the trouble. Meanwhile the ticket seller, ticket machine around her neck and in full-uniform, has turned up for work only to find her bus in a mess.

By now I had of course studied HCB’s opus magnum, the Decisive Moment, borrowed from the local library. It was a lightbulb moment for me (as for thousands of others) and showed me that you could really ‘say’ something with a camera, the art of story-telling. I pored over this book like a soul obsessed.

As a result I even enlisted in a week’s course taught by a Magnum photographer, David Hurn, taught in Portugal in 1986. Over those seven days he provided a group of about five, invaluable, detailed feedback on our amateur images. He provided information, including on ‘Henri’, who he apparently knew well, but above all offered a detailed daily critique of our work that was inspiring. He sent us tasks to photograph the people of Loule, close to Albufeira, a Portuguese port, where we were located.

Examples of this I provide here are:

Beheaded

Hello Sailor!

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Beheaded, Hello Sailor! and Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, all taken in during the course. These remain some of the best photographs I have ever taken. The same small camera had also delivered in 1983, The Staircase from the Plaza de Espana, in Seville. I was now definitely looking for ‘the lasting image’, pictures that I could look at again and again and never get bored.

The Staircase: A woman ascends the grand wooden staircase of the Plaza de Espana, Seville seemingly in a trance whilst a man, high up on the stair and partially obscured, descends. The man could almost be part of her dream.

Hello Sailor! (Loule, Portugal1986) What I love to this day about Hello is the flamboyant, and indeed, for the time, outrageous invitation of the ‘woman’ with the hat and the apparent rejection of her advances by the ‘conventional’ guy disappearing rapidly left.

Beheaded (Loule, Portugal1986) This was my first venture into surrealism. A man is talking to someone his head obscured by a blind. On the ground next to his outstretched foot is a motorcycle helmet, his ‘head’, chopped off by the blind.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (Algarve, Portugal1986) Named after a famous song by Rogers and Hart, ‘BBB’ was the end-product of six shots of these ‘lovely ladies’ which reached a climax when the grandmother’s cat appeared in the doorway.

***

I became engaged with another life theme of mine when I married in 1983, namely that of religious ceremonies. Holy weeks in Seville and Zamora fascinated me. Despite a lack of personal religiosity I became totally absorbed in the intense drama, rhythm and ritual of these events.

The boy and the balloon and Saints and Sinners both from Seville, Spain 1987, are representative of that two year period.

The Boy and the Balloon

Saints & Sinners

A young boy stares up in wonder at his helium-filled balloon whilst his father has suddenly noticed a shirt in the shop window that he likes.

Cofradores, members of the religious brotherhoods, follow the Holy Week processions clothed in black hoods and white gowns. They are the ‘sinners’ parading as penitents in public. A passer-by across the road looks up at the statue of a Saint just as the closest cofradore looks at the photographer.

None of these photos yielded an income of even the most meagre kind. So in view of that and my meagre University salary, when my daughter arrived in 1987 I decided to pursue my academic career with much greater determination. I continued taking photos, but mainly of my daughter as she grew up, apart from the ‘odd’ photo that might occur at an academic conference such as: Old Crones and Topless Bather(1988); Wild Horses(2005), The Smoker(1985), and Shoeshine (2017).

Old Crones & Topless Bather

Wild Horses

The smoker

Shoe Shine

Odysseus & The Sirens

Old Crones and Topless Bather (Nice, France1988) Two fully-clothed old ladies arrange deckchairs on the stoney beach in Nice whilst their daughter strides confidently and topless into the waves.

Wild Horses (Moscow, Russia 2005) In the centre of Moscow ‘Three Graces’ examine their friend’s tourist shot in front of the monumental statue of three wild horses.

The Smoker (Moscow, Russia 2005) An apparently pregnant 30-something woman takes a break off work to smoke and to think about her situation.

Odysseus and the Sirens (London 1988) A young boy escapes the throng of the January sales where he has accompanied his mother on her buying spree. Too young to be interested in the opposite sex and in search of adventure, he is unaware of the Sirens (female mannikins) in the shop window singing their beautiful but dangerously alluring songs. (In the Odyssey they lured passing sailors on to the rocks.)

Shoeshine (Aguascaliente, Mexico 2017). A well-dressed, eighty-something man is having his shoes shined in the town centre. I take several shots of him as I move round from the back. At the last one he looks up at me but does not show emotion. He seems to be transfixed by my decision to take his portrait. Fate has arrived and he is powerless to stop it.

The decade of the Nunties saw me visiting Vancouver to pursue my new obsession with photographing clouds. This obsession originated with seeing shapes in the skies over the English bay that seemed to fit many of the Greek myths that I had studied in my days as a philosopher.

An example of this kind of photography is Confrontation of the Wind Gods.

Confrontation of the Wind Gods. (Vancouver, Canada, 2010)

Here you are invited to see two wind ‘gods’ (large clouds with human shapes) on the left and right of the photo apparently engaged in a stand-off over a large expanse of water, dotted with tiny sailboats. My money’s on the big one.

On retiring in 2015 I once more took up photography in earnest. I had by now absorbed something of the styles of other famous photographers like Atget, Lartigue, Kertesz, Sander, Muncaci, Frank, and so on. I also had a lot of opportunities for foreign travel and, accompanied by my dear wife, visited Spain, Italy, Hungary, France, Netherlands, China, Russia and Ireland, as well as various places in the UK. Some of the best photos from these last six years are:

Sleeping Man (Leamington Spa, England 2017)

The Fallen Devil (Birmingham, England, 2018)

Thou hast not youth nor age (London, England, 2021)

A very precise young man (Stratford, England)

Sander’s legacy (England, 2020)

Surveillance (Budapest, Hungary, 2019)

Bone2pic (Paris, France, 2017)

Two-step (Beijing, China 2013)

A Game of Chequers (Beijing, China 2016)

Moral philosopher (Moscow, Russia 2019)

The Tapas Waitress and the Customer (Barcelona, Spain 2019)

Putin’s Lover (Venice, Italy 2019)

The Ecstasy and the Agony (Antwerp, Belgium 2020)

Meeting Point: A Meeting with Fate? (Amsterdam, Netherlands 2017)

“Pull your socks up! There’s a race on!” (Dublin, Ireland 2021)

Burlington Boys (London, 2021)

When asked “What is your favourite photograph?” HCB famously replied, “The next one to come out of my camera!”. He didn’t look back. Of course in photojournalism, of which he was the father, ‘you are only as good as your last photograph’. But he did in his 90s look back and with great pleasure on some of his best photos. At one (I call The Irish horse owner and his horse) he exclaimed: “La gloire, c’est la geometrie!” (“The joy is in the geometry”). That is one of the major learnings I took from HCB and remains with me today. The very last photo (for the moment) to come out of my camera is Burlington Boys (3/11/2021)

We are once more and in England, commenting on the Class System, just as I was when I started out on my photographic journey. (Beatitudes). The circle of life.

Kids by Lil Steinberg

My name is Lil Steinberg, I am a Belgian/Israeli photographer shooting mostly street photography, although I can not refrain from shooting kids at the same time.
I love digging their emotions through their smiles, their tears, their expressions and words.

The one thing that fascinates me the most with children is that they have no inhibitions at all! 1 single word, 1 smile, nice eye contact and the child will immediately be your comrade!
Photographing kids today are getting more and more difficult due to paedophilia, which makes it sometimes tough as it is not always appreciated!

Talking about children brings me to define what is a child:
A child is an individual who starts life as a totally dependent being
Innocence is part of childhood, as it is a tool for dealing with the uncertainty and insecurity of life when one is rather helpless, as children are.
Children must rely on adults for the nurture and guidance they need to grow towards independence. Such nurture is ideally found from adults in children’s families, but when primary adult caregivers cannot meet children’s needs, it is up to the State as the primary bearer to find an alternative in the best interests of the child.
Thus the actions or inactions of the government impact children more strongly than any other group in society. In many countries, children are unfortunately still abused!
Despite remarkable progress in poverty reduction since 2000, children in developing countries remain exposed to many risks that compromise their development and well-being and prevent them from reaching their potential; lots of them have limited or poor access ( sometimes no access at all)to health services, adequate nutrition, positive early learning environments, quality education and other protections.
There is a lot of child mortality due to low birth weight, malnutrition overcrowded conditions, poor hygiene …..

Many of the kids I photographed during all those years are printed in my memory, as their expression or smile or huge expressive eyes touched me immensely; some of them were sick or born with a disability and knowing that those kids could have been helped in the Western world literally destroyed me. I often dreamed of adopting dozens of them during those trips, which of course is neither possible, neither legal.

All those kids have one thing in common though: no matter where they live, they manage to play like all the other kids in the world maybe not with lego or a real doll, but with a stone or a piece of wood, and they keep on smiling.

Travelling around the world and mixing with the local population opens up your mind, reminds you how lucky you are and helps you to see the glass half full!

Last but not least I will end this with a quote from Oscar Wilde, author and poet:
The best way to make children good is to make them happy.”

China, Japan, Israel, Romania, Cuba, India, Vietnam, Burma

I am a self taught photographer traveling around the world with my camera. My purpose is to express my emotions through my lens.

Lil Steinberg

NEVER NEVER LAND

Second star to the right points the way
Then it’s straight on ‘till the break of day
The road begins wherever you may stand
And it leads you to never never land

And it seems just a little bit strange
There’s no logic to convince you or explain
But reason slips right through your hands
For there can’t be a never never land

And all the grownups call it fantasy
An island in the sky can never be
Only dreamers would ever raise their sails
And set a course towards a fairy tale

And we all agree
Such a land cannot be
With no liars, deceivers, or thieves
Where there’s no need for war
No saints or heroes to adore
It really is a never never land, Never land

It’s not a play on words, or an invention
It’s not a great misapprehension
For you need only to believe
Just nd the road and follow where it leads

Yes I agree with you
It sounds too good to be true
No cops, no robbers, no law
And there’s no need to run
Living under the gun
Maybe that is never never land, Never land

Second star to the right points the way
Then it’s straight on ‘till the break of day
You can’t go wrong, for now you understand
That this is your never never land

Let them tease, let them taunt
Let them say what they want
But don’t give up.
Just keep pushing through
They who’ve gone off the track
And laugh behind your back
Just might be crazier than you

Emotion by Shubhodeep Roy

Emotion - Shubhodeep Roy.jpg — **Emotion……..**

**by Shubhodeep Roy**

Camera - Nikon D5600
Shutter Speed - 1/200 sec
Aperture -f/4
ISO - 1250
Focal Length - 25.0mm
Flash Used
Location Of The Shot - Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
Date Of The Shot - 15th October 2021.

The city of Kolkata comes alive in the festival of Durga Puja. Being the most prominent festival of Kolkata, Durga Puja is the soul and pride of West Bengal. Every year in Kolkata the festival of Durga Puja brings great enthusiasm, joyous moments and a chance to get together with families and friends in the most amazing manner like never before. This grand social event of Durga Puja showcases the beautiful culture of the Bengalis in India. When you enter a Durga Puja pandal in the evening, the sounds of dhak, the smell of incense sticks and fragrant smoke fill up your surroundings. While Durga Puja is incomplete with all these things, one thing that sums up the whole essence of this festival is the iconic Dhunuchi Naach (dance). Dhunuchi Naach is a devotional dance performed during Durga puja and it is a tradition in Bengal. The festival epitomizes the victory of good over evil, though it is also in part a harvest festival celebrating the goddess as the motherly power behind all of life and creation. This photograph was captured during the celebration of the Durga Puja festival. The devotion and the emotion of the woman and the essence of the celebration was the main thing which attracted me to capture this photograph.

Shubhodeep Roy

Quasi-portraits by Robert Cressy

A photographic portrait is normally defined as a face-on photo taken of a single person with their consent. By contrast I define a quasi-portrait as a photo of a single person taken face-on or in profile where consent was neither requested nor obtained. So the following photos fall into that category. They are Street portraits. Often the ‘sitter’ in these portraits is unaware or hardly aware of me taking the shot. So to that extent they may be considered to be more ‘natural’ than the normal portrait. But opinions on this may differ, and skilled photographers may obtain reactions which can be remarkably revealing. One thing is certain: quasi-portraits are likely to reveal something different about the person than would be revealed by a standard portrait.

DSCF1519_ClassicalPoseur(ColourOrig)-2.jpg

Reflecting on my street photography by Graham Long

My normal style of street photography is very much character based, walking around the streets and markets of the east end of London looking out for faces, colours, characters and clowns but sometimes you lose the vibe or it just doesn’t work out the people just aren’t there – a great quote from photographer Neil Hall sums up bad days in street photography “It’s like trying to capture a rare butterfly while you’ve got a large bell around your neck” as happened to me just two weeks ago on a Saturday in London, I just wasn’t successful in my usual areas, something didn’t feel right so I moved on and ventured into the city where they have recently completed 22 Bishopsgate a new skyscraper in the heart of London.

It occupies a prominent site, in the City of London financial district, and stands at 278 m (912 ft) tall with 62 storeys. Now London’s second highest building after The Shard.

It has also created some new ‘public realm’ courtyards and walkways between the buildings in the area, from where I noticed the foyer area and its huge panes of glass, which with the afternoon sunlight and changing skies, acted like mirrors as I ventured along the new walkway and I was immediately drawn to the symmetry it offered from passers-by and people waiting at a nearby bus stop and traffic junction

With my trusty little Ricoh GR3 to hand, I took up position placing it against the glass of the foyer panes – set to autofocus on Programme setting, I stood there, much to the bemusement of the weekend security guard in the foyer, who ventured over to see what I was up to as I placed the flat side of the camera against the window and waited, watched and snapped away . . . capturing various scenes of life in about 20 minutes and producing a new mini series of images I am actually very proud of

I think I will definitely look for these areas in the future.

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Carmel Market by Sharon Eilon

Located in Tel Aviv, the Carmel Market is a very central market in Israel. The busy city is home to a similarly busy market, always full of life and all sorts of interesting people and stories.

Sellers offer a range of goods from delicious food, which is the main thing you can find at the marketplace, to clothing, t-shirts, accessories such as hats and jewellery, and all sorts of trinkets and knick-knacks. People in the market range from buyers bargaining with the sellers, to someone in search of a good Knafeh, Baklava, or a fruit shake, to tourists and passers-by who are just there to soak in the colourful atmosphere.

The market is always bustling with people, some hurried and some walking leisurely, mixing together into creating an intricate swirl of the marketplace crowd. But there's no time in which the market is busier than on Fridays. Just before the beginning of the weekend, and the Sabbath especially, dozens fill the market in search of food for the evening's meal, or a nice present to bring home for their loved ones.

This photo set was taken on a Friday, and it aims to capture the truly magnetic atmosphere that resides in the market. The long week of work is over, and everyone is making their last errands before they get to go home and unwind with the people they care about. Spirits are high, colours are everywhere, and the chatter is abundant, never overwhelming, but comforting instead, making you feel as if you are a part of something bigger, of this little community of people, most of whom might never see each other again.

The little moments and interactions, even the most mundane ones, have a certain magic to them, especially in light of the pandemic. When people were cooped up in their homes, unable to provide for themselves and their families, the marketplace stood lonely, barren without the constant swarms of people. Now, things are starting to look up, and, just like the colours of the market, the future is once again looking brighter.

Sharon Eilon is an Israeli based photographer and an electrical engineer by profession. Following a health crisis, she found herself seeking treatment in India and went through a life-changing journey. After returning home healthy she decided to realize her dream and learn photography. She is fascinated by the world of photography ever since, and she is especially keen about people photography of any kind, whether it is portraiture, street photography or culture photography – anything reflecting the humanity that we all share. For her, the act of photography has a meditative quality, feeling unified with the world around her at the present moment.

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Selichot by Dov Oron

Selichot (prayers for forgiveness and atonement) are definitely my cup of tea...

During the last month if the Jewish year, leading to the Jewish New year and ten days of atonement, it is customary to wake up very early and say SELICHOT every day towards sunrise of the new day, between 4-6 in the morning.

As is it is still dark and cold, in some synagogues there is a 'hot drinks' man who walks around offering tea or coffee to the rest of the congregation. Somehow the spiritual and physical needs blend together in harmony.

Taken at the 'Ades' synagogue in Jerusalem, the main synagogue for the community originally from Aleppo, Syria.

A beautiful and unique old synagogue with a special atmosphere.

Tonight is the Jewish new year, I want to wish all of you and a happy, healthy and prosperous year.

Dov Oron I was born 59 years ago, I grew up in Tel Aviv and I currently live in a small town, Karnei Shomron, and it's been my home nearly 30 years.

Until recently I was using an Olympus OMD E5 mark II, mostly with a Panasonic 20mm/1.7 lens, and sometimes the Olympus 12-40/2.8. I received a Fuji X-T20 with the Fuji 18-55 lens a couple of years ago, and since than it has become my main tool, with the Fuji 23mm f2.

Fuji 18 or 23 mm are my prefer lenses, manual or aperture mode, metering to the light, or if metering generally underexposing a little, f5.6-11 depending on light. Nearly always jpegs. Only in very challenging conditions I turn to RAW. Prefer shutter speeds 160 and above on the street, to freeze movement, but am not afraid to take shots of nonmoving subjects at up to 1/4s, especially with the Olympus.

90% of my shots are shot in colour, but I see things in B/W most of the time, and convert the shots to B/W in pp. With the fuji film simulations I shoot more B/W jpegs than before, but still prefer to have both options. There are shots where colour is part of the story, and some where it is a distraction. The majority of my completed works are in B/W but lately the size of this majority has become smaller.

I use Photoshop cs6

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Balance: Order and Chaos – Stacy Widelitz

Stacy Widelitz (Balance Order & Chaos).png — **Stacy Widelitz**

Saturday, August 7, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. for the First Saturday Art Crawl

opening of their new exhibition “Balance: Order and Chaos.”

This brand new exhibition highlights the necessary collaboration between order and chaos in achieving natural balance. Featured artists including Stacy Widelitz, Mandy Rogers Horton, Lisa Shimko, and new artist Paul Roden present balanced compositions created through varying degrees of harmony and disarray.

"When we accept order and chaos as equally present, inevitable and even essential parts of our world, we can participate with more integrity; in a more intentional and proactive way,” says Jorge Arrieta, owner, and director of CHAUVET Arts. “By acknowledging both extremes, it allows us to channel our energy into a more productive reaction: art, activism, etc.”

Stacy Widelitz

Islamic Sufism by Neta Dekel

Sufism is a mystic conception in Islam that believes that the prophet Muhamad continue guiding the believer through holy messengers. The basic belief is that God loves us, and we should love God back. Since God is everywhere, we should love everyone and everything and should be understanding and containing all humans and creatures. Another important belief is the materialism is not important and thus they should be as humble as possible.

The name Sufism came from the word Purity or from the white woollen clothes they were used to wear.

There are a lot of Sufism orders that follow different holy leaders. The Sufis has different religious ceremonies that their goal is to bring the Sufis to a mental state called “Pitra”. The “Pitra” is a mental state in which the soul is open to see anything in the world as part of a whole, which is God (Allah)

The main ceremony is called “Dikr” and the believers should practice a lot the ability to reach the openness required for the “Dikr”

The practice can be by learning the 99 names of Allah, or by singing, dancing, music or any other thing that the leader decides.

The Turkish order believes in music and dancing. The dancing is based on continuous rotations to the left, since the heart is on the left side, and also, the earth rotates to the left.

I was lucky to visit a practice of the Turkish order in Jaffa. I have taken photos of the preparations and the actual dancing with the white dresses. Since it was only a practice and not the real “Dikr”, some of the dresses were coloured. I have chosen to present the series in black and white since the colours are not important in this case and black and white is focusing on the essence of the situation.

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Neta Dekel

"Book's Week" by Sharon Eilon

Ever since 1961, every June, Israel celebrates "Book's Week", or "Shvu'a Hasefer" in Hebrew. For a week, we celebrate the creation of Israeli and Hebrew literature with special discounts in bookstores, but most importantly, we go to the fairs.

In several large cities across the country, large book fairs take place, in which most publishing companies have a stand where they sell their books, usually at cheaper prices. But even better, these fairs can also help small, independent authors gain recognition and sell their books at a stand of their own. Most times, better-known authors also participate in the fairs, offering book signings and a chance to meet a beloved creator.

The people who arrive wander around, searching the stands, asking the salespeople for recommendations. A lot of the time, the salespeople are either familiar with the books they are selling, or they were the ones who wrote them, which allows their fondness of these books to shine through to the buyers.

Some people come with specific books they want to buy in mind, counting on the sales for cheaper prices. Some people come to check every stand for books that will catch their eye. Some people might even come mostly for the positive, enjoyable atmosphere, and aren't planning on buying a lot of books. Either way, the Book's Week fairs have something to offer for everyone, from youngest to eldest, no matter who you are or what your taste in literature is.

Last year, the pandemic didn't allow for the fairs to take place. We were all cooped up in our homes, and, in the face of an ever-changing, unpredictable reality, found escapism and great comfort in our favorite literary works.

This year, we're lucky enough to be able to have had the opportunity to celebrate Book Week properly and be able to find new books to love, and new local authors to support in their journey. The fairs were once again in full swing, and the good atmosphere was once again enjoyed by the large crowds of people from all walks of life.

Sharon Eilon is an Israeli based photographer and an electrical engineer by profession. Following a health crisis, she found herself seeking treatment in India and went through a life-changing journey. After returning home healthy she decided to realize her dream and learn photography. She is fascinated from the world of photography ever since, and she is especially keen about people photography of any kind, whether it is portraiture, street photography or culture photography – anything reflecting the humanity that we all share. For her, the act of photography has a meditative quality, feeling unified with the world around her at the present moment.

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The Other Destination" by Aurélien Bomy

Here is a series of photos that I took in April in Nantes (FR) train station.

It is taken by the windows of the train. Subjects are on the train or on the other side of the train platform and also in the reflections in the window.

All the shots are composed with the train window as a sub-frame and with reflections which give different layers and add a sort of confusion in the environment .between what is on our side, on the other side of the train, and what is on the other side of the train. that there is in the train.

That's why I called this series "The Other Destination".

The train is an impassable border to the other which can only make us imagine.

It is an invitation to dream the stories of the people who are waiting to leave. Why is he (or she) leaving? What does he (or she) leave? Where is he (or she) going? To find what?

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Born in Nantes in 1978, Aurélien developed a taste and interest for the arts at an early stage. He is a clinical psychologist.In parallel with this path, he continues an artistic practice in various ways. He discovers and learns from other artists, designers and graphic designers, how to create, design, illustrate websites, and how to perform in web streaming, computer graphics, animation and video edition. He finds out the use of tools that allow him to give a new impulse to his artistic work, in photography and in the creation of animated collages (Video-collages / motion design).

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FREEDOM OF LOVE by Sourojeet Paul

"It is my body and my wish... be gone demons."

The individuals of the LGBTQ community have been relentlessly persecuted by society for their sexual orientations and method of pleasures. They've always been prey to the tyrannical gaze of society and even in the 21st century, they face social taboos and judgemental behaviour.

The work looks closely at the LGBT community in eastern India, often projecting a world devoid of restrictive laws and social taboos that the community regularly comes up against. For a community whose voice is often marginalised

Homosexuality in India has been a subject of discussion from ancient times to modern times. Hindu texts have taken positions regarding the homosexual characters and themes Rigveda, one of the four canonical sacred texts of Hinduism says Vikriti Evam Prakriti (meaning what seems unnatural is also natural), which some scholars believe recognises homosexual dimensions of human life, like all forms of universal diversities. Historical literary evidence indicates that homosexuality has been prevalent across the Indian subcontinent throughout history and that homosexuals were not necessarily considered inferior in any way until about the 18th century during British colonial rule.

The Arthashastra, an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, mentions a wide variety of sexual practices which, whether performed with a man or a woman, were sought to be punished with the lowest grade of fine. While homosexual intercourse was not sanctioned, it was treated as a very minor offence, and several kinds of heterosexual intercourse were punished more severely.

Homophobia is prevalent in India. Public discussion of homosexuality, bisexuality and trans orientation in India has been inhibited by the fact that sexuality in any form is rarely discussed openly. There may be much higher statistics for individuals who have concealed their identity, since a number of Indians, categorising in the LGBTQ community are living in the closet due to fear of discrimination.

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), dating back to 1861, makes sexual activities "against the order of nature" punishable by law and carries a life sentence. Before striking down the colonial-era law several organisations have expressed support for decriminalising homosexuality in India and pushed for tolerance and social equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. India is among countries with a social element of a third gender, but mental, physical, emotional and economic violence against the LGBT community in India prevails.

Lacking support from family, society or police in every moment of their life. They are treated as untouchables and also neglected in getting proper health care facilities, basic education, security. Many gay rape victims do not report the crimes. They’ve always been prey to the tyrannical gaze of society, their views and ideology about sexual preferences often contradicts with the mass and they are mobbed and lynched publicly taking up the law and order in the hands of the public. Various Hindu organisations, based in India and abroad have supported the decriminalisation of homosexual behaviours.

While there’s always a univocal unity of religious leaders in expressing their homophobic attitude. Usually divisive and almost always seen tearing down each other's religious beliefs, but this time leaders across sections came forward in decrying homosexuality and expressing their solidarity with the judgment of decriminalising the colonial period law in 2018.

On the other hand, the majority of Indians bearing the same stereotypical mentality were dead against the decrying of the law. According to their verses, Homosexuality is a crime according to scriptures and is unnatural. People cannot consider themselves to be exclusive of a society... In a society, a family is made up of a man and a woman, not a woman and a woman, or a man and a man. If these same-sex couples adopt children, the child will grow up with a skewed version of a family. Society will disintegrate. If we are to look at countries in the West that have allowed same-sex marriages, you will find the mental tensions they suffer from.

Families carrying homosexual/bisexual/transgender children advised them not to express these different sexual preferences in the fear of getting compartmentalised from the society, And seek to visit psychologists and medical advisory to bring them back in the normal course of life through yoga, counselling and different medications. They call it a bad addiction. Homosexuality is against Indian culture, against nature, and against science. It’s quite horrible to put on their shoes and visualise how much emotional turmoil they go through suppressing their eternal wish and being bullied, getting trolled on social media platforms and every other aspect of life. With these deep wounds, they’ve to struggle for their basic needs and human rights. They walk all alone along their own scripted path.

“The wound is the place where the light enters you…” -Rumi

Pride parades are outdoor events celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary and queer (LGBTQ) social and self-acceptance, achievements, legal rights, and pride. The events also at times serve as demonstrations for legal rights such as same-sex marriage.

Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk is held with the intention of making a political statement for Equality, Tolerance, Love and Solidarity. The walk is held to strengthen the voice for equality for all – irrespective of gender, sexuality, religion, etc. The participants walk in solidarity with all rights-based movements, Child rights, Women's rights, Dalit rights, Rights of the Disabled/differently-abled, students groups, and others.

Kolkata's pride march 1999 was the first-ever march in India, organised on 2 July 1999. The walk was called The Friendship Walk. The participants were wearing specially designed, bright yellow T-shirts with graphics of footsteps and a caption reading "Walk on the Rainbow"

Kolkata Rainbow Pride Festival (KRPF) is a Kolkata based open collective of individuals, networks and organizations that support LGBT rights. runs a number of events such as art exhibits, film screenings, panel discussions, cultural events, community hangouts etc. KRPW walk with Love and Solidarity in support of the rights to gender expression and the rights for individual sexual freedom. To create a space for dialogue, support and strengthen action to visibility issues of Dignity-Voice- Sexuality in relation to children, women and sexual minorities

Thus Pride Walk became a refuge not only to the LGBTQ community but also to some less known sexual minority community like the asexual, skoliosexual, demisexual community who are often misunderstood for their desires which are not absurd but are just different from us, In most of the cases their stories and struggles are unknown and unexplored, they have to pave their own path for living. Pride Parade celebrates their desires and aspirations which are free to be explored and expressed. And an attempt to understand their psyches and visualise their vulnerabilities by creating a space where people can express their personal experiences and feelings, outside of their lived reality. Because we live in a society that prevents us from living a ‘normal’ life, and moreover nobody is happy to be in their normal being and my work imagines a world in which there is the freedom to live according to one’s own desires.

Sourojeet Paul is a B.TECH IT student,born in Kolkata,West Bengal.After completion of his boards and JEE he inscribed his journey in phototgraphy seriously,before that was casually occasional photographer like all of us.

Sourojeet is now predominantly a Street Photographer but according his verses he always finds interest to try out new things in life.The uncertainty of life seems to be the biggest beauty to him.He got his hands dirty in Photojournalism,Wedding as well as Event Photography.Being mostly into the streets he find beauty in the candidness,the underlying story and poetry of the moment.And often try to inculcate and mix up the genres with Emotions and Drama.The way Paul documents weddings and event always leaves his signature style of street and that makes him unique amongst others.

Paul managed to bag awards like THE BEST STORY TELLER AWARD OF 2019,PEOPLES’ CHOICE AWARD.His works have been exhibited in several prestigious galleries of the city along with some reknowned names of the country.Got pubished in well appreciated magazines like VOGUE ITALIA,CHIIZ,IPA,RETRO KOLKATA WEB MAGAZINE to name a few.

Just within few days He has been able to reach the 3rd round of HIPA photography contest in his very first attempt and been finalist on the competitons hosted by CHIIZ INTERNATIONAL.

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The harbor of Muara Angke by Michael C. Geiss

The harbor of Muara Angke in Jakarta, Indonesia, is a microcosme, in one of the biggest cities worldwide. It´s a place, where you can see the impact of a problem, not only due to the local population: The heritage of our consumer society, resulting in pollution by mountains of plastics and chemicals finding a final destination in a place, where you presume to find healthy food.

In the middle of this small world, people who work hard, to feed their families under conditions we are not used to, but always smiling and open for a talk.

When you live in country like I do, were you have to wear hard-toed boots, at the moment you take a small screwdriver in your hands, you will be seriously confused watching those tuff workers on and under a wreck in the harbor.

While observing them dismantling the wreck on deck, I discovered a diver coming up from under this steel-monster. I couldn´t believe that he was doing his dirty job there, getting "fresh" air, by a tube attached to a compressor on the shore. After a while, they stopped for a break and I could ask the diver for a portrait- shot on the pier, what he accepted with a big smile, while his fellow, who came out of a whole in the wreak, only wearing a T-shirt and trousers, asked me to have a noodle soup with him in the shadow. Communication was very simple, they did not speak English and my Indonesian is very poor. I am still wondering, how much of the liquid they work in ... is water? Conclusion: I will never again complain about my job ;)

My name is Michael C. Geiss, I am an editorial and commercial photographer, based in Bavaria (Germany) born in 1957. I spent many years in the south of France, before moving back to Germany, where I studied photography and then started in fashion & food photography, before working as a cameraman for German TV during a period of 10 years.

When I'm not taking photos, you'll find me volunteering at my local NGO, or for an international foundation as a kind of project scout, exploring new countries, or spending time with my (furry) family.

Michael C. Geiss

"Street Workers" by Eduardo Storch

My focus has been "Street Workers" like food trucks, magazine stands, candy kiosks and finally locksmiths, my current project.

Although there are "Locksmith Business Chains" that offer locksmith services in Montevideo, there are still kiosks on the street that people often go to. Some of the newer kiosks are part of the "Locksmith Chains", but there are still independent locksmiths throughout the city who work inside older and varied fibreglass, wood, or sheet metal kiosks. The latter are the ones that captivated me.
I started working on this series last year and it is still ongoing. I have called it "Closed Locksmiths" because I thought it would be interesting to note that workers literally spend long hours "locked" inside their kiosks every day.
It is in these kiosks where they endure the cold of winters, heating the spaces only with small heaters. During the summer, the sun turns the kiosk into an “oven” and the heat is mitigated by a small fan. In the kiosks the lighting conditions are precarious, maintaining the hygiene of the place is complex, and there is no bathroom, so they need to use the bathroom in a nearby bar. They spend most of the day standing or sitting uncomfortably and eating in what little space they have left.
I took all the photographs in Montevideo in black and white with high contrast to highlight the confinement environment.
I only found one woman who worked alongside her husband, but the rest were older men, most of whom have been working at the kiosk for a long time, some of them for more than 30 years.
I told them about my project and they not only gladly agreed to participate, but they spontaneously told me both about their job and about her life. I always brought them a hard copy of the photo or sent it to them on WhatsApp and so far everyone has had very positive reactions to my work.

While listening to all their stories was an extremely interesting experience, I would like to highlight the story of one of the workers, in particular, Julio, who had one of the most striking kiosks and with which I spent the most time.

Julio is 71 years old; he is a turner by profession, but he never worked as such. He worked for 20 years as a large and well-known locksmith. He then became independent and opened the kiosk where he works now for 34 years. He is proud of the way he has decorated his booth, the lights he has placed outside, and the comments people make about his place.
He told me that he had not been in good health and that he had to wear a pacemaker. I could see a piece of paper on the wall of the kiosk that indicated the date of the pacemaker check, then I called him to ask how the check-up went. He thanked me for the call and he told me that he couldn't attend because he was busy working… he had two families to take care of, but he said he felt fine.
It is not just about documenting his work with images, behind them are people with their lives, with their stories ... photography allows me to immerse myself inside people; somehow I'm still a Doctor ... thankfully.

My name is Eduardo Storch and I am from Montevideo, Uruguay. Medical Doctor by profession ... Retired Obstetrician and Gynecologist.
I am an amateur photographer and I have discovered my passion for street photography. I am 74 years old and have four grandchildren.

Since my retirement almost two years ago, I have devoted myself to photography and tried to approach it in a completely different way. I also joined Facebook where I made very good friends who have inspired and guided me.

Eduardo Storch

Lag Ba'Omer by Miki Schauder

Lag Ba'Omer, a Jewish holiday. Some of its main significant rituals- lighting bonfires, prayers, big dancing and singing celebration in which a number of things are being noted.

The end of the plague in which 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva's disciples died in the 3rd century, marking the Bar Kochba revolt and the struggle for national freedom, the day of death of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and it’s also the day of celebrating his life, (on the day of death it is possible to win the spiritual property of that person). The custom of lighting bonfires was spread as a memorial for two things.

A memory to the rebels who lit beacons of fire on the mountain tops to convey the message of the outbreak of the revolt. The memory of the bonfire of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai ( also known by his acronym Rashbi), was a 2nd-century in ancient Judea, said to be active after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. He was one of the most eminent disciples of Rabbi Akiva and attributed by many Orthodox Jews with the authorship of the Zohar, the chief work of Kabbalah. In the images, you can see the religious Orthodox praying with their Rabbi. After the prayer, they start dancing and signing the children play by the fire and it's a Mitzvah (an obligation) to light the fire and read words of wisdom. The women are staying far away, looking out of the windows.

This is the story of one night in the streets of the Orthodox city Bnei Brak April 2021

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