Searching For My Very Own Rue Mouffetard

by Thomas Hackenberg

“What a strange title?!”, you might be asking yourself… Here’s the story to it:

I got my first serious camera as a present from my parents for my 18th birthday and bought myself a photo compendium entitled “THE JOY OF PHOTOGRAPHY”, which was published by Kodak, if my memory serves me correctly. I poured over the pages and there it was – I can still feel my amazement when I first discovered this photograph; it's as if it were yesterday:

The magical B/W masterpiece by Henri Cartier-Bresson, a photograph that many of you are sure to be familiar with. The black-and-white picture of a small boy, carrying home two huge bottles of wine with an indescribable expression of pride and joy on his face, entitled Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1954. When I saw this picture, I was thunderstruck: How on earth could a photographer be there, see and catch such an intimate, candid moment? What he called The Decisive Moment. With the equipment available at that time!

This picture of the little boy virtually burned itself into my brain from that day on. I have never forgotten it since; it has provided me with a kind of internally memorized guardrail and a compass to give direction to my own photographic passion.

I have entitled my series “Searching For My Very Own Rue Mouffetard”, because that is the most fitting title I could possibly think of. It describes my quest to make good street pictures which resonate with and speak to the viewer. Henri Cartier-Bresson’s masterpiece is always in my head. This was THE picture for me, my personal game changer! Take pictures of people in the street – this was going to be what I wanted to do!

“Searching For My Very Own Rue Mouffetard” is an open, continuing series of single street pictures which have one thing in common: they show my photographic search for the elusive ideal which is so hard to define and to find – examples of my quest to catch ambient peculiarities and quirkiness in everyday life.

Braunschweig, Germany, 2020

Vienna, Austria, 2019

Vienna, Austria, 2019.

Luxembourg City, 2022

Braunschweig, Germany, 2021

Braunschweig, Germany, 2018

Braunschweig, Germany, 2021

Hannover, Germany, 2020

Luxembourg City, 2022

Hannover, Germany, 2020

Braunschweig, Germany, 2021

Frankurt-Main, Germany, 2021

Luxembourg City, 2022

Salzburg, Austria, 2022

Luxembourg City, 2022

Vienna, Austria, 2019

Salzburg, Austria, 2022

Luxembourg City, 2022

Westerland, Germany, 2019

Amrum Island, Germany, 2020

Braunschweig, Germany, 2021

Collioure, France, 2014

Braunschweig, Germany, 2018

Lisbon, Portugal, 2018

Braunschweig, Germany, 2020

San Francisco, USA, 1987

San Gimignano, Italy, 1991

"For me, a good street photo must be made candidly, captivate me at first glance and make me want to take that second look. It must raise more questions than provide answers. I like photos that tell a story in a single image, and I particularly like quirky pictures and visual puns in everyday life. When I am out on the streets, I like chasing for the offbeat, on a quest to find some extravaganza in the ordinary, some fun element, some beautifully layered scene, some fleeting moment. Any interesting scene that hits my eye, observed images from the great theatre of street life that might only exist for a split second and then it’s gone forever. Triggered by a colour, a human gesture, an interplay of foreground and background. I love these special moments, so rare and so elusive, when all things fall into place and a good picture emerges. It’s the pleasure and anticipation of making a good street picture that drives me. The flow when I am completely in the moment and fully open and susceptible to life on the street. Standing on a corner, letting life flow towards me, observing and pressing the shutter at the right moment. After all, it’s all about curiosity. It’s all about finding out what life has in store for me on any given day – I'm eager to see what’s around the next corner."

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Thomas Hackenberg was born in 1963 and lives in the German city of Braunschweig.

His work has been widely published, received finalist awards and prizes at international festivals such as at the Gothenburg, Istanbul, Italian, London, Miami, and Paris Street Photography Festivals, and was exhibited in several group shows.

"Il-Gostra" is a traditional Maltese Game

One of Malta's oldest sports, the "Gostra," involves contestants trying to climb a greasy pole to retrieve a flag before falling into the water below. The game is played during the feasts of St Joseph in Msida and St Julian in St Julians.

A sizable wooden pole (between 10 and 16 metres in length) would be raised over the sea in numerous seaside villages around the Maltese Islands. It was then hauled to the harbour while mounted atop a coal barge. The huge pole sticking out over the water would be dripping with grease and pig fat.

The object of the game is to take one of the three flags at the end of the pole, which are a blue and white flag for St. Mary, a yellow and white flag for the Vatican, and the Belgian tricolour, which is said to be dedicated to St. Julian.

Many people return home with a few bumps, but only a few people bring home medals and awards! However, you risk injury just like in other sports.

The game is played during the feasts of St Joseph in Msida and St Julian in St Julians.

Martin Agius

GOMIRA DANCE by Nilanjan Ray

Gomira dance is a rural dance form mainly practised in the Dinajpur district of West Bengal. The dance is usually performed by the villagers to please the gods to usher in the ‘good forces’ and ward off the ‘evil forces’. Very obviously, this dance form is a part of varying traditions and the rich cultural history of Bengal.

Gomira dance is actually a masked dance form. The word Gomira has been derived from the colloquial form of the word “Gram-Chandi” or the female deity who is the protective force of the village. The exact origin of the dance form is not traceable and is lost in the realms of time. Another section believes that the word “Gomira” has been derived from the word ‘Gamar’, the wood that is mainly used to make the masks. The Gomira masks or “Mukha” are thus inexorably linked with the Gomira dance festival.

The Gomira dance is mainly celebrated during the Bengali months of Baisakh-Jaishtya and Asarh corresponding to the English months between mid-April to mid-July. This is the harvest season for the villages. The dance is also performed during the period of harvesting of mangoes when the puja of Amat-Kali is celebrated. This is usually during the period of Jaishtya.

The dance has been evolved into mainly two forms – the Gomira form and the Ram-Vanvas Form. The Gomira form is the traditional form with the characters of Bura-Buri (Old man- Old woman), Smasan Kali, Masan Kali, Dakini Bishwal, SigniBishwal, Bagh (Tiger), Nar-Rakshas and Narsingha Avatar. The Ram-Vanvas form depicts the Van Kanda of Ramayana.

Traditionally, the dance starts with the entry of two characters Buro-Buri, who are actually said to be the human forms of Shiva and Parvati. After their performance, other masked dancers enter their arena to perform. According to the Gomira tradition, these gods took human shape and descended on earth so that they may bless the humans and help them to fight the forces of evil and establish a righteous way of life.

nilanjan ray

NILANJAN RAY (b. 1959) has a handful of exposed stock on “HUMAN INTEREST” and keeps stock of other people’s money in a Bank since it is his profession.

Has received wide appreciation Internationally as well as Nationally. Has received Merit Prize from National Geographic, USA & National Award from Photo Division, Govt. of India.

Solo Photography Exhibition on ‘VARANASI - AN ETERNAL CITY’ organized by OXFORD BOOKSTORE, Kolkata, NATIONAL CENTRE FOR PERFORMING ARTS, (NCPA), Mumbai and INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE (IIC), New Delhi.

Solo Photography Exhibition on “FAITH – A QUAINT EMOTIONS” was organized by INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTER, NEW DELHI from 29th Novemvber,2016 to 9th December,2016.

Other than above, my photographs are selected for exhibition at British Council, UNICEF, ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, Calcutta, LALIT KALA ACADEMY, New Delhi etc. Photographs are also selected for a Book” Framed City” – published at Indian Art Festival, New Delhi. Photographs are also selected for a Book “INDIA- 5 Senses “by Roli Books. Photographs & Articles are published regularly in leading daily Newspapers and Magazines.

Received letter of appreciation from Maitre Henri Cartier-Bresson. Paris.

Following Honey Hunters in the Himalayas in Nepal

For more than 2,000 years, the men of the Gorong and Magar tribes have been dangling themselves with the help of bamboo ladders and ropes, among the largest bee clouds in the world on the cliffs of the Himalayas.

Epicurean bees are four times larger than a normal bee, about the size of a thumb. Their sting stings and hits you. We snatched a few of these, on our journey following the honey hunters in Nepal. There amidst a tumultuous and exciting occurrence of the dreaded bees, the work of honey-spreading continues to take place.

Honey production is considered one of the oldest professions in the world. Only twice a year, in early November and May, do the men of the tribe engaged in dangerous hard labour on hundreds of feet of cliffs. The elders of the tribe remember that in days gone by, the livelihood of the villagers depended on their craft. We accompanied the 71-year-old Naok, who has been doing this for fifty years in a row. He learned the trade from his grandfather and became one of the most sought after and famous honeymooners in the area. "Our young people in the village are turning their backs on us," Naok said, "they are leaving the village. Looking for easier work in the cities. Breaking our lineage and family tradition."

Effortlessly and with a wave of his hand, Naok loaded a key basket on his back, into which he inserted a ladder of seventy meters. Another ladder was loaded on the back of his friend. With his feet light as if hovering in the air he began to tread down a path saturated with puddles, from the torrential rain that had fallen that night.

We followed him to the thicket of the forest, where the road disappeared in favour of muddy surfing on the leaves of fallen leaves. But maybe we should start from the beginning. It was such a morning that we wore tailored clothes for the domestic flight (from Kathmandu to Pokhara), as part of a photo trip to Nepal, which I guided with my travel partners. We buried our hiking boots in a suitcase, wrapped ourselves in multi-layered clothing and additional layers were packed in a backpack.

A day when they intended to get away from the tourist route and climb in jeeps to the cold cliffs of the southern slopes of the Anforna ridge, home to the Gurong tribe.

We did not expect that even that day, we would find ourselves surfing in a steep and muddy jungle, breathless and sweaty climbers in the heat and humidity that stuck to our bodies the festive suits and some broken leaves and branches. Nor did we assume that he had to tear dozens of leeches off his feet and bleed.

On a challenging jeep route - between rocks, potholes and mud, we climbed through thick jungles to an altitude of over 2200 meters. On the mother of the road, the villagers appeared with Tibetan trumpets with long noses and drums. We met Naok, the smiling old-fashioned smiling Roda Honey.

Within minutes we realized he was about to head out into the jungle, to a rock bunk on a cliff to install an outpost from which he would dangle the next day, the rope ladder for the honey spread. As we and without being able to get organized and replace the "high heels" and mumbles, we began the pursuit of him. First on a dirt road and later on a steep descent deep into the jungle. We slid on our asses, on a slide of leaves and mud in the heart of a 100-foot-long cliff. The walking sticks we brought especially for the event were left locked in a suitcase. We supported each other and improvised sticks that the tribesmen had prepared for us within minutes.

The next day on our journey following the honey hunters, actually started at night. A loud carnival of insects woke us to the local tea saturated with raw ginger, lemon and honey.

We set off. First in jeeps and later again on foot in the thick of the jungle. Beekeeper hats were distributed to all of us and we will discover in the first few minutes that luck has subsided.

In order to get rid of the bees from the honey diseases and allow Naok, the honey rod, to reach them, the people of the tribe lit a "smoking fire", especially from fresh bamboo leaves at the foot of the cliff and next to us. The smoke removes the bees from the honey diseases and stalks them.

The honeycombs, which look like huge "shelf mushrooms" clinging to the rock, have emptied one of the bees and their brown colour has turned bright yellow. Spectacular spectacle.

The following moments became an emotional roller coaster ride and the spectacular spectacle became a terrifying spectacle. The fleeing bees landed on us.

Clouds of giant bees. We found that bees are most attracted to hair and even more to my blond curly hair. The reticulated hats saved us.

Through the smoke billowing across the cliff, we discovered Naok on the ladder. Next to it hung a huge straw basket. One that can contain a honeycomb that reaches sizes of about two meters.

Naok held a sickle attached at the end to a long bamboo stick. With his help, he repeatedly struck the connection between the honeycomb and the rock. He shortened the challah one after the other for long hours, in a thick cloud of bees. He chained the honeycombs to his friends down the cliff and they brought them closer to us and started squeezing the honey out of them.

This is a different and special honey - "crazy honey". A small amount of it (2-3 teaspoons) causes hallucinations and a larger amount can cause death. The honey is produced by the epic bees for the boryosa, from the flowers of the rhododendron trees that wrap in a furry and colourful cover on the slopes of the Himalayas. Their flower roses, which bloom in red, pink and white, are very poisonous. From the honey, the villagers produce various medicines. Honey costs a fortune. Six times the price of regular Nepali honey. Gorong people have used honey for centuries as a cough syrup and antiseptic. The wax finds its way to workshops in the alleys of Kathmandu, where it is used for casting bronze statues of gods and goddesses.

We dared and nibbled at him a little. From that moment on, life became honey and everyone who was by our side became a human being. At the end of many hours of wandering, Naok came down to us with a proud look on his stung face. This time he was stung only twice on the forehead and cheek once. Bees managed to penetrate his net hat and stung him to the waist. His hands, too, were dotted with bites. "Today I am no longer excited about it," Naok told us, "but I still remember the first time I went down the cliff. I got 17 bites at once."

Naok invited us to his house. It was important to him that we get to know his wife. Maybe we'll make her happy. His wife, he said, "is deeply ill. A patient. She gave birth to three sons and they left the village in search of another job in distant towns. We did not see them for a long time." He pulled out a bag full of pills and medicine.

In a dim house made of mud, without electricity and running water. By the light of a window and a candle, his wife sat on a low stool. She opened their home to us, pulled out a temporary smile and sank back into her seriousness. There was no chair or table in it, only a bed, an oven and a number of wooden shelves. Sacks of rice and corn were hung from the ceiling so that rats and vermin would not harm them. The second floor to which a wooden ladder led, served as a storage and accommodation place.

The house is surrounded by small green terraces, where the couple grows corn, cereals and vegetables for a living. They erected on the terraces a small wooden hut that serves them as toilets, from which the needs for fertilizing the crops are routed. A bamboo corral for the Jamos was also set up there. On a calendar hanging on the mud wall on the doorstep of the house, Naok's crowded schedule appeared in the honey spread.

He will return to his house in the evening. He would take two pink balls out of the bag and serve his wife with a cup of hot tea, made from ginger and lemon and sweetened with only one teaspoon of the "crazy honey", to make sure the dreams that befell his wife would make her happy, at least on her nights.

At the age of 50, I received a gift of life - I fell in love with the world of photography.

My specialization in psychic life as a “Lacanian psychoanalyst” and the study of my cultures as a world tour guide, as experiences over the years as two parallel lifelines that often contradicted each other. Travelling around the world forced me to close the clinic for episodes.

And on the other hand, sitting in the clinic without going out into space was inadequate. Photography moved me because in its spaces I finally found an integration to these two loves and pursuits in my life.

The humanistic ethos is at the center of my work. I focus on street photography, documentary photography and cultural photography.

Going out again and again into the unknown and surprised by what was recorded in me through the camera, a process and adventure similar to what happens to me in the clinic together with the patient. I discovered that for me photography is a multi-layered journey between the human psyche and interpersonal relationships, and the study of historical and geographical cultures. I am curious about the story behind the subject and its cultural context and create a connection and closeness with it.

During the corona period and the closures, a project I initiated in photography entered the vacuum. I set up with another partner, a venture that connects cultural research and geography. We created workshops in the Bedouin communities in the Judean Desert, meetings with the Sufis and Circassians in the Galilee and in the Druze villages In the Golan Heights and the Galilee. When the sky reopened, we set out to guide abroad as well, with an emphasis on Southeast Asia.

"Brilli": An Old-Fashioned Outdoor Game

Today, only a few men in the town of Gharb, Gozo, still play "brilli”. On Sundays and public holidays in Gozo, this unusual game of ancient skitters is played! Only a few guys still play "brilli" in the village of Gharb, Gozo. In Gozo, this distinctive, age-old skitter game is played on Sundays and holidays.

The history of the game "Brilli" predates the arrival of the Knights of St. John. Due to the fact that brilli is played with skittles and a ball, it somewhat resembles bowling. However, bowling is typically played indoors with a hefty bowling ball and 10 skittles. Brilli is a light-weight outdoor game involving a grapefruit-sized wooden ball and nine wooden skittles.

The players are required to abide by a number of rules. The skittles are first placed in a diamond-shaped arrangement of squares. To knock the pins down and accrue points is the game's objective. Obtaining precisely 24 points is the goal. A player is eliminated from the game immediately till the next round if they go above this limit. Noting that several pins have various names and values is also crucial. Is-Sultan, in the center, is the highest-scoring one with 9 points. Known as is-secondi skittles, corner skittles are worth six points. The final one is known as qarmuc, and it only counts for one point.

You have two attempts with the ball when it's your turn. The first throw comes from a predetermined location, while the second throw originates from the spot where the ball landed after the first throw. It's a little more fascinating because the first throw is scored differently than the others. The initial toss is double-counted. However, the player only receives 2 points for each pin if more than one type of pin is knocked down on the first throw (is-sultan, is-secondi, and qarmuc).

If you wish to explore the game further and learn more about it, there are additional regulations to adhere to. If I understood it well, you can reach the skittles with your hand if the ball lands close enough to them. As you can see from the photographs up there, it does occur very frequently. While the other player is reaching for the necessary skittle, one player assists in keeping the ball in position.

Every Sunday morning, this regular group of gamers gets together to play for a few hours. The game is played with money, which adds a little bit of intrigue. The game's winner receives €020 from each losing player. Additionally, before each game begins, the guys meet together and "draw straws" by haphazardly displaying a number between one and five on their hands.

Martin Agius

Moi-chhara cattle race festival.

Moi chhara cattle race festival by Kuntal Biswas

16th July,2022

Every year, Herobhanga, 80 kilometres from Kolkata in South 24 Pargana district of West Bengal, organises a cattle race, locally called Moi-Chhara.

The race usually occurs in mid-June or early July, when farmers begin cultivation.

Once again this year farmers in a relatively unknown south Bengal village are busy organising a cattle race to celebrate the arrival of the monsoon.

The ‘game’ involves pairs of bulls racing against each other. There are red flags at the start and finish points. The bull that comes first wins. The competitors must follow the rules that the organising committee have to follow.

Usually, farmers who own the bulls become jockeys. The bovine is tied together by a piece of wood called Joyal, which helps them run simultaneously. Meanwhile, the jockey stands on another piece of wood called Moi.

The jockey is responsible for maintaining the speed of the bull. And those who have more experience have a better chance of finishing first.

The participants don’t just come from Herobhanga – many come from the three nearby blocks in Canning.

However, the race has also been criticised for being cruel to animals.

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Why Cuba by P-o Alfredsson

"People often ask me: Why Cuba? What is so interesting about pictures from Cuba?

I usually say that these photos speak for themselves. Personally, I think that all places and countries are interesting to photograph in.

The reason is that I am above all interested in people and their activities in the streets and cafes, in urban environments, but also in the countryside. Man is most important, to me. The environment is also important but comes second. For me...

Actually, I'm not the right person to talk about what it's like to photograph in Cuba, because I only stayed there for sixteen days, five years ago. But I have many friends who have visited the country many times and for many years. So therefore I dare to generalize: It is easier to street photograph people in Havana and other cities in Cuba than in most other countries.

People on the streets often give a thumbs up when they point the camera at them. Without them demanding anything in return. They know that Cuba cares about foreigners and tourists for the country's economy. Yes, most of them are friendly. This also applies to night walks. But of course, there are often (at least in Havana's picturesque old town) people in the form of tourist traps who want nothing more than to be photographed. Street musicians, women in traditional classical clothes, animal tamers, etc. who want a penny to pose, but I do not count them."

P-o Alfredsson

ON THE GARDEN OF REMEMBER

ON THE GARDEN OF REMEMBER PROJECT

He did a project work on elderly people with Alzheimer's disease. Name: Garden of Remembrance. This project was published in Kadıköy newspaper, Birgün newspaper by interviewing me and it was published on Kadıköy.mag on Instagram.

The idea for this project came about when a friend of mine who works as a hairdresser told me that he would cut the hair of elderly people with Alzheimer's in a nursing home. Since my grandfather passed away due to Alzheimer's disease, I wanted to recall my memories of him, even symbolically, and I also found the idea of a young female barber cutting the hair of elderly people with Alzheimer's and photographing the bond he would establish with them, which was interesting and exciting to me.

While the age we live in, daily life progresses very fast and we have difficulties keeping up with this speed, such speed was not in question in the memory of these elderly people with Alzheimer's.

They had completely lost their sense of time and space, and all their memories were almost erased. It was very frightening and frankly, as human beings, the comfort of our age did not allow us to face these facts.

While we were collecting good memories with our loved ones in our healthy lives, there were hardly any memories where they could feel better.

Here's to confronting the facts that I talked about through my grandfather during this project and that we usually don't want to realize or really don't realize; it was painful. But still, the bond I formed with them made me feel good.

The lives in the fabric of street and geometry

“Önder Sertçelik is a Turkish photographer who started his photographic journey in 2009. In 2018, he studied documentary photography at İfsak, the Istanbul Amateur Photography and Cinema Society. There, he completed two documentary projects, one of which was presented in a collective exhibition.
He began by taking photographs of architecture and buildings, and, while doing so, he realized that some details in the structures could blend well with passersby’s actions. The street textures and their connections with people started to draw his attention, and Istanbul was very inspiring in this regard since it has rich and vivid urban scenery. After some time, from the static and wide-ranging architectural photographs, he switched to a more active and narrow style, coming close to the people and shooting in the streets. As his perception of composition improved in learning from the masters, he began taking more layered and thought-provoking pictures. Lately, he has been shifting to framing human actions and complex situations on the street.
In the future, he wishes to develop a project in which human connections are mirrored by taking photographs of objects. Other than that, he is planning to make a documentary project reflecting on his view of social and cultural issues.” www.eyeshotstreetphotography.com

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Life Through A Bus Window by Cameron Scott

One dark winter’s morning a few years ago I happened to be standing on a street corner in Glasgow city centre, as usual nothing much happening, when a bus stopped in front of me, presenting a wonderful colour scene the intensity of which I had not been aware of before. Blues, yellows and greens all blended in a manner reminiscent of an old master canvas, randomly punctuated by coloured specular highlights and reflections, and framed in black like an unmounted Kodachrome slide. Behind a veil of condensation, one could make out the form of a few passengers, granted backlit anonymity and lost in their own world of thoughts.

Click! I was hooked and wanted more.

Over the course of that winter and into the next I continued to seek out such images. The success rate was very low – conditions had to be just right, cold and damp to allow the condensation to build up, plenty of varied backlight from sources such as shop windows and other vehicles, and always a passenger or two. As we know buses always come along in groups of two or more, so to help in my quest the button on the pedestrian crossing became my new go-to photography accessory, much to the annoyance of the bus drivers.

A small collection of such images soon expanded into a dedicated project. Then, just as the lighter mornings were appearing with the first signs of Spring, the world went into lockdown and over two years would pass before the project could start again.

Fast forward to Autumn 2021, and as the world emerges from successive restrictions the project can resume. Or so I had thought! As suitable conditions began to present themselves it became apparent that most of the buses had been upgraded at some point since my last attempt at these shots. New, more efficient models with better heating systems now presented themselves before me. No veil of condensation, no exciting colour palates, nor a clear view of the occupants. The magic had gone.

It had been fun while it lasted and I’m glad that I managed to make the images that are now contained herein.

I am an award winning and published photographer based in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. My photography journey started at school in the 1970s and ever since then I have had a keen interest in candid and documentary photography. After dabbling in various genres over the years I now specialise in candid street photography in various styles from traditional documentary through to creative and abstract. I have been featured in Eye-Photo magazine, F-Stop magazine, Inspired Eye magazine (Issue 80), Street Photography magazine (Nov 2021) and a few more online publications.

Cameron Scott

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

Project

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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