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FINAL CALL TO ENTER AAP MAGAZINE PORTRAIT: PUBLICATION AND $1,000 CASH PRIZES
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Debdatta Chakraborty
Debdatta Chakraborty
Debdatta Chakraborty

Debdatta Chakraborty

Country: India
Birth: 1975

Debdatta Chakraborty, born and brought up in Eastern India and based in Kolkata. An amateur photographer, I describe myself as a visual storyteller.

I do not restrict myself to any particular genre. As I'm an amateur, I have no professional bindings to stick to any particular type of photography and so learn about whatever kind of photography that appeals to me at any point of time.

In 2015, has been honored with the Documentary Award by China Folklore Photography Association and UNESCO in The Humanity Photo Awards at Shangri- La, China.

Has been awarded with the special merit medal award in the prestigious photo contest HIPA 2016 in the photo story category.
In 2018, I was declared third prize winner in Nikon Photo contest.
In 2020, I was declared Grand Prize Winner in Naris Day International Photo Contest.
In 2022, I was declared Grand prize winner in Pink Lady Food Photography Award.
In 2022, 2nd Place Winner All About Photo Awards 2022, The Mind's Eye

Website

@cdebdatta

 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Anita Conti
France
1899 | † 1997
Anita Caracotchian was born in Ermont in Seine-et-Oise to a wealthy Armenian family. She spent her childhood being educated at home by different tutors and travelling with her family, gradually developing a passion for books and the sea. After moving to Paris, she concentrated on writing poems and the art of book binding. Her work got the attention of celebrities and she won different awards and prizes for her creativity in London, Paris, New York and Brussels. In 1927, she married a diplomat, Marcel Conti, and started traveling around the world, exploring the seas, documenting and reporting what she saw and experimented. Spending time on the fishing boats for days and even months on certain occasions gave her a deeper understanding of the problematic faced by the fishermen. In between the two world war, she developed the technique of fishing maps apart from the already used navigational charts. For two years, from one vessel to another, she observed the French fishermen along the coast and Saharan Africa discovering fish species unknown in France. She published many scientific reports on the negative effects of industrial fishing and the different problems related to fishing practices. From 1943 and approximately for 10 years, she studied in the Mauritian islands, Senegal, Guinea and Ivory Coast, the nature of the seabed, different fish species and their nutritional values in regards of protein deficiency for the local populations. Gradually, she developed better preservation techniques, fishing methods and installed artificial dens for further studies. She even founded an experimental fishery for sharks. She became more and more conscientious of the misuse of natural resources by the fishing industry and the major waste that could be prevented. In 1971 she published L’Ocean, Les Betes et L’Homme, to denounce the disaster that men create and its effects on the oceans. Through many conferences and forums and for the rest of her life, she advocated for the betterment of the marine world. She died on 25 December 1997 in Douarnenez.Source: Wikipedia Born in 1899, Anita Conti was recruited in 1935 by French Fisheries Authorities to conduct scientific experiments at sea and to assess fish resources. In 1941 she embarked on a trawler bound for Western Africa and spent the next ten years exploring the mangrove swamps between Senegal and the Ivory Coast, observing and assessing the techniques of traditional fishermen, meeting with local elders, establishing new fisheries... The hair-raising account of her attempts at catching the "Giants of the warm seas", such as sawfish and sharks, bears witness to her intrepid nature. Yet one can also feel her strong desire to contribute to a worthwhile cause. Exploring the swamps is not seen as an unilateral exploitation of African resources by Europeans : it is a genuine attempt at sharing knowledge. Source: aflit.arts.uwa.edu.au Born just before the 20th century started, Anita Conti represents a piece from the past. During her teenage years, she developed a passion for books and sea and started photography in 1914. Indeed, for almost a hundred years, she has been gathering more than 40,000 photographies. Anita was what we can call today an engaged pioneer. Recruited by French Fisheries Authorities to conduct scientific experiments at sea and to assess fish resources, she was the first french female oceanographer. In 1939, she's been the first woman to embark in the service of the National French Navy, and, thus, became the first woman to work on a military ship in wartime. In charge of developing a new technique for fishing maps, she embarked on a trawler bound for western Africa in 1941. During 10 years, she explored the West African coasts, from the Mauritian islands to Senegal and from Guinea to Ivory Coast. She insured a resupply program for the population and the French army. Her goal was to save population from hunger and find nutritional solutions in regards of their protein deficiency. During a decade, she travelled the world, explored the seas, documented and scientifically reported the negative effects of industrial fishing. "To be able to exploit the sea, you must enter into the sea" she used to say. Her African experience helped her to denounce the impacts of plundering the oceans and the major waste of marine resources. "Seas are under threat" she claimed. She tried to find fishing methods like fish farming to avoid overfishing.Source: Panthalassa
Louis Faurer
United States
1916 | † 2001
Louis Faurer was an American candid or street photographer. He was a quiet artist who never achieved the broad public recognition that his best-known contemporaries did; however, the significance and caliber of his work were lauded by insiders, among them Robert Frank, William Eggleston, and Edward Steichen, who included his work in the Museum of Modern Art exhibitions In and Out of Focus (1948) and The Family of Man (1955). Growing up in Philadelphia, Faurer showed an early aptitude for illustration. He bought his first camera in 1937 from the photographer Ben Somoroff. After a couple of jobs as a photographic technician, Faurer made his way to Manhattan and into the world of fashion photography. He quickly made contacts that stood him in good stead: Robert Frank, with whom he shared a darkroom/studio and fast friendship, and Walker Evans, whom he'd long admired, who introduced him to Alexander Liberman at Vogue. Faurer did fashion photography for Vogue, Junior Bazaar, Harper's Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Elle, and Glamour, as well as assignments for Life and Look for more than twenty years. He complained that his work at Life involved too much travel, so he quit in the early 1950s. Most of the prints and negatives of his fashion work have probably been discarded, as Faurer stored them with a friend when he left the country in the late 1960s, then failed to reclaim them. It is Faurer’s personal work from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s for which he is best remembered. He photographed the streets of New York City and Philadelphia, capturing the restless energy of urban life. His photographs show the great variety of the city's human face. As Robert Frank said in 1994: "Faurer ... proves to be an extraordinary artist. His eye is on the pulse [of New York City] - the lonely 'Times-Square people' for whom Faurer felt a deep sympathy. Every photograph is witness to the compassion and obsession accompanying his life like a shadow. I am happy that these images survive while the world keeps changing." Faurer experimented with blur, grain, double exposures, sandwiched negatives, reflections, slow film speeds, and low lighting. His 1950 photographs of Robert Frank and his new wife Mary at the San Gennaro Festival in New York are a case in point, exploiting maximum-aperture shallow depth of field, reflections and halation of out-of-focus light sources for intimate, romantic results. One of the series attracted the attention of curator Edward Steichen who included it in the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition, The Family of Man, seen by 9 million visitors, and in its catalogue, which has never been out of print. As exacting in the darkroom as he was in the field, he was notorious for being a tireless perfectionist when it came to cropping and printing his work. In the mid-and late 1960s, Faurer experimented with hand-held 16 mm film, using Arriflex and Beaulieu movie cameras, filming in the streets of Manhattan, extending his still camera style into a cinematic medium. Between 1969 and 1974 he lived and worked abroad, mostly in Paris. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, Faurer taught at numerous art schools and universities, including the Parsons School of Design in New York City, Yale University, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, The New School for Social Research and Stockton State College in New Jersey. In 1984, while running to catch a New York city bus, Faurer was struck by a car and seriously injured. He never photographed again. Faurer spoke of his “intense desire to record life as I see it” as his only motivation: “As long as I’m amazed and astonished, as long as I feel that events, messages, expressions and movements are all shot through with the miraculous, I’ll feel filled with the certainty I need to keep going.” The late Walter Hopps, who was curator of American art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts, commented on Faurer's work: "I am in awe of the high point he can reach in a photograph such as Family, Times Square, at the center of New York in the center of our century. Perhaps no other American image stands comparison with Picasso’s Family of Saltimbanques, on their imagined European plane in 1905… Faurer stands and lives as a master of his medium."Source: Wikipedia
Constant Puyo
France
1857 | † 1933
Constant Puyo, born in France on August 10, 1857, was a pioneering photographer who made significant contributions to the art of photography in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He was instrumental in the growth of Pictorialism, an artistic movement that aspired to raise photography to the realm of fine art through creative techniques and an emphasis on aesthetic expression. Puyo began his artistic career as a painter, where he studied under great artists such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. His exploration of photography, however, was what truly released his creative potential. Puyo joined the Photo-Club de Paris in the 1890s and began experimenting with the Pictorialist style, which aspired to move photography beyond basic documentation and into a medium for artistic expression. Puyo's images had a dreamlike aspect to them, with soft focus and diffused lighting. To produce a painterly impression in his photos, he used a variety of processes, including gum bichromate printing. His pictures, in particular, were admired for capturing the inner essence of his subjects, showing their emotions and personalities. Puyo's work in the invention of autochrome photography was one of his noteworthy contributions to the Pictorialist movement. He investigated the possibilities of color photography with the Lumière brothers at a period when the medium was largely black and white. His mastery of color and ability to create ethereal, atmospheric images distinguishes him as a top figure in the area. Puyo's themes frequently centred around beauty, femininity, and the natural world. He used female models frequently, photographing them in poetic settings filled with flowers, textiles, and delicate objects. His images radiated nostalgia and romanticism, closely fitting with the ideas of the Art Nouveau movement. Puyo exhibited frequently throughout his career and received acclaim for his contributions to the art world. His images have been shown at prestigious exhibitions such as the Salon de la Société Française de Photographie and the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Puyo's photographs have also appeared in prestigious journals such as Camera Notes and Photo-Gazette. Puyo's influence also expanded beyond his personal photographic practice. He taught and mentored prospective photographers, passing on his knowledge and techniques to the next generation. He co-founded the Pictorial Photographic Society of France in 1909, cementing his status as a pivotal participant in the Pictorialist movement. Constant Puyo's legacy as a pioneer of Pictorialist photography goes on, reminding us of the power of artistic expression in the field of photography. His ability to capture the fleeting and provoke emotions through his photos continues to inspire photographers and artists all around the world.
Ralf Dreier
Germany
1964
Ralf Dreier is a self-taught photographer with more than 25 years of experience. With a particular focus on minimalist black and white photography in the fields of architecture and landscape, he strives first and foremost to convey emotions and moods with his images. Statement: My pictures are essentially about conveying feelings and moods, so I don't really try to tell a story with them. These moods and feelings are what I feel when I look at a landscape that I would also photograph. It's about relaxation and letting go of everyday problems. But if a story does develop in the viewer's mind, it's definitely positive, because it's their very personal story that they associate with my pictures. However, it makes a difference whether we look at a landscape directly and immediately or whether we only look at a picture of it. Directly in the landscape, our brain is able to block out everything that distracts or disturbs us. At least this works if the distractions are not too dominant. In a photograph, small things often distract us and prevent us from finding the necessary calm and relaxation to engage with the image and let the feelings and moods come to us. I therefore try not to include any of these distracting elements in my pictures. I achieve this in my minimalist black and white pictures, for example, through the choice of image detail. Other disruptive elements that create unrest and therefore attract attention can be the sky or uneven water surfaces. For water surfaces, I usually use long exposures of up to two minutes in my pictures. This makes the surface soft and smooth and suddenly even conveys additional calm. With a turbulent sky, on the other hand, the only thing that usually helps is to wait for better conditions. My favourite subjects are mainly landscapes and architecture. However, for me, the two tend to merge seamlessly. I prefer open landscapes that allow you to look into the distance. From my point of view, this helps me to detach my thoughts from the realities of everyday life. In densely built-up areas or mountainous landscapes, however, a clear view is often only possible in the direction of the sky. For this reason, the sky is becoming increasingly important in my pictures. And it also depends on the structure of the sky. A uniformly blue or grey sky is often somewhat boring, at least in a photo. On the other hand, restless clouds with strong contrasts can attract more attention than they deserve. It's simply important to wait for the sky to be as suitable as possible. In some cases, however, my pictures manage without looking into the distance. Then geometric shapes and structures take over the task of detaching thoughts from everyday life. The order of the geometric shapes and the regularity of the structures have a calming effect on the viewer and in this way help them to get into the mood of the picture.
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