# Portraits of India ## Метаданные - **Канал:** The Art of Photography - **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y1uXLi8dqc - **Дата:** 01.05.2026 - **Длительность:** 14:34 - **Просмотры:** 3,739 ## Описание Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to http://squarespace.com/aop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain! Join me in JUNE or SEPTEMBER for a PHOTO ZINE workshop! https://www.tedforbes.com/photozines-2026 Be sure to check out the work shared in this video and support the community! Ari Rossner - The Indians https://www.arirossner.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/arirossner/ Ingo Hampe - Halbleer https://conscious.photography/ and https://www.instagram.com/ingohampe/ Margaret Kester - Nostalgia https://www.instagram.com/margaret.kester/ Mehmet Demirci - Daddy Take A Picture! https://www.mehmet-demirci.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/mehmet_demirci_/ Sign up to the mailing list for weekly updates https://theartofphotography.tv/list My Adobe Lightroom and Capture One Presets https://theartofphotography.tv/presets/ AoP T-Shirts https://aop.threadless.com/ Need a website? http://squarespace.com/aop On my channel you will find videos about photography, cinematography, post processing tutorials for Capture One, Lightroom and Photoshop, photo assignments that YOU can participate in, the Artist Series and more. The Artist Series is an ongoing set of videos I produce as documentaries on living photographers. I am extremely passionate about photography and video and my goal in making these videos is to share my passion and enthusiasm with you! Don’t forget to subscribe and make sure to hit the like button and share this video if you enjoyed it! Ted Forbes The Art of Photography 2830 S. Hulen, Studio 133 Fort Worth, TX 76109 US of A ## Содержание ### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y1uXLi8dqc) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) This video is brought to you by Squarespace. Welcome back everyone. I've got some awesome stuff I want to share with you guys today, but real quick before we get going, I do want to make an announcement. Many of you have asked me about upcoming zine workshops and I have just announced two that will be coming up. We've got a session that will be happening in June and another one in September of this year. Now, if you're not familiar with zine workshops, these are project based and I teach them online, so they take place once a week over the course of a month. And so we do these on Zoom in week one, two, we will meet as a class and week three is probably my favorite part of this whole thing. Week three, we divide into small groups and so at that point you're probably going to have some progress made on your project and we will get together, you will have me review it as well as your colleagues. This is a really inspiring thing to do. It really is one of my favorite parts of teaching this entire class. And at the end of the month, you will have a zine or a small book or whatever project you choose to do. So if you've got something in mind, this is probably an awesome opportunity to get going. I will put a link in the show description if you want to learn more, so please check it out. But without further ado, let's get to some of your work. Okay, so first up and I love it when projects like this come in. This is a massive book. This comes to us from Ari Rossner who is a photographer based in Paris. This is called The Indians which sums up a project that he spent about 20 years on traveling to India. This is awesome. I'm going to read you a little of his note here which he says, "Dear Ted, I have been waiting for the moment when I could finally share with you my own book, The Indians, a self-edited 464-page portrait book developed over the last 20 years traveling across India. The scale of this book reflects the scale of the country itself. India, now the most populous country in the world, could not be appreciated through a compact or single narrative. What moved me and inspired me on this project was the joyful energy and the positive values rooted in Indian society, an ancient humanity from which there is much to learn. At the heart of this work is a simple intention that matters deeply to me, to present these people you would not normally meet as if you had met them yourself. The portraits are made at close distance with a direct smiling gaze into the camera. In photography as an art more generally, smiling faces are surprisingly rare and I wanted to go against that {quote} rule and show how these smiles as they occurred without staging. This book is mostly composed of anonymous faces. Alongside them are a few personalities whose work has had a positive impact on Indian society. Throughout the years, I continued to receive commissions in beauty and advertising photography in Paris and London alternating with trips to India. That contrast between the two worlds shaped both the way I photographed and the way that the book eventually came together. I hope that you will appreciate it. Warm regards, Ari. " So Ari, this is probably one of the most ambitious undertakings that I have ever received in the history of mail time. It's also one of the biggest books. I am really thrilled that you saw this to the end. It was worth it. This is awesome. There really isn't much that I'm going to add to this because you clearly know what you're doing. I do want to make a couple notes though that I think others can take away from. First of all, the printing quality on here is absolutely outstanding. This is beautifully done. Paper selection, I don't know who you used for a printer, but this is very well put together. And as for the work itself, and I think this is an important distinction and you made this in your note that you wanted to go for people who are smiling and you wanted to maintain that sense of intimacy that people viewing this book are going to get through the lens and see in these photographs and you clearly did that. I love that this isn't staged and I love that it is very loose feeling. I love that it's very natural. You really get the sense that you're just hanging out with people that you know even though you don't know them and I think that's a really cool effect. It's also interesting and noteworthy that you talk about the commercial work that you were doing in Paris and London. I am positive that this was a huge escape for you. I think one of the things that I want to say about a project like this and I encourage all photographers to find their subject. The fact that you were drawn to India, that is a place that you felt at home clearly and that you felt near the people, that is very reflective in this work. This is not something that was done overnight and I realize that. This is 20 years of work, but it's very cohesive. It doesn't look like it was taken over 20 years. It looks like it was just taken. I really absolutely love this and I hope that other photographers can find a way to find their subject in something that they gravitate towards and stick with it that long. I think that's something that's really important and especially if you're working as a photographer and I'm pretty sure you're know this too, is that sometimes that escape is really what makes you feel complete as a photographer. Anyway, man, this is absolutely gorgeous. I'm sorry this took me a few months to get to. We've had a backlog of stuff, but this is absolutely beautiful and I will link this up. If you guys are interested in getting a copy, this is highly recommended. The shipping won't be cheap cuz it's awfully heavy, but you'll get a good workout when you're checking it out. But beautifully done, man. Awesome work. All right, so we're going to contrast that now only in terms of size. This is a beautiful handmade little book that comes to us from Ingo Hampe. He also enclosed a note. He writes, "Dear Ted Forbes, I'm an admirer of the art of photography and your videos about work that matters has left a lasting impression on me and I wanted to share with you that I just completed ### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y1uXLi8dqc&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) a major milestone, my first photo zine. I'm a photography enthusiast and photography was always kind of a meditation for me, a practice to help me be present in the moment. Most of the time I am shooting intuitively and this zine is a collection of photographs from a mindful photo walks over the last 2 years. With this zine, I would love to express how grateful I am for your work and how much I appreciate that you offer other photographers a platform where they can show their work. I have enclosed my zine. I hope you might consider on upcoming mail time segment. Warm regards, Ingo. " So Ingo, this is absolutely beautiful. I love the way that you printed this very nicely and then hand stitched it together. It's really cool and I also love the fact that, you know, you're talking about work that matters and then when you present it in a way that has a handmade feel to it, I think it definitely lifts the whole thing up and I hope that what you guys are getting out of this stuff is that there is a time and a place for monumental work and big projects like we saw earlier with Ari's book and there's also a place for just small statements like this. I love the fact that it's a collection of images, they're well composed, they're well the color is excellent. You've got a couple quotes in here and it wraps up. This is very well done. It's a small statement, but you know, you talk about work that matters and you know, I did that video more than a couple years now, but it was kind of a benchmark video and maybe it's worth revisiting at some point because basically the bottom line is that the world really doesn't need more photographers. There are plenty of images out there. We're assaulted with them all day long. If you ever look at Instagram, they get you into the doom scroll. It is exists for one reason only. It's to manipulate your time and show you a lot of images and videos and things like that. What the world does need though is needs work that matters and I guess it's a little open-ended on what I mean by that, but it can matter to you. somebody else, but work that requires a little bit of effort that's not made just to feed the content machine. And so I think that maybe that is an important thing to bring back in the current day and age and I think you've done it wonderfully here. I will link up to Ingo's work below. If you have a chance, I think he might be selling this. Definitely get a copy. This is a beautiful little zine. So thank you for sharing, Ingo. All right, I've got a couple more projects I want to share with you. This is really cool cuz it doubles as a photography book as well as a series of postcards and then I've got something that is very handmade and low-fi. But real quick, I want to give a shout-out to our sponsor this week who are the awesome folks over at Squarespace. How easy is it to build an amazing website in a matter of minutes? Squarespace has you covered. It's dead simple. Head over to Squarespace, hit get started. You can start by selecting from an impressive collection of customizable templates or you can do what I do, build your own. Something unique because, you know, you're not like other websites. Give your site a name. Next, you can build your homepage. We'll start with a few preset layouts just to get us going. Want to sell products like books or prints? Well, you can feature those on your homepage. Create a few more sections if you want. Let's also give it a color palette. There's a whole bunch to choose from. Let me just get us started. We can change this all later. Next, let's select the typography choices. Welcome to your website. Everything is set up and it's all ready for you to customize. Squarespace is built on Fluid Engine, the next generation of website design. Select, edit and Fluid Engine allows you to drag, place, and resize any element on the page. You can snap these to a grid. You can make them float on top of one another. You can free form however you like. You can even preview and adjust how the site looks on either desktop or mobile. The layouts are independent. Of course, you'll want a portfolio for your work. Creating an image gallery is as easy as dropping a folder of images on your web browser. Once uploaded, you can drag to resort, customize the look, and Squarespace writes all of the code for you. Everything just works and it looks fabulous. Want to sell your own prints, books, or zines? Squarespace has the capabilities to not only set up your online store and collect payments, but they also give you all the tools that you're going to need to be successful. Managing shipping and payment options, manage your orders, engage with your customers. They even give you the tax tools that you need to keep things organized and stay compliant. You should try Squarespace for yourself. It's absolutely free. No credit card required. Just go to squarespace. com/aop, sign up for that free trial. If you decide Squarespace is right for you, I can save you an additional 10% on your order by using offer code AOP on checkout. That's right. The code is AOP. So stop procrastinating. Go build your website today. And I want to give a special shout-out and thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video. Okay, so next up is this project that comes to us from Margaret Caster. This is called nostalgia and Margaret also sent me this cool postcard which I really love with the picture on it. I'm going to read you a little of her note. It says, "Dear Ted, my name is Margaret, an artist from Minsk, Belarus. Your channel has been a constant source of education and inspiration. Thank you for the profound work that you do. I just published a small run zine called nostalgia. I believe that the core ideas might resonate with you and your community. It's an attempt to hold on to what is disappearing. Shot on black and white film in post-Soviet spaces, the ### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y1uXLi8dqc&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 14:00) project focuses on liminal places and objects charged with absence, where the grain of the film becomes the texture of the memory itself. Driven by a need to create tactile objects inspired by my grandfather's handmade albums, this scene is a very personal journey that seeks a collective visceral resonance. Thank you for inspiring so many of us to look deeper. Sincerely, Margaret. Okay, Margaret, a lot to talk about here. this. This is really cool. I love the idea of nostalgia. I like your comment in there where you said the idea of the film grain having a part in the memory that's associated. But I think even more importantly is your printing technique on here is so cool and it's so enforcing of the concept that you're coming up with here. Looks like it was kind of done on a Xerox machine. You're using yellow paper throughout, which contrasts the cover. This is hand-stitched, by the way, which I absolutely love. And you know, when you have a low-fly printing quality like this, like I said, it furthers your concept, but like, you know, when you consider like Ansel Adams' zone system and when you get all these rich tonalities with all these midtones, you don't. You have two zones. It's black or it's white. This impacts the photographs that you can choose for something like this. And I think you've done a really wonderful job. And I also want to speak to this because this is important, too. We live in a contemporary day and age where we have a lot of technology that is available to us. And so, for instance, I can get on the internet, I can upload a PDF, and a printer somewhere can do a full color reproduction of it and they'll send me a bunch of zines. And it's cheap, it's easy to do, and it's obviously cost-effective, which that in itself is a zine culture. But for those of us old enough to remember the '70s, '80s, and even the '90s, zines back then was simply a way of being able to print and produce something that you could distribute to get an idea out. It could be a photo zine, literary work, whatever it was that you wanted to do. It could have a serious message to it. And in those days, the cheap way of doing things, because offset printing was so expensive and still is today, is that things were done on Xerox machines. It was a very punk rock attitude towards the art of the book, so to speak, or magazine, so hence the name zines. And so, this kind of reminds me of a lot of that, and it's really cool to see you get back to that. And the reason I'm saying that is because, you know, when I teach the zine course, a lot of students opt to do the more contemporary, highly produced, slick color works. And there's nothing wrong with that. It looks great and it's affordable, it's easy to do. But to see somebody go back in time a little bit and do something that's a little more true to the original aesthetic is really cool. I love handmade stuff and I'm glad we've had two of them today. So, Margaret, this is awesome. I will link up to your work below. You guys should check her out, get a copy of this. Great work. All right, so next up is another clever project. This is called Daddy Take a Picture. This comes to us from Mehmet Gemerci. There is no note included with this, but I will read you a little of the intro text, which says, "When I first held a camera in my hands back in 1992, I never imagined that this magic box would impact my life so deeply and that I would eventually build my entire life around it. Another thing I never imagined was the idea of having children with my beloved wife. The book that you are holding is a product of the moments I've shared with Denise and Neva. It came to life through their guidance, whether it was a lizard that they spotted during a visit to the park or a rotting pumpkin that they carved for Halloween, I captured these moments through their curiosity. Wanting to see something different from my usual work, I used the Hipstamatic app for this project, and it became incredibly educational experience for me seeing the world through the eyes of a child. Working together during the photo selection process was a true joy. And the person who deserves the biggest thanks for beginning this work is my dear wife, Necla, for allowing me to be a father and for bringing two beautiful souls into my life and for sharing this incredible journey with me. I don't know if you guys noticed this from the video, but this entire book is essentially one page that's perforated and folded. Each one of these images ends up becoming a postcard, and I think that's a really cool way, reinforces the concept. You've got text on the back of each one of these with captions the photo. Man, this is a really cool idea. And earlier we were talking about the idea of work that matters, and I was explaining that could be a broad definition. It just needs to be work that matters. Matters to who? Matters to you? Matters to somebody else? Work that has a place in the world, and I think that there's nothing more beautiful than celebrating your children and your family through a project like this. I think this is really cool and it's really well done. And I love the idea that you've worked this into this metaphor of book is postcard. I'm sure there's a service that does these, but I think your content is absolutely perfect for this, and I really appreciate you sharing. So, really awesome work. This has been an awesome video today, and I appreciate everybody who sent something in. I look forward to many more in the future. If you guys have any questions, drop them below. I'll see you guys in the next video. Until then, later. --- *Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/49108*