Well, as it was raining almost all day in New York City, I managed to finish the first phase of my new personal website (www.telsawy.com).

It's flash-based, iPad and iPhone-friendly and I think it looks really cool with a very large image of a Kathakali dancer, whose put-on scowling face is a perfect fit for welcoming viewers! 

More seriously; I've started the website with 5 galleries...The Oracles of Kali (my latest photo essay), Canang (Bali), Kolkata, Tsechu (Bhutan), and The Kutch. The images chosen for these galleries are a mix of documentary photography and pure travel photography. 

The website's opening spread also has direct links to The Travel Photographer's blog, my Twitter feed, my Facebook page and my Vimeo multimedia page.

I will start the second phase of the website in a couple of weeks.

This new website is separate from The Travel Photographer which features my photo expeditions and workshops, photo essays, multimedia, and books. 

So bookmark both if you're interested, and keep an eye open for more galleries in the weeks to come!

Photos © Tewfic El-Sawy - All Rights Reserved

I chanced on the Camerabag2's website just yesterday, and thought I'd share it with my readers, especially as it offers a free trial for 30 days.

Camerabag2 describes itself as a photo app for Mac and PC with a new approach to editing. It claims that its Analog Engine pairs a full suite of photographic tools with filters and vintage simulations. It uses a straightforward approach to layering, rearranging, and tweaking all of these effects in realtime. It has 100+ fully-adjustable filters and 25+ professional controls.

Purists will probably not be interested in such as app, but for those who like presets, and appreciate tweaking these to suit their own preferences, Camerabag2 does deliver. It has all sorts of tools, from simple exposure and cropping to advanced vignetting, color correction, and curves. However, I didn't see any sharpening tools...but I may have missed it.

The image I made on Bleecker Street the other day was processed in Camerabag2 as seen above.

Does it compete with Lightroom, Photoshop et al? Of course not. But it offers a quick fix to those who have no time or interest in getting involved with these two heavyweights...and it does so at the price of only $29. Not too bad.

Note: I have no direct or indirect relationship with the makers of Camerabag2 and/or its distributors.

I've had the iPhone 4S since late October, and despite my previous reluctance in having such a device, I'm head over heels with it. Well, this might be an exaggeration because some of my friends and peers have really gone "extreme" with its photographic apps, and I'm not.

 That said, I do like to use the various apps such as Instagram, Hipstamatic, Snapseed and the like that I have on mine. The lastest to appear is 646 Pro for iPhone whose claim sounds interesting. It claims that the app has been designed for professional and serious amateur photographers, and is the first and only iPhone camera app to give TIFF image files that have no in-app post-processing applied and no JPEG compression.

Its JPEGs are enhanced by 645 PRO's seven Film Modes, inspired by classic film stock as used by top photographers. It's still being considered for approval by Apple, but from the claims it makes, I'm sure many serious iPhone photographers will lap it up (subject to its meeting these claims and depending on a sensible price, of course).



 

As for multimedia photographers enamored with the iPhone, here's the iPhone Boom Mic, a small microphone that provides iPhone videos "professional" style sound. The microphone attaches to the iPhone's headphone jack. It's very lightweight, has a broad directional and a super-directional setting for more precisely focused recording.

Note: I have no direct or indirect relationship with either of these manufacturers and/or products.

Well, I'll be at the Delhi Photo Festival for most of the day, reviewing photographers' portfolios, and then presenting a seminar Introduction To Multimedia in the afternoon. I shall post something on the event as the day progresses.

However, I discovered yet another type of scarf that fits extraordinarily well in the panoply of photojournalists' scarf collections. It's the gamsha...a cotton scarf worn by many Bengalis, and especially useful for the rickshaw pullers of Kolkata who use it for virtually everything. They range from 35 to 60 rupees depending on quality, and haggling skills of the vendor.

The rickshaw pullers use it as a sarong when they shower, as umbrella when it rains, as face wipes when it's humid and they sweat, a fly swatter....almost exactly like photojournalists use their own scarves.

The one above at 35 rupees is the cheapest version, and is super absorbent.

Seriously, this is a must have for photographers who suffer of scarf-fetish.

Correction: Kaushik Saha, a Bengali photographer living in Delhi pointed out that the correct spelling for the scarf/towel is 'gamchcha. I don't know if the pronunciation differs from what I used, but the rickshaw puller I asked for directions as to where to buy them understood me perfectly.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I am not a huge fan of the Instagram or Hipstamatic apps, although I see that a number of other photographers use them frequently when using their iPhones et al. If Asim Rafiqui, the quintessential Leica user, uses Instagram photos to illustrate his phenomenal The Idea of India project, there might be something to it.

Through a tweet on my Twitter page, I came to know Flare which describes itself as "a fast, easy, and beautiful darkroom for your desktop". So I decided to try it out and see what all the fuss was in these apps. I don't own an iPhone (I'm a BlackBerry kind of guy), so this seemed to be an alternative.

Downloading Flare (there's a 15 days trial period) I applied photographic effects to a couple of my photographs, as can be seen above in my Lou Reed Graffiti shot. It comes with more than 20 presets, which can also be edited by users. Flare also allows users to come up with their own presets. For those like me who are not joined at the hip to their Photoshop or Lightroom, Flare is a matter of drag and drop...mere seconds to get the preset look you like.

Ingenious, huh? And fun. The photograph above was originally shot using a M9.

And for more fun...how about this one of the porters at the Old Delhi spice alley? The Flare preset is called "Molga". Click on it for a larger size.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Having noticed that a fair chunk of visits to The Travel Photographer blog come from a Zite.com source, I looked it up and discovered that it's a free new iPad app called Zite, a personalized magazine that accurately targets your reading preferences.

I tried it yesterday, and I'm quite impressed with it. I chose Photography and Photojournalism as two of my sections on it, and it pulled out some interesting articles from a variety of source...including from The Travel Photographer blog. In fact, a bunch of my recent posts appear under both the Photography and Photojournalism sections...and this one will probably make it as well.

Here's a review on the Wall Street Journal.

ps. I have no connection with Zite. It's just an app that I happen to like.