2The Stunning Images From an Underwater Photography Competition
Scuba Diving magazine just released the winners of their 13th annual underwater photography competition. This year’s “Through Your Lens” contest features incredible images taken over this past year from photographers throughout the world.
There were over 2,500 entries submitted this year into one of the four competition categories: wide-angle, macro, conceptual, and compact camera. Photos were allowed to have basic adjustments made to them while editing, but adding, removing, or moving any object was forbidden. It was also stated that any image appearing overly processed would be immediately disqualified.
Since his arrival in China in 2015, the Ukrainian photographer Sergey Melnitchenko (born in 1991 in Mykolayiv, Ukraine) has been documenting the other side of Chinese society from the perspective of the outsider.
In his series “Behind the scenes,” Melnitchenko captured an unnamed Chengdu underground club where he worked as a dancer. “Transvestites, girls bathing in tubs of beer, drunk actors and even more drunk visitors. All of this – [is the] club, the club where I’m working,” he explains.
His straight snapshots unveil “the invisible side of the club, the atmosphere.” For him “there is more burlesque than on the stage, the concentration of sexual fluids is more powerful than oxygen. There’s no falsehood – it’s not a scene, it’s their everyday life, our life, or rather mine.”
4Revisiting WWII: A photo exhibition in Delhi on destruction and revival of Warsaw
Before the outbreak of the barbarous World War II on September 1, 1939, Germany and Poland had been holding rigid positions for a considerable period of time over the Free City of Danzig. Italy, France and Britain — major powers in the West were convinced that Danzig was not worth fighting for, and they were adamant that it should be returned to Germany. But with this, they also wanted to safeguard Polish trade.
Despite being up against a formidable German military, Poland showed great fortitude and remained firm on its ground, keeping its nerve unbroken.
5Q&A: Adam Lach creates a wonderland out of small town Polish life
BJP: How did you get into photography?
Adam Lach: I bought my first analogue camera when I was in high school, a Zenit. From the very beginning I started photographing out on the street but it wasn’t typical street photography, I tried to learn how to get closer to people. My dad took pictures too, and we had a developing box and an enlarger at home, so I had the opportunity to process my first film by myself, in the bathroom. We didn’t have any tutorials on YouTube at that time, so I had to learn everything from the books.
By the end of the school I had begun to think that photography was what I would like to do in the future. I went on to study photography at the Academy of Photography WSF AFA in Wroclaw, Poland.
6Interview: Powerful Portraits of the Different Indigenous Cultures Found in Asia
Scottish travel photographer Daniel O’Donnell is embarking on a journey to discover local cultures through India, Nepal, and Southeast Asia. Setting foot on these areas of the world for the first time, O’Donnell is focusing his work on capturing life in mountainous, rural areas.
Currently in Kathmandu, he’s just completed his travels in India and sent us a preview of what he discovered during his journey through Kashmir. As he started his travels just six weeks ago, he’s currently developing the work as he moves from country to country, planning on spending about one month in each place.
O’Donnell is using his voyage as a platform for self-discovery, both as a travel photographer and as a private citizen looking to expand his experiences with other cultures. We had the opportunity to speak with O’Donnell about the origins of his photography and how he sees the project developing over time. Read on for our exclusive interview.
7Capturing the disappearing traditions of Britain’s industrial communities
David Severn’s selected portrait for Portrait of Britain 2017 offers an insight into the social life of Britain’s former coal-mining towns thirty years on from the 1980s miners’ strike
Based in Nottingham, UK, David Severn is a documentary and editorial photographer whose practice centres on capturing working class culture and the places associated with it. He has worked on commissions for a wealth of editorial clients, including the Financial Times, The Guardian and Le Monde. Many of his personal projects focus on the relationships between people, their work and the landscape, in both historical and contemporary contexts. He has exhibited internationally and won numerous awards including, most recently, the 2016 Magenta Flash Forward.
Severn’s selected photograph for Portrait of Britain 2017 depicts a singer, Jo Mansfield, performing at Mansfield Woodhouse Ex-Servicemen’s Club. The photograph is part of his series, Thanks Maggie, which documents the landscape and communities around the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire coalfields three decades since the 1984 to 85 miner’s strike.
