APF street photography award IV goes to Tang Tawanwad Wanavit from Thailand. APF awards has been one of the most unique features of the APF Magazine Street Photography Group, one of the largest and most active Street Photography groups in the world today with over 141K active members from 100 different countries.
The idea behind this award is simple, to provide inspiration to members, to encourage them to enjoy this craft. This is the winning image
We are also proud of Tang Tawanwad Wanavit for his continued effort and showing improvement in leaps and bounds. He is a hard working photographer and we wish him all the best. Congratulations once again.
Vineet Vohra and Rohit Vohra – This is a wonderful image, intriguing at first and the viewer is forced to stop and have a second look. Good use of flash here, it captures the gaze very well. One can feel the tension created within the frame. Could be easily passed off as a wildlife shot, however it shows the street photographers approach in creating this inspiring scene.
Tang wins a copy of Tales of Tono by Daido Moriyama
To know more about APF magazine street photography awards, join our community here.
We at the APF magazine street photography group ran a 4 day long contest on the theme “APF 2018”. Members were asked to post their favourite Street photographs shot in 2018.
2,256 photographs were submitted for the theme and after going through all of these, curators have selected the following 21 top photographs.
Stay tuned, the winner will be announced tomorrow.
Do join us at the APF Group for more inspirations and fun.
Join APF Co-founders for this Leica Akademie workshop in Pushkar/ Rajasthan
We at the APF magazine street photography group ran a 10 day long contest on the theme “Finding Light”. Members were asked to post Street photographs keeping the theme in mind.
Theme was open to interpretation to let members come up with their own definitions and views. 3,033 photographs were submitted for the theme and after going through all of these, curators have selected the following 30 top photographs.
Stay tuned, the winner will be announced tomorrow.
Do join us at the APF Group for more inspirations and fun.
Best of Street Photography series is back on APF. Every month we feature the best of street photography from thousands of photographs posted in the APF Magazine street photography group on Facebook. The closed group has over 139K active members from 100+ countries.
So here are the best 30 from Feb~Mar 2018. Congratulations to all the winners. Out of the these, 4 are selected to be featured in the next issue of APF Magazine. Available here.
APF is organising a 3 day intensive masterclass which is tailor made to cater to the needs of anyone who wishes to train their eyes to find order in chaos on the streets of Bangkok. Street photography is very rewarding but at the same time, one of the hardest genres to master. Our workshop would help ease the anxiety next time you hit the streets, would help solve the puzzle of composing compelling images in split seconds and most importantly it would help you to see.
During this masterclass, mentors will take the students out on the streets and pass on their tips and knowledge on capturing compelling images on the street. This masterclass includes classroom and shooting sessions. Detail lectures, critiques and selection process will be part of everyday session. We will also look into various composition aspects and the common mistakes while composing, understanding layering in photography, developing ones own style, understanding peripheral vision, ways to see and treat light, will present a video documentary of how their images are made as they shoot and how they fine tune their vision.
Vineet, Rohit and would also guide you through their signature – Gestalt Vision, widely applied in their images, which basically involves an attempt to organize visual elements into groups or unified whole by applying principles of composition.
The mentors will accompany participants while shooting, observe them at work and give instant feedback and suggestions when required. Students will also have a chance to observe the mentors at work, learn their tricks and techniques.
This masterclass is limited to a maximum of 12 participants,
During this intensive 3-day masterclass, mentors will focus on the following topics:
– Street photography
– The light and how to handle it
– Composition – from simple to multi-layered
– Telling a story with your photographs
– Working on projects
– Developing personal style
There are no pre-requisites for attending this workshop. The workshop will be best suited for photographers who have some understanding of how to operate their camera, edit their photos, have some experience in photography and want to take their skills to the next level. However, inexperienced photographers are also welcome.
Students need to bring the following to the workshop:
– A digital camera with a fixed wide angle lens preferably (a 35mm focal length lens would be best). You are most welcome to get your Long telephoto lenses and zooms for your personal work.
– A laptop with software to edit/tone your images
– A notebook to take down notes during the workshop
WORKSHOP FEE
Tuition for the workshop Early Bird THB 17,500/ $500 (valid till 28th Feb)
$590 after 28th Feb
Charges are for the workshop only. The participants are responsible for travel, visa, accommodation and local transport costs. Staying in Bangkok is fairly reasonable and starts from under $25 a night. If you want any assistance regarding your accommodation in Bangkok, you can email Mehar at contact@artphotofeature.com.
After registering we will send you an email regarding the deposit and payment options. To secure a spot in the workshop you must send the full deposit.
Born in Delhi/India, Vineet did masters in fine arts from the prestigious college of arts. He is a self-taught photographer and street photography is a passion that he follows like a discipline.
Vineet started shooting as a wild life photographer for two years and then switched on to street in 2001, it instantly became his passion.Vineet considers street photography a journey that he travels everyday. He believes in learning and unlearning and thrives to improve with each shot. Life in general which is so unexpected, he tries to be as honest through his lens as he can. His main focus is on how to make ordinary moments look extraordinary.
Currently Vineet presents workshops globally and has judged MSPF ( Miami street photography festival ), currently judging San Fransisco street photography festival and conducting a seminar and a workshop in SF. His works and stories have been published on various prestigious magazines all over the world including National Geographic. He is part of the famous collective www.streetcollective.com which comprises of only 8 members from the world and a part of APF collective which has 20 members.
In 2015 he was placed 5th in the top 20 most influential street photographers.
Rohit Vohra is a street/ travel photographer, educator and Co-founder/ Editor in Chief of APF Magazine. He is a Leica Leica Academie Mentor. In a search for methods to read the city, his photographs are often about contact with humans and basic living elements. He received his BFA from College of Arts, Delhi in the year 1997 and has been photographing for over 12 years.
He is one of Asia’s most prominent street photographers, He is a member of APF Collective. His works have appeared in numerous Newspapers/ Magazines all over the world.
Among other commercial work, which includes product and fashion, he personally likes street photography because of the uncertainty, the challenge, the joy of capturing that perfect moment, perfect in terms of light, texture, and elements all perfectly in place.
For him street photography is one of the purest forms of photography. He says, “It is also one of the most difficult forms of photography. It’s difficult because we usually don’t have much control over the environment, well at least as much as we might like.”
He is on the judging panel of some of the top Photography awards in the world. Including IPA, PX3, SIPA, MIFA, Tokyo International Foto awards, Photogravphy Grant etc.
The 7 Stories is a new series we are starting today. We will invite photographers from all over the world to share seven of their favourite photographs and the back stories behind them. To kickstart this campaign we invited Tavepong Pratoomwong from Bangkok, Thailand.
Tavepong Pratoomwong was born in Chanthaburi , Thailand in 1981.
He has been interested in the art of photography for long time since he studied in Rangsit University. He almost stopped shooting until the end of 2013 when his wife surprised him with marriage anniversary gift. It was a ticket to Varanasi, India. That ticket , that trip was the turning point of him to take pictures again.
After he went back to Thailand he joined the Street Photo Thailand’s activities ”365 days in 2014” created by Noppadol Weerakitti. It let him go out and taking photos everyday since then.
He shared his top 7 photographs with us and here are the back stories.
1. Ant man / Bangkok , Thailand 2015
I walked around in town recently. On the upper floor of a building I saw a man writing a note. The building itself looked clean and simple. For me, when I spot some activities on many different levels I always try to find some connection between them.
I know the tiny man is quite cliché but I always try and find some way to make it special. Near that area there was a food cart with many dishes in front. So the first idea was make his legs dip into the dish. It didn’t work well but I continued shooting this composition. Suddenly he reached the upper beam to help him stand up. But in the photo it’s like he is jumping down to the dish below.
“ Sometimes you never know what result it will be. You have to believe in your own instincts, always concentration and keep the composition right ”
2. Share / Münster , Germany 2015
This is one of my favorite photos of 2015. In July I had a chance to join the Observe collective exhibition in Germany. After the event, I went with other photographers to the Peace Festival in Münster. It was a good day to meet many photographers from the internet whom I’d never met in person before. The Festival set up in a football-size park. When we reached it, we looked like kids running to a new playground. I saw an interesting group cutting watermelon. I thought I might get some nice action from this kind of scene, so I sat in front of them tilting my camera up to get some beautiful sky and kept shooting.
A good thing about the festival atmosphere is people did not care much about a camera man. The shot I like the most has a rhythm of hands stacking up watermelon. The right side of the photo has a connection of many circles of hands. It’s far more than I expected in the first place.
3. The smooth criminal / Bangkok , Thailand 2016
When people realize they were a target of photography, some just ignor, some did not like and some really want to show off ! While I took photo of one man using dropper drug to his eyes. Someone jump in and try to steal his friend’s thunder. Normally I hate when a man show V sign or try to play with me but when I saw him do the Michael Jackson ‘s smooth criminal , I decided this guy is exception.
I got this photo when he try to do an anti-gravity lean and fall of.
4. The Horizon / Brighton , UK 2017
Last April I had an opportunity to attend the Sony world photography awards 2017 in England and then traveled to Brighton. I am very impressed with Brighton. It has a lot of beautiful light, nice people. I got one of my favorite photos this year from this city. It was a time when we were going back to the bus. While walked along the beach, I was looking for a scene to take photos.
Suddenly, I noticed that the Brighton Old Pier’s are parallel with skyline, which only happens in a very specific perspective. I was very lucky, one of our fellow forgot his belongings at British Airways i360, So I have the opportunity to wait for someone to fill in this frame.
After a little wait, there was a child running to his mother. I pressed the shutter immediately. ” Some time it’s not about changing location but changing the point of view “
5. Headless Dog / Bangkok , Thailand 2014
In 2014 I join the “365 Day in 2014” event of Street Photo Thailand. The point is to take photos every day and select the best one, then submit on their Facebook page. When I haven’t enough time I always trip around my home area. I discovered a small village where people came out to exercise after work at a playground. That day the rain had just stopped, so I had not met many interesting subjects until I found a dog chasing a cat and got some pictures. Near that dog and cat group, there was a cowardly looking dog standing in the middle of the street. I’m not interested in the dog, but the background with sphere shapes is fine.
So I decided to take pictures of both of them but the dog suddenly turned its head back to bite something and I shot it 2-3 times. No idea of a headless dog came in my mind. I just wanted to shoot a dog and interesting background, that’s all.
“ I like dogs as Elliott Erwitt use to said They’re sympathetic. They’re nice. They don’t ask for prints.
6. Tree man / Tokyo , Japan 2014
One day I was in Japan looking for a camera shop (Yes… if you visit Japan, your camera equipment maniac might relapse). I found a smoking area in front of a train station and a group of office workers smoking. My friend told me this is how they slake off. After taking photos for a while, I saw a little hole in a tree. What if the face of a man poked out through that hole? So I tried positioning the angle to achieve that idea. He did not realize that I was taking his photo (because I was behind the tree) and looked at the advertisements on the big LED monitor on the opposite side. That’s why he turned his face up. I took many photos vertically and horizontally. Finally, I got the best shot when I almost stopped doing it.
Treeman is one of my favorite photos and the one that changed my life. Many people know me from this photo because it was the 1st place winner in the Miami Street Photography Festival 2014.
7. Metropolis / Tokyo , Japan 2016
Last year I wanted to go and get some rare Pokemon in Ishinomaki city (They make event for help people who affected from tsunami in 2011) and going to take photo around Sendai next.
Suddenly the earthquake in middle of the night and in the morning I got phone from my mom that my lovely dog died in Bangkok . I decided to change destination to Tokyo. I used the walk as meditation to forget those bad news, then I finally found this shot outside a coffee shop. I first shot a man and he aware of me. So I changed the subject to a woman who sitting next to him and when I try to composition framing I observe some connection.
“ Good day , Bad day , Anyway…The show must go on ”
We hope you enjoyed the back stories. If you would like to suggest names of photographers, who should be featured in “The 7 Stories”, please leave a comment.
“Spyros is a street photographer and blogger from Greece. He had a passion for photography from a very early age. He loves the unpredictability of the genre and loves to meet new people. His images are often close ups of people as he enjoys the intimacy and challenge of getting really close. We spoke with him in length about his passion and about his very successful blog, Streethunters.net“
Q. Hi Spyros, good to have you with us today, please tell us about yourself and your early interactions with photography.
A. Hello! Firstly I would like to say thank you for this amazing opportunity! I am a big fan of APF Mag and it is a true honour to be asked to be interviewed by you guys. Gratitude. I am Spyros Papaspyropoulos a street photographer born and raised in Athens, Greece that currently lives and shoots mostly in Rethymno a small town on the island of Crete. The first time I used a camera I was a young boy of about 12 or 13 and I remember that my fascination with photography was apparent even back then. My father was an amateur photographer that loved making family photos, but his true passion was for fine art B&W photography. He had a manual Nikon and a Yashica Electro 35 that has now passed on to me. I don’t know where the Nikon is. That is a mystery. Anyway, my father passed on to me his passion for photography as well! Thank you father. My first serious attempt at shooting photos was when I was 18 years old. I shot loads of portraits of a girlfriend of mine. I remember I used B&W film and I used to shoot manually, trying to figure out exposure and the works. Since then, I have always had one camera or another and I have always documented moments of my life. I must have three massive drawers of printed photos at my parent’s house with literally thousands of prints.
Q. What is it about street photography that got you hooked to the genre in the first place and what keeps you going?
A. One word. Unpredictability! I just love the unexpected. As a creative I get bored quite easily, so I constantly seek new ways to entertain myself. I found that street photography is so unpredictable and surprising that it works as a means of catharsis for my soul. It has a therapeutic affect on me; it makes me feel as if I have been meditating. The effect it has on me is so profound that when I don’t shoot I get all edgy and snappy and feel as if I am missing something. I think that when I don’t shoot I get withdrawal syndrome. What keeps me going are the same reasons. I love the unpredictable nature of the genre, the mini adventures I experience when shooting street and the awesome people I get to meet. I have found myself in strangers apartments being shown around while taking photos, or I have travelled to unknown destinations, or I have broken bread with people I have never met before and will never meet again, or I have made photos of guys wielding massive machetes wearing smiles on their faces, or I have found myself taking snaps of AK47 assault rifles stacked on hundreds of bullets and more! I just love where street photography can take me. An every day photo walk or street hunt as I like to call them, almost always ends with at least one interesting story to share. I just love that!
Q. Please tell us about your process of shooting on the streets. What are you like, what goes on in your mind and what attracts you to a particular scene?
A. I try to look for things that attract my attention. I work instinctively and spontaneously most of the time and I have found that in the past couple of years I really enjoy capturing interesting faces. As years go by I have noticed that I enjoy getting closer and closer. I love the intimacy of the close up shot, the thrill of it, and the way my lens plunges in the action I am capturing. When I am shooting I am usually lost in my photography. I am zoned in, totally focused on what I am doing. If I have to interact with someone after I have made his or her shot, I always make sure to wear my smile, as wide as possible and to always be polite. I think it is very important to be polite and to smile, it makes the person you talk to feel as if they are talking to a non-threatening individual and they don’t get annoyed if you take their photo.
Read the full interview in the latest issue of APF Magazine. Download HERE from the iOS store today.
APF is pleased to announce the first Leica Feedback Friday winner, Koushik Sinha Roy. Feedbackfriday has been one of the most unique features of the APF Magazine Street Photography Group, one of the largest and most active Street Photography groups in the world today with over 134K active members from 100 different countries.
The idea behind LeicaFeedbackfriday is simple, to provide meaningful feedback to members, an hour is dedicated to providing critique and having a meaningful dialog. Leica was kind enough to back us up and present one of the most iconic books, Leica Practicum – Theory and practice of LEICAgraphy – silver halide and photo detector imaging with Leica M cameras by Erwin Puts.
We will like to take this opportunity to thank Leicafor their commitment to the craft and always being generous to the community.
We are also proud of Koushik Sinha Roy for his continued effort and showing improvement in leaps and bounds. He is a hard working photographer and we wish him all the best. Congratulations once again. This particular image presented for feedback.
Vineet Vohra and Rohit Vohra – This is a great shot, going in close and getting the picture in the phone as well. Works on many levels. Great layers, the water droplets and details, everything adds to the composition. Eye moves nicely from right to left. The eye just keeps moving in a circle not letting the viewer out of the frame.
Thanks admins for always taking the time out and making this a success.
To know more about Leicafeedbackfriday, join our community here.
Theme was open to interpretation to let members come up with their own definitions and views. 2,912 photographs were submitted for the theme and after going through all of these, curators have selected the following 12 top photographs.
In the end it came down to 2 photographs and eventually Kaustuv Sarkar’s outstanding photograph was selected as the winner. He wins a signed copy of the book, Platform 10 by Rammy Narula. Here is the Winning image. Congrats Kaustuv Sarkar.