PHOENIX PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOENIX PHOTOGRAPHY (ERSTWHILE WORLD PHOTO FREAKS) has recently concluded the third season of International Photography Day Championship – FOCUS 2021 which was held online in between 19th July to 19th August 2021 where many photographers from India and abroad had participated. In this special contest many records were broken this year, over a thousand of magnificient photographs were submitted in which the external jury Ms. Sona Beniwal EFIAP had given acceptances to 506 number of splendid works of photography to the photo artists. Mr. Debarshi Mukherjee came out victorious by claiming 37 acceptances in total. Below is an interview of him with the editor after Debarshi won the championship.

1. Debarshi Mukherjee – The person. An independent Sustainability Consultant by profession enthused with a deep love for street, people and architectural photography.
2. Debarshi Mukherjee – The photographer.
   I try and capture events associated with life ranging from a cultural tradition, a simple portrait, a street moment or amalgamation with architecture and other genres. Hence call me a “real life photographer”.
3. Tea or coffee?
   COFFEE (on most occasions). Unless I get pure Darjeeling Second Flush
4. Favorite food?
   Chicken Steak
5. Favorite Restaurant?
   Favorite Café (in Kolkata) Artsy
6. Describe your camera kit bag.
   From late 2015 to late 2018, my kit comprised of a Nikon D7000 with a Sigma 17-50 mm lens. A 35mm prime lens would be on spare. But ever since I shifted to Mirrorless format since Sep 2020, my new gears consist of my Fuji XT3 with a 16-80 mm F/4 lens.
7. The colour which attracts your eyes the most ?
   That would possibly be between Red, Yellow & Blues
8. Who influenced you into street photography?
   My initial days were with a photo group based in Kolkata, where I learned about camera handling, basic composition skills. Our genres of practice was mainly people photography, be it street or natural environmental portraits. An absolute novice in the field I was introduced to street photography and its various established names by our then group mentor Mr. Sagar Chatterjee who had some experience in the field of Photojournalism and Street. Works from legends like Henri Cartier Bresson, Robert Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Steve McCurry, Fan Ho, Josef Koudelka, Ami Vitale and many more played a vital role in shaping my initial thoughts and ideas on how to approach street photography.
9. Any books or magazines on photography you read?
   I still follow works being published or updated on Magnum Photos. However, most of my reads these days are online covering a mix of publications – Digital PhotoSchool, Smart Photography, Better Photography, N-Photo (UK), 1x etc. Speaking of 1x, my work currently diversifies into other genres of photography with special interest in Fine Art, Architectural Photography. However, being a street photographer at the core, I still try and amalgamate this into architecture and other genres. So it gives me a unique sense of satisfaction having been able to combine them in some form or the other.
10. Any 5 photographers you follow on social media?
    Loads of good work happening these days. Vineet Vohra, Shin Noguchi, Mark Fearnley, Ovidiu Selaru, Anil Risal Singh and the list gets bigger. Herein, I must mention my strong belief that Photography is but an ocean and all of us are learning swimming. So the process of gaining knowledge in photography and applying it to the field moulded into your own format is a lifelong process.
11. Your favorite places to make street images in Kolkata?
    Lanes and by-lanes in Central & North Kolkata, roads and stations by the Ganges, Mullickghat flower market and associated areas among others.
12. A place where you would want to visit again and why?
    Varanasi and London. Varanasi for its charm and ample opportunities for street and travel photography. London for its architectural beauty and options of playing with shadows, light play, street, architecture and travel photography. In fact, I am currently working on body of work which has major chunks from London. I am eager to finish that and give it a concrete well deserved shape. Keeping fingers crossed.
13. Responsibility of a street photographer towards the society?
    I guess to uphold the true picture of the society. These days, I have seen some of my photography peers lack the patience to create that unique frame. And out of that frustration they tend to stage a shot which draws away the attention of the viewer from the truth of the story. Instead what we see is an unrealistic composition if one observes the other elements of the frame minutely. A super idealistic frame in an otherwise chaotic scene look odd right.
14. How does it feel after winning the International photography day championship cup 2021?
    Ecstatic to say the least! A month long endurance of giving images, browsing through the fantastic works from my photography friends / competitors and finally pondering how did I end up winning. Haha!!
15. Finally, Your thoughts on World Photo Freaks?
    I feel it’s got all the ingredients to bind photographers from multiple genres and multiple countries. The contests so far have been quite interesting and the latest one did keep everyone glued to their seats until the winner was announced. I wish World Photo Freaks the very best and hope to build on my strong association with this platform, mutually evolving and growing into lovers of the art of photography.