Dear friends, Adios. Till we meet again! We still have to do that 5AM photo trip, Stein . . . .

Artist friend Rokeya Sultana [she is a Professor at the Institute of Fine Arts as well] asked me to photograph the 7 day Printmaking Workshop proceedings at the Institute of Fine Arts Dhaka University  organized by The Bengal Foundation during 18th to 24th May 2008.  Visiting Professors Nirmalendu Das and Pinaki Barua of Vishwa Bharati headed the the Zinc-plate Etching and Lithography workshop.  Final prints from the artists who participated will be on display during a 2 day exhibition [«In Search Of Beautiful Impressions«] at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts on 3rd and 4th June 2008 - the inaugural ceremony will be held on 2nd June evening.  Photographing the artists at work was very interesting for me, and I sort of got a bit side-tracked and photographed more «faces» than I did of the actual processes! After going through the entire lot of photos, there were enough images to present a series of a dozen each for the Etching and Litho processes. Lucky! Some of these photos will also be on display at the exhibition as a sort of «introduction to printmaking» : 

I've never before displayed any photographs at an exhibition or to the public, so this is an exciting experience - though mixed with some apprehension as well! Previous related posts at my blog are here, here and here. A must-read is Ujwala's blog on her participation and experience.

«A Month 6 Artists and a Book»
SoFoBoMo completed today. Its done!

The intent was to photograph 6 artists [Saidul Haque Juise, Fareha Zeba, Smita Srivastava, Ujwala Prabhu, Rokeya Sultana,  Jamal Ahmed] at work, with the least amount of «set-up». Some people are less conscious of the camera than others, so I had to use a different approach for each. I tried to capture the persona and essence of the personality rather than make pretty photos. I hope that I was able to convey this and some of the intimacy that develops between photographer and «photographee!».

The finishing touches to the text assisted by Jyoti today. Many thanks! Thanks to both Jyoti and Ujwala who supported me from day-one, gave suggestions and assisted in the design. Ujwala, sorry for making your mailbox overflow with those 100's [or was it 1000's?] of emails! 

1. A downloadable PDF [around 18MB] is online → SoFoBoMo - «A Month 6 Artists and a Book» [It might be quicker to right-click this link and save the file to your PC for offline viewing].
   The suggested viewing settings in Adobe Acrobat are:
   View->Page Display->Two Up.
   View->Page Display->Show Cover Page During Two-up.
   Alternatively, set the viewing option in Acrobat to «Full Screen» for a full page by page slide show.
2. View the book online at → ISSUU [Requires FLASH].
3. View it at → SCRIBD

Preview the book: