Last Tuesday evening evening Michael Chinnici, whose home is in New York, gave his presentation from Bolsano, in Northern Italy, where he is supervising the print and production of his next book - Vanishing Cuba
The Dhobi Ghat is used throughout south-central Asia to refer to any laundry-place or washing-place where many launderers or clothes-washers work; they may be ordinary people or professionals (traditionally men) who use the place to wash clothes and other linen.
Mumbai has an extensive dhobi ghat (there are several other dhobi ghats in Mumbai!)
It was here in the extensive Dhobi Ghat that Michael spent just over an hour with one camera, and one lens. He took a whole series of pictures in black and white which, of course, he could view in black and white on the camera screen but all the colour information was still there in the RAW file. The final pictures he had made in mono were not only outstanding pictures, but all told a story. The Dhobi Ghat is run along the caste system lines, you are born into the ghat, work in the ghat and that is your life.
Michael's photographs illustrated the life and work of the workers, the people who work there also live there. So, we saw pictures of people washing clothes by hand, people ironing, cooking and just relaxing. Many of these pictures were environmental portraits where the person was just as important as the background. And in the background so many times was the ubiquitous wall calendar offered as a gift by a politician.
He explained that all the photographs were handheld, all used natural light and none were taken on a tripod. All were processed in Lightroom and Silver Effects from the Nik Collection using Topaz to de-noise as a first process.
In the Q and A period Michael offered some good advice on street photography including a technique he has used himself, giving his camera for a subject to look at and try, to gain confidence - if I can trust you with my camera, you can trust me with your image!
Our thanks, Michael, for an interesting and instructive evening.
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