David Bathgate / Corbis Images

David Bathgate / Corbis Images

Chic bars, sidewalk cafes and high-fashion boutiques dot Nisantasi, Istanbul’s most westernized sector. At the opposite end of the city’s demographic spectrum stand the ultra-conservative neighborhoods surrounding Fatih Mosque. Here headscarves replace Valentino designs for women, traditional attire and beards supplant business suits for men. The difference in mindsets is marked.

David Bathgate / Corbis Images

“The most visible indicator is the increased number of headscarves, particularly among younger women,” he said. “Fashion could be part of it, but my sense as a Muslim is that it runs deeper than that,” he said. “On some level it’s worrying.”

David Bathgate / Corbis Images

A candidate for full European Union membership in the next decade or so, Turkey remains controversial for many present EU member countries too. A secular republic since its founding by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923, the current government has its own critics. Voices both subtle and not have accused it on occasion of being “overly Islamic.” Suffice it to say that the blend of religion and non-religion in a country so lifestyle-different isn’t easy. And when brought to focus in a metropolitan center so large and dynamic as that of Istanbul, the mix in many ways, isn’t an easy mix at all.

David Bathgate / Corbis Images

David Bathgate teaches “Photojournalism – Telling the Story with a Camera,” online and interactively at The Compelling Image.

My book last year was called “TITANS: Muhammad Ali and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the ’70s” – published by Dalton-Watson. It was all black and white and a fun project to design and layout. I did all of the work myself working with a publisher-assigned editor to put everything together as I envisioned. The final pdf layout was converted to CMYK and uploaded to the printer in Singapore. This was a large coffee table book consisting of 262 pages on the heaviest paper available in an 11×13-inch size. It was quite an expensive book to produce and the quality really shows in the reproduction.

My next book for 2011 is called “the South in the 60′s” and is again all B&W imagery that I photographed while working for the St Petersburg Times in my off hours and after leaving the paper when I began freelancing for magazines such at Life, Time, Sports Illustrated and Newsweek. It wasn’t until I started going back through all my old contact sheets that the idea recurred to me and I started seriously editing my work again. I’m now working with the publisher to plan the overall look of the book, whether to lay it out with chapters or sections and how to position it in the marketplace when we launch it. It’s good to have a marketing plan ahead of time. Most publishers work one or two years ahead.

With books you seldom make a lot of money up front, but if carefully planned with a gallery show, you can make more money selling prints from the imagery in the book. At a gallery opening you can sign and sell books and also prints. I had a gallery show in New York City and Rome when we launched “Titans”. There is nothing like seeing large 3 x 4.5-foot prints of your work on the wall to get viewers interested. Books and gallery shows also add to your reputation and prestige as a fine art photographer, always useful for future projects.

Just remember that with book publishing you only get one chance at it. The design, image selection and printing must all be spot on. If you wish to only publish a small number of books, there are many self-publishing entities available to help you. Choose carefully after reviewing their samples.

Award-winning photographer Al Satterwhite teaches the course – Color + Design = Brilliant + Dynamic Photos – online and interactively, starting April 12 at The Compelling Image.

Dog sled racing offers everything for the outdoor and sports photographer: fast action, cold, snow, great expressions (on the dogs, anyway), snow, famous names (at least here in Alaska), lots of waiting, and did I say snow?

It’s the kind of shooting that requires you to be on your toes, because in addition to concentrating on the shooting part and trying to capture action scenes as the dog teams race by, you also need keep you and your camera batteries warm. As I’m getting ready for the shoot, I’ll stick a couple of fully charged batteries in my jacket pocket along with my flash card holder, and if it’s really cold, I’ll throw in a chemical hand warmer pack. That way, spares remain handy, and I don’t have go fumbling around if I need to grab a new card or warm up my hands.

While I don’t teach a course on how to shoot dog sled racing, I do cover some of the applicable techniques and ideas in my “Step into Outdoor and Adventure Photography” course at The Compelling Image.

Questions arise. When does a person stop living in the present? When do you start living on only your past memories? Are your memories interesting enough to carry you through your old age? What can we do now to make someone else’s life more pleasant? How will we be remembered, if we are remembered at all? And most important, how is America dealing with the challenges of an aging population?

Selected works from the Window Peeping series will be exhibited at Gallery 825 from March 20 – April 16th. Opening reception is March 20th from 6-9 pm. In addition, two pieces from the series are on display as part of the OsCene 2010 exhibit at the Laguna Art Museum through May 16th. See links below for details.

Los Angeles Art Association

Laguna Art Museum

by Gina Genis

Well, we’ve got it for you – and at a student discount! TCI, the most dynamic internet school for visual creativity on the net has joined talents with the designers at LiveBooks, where you’ll be able to realize the ideal “you” in website display and the full breadth of your creative endeavors. Stop by both LiveBooks and The Compelling Image and check it out!

“The photo shows the beginning of something, the beginning of a huge story,” jury chair Ayperi Karabuda Ecer said of the photo. Right. Well how about showing pictures of the story itself, and there were plenty of powerful images from the Iranian protests, if that was what they wanted to show.

A fellow photographer said it was like seeing a photo of Paul Revere putting on his shoes before his midnight ride. There are those of us who still want to see the ride, not the”haunting and eerily prescient” prelude.”

So writes world-renowned U.S. photographer, David Hume Kennerly, of the judges’ choice for this year’s prestigious World Press Photo of the Year award, an image made during the Tehran street demonstrations, by Italian freelance photographer, Pietro Masturzo.

Personally speaking, I too was taken aback when this winner was announced. My thoughts fell along the lines of – “Well, these women could simply be yelling to neighbors across the rooftops.” To me they don’t appear to be of the “activist” ilk, be it kinetic or passive. They appear to be fairly basic people who don’t really get involved.

“Context” and “content” is what this top judge’s choice lacks. Without a well-written caption, the image falls short by many a measure. That’s my take, what’s yours?

David Bathgate teaches “Photojournalism – Telling the Story with a Camera,” online and interactively at The Compelling Image.

The Getty Museum has announced that Judith Keller is the new Senior Curator of Photographs. Keller has been acting in this capacity since January of 2009 when Weston Naef resigned. You can read the full article here.

Photography is no exception and even the most seasoned of shooters have at some time felt – well, “stagnation.”

Symptoms? Compositions look all the same, carry little emotion and lean toward “not-so-stunning.” From the photographer’s side of the viewfinder, there often doesn’t seem to be a way out. And no matter how intense the effort, nothing short of an unbiased, knowledgeable and critical eye can help. In short, it’s time for something more – perhaps even of the National Geographic variety.

Keen amateur / aspiring professional photographer Marco Ryan noticed this creeping into his own work recently and decided to do something constructive about it. He gave an online and Skype-interactive review of his portfolio with award-winning, NGS contract photographer and TCI instructor, Ami Vitale, a try.

NGS Photographer / TCI Instructor, Ami Vitale

Check out Ami Vitale’s “Meet with a Pro – Photography Portfolio Review” for yourself at The Compelling Image.