ProgressivE-zine #16 Metropolis

M E T R O P O L I S

Editorial Team Batsceba Hardy - chief editor Michael Kennedy Fabio Balestra Keef Charles

Contributors Abrar Asad Carsten Osterwald David Goold Dimitri Mellos Julia Coddington Siddhartha Mukherjee

Cover Julia Coddington

Design Batsceba Hardy Massimo Giacci

Progressive Publishing House The photographs in this magazine are realized by capturing moments of daily life in public places without a lucrative purpose, and with exclusively cultural and artistic intent.

All articles and illustrations contained in the magazine are subjected to copyright.

Any form of utilization beyond the narrow limits imposed by the law of copyright and without the express permission of the publisher is forbidden and will be prosecuted.

This applies particularly to reproduction, microfilming or the storage and processing in electronic system.

Enquiries or material for publication are welcome.

We assume no responsibility for unsolicited materials.

- Adult Content Š 2020

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Understanding life through photography

I love street photography

Dimitri Mellos

Julia Coddington

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The Story

Shades of Glasgow

Abrar Asad

David Goold

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I love Berlin

Reflections on City Life - Canto II

Carsten Osterwald

Siddhartha Mukherjee

76/79 (In)World-Stories

Jim Darke, JoĂŁo Coelho, Takaaki Ishikura, Snehasish Bodhak, Delfim Correlo, Theodoros Topalis, Frans Kemper

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Understanding life through photography Dimitri Mellos

When I was a child, around 8 or 9, my father came home from work one day with gifts: a portable transistor radio, a couple of other items I cannot remember, and a cheap Kodak Instamatic camera. He asked me and my brother which item we each wanted. Without a moment’s hesitation, I begged for the camera. I don’t know what propelled me to desire the camera so passionately and instinctively. I had no prior exposure to photography — apart from some snapshots my parents would take of us on vacation and the like —. No one in my family was interested in photography as a hobby, and I had no conception of photography as an artistic or creative medium. But I knew I wanted the camera. I knew this machine held meaning for me.

For a few months after, maybe a year or two, I would some-

times take photos with this camera. Most of the time, however, I did not have any film. But I remember so vividly how I would go around the house or our garden, or the neighborhood (just within a block or two — I was a timid and shy child, and did not stray very far), and I would pretend I was taking photos. In fact, I didn’t pretend — I was taking photos, albeit with imaginary film. I was going through all the steps meticulously: looking through the viewfinder, composing the image, clicking the shutter, and then advancing the non-existent film. The process felt charged with significance (in both senses: with importance and meaningfulness). Being by myself and looking at the world carefully, seeing the beauty of the everyday (the sunlight falling on the dining table, the bark of the pine tree) was important and somehow magical.

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After some time, I stopped doing that. I suppose the lack of film, the lack of any kind of encouragement or support from my family (my otherwise kind parents) finally took its toll on this activity. But I never forgot the incredibly magical sensation I had felt while taking photos with the imaginary film.

Photography stayed in my mind, and several years later I finally got another camera, had another start.

Many years later, I gave some thought to what it was that made photography so attractive to me. I should say I gave it some conscious thought, to grasp intellectually what I had already felt intuitively. I specifically realized that, in a way, the process itself was more important than the final product, as attested by the almost ecstatic joy I had felt when I was “photographing” without film. And then I realized that, for me, a large part of the magic of photography had to do with trying to come to terms with Time.

The passage of time disturbs me. This does not necessarily mean it fills me with dread; more often, the discomfort is more subtle. The fact that time passes saddens me. But maybe it would be more accurate to say that I have a love/hate relationship with time. Time is my greatest friend, as it makes things happen, it is the medium of life. And it is also my enemy, as every moment is already gone as soon as it occurs. The passage of time makes life possible, and it also brings about death — not only our eventual biological death, but, perhaps more sadly, the death of each and every moment. Every moment is gone and nothing remains. Life moves on. Memory decays. But in a photograph, the moment is always present,

preserved. In photographs, life achieves a kind of timelessness.

I realized, then, that I was drawn to photography because it offers the illusion of transcending time: it is the means of my quixotic resistance against the passage of time, against forgetfulness. I take photos to save things from oblivion.

But, by its very nature, photography also makes us poignantly aware of just how fleeting, just how fragile, just how ephemeral life and time are. This is especially true with street photography: the difference between a good street photograph and a failure is often just a few milliseconds. Paradoxically, I think that by drawing attention to the fleetingness of life, photography can also sharpen our sensibility to its beauty. Once we realize how quickly it’s gone, we may become more attentive to the present, to each and every moment. And street photography more than any other genre proves that there is beauty and value to be found everywhere, and that we can make art out of nothing, out of the humble fabric of everyday life. It proves that there is magic and poetry in the everyday and the mundane, in small moments, small lives — the lives of most of us.

Street photography is my way of telling people to pay attention; pay attention to the beauty and magic of everyday moments that happen all the time, all around us. Unfortunately, most people are too absorbed in themselves, or too absorbed in the little screens of their phones, to actually open their eyes and look around. The message I want to convey through street photography is this: open your eyes — be interested in the world, not in yourself.

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I love street photography Julia Coddington

I’m a photographer from Australia, and live in a coastal community about an hour south of Sydney. My focus is street photography yet I do experiment with other genres. I have lived mostly in Australia but have also lived overseas at various stages of my life, and I’ve been fortunate to have traveled.

Photography is a hobby that I fit in between my lifestyle of home and work.

Photography has always been a part of my life in different forms, and I have always had a camera at hand. It has become more important in the last 10-years, because of more travel opportunities and my obsession with street photography.

I’ve always been a people watcher, had a fascination with the way people interact and have always enjoyed photographing them. Back in the 1980s when I lived in Indonesia and travelled around Asia, I loved photographing people on the streets, even though I was unaware of the genre at the time.

In 2008 when I acquired my first iPhone I enjoyed discreetly taking photos of people doing quirky things. I became more aware of street photography as a genre in 2012, and started to take it more seriously after being inspired and completely in awe of American Elliot Erwitt’s work at a photography exhibition in Vienna. Erwitt is 91 years old, and still an active photographer.

Another reason I love street photography is because it doesn’t require sophisticated and heavy equipment, and you can do it anywhere. I have also discovered that as a woman, I have an added advantage and power as a street photographer, because my invisibility enables me to get very close to subjects and work a scene without being noticed.

Street photography is also beneficial for my mental and physical health. It requires a lot of walking and moving, and street photographers talk about getting into the ‘zone’ which, once reached, has a meditative affect. I’ve spoken to many people over the years that have found street photography helpful for their anxiety and depression.

I don’t usually go out with a vision of what I want to capture — unless I need a specific type of image to help complete a sequence or add to a project.

My mood can also affect how and what I shoot. For example, if I’m feeling confident and brave, I will use a flash. If I haven’t been out shooting for a while, it will take some warming up, in which case I focus on details so I don’t get overwhelmed.

These days I don’t go out expecting to return with anything — and this takes the pressure off, and I’m much more relaxed. It

doesn’t matter any more if I get anything great, so I simply go out with the aim of enjoying myself. Sometimes I like to meet up with others and sometimes I prefer to just go ‘lone wolf.'

In the summer months my favourite place to shoot is at our local beach pool. My main body of work is The Pool and this is an ongoing project. If it is a hot summers day on a weekend, many locals and visitors head to the pool. We have a lot of visitors from different suburbs of Sydney and the pool becomes a cultural melting pot. It is wonderful to capture the joy all these different people experience in a small place.

If there is a particular physical setting I gravitate towards it is probably a very crowded place with beautiful light and shadows. I love working very close to people and getting in their space which can be done more easily in crowded places.

This type of situation really excites me as a street photographer.

I was recently in London photographing with a few friends at Oxford Circus on a Friday afternoon — probably the busiest time at this spot with commuters heading home and others coming into the city to enjoy their Friday evening. The late afternoon light was absolutely perfect. I’m not sure if I got anything particularly great but I had a lot of fun.

The obvious unifying themes in my work are colour and light.

I also strive to capture movement, gestures, faces, hands and expressions that are layered compositionally.

Along with Rebecca Wiltshire, I co-founded the Unexposed Collective which is an Australian based collective for women, non-binary and intersex street photographers. I am also a member of the newly established Little Box Collective, and an administrator actively involved with Women in Street, an international community of women street photographers founded by Casey Meshbesher.

She founded @womeninstreet in 2016 and she has built it up to become an amazing community of women street photographers. I have very much enjoyed working closely with Casey and the community and have made many dear friends

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As I have become more confident and experienced as a street photographer I now want to get as close to the subject as possible — in order to capture more intimacy in my photographs. I want to feel as though I’m part of the scene, and within the image itself.

It is difficult to be motivated to shoot on a day to day basis in the place we (I and my partner Gerry Orkin) live during the colder months because there are very few people around.

During those months I travel to Sydney or beyond. I love traveling, and being in a new, interesting place can get the photographic juices flowing. However during the warmer months when there are more people at the beach and using the beach pool I am very happy photographing locally.

Like all photographers, we go through periods where we feel unmotivated and experience self-doubt for various reasons. I have just been through one of those periods — but I am now feeling happier within myself and more relaxed about my photography. I now want to simply enjoy the process and use that as my main motivation to shoot.

At the moment, my career has taken a bit of a back burner while I fuel my need to travel and photograph, which is a problem because I also need to fund my travel and photography! So the balance is fine-tuned to make just enough money to live on, and then to travel.

Social media has been reasonably important for the exposure

of my photography. I use the platforms in a different way.

Personally, I prefer Facebook because there is more of a community there, and it is easier to interact with people.

Instagram a little harder to use and I struggle with it as a platform. In terms of exposure of your work to a bigger audience, it is better than Facebook although the algorithms are annoying and so you never know if your work is actually getting exposed in the right places.

I use Flickr as a storage system primarily. Flickr is a frustrating platform for communicating with people and not as interactive as Facebook or Instagram. Yet Flickr is the best platform for displaying your work. I haven’t explored many of the other photography platforms as I find three is more than enough.

Social media can get a bit overwhelming, and I sometimes need a break from it. Yet when you do take a break, you can pay the price because the algorithms are such that they play havoc with your exposure.

Despite being inundated with zillions of images, social media has raised the bar for photographers. Yes, there are so many mediocre images posted, but this means that when there is a good image, it stands out. I’ve noticed over the last year, standards are rising, because photographers are also being exposed more to good photography. This then becomes a challenge, and forces us to experiment more and more, in order to elevate our work above the ‘ordinary’ and even the ’good’.

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I use the Fuji X system including an XT-2 and X70. These are becoming a little dated, but I am more than happy with my current system. My lenses include the 14, 16, 18, 23 and 50mm, however, 95% of the time my 18mm lens is attached to my XT-2. The 18mm lens is old and noisy and I would love Fujifilm to replace it in the very near future but it is my favourite field of view, so I persist with it. The X70 is used for the majority of my photos taken at the pool. This is because it is a very small and discrete camera.

These days I am just picking myself up after a period of time where I haven’t felt motivated, so I’m in the process of trying to change that. Having recently joined the Little Box Collective, we have some interesting things planned so I will be involved with those.

There are also a few exciting things in the works for Women in Street and the Unexposed Collective.

My partner Gerry Orkin and I have some travel planned for the coming year and we also hope to conduct more workshops in Australia, and various places in the world I will be running a workshop in Varanasi with Vineet Vohra in December which I’m very excited about. In terms of projects, I will continue my ongoing pool project over the summer months and I also have another couple of projects I’m working on. My focus however will primarily be on experimenting a little more, enjoying my photography and hanging with fellow photographers.

My place of belonging is with my family. There is no physical place of belonging because I have lived in various different places throughout my life, and the place of my childhood exists only in memories. We currently live in a beautiful and special place, and perhaps this will become the place of belonging, along with my family, over time.

Points of contact are: @juliacoddington juliacoddington.com @unexp_collective unexposedcollective.com @womeninstreet womeninstreet.com @littleboxcollective littleboxcollective.com

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The Story Abrar Asad

I’m a photographer in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. With a population of 20.2 million, it is considered one of the largest and most densely populated cities in the world.

My story began 27 years ago when I grew up in Chittagong District, the second largest city in Bangladesh. Known for its natural beauty, this port city attracts countless tourists every year, especially in winter.

Initially, I used my cellphone for street photography, yet soon switched to a DSLR because I wanted to be serious. This switch in approach allowed me to better respond to the expressions of people on the street: from joyous happiness to overwhelming sadness. Every moment offers a potential story — if we remain open to the possibilities.

Since I’m a visual person, I want to tell stories with a camera.

Ever since I started shooting, I still find great happiness in photography. This passion comes from my heart, and I am glad to be a photographer. I always prefer candid images — which accounts for my interest in street photography.

While photography is largely a hobby right now, it is my dream to be a professional street photographer, and travel countryto-country to document other cultures.

For me, photography is an art — the process of catching moments, expressions, colors shades of gray that serve to tell stories.

Most of the people are unknown to me. Yet when I closely observe these photos, I feel a deep connection with them. I always want to tell stories that convey basic human circumstances, and the accompanying emotions.

When I see people around my general neighborhood, I feel comfortable taking photographs because so many of us are familiar to each other. Yet I always prefer to take candid photos of genuine strangers. I love to develop a story in a compelling yet distinctive style.

Ideally, a composition that makes effective use of light and shadow, the potential geometry of shapes, a colorful environment — all help to enhance my visual narrative.

Many times I try to pre-visualize my photographs, and feel gratified when I come close to my vision. Yet other times to be spontaneous — or embrace the accident achieve equally pleasing results.

Street photography in Bangladesh is very challenging because people are not naturally friendly in these circumstances.

I have to avoid awkward situation as much as possible. Yet somehow I manage to take photos, and afterwards often engage my subjects in brief, friendly conversation I didn’t have any formal photography training. Everything I know I’ve learned on my own, on the street. Now I carry a camera with me every time I travel.

I’m also inspired a lot by the Progressive-Street Group. It’s like a school for me. I get a lot of help from both other photographers and YouTube clips.

Great colorful photographs that tell beautiful stories have influenced me lot rather than the photographers of the past.

Every great street photographer has a unique style of producing meaningful work. I admire all street photographers who strive hard to take excellent photos.

Rui Palha, the great Lisbon-based photographer, is someone I admire greatly. I love his unique style, which is mind-blowing.

I love his B/W work, though I am truly a color photographer.

I’ve met some great photographers from various photography groups through social media that I follow these days. I’d love to work with all of them.

At the top of the list is Batsceba Hardy, who has inspired me from the start of my journey. The way she creates a narrative with a single photograph is outstanding. In short, her vision as a photographer has helped me take my efforts to a higher level.

Fabio Balestra is also a very helpful friend, and his unique style of B/W photography is impressive. It is such a pleasure to see such beautiful photos in the group.

My primary camera for street photography is the Fujifilm X100F. It’s only been recently that I have used this camera — but I love its lightweight and easy-to-use functions. The price is also somewhat reasonable.

My second choice is the Olympus Pen F — not only for its design, but also for other features and functions.

I don’t have any specific technique — yet I feel comfortable using low and high angle shots with a Nikon 18-55 mm zoom lens. I also try to avoid flash and prefer natural light.

Honestly I don’t follow any techniques to manage B&W or Color. My eyes and feelings guide my post-production. I started editing photos with Lightroom Classic, and still use it. On average, I usually take 10-minutes to prepare a photo in postproduction. Yet it depends on my enthusiasm and satisfaction.

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The Color Work by Vivian Maier is a standout. I just read the book and would also like to view other great books such as Reflections in Color

by Raghu Rai, Paris by Eugene Atget, Divided Soul by David Alan Harvey. Reading books offers both insights and inspiration, and we can learn many things from these experiences.

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Shades of Glasgow David Goold

I belong to Glasgow. I was born, grew up and was educated in the city at a time when this great former industrial workhorse was reeling from a shift in world dynamics. In the Nineteenth Century, Glasgow was the British Empire’s proud second city. It was a landscape of belching chimneys, steelworks, shipyards, coal mines and engineering works. It sprawled for miles along both banks of the River Clyde. Her industrial demise was heralded by intense German air raids in March 1941; a body blow trauma from which she never recovered. By the late 1960s the Empire was gone, and so was much of Glasgow’s heavy industry. Nowhere in Britain was post-war economic decline felt more keenly.

Two photographers come to mind when I think about this modern (post-industrial) period of Glasgow’s history: Oscar Marzaroli; and Raymond Depardon.

Glas#wee#gin /ɡlazˈwiːdʒ(ə)n/ noun 1. A native or resident of Glasgow, Scotland.

Their photographic styles are rather different but, between them, the essence of ‘my’ Glasgow from the 60s, 70s and 80s is abstracted and bottled. With foreigner’s eyes, first Marzaroli (‘Shades of Grey’) and then Depardon (‘Glasgow’) saw a city and its people that I had been oblivious to through overfamiliarity. With passage of time, I can now appreciate my Glasgow through their images. The city they saw cannot be described as entirely beautiful, but it is overflowing with character, like the faces of its inhabitants.

There is a definite look to ‘their’ Glasgow, and it is predominantly colourless. Marzaroli worked mainly in black and white, presumably through choice. Depardon’s Kodachromes are dark, inky monotones with cleverly placed splashes of yellow, red and powder blue.

Late in life, Mary-Doll felt she had found an inner direction.

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Although living in rural Scotland, for the last eight years my work as a geologist has taken me on a weekly 900-mile roundtrip commute to a very prosperous London. I now visit Glasgow with foreigner’s eyes and what I see surprises me. Despite a brief renaissance in the late 1980s, the wounds of that postindustrial city are still present and very raw. Huge empty plots remain where tenement apartments once stood, systematically vanished during slum clearances in the 60s and 70s. There are empty Victorian factories with buddleia and ragwort growing from window frames, disused churches and overgrown cemeteries. That decades-old Glasgow ‘look’ of Marzaroli and Depardon lives on and can still shock.

It was during my trips to London that I developed an interest in street photography. My Scottish-born landscape style adapted to suit London’s modern architecture, bustling, expensive streets and attractive, exotic faces. Humorous advertisement juxtapositions and coffee shop window clichés abounded in my attempts to record the slick, fast-moving world around me. Everything is fine in that affluent world; not so in Glasgow. Of course, Glasgow has its large international stores like every Western city. And Glaswegians stare out of Starbucks’ windows just as Londoners, Parisians and New Yorkers do.

There is easy juxtaposition humour to be had here and it is tempting to fall into bad habits. Giant murals now adorn the city, especially in the scars left by ill-conceived clearance demolitions of the 70s. But there is also a compelling cocktail of anxiety and weariness mixed with pride and quick humour that is challenging to record.

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The concept of ‘class’ lies deep in the roots of British society; recognised social groupings based on wealth, profession and cultural background. Almost impossible to define, class manifests itself in many ways: from food preferences and clothing to dialect and accent. It is something you are born with and cannot leave behind. With its roots in industry, Glasgow is unashamedly a working-class city. Martin Parr, the esteemed British social documentary photographer, visited and photographed Glasgow in 1995. He immersed himself in Glaswegian working class communities and shot a small set of colour images with his characteristically humorous and satirical style (‘Think of Scotland’). Being middle-class, Parr has been criticised for a patronising approach to photographing the British working classes. For me, Parr’s style seems respectful and sympathetic; but then, I come from a middle-class background too.

And then there’s religion. Glasgow’s historical links with Northern Ireland and its inseparable twin sister, Belfast, mean that the legacies of feuds between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are present, even in Glasgow’s increasingly secular society. Communities are not so geographically polarised by religious intolerance as they are in Belfast, but individuals can be. Sectarianism manifests itself during the football season and the early summer ‘Marching Season’. In Glasgow it is mostly non-violent but is intimidatory and primitively tribal. There are large Muslim and Hindu communities, which occupy areas of the city vacated by earlier Jewish immigrants. Today, glittering new mosques sit cheek-by-jowl with de-consecrated churches. Two of Britain’s oldest (and best) curry houses are to be found here.

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If you know what you are looking for, you might recognise some strong Irish influences in the physique of many Glaswegians. And what strikes me now, after looking at my recent photography in the city, is that there is often a real tension and anxiety in their faces and in their body language.

Maybe it’s the weather; it certainly rains a lot on the Scottish west coast and the dark winter nights are long at this latitude.

If we are not the most handsome or healthy specimens of the species, we could be amongst the most interesting to observe and photograph.

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Glasgow has the highest rate of coronary heart disease of any city in the Western world and the highest lung disease mortality rate in Britain. Alcoholism is a significant public health concern. Glasgow is officially the UK’s sickest city.

Glaswegians will deep fry anything: from frozen pizza to Mars bars. There’s whisky, but “Scotland’s other national drink” is not really Irn Bru as advertised (a carbonated soft drink mythically made from girders in Glasgow) but Buckfast, a caffeinated and fortified wine made and exported by Benedictine monks in England. This potent drink is notoriously associated with violence. The brand is worn as a badge of pride amongst those involved in antisocial behaviour. Yet Glasgow is as safe as any city can be. Gone are the razor gang rivalries and ice cream wars which persisted until Marzaroli and Depardon’s time. But the facial scars of those days are recent and mark the people like a regretted tattoo.

Post-war Glasgow doesn’t evolve in a strictly Darwinian sense.

It lurches from one attempt at reinventing itself to another, destroying a little bit of its fabric in the process. Giant white lettering looks down on people in the city centre to spell out words which seek to reassure. Yet this is not a city whose inhabitants lack self-confidence. And the people are often described by visitors as kind, generous, artistically and musically creative, and as having a lethal sense of humour. As a Glaswegian, I know this to be true.

In an age where global influences sanitise and homogenise, Glasgow somehow retains a timeless character that is rewarding to capture. Reclaiming the citizenship of my city is challenging but, if I hadn’t stopped “being there”, I might still be blind to its vibrant and visceral charms.

This has not been intended as a tourist advert, but Glasgow is very worthy of a tourist visit. Its Victorian architecture is inspiring and unique. It is home to two symphony orchestras and the national ballet and opera companies. It has a lively cultural scene with world-class university, art galleries, restaurants, museums and sports venues.

The streets are quieter now than they were for Marzaroli and Depardon. Children do not play in them like they did in the 1960s and 70s. But a magnificent stage is set and the curtain is up; there is much to enjoy and capture here.

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Progressive-Street was realised by Batsceba Hardy from a love of Street Photography from roots within the DeviantArt site. It started its life as a group on FB in early 2017 with the entry of Robert Bannister, Michael Kennedy and Fabio Balestra, and has assumed its current form at the beginning of 2018.

“Thanks to us, the street photographers, people see the real world”

Street - Documentary - Photojournalism “There is another world, but it is in this one” — W. B. Yeats We are a small independent Publishing House

We are an Art Gallery: streets all over the World, a sight of reality, the eyes of the street. We show the effects of globalization. We are a look at the Globalized World. Photography as ethnography, our ethos is an anthropological, sociological, social vision.

“Progressive-Street is an international community of street photographers and photo reporters that mix the art of photography in a multi-faced way to document the effects of globalization through their lenses.”

We focus on the ethnical, social and cultural events across the globe — thanks to our net of high-class photographers that cover areas from big cities to the smallest towns, sharing the places and stories of people that cover endless cultures in this pageant of humanity.

Our strength is derived from the independence of the photographers who become members after a severe process of selection concerning authenticable feelings, identity, ethical behavior and quality about the photography.

We reach a global audience thanks to Progressive-Street’s use of mainstream social platforms.

And now we have our own website where one can find cutting-edge photofeatures and articles, plus incisive biographies of the photographers, personal galleries, and how to subscribe to our magazine.

“Progressive-Street is a photography gang dedicated to the visual narrative of the street.”

We go to the street for images that resonate with compelling insights of the human condition.

We seek images that reflect truths without the slick professionalism of the photojournalist.

We strive for an authenticity that is uncompromised and yet aesthetically beautiful.

We respect tradition but are not afraid of the currents of change. We are truly international in both our background and in our purpose.

“We are Progressive-Street.”

Progressive-Street is a ‘gang’ of international photographers looking at the other side, yes, but in this world.

I love Berlin Carsten Osterwald My name is Carsten Osterwald, I am 54 years old and was born in Berlin… at that time still in the divided Berlin (West Berlin).

I spent my first years in the field of street photography in Berlin. Berlin is one of the few metropolises where there is never a lack of projects, motives and opportunities when it comes to street photography. Berlin never sleeps, 24/7, is rich in cultures and accommodates people of all classes.

Even though we street photographers are facing some problems due to the European/German legislation, the most important behavior, as it is valid all over the world, applies here as well: Be nice, be friendly, smile and more than 2/3 of the problems are blown away! Purely for street photography I also travel to a lot of cities like Bangkok, Vietnam etc, and with the same behavior as in Berlin you don't even have 1/3 of problems anymore. Nowadays I live in the state of Baden-Württemberg, but for some photo tours or workshops I always go back to Berlin.

My enthusiasm for photography was awakened when I was about to make my first trip to Bangkok at the turn of the millennium. At that time I had bought a DSLR to immortalize

something of the country. But in the middle of this crowd of people with their Asian friendliness I soon realized that I was absolutely fascinated with the observation of people and situations. I wandered the streets, day and night, photographing people in everything they did. As a pure autodidact I tried all camera settings… so I taught myself day after day and night after night.

Back in Berlin, I continued where I left off in Bangkok. But it became more difficult (data protection law). Strangely enough or just because of that it made the attraction of people — and street photography here in Berlin even more interesting… not everything so friendly anymore… multi-cultural… constant movement day and night. Especially Berlin with its wild 24/7 hustle and bustle, the chaos, the order, the variety of people and races has shown me that street photography has become a passion for me.

You can go to the same place 20 times in Berlin… you will never experience the same situation or see the same person… and that is exactly what Berlin is all about!

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Every street photographer knows, to every city he connects a certain photo… so it is with me: The picture “Our Past” will always be connected to the city of Berlin for me. In the picture you can see several footprints on the street, which were painted across the road. My goal was to photograph from one side to the other, but with a pedestrian at the end of each footprint. Getting 4 people at 4 specific locations at the same time was an almost impossible task. Conclusion: I needed a little over 8 hours and about 1100 shots!!! This is the reason why I connect this picture with Berlin forever… no matter where I am in the world.

Then as now, there are 3 photographers who inspire me: Fan Ho (The great Master of Lights and Shadows); Mario Cohen (A picture gives us the feeling like holding the whole world in our hands. Pictures are documents of the moment, of life, history.

The art of photography transforms the world into a persistent offer to flee from reality to fantasy, from pain to happiness trough soul's window, the eye); Ernst Haas (I am not interested in shooting new things, I am interested to see things new) As already said, I started with a DSLR(Nikon), started experiments with various MFT’s and finally ended up with my current camera, the Sony Alpha 6600. As a lens for the street I use exclusively the fixed focal length of Sigma, the 30mm/1.4th By the crop factor this focal length corresponds to the field of vision of humans… and exactly in such a way I want to take a picture.

There are different ways to approach street photography. There are photographers who work with flash, some photograph from a moment of shock very close to the people and others pay more attention to the background / surroundings. I count myself to the last group. 80% of my pictures are created by looking for a suitable background… or when I notice a special background. Afterwards I try to find the optimal angle by changing my position (composition)… then I wait for the right person… or group. Side effect of this procedure: This can take… sometimes hours!!! But I can assure you of one thing: It decelerates like nothing else in the world!

This approach means that you will find few “spontaneous” pictures in my portfolio. Usually I have the picture in my head before… and if everything goes well, the final picture will be what I want. In this way I also created my personal “favorite picture”: “The Conversation”. I have seen the painting in an exhibition. I noticed that it was optimally illuminated (vignette). Through the person on the painting I was inspired to wait for a suitable observer (in the sense of the conversation of both)… and to wait… after approx. 2 hours this woman came, with optimal hair decoration and clothing and she luckily stayed in front of the painting for a longer time. So I had enough time to use several angles. And the result? This picture won a competition and was also hung in oversize (160cm x 60cm) in 2018 at the Photokina in Cologne as one of the best 100 photos worldwide! For those who are interested, here are my camera settings with which I take 95% of my pictures: aperture priority; ISO auto to max 6400; aperture f1.6-4; no flash.

the conversation

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As far as editing my images is concerned, I only use Lightroom. My workflow has improved to the point where I usually don’t need more than 10 minutes for one image.

On my website or in the videos on my YT-channel you can see that I edit my street pictures exclusively in B/W. I have tried it in color, but had to find out that for me in B/W means more expression, more intensity, more color.

If a picture is published, always depends on if it is able to bring a message across… if it says something.

With this I want to say that even pictures with a blur, whether wanted or not, can have a message (Inhuman Ignorance).

Only one point is an unwritten law in street photography: No street musicians and no homeless people… why?

These people can't defend themselves, so this has nothing to do with street photography anymore!

Homepage: https://www.streetguy.de/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/U CjUNqf_mmb2vAuR1pCSSdSQ?view_ as=subscriber Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/14239 0036@N03/

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Amsterdam

Reflections on City Life - Canto II Siddharta Mukherjee As part of my ongoing project, Reflections on City Life, I continue my exploration of the intermingling of urban environments with their inhabitants, using double exposure film photography, across different cities and cultures.

Double exposure is rather an old technique, and in my personal opinion, best done using film. There are a couple of reasons for this: - Firstly, it introduces a large element of chance; particularly in the manner I have chosen to use the technique. To begin with, I shoot candid street photographs or portraits on a roll of film. Then, I reload the same film, and shoot a series of cityscapes. This way, I have no way of knowing the content of each frame. Of course, I try to maintain an overall ‘concept’ within the compositions; i.e. either placing the portraits centrally and up-close, or off-center, for most shots. This leads to a somewhat consistent series of photographs. Doing double exposures in this two-step process also allows me to combine different things more freely. For instance, sharp portraits on a sunny morning with blur; panned shots in the evening or even creating an amalgamation of different cities altogether. This leads to an endless variety of results with many surprises. To me, the process feels more like abstract action painting.

- The second great benefit of doing double exposures on film

is the finality of pressing the shutter. Two scenes get merged, even if imperfectly, but unchangeably. This prevents hours of endless tweaking around with digital processing, where I may spend a long time fixing a small thing, to make things look ‘perfect’. This process is not as much about perfection, as exploration and serendipity. Needless to say, a lot of frames ‘fail’ in that they can become messy, or end up without a clear ‘subject’ or ‘concept’. The ones that do make the cut, however, end up showing something interesting that I could not have conceived of myself.

All these photographs have been shot on an Olympus OM-2 (gifted to me by my good friend and photographer Florian Merlet). The black and white photographs were shot on Kodak TMax400 or Ilford HP5, and the colour shots were on Kodak Color Plus 200.

I developed all black and white photographs myself, using D76 and Ilford Rapid Fixer. While shooting, each shot is typically underexposed by -1 to -⅔ of a stop, such that after double exposure the total light is approximately +⅓ stops, which I found works well.

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Copenhagen

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The Hague

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Delft

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Progressive Gang:

Abrar Asad, Alphan Yilmazmaden, Anat Shushan, Andrea Ratto, Ardie Santos, Batsceba Hardy, Bogo PeÄ?nikar, Boy Jeconiah, Corinne Spector, David Goold, Delfim Correlo, Don Scott, Don Trammell, Edita Sabalionyte, Eko Yulianto, Fabio Balestra, Fran Balseiro, Frans Kemper, Gerri McLaughlin, Harrie Miller, Jay Tanen, Jean Lefranc, JoĂŁo Coelho, Karlo Flores, Keef Charles, Lola Minister, Lukasz Palka, Marco DM, Mark Guider, Michael Kennedy, Neta Dekel, Neville Fan, Niklas Lindskog, Orlando Durazzo, Pacho Coulchinsky, Roberto Di Patrizi, Shimi Cohen, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Stefania Lazzari, Theodoros Topalis and Hila Rubinshtein, Ines MadDel, Robert Bannister, Jinn Jyh Leow

(In)World-Stories Delfim Correlo

Theodoros Topalis Frans Kemper

JoĂŁo Coelho

Jim Darke

Takaaki Ishikura

Snehasish Bodhak

Dimitri Mellos

Julia Coddington

Abrar Asad

David Goold

Carsten Osterwald

Siddhartha Mukherjee

Dimitri Mellos was born in Athens, Greece, but since 2005 has been living in New York City. He is a self-taught photographer who works mainly on longterm, self-initiated projects. His work has been exhibited and collected internationally and has garnered several prestigious awards and accolades, including being a Finalist for the Magnum Expression Award and the Visura Grant, and a Juror’s Pick at the Lensculture Magnum Photography Awards. In 2019, he was featured in the book Masters of Street Photography (UK, Ammonite Press).

Julia Coddington is an internationally recognised street photographer from Australia. Co-founder of the Unexposed Collective (with Rebecca Wiltshire), an online platform featuring Australian women and non-binary street photographers. She is also an administrator of @womeninstreet, a growing international community of women street photographers.

Abrar Asad (30 running, unmarried, MBA running) works at Ericsson's project Under 20cube logistics Ltd, a telecommunication site. He lives in Dhaka the capital of Bangladesh, a developing country, as he called it.

David Goold A full-time geologist and lunchtime photographer interested in many photographic genres. Scotland. UK-based, his passion lies in street photography.

Carsten Osterwald born in 1965 in Berlin, currently lives in Baden WĂźrttemberg. For photography he commutes constantly between Bangkok (Thailand) and Saigon (Vietnam). The trained project manager has been working part-time as a street photographer for over 15 years. Some of his pictures won international competitions, were printed in magazines and were exhibited at the Photokina.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is an avid street photography enthusiast. Originally from India, he got drawn to this style of photography during his bachelors in engineering around a decade ago. He has been constantly experimenting with his street photography style and approach over the years.He uses both digital and analog photography for his work, and greatly enjoys developing and printing in the darkroom. By profession, He is a scientist/engineer, and recently graduated with a PhD in Chemical Engineering from TU Delft, the Netherlands, where he worked on simulating turbulent emulsions