Wanted: Critical Writing on Photography

WANTED: CRITICAL WRITING ON PHOTOGRAPHY – MUMBAI – OCT 13

October 11 2013, Mumbai

Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan

Niyatee Shinde
Niyatee Shinde is an Independent curator, photo-historian and writer on art and photography. In 1978 she graduated with a BA from University of Mumbai and later in 1986 did a Diploma in Copy-writing at Advertising Agencies Association of India. In 2003 she was Research Fellow, NMAH, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; research subject: Interdisciplinary access to photographic collections within the Smithsonian units and museums. From 1995 to 2006 she was Director & Curator, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Mumbai where she curated many exhibitions with Indian and International artists, conceptualized and conducted varied workshops on Indian folk and traditional crafts by Master craftspeople. She was one of the founder-editors of the Times Journal of Photography, TOI, Mumbai and was invited as nominator for the Leopold Godowsky Jr. Photography Awards 1997 and the Hasselblad Photographer Award for 2000 and 2006. She was also invited to judge several national photography exhibitions. In 1993 she conceptualized, researched and compiled ` The Legacy of Raja Deen Dayal’, a major exhibition of photographs by Raja Deen Dayal, for Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi. Also compiled and contributed text to the dossier on Raja Deen Dayal, presented by Air India on their 60th anniversary. As writer on art and photography critic and reviewer she contributed to the Times of India and later wrote several critical features on art and photography for the Indian Express. She continues to contribute essays and reviews on photography for national and International publications. Amongst many recognitions and honours she was awarded the Paul Getty grant in 2004 and the 1994 Goethe-Institut Scholarship for photography research.

She will speak about her experience in writing on photography for Times Journal of Photography and her writing on various photography curatorial projects.

Abhijeet Tahmane
Abhijeet Tamhane is an art critic based in Mumbai who has been writing critical weekly art reviews for the last decade or so. Apart from his regular weekly review essays, he has been writting smaller reviews and general interest articles on art, on a weekly basis for the last four years. Abhijeet has aslo written several catalogues in English, interviewed prominent artists and delivered several lectures on art. At present, he is working with Lok Satta.

He will speak about his experience in writing on art, both in English and Marathi.

Wanted: Critical Writing on Photography

If you are in Mumbai on Oct 11, 2013, do join us for a chat.

World Press debate and other stories

Thanks to Twitter on which I can track many things at the same time, I was clued into the results of the World Press Photo, which each year brings together an amazing body of work on its platforms, and is judged by some of the world's greatest photojournalists. Photo-shopping has always been a deeply debated issue, and this year's WPP winning image of Paul Hansen brought alive the debate again. It is also a difficult issue to deal with. On my computer, the image from the WPP winner's gallery seemed quite darker, but on my photographer colleague's computer the image appeared much brighter. Photoshelter blog has posted both the images. What do you think? I also like the original brighter image and don't see the need to photoshop it further. It has enough and soft light, is superbly composed, and captures the entire tragedy perfectly. I would really like to know what Paul Hansen has to say about this?

                                             Copyright: Paul Hansen/ World Press Photo


Another debate is also on about Paolo Pellegrin's images of a former Marine sniper which won him the Freelance Photographer of the Year award at the equally prestigious POYi. NYT photography blog put the controversy in perspective.

                                           

I discovered Guernica magazine quite late, and everytime that I got to their website, it has some really thought provoking reading material. Sinnamon Love deals with the question if while doing pornography, she was being a feminist.

I also found an article by Prashant Reddy in Open magazine on the extent of foreign funding in Indian NGOs, and it is quite mind-boggling. Do read.

The British Film Institute is doing a retrospective of documentary film-maker Anand Patwardhan's brilliant body of work. An interview with ever eloquent Anand Patwardhan

                                                A poster of Anand Patwardhan's controversial Raam Ke Naam


Happy reading!

Mumbai photojournalist wins MFI YES BANK National Press Contest grand prize

                                          Mandar Deodhar's Picture of the Year image

Winners of MFI-YES BANK National Press Photo Contest 2012 Declared

Mumbai, August 21, 2012: Media Foundation of India (MFI) in association with YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector bank, today announced the winners of the MFI-YES BANK National Press Photo Contest – 2012.

Mumbai-based photojournalist Mandar Deodhar of India Today news magazine was adjudged the winner of the “Picture of the Year” award for his photograph of a lone shopkeeper battling a massive fire at Sara-Sahara and Manish market shopping malls in South Mumbai. The picture was unanimously chosen by an eminent jury that comprised of award-winning international photojournalists Pablo Bartholomew, Kevin Frayer and Arko Datta.

The contest received over 6500 photographs submissions, sent by more than 200 photographers for the six categories under contention. Mandar Deodhar will be awarded the grand prize of Rs 75,000 at an awards ceremony scheduled in October. Additionally, three cash prizes worth Rs 50,000, Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 will be awarded to category winners in each of the six categories.

“I am extremely happy to have won the grand prize. I was not expecting it at all as the MFI contest is a national contest and some of the best photographs from Kashmir and other places compete for the top prize,” said 40-year-old Deodhar in his first reaction.

“I was on the terrace of a building when I noticed that some firemen were reluctant to climb on top of a metal roof because it was hot and a bit dangerous. But, an ordinary shopkeeper snatched the water pipe from them, climbed on that roof and started bravely battling the fire. I found that interesting,” said Deodhar, who has done stints with publications like Lokmat, Bombay Times, and Mid-Day before joining India Today in 2007.

“This photograph of a single man fighting the fire went beyond the realm of just spot news and spoke to us on many levels. The jury unanimously felt that this image needed to be recognized and honoured as the Picture of the Year 2012. And while it won 3rd place in the spot news category, it surpassed both in its category and every other winning image in the competition,” said Jury member Pablo Bartholomew, explaining the jury decision.

“It was very strong and layered, both beautiful and terrifyingly tragic. Adding to its beauty was  the near monochromatic colourlessness of the tones, the bleak sadness of an unwinnable war against the fire, of a stark consumed, devastated urban landscape, at the point of no return and within this is setting is  this human figure  that one cannot help but gape and laud the courage, spirit and strength. The body language of this figure engaged in battle, the immense tenacity to fight on against all odds was what made it a compelling and enduring winning image,” he said on behalf of the three-member jury.

Jury member Kevin Frayer of The Associated Press observed “The picture of the year is striking in many ways. But for me it is simply one man fighting alone something far bigger then himself...a kind of a "David and Goliath" scene. The fire has razed the entire market yet he battles on. The viewer can study the sheer determination as he fights to save what he can. It is strong photojournalism in its most simple form."

Ranjit Hoskote, Media Foundation of India Chairman and poet /art curator said, “I am happy that YES BANK has stepped forward to partner MFI National Press Photo Contest from this year. I am certain that this partnership will help strengthen the MFI National Press Photo Contest brand and help broaden its activities across India. I would like to thank our eminent jury for doing such a fantastic job for the second consecutive year.”

Commenting on the association and the contest, Dr. Rana Kapoor, Managing Director and CEO, YES BANK, said, "We are pleased to be involved with this unique initiative which is highlighting the importance of photo journalism in print media, as their exemplary efforts need far greater appreciation and recognition. These photo media stalwarts consistently narrate to us highly relevant stories predicated on images which at times cannot be expressed as effectively through words. We look forward to making this an annual event in association with MFI.”

About Media Foundation of India

Media Foundation of India is a not-for-profit trust started byfour Mumbai-based media professionals as an independent platform to organise media-relatedactivities that could extend beyond journalistic endeavours to promote a knowledgeexchange on wide-ranging contemporary issues. MFI National Press Photo Contest is India’s only national-level contest for professional press photographers and is in its second year.

About Yes Bank

YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector Bank, is the outcome of the professional & entrepreneurial commitment of its Founder, Dr. Rana Kapoor and his top management team, to establish a high quality, customer centric, service driven,  private Indian Bank catering to the Future Businesses of India. YES BANK has adopted international best practices, the highest standards of service quality and operational excellence, and offers comprehensive banking and financial solutions to all its valued customers. YES BANK has a knowledge driven approach to banking, and a superior customer experience for its retail, corporate and emerging corporate banking clients. YES BANK is steadily evolving as the Professionals’ Bank of India with the vision of “Building the Best Quality Bank of the World in India” by 2015.

MFI Yesbank National  Press Photo Contest 2012

List of all Award Winners

Picture of the Year: Mandar Deodhar/India Today

General News

First Prize  - Arijit Sen/Hindustan Times

Second Prize – Manish Swaroop/The Associated Press

Third Prize – Prasad Gori/Hindustan Times

Honorable Mention 1 - Ajay Agarwal/Hindustan Times

Honorable Mention 2 – Raj k Raj/Hindustan Times

Honorable Mention 3 - Ajay Agarwal/Hindustan Times

Spot News

First Prize – Salil Bera/The Week

Second Prize – Sachin Kadvekar/Fotocorp

Third Prize – Mandar Deodhar/India Today

Honorable Mention 1 – Anshuman Poyrekar/Hindustan Times

Honorable Mention 2 – Dar Yasin/The Associated Press

Honorable Mention 3 – Partha Paul/The Indian Express

Daily Life

First Prize – Vijayanand Gupta/Hindustan Times

Second Prize – Sivaram V/Reuters

Third Prize – Prasad Gori/Hindustan Times

Honorable Mention 1 – Shankar Lattur/The Times of India

Honorable Mention 2 – Sachin Vaidya/Saamana

Honorable Mention 3 – Swastik Pal/Freelance

Sports

First Prize – Senthil Kumaran/Trikaya Photos

Second Prize – Sudipto Das/The Times of India

Third Prize – Manvender Vashist/PTI

Honorable Mention – KR Deepak/The Hindu

Art & Culture

First Prize – Raul Irani/Open Magazine

Second Prize – Rajesh Singh/The Associated Press

Third Prize – Shantanu Das/Bombay Times

Honorable Mention – Chhandak Pradhan/Freelance

Best Photo Stories

First Prize – Rafiq Maqbool/The Associated Press

Second Prize – Dar Yasin//The Associated Press

Third Prize – Zishaan Akbar Latif/Freelance

Honorable Mention – Nishant Ratnakar/Freelance

To view all the winning images, log on to Media Foundation of India website

Media Foundation of India announces photo contest 2012

Media Foundation of India announces photo contest 2012

Mumbai, May 10: Mumbai-based Media Foundation of India has announced its second national press photo contest for full-time professional press photographers.

The MFI National Press Photo Contest 2012 invites entries from professional press photographers working with media organizations to send in their photographs shot during the calendar year of 2011. Photographs shot during January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011 would be eligible as entries in the contest. 

(This contest is open only for full time professional photojournalists who earn a living from photojournalism, and is not open to amateur photographers)

Contest Categories:

General News (GN): Pictures of scheduled events or planned events

 Spot News (SN): Pictures shot on the spot without any advance planning

 Daily Life (DL): Glimpses of richness and diversity of daily life

 Sports (SP): Pictures capturing sporting moments

 Arts & Culture (AC): Pictures of the literary and performing arts; festivals etc

 Best Photo Stories (BPS): Picture sequence of a minimum of 2 and maximum of 12 images narrating a story pictorially. Photo stories shot in any of the five categories could be entered here.

Awards structure:

Picture of the Year award: Rs 75,000 and a trophy

First Prize: Rs 50,000 and a trophy
Second Prize: Rs 30,000 and a trophy

Third Prize: Rs 20,000 and trophy

Jury

A three-member eminent jury consisting award-winning photojournalists would judge the images submitted. This year the jury includes senior photo journalists Pablo Bartholomew, Kevin Frayer and Arko Datta.

Deadline

Entries could be sent in a CD to MFI registered address or sent on email to MFIcontest2012@gmail.com on or before the extended deadline of June 7, 2012

Website: For more information about the contest, please log on to http://www.mfi.org.in

Contact: Vikas Khot 9820039847/Satish Nandgaonkar 9820942662

About Media Foundation of India

Media Foundation of India (MFI) is a trust started by four media professionals as an independent platform to organise media-related activities that could extend beyond mere journalistic endeavours to promote a knowledge exchange on wide-ranging contemporary issues. As a broader media and cultural platform, it plans to undertake activities that include journalism fellowships and awards, workshops, publishing, travelling exhibitions, art shows, music concerts, film festivals among other things.

MFI launched its activities with MFI National Press Photo Contest 2011. The contest received over 6,000 photographs as entries from 290 photojournalists across India. Kashmir-based freelance photojournalist Showkat Nanda won the “Picture of the Year” award for his image of three widowed sisters who lost their husbands to different causes arising out of the violent conflict in Jammu and Kashmir.

                                                                 Jury Profile

                                             

Kevin Frayer

Born in Canada in 1973, Kevin Frayer is chief photographer for the Associated Press in South Asia based in New Delhi, India. Frayer began his career in 1991 in the former Yugoslavia, and worked for the Canadian Press before joining the AP in the Gaza Strip in 2003. He has covered major stories across the Middle East and South and Central Asia, and his work has been published in leading newspapers, magazines and websites around the world.

Over the years his work has received numerous awards, including from World Press Photo, POYi, the Headliner Awards, and the APME. His work was part of the AP’s finalist entry for the Pulitzer Prize twice in recent years- in 2006 for the war in Lebanon and in 2009 for the agency’s coverage in Afghanistan.

Arko Datta

Pulitzer award nominee and winner of the Picture of the Year at the World Press Photo 2004, Arko has extensively covered news and sports events across the world for the last two decades, including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the kargil conflict, Summer Olympics, cricket World Cups to name a few. Hid work has regularly appeared in leading newspaper and magazines like The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, International Herald Tribune, and on the covers of Time magazine, Newsweek, The Economist etc. 

Arko Datta was featured among the 20 photographers in Rotovision’s coffee table book “World’s Top Photographers”. One of Arko’s award-winning images also appeared on a postage stamp in Europe. Twice recipient of the “Photographer of the Year” award by Asian Photography magazine, Arko started his career at The Indian Express in 1991 and has since worked for The Telegraph, AFP and Reuters. Arko is also a member of the faculty at Udaan School of Photography.

Pablo Bartholomew

Influenced greatly by his father, Pablo Bartholomew is a self- taught photographer who learnt his first photography lessons at home.

In his early teens he photographed in the documentary tradition-family, friends, people and cities around him. At the age of 19, he was awarded the first prize for his series on morphine addicts, by World Press Photo in 1975.

Represented by Gamma Liaison for over 20 years, he worked as a photojournalist recording societies in conflict and transition. Published in every major magazine and journal in the world, he was awarded the World Press Photo, Picture of the Year, for an image of a dead body of a child, a victim of the disastrous Bhopal Gas Tragedy in 1984.

He won the World Press Photo award for his series Morphine Addicts in India (1975) and the World Press Picture of the Year for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1984). He has taken part in several international exhibitions & published in New York Times, Newsweek, Time, Business Week, National Geographic and Geo amongst other prestigious magazines and journals.

Between 2001 and 2003 as a time to give back to the younger generation of photographers in India, he ran workshops with the support of the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam.

With strong belief in the exhibition space, he has widely shown in galleries in India, photography festivals and museums internationally. Recent shows include Noorderlicht Photo Festival “Another Asia”, Netherlands,2006; ChobiMela, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2006; Angkor Photo Festival, Cambodia 2006; Month of Photography, Tokyo, Japan 2007; Recontres d'Arles, Festival of photography, Arles, France, 2007; Private Spaces Public Places, Newark Museum, USA, 2007 & Noorderlicht Photo Festival “Act of Faith”, Netherlands 2007.

His first one person exhibitions in New Delhi in 1980 and in Bombay in 1981, dealt with themes of the fringe and the marginal worlds that he then lived and traversed in and shown at the Art Heritage Gallery, New Delhi and at the Jehangir Art gallery, Bombay

His recent exhibition, OUTSIDE IN! 70’s & 80’s A TALE OF 3 CITIES… a visual diary of his teenage work, has shown at the Rencontres d’Arles, July 2007, At the National Museum, New Delhi, January 2008 and at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, March 2008. Bodhi Art in New York May 08 -14th June 2008. And at Bodhi Berlin in March 2009 in conjunction with the Berlinale. This concluded in Kolkata in 2010 as a joint show the Harrington Street Art Centre with his fathers photographs “A Critics’ Eye”.

MFI National Press Photo Contest 2011

I am not sure when I began liking still photographs. But somewhere along the school going years, I began collecting photographs from newspapers, and magazines. I remember keeping a clipping of my favourite actress Smita Patil that was published in a Marathi newspaper on her first death anniversary because it captured Smita's expressive eyes well.

My father was then working with the Indo-Czech Friendship Forum, and the Czech consulate would send the official Czech magazine similar to the American Span. The magazine had some of the amazing pictures of Czech Republic's beautiful countryside. I remember a particular one which showed a line of pine trees, and their reflection in a lake which had absolutely still waters. There was another one on a Russian magazine which showed a young Russian couple looking at a sunrise. It was the time of perestroika, and the expressions on their faces captured the monumental change Russian society was experiencing at that point in history.

Slowly, I began following news photographs. It was the late Eighties and early Nineties, and there was a wonderful creativity about photojournalism. Mumbai had several newspapers and each of them had strong photo departments that would compete with each other. And, we would look every morning to see who had better pictures, who had exclusives etc.

Thanks to so many of my friends, I realised the difference between photographers and photojournalists. Thanks to them, I got to see the works of some of the world's leading stalwarts of photojournalism - Henri Cartier Bresson, W Eugene Smith, Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, Steve McCurry, and so many more.

Much has changed over the years. The photographic film roll is history. Digital cameras, photoshop, all colour pictures have taken over. I am still fascinated by photographs - the art of capturing the moment and freezing it forever. And that is why photocontests fascinate me because they showcase contemporary photo-journalism. So, here I go again... I am doing it as part of the Media Foundation of India.

Media Foundation of India

presents

MFI National Press Photo Contest 2011

Six categories:

General News

Spot News

Daily Life

Sports

Arts and Culture

Best Photo Stories

Total prize money to be won: Rs 6.75 lakh

Top prize: Rs 75,000

Pictures shot between Jan 1, 2010, and Dec 31, 2010 eligible

No entry fee

Entries could be sent on email or in a CD couriered to our office

Award ceremony in March 2011

Photobook of winning images

Photo exhibition of winning pictures

Entry Deadline: February 7, 2011.

Jury: Pablo Bartholomew, Arko Datta, Kevin Frayer

For more information and online entry form, log on to: http://mfi.org.in/

Days with My father

A wonderful new gallery from my favourite Time magazine. Photographer Phillip Toledano kept a photo-record of his father over a period of three years from 2006 to 2009. Do check Days with my Father

Toledano received tremendous response to his photographs, which capture the last years of his father's life very warmly. You can see some more pictures from the collection on a nicely designed Website of the same name. Many of those who viewed the website voted for a particular picture which was chosen as the cover of the book that was brought out by Chronicle Books this year.

If you view this please leave a comment about what you felt about the pictures.

Kolhapur Kushti akharas

Miami-based Ami Vitale zipped through Maharashtra last month, and photographed the kushti or wrestling schools in Kolhapur. The traditional sport has been photographed before, but Ami has done the photo-story because red-clay wrestling is in its last lap.

"...The Indian Fighters Federation in the capital of New Delhi stunned thousands of fighters when it announced prohibition of fighting on red soil and ordered fight clubs to buy mattresses for their arenas. Ending the traditional red clay wrestling was an idea sprouted from the aspiration to achieve more Olympic medals since the last and only medal India brought home in wrestling was a bronze in 1952," she wrote in her 84-picture photo essay

Mitch Epstein's American Power

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, Nevada 2007 from American Power
@ Mitch Epstein/www.mitchepstein.net


I recently came across Mitch Epstein’s photographs. The name rang a bell. Epstein was married to film-maker Mira Nair, and had worked on her two films, Salaam Bombay as well as Mississippi Masala as a co-producer, cinematographer and production designer. He is now divorced from Nair, and lives with wife and daughter in New York.

Epstein has several books to his credit. In the context of today’s incident where an explosion in an under construction power plant killed five and injured 12 people in the US, I thought it would be interesting to put up his work on American power plants. He travelled extensively researching the project titled American Power Some India pictures are in Common Practice

Also found Epstein's interview with Bomb Magazine where he talks about his travels while shooting American Power, and a review in New York Times.

Epstein has seven books to his credit, and his pictures are in major museum collections. For more you could check his website

Ami Vitale

picture courtesy: amivitale.com
Have you checked Ami Vitale's website in the "Some Interesting Websites" section on this blog. I have put it on top of the list because I happen to visit it couple of days ago, and saw that it has been redesigned. It was just by chance that I discovered Ami's website.

I first heard about Ami about six-seven years ago. Ami had come to India and based herself in Kashmir to cover the conflict. Later, she won a World Press Photo award for one of her Kashmir pictures.

That's when I searched and found her website. It was the simplicity of the website that struck a chord. Clean, minimalistic design, and focus firmly on the pictures she has made in different countries. She has also added other features to the website.

What differentiates Ami from the other global photographers is that she is not into "spot news" photography. She is into much deeper things than capturing the on-the-spot action pictures or the blood, gore and shock of world conflicts though to be fast enough to freeze the action in a moment is a skill of a different kind. What was striking about her work was her complete involvement with her subjects in which ever country she has travelled. Usually, foreign photographers see a country and its culture from outside-in perspective, but I thought Ami saw India from the inside-out perspective. So, her pictures are not about cows-walking-the-city-roads and snake-charmers.

We were in the middle of organising a national photocontest in 2005, and I was trying to invite her as a jury. But, she was busy travelling and shooting, and couldn’t make it. So, I persuaded her to write a piece about Kashmir that she covered, and despite her schedule, she managed to write and send her pictures for the photo-book that we published. Then she vanished again and now she has emerged in Miami, Florida! Some day I hope to get her to Mumbai to speak and participate in our activities.

I am posting couple of her interviews to give you a glimpse of Ami Vitale. More power to her!

Interview by James Robinson
Do check her pictures from Guinea Bissau at the end of this interview. Interview by Susan Markisz

Awesome Ansel Adams

Photographer Ansel Adams dedicated all his life to landscape photography, and captured some amazing pictures. Largely he worked in black and white, and was sceptical of colour photography which arrived later.
Time magazine has put up a nice gallery on his colour work captured in a new book. Do check Ansel's pictures

Time magazine also put greying Ansel on its cover in 1979. You can see
Time Cover

The magazine paid its tribute to the master in an obit in 1984

To see Adam's black and white work, do check this slideslow


To know more about how and what shaped Adam's love for landscape photography, read his biography

A journey into visual history

The World Press Photo competition is arguably the world's biggest news photography contest receiving over 95,000 images each year, and some of the world's leading photojournalists come together to judge that one image which gets honoured with the World Press Photo of the Year prize.

That the competition is based in The Netherlands is not a surprise. The Dutch have a great tradition of supporting culturally valuable things, going by the way the Vincent Van Gogh and Rijks Museums (which houses the Dutch school of painting led by Rembrandt among others) have been built and managed in Amsterdam.

Indian photjournalists participate each year in large numbers, but India has won the coveted World Press Photo of the Year only twice in the 54 year-old history of the competition. Both for iconic images of tragedy. Delhi-based photojournalist Pablo Bartholomew won it the first time for his picture of a half-buried face of a Bhopal Gas Tragedy child victim in 1984. India won it again in 2005, which was the 50th year of WPP incidentially, for Arko Datta's picture of a woman mourning the loss of her kin in the Tsunami that hit South India.

Today onwards, WPP Foundation has kicked off a new initiative -- an online archive of some 10,000 contest winning pictures that provide a visual record of more than 50 year of human history. The archive will provide each year's prize winners in chronological order since 1955!

The first winner of the competition, started nationally by Dutch union of photjournalists before it went international, was a picture of motor-cross rider tumbling down his motorbike at a competition in 1955.

You can see this one ofcourse, and scores of other iconic images that have won the prizes. For instance, that unforgettable image of a naked girl running away from a napalm attack in Vietnam which arguably changed American public's perspective of the Vietnam war, and forced the government to stop the war. Others including the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk, a defiant Chinese protestor braving the tanks at Tiananmen Square, and James Nachetwey's scar-faced face of the Rwanda ethnic violence.

You could go on this visual history journey

The Great Purges

Photographs as historical records are invaluable. But, much before Adobe gave us Photoshop, political establishments have been liberally airbrushing people out of photographs, to suit their version of history. I came across this extremely interesting photo-gallery created by Time Magazine which shows how doctoring of photographs has been around since early years of photography.

Particularly interesting in these is the picture of Vladimir Lenin addressing the Russian troops before they left for Poland in 1920. During the Stalin era, two principal rivals of Stalin, Trotsky and Kramenev, were airbrushed from this widely published archival picture. This doctored picture was printed and reprinted right up to Gorbachev's time!

Another one is of Hitler, and the missing Gobbels who was evaporated awkwardly by the regime. Even weirder are instances of ultra-orthodox Israeli newspaper eliminating women cabinet members of Benjamin Netanhyu, and Paul McCartney losing his cigarette in the famous Beatles quartet walking down the Abbey Road picture.

Found another doctoring gem from Stalin era on Wikipedia. One moment you see Yezhov and another you don't.