FEATURING STREET PHOTOGRAPHER MR. WHISPER

Today, I chat with Balwinder Bhatla, AKA Mr. Whisper, a London-based visual storyteller and professional photographer. Bal specialises in delicious candid low-light street photographs, taking us on walks where the urban landscape transforms into a very different kind of place, where every pool of light or mysterious shadow becomes a photographer’s muse. He has shot stories in his style for BMW, Netflix, Google and Disney, including making a series of pictures to promote Star Wars Rogue 1. And it all started when his wife commented, “The cool kids are using this app called Instagram.”

Also, on the show and from the mailbag, Mat Bobby has the most incredible personal story of how showing some pictures on a wall led to a life friendship with his photographic hero. There’s a Haiku from Chris Hughes inspired by an Australian reservoir, how Colin Mayer’s Extreme Sports experience turned into a love affair with photography instead, Phil Ferris is lost somewhere in the north of England and we’ll pick the flask winner from last month’s assignment entries.

Email your stories, thoughts, and pictures to the show. If you can optimize/resize photos to 2,500 pixels wide, that’s always much appreciated. If you’d like to support this show and have access to further content and the midweek Extra Mile show, we’d welcome you as an EXTRA MILER. There’s also our thriving Facebook group, a safe place to meet and talk with photographers of all interests, the Photowalk YouTube channel, plus the show is featured on Instagram, VERO and X.

As well as our Extra Milers, we’re also supported by our incredible friends at MPB.com who have believed in this show from the get-go; the number one platform in the UK, US and Europe (with bases in Brighton, Brooklyn and Berlin) when it comes to buying, trading or selling quality used kit online. They help us as photographers to tell our unique stories by providing a safe place to buy, trade and sell the kit we need and in doing so, we become a part of the sustainable circular economy. With guarantees upon kit purchased, buy used, spend less and get more at MPB.com.

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LEARN:

MORE ABOUT names, words, THE MUSIC and places FROM TODAY’S SHOW

The International Center of Photography is an institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. Cornell Capa founded ICP in 1974 to champion “concerned photography”—socially and politically minded images that can educate and change the world.

Buzz Hartshorn was a visionary leader whose dedication and passion for the photographic arts resulted in extraordinary growth in the International Center of Photography’s audience.

William Eggleston is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium.

Cornell Capa was a Hungarian–American photographer, member of Magnum Photos, photo curator, and the younger brother of photo-journalist and war photographer Robert Capa.

Man Ray was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all.

Nan Goldin is an American photographer and activist. Her work often explores LGBT subcultures, moments of intimacy, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the opioid epidemic. Her most notable work is The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

MUSIC LINKS: Gidon Schocken featuring Denitia sang and wrote the playout song today ‘I owe it to you’. Music on the show is sourced primarily from Artlist.

MR. WHISPER

MAT BOBBY

Willis “Buzz” Hartshorn in his office at ICP.

Above are photographs (from the letter in the show) featuring the greats Buzz Hartshorn had worked with during his days at ICP. Pictures include Richard Avedon, Gordon Parks, Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Ralph Gibson, Mary Ellen Mark, Annie Leibovitz and Sebastião Salgado.

COLIN MAYER

Colin finds photography after paragliding. See more of his work on Instagram.

SHUTTER SYNC

Jen Spiers: I was taking a leg stretch at Mawbray on the West Cumbrian coast on the Solway. It’s a regular walk for me, but the first time I’ve listened to the Photowalk while out on a walk and the first time I’ve participated in a ShutterSync :)

This is an ICM image of 3.2 secs, so, although I pressed the shutter release at the same time as you Neale, the exposure lasted considerably longer than your shutter speed 2400 :D

Martin Pendry: I am visiting my homeland of Norway and staying with some friends. I took my first 3-2-1 moment while returning from a day trip with friends, one of which had a great MPB story that I will get back to in a minute. When I lived on an island called Tjøme in the 1970s, there was an area called the Bolæren islands outside of Tonsberg, a military zone with massive cannons to protect the Oslo Fjord and then a no-go area or even don’t go close area. This was in the Cold War days noting that Norway had a border with Russia. This trip we took a day trip there on a ferry and, after walikng the dog, Gizmo, around the islands, returned to the mainland. As we travelled, these two kids were jumping with their rib on the waves created by the ferry. I was listening to the podcast, and so on, and the count took this image.

Gert Jan Kole: Luckily you granted us a generous six minutes to get ready this time, starting from the announcement the shutter sync moment was coming up until the actual countdown - plenty of time to pick up my camera while waiting for a traffic light on my commute, set the camera to shutter priority and 1/20th of a second, and pre-focus on the window on the passenger side. When the time came, all I needed to do was lift the camera with my right hand on three, aim at the window at two, and press the shutter at one, while keeping my eyes on the road and the other hand firmly on the wheel.

And there you have it; an ICM picture with the camera moving intentionally and consistently at 80 km/h, which roughly translates into 1200 miles per full rotation of the earth around it’s core, or the length of 17 lined up suffolk sheep (and one extra turned sideways) per second. During the exposure, the camera moved 1,111111 etc meter relative to the stationary subject. Not sure how that translates in goats per square inch...

Victoria Robb: I'm behind in catching up with the new Shutter Sync so when I heard the instructions on last week's podcast I was catching up on in the tube on my way home yesterday I got the courage to take this on my phone - the trousers had already caught my eye.

Mark Mackay

Kelly Mitchell: I actually got to go for a “Photowalk” and listen to the show at the same time, this week. Doesn’t happen very often any more, so when it does I am thrilled.

Well, it is that time of year, Happy Stampede!! It’s the time of year, where there are pancake breakfasts everywhere and everyone is decked out in Cowboy hats and boots. So I decided that I would take my photowalk around all the activities going on go in Downtown Calgary. And just happened to come across a round of pancakes being made when you started your count down. This is what I got!!

Mike Miller: I was listening to the podcast on Friday, July 5th and I was almost back to our cottage when you started the countdown. I stopped my car and was able to make the attached image which is a view of our lake at the public beach.

Joe Harding: Taking a break from late night/early morning working from home listening to the program and decided to join in. I know I was risking creating a temporal time-loop and disruption of the timeline (nerdy, Star Trek reference) by taking a picture of a picture talked about on a podcast I was listening to at the time. I suspect we’ll all survive.

Jade: I took this photo at 6.02 this morning (July 8) in Calliope, Queensland, Australia, where I live, while listening to the show.

I walk every morning and this is at the top of the hill on a path right near the highway heading out of town. The mountains are spectacular and the sun sets over these in the late afternoon. If you look closely, you can see my shadow in the bottom right hand corner.

I love taking photos of the skies and clouds and have found that this part of the world has some of the best I've seen.

Marilyn Davies: Seems like I don't do anything apart from being in the car when listening to the show. But here's my image from this morning's moment when listening to the show.

The GPS on my screen shows exactly where I am and where I'm headed.

By ow means an award-winning photo but a real one!

Chuck Bennorth: I was taking one of my photo walks on July 5, listening to you mentioning the US July 4 celebration on the podcast. This shutter sync pic is showing the golf carts in the RV park getting ready for the holiday parade (being held on the 5th).