HYDRATE will be available for sale at the March 18 launch at Drifters Cafe & Bar in Bandra. Join me there at 12 pm for fantastic beer (I dig their IPA) and food. And support my launch by taking home a limited edition print!

Bottled water is everywhere you look. If you need a drink and you’re away from home, chances are a plastic bottle of water is moments away. But studies and research continue to shed light on one of the biggest scams in consumer history, one that reaches back as far as the 1767 in Boston, when Jackson’s Spa water was sold as commercially-distributed therapeutic water, it’s becoming more clear that bottled water, especially plastic-based bottled water, is at best, not much better than tap water, and at worst, harmful personally.

I picked up my first camera when I was a child in the 70s. It was one of those rectangular wonders that you could buy at the supermarket check-out lines. Don’t forget the pack of flash bulbs and film! Naturally, in those days, I didn’t know anything about photography and to be fair, those dime store cameras weren’t meant for those who did. Point, shoot, and pop! If everything worked out, you’d have a strobey-looking indoor shot of your favorite family member or pet. The picture quality would have been terrible but that wasn’t a problem. It was rewarding enough to obtain a few keepers whenever it was time to pick up your prints in one of those envelopes.

If there’s anyone one thing that can be agreed on by most art aficionados, it’s this: art sure is subjective. That applies to what’s considered “art” right down to whether that art is “good” or something else entirely. All of us could probably name a well-known artist’s work that we absolutely love and respect and art from someone else who we think is shit. Have you ever had a conversation that went something like this: “…we walked into a gallery and everything in there was trash. A kid could have done it. I could have done it.”

The process of Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) can be daunting when it comes to the ratio of good to bad images. For the Aksa Collection, I made two excursions to Aksa Beach in Mumbai in 2022. In each session, I took around 2,000 photos of people along the crowded shoreline. Of those thousands of photos, the culling process is arduous to say the least. That’s because the practice of ICM is about as imperfect of an art form than any in existence.

False Profit is a personal piece that I don't mind talking about at the expense of ruining someone's own interpretation of it. Well, sometimes that's just the way it goes. I don't mind going out on a limb if it's my own limb. With the exception maybe of another image in the Aksa Collection that's a deep devilish red, this piece is the only one that's dark and runs the risk of not really fitting in. But it was originally created from the same set of images at Aksa Beach - I only found a darker interpretation of it as I began to strip out the color. For me, this could be the backside of a dystopian US One Dollar Bill. The front side would probably just be of the vacuous and ironic motto that's been attached to American paper currency since 1957: In God We Trust.

Here are the 9 images that are required to be photographed and presented by March 20th, 2023, to qualify via raffle for a free limited edition print from the Aksa Collection by Craig Boehman. Details to follow after images. Please read carefully.

I'm essentially a self-taught photographer who fell in love with street photography after living in India. I didn't know that street photography was a thing when I studied biomedical photography back in the film days, a career that never took off because of the sheer soul-killing aspect of it. At the time, I thought I could only make money as a photographer if I photographed models and fashion, subjects I had only a slight passion for and absolutely no background in. Such was my ignorance of photography. So when I'm asked these days which photographers I'm inspired by, I have no answer because I began shooting street photography without references. I was my only guide. Later, I studied photography more carefully and I can throw out names at you of photographers I like -- but none of them have informed my photography in the slightest. If I were to namedrop from the art world, there are only two that stood out for me in my early days: Egon Schiele and Marc Chagall. But this story is for another day.

Like each print in this collection, this was created using a camera technique called ICM, Intentional Camera Movement. Essentially, I use a slow shutter speed and shake the camera slightly to produce what will hopefully be something like an abstract impressionist image. When I'm lucky, I fall in love with the results, especially when dashes and lines look more painterly than something produced in the digital space. 85-90 % of the effects are created in-camera while the rest is creative changes to make the images resonate with me. I have a great printer who produces my limited editions, and I always love to visit him when it comes time to sign and ship a print to another part of the world.

DANCE FOR THE DEAD will be available for sale at the March 20 launch at Drifters Cafe & Bar in Bandra. Join me there at 12 pm for fantastic beer (I dig their IPA) and food. And support my launch by taking home a limited edition print!

The earliest joy from my youth was collecting agates, fossils, and other curiosities from beaches on the Oregon coastline. The thrill of finding something orange and glowing on the tide line was intoxicating. And there were quite a few times when I was on my hands and knees and digging through the sand, letting the waves do the washing off of the stones for me, always in search of something hidden from the view of regular beach strollers. Later when I discovered writing and especially poetry, I embarked on a practice that simulated this joy of rockhounding - a practice that I could perform anywhere I happened to be.

Now, that I've got an official host and the date finalized, I'm thrilled to announce the release date of the Aksa Collection, my first collection of limited-edition fine art prints.

Each image is issued in two basic sizes, small and large. I'll be displaying and selling the small-size versions at Drifts Cafe & Bar. Attendees will receive a flat 20% off any of my prints.

There are 21 prints issued for each of the small pictures and 3 prints issued for the large-scale prints. The large-scale prints can be ordered on location and buyers receive 20% off as well. Each print is signed by me and registered with Hahnemuhle.

The Aksa Collection by Craig Boehman will be available on March 15, 2023. Pre-orders are available to newsletter subscribers with a special 20% off their first purchase on March 14th only.

Luminar Neo is billed as a creative photo editor. I'm on board with this definition because all the heavy lifting I still do in Photoshop. And primarily, I use Luminar Neo as a plugin with Photoshop. But for black and white images, I feel that Luminar Neo can handle the vast majority of my black and white work and I wouldn't miss Photoshop at all. That's because apart from the artificial intelligence technology built-in to Luminar Neo, which makes it a joy to work in creative ways quickly and effectively, there's also a Raw file developer module that can handle many of the basic and advanced edits.

Mumbai-based visual artist Craig Boehman will be releasing a limited edition run of fine art photography prints from his Aksa Collection, on March 18, 2023. There will be two versions of each image, a limited edition run of 21 for the small prints and a limited edition run of three for the large print versions. All prints will be made with Hahnemühle archival paper, signed, and shipped by the artist, available exclusively on his website: www.CraigBoehman.com.

I see a lot of crazy shit in Mumbai and if I’m packing one of my cameras, the chances are that I’m going to capture the moment even if the image isn’t technically immaculate. My definition of crazy shit may differ from yours, but for the sake of argument, let’s just say that crazy shit is a good thing and not necessarily a bad thing and hence desirable to capture. It could crossover into Bresson’s decisive moment territory, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t ever not be the case. Crazy shit is memorable. Crazy shit tends to stir up conversation. And Crazy shit can be epic. I’m always on the lookout for crazy shit in my street photography.

I’ve been using SKylum’s Luminar AI, and its successor, Luminar Neo, since before the public launch dates for each of these apps. As someone who has had to come to terms with the fact that he’s always late to the game in regard to most technical innovations, I made it a point to jump aboard the artificial intelligence ship before the official passenger list was tallied.

Had I rekindled my passion for photography straight out of school I might have been a fashion photographer in another lifetime. Not one of those guys who's stuck on set all the time in a lifeless studio, but someone who does fashion outside in the "real" world. As it is, I'm always looking out for fashionable people on the streets even though my preferred locales in Mumbai are almost always void of such individuals.

I’ve only taken the Sony ZV-1 out for a few short sessions so far, using it mainly from Point A to Point B runs in an auto-rickshaw and on a couple of short daylight walks. I only have a handful of images edited so far. And a full review of this camera won’t be possible for few months. But what I’ll do for those who are interested in a point-and-shoot that appears to be well-suited for street photography, is list a few observations and comments.

Midjourney AI is capable of producing fantastic artwork, but sometimes there's room for improvements to really make the image shine. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to use Luminar Neo to enhance your Midjourney artwork to set it apart from the rest.

A frame within a frame is always on my brain - when I'm shooting wide on my 24mm prime lens. That's because I'm always considering foreground layers when it comes to composition. Shooting subjects straight on can be unflattering compared to other focal lengths that come with nice bokeh when opened wide up. The 24mm needs help, in my opinion.