Before you start sending us self-portraits, please read on below.

The theme for Papercuts Vol. 8, as you all know, is Forbidden. And we’d like to run a photo essay on that. To complement our cover image, which is of street graffiti, we’d like our readers and supporters to send in photographs of public signs in their cities that stop them from doing something. It could be anything – a poster, a billboard, road signs, something scrawled on a wall – but it must be interesting. An example would be the all-too-familiar advice one sees on walls in Pakistan: Yahan peshaab karna manaa hai (It is forbidden to urinate here). There are loads of other examples as well; once you start looking for them, you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find. Please, please just don’t send us a photo of a stop sign. There are limits to our conceptual patience. Thank you.

Another example of what not to send us

As always, send in your material to editor.papercuts@desiwriterslounge.net. We are extending the deadline to 1st December 2011. If selected, your photograph will be credited with YOUR name and published online as part of a photo essay linked on the Papercuts home page.

If it’s your city, how come there’s so much you can’t do in it? Your camera will help you think that through.