The Leica Monochrome...And Other B&W Thoughts

Through the PetaPixel blog, I viewed the video of Chris Niccolls from the Canadian camera shop The Camera Store who was able to test a pre-release Leica Monochrome M, and which shares his thoughts on the camera. He also reveals a new feature in the Leica MM which delays the shutter sound camera for stealthier street photography.

For further technical specifications, there's also DPReview's webpage.

This gives me the opportunity to share brief thoughts on the monochrome capabilities of the Fuji X Pro-1, and compare these to the Leica M9's color photographs converted to black and white. As the Leica M is rumored to be released at the end of this month, I don't know how the monochrome photographs generated by the Leica MM will compare to those altered by the traditional post processing, nor to those made in-camera by the Fuji X Pro-1...but I thought I'd post two monochrome photographs made during my recent trip to Chiang Mai.

One of these photographs (the top one) was made with my Leica M9, and post processed in monochrome in Photoshop, while the bottom one was made using the Fuji X Pro-1, and using its B&W film simulation setting, then sharpened (with some added contrast) in Photoshop. Click on the photographs to enlarge.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I pass no judgement at this stage on the merits of the Leica Monochrome, and whether its $8000 price tag is justified or not. For a few photographers, it will be...for the majority of us, it certainly isn't.

However what I can say is that I'm extremely pleased with the Fuji X Pro-1's film simulation settings, as I am pleased with the Leica M9's images when converted to monochrome. I found shooting monochrome with the X Pro-1 to be a cinch, and enjoyed every moment I used that setting. I didn't think I would before doing so in Chiang Mai's streets. But seeing the monochrome images on the X Pro-1's screen helped my visualization process, and reassured me that my camera settings were correct.

Nicolas Lotsos: The Masai Typology

Photo © Nicolas Lotsos-All Rights Reserved

"Photography is my motive for travel."

The Masai Typology is one of the many gorgeous photo galleries of Africa by photographer Nicolas Lotsos. I'm not much of an African wildlife aficionado, but his fine art galleries of photographs of the handsome Masai, of Zanzibar, or of the African slums and townships are lovely exemplars of monochromatic imagery.

Nicolas Lotsos is  a fine art photographer (and in my view, a travel photographer as well) and a basketball agent. He co-runs a sports agency representing some of the top sports figures in Europe. He has been a photographer since he was 16 years old, and specializes in photographs of wild life and nature.

He also won an impressive number of awards, to include Gold Winner at the 2012 Grand Prix de la Photographie, Outstanding Achievement at the Spider Award 2012, the 2012 Veolia Wildlife Photographer Award, including two awards by the Travel Photographer Of The Year (TPOTY), amongst others.

A Nilotic group in East Africa, next to the Indian Ocean, the Masai society is patriarchal, and elder men decide most major matters for each group. A full body of oral law covers many aspects of behaviour. The Masai are monotheistic, worshipping a single deity.

Multimedia Or Make Up Your Own Audio In Your Mind?

As my readers know, I've been privileged to attend the annual Foundry Photojournalism Workshop for the fifth consecutive time, every year teaching Multimedia For Photographers class.

But for those who don't know; the purpose and aim of this class is to show photojournalists how to make quick work of slide show production, using their own images and audio generated in the field, to produce cogent photo stories under the simulation of publishing deadlines, rivaling other multimedia forms in terms of quality.

At the end of Workshop, the instructors and staff gathered to discuss and suggest ways to improve it. The length of the multimedia presentations was one of the issues that came up.

As background, the majority of the remaining classes involved visual storytelling in one form or other, only two during the Workshop were actual 'multimedia', meaning they required photo (or video) essays AND field recordings gathered by students.

That said, this post deals with my class only..so back to the discussion.

One of the suggestions dealt with the length of my multimedia class presentations during the final evening of the Workshop. Although only averaging just over 2-1/2 minutes per project, it was felt by some that this was unfair, as the remaining non multimedia presentations were much shorter, causing the students not enrolled in either of the two multimedia classes to remark that they were shortchanged (that's my own interpretation) by being given less time to show their still photographs.

Looking back at the conversation, I have a couple of thoughts about this.

1. Setting aside other obvious differences for now, but audio slideshows (my kind of multimedia, and which is what my class is all about) provides much more 'magnetism' to photo essays/projects produced by my class participants. The audio carries the still photographs in a way that still photographs on their own cannot...especially with a large audience such as the presentation evening had. I certainly sympathize with the photographers who worked hard to present their very best photographs, but whose impact was lessened because of the absence of a meaningful aural accompaniment...an absence I call a "vacuum". To be honest, a part of me silently screamed my disappointment when I viewed a wonderful photo story with no sound to move along its linearity.

I highlighted the word meaningful in the preceding sentence...and that's a key word. There's an immense difference between the impact that ambient audio, as an accompaniment, adds to a photo essay....and just any kind of audio plucked from iTunes or elsewhere. I've viewed many wonderful photo essays spoiled by incongruous soundtracks that have absolutely nothing to do with the still photographs...and when that happens, my first reaction is always "huh?" then "noooo!".....certainly not the reaction the authors-creators of these projects hope for.

For presentations to a large audience, as the Workshop's last evening was about, I believe the projects with ambient audio will always steal the show. Being accosted by no less that two dozen photographers after the presentations, and told that they wanted to put their still photography work into a multimedia format and start ambient audio recording, not only reaffirmed this belief, but was also personally gratifying.

2. As for the duration of the audio slideshows, it has to be understood that it's determined by the story arc and/or theme...and by the logical pace of the project. It'd be foolish to force the pace of a story...and snip the audio down to a collection of incoherent babble clips just because the multimedia projects had to fit a cookie-cutter time frame. Editing an audio slideshow with no careful regard to the logical and measured pace of the project would be self-defeating, and impractical....and that is not going to happen in my class.

As I wrote in an earlier post: multimedia (whether as audio-slideshows -with ambient sound- or more elaborate productions) is the future, and photographers must hop on its train if they want to remain on the cutting edge of their industry, and retain the attention of viewers.

Unless, of course, they prefer to follow Yoko Ono who famously said: "All my concerts had no sounds in them; they were completely silent. People had to make up their own music in their minds!"

The Art Of 8 Limbs With the Fuji X-Pro 1

Photo ©2012 Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Before going to Chiang Mai for the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, I researched locations and venues for muay thai (the Thai kickboxing), and the most prominent ones were unappealing for what I had in mind.

Despite its ancient history as a self-defense martial art akin to kickboxing, I had read that muay thai had gone through a rough patch. It was revived some years ago as a popular glitzy sport activity and held in large modern arenas...but it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted the bouts that had been relegated to seedy areas, surrounded by gambling and other nefarious activities. It was this side of muay thai that I had in mind.

It wasn't difficult to find what I wanted...the area known as Loi Kroh Road was the setting: a rundown gym with a decrepit ring amidst a "mall" of girlie and ladyboy bars, the boxing ring patched up with duct tape and tarted up with adverts for Jack Daniels Whisky, play-acting fights, the actual smell of sweat and the ambience of the sex for hire, ...and of course, shady nak muay, as the sport's pugilists are known.

I bought a front seat row for my first evening there, and subsequently discovered I could have a drink at one of the bars instead, walk a few steps to the ring and photograph at will. At some point, I wasn't very popular with a half-sober and rather beefy European spectator, who (rightly) claimed I was in his (and his -possibly underage- girlfriend's) line of vision, but the tense moment soon passed.

So here's The Art Of Eight Limbs, a collection of monochrome photographs made at the Loi Kroh arena, and made with the Fuji X Pro-1.

I've said it earlier, but I'm very pleased with the Fuji X Pro-1's performance, especially under the conditions I was shooting under. As one can imagine, photographing a fast-paced sports such as muay thai in dim conditions and under uneven lights is tough for any camera, but the X Pro-1 didn't let me down, except for an occasional slip with its slow focusing or because its auto-focus was fooled by the action.

Anthony Pond: Faith, Frenzy...

Readers interested in unique religious and cultural events will like this. I guarantee it. Not the faint-hearted though.

Following his participation in my The Oracles Of Kerala Photo Expedition-Workshop in March, Anthony Pond has been a frequent contributor to The Travel Photographer blog, and his Faith, Frenzy multimedia essay is the most recent of his many audio slideshows I've already featured.

Not only is it his most recent, but I wager it's his best production so far. Tony used a Canon 5DMk2, audio recordings were made with a Zoom H1, and was edited in Lightroom, Audacity, and Final Cut Pro. I'm not a huge fan of merging stills with video footage, but Tony succeeded in merging these two mediums quite seamlessly.

The Oracles of Kodungallur celebrate their festival in the Bhagawati temple, which usually occurs between the months of March and April. It involves sacrifice of cocks and shedding of the Oracles own blood, to appease the goddess Kali and her demons who are said to relish blood offerings.

Anthony Pond worked for more than two decades in the criminal courts in California as an attorney for the Public Defender’s Office. Now pursuing his passion for travel and photography, he travels repeatedly to South East Asia and India, amongst other places, to capture life, the people and the culture.

Lisa Kristine: Bhutan

Photo © Lisa Kristine-All Rights Reserved

Lisa Kristine has been in the news with her recently published book Free The Slaves, and her talk at TEDxMaui about her photographic work. She has worked over the past 28 years documenting indigenous cultures in 70 countries on 6 continents around the world, and involved with Free the Slaves, an organization whose goal is to end slavery.

Notwithstanding the undeniable virtues of her involvement in using her photography to document the scourge of modern day slavery, I feature instead her lovely work of Bhutan which is representative of the best of  ethnographical fine art photography. Toned to perfection, these images are just superlative and were made with a large-format 4″x5″ field view camera.

2012 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest Finalists

Photo © Cedric Houin-All Rights Reserved

In Focus, the superlative photo blog of The Atlantic, features the winners of the 2012 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest in a much more satisfying format than the National Geographic. The finalists' photographs are shown in a 1280 pixel size; a size that will fill the largest monitors.

The winners consist of a group of 10 photos plus one Viewer's Choice winner. These images were chosen from more than 12,000 entries submitted by 6,615 photographers from 152 countries. The winners are from four categories: Travel Portraits, Outdoor Scenes, Sense of Place, and Spontaneous Moments.

First place went to Cedric Houin with the above photograph of the inside of a family yurt in the Kyrgyz lands of the Wakhan Corridor. We are told by the photograph's caption that the tribes living in the area are weeks away from any village by foot, and although located at an altitude of 4,300 meters in one of the most remote areas of Afghanistan, solar panels, satellite dishes and cellphones are prevalent.

It's not often that I agree with results of photography contests, but the judges' choice in this one is spot on. The richness of the reds of the yurt's interior, and the facial expression of the main protagonist along with the smaller details make a story out of that photograph. 

Cedric Houin is a French & Canadian documentary photographer, and a visual storyteller.

As for the Wakhan Corridor, it's an area of far north-eastern Afghanistan which forms a land link between Afghanistan and China. It's a long and slender area, roughly 140 miles long and between 10 and 40 miles wide. It also separates Tajikistan in the north from Pakistan in the south.