Breaking News: 2011 Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Eric Beecroft has just announced that the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop will take place in mid July 2011 in beautiful Buenos Aires, Argentina!

The tuition is $500 for regional students (Mexico, and all countries south to Tierra del Fuego; including Caribbean nationals, and $975 for non-regional students. Early registration is available for a non-refundable $100 via Paypal only. The early registration guarantees a spot and places the payer in the front of the line for class choice. Scholarships will be announced shortly.

The instructors' line up include:

Kael Alford
Walter Astrada
Andrea Bruce
Michael Robinson Chavez
Tewfic El-Sawy
Ashley Gilbertson
Ron Haviv
Henrik Kastenskov & Poul Madsen (Bombay Flying Club)
Jared Moosy
Maggie Steber
Ami Vitale
Adriana Zehbrauskas

NYT's One In 8 Million Gets An Emmy

I was very glad to read that The New York Times’ multimedia series One in 8 Million won an Emmy Award in the “new approaches to documentary” category a few days ago, and that its producers and all those involved were deservedly recognized and honored.

For those who don't know,  the series is a collection of stories told with audio and photography that portray everyday New Yorkers. Unfortunately, it was only featured for 12 months...presumably because the creators didn't want it to go on any further, but I never found out the reason behind that.

Why would I devote a post on this, instead of just a Tweet? Well, apart from thinking it was extremely well produced, I used One in 8 Million as a teaching tool during my Introduction To Multimedia class with the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali (India) and in Istanbul.

I used the series as an example to stress to my classes the need for simplicity (the "keep it simple" doctrine), the need to humanize the story and the need for brevity.  Whichever one of the series that the class attendees watched, they unanimously agreed that these were inspirational.

From reading the interview conducted by James Estrin with the staff photographer Todd Heisler, the senior multimedia producer Sarah Kramer, and the photo editor Meaghan Looram, I learned that the audio was recorded before the photography took place..I didn't know that, and I am certain to share this interview with my future classes.

A very well deserved recognition!

Candace Feit: Orissa's Tribals

Photo © Candace Feit -All Rights Reserved

 

 

Candace Feit is a photojournalist currently residing in New Delhi, and was featured on the pages of The Travel Photographer blog a number of times.

Her photographs of West Africa  (she was based earlier in Dakar, Senegal) appeared in the The New York Times, Le Monde, Le Figaro, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and Time magazine, among others.

Candace has recently published more Indian photo stories, including this one on the Adivasis of Orissa.  Orissa has one of the largest concentrations of tribal population in India, and according to a government census, they number around 7 million.They are neglected by the central government, and suffer from extreme poverty.

This has given rise to a fertile environment for the Naxalite anti-government movement, which exploits the vulnerability of the tribals, and forces then to take sides. In turn, the Indian government is battling this separatist movement, and the Adivasis find themselves in the middle of the conflict.

David Myers: City of The Dead

The City of the Dead is produced by David Myers, a part-time photographer who lives in Maryland and works in Washington DC.

The City of the Dead is a four mile long cemetery (a necropolis would be a better word to describe it) which extends from the northern to southern part of Cairo. It's called el-arafa by Egyptians, and is an area of tombs and mausoleums where people live and works amongst the dead. Its foundation dates back to the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 AD, and has grown with time until it reached the equivalent of a fully functioning residential suburb of Cairo.

I watched this short photo essay, and it brought back childhood memories when, once a year during the Eid festival, I had to accompany my father to pay respects to our ancestors and forebears who were interred in our family's mausoleum. I still recall it being as large as a couple of basketball courts, with two house-like structures sheltering a number of mausoleums, made of marble or alabaster, and intricately carved with verses of the Qur'an. It is under one of those that my father rests, alongside his forebears. The marble gateway to the mausoleums is carved with the name of my grandfather...which is like mine.

This brought back the smell of dust to my nostrils...the Egyptian dust that is tamped down by hosing it with water...the green-grey color of the palm tree leaves...and much more.

I've been to many Islamic countries and heard the adan in all of them...but few of them come  close to beauty and purity of the Egyptian adan. Perhaps I am biased....

Esther Havens: Ethiopia

Photo © Esther Havens-All Rights Reserved

It's very easy to like and admire Esther Havens. She is a humanitarian documentary photographer who focuses on social-awareness campaigns with Non Profit Organizations around the world, and spent the past two years capturing stories on water projects in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Haiti and Central African Republic.

She traveled to over 40 countries and, as she says "...seeks to open hearts and minds to see the third world conditions in a way that might challenge them to make a difference".She's especially supportive of charity:water, which she urges everyone to support.

Her website has many galleries of her travels to Ethiopia, Uganda, CAR, Iraq, Rwanda, Mozambique, Jordan, Nicaragua, India and others in Asia and South America.

The above photograph is from Esther's Ethiopia gallery.

My Work: Bali: Ngaben (Cremation Ceremony)

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved

Here's the first of a number of audio-slideshows of Balinese traditional events which I worked on following my return from my Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition ™

Ngaben: Cremation Ceremony is a thematic multimedia photo-essay of black and white stills and ambient sound of a cremation ceremony for 6 villagers held on August 11, 2010 in Blahbatuh. The actual cremation was almost a whole day event, and was preceded by a ceremony of remembrance at one of the villagers' homes during which food and drinks were partaken by the families, villagers, friends, neighbors and whoever else wanted to share in the occasion.

While Balinese Brahmins and its wealthier class cremate their dead as soon as death occurs, the poor need to accumulate funds to do the same for their dead...and frequently organize group cremations to spread the costs. This means that years can pass before their dead are finally cremated. The Balinese Hindu tradition calls for bodies to be cremated in order to free the soul from all worldly ties, and as such the cremations are usually bitter-sweet occasions, since it provides closure to families.

During this event, some bodies were exhumed just before the cremation, bones and skeletons were washed...and these remains were put in coffins placed in sarcophagi fashioned in the form of bulls. These are called wadah or lembu that are made of bamboo, papier mache and cotton fabric. The climax of Ngaben is the burning of the structures and the bodies.

During other cremations I've attended, fire accelerants were used to speed up the process. On this occasion, I didn't see any.

The audio slideshow is also iPad-compatible.

Andreas Burgess: In The Courtyard of the Beloved

Photos © Andrea Burgess -All Rights Reserved

 I am thrilled to have stumbled on Andrea Burgess' magnificent In The Courtyard of The Beloved, a visual and aural "portrait" of the Dargah of Nizam Uddin Auliyah, a Sufi shrine in Delhi. The shrine is for the revered Hazrat Nizam Uddin, a famous Sufi saint of the Chisti Sect in South Asia, whose main tenet is in drawing close to God through renunciation of the world and service to humanity.

The title of the documentary refers to the title given to Nizzam Uddin by his followers; Mahboub Ilahi or beloved of God. In fact, the qawwali ( style of Sufi devotional music) songs performed at the shrine in his remembrance and praise address Nizzam Uddin as mahboob ilahi.

The "portrait" is made from over 18,000 still images and ambient sounds which were recorded on-site by Andreas... 18,000 still images!!!! Imagine the amount of editing that Andreas had to do!!! It was produced by Sadia Shepard.

The Dargah of Nizzam Uddin is one of my favorite places to photograph in Delhi, and I have a ton of images made in the area, and Andreas' work has given me fresh impetus to spend even more time there when I'm next in Delhi.

I guarantee you'll agree that this is high quality inspirational work, and I strongly recommend it to readers of The Travel Photographer blog, particularly to those who, like me, are interested in multimedia, South Asian Sufism and Indiaphiles. I already sent the link to participants of my forthcoming In Search of Sufis Photo~Expedition™

Very well done, Andreas and Sadia!

Kashmir: Will 2011 Be It ???

Photo © Altaf Qadri/ AP Courtesy SacBee's The Frame-All Rights Reserved

 I read with interest that the Indian government announced it would start releasing jailed protesters, ease security in Kashmiri towns and cities, reopen schools and universities, and offering financial compensation to the families of those killed since the protests in June.

I've been keen to go to Kashmir for a number of years, but was stymied by political unrest in the region, by conflicting time constraints and other destinations. I certainly kick myself for not taking the opportunity of being in Manali with the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in 2009, and travel to Srinagar as some in the workshop did.

So the possibility of a solo-trip (or even a group photo-expedition) to Kashmir is once again rearing its head because of this announcement...only time will tell if the Indian government is serious with this new policy, or whether it's just a public relations stunt before the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

I'm eager to photograph in Kashmir...and its rich and unique Islamic traditions. In all my years of traveling in India, I have not made it yet. Something tells me that 2011 will be it... Inch' Allah.

Next Week on The Travel Photographer

I'm starting a Sunday feature in which I announce some of the posts in the pipeline for the rest of the week. Most of my posts are scheduled ahead of time but there are exceptions, which occur when I stumble on an interesting portfolio, website or issue..

I've also been frequently complimented on my POVs...and especially those containing rants. I will try my best to come up with those as soon as I can.

For the week starting Monday September 27, I have posts on:

1. A fantastic multimedia project involving Indian Sufis. You will NOT want to miss this one!
2. The work of a talented photographer involved in NGOs.
3. The work of another talented photojournalist featuring tribal life in Orissa.
4. A movie by a British journalist featuring prostitution in India.

I'm also going to release an audio slideshow of my work in Bali during the week. It documents a cremation ceremony.

Oh, and by the way...so far, I've written about 2000 posts for The Travel Photographer!

My Work: Balinese Dancers

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved

As some participants in my photo~expeditions seek to return with a diverse portfolio, I try to organize alternative styles of photography events during the trip...and although the primary focus is always on merging travel photography with documentary photography, I provide such opportunities to those who join them...depending on the destination.

One of the pre-arranged photo shoots during my recent Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition ™ was held at the studio of a dance master specializing in the traditional dances of the island. I asked for three Legong dancing students, and one Baris dancer to be made up, costumed and willing to pose for us. Nothing photo-journalistic was intended from it, except perhaps during the make-up preparations, but the objective was fundamentally similar to a fashion photo-shoot.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved

Notwithstanding, I couldn't resist to make some non-posed photographs such as the one of the Baris dancer with the young daughter of the make-up artist. I always prefer shooting in a landscape format (to get more elements in the frame...and tell more of a story), but I also had to resort to a vertical format to shoot the Baris and Legong dancers in a traditional pose. Both of these images have their uses, and I'm not saying one is better than the other...but the landscape format lends itself better to my kind of shooting style.

30 Days In Muslim America

 Courtesy of Boing Boing

With The New York Times and others reporting discrimination against Muslims in the United States just yesterday, I thought it would be opportune and timely to feature here 30 Days In Muslim America, a photo essay published in the well-known Boing Boing blog, by Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq.

Naturally, discrmination against Muslims has spiked recently as a consequence of the so-called Ground Zero Community Center stupidity and Terry Jones' odious Quran-burning farce, so it's no surprise that The New York Times reported this:

“There’s a level of hatred and animosity that is shocking,” said Mary Jo O’Neill, regional attorney of the E.E.O.C.’s Phoenix office. “I’ve been doing this for 31 years, and I’ve never seen such antipathy toward Muslim workers.”

I don't think the photographs featured by Boing Boing are designed to allay the racism, fear and suspicion that face American Muslims, but it's one of the tiny steps that hopefully will add up. Muslims in America, as President Obama said, are not they...they are us.

Eventually, perhaps the traditional Islamic way of life will be accepted (and respected) in the United States as that of the Hasidim in Brooklyn and the Amish in Lancaster...but I'm not holding my breath.

Wink Willett: Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat

Photo © Wink Willett -All Rights Reserved

Wink Willett was on the participants in my Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat Photo~Expedition, which took place earlier this year between January 23 and February 7, 2010. Due to conflicting time demands, it took a while for him to upload his photographs of the trip, but he finally got them on his website. Here are those I chose to showcase:

To kick the post off, the above photograph is of an elderly Gujarati Rebari with his wife in the background. This is a spontaneous portrait, made whilst the man was greeting someone else.

Photo © Wink Willett -All Rights Reserved

The above environmental portrait is of two Wadha girls with their goats. The Wadha tribe near Bhuj are traditionally involved in the production of wood charcoal, and are extremely poor. Yet, they take enormous pride in their homes (mostly huts with thatched roofs), the cleanliness of their living quarters and use brilliant colors to spruce them up.

Photo © Wink Willett -All Rights Reserved

The photograph above is of two traditional Rabari shepherds which was made in the south of Rajasthan. The Rabaris are nomadic shepherds, cattle and camel herders, and the men commonly wear white, golden earrings, white or red turbans and carry a big stick in the hand. They wear dhoti and  short double breasted waist coat.

Photo © Wink Willett -All Rights Reserved

During the photo~expedition, we spent a few days in South Rajasthan to photograph at the Baneshwar Mela; an annual religious gathering when event tribal people indigenous to the area converge to the confluence of two rivers. It is there that they remember their dead and cleanse their sins by bathing in the ice-cold water.

Wink Willett is an international banker, and brings to his photographic style the lessons he learned from his many overseas senior postings. Check his website for more of well composed travel photographs.

POV: iPad Re-examined

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved
Well, I've played with it for about a week now and I still am of the opinion that the iPad is a more of a wonderful display-toy-gadget rather than a useful tool. And I think this is exactly what Apple intends it to be. I also read that new features are being worked on to include Apple’s Facetime video chat capability.

I also have seen articles predicting that most portable computer devices in the coming few years will have touch-screens and if so, the iPad was certainly the precursor.

I currently use it to peruse news websites, play time-wasting games (mostly sniper games), and that's it. The only photography-related app I think is really fantastic is the one by The Guardian called The Guardian Eyewitness app for iPad. I have yet to see another as good. If anyone knows of similar apps, please let me know.

The good news is that SoundSlides (my favorite audio-slideshow making software) now has a beta version of program which is iPad-compatible (it auto detects iPads, and using this version allowed me to view my audio-slideshows on the iPad.

Some of my audio slideshows have also been uploaded to my Vimeo page, and I can watch these on the iPad as well. The resolution is not as great as the Soundslides though.

Bottom line: the iPad is cool.

The above images is on the opening frame of my new (and still unreleased) slideshow of Balinese cockfights.

S&F™ Lowepro: MultiMedia Photographer

Here's what is fantastic about being ad-free and not beholden to any manufacturer (or retailer)...I am free in liking or disliking any product I want, and mention my opinion on my blog. I'm not paid to flog a particular product and ignore others that I like. I can use a product from ABC and another from XYZ...I have no particular loyalty to any manufacturer (unless it produces exceptionally good products), nor do I follow a fad...nor another photographer. I like what I like...period.

Now, I happen to like some of the Lowepro products, and I've used a couple of them myself. I use a Top Loader Pro bought in 2000 or 2001 that still works perfectly well, except for one of its zippers that doesn't work any more...it's been badly abused for the past 10 years, and it's grubby...but that's how I like my stuff. I also have a Lowepro backpack and a Stealth Reporter shoulder bag that I seldom use now, but in their heyday, they were great.

I suppose Lowepro realized it had to come up with a separate line of products for the growing number of multimedia photographers, perhaps following Think Tank which also has an interesting product line, and has recently launched the S&F™ Lowepro for the Multimedia Photographer products, which consist of S&F™ Technical Harness with S&F™ Light Utility Belt, S&F™ Slim Lens Pouch 75 AW & 55 AW, S&F™ Audio Utility Bag 100, S&F™ Laptop Utility Backpack 100 AW, S&F™ Lens Exchange Case 200 AW and S&F™ Transport Duffle Backpack.

I am only interested in the S&F™ Audio Utility Bag 100 at this stage, so I'll probably pop in one of the two photography retailers closest to me, and check it out.

I am still enthralled by my The Travel Photographer Pouches, so it'll be difficult to pry them from my hands...but one never knows.

Jørgen Johanson: Kham & Amdo (Tibet)

Photo © Jørgen Johanson -All Rights Reserved
Jørgen Johanson went on his first trip to Asia in 1982, and completed the Annapurna circuit in Nepal. He was hooked from that moment on travel, photography and on Asian cultures.

He's a software development engineer for companies Norwegian companies, and recently took a 2-3 years sabbatical just to travel. Most of his travel has been trips to Asia, but also made some trips to Africa, where he photographed in Ethiopia and Niger. He's also enamored of India and China...but it's the Tibetan culture and the Himalayas that really fascinate him.

Take a look at Jørgen's Kham & Amdo photo galleries (he's got two on his website), and explore the other galleries which include Myanmar (some good shots of the fishermen of Lake Inle) and Bhutan (stop by the lovely photograph of Wangdi Phodrang Dzong in the mist).

Jørgen also self-published a book "Kham And Amdo" which is available on Blurb, which you can preview in its entirety.

Nguyen Thanh Hai: Hanoi

Photo © Nguyen Thanh Hai -All Rights Reserved
Nguyen Thanh Hai is known as Maika Elan, and is a young Vietnamese freelance photographer based in Hanoi whose work is just delightful.

Maika was a selected participant in the Creative Economies workshop at the Asia Europe Forum for Young Photographers in Malaysia, and at the 2010 photojournalism workshop with the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation (IMMF), where she received awards for the best photo essay and best single photograph.

I was initially drawn to her gallery of classical drama, and then to her photographs of Inside Hanoi...which I strongly encourage you to peruse. Maika's sense of color and compositional skills will impress you. I also urge you to visit her Lomography section, which she lets her color affinity loose.

In my view, Maika has an extremely bright future in photography.

Ralph Childs: Bali Island of Odalan

Photo © Ralph N. Childs -All Rights Reserved
Ralph Childs is a five time participant in my photo~expeditions, and is the seventh to submit samples of his work made during the Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition ™.

The above photograph, which I view as one of the best ones in his Bali portfolio, is of a devotee in a trance during a melasti ceremony at Masceti beach. These trances are not play-acting by any means, and are genuine manifestation of religious fervor which may reach a peak during such important celebrations and rituals.

Photo © Ralph N. Childs -All Rights Reserved
The above photograph was made during a traditional procession on the same Masceti beach on the Balinese eastern coast during one of the melasti ceremonies we photographed. Melasti is the purification of the Pratima deity and other symbols at a beach, and is a fundamental ritual of a temple's anniversary.

Photo © Ralph N. Childs -All Rights Reserved
This is one of the candid photographs that Ralph seeks whenever he's traveling. He pursues the theme of "father & son", and this one of the young boy and his father (under the spring's spout) was made at Pura Tirta Empul, where hundreds of devotees come daily to bathe in the temple's sacred springs.

Photo © Ralph N. Childs -All Rights Reserved
The above photograph is of Kecak dancers in an unusual pose, which I believe is towards the end of the performance. The Kecak dance is a comparatively modern Balinese dance, and is also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant. It is performed by a circle of many performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, chanting "cak" and throwing up their arms.

Chicago-based Ralph Childs maintains the blog RNC Photography where he posted more of his Kecak photographs. He also photographs local assignments during week-ends, and works for one of the largest American aerospace and defense technology company.

Greg Vore: Rickshaw Wallah

Photo © Greg Vore -All Rights Reserved
Greg Vore is a New York City-based photographer, and attended three colleges: Duke, The New World School of The Arts in Miami and The North Carolina School of The Arts. He started his photography career assisting in New York City for 6 years, after which he opened a studio on the north side of Williamsburg where his commercial work has been on still life. He completed catalogs and packaging imagery for Kate Spade, Bumble and Bumble, Waterworks, Henri Bendel, Martha Stewart, Intel, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Creative Recreation and others. This work has appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair, New York Times T, The New Yorker, Domino and Lucky magazines.

His travel work has been featured in the Communication Arts Photo Annual, PDN’s World In Focus issue in the extreme exploration category and by National Geographic and CITY magazines.

Here's Greg's Rickshaw Wallah gallery, which features a number of rickshaw pullers (or wallahs) which must have been photographed in Kolkata. Using a simple white backdrop for portraits of rickhsaw wallahs is incredibly effective, especially those that retain some of the natural background. Others are photographed in the "field" so to speak. To underscore how hard these wallahs work, a photograph of calloused hands is added to the gallery.

Also take a look at Greg's other galleries including his India and Africa photographs.

His rickshaw gallery brings memories of the excellent Dominique Lapierre's City of Joy (book and movie) in which Hazari and his family re-locate to Kolkata with hopes of starting life anew, but he ends up pulling a rickshaw. The fabulous Indian actor, Om Puri, delivered an unforgettable performance as Hazari.

Fujifilm's FinePix X100: Digital "Rangefinder"

These are breaking news from Photokina...Fujifilm launched the FinePix X100, a 12.3-megapixel camera styled in a 1950s metal-and-leather body. It features and APS-C sized CMOS sensor and a fixed-in-place but bright and fast 23mm f2 prime lens. It also boasts an ISO range of 200 to 6400, and 5fps continuous shooting.

According to Engadget, this camera will interest many to-be DSLR buyers provided it's intelligently priced. Absolutely, and I would think it would also interest existing DSLR users who lust after a more compact camera.

The Luminous Landscape reports from Photokina that it may cost approximately US $1,700 when it becomes available early in 2011.

UPDATE (Sept 21): Fujifilm confirmed that it will retail for about $1000 and be available in March (via BJP's 1854 blog).

Jan Sochor: The Palo In Cuba

Photo © Jan Sochor -All Rights Reserved
Jan Sochor is a freelance photographer, working between South America and Europe. He lived and worked in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain and the Czech Republic during the past five years. His photographs and stories have appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers and websites, including Sunday Times, National Geographic, Reuters, Burn magazine, Foto8, 100Eyes, UNESCO, Boston Review, PDN online,and others.

In this 3 minutes audio-slideshow, Jan has now focused his lenses on the adherents of the Palo religion, also known as Las Reglas de Congo. Palo is a syncretic religion which developed in Cuba amongst Central African slaves. Due to forced evangelicalism, Palo adherents gave their deities names from the Christian faith to continue their spiritual tradition.

Palo's main tenets are the veneration of ancestors' spirits, and belief in natural powers. The Palo pantheon starts at the creator god, Nzambi.

Highly recommended viewing for those of us who document, and are interested in, global spiritual traditions.

Reuters Does Big: Full Focus

Photo © REUTERS/Carlos Barria -All Rights Reserved
Reuters has joined the other news media in featuring large photographs on a blog.

Full Focus, a large format showcase of Reuters award-winning photography, tells global stories. The agency seeks to use this imagery to foster a deeper understanding of current events and social issues, and Full Focus provides an opportunity for its readers/viewers to offer perspectives on the photographs and the topics they address.

The lovely photograph by Carlos Barria and is part of the Haiti Revisited photo essay, and is of expecting women waiting for tent distribution near the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince on February 19, 2010 during the aftermath of the earthquake.

I ought to add separate links (to the right of this page) for all the large-sized photo blogs of major news media...Boston Globe's The Big Picture, Sacbee's The Frame, WSJ Photo Journal, The LA Time's Framework, etc.

Kristian Bertel: India

Photo © Kristian Bertel-All Rights Reserved
Kristian Bertel is a Danish photographer who graduated from Aarhus Tech with a degree in graphic design. His passion for photography began in 2006, and it was exercised in India some years later.

Kristian started out in Delhi and ventured into the Thar desert in Rajasthan, and then to the holy city, Varanasi.

There are 12 sideshows of India on Kristian's website, and are mostly of portraits of Indians in the streets, accompanied by Hindi songs and music. The one titled Vijayawada however, is accompanied by Arabic music....possibly an Egyptian rural song.

Apart from this minor lapse, these galleries will satisfy most Indiaphiles as being accurate representations of Indians going about their daily lives in various cities, towns and villages.

POV: Geniuses!

This will probably be one of my shortest POVs...but Stewart and Colbert are absolute geniuses! I prefer the "Keep Fear Alive" rally...its premise is so satirical that I can't wait to see the faces of the right-wing/tea baggers clowns on Fox.

But isn't it also sad that it's up to Comedy Show personalities to satirically stand up to extremism, and to highlight the hypocrisy of our politics, politicians, and mainstream media?

Lens: John Stanmeyer's Island of Spirits

Photo © John Stanmeyer-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times' Lens features John Stanmeyer's Island of Spirits, whose black & white photographs were made using a Holga.

Also included is an interview by the NYT's James Estrin with John, who's one of the founding members of the photo cooperative VII, and whose work appears regularly in the National Geographic and Time. This coincides with an exhibit that opened on Thursday at the VII Gallery, 28 Jay Street, Brooklyn, which I mentioned a few days ago on my blog.

I loved these wonderful photographs made using the lowest technology possible, especially as they are a reminder that it's the photographer, not the camera, that makes them.

Having just returned from a photo-expedition to Bali a few weeks ago, I also marvel at the degree of influence John (and Gary Knight) has had on my own photography. I attended a week-long workshop with both of them a few years ago in Bali, and I can see their "thumbprints" on the images I made during these past 15 days...especially on two black & white projects I am working on at the moment....cockfighting and cremations.

When these are ready, I will feature them on this blog, and you, my readers, can judge for yourselves.

WSJ Photo Journal: Kapparot

Photo © Ariel Schalit/Associated Press-All Rights Reserved
The Wall Street Photo Journal featured the above photograph of a an ultra-Orthodox Jewish mother holding a hen that was later slaughtered for the Kaparot ritual. Some Jews believe their sins can be transferred to the chicken (or roosters) during the ritual, which comes before Yom Kippur.

Kaparot is performed by grasping the bird (hen for women, roosters for men) and moving it around one's head three times, symbolically transferring one's sins to the object. The bird is then slaughtered or donated to the poor.

Many religious traditions have more or less the same rituals, including Islam with its prescribed animal sacrifice during Eid ul-Adha, when the meat is partially donated to the needy.

Understandably, the little girl doesn't look very pleased at the prospect of the hen being killed.

Anton Kusters: The Yakuza

Photo © Anton Kusters-All Rights Reserved
Anton Kusters is the well deserved Category Winner, Editorial — Photography Book Now 2010 with his The Yakuza in Tokyo.

The Yakuza are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan, and are well known for violence and initiation rites. Many Yakuza have full-body tattoos known as irezumi in Japan, which are still often done by hand using needles of sharpened bamboo or steel. ANother ritual for the Yakuza is yubitsume, or the cutting of one's finger, as a form of penance or apology.

It's mind-blowing as to how Anton managed to photograph such a secretive society.

Anton Kusters is a photographer, specialized in long term projects, producing complete experiences with images, film and words. He currently resides in Brussels and Tokyo. He is also a graphic designer and internet specialist, runs his own web and interactive design agency, and he's creative director at BURN Magazine.

Matjaž Krivic's A Day In Varanasi

Set aside about 7 minutes of your time, adjust the volume of your speakers and choose the full screen option on to watch Matjaž Krivic's A Day In Varanasi...and be transported to this ancient city, helped along with the New Age-like music of L. Subramaniam.

Varanasi is also known as Benares and Kashi, and is considered as holy by Buddhists, and Jains, and is the holiest place for Hindus. Hindu cosmology places it as as the center of earth. Mark Twain wrote: "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together."

In other words...Varanasi is really ancient.

I posted some of Matjaž Krivic's photography before on this blog, and he has some wonderful work for us to admire . For some 20 years, he globe-trotted the world capturing the personality and grandeur of indigenous people and places, and found the time to be awarded many prizes, and recognized in various venues and exhibitions. He traveled in Yemen, Mali, Tibet, North and West Africa, Iran, Mongolia, China, Nepal and India.

In other words...Matjaž is really good.

John Kenny: Omo Valley & Africa

Photo © John Kenny-All Rights Reserved
Here's a real treat for those of us who are enamored with Ethiopia's Omo Valley tribes (and we are many), and a treat for "Africanphiles" in general as well. A real trove of magnificent portraits of handsome and beautiful African native people, ranging from the Omo Vallley various tribes to Kaokoland's Himba.

John Kenny's website presents around 100 of these portraits along with a handful of African landscapes, and is a must-have bookmark for anyone with an ethnographer interest.

John started his photography career about 7 years ago, and is self-taught. He first arrived in Africa in 2006, and keeps returning to photograph because he's fascinated to encounter societies that are able to survive in some of the most arid, isolated and difficult environments.

He tells us that he chose to make each and every one of these portraits because the individuals attracted him, and gave him a sense of wonder. He photographs without using flash or studio equipment, preferring natural sunlight. He also tells us that he travels alone, or with a local guide...and uses local transport to get from one place to the other.

I chose a color photograph to accompany this post, but I suggest you visit John's toned monochromatic portraits. The tones of his photographs are earthy, rich and vibrant...perfect for his subjects.

Via Greg Pleak

Bali: Odalan at Pura Desa Sapat

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Here's the first gallery of my own work whilst I was leading the Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition™ last month.

It's a linear photo gallery of about 20 large color photographs made during an important anniversary of a Balinese Hindu temple, and it's titled Odalan: Pura Desa Sapat. It's more photo journalistic in style than travel, and there are graphic photographs of animals being sacrificed, which may be disturbing to some.

This was one of the two most intense photo-shoots during the whole photo~expedition...not only because of the time spent photographing, but also because of the unending kaleidoscope of movements, rituals, rites and activities.

Every temple in Bali has a scheduled festival, an odalan, to celebrate the anniversary of temple dedication. The timing of the anniversaries are either based on the lunar calendar or on a 210-day ceremonial cycle. Depending on the importance of the anniversary and on the wealth of its community, animals are occasionally sacrificed.

These anniversary events are important for the communal harmony of the Balinese, where villages will join other villages to pray at their odalan, adding their blessings for the success of the occasion.

Conor Ashleigh: Futu-Manu In East Timor

Photo © Conor Ashleigh -All Rights Reserved
Futu manu means"fighting bird" in the local Tetum language of East Timor. Cockfighting is a tradition that goes back centuries in various countries, and I've witnessed it practiced in India, Mexico and Bali to name but a few.

I was glad to find Conor Ashleigh's website, and see that he has featured a photo essay on cockfighting in East Timor. There, cockfights are complementary to religious rites and ceremonies, but also feed a gambling streak amongst many men.

Conor lives in Australia and works on developing stories that comment on under-reported environmental, political and social issues. He photographed in Egypt, Gaza, South Africa, Thailand, Cambodia and Uganda, as well as working on long term projects in India, Nepal and Timor-Leste. His images have been published in New Internationalist, Sydney Morning Herald, Newcastle Herald, The Asia Foundation, Catholic Mission and Oxfam.

I also suggest you check in Conor's photo essay on The Brick Kilns of Bhaktapur in Nepal.

I'm currently working on my own photographs of cockfights in Bali, which will soon be published here on this blog.

John Stanmeyer: Bali Island of Spirits

Excerpted from VII's press release announcing John Stanmeyer's new book Bali: Island of Spirits:

Spirits are everywhere in Bali. Balinese spiritual culture has its roots in Indian Hinduism, Buddhism and ancient animist beliefs, first originating in East Java. Centuries-old ceremonies with deeply layered rituals are very much alive today. John Stanmeyer spent five years living in Bali, creating this reportage through the uninhibited and timeless lens of a Holga. His photographs capture practices from decades past, transcending the temporal as they live on today and into the unforeseen future.

Details on the reception and book signing:

Artist reception and book signing will be held September 16, 2010, 6 - 8:30pm at the VII Gallery located in Brooklyn at 28 Jay St. (F-York St), and open Mon-Fri from 10am to 6pm.

A PDF version of the book's description and details of the reception is here.

Penni Webb: Bali Island of Odalan

Photo © Penni Webb-All Rights Reserved
Penni Webb is a second time participant in my photo~expeditions, and is the sixth to submit samples of her work made during the Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition ™.

Penni is a professional photographer as well as an Interior Designer and Organizer in Marin, California. She has an MA from the SFAI in Printmaking, learned Photography at California College of the Arts and worked with several Master Photographers such as Phil Borges.

Her first photograph is of Rejang dancers during a pre-cremation ceremony at a private house. The girl in the middle was a natural...and loved to pose for cameras. Rejang dancers are usually young females, dressed in bright yellow and white silk and headdresses made from fresh young coconut leaves decorated with flowers. The Rejang dancers represent the female angels who accompany deities.

Photo © Penni Webb-All Rights Reserved
The above photograph is one that was made by most of the group's members, and is of an elderly Balinese matriarch returning to her traditional home after having emptied a basket of morning offerings, known in Bali as canang.

Photo © Penni Webb-All Rights Reserved
The third photograph is of a Balinese woman snapping a picture with her cellphone of three Rejang dancers during a during a melasti ceremony at Masceti beach.

Before starting her business in 1999, she managed and directed contemporary art and antique galleries and was a photographer for a large event & film company in Oakland. Her hand-painted photography work is represented by Smith Andersen North in San Anselmo where she had a solo show in 2008. She has exhibited her photographs and prints nationally since 1974.

Roberto Boccaccino: The Flagellanti

Photo © Roberto Boccaccino-All Rights Reserved
Roberto Boccaccino's work on the "flagellanti" was featured in the New York Times' Lens blog, but there are more photographs on Boccaccino's website where he titles his photo-essay as Doomsdays.

Out of his many lovely photographs of this photo essay, I chose the one above as the one that I prefer because of Roberto's use of layers.

Roberto Boccaccino is a freelance photographer. Most of his work is focused on social and geographical storytelling, and he was published by Italian and International magazines such as Foto8, Private Magazine, IO Donna, Stiletto, Euroman, etc. He recently attended the Advanced Visual Storytelling course at the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus.

The Doomsdays photo essay is about a traditional penitential rite in the southern Italian town of Guardia Sanframondi which is held every seven years. It is the largest self-punishment ritual in the Western world, and is locally known as the “Riti Settennali di Penitenza”.

The ritual starts in the week following the Assumption, when more than a thousand men (and some women), dressed in white and wearing hoods to hide their identities, beat their chests and flagellate their backs with sharp instruments, as a sort of mortification and an act of penance. The practice is also followed in Latin America and the Philippines.

In Islam, it's the Shi'as who have a similar rite which is practiced during Ashura, the 10th day of the month of Muharram in the Islamic calendar, when devout Shi'as commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad at the Battle of Karbala, by self-flagellating and beating their chests.

Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community, when devotees may also practice mortification of the flesh by piercing their skin, tongue or cheeks with skewers.

Eid El Fitr & Rosh Hashanah

Photo © AP/Muhammed Muheisen-All Rights Reserved (Courtesy The Big Picture)
I'm certain that the large majority of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims see through the myopia and venality of our media which, by its coverage, abetted the recent freak show in Gainesville, with the "Christian" fundamentalist/sect leader seeking to burn Qur'ans, and will celebrate Eid El-Fitr as joyously and peacefully as they've done for 1400+ years.

Photo © Andrey Smirnov/AFP-Getty-(Courtesy NY Times Lens Blog)
On the occasion of Rosh Hashanah I extend my best wishes to Jewish readers. Rosh Hashanah is the holiday commonly referred to as the "Jewish New Year", and is observed on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar.

Udaan School of Photography

Dhiraj Singh and Arko Datta have just announced the launching of Udaan, an independent photography school in Mumbai.

Udaan's students will be tutored by leading working professionals such as Singh, Datta, Ritam Banerjee and Yogesh Bhandary. The courses in Udaan have been designed to meet the needs of photography-enthusiasts at different levels of learning and expertise. The school will cater to both photojournalists and commercial photographers, and will encourage and cultivate individualistic thinking and a creative vision.

Award winning independent photographer Dhiraj Singh has focused on human stories evolving in India and regularly works for Polaris and his photographs have been published in various international publications.

Pulitzer award nominee and winner of the 'Picture of the Year' at the World Press Photo 2004, Arko Datta has extensively covered news and sports across the world for the last two decades, which includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Beat of New York: Thomas Noesner

Filmmaker Thomas Noesner captures the energetic pulse of the big city. Along with the folks at Stereoscreen, including Tim Hahne, Noesner took the sights and sounds of New York city and laid them down to a remixed soundtrack of a drummer performing in a subway station.

I live in New York city and just loved this piece. You can smell and feel "it" in this short clip of 3 minutes. The drummers who use empty drywall compound containers to play their infectious beats are fixtures in subway stations or parks, and the piece used in this movie is a perfect for it. Excellent choice, and it gives a highly recommended buzz.

I hope it inspires me to get on with film-making using my Canon 5D Mark II in the West Village and Chinatown!

Via LA Times The Framework

Pop Photo's 25 Best Places To Photograph

Photo © Carolyn Drake-All Rights Reserved
Popular Photo Magazine has published a feature titled 25 Best Places To Photograph after running a poll amongst various documentary and travel photographers who are drawn to cultures far-removed from ours both geographically and chronologically.

The photographers are, amongst others, Chris Rainier recommending New Guinea, Carolyn Drake recommending Xinjiang, and Andrea Pistolesi recommending Sicily.

Jaipur was recommended as one of the best places to photograph but in my view, that city pales in comparison to a hundred of other more picturesque places in India.

I could have easily straighten that out had I been asked.

And what about Nepal, Bhutan, Bali, Vietnam, Ethiopia....?

Light & Composition Magazine

I'm always on the lookout for new and innovative venues in which photographers (and especially travel photographers) can feature their work, and Light & Composition Magazine appeared on my radar screen via The Raw File Blog's Twitter's Feed.

Light and Composition defines itself as a monthly photography magazine that aims to inspire people towards the true essence of photography, and attempts to take us around the world, to its people, nature, and culture, in pursuit of value and authenticity.

It also featured Around The World in 29 Days, which allowed it to showcase photos from around the world, through the lenses of twenty photographers. From northern Spain to the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh, from villages in Thailand to the USA, and from the Middle East to the far west.

Via RawFile

Chris Schaefer: Bali Island of Odalan

Photo © Chris Schaefer -All Rights Reserved
Chris Schaefer is a first time participant in my photo~expeditions, and is the fifth to submit samples of his work made during the Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition ™.

Chris is an attorney, and when asked to describe himself for this post, wrote that he "likes to travel to far away places with professional photographers and hopes for a quality photo now and then. He is educated in nothing related to photography, but enjoys snapping the shutter and seeing what happens."

Having seen the results of his "snapping" as he calls it, I think he did extremely well and surpassed his expectations of having a quality picture now and then.

The above photograph is that of a traditional procession on Masceti beach on the Balinese eastern coast during a melasti ceremony. Melasti is the purification of the Pratima deity and other symbols at a beach, and is a fundamental ritual during a temple's anniversary.

Photo © Chris Schaefer -All Rights Reserved
The second of Chris' photographs is of a Legong dancer at the Ubud Palace during a performance. The performance included various dances, such as the Gabor, Baris, Kraton ad the Taruna Jaya. The Legong dance is characterized by intricate finger movements, complicated footwork, and expressive gestures and facial expressions. This dancer in particular used her eyes to convey emotions extremely well.

Photo © Chris Schaefer -All Rights Reserved
The third of Chris' photographs was made at the holiest of Bali's religious sites: Pura Tirta Empul, whose sacred spring is said to have curative properties. The tradition has continued unchanged at the temple for a thousand years. This photograph shows how the Balinese place canang (offerings) at the spouts of the springs.

Lonely Planet's 100 Million Competition

Photo LP's 100 Million Competition/Sreesailam Pasupula -All Rights Reserved
Lonely Planet's competition celebrating its 100 millionth guidebook has ended, and the winning entry was this lovely photograph by Sreesailam Pasupula which features five women on a performance stage at the famous Pushkar Mela.

The competition received over 130,000 photos from around the world, and some of the editors' favorites are featured here.

The Telegraph newspaper in the UK also published results of the competition.

Many of the photographs featured by LP are really very well chosen, and I couldn't help noticing that 13 of the 55 photographs that are featured are of India. About 17% of the total. This is remarkable but I'm not surprised...India is India.

NY Times: Madagascar's Famadihana

Having just returned from Bali where I attended and photographed exhumations and cremations, I was interested in reading a The New York Times' article and watching its accompanying video about the celebratory exhumation of the dead in Ambohimirary, Madagascar.

The article written by Barry Bearak (with accompanying photography by Joao Silva) reports that in the island nation of Madagascar, ancestors are frequently taken from their tombs with musical fanfare from brass bands, sprayed with perfume and wine and the skeletons lovingly rearranged.

It's a testament as to how many traditions are carried over from one continent to the other, from one race to the other and from one culture to another.

Julie Aucoin: Redux

Photo © Julie Aucoin -All Rights Reserved
I've already mentioned Julie Aucoin on this blog, but I've thought of re-posting her recent work which includes a number of South East Asian countries to include Vietnam, and this image of a Bac Ha woman.

Julie who's based in Nevada, describes herself as a passionate photographer, an adventurous traveler and experienced stage manager. She's one of those photographers who, as a child, perused the pages of the National Geographic magazine and this implanted peripatetic seeds in her.

The earlier post on Julie is here.

Damon Winter: 2010 Visa d'Or News Award

Photo © Damon Winter/NYTimes -All Rights Reserved
Damon Winter won the Visa d’Or News award in Perpignan for his work for The News York Times on Haiti and the earthquake’s aftermath. The award is supported by Paris Match and was presented by the Visa Pour l’Image director Jean-François Leroy.

Damon is a New York based photographer who specializes in documentary, editorial, and travel photography. He received a Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 2009 while with The New York Times.

Check his website on which his Haiti photographs appear...incredibly compelling and powerful.