Fred Canonge: Pehlwan of Benares

Photo © Fred Canonge-All Rights Reserved

Pehlwani (also known as Kushti) is a traditional style of wrestling popular in the sub-continent of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The wrestler is known as pahlawan which, interestingly for those who are etymologists, is the colloquial Arabic word meaning "clown". I wouldn't tell this to these wrestlers, as they would be offended and I'd be on the mat in less than a second.

Based in Paris, Fred Canonge is a French freelance photographer who has extensively travelled in India for the last ten years, and is constantly exploring all the nuances and the diversity of Indian society. His website is replete with galleries of India, including some of images made in Kathputli and Varanasi, but the gallery which I liked the most has his work on the pehlawan.

Varanasi has a number of traditional wrestling training gyms (known as akhara), and one can spot them working with rudimentary weights near Tulsi ghat. The wrestlers' diets consist of milk, almonds, ghee, eggs and chapattis, but have a difficult time making ends meet. Some of them find work as bodyguards to those who need protection or as "enforcers" during political elections.

VII: Franco Pagetti: Afghanistan's Agony

The exciting VII The Magazine features Afghanistan' Agony, the multimedia work of Franco Pagetti which combines movies, stills in both color and black & white.

Although I'm getting tired of war stories and its imagery, Pagetti manages to infuse this work with his own personality as when he says (I paraphrase) in his Italian accent"...the only thing a photographer really wants...more than life, more than sex...more than anything...is to be invisible." Brilliant!

This multimedia piece provides a very realistic of what Afghanistan must be...it merges color stills with black & white images (which, in my view, are the best of the lot), aerial shots and movie footage.

Overall a very well done production, but if I had to point out a niggling issue, I'd say the decision to include the audio introduction of a muezzin's call to prayers is a lazy one. The Taliban, the insurgents, and the rest of the "bad guys" are fighting us because of a bunch of reasons. Take your pick: because we're occupying their country, because we're defending an unrepresentative corrupt regime, because we're getting in the way of various longstanding tribal and/or ethnic power struggles, and because we're tying to eradicate poppy cultivation...subsistence to many Afghan farmers.

It would have been smarter to find another audio clip to give the project the required sense of the place...perhaps a Pashto song, perhaps some ambient audio of Kabul's market chatter. Some readers might see this as nit-picking, but it's not. Avoiding religious cliches is a much more intelligent production effort and in this case, keeps it honest and neutral as it should be.

Franco Pagetti has covered the conflict in Iraq since January 2003. He has been a news photographer since 1994, and most of his recent work has involved conflict situations. His non-conflict news photography has included assignments in India, the Vatican City, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and his native Italy. In his “former life,” he was a fashion photographer for Italian VOGUE and taught chemistry at Milano’s University .

Books By Participants In TTP's Photo~Expeditions™

A few weeks ago, I wished here that more of the participants who join my photo~expeditions would, not only feature their work on their websites as most do already, but also publish their images in book form. It's not an easy task to prep and publish a book, but the eventual satisfaction is just sublime. I know first hand because I self-published Bali: Island of Odalan, and now I'm waiting for the sample proof of my second book Darshan (an announcement will be made shortly).

So I was very pleased to see 4 members of The Travel Photographer's Photo~Expeditions™ have already published their books (and with some, already their second or even third book).

1. Torie Olson joined my Theyyam of Malabar Photo`Expedition™ in 2009, and has just published the wonderful Life In Color (Photographs of Gujarat), a 117 page large hard cover landscape book.

2. Sandy Chandler joined a number of my photo trips; the latest being Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition™ this past July, and has just published Calling The Soul, an 80 page standard landscape book that promises to be a gem.

3. Charlotte Rush-Bailey joined my Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat Photo Expedition™ earlier this year, and quickly published her Kutch Classic, a 98 page large format hard cover landscape with her "specially brewed" photographs.

4) Susan Storm joined my Sikkim & Darjeeling Photo Expedition™ in 2003. A photographer and journalist for over 20 years, she worked for many of the top magazines in most continents. She published Colours In The Dust (On The Sari Trail), a 232 pages standard landscape book of her lovely images of India.

My congratulations to these photographers who took the initiative and featured their work in print form. I'm looking forward to hearing from other participants as to their book publishing efforts. C'mon, guys!

Next Week On The Travel Photographer

For the week starting Monday November 29,  the following posts are in the blog's pipeline:

1. The work of a photographer with a ton of images of India, including one of the wrestlers of Benares. I had planned to post it last week.
2. The work of another photographer with a lot of images of Buddhism. All black & white square format with a Hassleblad. Very impressive.
3. The work of an editorial photographer with a gallery of images from the Khumbu (Northern Nepal).
4. Interesting portraits of "witches" from West Africa.
5. The updated website of one of the best travel photographers will be featured.

Plus other whimsical posts as the week goes on.

NPR: Cairo And The "Disconnected"

This touches on photography/multimedia only tangentially, so unless you're into Middle Eastern-international politics, you may want to skip all the stuff below and just click on the movie.

A number of media outlets are gingerly covering Egypt's political scene due to the imminent parliamentary elections. I say gingerly because Egypt is a so-called major ally in the "war against terror" or whatever it's called these days, so it wouldn't be politic or in our national "interests" to criticize its ossified and corrupt regime. Why the United States aligns itself with despots in the Middle East and elsewhere will always be an anachronism.

NPR has featured a number of short articles and some multimedia for the occasion, and I found this one titled In Cairo Slum, Little Hope For Change to be an exemplar of what the current situation is in Egypt. I say "current" but that's not really correct. It's always been that way, and it'll continue to be that way, perhaps get even wider...a profound disconnect and an immense gap between the poor and the elite. Trust me...I know that for a fact.

An Egyptian investment banker (I'm not sure how he can be one with such an atrocious spoken English) complains that his children are disconnected from the rest of Egypt because they go to American schools, wear Western clothes and barely speak Egyptian Arabic. Well, I've got news for him....the "disconnect" has been prevalent since the Pharaohs.

Every dog has his day as the saying goes...so going back in modern history, it was the Ottomanophiles, then Anglophiles and the Francophiles who were the elite class, and disconnected from the people. Identical to the Tsarist elite in Russian who would only speak in French, the Egyptian elite would live in bubbles of their own making, separated from the "non-elite" and the rest of their compatriots. To a lesser extent, the time for the socialist Nasserites and Sadatites came and went. Now, it's the turn of the Mubarakphiles...the business cronies, the oligarchs, and the corrupt corporate/political alliances who form the recent elite....but these will also vanish when their time comes, only to be replaced by a hungrier demographic. We've been there before, and it's only a matter of time before the cycle repeats itself. A class will just replace another class. And by the way, claiming to have Turkish ancestry (some extremely tenuous and others grossly made up) is currently a de rigueur affectation for many of the newly minted Egyptian wealthy class. Go figure. Having Turkish heritage was once viewed as being regressive, not authentic and even unpatriotic. I know that for a fact as well.

But back to the "disconnected"...which many of the privileged (some would describe them as spoiled) Egyptian youth are. Confused by a brainless embrace of a culture that is not theirs; an embrace made possible because their parents are the current moneyed elite and can buy into an ersatz Americanism; confused by their own dichotomy...seeing no conflict between binge drinking, heavy partying and then fasting Ramadan and claiming religiosity...but unable and unwilling to adopt American meritocratic values, its democratic values and work ethics.

Watch the multimedia piece...then shed a tear for the real people of Egypt who deserve infinitely better than the dismal life they're leading.

Kares Le Roy: Tibet & More

Here's the photographic work of Kares Le Roy, a French photographer and graphic designer. Unfortunately, his bio is very limited on his web site, but he traveled and photographed in Tibet, Nepal, India, Bali, Cuba, Cambodia and Morocco...returning with quite an inventory of photographs which he categorizes as Portraits, Life, Street and Landscape.

Black Friday: Get My Book!!!

On this Black Friday, my new photo book Bali: Island of Gods is still available from Blurb.

You can choose between two main versions of the book (82 pages of black & white photographs): one is a large (13x11 inches) landscape hardcover version and the other is a standard (10x8 inches) landscape version.

More details are available on a page of my website Island of Gods. The link will also take you to my bookstore on Blurb, which has previews of the book.

Forget the long lines at the check-outs...just do it online. :o)

Thanksgiving Wishes

All the best from The Travel Photographer on this Thanksgiving Day!

There may not be a post tomorrow...I'll be flying back to New York, probably feeling very full.

Apratim Saha: Varanasi

Apratim Saha is both a pharmaceutical executive and a photographer, whose work has been featured in the National Geographic and other publications. He's also a contributor to NationalGeographicStock.com

While I've liked Apratim's Varanasi gallery in which the above photograph of the sadhu is fetured, there's a photograph of a holy man, possibly after a dip in the Ganges, carefully arranging what can only be described as a comb-over. A priceless image of the temporal perhaps trumping the sacred. You'll find it in the Culture portfolio.

Michelle Frankfurter: Destino

Photo © Michelle Frankfurter- All Rights Reserved

Having read Cormac McCarthy’s, The Crossing, Michelle Frankfurter started to photograph along the US-Mexico border, and focuses her photo essay Destino featured on Burn magazine on undocumented Central American migrants who travel across Mexico in an attempt to reach the United States to work.

It's a sad tale that highlights not only the harsh risks inherent in such an endeavor, be it from criminal gangs, from corrupt police, from accidents to a myriad of other life-endangering events on the way.

A number of photographers attending the Mexico Foundry Photojournalism Workshop chose a similar subject for their documentary projects, and the area known as La Lecheria, where migrants seemed to converge to hitchhike north-bound trains, was a magnet for those photographers.

Michelle Frankfurter is a documentary photographer who worked for three years as a staff photographer for daily newspapers: The Herald – Journal and Post Standard in Syracuse, New York. She spent three years living in Nicaragua where she worked as a stringer for the British news agency, Reuters and with the human rights organization Witness For Peace. In 1995, a long-term project on Haiti earned her two World Press Photo awards. She has worked for a number of editorial publications, including The Guardian of London, The Washington Post Magazine, Ms., Time, and Life Magazine.

Akhtar Soomro: Pakistan

Photo © Akhtar Soomro/Reuters-All Rights Reserved

Full Focus, Reuters photo blog, seems to be regaining its footing amongst the remaining other large image photo blogs, and has recently featured the work of Pakistani photojournalist Akhtar Soomro.

Born in the Lyari neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan, Akhtar graduated from the Government College of Science and Technology with a degree in engineering but photography beckoned, and he started working for a studio covering fashion, industrial and interior design, and subsequently for an advertising agency.

He has since shot assignments for local and international newspapers, magazines and stock agencies around the world. In 2009, he was part of a New York Times' team that won a Pulitzer for its reporting from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Most of Akhtar's impressive photographs in the Reuters feature are of refugees of the floods, and of displaced people from the Swat Valley...but it's the one above that caught my eye. Its caption informs us that a flood victim baby sleeps in a hammock as a man reads the Koran during Eid-al-Fitr celebrations while taking refuge in a relief camp for flood victims in Sukkur in Pakistan's Sindh province on September 11, 2010.

POV: Weeding The Subscribers: It's Time Again

It's the time of year when I have to start weeding (a more delicate term than 'purge') inactive subscribers from my newsletter mailing list. I have to do this about twice a year now.

Campaign Monitor tracks the number of newsletters opens for each subscriber, so it's easy to determine the rate of open of each. If that rate is less than a certain percentage, the subscriber is dumped. As I use a pay-as-you-go option to send out my newsletters, each subscriber costs me...and if there's no reasonable open activity during a 12 months period, then it's to the dumping grounds we go.

It's more efficient for all concerned, saves me money and un-clutters the disinterested subscribers' mailboxes. Last year, I weeded out about 300 subscribers. The total amount of weeded subscribers over the past 3 years is now about 900. Nothing to sneeze at!

Raphael Nguyen: Vietnam

Photo © Raphael Nguyen-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Raphael Nguyen-All Rights Reserved

Raphael Nguyen is a French-Vietnamese photographer, who moved to Vietnam in 1999. He lived Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and finally in Hoi An in the very center of the country. He travels within the country, uses either film or digital cameras; Nikon FM2, Nikon F3 and Nikon D70, Canon EOS 5 D and Canon EOS 5 D Mark II.

I was drawn to his gallery of Daily Life in Vietnam with over 100 intensely saturated color photographs of various areas of Vietnam. These range from simple portraits, lifestyle shots, culinary images, environmental portraits etc. The ones I liked most and feature here are of Hoi An, and these two underscore Raphael's photographic style...which gives his images an overly golden saturated look.

Hoi An's old town was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as a well-preserved example of a Southeast Asian trading port of the 15th to 19th centuries, with a unique building with local and foreign influences. I was in Hoi An for a couple of days while photographing for a NGO in 2003, and had little time to photograph for myself. I sense it's time to return and redress this shortcoming.

Next Week on The Travel Photographer

For the week starting Monday November 21,  the following posts are in the pipeline:

1. The work of a part-time Indian photographer with multi galleries, including one on Varanasi.
2. A Vietnamese photographer's gallery of Vietnam's daily life. I didn't manage to post it last week as planned.
3. The work of a photojournalist on Pakistan's Swat Valley and the floods.
4. An interesting edgy documentary on illegal emigrants from Central America. A post I had planned for last week.
5. The work of a photographer with a ton of images of India, including one of the wrestlers of Benares.
6. Another photographer will be featured with a lot of images of Buddhism.

The Big Picture: National Geo Contest 2010

Photo © Ario Wibisono-All Rights Reserved

The Boston Globe's photo blog The Big Picture is showing off some of the submissions to The National Geographic annual  photo contest. The deadline for the submissions is November 30. The Big Picture editor chose 47 images from the three categories of People, Places and Nature.

No one asked me for my opinion, but I'll give it anyway. My favorite of those shown is the one of the two Indonesian boys playing with roosters in the village of Suradita, near Serpong in West Java. The photographer is Ario Wibisono who's based in Jakarta.

Ario's caption informs us that this was not a real cockfight. I'm confused by their dress as I took them to be Balinese children, but they're not...they're Javanese.

I also liked another one (#5) also by Ario Wibisono of the musician in Tenganan Village in Bali, playing the bamboo flute to a disabled child. I spent a couple of hours with this man during my Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition ™, photographing him playing his various instruments (including a sort of didgeridoo) and recording some of the pieces he played.

Olivier Laban-Mattei: Award Winner Paris Match

Photo © Olivier Laban-Mattei- All Rights Reserved

 Olivier Laban-Mattei was awarded the 2010 Grand Prix Paris Match for his recent coverage of Haiti. This prize was created in 1980 and all French professional photographers can compete. Every two years, the prize is decided by an international jury, with the winner receiving 8,000 euros.The prize recognizes photojournalists who cover current events.

Olivier Laban-Mattei is a photojournalist who worked with AFP for 10 years, and left it a few months ago to start a career as an independent photographer. For the past decade, Olivier criss-crossed the world reporting on the Iraq war, the Haitian earthquake or the Gaza Strip humanitarian disaster.

Olivier's Haiti gallery contains a number of graphic photographs that relay the horror of Haiti's earthquake. I have naturally not seen all of the coverage of the Haiti earthquake, but this is one of the most hard-hitting of those I did see.

Paul Kowlow: Japan (and Geishas)

Photo © Paul Kowalow-All Rights Reserved

Paul Kowalow's website on Zenfolio is sparse with his biographical details, but I thought I'd nevertheless feature his work of Japan here.

You'll see that his gallery of Japan has a large number of portraits of not only geishas but also of young women adopting the punk style of fashion, which I thought is a jarring stark contrast between these two cultures; the traditional and the modern. I wish the gallery was arranged in such a way that the portraits of geisha and punks would alternate. Most of these portraits appear to be candid shots, and the colors are just great.

Take a look at his other galleries as well. He's got some nice photographs of Venice.

Win A Copy of "To Cambodia With Love"

I have a bunch of copies of To Cambodia With Love....the travel guidebook to Cambodia with some of my photographs. These will be given out as prizes to 5 readers of The Travel Photographer blog who correctly answer the three following questions.  The winners will be picked randomly out of a hat provided they have a US mailing address where the book can be sent to.

Here are the questions:

1) What's the capital of Cambodia? (correct spelling please!)

2) What's my favorite destination (ie. country) for my photo-expeditions?

3) Which is your favorite gallery (stills or multimedia) of my photographs?

So email me with the answers with your name (and it will be put in the hat...provided you have a U.S. mailing address).

Good luck!!! The cut off date for the giveaway is November 30 when I shall announce the 5 winners.

Paul Levrier: Visions of Indochina

Photo © Paul Levrier -All Rights Reserved

 Paul Levrier is in a good position to photograph all over South East Asia and in particular in Indochina. He's the managing director of a travel company specializing in Vietnam (where he's been based for the past 14 years) and Cambodia.

He's also the founder of Visions of Indochina which is a digital image bank/library. Whilst one needs to register to gain full access to the library, there's enough there to satisfy all Vietnamophiles (is that the right term?) with lovely images of its various festivals, as well as a section for multimedia.

Since the site is principally an image bank, its navigation seems a little quirky but you'll get the hang of it and you'll find lovely photographs of Vietnam, as well as Laos and Cambodia.

Reuters: Best of the Year Photojournalism

Photo © Adrees Latif/Reuters

It seems that we're at the time of year when many of the news magazines, and large photo-blogs will soon be featuring their "best of the year" photographs. The first of the bunch is Reuters which is showcasing some 55 photographs.

Reuters photographers produce over half a million images every year. Some pictures define an event, others capture a moment revealing an aspect of the human condition. What's really neat this time is that each photographer describes the event which he/she photographed along with technical details.

My favorite photograph is the one above by Adrees Latif made during relief supplies being delivered to flooded villages in the Muzaffargarh district of Punjab in Pakistan. It's one of these photographs that tells is all...the struggle for survival, the physicality of despair...

By the way, Adrees tells us that the elderly man with a white scarf around his neck, managed to hang on to the hovering helicopter and was pulled to safety.

Dan Bannister: East Africa

Photo © Dan Bannister -All Rights Reserved

Dan Bannister is a commercial, industrial and editorial photographer based in Calgary, Canada, who having joined my recent Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition™ last year, recently traveled to East Africa to further expand his inventory of travel imagery. His new gallery of East Africa includes a broad spectrum of lifestyle, travel and editorial images.

His travel and editorial images appeared in The New York Times, Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, and various in-flight magazines.

Dan also updated his website, and I encourage you to visit it as it now boasts large photographs and is truly magnificent.

On a personal level, I can say that Dan was one of the most enjoyable participants I've had the pleasure to travel with on my photo-expeditions.

Eid El-Adha

Photo © Muhammed Muheisen/AP (courtesy Lens Blog New York Times)

Muslims around the world are celebrating the Eid El-Adha or  the"Festival of Sacrifice" in commemoration of the belief that Ibrahim (Abraham) was willing to sacrifice his son Ismail to God. Observant Muslims celebrate it by slaughtering animals to commemorate God's gift of a ram to substitute for Ibrahim's son, and distributing the meat amongst family, friends and the poor.

It's also an occasion for everyone (but mainly children) to wear newly-bought clothes in order to celebrate it in style.  Many young boys wear suits and ties, while young girls show off their fancy dresses as in the above photograph by Muhammed Muheisen of a couple of Yemeni girls dressed as angels, complete with pink diaphanous wings, in the back streets of Sanaa.

My Book: Bali Island of Gods: Now Available

I'm excited to announce that my new photo book Bali: Island of Gods is now available from Blurb. There are two main versions of the book (82 pages of black & white photographs) on Blurb's bookstore. A large (13x11 inches) landscape hardcover version and a standard (10x8 inches) landscape version.

All the details are available on a page of my website Island of Gods. If you choose to buy, the links will take you to my bookstore on Blurb, which has previews of the book.

I know...the timing of the publication is great! Just in time for the holidays.

The Haj In 1885 And Now

CNN has featured an interesting clip of images and audio dating from 1885 of Mecca and of the Haj ritual. It's accompanying article tells us that Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, a Dutch scholar of Oriental cultures and languages, and an advisor to the colonial government of the Netherlands East Indies, visited Mecca in 1885 taking photos and making sound recordings. He had converted to Islam, and was therefore allowed to gain entry to the city.

The article is an interesting read, especially since it seems Snouck had to leave his camera equipment behind to a local Saudi, who continued making pictures, possibly becoming Mecca's first home-grown photographer. (My thanks to Gul Chotrani who sent the article to me).

Contrast the scenes in the CNN clip (it has an annoying advert at its start) to the following photograph; one of the many posted by The Boston Globe's The Big Picture of Muslim pilgrims circling the Kaaba at the center of the Grand mosque in Mecca during the annual Hajj pilgrimage.  (Click it for larger photograph).

Photo © REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Mohamed Hassan: Photojournalist

Photo © Mohamed Hassan- All Rights Reserved

Mohamed Hassan Abd El Aal (Mikko Hassan) lived and worked in Cairo, and graduated from the Akhbar El-Yom Academy with an honor degree in Journalism. He worked as a press photographer in the daily newspaper El-Shorouk El Gedid. Apart from covering political issues, protests and demonstrations, he was interested in documenting the traditional manufacturing processes in Old Cairo. One of these features gleaned him first prize in the 2009 Annual Press Photography Competition of Egypt.

I met Mohamed (aka Mikko) at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul. He wasn't in my class, but approached me, rather shyly, and expressed his pleasure in seeing that one of the instructors was of Egyptian heritage. He told me that although he had seen my name on the roster of instructors, but had taken it for Lebanese. Mohamed participated in Guy Calaf's class, and had been awarded a scholarship.

I reviewed Mohamed's portfolio which, as he wrote in his biography, had photographs of his explorations in the deepest corners of Old Cairo. He did them during his one day week-ends, on his own time, deriving nothing of it except his own pleasure and self-improvement. I sensed his enthusiasm for photography, saw his talent and his eye for composition, and predicted to him that he'd be one of Egypt's best photojournalists.

It was not to be. His trajectory was very sadly cut short because of a fatal freak accident a few days ago. He will be missed by many.

The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop family reacts: Eric Beecroft, the co-founder of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, announced that a permanent full scholarship in Mikko's name will be made available, and his work is featured on the FPW's front page.

Erika Larsen: Lavvos & Reindeer

Photo © Erika Larsen- All Rights Reserved

Erika Larsen is a photographer and film-maker who's recently been doing work in the Scandinavian Arctic with families of Sami reindeer hunters.

She worked as a magazine photographer since 2000 specializing in human-interest stories, cultural issues and the daily life of people connected to the natural world. She's recognized by World Press Photo, American Society of Magazine Editors, Society of Photographers, New Jersey State Council of the Arts and is a Fulbright Scholar.

The Sami peoples are also known as Lapps (although this term is considered as outdated, and often derogative), and are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia, but also in the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. They traditionally survived by hunting and fishing, and in more recent years, by herding reindeer, which have also become their staple food. Reindeer meat is most commonly eaten fried, or is is often dried for later consumption.Lavvos is the name for the Sami's tents.

LATimes' Framework: Chhath Festival

Photo © Narendra Shrestha/EPA

 The Los Angeles ' Times large image photoblog Framework has featured a number of lovely photographs from around the world this past week. I liked this one by EPA photographer Narendra Shrestha of a Nepali woman staring while offering fruits and coconuts to the setting sun during the Chhath festival in Kathmandu.

The Chhath festival is observed by Hindus in India and Nepal, and it's performed in order to thank the Sun god Surya for sustaining life on earth, and to ask for the granting of wishes. The rituals include bathing, fasting and abstaining from drinking water, standing in water for long periods of time, and making offerings to the setting and rising sun.

Next Week on The Travel Photographer

For the week starting Monday November 14,  apart from off-the-cuff posts, the following is in the pipeline:

1. A photographer's multimedia photo essay on the Sami people of the Scandinavian Arctic.
2. A photographer's gallery of his freshly-minted photographs of East Africa.
3. The work of a Vietnamese photographer of his homeland.
4. Another interesting edgy documentary on illegal emigrants from Central America.
5. Hard-hitting images from a photojournalist out of Haiti.

Thomas Cristofoletti: Day of the Dead

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Here's a movie made of still photographs by Thomas Cristofoletti on the singular tradition in the Philippines which occurs on the Day of the Dead. The stills were made in Tandag, Surigao del Sur and document the tradition of caring for the tombs on November 1.

Tombs are cleaned up, repainted and spruced up by relatives. Candles are lit and flowers placed. Many families spend a night or two near their loved ones' tombs in remembrance. Card games, eating, drinking, singing and dancing are common activities at the cemeteries during the holiday.

In the Philippines, the day of the dead is known as Araw ng mga Patay; one of the traditions imported from Spain during the country' colonization. Of course, El Dia De los Muertos is a well known tradition in Mexico, as well as in other countries where the Catholic faith is practiced. The observance coincides with All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

Thomas Cristofoletti is a freelance photographer and art director currently based in Madrid, who is a proponent of the decisive moment and of candid photography.

WSJ Photo Journal: The Haj

Photo © Hassan Ammar/Associated Press

The Wall Street Photo Journal is one of the first of the large picture blogs to publish a photograph to commemorate the Haj (or Hajj, as it spells it). The caption reads "Tens of thousands of Muslim pilgrims prayed inside the Grand Mosque, during the annual Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The Islamic pilgrimage draws three million visitors each year, making it the largest yearly gathering of people in the world."


I think the qualifier that it's the largest yearly gathering of people is appropriate since the religious gatherings of the Kumbh in India surpass it....however the Kumbhs are not yearly pilgrimages.

The Guardian newspaper's website has also featured a fresh slideshow of the Haj rituals. Some lovely images there.

My Book: Bali Island of Gods Update 2

I've received the full version of my book Bali: Island of Gods from Blurb, and I'm happy with it. The variations in tone have been evened out, and the photographs are much better looking than in the sample I got last week. Phew!

I will have two versions of the book (82 pages of black & white photographs) on Blurb's bookstore. A large (13x11 inches) landscape hardcover version that'll be more expensive aimed at those who like me a lot, and a standard (10x8 inches) landscape hardcover version aimed at those who like me a little less. Those who are indifferent don't have to buy either...but wishing me luck with it would be nice.

Both versions will be available in a few days....and will be announced here.

Marc Riboud: Magnificent Traveler

Afghanistan 1955 Photo © Marc Riboud- All Rights Reserved

Annick Cojean, journalist at Monde, says it well about Marc Riboud:

"This man is free. This man is passionate. He's a magnificent traveler which the world continues to amaze. He loves life and intensely photographs it", which underscores what Riboud says of himself: "Rather than a profession, photography has always been a passion for me, a passion closer to obsession."

Born in Lyon, Riboud takes his first photographs in 1937 at the Paris Exposition Universelle with a Vest-Pocket (I never heard of this camera?)**. Having fought in 1944, he studies engineering during the late 40s and works in a factory, but decides to take up photography full time in 1948. He's later on invited to Magnum by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa.

In 1955, he travels by road to the Middle East, Afghanistan and finally India where he stays for a year, then on to China. He travels to the Soviet Union, covers the war of independence in Algeria and between 1968-1969 worked in North and South Vietnam.

Marc Riboud published a large number of books, and was awarded many prizes and recognitions from the Overseas Press Club, a Time-Life Achievement award, a Lucie Award and the ICP Infinity Award.

They certainly don't make them like Marc Riboud anymore.

** Gerald Beetham graciously emailed saying that the Kodak Vest-Camera was an older bellows roll film camera smaller than most contemporary cameras (hence the Vest Pocket name). Beginning around 1915, they were manufactured under many different models reaching popularity in the 30's and 40's.

POV: Face Covered, Women Only...Must Be Islamic!

Photo © Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

 But it's not. The caption as per the WSJ Photo Journal is this:

"A member of the religious group Women of the Wall wore the traditional Jewish prayer shawl of men called the tallit during a prayer service at the women’s section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem Monday."

So the traditional Jewish prayer procedures at the Western Wall call for the separation of women from the men, and for women to cover their heads and faces?

Huh? You mean like in traditional Islam?

Gosh.

Enrico Martino: Tango Soul

Here's a wonderful multimedia essay by the talented Enrico Martino on the ageless, eternal and graceful dance of Argentina, the tango. Originating in Spain or Morocco, the tango was introduced to the New World by the Spanish settlers, freed African slaves and gauchos in Buenos Aires around the 1880s.

Tango is not a dance, but a particular way of seeing and enjoying life...it's a way of life, where seduction by both sexes is disguised by dance moves and steps. But no one is fooled...in my view, tango is another word for seduction.

This multimedia will be one of  the pieces that I shall use as examples for my future students at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop...in Buenos Aires. I especially liked the man's voice-over...soulful, melancholic...and also virile and passionate. Perhaps the Ken Burns effect is used a little too much for my linking, but the sequencing of the black & white photographs is wonderful all the same.

At one point, the narrator tells us that no foreigner can write tango. Yes, I absolutely agree.

Enrico Martino is an editorial, geographic and documentary photojournalist specialized in travel and cultural assignments requiring in-depth research. He's a contributor to Italian and international magazines, to include Meridiani, "D"-Repubblica, Epoca, Espresso, Panorama, Focus, Gente Viaggi, In Viaggio, Airone, Panorama Travel, Sette, Traveller, Tuttoturismo, Elle, Marie Claire, Merian, Spiegel, Die Zeit, Jeune Afrique, Altair, Rutas del Mundo.

Dilla Djalil-Daniel: Kolkata's Durga Puja

Photo ©Dilla Djalil-Daniel- All Rights Reserved

Photo ©Dilla Djalil-Daniel- All Rights Reserved

Photo ©Dilla Djalil-Daniel- All Rights Reserved

Photo ©Dilla Djalil-Daniel- All Rights Reserved

Photo ©Dilla Djalil-Daniel- All Rights Reserved

Dilla Djalil-Daniel is a photographer currently living in Jakarta, and just returned from Kolkata where she photographed the city's exuberant festival of Durga Puja.

Although she travels around the world for her photography, especially in Asia and has a large portfolio that ought to be shown on her own personal website, Dilla has yet to have one. It's a shame really...but to make up for it, here's a selection of her Durga Puja work.

Durga Puja is the biggest festival in Bengal, and it's also known as Dussehra and Navaratri in other parts of India. Durga is the goddess of divine power against all evils. The festival traditionally starts when thousands offer prayers to their ancestors at the city's ghats, and drummers with ceremonial drums descend on the city. During the festival, thousands of pandals (structures to carry the religious icons and idols) are on display all over Kolkata, and are visited by throngs of people. On the final day of the festival, these pandals with the idols are carried in processions, and immersed in the Ganges.

In Support of Joao Silva

The New York Times contract photographer Joao Silva, one of the major conflict photojournalists of our time, stepped on a mine while on assignment in Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago, and as a consequence his legs have had to be amputated below the knees. He is now recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC.

His friends have set up a new website to raise funds for him by selling some of his prints. So please consider helping him by buying a print, by making a donation,  or by forwarding/tweeting this post.

POV: Photo-Workshops Are Useful, But....

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Scott Bourne, who publishes and writes Photofocus since 1998, has posted an article on photo workshops titled Don't Listen To The Trolls in which he encourages people to attend workshops led by photographers who have work they find inspiring...an encouragement that is both reasonable and logical.

However, let's take this a step or two further because, simply put, there are photographers who market their workshops (and there are many these days) whose work may be phenomenally beautiful and inspiring, but who are unable to lead, who can't/won't teach and are unable/unwilling to share. It's simply not enough that the photographer's work is good...not at all. There are many more factors that come to play in one's decision in choosing a photo workshop.

Obviously, the price of the workshop is one of the first determinants. Celebrity photographers command a hefty premium, and while some are worth it, others are not. In the case of travel photography workshop, I've come across workshops of 10 days starting at $8000, excluding international travel costs and meals. Knowing full well that the real costs of these workshops are in the range of $2000-2500 tells me that the profit margins for such photographers may be in the $5000-6000 range...per participant.

Many believe (or hope) that taking part in such high-priced workshops is worth the price because of the technical knowledge acquired; because of the bragging rights from rubbing shoulders with the famous photographers, and because the quality of their "during and after workshop" image inventory will justify the expenditure.

Maybe. Maybe not.

On the other hand, let's be cautious and do our homework (what bankers and business people call due diligence) by eliminating as many uncertainties as possible before shelling out thousands of dollars. Ask for references and opinions from previous attendees, compare workshops' details to one another, compare itineraries if these are travel photography workshops, ask who really leads the workshop: the photographer or assistants (trust me...the higher up the totem pole the photographer is the more assistants there will be...and the less you'll see of the photographer), figure out how much individual face time the participants will have with the photographer, who responds to your email and/or calls, who created the itinerary if it's a travel photography workshop, is it in a well-trodden tourist circuit or it an off-the-beaten path itinerary, how many participants in the workshop...and lastly what percentage of clients are repeaters.  And let's throw this in as well: if the workshop is marketed by a company because the hot-shot photographer is too busy to do it, that company will get a big bite off the price tag....and naturally you end up paying for it.

Personally, if I wanted to go on a workshop I'd rather go with a grunt...not a celebrity/famous photographer. I'd want to be taught rather than patronized...I wouldn't like being palmed off to an assistant nor do I want to be intimidated. I'd rather be given a candid assessment of my abilities and limitations in plain simple English rather than in a mealy-mouthed babble ....and finally, I want to enjoy myself.

But that's me.

(Photograph made at the Wangdicholing Monastery, Jakar, Bhutan)

Book: 'To Cambodia With Love' Is Now Available

Finally! To Cambodia With Love,  the book with my photographs of Siem Reap and its environs has been published. It's available from a long list of booksellers all over the world.

It's described on Amazon as "From a tarantula brunch in the remote Cambodian countryside to a leisurely cyclo ride through the streets of Phnom Penh, To Cambodia With Love is a true collaboration, containing personal essays by more than fifty writers. Among them you will find Angkor Wat expert Dawn Rooney, acclaimed memoirist Loung Ung (First They Killed My Father), and Lonely Planet’s in-the-know Nick Ray. Each essay is paired with a practical fact file so that travelers can follow in the writer’s footsteps. In addition, the book is illustrated with vibrant, full-color photographs."

I am hugely chuffed that a book with my vibrant, full-color photographs is on major booksellers' websites, even if my name is misspelled. It's correctly spelled on the book's cover, which is all I care about. What's a Twefic from Tewfic? Just a W that doesn't know where it ought to be.

I hope readers of The Travel Photographer blog interested in Cambodia will buy this book. If I get free copies, I will come up with a contest of some sort and give away copies to winners.

Next Week On The Travel Photographer

For the week starting Monday November 8,  the following posts are in the pipeline (not in this order though):

1. A photographer's mini-portfolio of black & white images of the Durga Puja in Kolkata.
2. A wonderful multimedia essay of Tango in Buenos Aires.
3. A The Travel Photographer Point Of View on photo workshops. which may raise hackles (aka piss off people) as my POVs are designed to do...we'll see.
5. A multimedia project on the Day of The Dead...Filipino-style.
6.  Magnum's new Fund for emerging photographers.

PS. Don't you just hate this winter time fall-back?? Daylight Savings Time just sucks.

Ken Hermann: Sadhus of the Kumbh

Photo ©Ken Hermann-All Rights Reserved

Ken Hermann is a photographer based in Copenhagen, Denmark and is a member of the Behance Network. He has a personal website, but I get a no access message when I try to view it.

No matter, his portraits of Sadhus made during the 2010 Kumbh Mela in Haridwar can be seen on here.

Sadhus attend Kumbh Mela festivals and are amongst the many driving forces behind these festivals, and are also a magnet for photographers and photojournalists because of their appearance, and lifestyle.

The normal Kumbh Mela is celebrated every 4 years. The Ardh Kumbh Mella is celebrated every six years at Haridwar and Prayag, as the one earlier this year. The Purna Kumbh takes place every twelve years at four places: Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nashik. The Maha Kumbh Mela occurs after 12 Purna Kumbh Melas, or 144 years, and is always held at Allahabad. This is the one I attended in January 2001 along with  60 million other people.

The 900th And 901st Follower

Photo © Debarpita Mohapatra- All Rights Reserved

My list of Google Followers has now grown to just over 900 people. This list is distinct from my Twitter and Facebook followers and/or friends, Feed subscribers or from the subscribers to my newsletters.

To commemorate this milestone, here are the two Followers as they've joined at the same time.

The 900th Google Follower is Debarpita Mohapatra. He's an architect, photographer and biker based in Bhubaneswar and New Delhi. He also authors a blog titled The Indian Expedition.

Photo © Luisa Puccini- All Rights Reserved

As for the 901st Google Follower, she's Luisa Puccini from Camogli near Florence. She's a traveler and photographer, and authors a blog titled Fotovagando, or Photo Wanderer. She seems to have been wandering in the right places since her blog has photographs and entries from Bali, Delhi's Nizam Uddin, Burma, and other interesting places.

Thank you for following The Travel Photographer!

Human Rights Watch: Burma Defenders

The Human Rights Watch feature Burma Defenders is timed to coincide with the first elections to be held in the repressed country in more than 20 years. Burma has been run by a junta of army generals who have silenced any opposition to their brutal regime with human rights abuses and by silencing any dissent.

Political observers are awaiting the elections and wondering if civil unrest flare up after what is widely perceived as a sham election on November 7, and whether Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, be released when her sentence ends on November 13.

Human Rights Watch and photographer Platon have teamed up to photograph opposition members, former political prisoners, and journalists who have sought political refuge in neighboring Thailand.

Platon is a photographer who attended London's St. Martin's School of Art, holds a BA in Graphic Design and a MA in Photography and Fine Art from the Royal College of Art. Now living in New York, he continues to shoot portrait, and documentary work for a range of international publications, including The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, and The Sunday Times Magazine.

Panasonic's Lumix DMC GF2

Aaaaargh! It seems that engineers love to spoil a good thing. Panasonic has just announced the Lumix GF2, the updated version of its excellent mirrorless, lens-swappable GF1.

According to WIRED's Gadget Lab, the new GF2 comes with an updated image processor for a maximum ISO to 6400, a do-all touch-screen control, and an upgrade to the HD video mode.

The spoilers? Well, the mode selector on the GF1's top plate is gone, as well as the lever that allowed the user to choose between burst, timer and bracketing modes. The AF/MF selector is gone as well as the DOF preview button.

Moreover, the GF2's body is said to be 18% smaller and 7% lighter than its predecessor....which I think won't provide the satisfactory feel of holding a "serious" small camera as in the GF1.

The GF2 will go on sale in early 2011 but no price was announced yet. Thank you very much Panasonic/Lumix engineering staff...but I'll keep my GF1.

For a video comparison between the GF1 and the GF2 with a British perspective, drop by this website.

Evan Abramson: When The Water Ends

Ethiopia's government is building a new dam in the Omo river projected to be the largest hydropower project in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost 50% of its electrical output has already been sold to neighboring countries, but it will reduce the water flow to the Omo River and threaten the lives of some 500,000-800,000 nomadic pastoralists.

Evan Abramson's When The Water Ends photo essay examines the impact of such a massive infrastructural on the lives of the Omo Valley tribes.

Evan's photographs were also used in a 16-minute video When the Water Ends produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration with MediaStorm. It tells the story of the increasingly dire drought conditions facing parts of East Africa, and the eventuality of conflict.

Evan Abramson is a 32-year-old photographer and videographer based in New York, who spent two months in the region, living among the herding communities. His project focuses on four groups of pastoralists — the Turkana of Kenya and the Dassanech, Nyangatom, and Mursi of Ethiopia — who are among the more than two dozen tribes whose lives and culture depend on the waters of the Omo River and the body of water into which it flows, Lake Turkana.

Quite a number of photographers have photographed the tribal people of the Omo Valley, and I'm certain they, as well as many non-photographers, are lamenting the change that will befell the region.