TRAVEL IDEAS: August 2009

Teru Kuwayama: How To Not Get Shot

Photo © Teru Kuwayama-All Rights Reserved
A veteran documentary photographer, Teru Kuwayama has made more than 15 trips to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir, traveling both independently, and as an embedded reporter with US and NATO military forces, as well as Afghan, Pakistani, and Indian armed forces. In 2009 he received the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor award for his work in Pakistan, and a fellowship from the South Asian Journalists Association.

He is a 2009-2010 Knight Fellow at Stanford University, a contributor to Time, Newsweek and Outside magazines, and a contract photographer for Central Asia Institute, a non-profit organization that builds schools for children in remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

GIZMODO has featured Teru's Ask a Pro: How to Shoot (and Not Get Shot) In a War Zone, which is certainly a must-read for every inexperienced photographer with romantic notions on war photography.

Whilst all of his suggestions are extremely valid, I liked these:

Avoid the faux-commando stuff. Learn How To Say "Hello" and "Thank You" and To Count To Ten. Don't Follow the Pack.

Stalls at Jonker Street Night Market, Malacca (Melaka)

The photos in this post are the familiar stalls & shops you will see them every time you visit Jonker Walk (Jalan Hang Jebat) night market at Malacca.
The crowded Jonker Street night market is available on every Friday, Saturday. Sunday & Public Holiday. The culture is unique and created chances for us to visit and for others to survive.

Crowded as normal...

The Masks are fashion!

Don't be surprise, they are selling swords too!

I love to see the way they way did it! It's a good souvenir!

The top left : Geographer Cafe (I can't stop myself to snap on the colonial structure everytime I pass by....
The bottom left : This shop selling many handicraft ship (I bought one Portugal War Ship from here)

Bottom left : She was demo & explain how the 'Magic' Umbrella works.

History photos, just like a Time Machine when you look at it.

Colourful Sandals & Slippers.

Beside the stalls above selling those unique items, there are also some local foods stalls available along the Jonker Street. Below are some of the photos...

Top left : Famous 'Knock-knock' Candy. You can hear the knocking sound even 150 meters away. It's located close to Geographer Cafe.

There is one very old building which is the Hokkien Association (Hokkien Huay Kuan in Hokkien dialect) located somewhere along the street. I love to see the architecture slowly every time I walk pass. This building has a Karaoke session for the seniors during the night.

The audiences and performers of the night.

Almost at the end of the street, there are some outdoor performance by senior to entertain the visitors and tourist of the night market.

The performers on the stage...

The audiences...

We parked our car just opposite the Fire Station for MYR3.00 per entry. When we wanna leave, there was alarm trigger and the Fire Brigade on ACTION!!

The night market will close on 12 midnight. The stalls will pack everything and the street will be silent after 1am.....

MY TRIPS - Home

Jean Claude Louis: Asia Polaroids

Jean Claude Louis was born in France, and moved to Southern California in 1990. He's a physician and scientist, and had a life-long career in biomedical research. He now is pursuing his passions: travel and photography.

I've featured Jean-Claude Louis' work through the many photographic contests he won in 2007 and 2008. He participated and won (in specific categories) awards in National Geographic International competition, the Travel Photographer of the Year competition (two categories), and the B&W Magazine Portfolio Competition.

He returns to TTP with his Polaroid images of Asia...countries such as Myanmar, India, Viet Nam and China.

In Jean Claude's own words:In the Shadow of Time "is homage to the natural environment of these places and the people who live in it. The physical beauty and harmony of the places is accentuated by my use of the unique texture and light rendition of Polaroid Time Zero film to create a timeless, painterly effect."

I think Jean Claude succeeded in his quest...the images are ethereal. I chose the above image of a fisherman at dawn on Li River, China, because of its beautiful colors.

Damon Winter: The Kamayurá

Photo © Damon Winter/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved
Damon Winter and The New York Times bring us An Ancient Society, a multimedia essay (narrated by Elisabeth Rosenthal) on the Kamayurá, an Amazonian tribe living in the middle of Xingu National Park in Brazil. This area was a huge swathe of land originally in the depths of the Amazon, but which is is now surrounded by farms and ranches.

The article reports that around 5,000 square miles of Amazon forest are being cut down annually in recent years, affecting the environment and depriving the Kamayurá of their way of life.

Nicely photographed by Damon, the audio slideshow's narration is somewhat stilted, and, for my taste, there isn't enough ambient sound to add what I call "aural texture" to the essay...but it's interesting nevertheless.

Moise Saman: Lost Boys of Afghanistan

“Afghanistan is hemorrhaging its youth into Europe” said Pierre Henry, director of France Terre d’Asile, an organization that works with the European Union, the United Nations refugee agency and the French government on asylum affairs.

As per The New York Times' The Lost Boys of Afghanistan, one of the consequences of the war in Afghanistan are the young (some as young as 12) refugees who seek an education and a safe future currently impossible in their own country. It appears that the European nations where these youngsters seek refuge are obliged under national and international law to provide for them; adding a few thousands to the many more of illegal migrants.

The photographs are by Moise Saman, and the accompanying article is by Caroline Brothers.

I'm mildly encouraged in reading that Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has recently written a critique "of government efforts at “strategic communication” with the Muslim world, saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting."

Perhaps similar and concerted efforts by our current administration will slowly redress the blight caused by the previous administration's actions on the Muslim world....it will take a lot of time and effort, but it's a step in the right direction.

Outside Magazine: Antonin Kratochvil

"Antonin detests the notion of self-aggrandizement that photographers make a living off of," says Gary Knight, a colleague of Kratochvil's and co-founder of VII.

That's a statement that made me pay close attention to the interview with Antonin Kratochvil published by Outside magazine. I've been gnashing my teeth and rolling my eyes at this very attitude which is exhibited by so many photographers these days; especially those who are deemed to be "conflict" or "war" photographers. And here's a interview which tells us that Antonin rejects the "war photographer" label outright and hates the self-promotional concept of bearing witness that's in vogue among some photojournalists....a feeling just up my alley.

A very unusual man, with an interesting history. I won't repeat the details here, but encourage you to set enough time to read and savor the interview. You'll enjoy it.

Antonin Kratochvil's website.

Google & Twitter Followers

I see that The Travel Photographer blog now has 200 Google Followers and 386 Twitter Followers....so I thought I'd thank them all with this post. Thank you! It's quite a milestone on this blog's trajectory.

I'm always bemused that this blog attracts thousands of loyal readers on a daily basis, who arrived from disparate sources such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other search engines etc.

Professional Photographer Contest

Professional Photographer magazine is one of the many excellent photography magazines in the United Kingdom. It now has launched a photography contest, and asks if its readers (and others) have what it takes to be the Professional Photographer of the Year 2009?

The Professional Photographer awards will be judged by a panel of judges along with the editor of Professional Photographer magazine, Grant Scott. Travel is one of the many categories that are available for interested photographers to compete in.

The closing date for 2009 submissions will be November 27, 2009.

As in all and every photography contests, I strongly encourage all interested photographers to make sure they carefully read the contests' terms and conditions, especially since misunderstandings between organizers and contestants over terms, prizes and other issues sometimes occur.

Dhiraj Singh: LENS

It is with considerable gratification that I learned this morning that Dhiraj Singh's work has appeared on The New York Times' LENS blog. A few of of us had known that this was in the works while we were at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, and it materialized as we hoped it would.

Yes, good things happen to good people.

Dhiraj, as readers of this blog now know, attended my class "Introduction To Multimedia Storytelling" at the workshop, and produced an absolutely stunning photo essay, for which he was deservedly honored for by winning the workshop’s top honors for student work.

His beautiful black & white work on Kashmir is now featured on the LENS blog, in which seeks to document a Kashmir that is defined by more than the decades-long dispute between India and Pakistan over the area. It's worth your time to read Dhiraj's interview as well, which tells us this, among other information:

Mr. Singh, 32, was born and raised in Mumbai. He was a storyboard artist for an ad agency until 2007, when he took a job shooting for Daily News & Analysis (DNA), a national daily. “I was always fascinated with photography,” he said, “and felt that if I did not take the risk and give myself a chance, I would’ve surely lived to regret it.” His work has since appeared in Newsweek, Vanity Fair and The Wall Street Journal.

May good things continue to happen to Dhiraj.

Dhiraj Singh's website is here.

Palani Mohan: VIVID

Here's VIVID, a blast of colors that will surely jolt your senses into overdrive! It's a collection of "color-caffeinated" photographs by Palani Mohan of various (mostly of the Indian Holi festival) scenes of tremendous color.

Palani was born in Chennai, India, and moved to Australia as a child. His photographic career started at the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, and since then he has been based in London, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and now Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia.

His work has been published by many of the world's leading magazines and newspapers including National Geographic, Stern, Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times. He also published three photographic books. Palani's work has been recognized with awards from World Press Photo, Picture of the Year, National Press Photographers Association, American Photo and Communication Arts. He is represented by Getty Images' Reportage Group in New York.

The Travel Photographer blog previously featured Palani Mohan's work here.

Marc Silber Interviews Deanne Fitzmaurice

In this video interview, Marc Silber discusses photography techniques with Deanne Fitzmaurice, a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist.

Deanne talks about how to approach your subject, and how to “layer” (a perceptive term) one's photographs and of multimedia, among other things. While not really new, there is sensible advice in this video, and it's given in an attractive low-key non patronizing conversational tone. Highly recommended interview for its content and for its style.

Via The Click

Boston Globe's Ramadan

Photo © Fareed Khan/AP Photo-All Rights Reserved
The Boston Globe's Big Picture is featuring Ramadan 2009, a collection of 39 photos celebrating the advent of the month of Ramadan in the Muslim world.

"In Muslim nations and regions around the globe, this is the first week of the holy month of Ramadan, a time for followers to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual activity during the day, breaking their fast each sunset, with traditional meals and sweets. During this time, Muslims are also encouraged to read the entire Quran, to give freely to those in need, and strengthen their ties to God through prayer. The goal of the fast is to teach humility, patience and sacrifice, and to ask forgiveness, practice self-restraint, and pray for guidance in the future.

While I have chosen the above photograph as the one that, to my mind, exemplifies the spirit of Ramadan the best amongst the collection, I was amused to see one (#27 by Ben Curtis) of Egyptian women walking past paper lanterns (presumably made in China since they have Chinese calligraphy on them) that are used as decorations during Ramadan. Globalization indeed!

RESOLVE blog Features FPW's Multimedia

My Name is Dechen - Foundry Workshop Multimedia By Dhiraj Singh from liveBooks on Vimeo.

Miki Johnson, Editor of the RESOLVE blog, interviewed two photographers who participated in this year's Foundry Photojournalism, and posted their multimedia projects as well.

One of the two participants, Dhiraj Singh, attended my class Introduction To Multimedia Storytelling, and produced an absolutely stunning tour de force photo essay, which can now be seen in the above embedded video. Dhiraj was deservedly honored for this work by winning the workshop’s top honors for student work.

The other participant was Tristan Wheelock, who attended the Intermediate Multimedia class by Henrik Kastenskov of Bombay Flying Club.

The interviews and multimedia work produced by Dhiraj and Tristan can be seen on RESOLVE.

Dhiraj Singh's work was featured on TTP, and his website is here.

Java Jamboree: Seeing is Believing!

The Water Castle is one of the must see places in Yogyakarta. Who would want to miss a place owned by a man with 27 wives? That really beats King Henry VIII who had six! The Water Castle doesn't really cover a wide area like the ruins in Sukhotai, Thailand but it is definitely one unique place. For us, we missed at least one interesting spot there, the Masjid Sokotunggal which has a unique single pillar but visiting the underground mosque, Pulo Kenongo itself was already a worthwhile experience. You would walk out of it yet to another world, a world of ruins and even to a little settlement. You'd not believe that there are people living in the vicinity until you see the densely populated Kampung Taman which lies, side by side to the Water Castle with your own eyes...

The Water Castle...

Ruins...

A Settlement!

Traveling Tip: Seek and you will find!

Java Jamboree Pulo Kenongo

Legends of secret underground tunnels abound in the Water Castle. The Yogyakarta's Sultan was said to have a supernatural wife,- a fairy, I suppose, called Nyai Roro Kidul and a secret tunnel was said to lead to her palace in the Indian Ocean. My friends and I did not get to see this tunnel of course, but the one which we took led us to Pulo Kenongo which was in the middle of Segaran Taman Sari or Taman Sari artificial lake. This area is supposed to be connected by water canal to the other artificial lake in the palace. Over here too, it was said that there were living rooms, bedrooms, rooms to make Batik, a hall to perform classical sacred dance of Bedoyo and Srimpi, gates and sentry-boxes guarded strongly by the palace soldiers. About the only sentry-box I saw though was one guarded by a man who collected money...

Pulo Kenongo...

Traveling Tip: Don't forget to tip!

Java Jamboree: Tunnel of Deceit

Yogyakarta's Water Castle is said to be divided into two complexes, theUmbul Binangun or the swimming pool complex and Pulo Kenongo. Leaving the Umbul Binangun for the Pulo Kenongo was a delightful experience. At one moment, you'd be walking along a walkway which looked perfectly normal and then, suddenly, you would come to an entrance which when you walked in, would transport you into another world. You'd found yourself in an underground tunnel and in olden days, the Sultan himself might as well be walking here as he hid himself from his enemies. There are canals in this area which when flooded with water, hide the tunnels from view. There were supposed to be a few buildings here too, the Kenanga, Cemeti Island and Sumur Gumuling which could still be seen after the canals are flooded and it is said that from a high place, the buildings look like a lotus floating in the middle of a pool...

Tunnels?

Traveling Tips: Imagine!

Java Jamboree: Almost a Missed Opportunity

Yogyakarta's Water Castle had been badly damaged by an earthquake in 1867. Visiting the Castle for the first time especially its well-restored part- the bathing pools or Umbul Binangun, one could be forgiven if one had the mistaken notion that only a small portion of the castle remained.Then, one would perhaps wander among the little wooden houses there, admiring the works of the locals who make batik and paint to earn a living. There was a little thriving cottage industry there no doubt but that was not the main attraction. There was another more mesmerising part of the castle hidden away somewhere. In our case, we nearly missed it even though we had a guide with us. After coming out from Umbul Binangun, we had at the entrance saw a notice board which had a layout of the Water Castle. It was very obvious that we had not visited the entire castle and the guide whom earlier did not show sign of having any intention of taking us there, limped on...

At the Water Castle's vicinity...

Traveling Tip: Get an honest guide!

Landon Nordeman: The Sugar Train (Cuba)

The Atlantic magazine recently featured this slideshow (they call it video) of photographs by Landon Nordeman during a train journey in Cuba.

It's accompanied by an evocatively written article by Michael Scott Moore titled The 12:39 To Matanzas, which I enjoyed. However, I can't say the same of the slideshow. Clearly cobbled together by someone with an inordinate affection for panning and camera movements, I don't think I've seen a single frame in the slideshow (or video) that doesn't have the annoying pan from one side to the other, or going from one direction to the other, without a real reason for the movement.

I always start off my multimedia classes and workshops by telling participants to keep their projects simple, and to use effects sparingly, and only when it's absolutely required to underscore a visual point. In fact, I'll use this slideshow to demonstrate to my future classes what not to do. As to the use of a sound track from a Buena Vista Club album, ambient sound recorded in the train, peoples' voices, perhaps an impromptu song by a passenger...would have helped turn this feature around. Heck, what about the guy with the accordion in the train?

WSJ Photo Journal: Onam

Photo © Sivaram V./Reuters-All Rights Reserved
The Wall Street Journal's Photo Journal has this striking photograph of a dancer about to perform during festivities marking the start of the annual harvest festival of Onam in Kochi, India. The festival symbolizes the return of mythical King Mahabali to meet his beloved subjects.

Readers and followers of this blog and my work will immediately recognize that this is Theyyam performer who, as those I've photographed last January, and can be seen in my Theyyam gallery, is part of an indigenous religious tradition in the north of Kerala.

However, I wasn't aware that Theyyam rituals are performed during Onam, which is the state festival of Kerala. The festival includes snake boat races, Pulikali (tiger) dances and processions of caparisoned elephants. It is celebrated in honor of Mahabali, the mythical Asura king of ancient Kerala, and falls during August or September....but Theyyam rituals during Onam? Ah well, I learn something everyday.