TRAVEL IDEAS: October 2010

Wonderland Seafood Store at Kuah Town, Langkawi Island

After we came back from the Mangrove Tour of Kilim Geoforest Park, and had a rest at the Hotel then we continue to food hunting for our dinner.
We decided to had it at Wonderland Seafood Store (N6 19.479 E99 50.633), Kuah Town of Langkawi Island. It's because the restaurant is having many good reviews from online.

The Wonderland Food Store is located along Persiaran Mutiara 2 which is a inner lane from the Jalan Padang Matsirat main road. It's also exactly opposite the Bella Vista Hotel across the stream. We missed it while we passed by because the food store was without a signage and the kitchen is facing the road, luckily we navigated back by the GPS device.

It was crowded when we stepped in. And really strange that the next seafood restaurant was Empty! So we quickly got our table and placed the order...

The order :-

1) Baked fish

2) Steam prawn with egg

3) Mixed vegatables

4) Omelette

The dishes served on our table were Super Fast! Impressed!

The Local Style Baked Fish

Steam Prawn with egg

Mixed vegetables

The Omelette

Overall the dishes served by the food store were Delicious! Especially the Baked Fish and the Steam Prawn. The sambal of the baked fish was different and tasty, the prawns were fresh! The vege and the omelette were average.
Most of the seafood restaurants in Langkawi don't serve Live Seafood, except a few at Pantai Cenang.

The Damage : MYR43.00 for 2 adults and 1 child included a can of Tiger Beer. Wah! It was Very Reasonable!!

Rated : 4.5/5

We enjoyed the dinner very much! We will DEFINITELY Come back again!

Related post :
* My Trip to Langkawi Island on September 2010
* Grand Continental Hotel at Kuah, Langkawi Island
* Underwater World of Langkawi Island
* Sunset Of Cenang Beach (Pantai), Langkawi Island
* The Lighthouse Restaurant at Tengah Beach (Pantai), Langkawi Island
* The Langkawi Cable Car at Langkawi Island.
* The Famous Sky-Bridge of Mount Machinchang, Langkawi Island.
* Restoran Nasi Kandar Tomato at Cenang Beach, Langkawi Island
* The Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* The Eagles Feeding at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* The Fish Farm at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* The Bat Cave at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* Hole In The Wall Floating Restaurant at Kilim Geoforest Park, Langkawi Island

Location map of Wonderland Seafood Store @ Kuah Town, Langkawi Island

View Larger Map

POV: FP Magazine: Talibanistan

Foreign Policy Magazine has featured an interesting photo/graphical essay on the war in Afghanistan. It's titled Inside Talibanistan, and effectively makes the point that our "enemies" are not a monolithic entity, but a combination of disjointed groups with different agendas and ideologies.

According to our media and politicians, who have the talent of diminishing everything down to simplistic terms in the hope of further dumbing down its viewers, listeners, constituents and readers, we are fighting against the "Taliban"...the problem is that the Taliban (as defined by our talking heads, politicians and their cronies) doesn't exist as such.

In FP's feature, I've counted 10 groups ranging from Al-Qaeda to some group called Haqqani Network, and added up the estimated members of these groups. Most of them are obviously estimates, but a total of 100,000 seems to be a reasonable one. Possibly included in these numbers are insurgents fighting against an occupying foreign force propping up a deeply unpopular corrupt government....and others who want nothing but power.

To put this in perspective, here's Cost of War which runs a counter for how much the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing us. It's an estimated $1.1 trillion to date.

We would have been so much better off by creating jobs, building modern infrastructure, state of the art trains and airports, new schools, invest in medical research, in alternative energy sources...and taking on China's growing economic power. My politics are diametrically opposed to the Republican Party and its legitimate and illegitimate spawns, but this ad by one of its affiliated group did strike a chord with me....yes, it's obviously over the top but there's still a kernel of truth in it. We are losing ground very quickly to China. (The video is via FP).

Next Week On The Travel Photographer

For the week starting Monday November 1, the following posts are in the pipeline:

1. A photographer's lovely portraits of Sadhus attending the Kumbh Mela earlier this year.
2. A interesting web documentary (multimedia) on the drought conditions facing East Africa.
3. The work of a photographer documenting musicians of the Mississippi Delta...with my kind of music...really hard core Blues. It was promised for the past week.
4. Another interesting web documentary (multimedia) on Women.

El Rey: East Los Angeles' Mariachis

This is a delightful short documentary featuring Mariachis musicians in East Los Angeles produced by Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari. The piece features Mariachi musicians who gather on corners of the streets of East Los Angeles looking for work, whether in birthday parties, in cafes, restaurants, quinceañeras, weddings and the like.

To my delight, the main singer belts outs out the famous Mexican song "Volver Volver", initially without the accompaniment of musical instruments. I used to hear it played often in the zocalo of Oaxaca...just delightful.

According to Wikipedia, the term "Mariachi" is said to be an adaptation of the French word for marriage or wedding "mariage" as this type of musical formation plays at these events.

via The Click

France Television: Portraits Of A New World

Here's a superb multimedia presentation guaranteed to knock your socks off.

It's part of a collection of 24 multimedia documentaries produced by France Télévisions. Portraits Of A New World is a narrative of the world of the 21st century, and the upheavals which transform and influence our destinies.

Unfortunately, it's only in French with no subtitles, which sadly reduces its internationalization and its appreciation by non-French speaking audience.

Having said that, take a look nevertheless at Journal of A Concubine which, in my view, is the segment that most beautifully merges the techniques of photojournalism and videojournalism.

In the era of pre-Communist China, wives and concubines lived under the same roof; in full sight and knowledge of everyone. The practice was legal and widely accepted. In 1949, it was made illegal by Mao as being a relic of feudalism, but has reappeared with a modern twist in the 1990s with the economic resurgence of China. Concubines are now viewed as a sign of wealth especially in business circles.

This being a French production, the nuanced difference between concubines and mistresses is explained. The latter do not expect gifts nor monetary rewards. Concubines do.

Seen on the incomparable Duckrabbit

My Bali Book

I've decided to self-publish a book of my photographs of Bali. I've hesitated for a long time, since I have no patience to fiddle endlessly with layouts, fonts and the myriad of other variables necessary to produce a book, but I recently discovered that Blurb has introduced a new interface called Bookify. This is essentially a tool for people like me who don't have the mindset to spend hours on a project of that nature.

Lo and behold, I received my mock-up book a few days ago. The book is large landscape (13x11 inches) format, with an image wrap hardcover and the photographs are black & white. The mock-up revealed some slight variations in tone, a few photographs were reproduced "soft" and others were "muddy" requiring some more adjustment in Levels.

But I am pleased by what I saw, and I'll work on refining the current photographs, add some meaningful text, and add a few dozen more photographs. These will probably be from my 2005, 2007 and 2010 trips to Bali.

Stay tuned.

Sulawesi Surprise!: Boats

It's not all green hills that you'd see if you are traveling from Tana Toraja to Makassar or from Makassar to Tana Toraja for that matter. If you are travelling from Makassar to Tana Toraja, you'd be travelling from the lowlands to the hilly areas and now, since we were traveling the opposite direction, it was all green hills during the first part of the journey. You'd probably get drowsy from watching too much greenery that you'd doze off. Then, suddenly, you'd sit up. You'd think you have seen a mangrove swamp and here we were - we had come to an estuary. Some of us got really excited and asked the bus driver to stop so that they could take snapshots of boats there. Sulawesi incidentally is famous for its boats. In the past, there used to be a type of vessel for far-distance trading and fishing called padewakang which is rigged with tanjaq or sail. The boats at the estuary were no padewakang but they were interesting just as well...

Would you care for a boat ride?

Traveling Tip: Boats are interesting!

Masr: Javier Morgade

Masr is the Arabic word for Egypt...and it's also colloquially used for Cairo. So in Arabic, Egyptians are called Masr'yeen...which is confusing for non-Arabic speakers, but that's how it is. Egypt was borrowed from the Latin Aegyptus and from the ancient Greek Aígyptos.

Javier Morgade was filming in Egypt for an airline company, and was left with surplus footage for this short movie. It's a documentary made with a Canon 5d Mark II and a Glidetrack HD. It was edited in Final Cut Pro and graded with After Effects. The song is by a contemporary Egyptian singer and is titled ah men al forak, which loosely translated means "lamenting separation".

In my view (and I should know), Javier managed to capture in this short movie the essence of the Egyptian character, the kindness, humor, hospitality and generosity...even their occasional legendary intrusiveness. It saddens me to see the poverty in the alleys of old Cairo, but as always, it's mitigated by the Egyptian talent for being able to share setbacks, poverty, sorrows, and life troubles. No Egyptian is an island...and while they find enormous solace in their extended families and friends, neighbors and even casual acquaintances...they deserve better.

Charlotte Rush Bailey: Kutch Classic

Charlotte Rush Bailey joined my Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat Photo-Expedition ™ earlier this year, and has just published her photo book titled Kutch Classic: Portraits from Northern Gujarat of her photographs made on that trip, which is a wonderful visual compendium of this magnificent region of India.

The book is full of photographs of Kutch tribals; most are portraits, some processed in the photographer-author's signature style. Charlotte chose purple as the predominant color for her book, basing it on the lovely woman's veil on its cover. I also happen to think that Charlotte will follow up with another book, possibly titled Portraits from Southern Gujarat, on her return from another photo expedition next January. We'll see....

Published and available through Blurb, the link above provides a preview of some of the book's pages.

For more of Charlotte's work, visit her website.

I really wish that many more of photographers who join my photo~expeditions publish their work in book form. That would be so gratifying! I may be mistaken but I only know of one other photographer-participant who does that. It's not an easy task to prep and publish a book, but the eventual satisfaction is just sublime.

LCD Viewfinder (Meike)

One of the accessories I decided to get for both my Canon 5D Mark II and the new Canon 7D is a LCD viewer. which would be handy whenever I wanted to shoot video on either of these cameras.

Having looked at the B&H et al, I had the choice between the LCDVF at $170 or the much more expensive Zacuto Jr at $252, but thought these prices were too high for an add-on I would not use frequently. Some quick research led me to a post on the delightful Cheesycam website and another one here which suggested a much cheaper LCDVF clone ($59 including shipping et al) from eBay.

I deliberated for about 2 minutes, and ordered the clone from the vendor. Within less than half a day, I got an email with an acknowledgment, and a USPS tracking number. It was shipped from the vendor in Guangzhou (China) on October 20, and delivered to my door on October 26. Not bad, eh?

The amusing thing is it took 3 days to get from Guangzhou to Queens (more than 8,000 miles), and another 3 days from Queens to Lower Manhattan (less than 4 miles) where I live. Yes, I looked the distances up.

The boxed Meike LCD viewfinder and its accessories were well wrapped in a thick envelope, and the mailing address was perfectly labeled. The vendor is clearly professional and was understandably well recommended on eBay. I affixed the metal frames to both my cameras, and will test it soon. My immediate impression was that the camera was much steadier when videotaping with the viewfinder on. It steadies it against one's face.

I examined the LCD viewfinder for signs of poor workmanship but found none, and it comes with a useful pouch and a cleaning cloth as well. Oh, and there's a red plastic thingie around the top part of the viewfinder that matches the red line on Canon's L lenses...color-coordination!

One thing I know for certain: I'll never be a product or still life photographer....ever.

Christian Bobst: Tibetans In India

Christian Bobst is a Swiss photographer based in Zürich who originally studied graphic design, and became interested in documentary photography. While working for advertising agencies, he won several national and international advertising awards. At this time, he works as a freelance art and creative director as well as a documentary photographer.

Dharamsala, or more accurately Mcleod Ganj, is the home of the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan government. The Tibetan settlement of Dharamsala began in 1959, when the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet, and was allowed to settle in Upper Dharamsala or McLeod Ganj. It's sometimes known as 'Little Lhasa' after the Tibetan capital city.

Christian's photo gallery of the transplanted Tibetans who live in Dharamsala explores the Tibetans' way of life in this small town in north India in their homes, stores, at the doctor and their places of worship. Even if you've never been to Dharamsala, these photographs will give you an excellent insight on the small Tibet enclave in north India.

The above photograph is a classic street photography gem. The Indian woman in the traditional shalwar kameez eying the passing Tibetan in her own dress.

My Work: Dharamasla Matriarch

Here's an environmental portrait of a Tibetan matriarch in one of the alleys of Dharmasala in northern India. It's been over 5 years ago since I've been to Dharamsala, and my photographic style has evolved noticeably.

I would have photographed this woman differently now. She would have been most certainly less rigid, and I would have spent much more time making her more comfortable before any photographs were made. I occasionally revisit my photographs of a few years back to trace back my photographic evolution; a gradual evolution moving from simple portraits to more complex scenes...moving from travel "pretty pictures" to the less pretty ones, towards more of a documentary style.

I am always attracted to interesting physiognomies...what photographer isn't?...but I now see them more in the context of their environment, of their surroundings and of the story they emanate just by their being there .

Beatrix Jourdan: Clash of the Titans

Here's somewhat of a change of gear from the norm for The Travel Photographer blog, and is about Laamb, which is Senegalese wrestling and a type of folk wrestling practiced in Senegal. It allows blows with the hands, the only of the West African wrestling traditions to do so.

Beatrix Jourdan (Bea Mészöly) is a Hungarian-born photographer currently based in Dakar, Senegal. She's a freelance graphic designer and photographer, and produced catalogs for the Museum of Modern Art in Gent, photomosaics in Budapest and Hajduszoboszlo, numerous posters, book and magazine covers, and brochures. She also She was one of the winners of the André Kertész international photo contest.

Beatrix informs us that Laamb is also a spiritual activity, and wrestlers must engage in various rituals before the contests. No wrestler, regardless of strength, physical or technical abilities, would ever dare to enter the ring, much less fight, without his "marabout" or JuJu Man.

via African Lens (larger photographs available on its website)

The Bat Cave at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island

The Bat Cave (N6 24.112 E99 51.551) is located about 420m away from the Kilim Jetty. The journey only take 5 minutes from the Jetty.

"The bat cave was existed about 440-480 million years ago, and it's lurks quietly in a mangrove swamp in a tributary of Kilim River. The chamber is in the form of a long tunnel. Clinging precariously on the ceiling of hundreds of bats, The stalactites and stalagmites within this cave are of the gigantic proportions. Stalactites on the eastern cave entrance are rather unique as they did not grow vertically downward. The growth of these oblique stalactites is believed to be associated with the deposition of travertine deposits by photosynthetic algae that required brighter sunlight to grow. There are ancient oyster shells attached on certain wall of the cave, a few meters above the sea level, indicating a higher ancient sea level 5000 years ago..."

The Jetty of the Bat Cave

Once we arrived at the jetty, we took the path on our left...which was able to walk though the ancient nature beauty of the forest.

The pathway the lead us to the forest

Along the way, I saw a beautiful RED Spider. Too bad the photo came out blur that I won't be able to show here. :(
There is a T-junction after 50 meters from the jetty, we gotta turn to the right to the Bat Cave. The surrounding fresh air really make us like this place very much!

I like the Green very much!

After another 30 meters, we reached the entrance of the Million Years Bat Cave.

The entrance of the Bat Cave.

I like to see the stone formation along the cave...below was one of nice stone I saw...

It was Total dark in the Cave, our boatman loan us a Torch. My daughter hold my pans tightly!

The pathway in the cave.

We continue to search for the Bats but it was empty all the way...We started to felt some cold wind and creepy! Because we were the only group in the Cave! Oh! My goodness!!

But I insist to continue our walk, so we stepped into the heart of the cave where you can't see any sunlight at all! Then suddenly, my wife said : "LOOK!" Her torch shoot on the wall on top of us and we saw hundreds and hundreds of bats hanging! WOW!

The Bat Cave of Kilim River

And my wife ask me to turn around, that were many behind me! Oh! My...

The closest bat! Less than 2 feet...

During that time, we really enjoyed looking at the bats surrounding the cave...luckily I still remember the time, it was almost dark! So we quickly walked through the cave and back to the Jetty (Where the boatman was waiting), before all the bats wake up! What a Experience! I like it!

That's end our 1 hour Mangrove Tour at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island. You can contact Mr Halimi (boatman) 0175228325 for the Mangrove Tour. He was a nice guide! :)

Mr Halimi - our boatman for the Mangrove Tour.

Related post :
* My Trip to Langkawi Island on September 2010
* Grand Continental Hotel at Kuah, Langkawi Island
* Underwater World of Langkawi Island
* Sunset Of Cenang Beach (Pantai), Langkawi Island
* The Lighthouse Restaurant at Tengah Beach (Pantai), Langkawi Island
* The Langkawi Cable Car at Langkawi Island.
* The Famous Sky-Bridge of Mount Machinchang, Langkawi Island.
* Restoran Nasi Kandar Tomato at Cenang Beach, Langkawi Island
* The Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* The Eagles Feeding at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* The Fish Farm at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* Wonderland Seafood Store at Kuah Town, Langkawi Island
* Hole In The Wall Floating Restaurant at Kilim Geoforest Park, Langkawi Island

Location map of the Million Years Bat Cave

View Larger Map

Rodrigo Cruz: Women Warriors

Photo © Rodrigo Cruz-All Rights Reserved

The reason I go out onto the streets with my camera is simple: I want to tell people's stories in an intimate way through powerful imagery. -Roberto Cruz

Rodrigo Cruz is a freelance photographer with a particular interest in abuses of human rights, especially against women and children in his native Mexico. His work was published by National Geographic and The Washington Post, and by NGOs such as Amnesty International. He was shortlisted for the 2010 Anthropographia Award for Photography and Human Rights; received an honorary mention in the photo contest ‘Global World: through the lens of human rights’; and was selected last year to participate in PhotoEspaña’s Descubrimientos in Guatemala City.

I met Roberto at the inaugural Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City in 2008, and he was one of the indispensable members that made it such a success. Many of the photojournalists, whether instructors or students, relied on his knowledge, contacts and assistance for their projects and classes.

Have a look at Rodrigo's Women Warriors and Dance of Mice; these are two unusual traditions practiced in Guerrero in southern Mexico. One of his audio-slideshow projects especially relevant at this time when illegal immigration is being targeted in our southern states is The Promised Land.

For further details on Rodrigo, his projects and talent, drop by Canon Pro Network.

Next Week on The Travel Photographer

For the week starting Monday October 25, I planned posts on:

1. A photo essay on the Tibetans living in India, that was supposed to be on last week.
2. A remarkable web documentary (multimedia) on China that will leave you speechless.
3. A short movie on Egypt made on a Canon 5D MarkII...very well done.
4. The work of a photographer documenting musicians of the Mississippi Delta...with my kind of music...really hard core Blues.
5. The work of a photojournalist documenting African wrestlers.

A Look At The Zoom H1

I've blogged a couple of times about the H1, the new handheld audio recorder from Samson Audio, and what seemed to be a handy portable stereo recorder at an unheard-of $99 price.

I haven't bought the H1 (as I already have a Marantz PMD 620 which I'm happy with), but a number of my readers have expressed their interest in seeing a review...so the above movie by Shawn Harrel will do just that.

As I expected, the H1 seems to feel a little flimsy, it has a few quirks, but does the job quite well. The price can't be beaten, so I predict I'll see it used by emerging photojournalists on a budget testing multimedia waters.

Speaking of multimedia: I have my new Canon 7D next to me as I'm writing this, but I have yet to really test it. I've ignored the manual as always, fiddled with it and so far it's quite intuitive, especially to a long time Canon user like I am. I'll be putting up some photographs as soon as I can...but one thing for sure: the 8fps is great!

In the meantime, I've added this cheap rig to my 5D Mark II. It's my Marantz audio-recorder attached to a standard mounting plate from Home Depot, which in turn is attached to the camera's tripod socket. From my Mamiya medium-format years, I had an old Hama grip that I also attached to the tripod socket, and it gives me much better control over the camera when I'm filming video.

All I need now is the LCDV.

Khaled Hasan: Death of Dreams

Khaled Hasan is a Bangladeshi freelance photographer, whose work appeared in several daily newspapers in Bangladesh and international Magazines, such as Sunday Times Magazine, American Photo, National Geographic Society, Better Photography, Saudi Aramco World Magazine, Guardian, Telegraph, The Independent and The New Internationalist.

He was awarded the 2008 All Roads Photography Program of National Geographic Society, as well as the Alexia Foundation Student Award (Award of Excellence). He has been recognized with several awards including the Humanity Photo Documentary Award.

Khaled believes in immersion photography, and listens, observes and talks with his subjects over an extended period of time. In Death of Dreams, he focused on Dhaka's largest old-age home called Boshipuk, and followed the daily lives of the residents for two years.

His photo essay documents the effect of modernization on the traditional structure of Bangla families, and which leads to old ways and values being discarded. Elderly parents are now forced to live out their old age alone, and face living the remaining of their lives in impersonal surroundings.

Via GlobalPost's Full Frame.

A Storyboard Template

Following my earlier post on my handwritten storyboard doodles I used for one of my audio-slideshows, I thought I'd prep one that looked a little more sophisticated, and could serve as a template. The templates I found on the internets were not exactly what I wanted, so I basically created one using an existing Excel template.

So here's The Travel Photographer's exclusive storyboard template (PDF) available as a free download to anyone who needs it. I hope you'll find it useful to plan and set up your slideshows.

Is it better than the doodly one?

The Fish Farm at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island

The Fish Farm (N6 24.945 E99 51.821) is located at the same area of The Hole In The Wall Floating Restaurant along the Kilim River of Langkawi Island. This activity was part of the Mangrove Tour.

The Fish Farm

The farm was not huge but it was enough for us to see all the big fishes around...
The young boy who speak fluent English had became our tour guide and started to showed us around the farm.
At first, he showed us the 'Shooting Fish' which was really interesting!

The Shooting Fish

There were many big fishes in the farm! Like this one below...

Then the boy brought us to the Stingray area, and all the rays seems like waiting at the site!

The big Black Ray!

Then the boy started to feed them with pieces of fish...

The black rays were Really Hungry!! :)

The rays overturned

The boy continued to feed the hungry rays, and he overturn the body and showed us where is the mouth located...my daughter was excited watching the rays! :)
Then we moved to the Horse Shoe Crab...this was the first time I saw the horse shoe swim...that was new to me! Haha!

The boy explain about the Horse Shoe Crab

This was the way the horse shoe swim...

"There are many foreigners settle down here in Langkawi, some of them started the restaurant business or others and own a unique floating house at the Kilim River area..." said the Boatman. Below floating house is owned by a couple of Japanese.

Nice Floating House owned by Japanese couple.

It took about 30 minutes for us to tour around the fish farm, and we continue our journey to the Millions years Bat Cave! The cave is located nearby the Kilim Jetty....

We passed by the Kilim Jetty again...

Related post :
* My Trip to Langkawi Island on September 2010
* Grand Continental Hotel at Kuah, Langkawi Island
* Underwater World of Langkawi Island
* Sunset Of Cenang Beach (Pantai), Langkawi Island
* The Lighthouse Restaurant at Tengah Beach (Pantai), Langkawi Island
* The Langkawi Cable Car at Langkawi Island.
* The Famous Sky-Bridge of Mount Machinchang, Langkawi Island.
* Restoran Nasi Kandar Tomato at Cenang Beach, Langkawi Island
* The Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* The Eagles Feeding at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* The Bat Cave at Kilim Geoforest Park of Langkawi Island
* Wonderland Seafood Store at Kuah Town, Langkawi Island
* Hole In The Wall Floating Restaurant at Kilim Geoforest Park, Langkawi Island

The Location Map of the Fish Farm at Kilim River

View Larger Map

Xiaomei Chen: Puzhu

Photo © Xiaomei Chen-All Rights Reserved

Hands in Chinese Hakka culture are often a metaphor for the ability to work and survive; a symbol for diligence. "If you have hands, you never beg" the Hakka say.

And so reads a caption under one of Xiaomei Chen's photographs in her Puzhu gallery.

Xiaomei Chen had to choose between a Phd and a camera, and the camera won. Since 2006, she has been documenting human lives with it, using her background in anthropology. She's currently living in the US, and works as a contractor at The Washington Post. Having been a teacher in south China, she's fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakka.

She embarked on a visual project documenting Puzhu, an obscure and shrinking village of 45 people in south China which mirrors what China has been going through in the past century. Farmers are leaving their land to earn better pay in the big cities such as Shanghai, leaving their centuries-old houses and way of life.

Puzhu In Transition was produced in partial fulfillment of a Masters of Art degree requirement for the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University. It consist of stills, video and a book.

The book is available for sale on Blurb.