I'm glad to present Bali: The Trilogy; a three-part audio-slideshow (based on a chaptered SoundSlides platform), which consists of black & white documentaries of Balinese ceremonies.
The Melasti ceremony is an all important Balinese tradition of purifying temple deities in the waters of the ocean, the Ngaben is the Balinese tradition of cremating the dead, while the third is Tajen, the ancient tradition of cockfighting, technically illegal but still practiced on the island (and elsewhere in Indonesia).
This above link will not work on iPads (by the way, about 6-7% of my daily readers view this blog on their iPads, and I think this percentage is growing every day), however the following links will allow iPad owners to watch the individual audio-slideshows on their devices:
Bali: Melasti Purification Ceremony
Bali: Ngaben Cremation Ceremony
Bali: Tajen Cockfighting Event
A word about the choice of black & white; I'm not sure if I'm entering a sort of black & white phase in my photography work, and this is its manifestation...or whether I've been influenced by the likes of John Stanmeyer and others...or whether it's a contrarian reaction to the surfeit of color I've witnessed when attending these ceremonies last month...or whether it's because the Balinese believe these ceremonies inherently involve spirits and dark forces...I don't know. It just felt better.
Let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy these audio-slideshows.