I'm happy to report that The Travel Photographer is featured on Photo District News' own blog, PDN Pulse.
I do not read nor do I subscribe to any photography magazine except PDN magazine. Are they're returning the favor?
PDN Pulse
I'm happy to report that The Travel Photographer is featured on Photo District News' own blog, PDN Pulse.
I do not read nor do I subscribe to any photography magazine except PDN magazine. Are they're returning the favor?
NY Times: The Skycrapers of Wulingyuan
Wulingyuan is a scenic and historic interest area in Hunan Province, China, famous for its approximately 3,100 tall quartzite sandstone pillars, some over 200 meters in height. It is home to three ethnic minority groups: the Tujia, the Miao, and the Bai people, who all have their own languages, traditional cultures, festivals, and architectural styles. If you are amongst the tribes you might be forgiven for thinking that you have stepped back in time, but you'll quickly be jolted out of your daydream. Wulingyuan is a favourite holiday spot and Chinese and international tour groups are everywhere. This scenic area has been successfully marketed as a key tourist site and tourism in China is mushrooming.
The New York Times brings us another travel-related slideshow, and while its photography is rather pedestrian, it's brought here to TTP because of the wonderful narration by Simon Winchester...whose pronunciation (he's British) and enunciation, as well as timing sense, bring life to an otherwise bland travelogue. Ariana Lindquist's photographs seem to have been plucked by a photo editor whose heart wasn't in the assignment...too bad, because I'm sure that the photographer must have submitted better ones than those. However, Simon Winchester's narration saves it.
The real point of the post, you ask? Well, it's obvious that hiring a good narrator (or being blessed with inborn narrative skills) greatly enhances photographers' multimedia productions, and with the intensity of competition increasing minute by minute, I believe that it behooves us to learn how to narrate well, or to hire someone with these skills. I have seen and heard many such multimedia shows that are marred by the mumblings of the photographers, and it's a shame...as it diminishes the impact on viewers.
The New York Times' The Skyscrapers of Wulingyuan feature. (Registration may be required).
Leica M8: Review
Digital Photography Review's website has just reviewed the Leica M8, the new rangefinder digital camera which has the classic design, build and function of the M series but utilizes a completely digital imaging system.
I really liked Phil Askey's well thought out last sentences of the review in which he writes: "I have to admit that I've been turned, from a skeptic to a believer, certainly the M8 isn't a camera everyone is going to afford, but a rangefinder is certainly something any 'serious' photographer should try at some point in their life. It's changed the way I shoot, I've found myself going back to manual focus more even when I use DSLR's and being more selective about lenses and depth of field, and more creative in my framing. My advice on the M8 would be, if you can afford to then get one, be aware of its limitations, shoot RAW and rediscover 'capturing moments'.This is the kind of review that I find useful...yes, a lot of the review has technical data and statistical information, but it's these last sentences that gave me the real 'feel' for what he wants his readers to know.
DP Review's Leica M8
Logistics: Bali Photo Expedition
Setting the logistics for the Bali photo expedition was a complicated process, not because of the itinerary, but because of the “elasticity” of the Balinese temple anniversary schedules, because of the unavailability of hard and solid information on cremations (as an example), and because time-keeping in Bali is usually “flexible”.
Generally speaking, all temple anniversaries would start in the late afternoon and reach their apogees at night. Cremation ceremonies would start at 11 am, with the actual cremation performed in the early afternoon. Not the best times for photography, but that’s how it is.
The larger temple ceremonies are usually well publicized, and attract thousands of devotees. This means that we had to photograph among large crowds of local Balinese, tourists and gawkers. The larger attendance meant stricter rules as to where we were allowed to stand and photograph. The best photo opportunities were available at smaller temples, where anniversaries were held amongst modest number of attendees, with no tourists and where we welcomed with no preconditions and virtually no restrictions at all beyond having to wear the appropriate sarong and sash. The best of all were the handful of serendipitous events....a ceremonial religious bathing ritual called "mewinten" and a temple odalan attended by women only....which gave us unique photo opportunities.
I opted for two medium sized cars instead of a lumbering bus. These were driven by our fixers/guides, Komang and Putu, and were were sufficiently nimble so that we were able to drive wherever we needed to, even on small muddy paths. Communication and coordination between the two cars was maintained through our fixers’ cell phones. The daily route was discussed with Wayan Sukadana and Komang, who helped me setting it up and deciding between the opportunities available to us.
Our accommodations were the Agung Raka Bungalows in Ubud. The setting is in the midst of idyllic rice fields, and the bungalows are built in traditional Balinese style, with thatched roofs and wooden interiors. The management and staff of Agung Raka did their utmost best to cater to our requirements, and we greatly enjoyed our stay there. It was our home away from home for two weeks. We were also provided with an efficient shuttle service to drive us wherever and whenever we wanted in Ubud. Wayan Sukadana, the general manager of the hotel, spared no effort to make our stay as comfortable as possible, and generously shared his knowledge of Bali and its culture with us.
I tracked down Mrs Korniawati, a dancing teacher in Canggu from my previous trip, and we were fortunate to set up a photo session with some of her dancing students.
We usually had our lunches at Café Moka on Jalan Rajah, which has the best baguettes sandwiches in town. We also found Dragonfly Café to be a top destination to relax with its exotic drinks and wireless service, as well as having delicious muesli and yogurt. Good food is plentiful in Ubud, and we enjoyed excellent dinners at Nomad, Ary’s Warung, Bebek Bengil and Lamak, among others.
Photographically-speaking, I found that having a short wide-angle zoom lens such as the 16-35mm (or 17-40), a 24-70mm and a long zoom lens such as the 70-200mm worked best for me. The latter proved invaluable when photographing the various Balinese dances and for candid portraiture during crowded ceremonies. I used the mid-range zoom for environmental portraiture and for general photography. A polarizer worked nicely for the ricefields photography, especially to enhance the fields' saturation. Some of us used recorders to capture the ambient sounds, chants and gamelan music which accompany all temple celebrations, and these soundtracks will eventually backdrop the still photographs.
Lana Šlezić: The Hidden Half
Mother Jones magazine brings us a visually compelling photo essay by Canadian photojournalist Lana Šlezić, who crisscrossed Afghanistan—from Mazar-e-Sharif in the north to Kandahar in the south—to document the plight of Afghan women since the fall of the Taliban. Six years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the burka is more common than before, an "overwhelming majority" of Afghan women suffer domestic violence, according to aid group Womankind, and honor killings are on the rise. Health care is so threadbare that every 28 minutes a mother dies in childbirth—the secondhighest maternal mortality rate in the world. Girls attend school at half the rate boys do, and in 2006 at least 40 teachers were killed by the Taliban.
Some of the photographs are disturbing, and while I have no doubt that the treatment of women in Afghanistan is appalling, is it really that pervasive and what is the Karzai government doing about it? Probably nothing.
Lana Šlezić The Hidden Half
Books: A Fortune Teller Told Me
It was 1976 when Tiziano Terzani was warned by the fortuneteller in Hong Kong: "Beware! You run a grave risk of dying in 1993. You mustn't fly that year. Don't fly, not even once." Sixteen years later, Terzani had not forgotten. Despite living the life of a jet-hopping journalist, he decided that, after a lifetime of sensible decisions, he would confront the prophecy the Asian way, not by fighting it, but by submitting.One of the most enjoyable reads for me has been A Fortune Teller Told Me, a somewhat fabulistic account of travels in South East Asia by Tiziano Terzani. He sadly passed away recently, however his traveling style remains with me...not that I would dare emulating his itinerary but because of this last paragraph in the book, which always stays with me:
"I have heard that in India, not far from Madras, there is a temple in whose recesses three thousand years ago a great sage wrote on palm leaves the lives and deaths of all men of all times, past, present and future. When a visitor arrives, a monk comes out to greet him, saying: 'We have been waiting for you'. From somewhere he takes out one of those yellowed leaves, on which is written all that has happened to the visitor, and all that will happen to him in the future.
Now, going to to live in India, I shall seek out that temple. After all, one is always curious to know one's fate."
On the flight back from Bali, I mangled Tiziano's name in a conversation. This post atones for my faulty memory.
Robert Maybach: Faces of Tibet
Robert Maybach is an Austrian photographer with a degree in Industrial Mathematics and who studied photography in Prague. He worked as assistant to Mario Schmolka, and is more of a commercial than travel photographer but his portraits from Tibet are attest to his skills. The photographs are also for sale for a worthwhile cause: the Austrian chapter of Save Tibet.
Maybach's Faces of Tibet
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