A Pilgrimage Special: Bump into an Ashram

One minute, we were at the Mahabodhi Temple, and the next, after weaving in and out of some lanes, we were suddenly outside a big white building. We were supposed to be at an eye hospital to make some donations. In India, poor nutrition had caused some children to be born blind. As our leader and a small group of our fellow pilgrims crowded round an elderly looking Indian man with white beard to hand over our donation, I had a look round the building .Inside a big, dim and bare hall, there were groups of children studying as in a school. That must be the Samanvay Ashram. An ashram, in ancient India is a hermitage but nowadays, it could refer to an intentional community. According to the Internet, Samanvay Ashram is conducting a program of alternative basic education based on Ghandhian lines to 100 children who would also be provided with food, clothes and medicine on a long-term basis.This ashram which was founded in 1954, has worked towards the betterment of the downtrodden in the Bodhgaya community and was supposed to be a center for research & training in education and development. Well, the hall I saw, was really dark and bare and the group of children and teachers did look as gloomy and dejected as their surrounding. Some of us were thinking the teacher could have taken the children outdoor and conduct classes outside. The teachers mostly probably were not trained and perhaps, they were also poorly paid or even not paid at all for their efforts. In India, especially in government run rural schools, there may be no teacher at all and then of course, attendance to such school will be nil. If there is a teacher at all, the teacher has to run everything and even then, might see his meager pay after months of service...

Making a donation ... A donation made to Samanvay Ashram...


Children studying under a deplorable situation ...

NG Traveler Photography Seminars

Here's an interesting (albeit too short) video teaser of National Geographic Traveler photographers Jim Richardson and Catherine Karnow sharing some of their tips. The video was taken by Traveler's Susanne Hackett at its photo seminar called "A Passion for Travel: Photos that Tell the Story".

A good quote from Richardson: "Great pictures come from great travel experiences"

Check out NG Traveler's Blog Intelligent Travel for schedules of the Photo Seminars, and other travel news.

Semana Santa Holy Week

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
With Good Friday and Easter upon us, I attended Semana Santa in Antigua (Guatemala) a few years ago. Antigua is a magnificent city declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. It is also famous for its Catholic celebration of Holy Week, which commemorates the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ.

All of Antigua participates in the annual event, and the entire week is replete with religious activities. These rituals arrived with the missionaries from Spain, who brought Catholic fervor to the local indigenous population during colonial times. The famed colorful sawdust designs that carpet the cobblestoned processional routes of Antigua are called alfombras, and are one of the traditions that date back to the 1500s.

For more of my gallery of photographs during Semana Santa, visit Los Hombres de Popul Vuh

A Pilgrimage Special: Quiet Moments

At Bodhgaya, especially at Mahabodhi temple, there were many Buddhist pilgrims from all over the world. But the crowd was not as impressive as the one you see in Mecca where people seem to be swarming and swirling round and round the Kaaba. In Bodhgaya, the Buddhists on pilgrimage went about their own business; most were just meditating...enjoying perhaps their own quiet moments...

Buddhist pilgrims in Bodhgaya...

Philip Jones Griffiths

Photograph © Philip Jones Griffiths-All Rights Reserved
Philip Jones Griffiths, a photojournalist whose photographs of civilian casualties and suffering were among the defining images of the war in Vietnam, died on Wednesday at his home in London.

The New York Times' Slideshow of some of his photographs.

Battlespace Exhibition

From the introduction of Battlespace:

These photographs were made in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they depict neither country. They are glimpses of an alternate reality built upon them. The images do not provide a comprehensive account of these wars, or an understanding of these nations or their peoples. They are fragments, seen in off-moments behind the walls of concrete superbases—or outside them, through nightvision goggles and ballistic eye shields.

Battlespace is produced by November Eleven, a 501(c)(3) public charity dedicated to independent journalism. The exhibition was made possible with support and cooperation of Aurora Select, Fastback Creative Books, and Print Space.

Some of the photographers are Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Christoph Bangert, Guy Calaf,Jason Howe, Teru Kuwayama, Jehad Nga and Stephanie Sinclair.

Until April 30th 2008, the Battlespace exhibition can be viewed at Gallery FCB in New York City:

Gallery FCB
16 West 23rd Street
New York City

Canon 5D Firmware Update

Canon just announced the release of firmware updates for the EOS 5D (and EOS 30D). The update allows the 5D to recognize the full capacity of Compact Flash cards over 8 GB.

I'm still sour at Canon that it hasn't announced a successor to its full frame 5D earlier this year, and hope that the rumors that it will appear next month will prove true. I wonder if the launch of a 5D Mark II (or whatever it'll be called) hasn't been delayed for the Canon engineers to further enhance its specs in order to compete with the new offerings from Nikon, Olympus and Sony?

Canon's 5D Firmware Update