Shiho Fukada: Tawang

Photo © Shiho Fukada/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved
One of my favorite photographers is Shiho Fukada, and a fresh slideshow of her photographs is featured in the New York Times.

A Contested Frontier In The Clouds is the rather awkward title chosen for the slideshow, but Shiho's photographs, despite the dry reportage they illustrate, has flashes of her usual creativity.

Tawang is a town in India's Arunachal Pradesh, and rises above 10,000 feet in this region of eastern Himalayas. It is home to one of Tibetan Buddhism’s most sacred monasteries, which is of the Gelugpa sect. The area is thickly forested with white stupas and steep, terraced hillsides that is home to the Monpa people, who practice Tibetan Buddhism, speak a language similar to Tibetan and once paid tribute to rulers in Lhasa.

The article accompanying the photo slideshow deals with the conflict over the Tawang area between India and China, which go back to the latter's territorial claims to Tibet. According to China, this section of northeast India has historically been part of Tibet, and should be part of China.

Paula Marina: Iemanjá

Photo © Paula Marina-All Rights Reserved
Born in Recife, Brazil, Paula Marina is a journalist and photographer who currently lives and works in in Sao Paulo. She started photography at the tender age of 18 years old, attending various courses at SENAC, and working with prints and enlargements in a makeshift darkroom in her bathroom.

Her website showcases a broad panoply of photographic interests, ranging from fine art to more travel oriented photography, however what caught my attention was her photo essay on Iemanjá.

Iemanjá is the Goddess of the Water in the Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda religions, and December 31 is when, in addition to celebrating New Year’s Eve, large crowds of its adherents are celebrating the Festa de Iemanjá near Rio's beaches. The goddess is offered flowers, gifts, perfume and rice which are cast into the water.

Like Santeria, it is basically a possession religion in which adherents assume the form of deities, both for worship and magic.

Java Jamboree: Listen to the walls talk

Prabanan Temple, said to be built around 850 CE by either Rakai Pikatan, king of the second Mataram dynasty, or Balitung Maha Sambu during the Sanjaya Dynasty continues to intrigue tourists even though much of the original stonework has been stolen or removed to other sites. The 2006 earthquake destroyed some more of the stonework and rendered the inside of most of the temples off-limits; so, one would have to be satisfied with just admiring the temples from the outside. Hire a guide who loiters in the temple ground and perhaps, he would point out to you an erotic carving here and there. There are few erotic carvings around and they are rather tame compared to the ones in Kajuraho, India but you'd probably go ooh and aah like some of my friends and I did. It was great when the walls talked!

Carvings in Prabanan Temple...Can you spot an erotic one here?

Traveling Tip: Listen when the walls talk!

Java Jamboree: Roaming Prambanan Temple

While in Yogyakarta, make it a point to visit Prambanan Temple! The temple which is characterised by a 47 m high central building inside a large complex of individual temples, all spotting typical Hindu temple architecture is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Prambanan temple complex originally consisted of three zones -the outer zone, the middle zone and the inner zone. The outer zone, a large space marked by a rectangular wall long destroyed, was said to be either a sacred park, or an ashram,which was the priests' boarding school. The middle zone consists of hundreds of small temples while the inner zone contains eight main temples and eight small shrines. Prambanan Temple which was closed to the public after the 2006 earthquake incidentally was reopened some weeks later even though the head of Yogyakarta Archaeological Conservation Agency announced that it would take months. My friends and I were thus lucky. We got to roam the complex and see the Pervara Temples, the Vahana Temple and the Trimurti, the three main shrines dedicated to Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu...


Prambanan Temple...

Traveling Tip: Roam!

Java Jamboree: From a Distance

About 18 km east of Yogyakarta City is the Prambanan temple complex, the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia and in South East Asia. On 27 May 2006, Yogyakarta suffered a 6.3-magnitude earthquake. The earthquake did not only claim the lives of 5,782 people and injured some 36,299 people but more than 135,000 houses were damaged. Prambanan temple too was not spared. Large pieces of debris, including carvings, were scattered over the ground and the temple was closed to the public. Someone I met who visited the temple then told me they could only see the temple from a distance...


Prambanan Temple... From a distance...

Traveling Tip: View from a distance!

Java Jamboree: A Little Bit of Art

If you are looking for a dose of Impressionism, this 19th-century art movement; and you are not anywhere near Paris or even have a Monet or a Van Gogh at hand but you are traveling the road that runs between Yogyakarta and Surakarta aka Solo, perhaps then, you'd like to take a break at Affandi Museum for some artistic respite. Affandi Museum sits on the bank of the Gajah Wong River and houses the artwork of Indonesia's celebrated painting maestro, the late Affandi as well as the artwork of many other Indonesian artists. The former who once was honoured with the Prix International Dag Hammarskjoeld Prize in Florence in 1976, reputedly was a self-taught artist best remembered for his unique technique of painting directly from tubes onto canvas. You'd not just get to see his version of Sunflowers here, but get to see his tomb and live his life...



At Affandi Museum...Can you spot any Sunflowers?

Traveling Tip: Get Artistic!

Carolyn Cole: Afghan Women

Photo © Carolyn Cole/LATimes-All Rights Reserved
The Los Angeles Times has featured an audio slideshow on Afghan Women, photographed and narrated by Carolyn Cole, and produced by Bryan Chan.

The premise of the audio slideshow is that while Afghan women live in a freer environment than what it was under the Taleban, when they were forbidden to leave their homes without a male relative, beaten for trivial infractions, and deprived of schooling and employment, they are still disillusioned by the meager gains achieved despite billions of dollars in international aid, and a sustained military campaign.

The abhorrent constraints of age-old traditions over the treatment of women still remain, and these are reinforced by poverty, illiteracy and ignorance. It is heart-breaking to realize that treatment of women in Afghanistan will not improve as quickly as we all hope, as these traditions are deeply woven in the country's very psyche and fabric, and that it will take decades upon decades of consistent educational efforts coupled with financial assistance to inculcate new attitudes. Forcible change will not work and cannot be practically sustained, but sensible persuasion supported by health and educational programs might.

Carolyn Cole's images in the audio slideshow are well chosen; some are even powerful...however she ought to have worked on her narration a little more. As it stands, she's intoning from a script rather than narrating. I know, photographers are now expected and required to be storytellers, narrators, videographers and lots of other things in between...but that's the new order of things, and we'd better get on with it.