Environmental Portraiture

A large part of my work is photographing people in their local context, resulting in what I like to call ‘environmental portraiture’. Some of the techniques I use are:

1. While most of my portraits have been of single subjects, I currently prefer adding a second person into an image to add a new layer to the subject matter. The image is no longer just about one person and his/her environment, and the viewers of the photo begin to speculate about the subjects’ relationship with each other, to the immediate environment and to their surroundings. A whole story plot can emanate from such images. Phil Borges is particularly adept at this technique, with a main protagonist in the photograph taking center stage, and another person in the background adding depth to the visual scene.

2. When opting for a single person portrait and realizing that the background doesn’t add much to the image’s context, I try to get as close as possible to fill the frame. On the other hand, if the background is relevant or complementary to the portrait, and isn’t distracting, I pull back.

3. The choice between candid (or natural) portraiture and posed photography is determined by the situation in which I find myself. If the circumstances allow it, I try to do both with the same subject. On my photo expeditions or when photographing solo, I frequently set up extended photo shoots, and although this goes against the grain for some travel photographers, I found that it allows my images to tell a story about the persons I photograph. During these photo shoots, I have the opportunity of establishing a rapport with my subjects, put them at their ease, interview them and record their voices along with any ambient sound. This gives me the raw material I need for the production of multimedia stories.

Joyce Birkenstock

Joyce Birkenstock is a remarkable artist and photographer, and a peripatetic international traveler who has visited most countries of the world. She received her training at the University of Dallas, the University of Iowa, the Norton Art School, the Art Students League, and the Vermont Studio Center, and her awards, achievements and professional affiliations are too many to list here. Her artist's statement on her website includes this: "I feel a human connection with the people I paint, and while I may never see them again, I have become a part of them and they have become a part of me."

She traveled on most of my photo expeditions, and the picture above is one of her exquisite paintings made during the photo expedition The Temples of People of Angkor Wat, which I organized and led in February 2006.

Verdict: The Holiday & Travel Show

Well, I did drop by the London Travel Show in Earl’s Court. The exhibitors included every travel-related business operating in the United Kingdom, from Audley Travel Group to World Expeditions. Hundreds of travel operators offering travel packages, adventure and specialty tours, along with tourism boards and vendors of travel gear, were all represented there. Heidi Laughton, a photographer friend here in London, joined me in attending a Beyond the Lens lecture in the hall. It was moderated by photographers Paul Goldstein (Exodus), Ariadne Van Zanderberger of Bradt, and Steve Davey. The lecture was a ho-hum affair with nothing more than superficial discussions on the current travel photography industry in the UK....but let's face it, it was free.

The short listed submissions in the Travel Photo of the Year competition (run jointly by the Independent newspaper and Wanderlust) were exhibited. Heidi’s submission was a lovely black and white photograph of street urchins in China.

I came out of the show with a handful of handsomely printed travel catalogs. The quality of the printing of some of these catalogs surpass anything I've seen in the United States. Audley Travel's glossy catalogs with superb photography, as an example, really stand out. Many of the well-known UK and European travel and stock photographers, such as Paul Goldstein, Steve Allen, Peter Langer, Toby Sinclair and Mario Pozzi, are credited for photographs on the Audley catalogs.

The Jews of Cuba

The Travel section of this week's New York Times carries a short slideshow on the Jewish community in Havana. It's a far cry from the bustling community of pre-Castro's era, but the small number of the remaining Cuban Jews keep their traditions and culture alive. The photographs are by Sven Creutzmann, a Polaris photographer.

I visited Havana for an accredited street photography workshop in 2000, and recall the Jewish synagogue in Havana Vieja, which was unfortunately closed at the time of day I visited. Havana and its wonderful people offer such a wealth of photographic opportunities, and I am impatient to be able to revisit (legally) the island. It's an absolute outrage that US citizens are restricted from legally visiting Cuba, and seeing the number of potential British tourists swarming all over the stall of the Cuban Tourism Board at yesterday's Travel Show was really galling.

Canon Mark III Rumor?

The photography blogsphere is buzzing with rumors that Canon has a prototype of a 1Ds Mark III being tested by a select handful of photographers. Annie Leibowitz is said to be one the lucky ones.

Should this be true, the 1Ds Mark III might have a 22-megapixel resolution, a substantial increase over the 17.2-megapixel EOS-1Ds Mark II, and could deliver these extra pixels in a body that's half the size of its large, heavy predecessor.

Rumor or not, we will not know anything definite for 8 months, since the camera will not get announced until PhotoPlus Expo in October 2007.

Do I personally care? No. I think that if such a camera was to be for real, it would be better suited to studio and commercial photographers than to travel or editorial photographers...and if so, I can't wait to see what its street price will be: $8000-9000?

Paula Lerner: The Women of Kabul

A few months ago, I chanced upon a well-produced multimedia slideshow of Paula Lerner's arresting images of Aghani women in Kabul.

Paula spent much of her 21-year career as a photojournalist documenting stories for national and international magazines, and in both her professional assignments and personal work, women's issues have been a recurring theme. Knowing that Afghanistan's women face some of the harshest circumstances of women anywhere in the world, she volunteered to work for Business Council for Peace, a nonprofit organization that assists women in post-conflict countries.

Reuters: Use of Photoshop

As a consequence of a recent fracas involving manipulation of images of the Lebanon-Israel conflict last summer by a photographer associated with Reuters, its Editor-in-Chief recently posted rules governing the use of Photoshop to its photographers/photojournalists. These have raised a debate within the photojournalism industry as to what is digital manipulation...is it any different from the traditional darkroom techniques used by film photographers? Is it relevant to travel photographers? I think so, but you decide.

I agree wholeheartedly with these rules. My use of Photoshop is limited to the very basics. For example, I seldom crop my images in Photoshop, but I used selective sharpening on a few of my images, as well as auto levels. However, I do not use anything other than minor color correction and sharpening when submitting my photographs to buyers. Why? Because it's unethical and digital manipulation is always found out by a professional editor.

Here are the rules summary:

ALLOWED:

• Cropping
• Adjustment of Levels to histogram limits
• Minor colour correction
• Sharpening at 300%, 0.3, 0
• Careful use of lasso tool
• Subtle use of burn tool
• Adjustment of highlights and shadows
• Eye dropper to check/set gray

NOT ALLOWED:

• Additions or deletions to image
• Cloning & Healing tool (except dust)
• Airbrush, brush, paint
• Selective area sharpening
• Excessive lightening/darkening
• Excessive colour tone change
• Auto levels
• Blurring
• Eraser tool
• Quick Mask
• In-camera sharpening
• In-camera saturation styles

POV: Techniques

Here's another way of changing a photographer's point of view. I suggested in an earlier post that photographers had to vary their angles, and one way was to photograph from a low viewpoint. Here, I chose to photograph the Cambodian doan chi from above. Yes, being 6'3" tall does give me a certain advantage.

I wouldn't recommend that you do the same before gaining your subject's trust, and ask permission first. In this case, I conveyed my intention to the nun-widow with sign-language, and she never exhibited any reaction to my towering above her and so close. She probably thought I was photographing something in the distance.

Flash Gallery Makers

As readers of The Travel Photographer Blog know, I use Soundslides to produce multimedia slideshows for my images, and find it more than adequate for my requirements. However, for those of you who are more interested in producing simple photo web galleries using Flash architecture, there are a few products that will do that quite easily.

The simplest photo gallery is the one in which the photographer's web site has a number of image thumbnails, which when hovered on with the pointer, open on to a larger version of the thumbnail. It's effective, clean and easy to navigate. and Macromedia Flash is widely available on most computers, whether these are Mac or Windows operating systems.

There are two software packages I know of which do what I describe. The free version is called Slide Viewer which is cross platform (ie both Mac and Windows) compatible. It's a simple viewer as the name indicates, and seems quite easy to install and will build the "thumbnails + main image" type of gallery some photographers seek.

A much more sophisticated slideshow maker SlideShowPro is available, and widely used by photographers and other visual artists to showcase their work with a bit more flair. Music and background soundtracks can be added to the slideshow, and it offers other plug-ins as well. It's available for $25 through its website.

Phil Borges

I've had the pleasure of meeting Phil Borges in his home town of Seattle in 2004, and photographed alongside him in Dharmasala in March 2005 when I was assisting in his Bridges of Understanding program. His work is just superlative, and his signature style of black and white portraits with the subject's skin toned in is recognizable anywhere.

As Phil and I were photographing novices at the Chortling monastery in Dharmasala, I couldn't help but notice how our styles were different. I am a fast photographer, triggering the shutter as fast as I can....while he is slow and deliberate. I watched as he left his Canon cameras to the side, while he gently spoke to the novices and made them comfortable with our presence. He studied the narrow rays of sunlight that shone in the room, and set the novices in the positions where he could exploit that light. The setting up probably took 4-5 minutes (a virtual eternity to me), and only when he saw exactly what he wanted, did he pick up his cameras. I learnt more from watching Phil than I did from all the photography lectures I attended.

Phil’s current project, Women Empowered, introduces some of the extraordinary women in the developing world who are breaking through gender barriers and conventions in order to enhance their well being and the well being of their community.

A Requiem For Angkor?

The Washington Post published a pessimistic article about the future of Angkor. Peace in Cambodia has opened it to the tourism industry, and the magnificent temples of Angkor have in recent years generated considerable revenue for the national government. This year, a deluge of tour operators is expected to bring in nearly 1 million foreign visitors, a sixfold increase since 2000. According to UNESCO, the total number of visitors to Angkor will reach a record 2 million this year and at least 3 million by 2010. I understand that the largest tourist numbers are from Japan, Korea and then the United States.

I saw this marauding influx first hand during my photo expedition in February 2006, and witnessed the increasing damage it caused to the temples' infrastructure when compared to my previous year visit. My driver told me that 40 hotels and inns had been built in Siem Reap over the course of only 4-5 months, giving it the feel of a gold rush town. I recall feeling that Angkor Wat would be a Cambodian Disneyland within a few years, and I read an echoing quote in the article by Khin Po Thai, a longtime Angkor guide and preservation activist who said "Angkor has become a sort of cultural Disneyland". It's sad but I doubt if there are any solutions.

Jehad Nga: Ethiopia's Stone Churches

Continuing on the theme of Ethiopia as an incredible destination for travel photographers, here's a slideshow of Jehad Nga's work in Lalibela, and recently published in the New York Times. These were photographed during the Feast of Transfiguration, which occurs in early August in the Orthodox Christian calendar.

Jehad is a Corbis photographer, and you'll see that his images are often made in the dark, only a single source of light highlighting the individuals themselves. As an example, see the image of deacons during the church sermon at Beta Medeanlam which is lit by candles. How he manages that so effectively is a testament to his creativity and talent. Over the past four years, Jehad Nga's assignments have found him covering stories in Somalia, Kenya, Iraq, Liberia, Libya, Darfur, Ethiopia and Iran.

A bit of background on these images from the NY Times' Joshua Hammer: "I had arrived in Lalibela, fortuitously, just before the Feast of the Transfiguration that commemorates Jesus’ appearance in divine form before three of his apostles on Mount Tabor. Within a few minutes, my guide had whisked me to the grandest of King Lalibela’s 11 monolithic churches, chiseled out of a single mass of reddish limestone by royal craftsmen at the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th centuries."

Cover It Up??

I’ve seen many photographers, on my photo expeditions and elsewhere, constantly looking at their DLSRs’ LCD screens to check if their just-captured image looks right. This reflexive action, which has become a habit to some, wastes considerable time, and potentially results in the loss of the ‘decisive moment’ we all hope for. The fleeting smile, the momentary look, the brief twinkle in the eye, can be all gone while you have your head down looking at the LCD figuring out if the histogram or “who-knows-what” is correct or not. Of course, the question is why don't the DSLR manufacturers gives us an option to turn the display off? Maybe some do, but Canon doesn't.

I know that many of the war photographers and conflict photojournalists actually put black tape (you know, the tape used by electricians) over their cameras LCD screens to stop them from looking while photographing (they do that for safety reasons as well). Another more elegant solution is what is peddled by Delkin Devices as Pop-Up Shades. These come in different models to fit most DSLRs, and provide protection to the screens and double as glare guards. I’m not sure I’d like them, so if I catch myself peering at my screen too many times, I might try the electrician tape solution first....but others may prefer the pop-ups.

PDN 's Travel Photography Contest

The venerable Photography News Digest (PDN) magazine has published results of its World In Focus contest. I found David Sacks' Light Rain photographed in Uganda to be excellent, and well deserving in winning the Human Condition category. The woman carrying her baby, the tree in the distance and the movement of her skirt all contribute to a well balanced composition. The image's toning also adds considerable 'gravitas' to the image. I imagine that its color version might not be as compelling.

The remaining images in the contest range from being excellent and well worth the accolade to being pedestrian and lackluster.

One of the few really ho-hum images is one by Deborah Young photographed in Angkor Wat. What bothers me here is not the image (although I don't see what attracted the judges to it) but the caption that accompanies it. The caption says "Taken at the ruins of Angkor Thom in Siem Reap, Cambodia, a child monk sleeps while hundreds of tourists walk around him." Who are they kidding? Anyone who's been to Angkor knows very well that such a thing will never happen. Never. The caption writer (whether it's the photographer or someone else) is making it up.

This novice (there are no such thing as a 'child monk') would be virtually trampled to death if he was to lie down as he is doing in this photograph. No, this image is posed, and not very intelligently at that. I have nothing against posed photographs, but what I do find ridiculous is the caption. Oh, another thing...the ruins are that of Bayon temple at Angkor Thom.

John Stanmeyer

I met John Stanmeyer at his beautiful home and studio in Bali where he was conducting a photojournalism workshop. He is the co-founding member of VII and a contract photographer with Time Magazine since 1998. He has spent over 7 years focusing on Asian issues and has been working on a book about AIDS throughout Asia, as well as continuing his photographic documentation for a book on the radical changes in Indonesia since 1997.

For this workshop, he sponsored two Indonesian photographers who would not have been able to attend otherwise. In an interview, he said “They were taking brilliant pictures with busted equipment but they never photographed enough. At the end of the day, they only showed us a few photos. Finally, I discovered they couldn’t afford flash cards and were using only one 256 mg card. How do you support these talented people who try to communicate in difficult situations under difficult economic conditions? Their homes are in the places that we can afford to fly into and then can leave while they must stay and try to keep communicating.” The last sentence is also applicable to us, as travel photographers...don't you think?

A remarkable photographer, a wizard at photo editing and a genuinely nice guy, here’s John on Apple’s Aperture. I chose this multimedia feature because it shows him at work in his Bali home studio. He was working on that particular photograph when I was there as well!

Tritone Your Photographs!

I occasionally decide that some of my photographs would look better in black and white, but I rarely leave them as B&W and prefer to give them a warm tone. In the above photograph of the fishermen on Inle Lake in Myanmar, I used the following technique in Photoshop (I use Mac but I expect that Windows would be the same) to tritone it:

1. Open your image (RAW or jpg), and make all your normal adjustments in terms of levels, curves, brightness, etc (but do not sharpen yet). Flatten the image.

2. Go to Image>Mode>Greyscale in the menu, which will convert your image into black & white. Then go again to the menu, and choose Image>Mode>Duotone. This will bring up the Duotone options. Under the Type pull-down menu, select Tritone where you will be given the choices of 3 inks to choose from.

3. Select these three types of inks: Black, PANTONE 1205 C and FOCOLTONE 5011. This is done by ticking on each square of the ink samples in the dialog box. Click OK to confirm your three choices.

4. Your image should now be warm toned and probably darker than you’d like. So go to Image>Mode>RGB and switch the mode back to RGB.

5. Open your Levels adjusments and user the sliders to increase the highlights and mid-tones to the levels you feel is right for the image.

6. At this stage, you can sharpen the image and save it.

Megapixels Myth?

Here's a just published article by David Pogue, the NY Times tech guy, who explains the reasons why the more megapixels a camera has doesn't mean that its pictures are better....and that all this hype and spin about megapixels is nothing but a marketing ploy by the camera manufaturers to sell more expensive cameras, and to unecessarily accelerate obsolescence.

In a test, he and his associates compared large prints using the 16.7-megapixel Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II flagship camera in a studio, three photos of the same subject were taken at three different resolutions: 7 megapixels, 10 and 16.7. The results were virtually the same.

So are the photographs using the 16.7 mps Canon virtually identical to those using a Canon EOS 30D 8.2 mps? In my view, I think they would be very close...and almost impossible to tell apart unless the photographs are blown up to print sizes such wall-size retail displays where the 16.7 mps would have the advantage. However to state the obvious, the lens used on both cameras should be the same.

Sasha Dean Biyan

Sasha Dean Biyan was an aeronautical engineer and a consultant until becoming a full time photographer. He lived among indigenous tribes in Papua New Guinea and Borneo, and spent considerable time in the Amazon jungle living with the various tribes of the area. The technical and aesthetical foundations of his photography are remarkable, but it seemed to me that many of his ethnographical galleries were influenced by fashion. Intrigued, I looked his work up and discovered that he was also a successful fashion photographer. Mystery solved.

His Earth Pilgrim website is flash-based, and its navigation is somewhat quirky. The background music is new age, which I promptly turned off. My favorite gallery of the seven different galleries is Alma (Soul). For the most part, the black and white portraits stunning, and are technically spot on. Just look at the second portrait in the Alma gallery: a portrait of a Muslim Indonesian woman in Solo, whose face and eyes are simply mesmerizing…and how about the expression of the Peruvian man in Pitumarca? Yet, other photographs feel bland and “sanitized”. Compare Sasha’s work with that of Phil Borges, and you’ll know what I mean.

In my opinion, his work hardly qualifies as travel photography, but it’s certainly beautiful. My thanks to Felice for referring me to his website: Earth Pilgrim

Wednesday, 28 February 2007

A celebrity photographer is offering a 14 days photo 'workshop' in India in November 2007. The itinerary is expected to include a few days at the Pushkar Fair. I say 'expected' because the itinerary isn't ready yet. However, the cost of the workshop is ready at $7100 per person, and the workshop will accommodate 14 photographers. Yes, fourteen. The deposit to secure a berth on the workshop is $2000.

Being a compulsive number cruncher, here’s my back of envelope analysis. I’ve set up and led a similar itinerary before, and I know that current land costs for such a tour can be arranged for no more than $2500. If what I claim is true (and it is), this means that the celebrity photographer’s margin on the workshop is easily $4500 a head. Assuming (and it’s a fairly reasonable assumption) that the workshop will sell out, the celebrity photographer is looking at $63,000 for 14 days work. That's $4500 a day, folks. Nice work if you can get it.

There are enthusiastic people willing to pay a $4500 premium to attend such an event with a celebrity photographer, and I hope they get their money’s worth. Mind you, with 14 participants in the workshop, I'm not sure how much time each participant will get with the -hopefully accessible- celebrity, but having sharp elbows will help. As for me, “I just report and you decide”, as they say.

Cleansed of Sin By The Ganges

The Washington Post has published a gallery of images from Allahabad, where the Ardh Kumbh Mela is winding down. This is one of the holiest Hindu festivals, when millions of Hindus bathe in the confluence of the rivers Ganges and Yamuna. I've posted earlier about this festival. The images are by Indian photographers working for AP and Getty. The first image is of Western Hindus bathing in the Ganges, a rather incongruous choice for an opening photograph.

Kloie Picot: One Shot More

Kloie Picot is a Canadian photojournalist and filmmaker specializing in documenting conflicts, critical social issues, cultural events and religious rituals from around the world. She is also pursuing the multimedia field by combining her photography, video and sound.

Now based in Taiwan, she travels and works extensively in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Far East. She spent 8 months in Israel and Occupied Palestine filming 'Shots That Bind' on the lives and work of Palestinian photojournalists in Nablus. It is there where Kloie became enthralled with the split-second capture of moments which conflict photography exemplifies.

Kloie was kind enough to send me a DVD of 'Shots That Bind', and I was mesmerized by the remarkable hard hitting documentary.

Her website is fresh off the press, and I take great pleasure to introduce it here.

Bolivia: The Tinku Ritual

The New York Times and its sister company, the International Herald Tribune report today from Bolivia on the unusual ritual of Tinku, a word that means “encounter” in both the Aymara and Quechua languages, which was once widespread throughout the Andean world, predating the arrival of the conquistadors. Anthropologists say it now tenuously exists just in an isolated pocket of Bolivia, seven hours southeast of La Paz by bus on a dirt road.

The ritual involves dance, drinking chicha, a fermented beverage made here from rye, and then fighting breaks out until blood stains the dirt alleyways. It's a combination of harvest or fertility ritual and a chance for young men to show off in front of women from other communities.

I recall a festival on the Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca when I visited Bolivia in 2002. The locals were celebrating a harvest festival, and although there was no violence, I thought that chicha did flow rather too freely.

The slideshow is of photographs by Evan Abramson of the NY Times: The Tinku Ritual

World Press Photo 2007

The World Press Photo in Holland announced its 2007 winners, and Spencer Platt deservedly takes first place with his picture of a group of young Lebanese driving through a South Beirut neighborhood devastated by Israeli bombings. The picture was taken on 15 August 2006, the first day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah when thousands of Lebanese started returning to their homes.

To me, this picture is the epitome of what photojournalism ought to be. A single picture says it all. The image of wealthy privileged Lebanese cruising a devastated neighborhood in South Beirut (aka a poor Shia neighborhood) says it all about the 'two' Lebanons. There's the privileged, moneyed, Western-leaning and (usually Maronite Christian) minority on one side and the downtrodden, poor, disinfranchised Shia majority which bore the brunt of the Israeli destruction last summer on the other. It's the classic tale of a divided nation where the minority elitist class govern, while the majority have little say in their country's future and their own economic advancement.

Just look at the picture: The women are in revealing dresses; one is holding a handkerchief to her nose (to protect her from the stench of death and destruction, or was she just blowing her nose?) and the other is blithely taking pictures on her cell phone. Are these young people going to volunteer to help fellow Lebanese who've been wounded and killed in the bombings? Are they going to donate blood? Are they going to donate funds to help those who are homeless? I just don't think so. To me, these people are on a sightseeing drive through devastated neighborhoods, and will return with their stories and cell phone images to show their friends while wasting their nights away in Beirut's nightspots. If I'm right, then what a despicable behavior!

To me, this picture foretells the future of the Lebanon.

Pascal Meunier: The Baths of Cairo

The featured photographs introduced in this post are a revelation for me, as I had no idea that public baths still existed at all in Cairo, the city of my birth. It appears that during the 12th century, the Egyptian baths were the most beautiful of the East, the most convenient and best laid out. Today, excluded from the government's restoration plans , the hammams of Cairo are decaying.

Pascal Meunier is a documentary photographer based in Paris, whose latest photographic works focus on Arab-Muslim culture. A culture which endlessly talked of and criticized these days, but seldom understood nor appreciated.

For the past eight years, Pascal has reported on cultural traditions from Mauritania to Malaysia, passing through Iran, Libya, Yemen and Egypt on the way. The objective of his photography is to capture the cultural heritage and traditions that are swiftly vanishing. He also shows a Muslim world in change, overtaken by modernity, but increasingly anxious to preserve its values. He photographs with a Leica MP.

I found his images of the Cairene public baths to be brooding, saturated and atmospheric. As I said, a revelation and certainly a potential personal project when I next visit.

Radhika Chalasani: Widow City

Ms Chalasani is a New York-based photojournalist, and covered Vietnam's emergence from isolation, the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide, and the famine in Sudan; coverage for which she received many coveted awards.

Her most recent work on Indian widows in Vrindavan is the principal reason for her appearance on TTP. Her gender may have granted her easier access to the widows, but that takes nothing away from her talented compositions. See for example, her choice of viewpoint in the image of the widow getting a haircut, in the one of the broken sink in a widow's hovel and the final image of a cow sharing a narrow alley with an elderly widow.

Again, her website is Flash-based, so no shortcuts are available. Her gallery on the widows is titled Widow City

PDF Slideshow

Photoshop has a frequently overlooked but very useful – and super simple- feature which generates PDF slideshows of images in a matter of seconds. These PDF slideshows can be emailed (or burnt on CD) to photo editors, clients and friends to view your work. Since Adobe Reader is on virtually all computers, there's no difficulty in viewing the PDF slideshows.

Here’s how simple it is:

1. Open File Browser in Photoshop.
2. Click on File>Automate>PDF Presentation
3. The PDF Presentation Dialog Box>Browse>Select Images
4. When images are selected, select Output Options>Presentations
5. Select Presentations Options: Advance after 3-4 seconds
6. Select Transition type
7. Save
8. The PDF Options dialog box opens: Click OK
9. The PDF Presentation Saved on Desktop
10. Right Click (on Mac) to create Archive of PDF for an email-able zip file.

Flickr In Stock Photography?

A recent post on Dan Heller's (a talented and versatile professional photographer) blog has added his voice to the rumor that sites such as Flickr and Shutterfly may be considering entering the stock photography business. He asserts that the world of photography will surely get involved in user-generated content, and predicts that sooner or later, these sites will recognize the enormous potential of monetizing user-generated content, similar to what YouTube has done.

Here's a couple of Dan Heller's views:

"As I've been arguing since I got into the photography business, Truism #1 states that more people have photography as a hobby than as a profession. Therefore, the basic fundamental principles of economics make it inevitable that photo businesses will have to expand into a hybrid of consumer/pro-photo sharing/licensing models. Not doing so will be career suicide."

"It is inevitable that someone--whether it's Flickr or other photo-sharing sites--will eventually figure this out and engage in some form of business that monetizes user-generated photography."

I have so far not used Flickr despite its many advantges. The reason is that Flickr (or Yahoo, which is its parent company) requires that those who submit photographs etc agree to granting it worldwide royalty-free non-exclusive license to use these photographs...always a stumbling block for self-respecting photographers.

I expect if Heller's predictions are indeed realizable, that separate terms will have to cover the business monetization model of photo sharing. Notwithstanding, his post prompted me to visit Flickr and I must tell you that the quality of some of the photographs are just spectacular, whether travel or photojournalistic. Incredible quality...and I'm now considering joining, and to keep an eye of future developments.

Amanda Jones

Amanda Jones is a prolific writer and photographer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work appears in travel magazines, and her short stories have been published in several travel anthologies. She has also done story development for National Geographic television, and her photography series Timeless, black and white photographs of African tribal peoples, was exhibited at a United Nations film festival.

Her photography is essentially aimed at travel magazines and travel catalogs/stock libraries. She photographs 'nice' portraits, mostly verticals and double-spreads for magazines, and to accompany her travel writings. If you thumb through travel magazines, you'll notice the verticals, the wide space to the left or right of images to accomodate text or titles, etc. It's a style of travel photography that generally doesn't appeal to me, but it does sell and I do it as well.

I've chosen her work in the Ethiopian south, namely in the Omo Valley, for inclusion in TTP. She has also written a short article for the London Sunday Times on her adventures with the tribes of the Omo Valley which is funny and informative. Her introduction to the Mursi tribe echoes my own essay Brief Encounters; The Mursi published in Outdoor Photography last year.

Jobo Giga-Vu

Rob Galbraith's website reports that JOBO just announced that an upcoming firmware revision for the Giga Vu Pro Evolution will add an on-screen loupe to the photo storage device for working photographers. The loupe will provide users of this mobile image storage device with a button in the unit’s zoom menu that makes a rectangular loupe appear on the LCD screen so photographers can closely examine important details of their pictures.

This model has a bright 3.7-inch screen (640 x 480 pixels) and is available in capacities of up to 120GB. It can also play movies and music files and has support for RAW files too. The street prices are about $500 for 40gb to $900 for 120gb.

In contrast, the new Epson p3000 (40gb) has a 4.0-inch screen (640-480 pixels) and is retailed at $490. I wouldn't be surprised if Epson didn't follow through with a firmware of its own.

The jury's out.

Travel: The Year In Pictures 2006

Lonnie Schlein is the picture editor of the Travel section of the New York Times, and in this interactive feature he shares how he personally chose the best photographs for the newspaper's Travel: The Year In Pictures 2006.

While I agree with some of his choices (such as Jehad Nga's photograph of an Ethiopian woman coming out of church), I still don't understand how picture editors narrow down images. It must be a talent acquired after years of experience, a sort of gut feel...but this multimedia presentation did little to shed light on the thinking process.

Travel Pictures 2006

Beyond The Frame At TTP

A weekly feature titled Beyond The Frame will appear on The Travel Photographer each Sunday. Beyond The Frame will give the background story on images I photographed during my travels. Cultural, historical and religious background, as well as information, anecdotes and EXIF data (if digital) will be part of Beyond The Frame, to give you the 'whole picture'

Canon Reviews

For Canon users: We all need a quick source of information and simple hands-on reviews on Canon cameras and lenses. The Digital Picture provides recommendations in simple non-technical (well, almost) language, and reviews on most Canon cameras and lenses.

It's a great first (and for some, the last) step when we are considering to either upgrade or supplement our Canon equipment.

The Digital Picture

Michael Yamashita

For over 25 years, Michael Yamashita has combined his passions for photography and travel by documenting the Asian continent for National Geographic. He has covered such diverse subjects as the Mekong River, the journeys of Marco Polo, The Great Wall of China, and much of Japan.

Yamashita decided that he wanted to become a professional photographer in the mid-70's, and started submitting images and pitching ideas to travel magazines in Japan, as well as in Hong Kong and Singapore. His images were bought by Singapore Airlines, for their brochures and calendars.

Returning to the United States a few years later, he started his career of with the National Geographic where he worked as a free-lancer for over 25 years. His recent Geographic stories have been long-term assignments, many of which have evolved into books.

A thorough professional, and a classic travel photographer. Here's a gallery of his images, courtesy of Double Exposure magazine.

Natalie Behring: Shanghai Portraits

As The Travel Photographer blog has a significant number of readers hailing from China, I thought it's time for Natalie Behring to make an appearance here. She is a freelance photographer/photojournalist based in Beijing, and covered major stories across Asia, Mideast and Africa for major international magazines and newspapers. She has also worked for numerous NGOs.

Natalie's portfolio is comprehensive, ranging from China to Papua New Guinea. However, it's her B&W gallery Portraits of Shanghai which I chose for this post.

Look for Portraits of Shanghai on Natalie Behring

Audio: Microphone Mount System

It was recently suggested by Bill Putnam, a photojournalist, that a solution to the problem of photographing and recording audio at the same time would be to use a Light Wave Mini Mount. Rather than switching his camera for his audio recorder and vice-versa to do so, he attaches the Light Wave Mini Mount to the camera's flash shoe for his microphone and does both. He uses a mono microphone with a narrow sound cone.

The downside to this system is that the microphone will catch the sound of the shutter, and possibly one's breathing...but it's an idea to be considered. I suppose it would be workable for ambient sound, by editing the shutter noise out...but that would not work for interviews.The other downside is that the mount is quite pricey at $165.

Adobe CS2 Offer

For those who have Adobe Elements and $300 to spend, here comes an interesting and worthwhile offer from Adobe. Adobe Photoshop Elements customers are now entitled to buy Adobe CS2 software for $299, which is a saving of $350.00 off the regular price of $649.00.

All you need is the serial number of the Elements software. The CDs are in either Mac or PC versions. The offer expires on February 27. Once you install the CS2, you can try out the CS3 Beta as well.

Beyond The Frame: Gotipua Dancer

For the inaugural Beyond The Frame feature, I chose this image of a Gotipua dancer.

At the tail-end of a solo photo expedition in the tribal belt of central India, I stopped in Raghurajpur,a small village of artists and dancers about 20 miles from Puri in Orissa. I photographed Bibhuti Bhusan Champati, a young Gotipua dancer in front of his house in this small village, as he was waiting to perform. I had watched him, and others of this dancing group, expertly applying his make-up, under the watchful eye of their dance guru.

The tradition of Gotipua was introduced in remote villages of Orissa after the tradition of Devdasis was abolished following the Mughal invasions of India. Since women were forced behind purda during that period, dance masters trained pre-pubescent boys into the nuances of Devdasi’s dance to keep the tradition alive. The dancers wore feminine attire and applied make-up, but were not allowed to dance inside temples. Over a period of time their style of dance changed, and adopted many acrobatic elements. It was only after about 50 years ago that the Gotipua dancing style was admitted into the fold of classical dances of India.

Bibhuti's small house was painted in brilliant indigo, with intricate designs, dazzling in their colors, influenced by Hindu mythological paintings. After the photo shoot, his father asked for money for having allowed me, as he put it, "to use the colorful background' for his son's portraits. Bibhuti was at ease posing for my camera, probably used to tourists, foreign and local, who see him perform the Gotipua dancing in Puri and other major cities in India and even abroad.

Katharina Hesse: The Stilt Walkers of China

In recognition of the Chinese New Year, another highly talented photojournalist to grace TTP blog is Katharina Hesse, a photojournalist living in China and Germany. She holds a graduate degree in Chinese studies from the Institut National des Langues et Civilizations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris, and is one of a few foreign photographers who are accredited by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and lived in China for more than 13 years. In 2003 and 2004 she covered China for Getty ’s news service. Hesse is self-taught in photography, albeit with a temporary apprenticeship under Peter Turnley.

Apart from her sensitive work documenting the North Korean refugees in China, have a look at her photo essay on the stilt walkers of Yanqing. It seems that the tradition of stilt walking has virtually vanished from other Chinese towns and cities except in shows for tourists. Its relative remoteness has protected Yanqing's traditions, and farmers proudly continue their annual stilt walking performances that culminate in the annual contest for best costumes and performances among neighboring villages. Stilts were first used hundreds of years ago in China when farmers stood on stilts to pick fruit from trees.

Film Loop Studio

Film Loop Studio is a free download and creates a a slideshow of any images or photos. It offers collages, title frames, text, tattoos, bubbles, frames and transparency tools to enhance story telling for both Mac and PC users.

I found it very easy to produce a slideshow of photographs, however there's no audio capability so far. The slideshow can then be added to a website, a blog, etc. The advertisements appearing on the side of the player are distracting but I suppose they have to generate some income after all.

World Press Network uses Film Loop for some of its photo essays. Here's a feature on India's Snake Charmers on the dying craft of snake charming in Orissa. The photographs are by Adrian Fisk.

WPN's India's Snake Charmers

Jan C. Schlegel : Pain & Beauty

Jan C. Schlegel is a photographer from Germany, whose ethno-photographic work is in the tradition of Phil Borges. His black & white portraits are partially toned, rich in details and in depth.

His black & white photographs are made with a 4x5 field camera on T-max film, enlarged and printed on fiber base photo paper, and partially toned with chemicals of Schlegel's own mixture. The lengthy process is then finished by selenium toning the photographs.

His photographs are of children and older people in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mali, Algeria, Pakistan and India. He assures us that no one in his posed portraits wear any make-up, nor were they asked to wear any special dress. Nothing was staged and nothing is fake.

I found the quality of these photographs to be remarkable. His website claims that he succeeds in not only creating artistic photographs, but in documenting the uniqueness of his subjects...the people who posed for him. Absolutely.

Partial Color/Sepia

Here's a simple Photoshop technique to convert an image to sepia, and paint spots of color back into it.

1) Open your image file In Photoshop, and select Image>Adjustments>Desaturate to remove all color from the image. The image should be still RGB.

2) Your image will now appear in black & white.

3) Go to Image>Adjustments>Photo Filter, and choose Sepia. In the Sepia dialog box, Adjust Density to your liking and also check Luminosity. Click OK when you're satisfied with the sepia image.

4) Select the History brush from the tool palette. Choose a brush size appropriate to the spots you've chosen to color in, using the palette located just under the file menu bar. The brush hardness should be 100%.

5) Using the History brush you can now “paint” the color back where you want it. Don't paint all in one stroke, but stop and go so you can undo any errors without having to start all over again.

6) Continue the process until the area is complete. Save.

Jasmin Shah: Everyday India

Jasmin Shah is a young photojournalist, who graduated from the University of Montana in 1999. She worked overseas and currently freelances for the Chicago Tribune, among other publications.

She has a number of galleries on her website, but what attracted me the most is the freshness of her images in the gallery 'Everyday India'. The simplicity and, at the same time, complexity of her compositions, along with the images' saturated colors, are marvelous. In her 'Everyday India' gallery, one of the photographs is of a man on a rickshaw, throwing back his head to eat paan while a Mc Donald's restaurant is in the background. Isn't it just perfect? Her street photography is beautiful, and she makes judicious use of shadows in her images (as the one above).

POV: Attitude

I travel to many countries around the world which gives me the opportunity to photograph people of different and varying cultural backgrounds, but I've always grappled with the problem of how best to approach and photograph people to show the essence of their personality, without being intrusive and rude.

When I started off photography, I relied on a long lens such as the Canon 70-200mm almost exclusively. It gave me the ability of photographing people from a comfortable distance, and I could sneak off a few shots before being 'discovered'. I no longer use this technique as it isolates me from my subjects, removing any intimacy from the final photograph.

Some people don't seem to have any problems in invading personal spaces. In Bhutan recently, I saw tourists walk up to a monk in a monastery or to a farmer in his field, stick a camera in their face, looking down at the LCD to make sure they got the shot and scoot off without a word of thanks.

I now use short lenses such as the 28-70mm, or the 16-35mm, any of which I have on all the time on my camera. I approach people I wish to photograph openly and just ask permission to do so, using sign language if I have to. If it's a static situation, I always take the time to show them their pictures in the LCD, and even ask them to change the pose if I feel another is needed. I flatter the people I want to photograph, and that removes any inhibition they may have. If my objective is to photograph women, I start photographing their children if any are available, and I show them the pictures. Invariably, the women will accept to be photographed...their husbands may grumble but as I include them in the picture-taking, they relent.

Now, in certain cultures such as in the Middle East and other Muslim countries, this approach would get me into trouble. I got into such trouble in the souk of Marrakech while using my long lens, photographing an elderly man on the sly. Someone noticed what I was doing and tipped him off. The result was not pleasant. Another unpleasant experience was in a Sufi shrine in India, where I was photographing a woman in the throes of a trance at close quarters. She suddenly snapped out of it and grabbed a rock to throw at me. Needless to say, I left in a hurry and she missed.

The other tricky issue relates to whether a travel photographer should pay to photograph someone. I generally avoid doing that, and often refrain from photographing if asked for money. Some people advocate buying something from vendors (when they are the subject of the photographs), but I prefer promising 6x4 copies of the photographs...and I keep my word! In the event that my subjects are musicians or dancers, then I gladly tip them for sharing their art...but not for the photographs. A distinction which I make clear to them.

Finally, I always try to learn a few words in the local language...and thanking people in their own langugae is always appreciated...and gets you laughs.

Aaron Huey: Sufism In Pakistan

Aaron Huey is a professional photographer who has shot all over the world, from the religious schools of the Taliban, to anti-American protests in Iran, lost temples of Eastern Burma and the tribes of the Caucasus. He worked in New York City in 2001 as assistant to photographer Steve McCurry.

His photographs have been published in the December 2006 National Geographic, and further photo essays are scheduled to appear in the National Geographic Traveler (3 features in 2007), Smithsonian Magazine (2007), and GEO France (early 2007).

Huey's website includes many interesting galleries, and perhaps predictably, I've chosen his gallery "Sufism in Pakistan" for this TTP post. The above image of a Muslim Sufi at a grave in a Muslim cemetery is breathtaking. The luminosity and the composition of this image are wonderful, and it's no wonder that the National Geographic chose it to appear in its December issue. Also look for the colorful and expressive Sufi musician in the Sufism gallery. It's a shame that there aren't more (or larger) images.

In my view, there's no question that Huey has long left McCurry behind.

Format Pixel

Format Pixel is a new Flash-based online application that allows you to create 'page' based presentations, and to create your own online magazines, brochures, catalogues, portfolios and so on. Using the formatpixel online editor you can design page based projects, layout text, upload your own images, add interactivity and customise their appearance.

In my earlier post of February 16, 2007 I introduced Latitudes magazine, an attractive Italian travel "webzine", which is in all probability created by a similar program.

It's a very elegant way of presenting one's portfolio, however it's not as easy as it looks to set it up. I tried the free trial and was unsuccessful in changing image sizes once these were placed on pages. There's no guidance on the website that I could find. Maybe someone will test it and be more successful than I was.

Format Pixel offers a free trial version which allows the uploading of only 512k (which is an anorexic limit as it isn't enough to upload a high resolution image which this application really requires), and there are other paying versions starting from about $30 a year for 5 mb to $80 for 20 mb. Users are given their own URL to showcase their projects.

Although the application certainly produces beautiful results, I think that photographers will not bother with it. It's expensive, and there are other products available. My guess is that this business model will not survive a year.

Bruno Barbey: Morocco

Bruno Barbey is a French photographer, well known for his uncompromising work and for being an early member of Magnum. Over four decades, he has journeyed across five continents and numerous world conflicts, and although he does not consider himself a war photographer, he covered the civil war in Nigeria, Vietnam, the Middle East, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ireland, Iraq and Kuwait.

His work has appeared in most major magazines in the world. A prolific author who often exposes and expresses himself in book form, he has frequently worked in Morocco, the country of his birth and childhood.

His website is not the most attractive, however I bring it to you for his splendid work on Morocco, despite the low resolution of the images. One of these images is made in Meknes in 1985 and is well worth your time. The yellow ochre walls of the mosque, and the hunched figure wearing the traditional Moroccan djellaba appearing through the archway, is simply a classic. Another one taken from above a public fountain is also delightful. His galleries number 9, 10 and 11 have panoramic style images of Morocco as well.

Canon: Rumors Were Right

DPreview.com reports that Canon has today announced the latest generation of their EOS-1D series. The Mark III has a ten megapixel APS-H (1.3x FOV crop) CMOS sensor and can shoot at ten frames per second. It features the updated DIGIC III image processor, a new 19 area Auto Focus system, up to ISO 6400 and a 3.0" LCD monitor (with a live view feature). The Mark III should ship in April for US$ 3999.

I've been waiting patiently for such this announcement. Now, let's wait and see if it's as good as the press release promises.

World Press Photo 2007 Follow Up

Readers of TTP may remember my post of February 13, 2007 in which I offer my opinion on Spencer Platt's photograph of Lebanese youths cruising in a bombed Shia neighborhood of Beirut, and which was awarded first place by the World Press Photo 2007.

Well, it seems that these Lebanese youths have now been interviewed by a freelance journalist, and they certainly appear to be defensive about how their appearance in the photograph was interpreted by the rest of the world. Naturally, they profess that their driving in a convertible car in glamorous clothes was grossly misconstrued.

Here's their explanation as to the reason why they were dressed as they were:

"Hey, we're Lebanese," says Noor. "It's not like we dressed up like this to go visit the Dahiye. We dress like this every day. On any other day, nobody would have given us a second glance. It was the contrast with the destruction in the background that made the difference." There is something the world needs to understand about Lebanon, adds El Khalil. "Glamour is a very important part of life here. It transcends class. Even if you're poor, you want to look glamorous."

"Even when you're poor, you want to look glamorous". What a moronic statement. Has it occurred to these zombies that a lot of their compatriots died in the Israeli attacks?

Picture of the Year International

POYI is in the process of announcing its awards over the coming three weeks. The above photograph (not yet attributed publicly to a photographer) was given the Award of Excellence in the Human Conflict category.

Here's the photograph's caption:

"ANGRY CHILD" An Iraqi boy looks out from a room where women and children are sequestered at Sgt.Trevor Warrior of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment of the Second Infantry Division (the 'Stryker Brigade') December 2, 2006 in the tense Shulah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq. Soldiers with the 1-23 were searching house-to-house for weapons or other insurgency-related items, and women and children of the house usually are placed in a separate room from men during these searches.

Here's what I would add to the caption: The child will not forget his anger nor his fear. The women will not forget the humiliation. No one in the Middle East forgets.

Fado: Lisbon Journal

I haven't been to Portugal yet, but the fado, the closest it has to a national form of song, is one of my favorite music genres. The New York Times brings us a multimedia feature about fado, with the voice of Misi, the current fado diva, and voices of other fado singers in a Lisbon cafe. Misi's voice and status in Portugal reminds me of the late Edith Piaf...the quintessential voice of Paris.

Fado, or fate in Portugese, is characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea or the life of the poor. The music and the songs speak to home-sickness, longing and nostalgia. Some musicologists believe it has its roots in Africa, and is influenced by Arabic music.

In the "Lisbon Journal" multimedia (slideshow) feature, don't miss frame #11. Photographer Michael Barrientos has perfectly captured the expressions of the restaurant's cooks as they watch the ongoing fado performance.

I'm curious as to why the New York Times hasn't graduated to more advanced slideshow viewers, and is still stuck to the rather dorky 'frame-by-frame' model. The "Lisbon Journal" would have been so much more effective had the NYT used Soundslides or similar software, and it would have been really a 'multimedia' experience. The audio edit could've been done better since the sound track stops almost abruptly.

India: The Bathing of a Saint

The Mahamasthakabhisheka is an important Jain festival held once every twelve years in the town of Shravanabelagola in the state of Karnataka (India). The festival is held in veneration of the 18 meter high statue of the Bhagwan (or Saint) Gomateshwara Bahubali. The most recent anointment took place in February 2006, and the next ceremony will occur in 2018.

As the Mahamasthakabhisheka begins, consecrated water is sprinkled onto the participants by devotees carrying 1008 specially prepared vessels. The statue is then bathed and anointed with libations such as milk, sugarcane juice, and saffron paste, and sprinkled with powders of sandalwood, turmeric, and vermilion. Offerings are made of petals, gold and silver coins, and precious stones.

I did not attend the Mahamasthakabhisheka, but I traveled to Shravanabelagola in 2002, and experienced for myself how arduous it is to climb up (and eventually down) the endless stairs that the pilgrims take up to the statue. An incredible site of tremendous significance for Jains, and highly recommended when a festival is scheduled.

Michael Robinson Chavez, a photographer with the Washington Post, documents the unique festival of Mahamastakabhisheka.

John McDermott: Images of Asia

John McDermott has been photographing Southeast Asia since the early 1990s, and traveled extensively throughout the region. During these travels, he developed a strong interest in the many cultural heritage sites and ancient historical ruins spread across the continent.

He witnessed the total eclipse of the sun at Angkor in Cambodia in October of 1995, and seeing the monuments in the eerie surreal light of the eclipse, inspired him to use infrared film to render the subjects most closely to what he saw then. His superb prints combine the impressionistic, moody effects of infrared film with a subtle sepia tone to achieve this effect.

McDermott's gallery in Siem Reap is a must for anyone visiting Angkor Wat, who has an interest in beautiful imagery.

From his simple-to-navigate website, I've chosen his excellent Indochina gallery which showcases images from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia.

Tyler Hicks: POYi Award

I'm glad that New York Times' photographer Tyler Hicks got the POYi's Newspaper Photographer Of The Year award. His photography is superlative and incisive. His images of last summer's war in the Lebanon (as the one above of Lebanese women at a hospital with their children after their village was destroyed) brought the conflict to life on the NYT's pages.

This award is apt recognition of Hicks' professional integrity which came under attack from agenda-driven bloggers because of his work in the Lebanon.

More photographs from Hicks' of the Israel/Lebanon conflict are here: POYi

Beyond The Frame: Tattooing Monks

For this week's Beyond The Frame feature, I chose my image of a Thai being tattooed, his skin being pulled tautly by his friends.

I had heard of a monastery not far from Bangkok that specialized that had the best tattooing artists in Thailand. These artists were Buddhist monks who worked virtually around the clock, tattooing religious designs on Thais and the occasional foreigner.

With a taxi driver who seemed to know how to get to Wat Bang Phro, and about half an hour of frenetic driving, we got to the monastery. Before allowed in, I was first interviewed by a senior monk who wanted to be reassured that I did not intend to defame the practice in any way. Allowed then to photograph as I pleased, I walked in a room where two monks were busy. They used long metal rods, sharpened to a fine point, and had uncanny precision in their work. I watched in disbelief how fast the monk's hand moved...it was just a blur. Here, antiseptics range from regular rubbing alcohol to a local rice wine, and toilet paper paper to blot any blood. I was told that the ink was made from snake venom, herbs, and cigarette ashes. The monks' talents as tattoo artists are available for an offering of orchids, a carton of Thai cigarettes (preferably menthol-flavored) or perhaps a few Bhats towards the upkeep of the Wat.

The tattoos, as inscribed by these Buddhist monks, are defensive in purpose since they are to protect the wearer from any harm. Here in Thailand, tattoos are considered by many to have powerful powers, and to prevent bad luck in general.

It was quite difficult to find a good spot to photograph in this room. The sunlight came through two windows, but the corners of the room were dark, and I couldn't ask the monks and their 'clients' to hold a pose. This was purely a situation where one photographs as one can, irrespective of angles. I was on top of them, to their side...anywhere I could find some space.

India: The Holy Caves of Ajanta

One of the objectives of TTP is to blog about worldwide sites that are of interest to travel photographers; preferably uncommon sites that are off the beaten path. However, travel photographers are also interested in popular travel destinations so that they can sell their photographs of such places to travel catalogues, to accompany travel essays in magazines, and/or to publish in guidebooks or travel books.

The Ajanta Caves is one of those sites. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, designated as such back in 1983 as one of India’s first, along with the Taj Mahal. It consists of a series of 29 caves that have been carved deep into this sheer face of a horseshoe-shaped cliff a few miles from the old walled town of Ajanta, hidden away in the deep gorge gouged in the high Deccan plains by the Waghora River about 300 miles inland from Mumbai.

The New York Times has published a slideshow of photographs on the Ajanta Caves by Sam Hollenshead/Polaris, and accompanied by a terrific narration by Simon Winchester.

Complexities of Conflict Photography

On February 23, The International Center of Photography held an event titled Taking Sides in Conflict Photography, and three of the panel joined Leonard Lopate of WNYC to discuss the challenges of covering the conflicts there, and the ethical questions of photographing events in the region. They also talk about whether their own backgrounds and ethnicities factor into their work. Isa Freij was born and lives in Palestine.

Isa Freij, a cameraman for CBS and a documentary filmmaker, Shaul Schwartz of Getty Images, and Heidi Levine of Sipa Agency are all currently working in the Middle East. Isa Freij was born and lives in Palestine. Shaul Schwartz was born in Israel and lives in US. Heidi Levine was born in Boston and has lived in Israel for 20 years. I wouldn't describe any of these three people as particulalry articulate. There's some stumbling and hesitation in their replies, but on the other hand I also think that it's refreshing to hear unrehearsed/unprepared responses on major media outlets.

Richard Van Le: Cao Dai

Richard Van Le is a New York City photographer, with impressive images from Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia.

His website has a handful of galleries, and his images of the Balians (Balinese rural healers) managed to capture the mystical elements of these healers' profession. I documented Balians during my stay in Bali, and I recognize some of them in his gallery. However, it is his work on the Cao Dai in Vietnam which I recommend on TTP.

Cao Dai was established in the Southern regions of Vietnam in the early 1920's as an attempt to create a perfect synthesis of world religions. It is a combination of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism, Geniism, and Taoism.

Van Le's website is Flash-based and you can visit his Cao Dai and other galleries here

Ardh Kumbh Mela

The Ardh Kumbh Mela is currently in full swing in Allahabad, India. This is one of the holiest Hindu festivals, when millions of Hindus bathe in the confluence of the rivers Ganges and Yamuna. This year's festival marks the halfway point of the major Kumbh Mela, which Hindus celebrate every 12 years in Allahabad, where ancient scriptures say a drop of the nectar of immortality landed after a 12-day celestial war.

By the time the current festival ends on February 16, more than 70 million pilgrims are expected to have bathed in the river.

I attended the Maha Kumbh Mela in 2001 which was held at the same spot, and I always marveled as to how women kept their modesty and poise while bathing. This article speaks to that: here

I photographed the naked sadhus in the above picture ( see my Sadhus of the Kumbh Mela multimedia gallery of my main website) in January 2001 during the massive festival. Due to complaints by the sadhus' religious authorities in Allahabad, photographers were not allowed to photograph the nagas during their march to the bathing site. We were ordered by the police to kneel on the ground and not aim our cameras at the passing sadhus, Naturally, all of us photographed using wide angles from our kneeling positions. The sadhus knew what was going on as they could hear the collective shutters! Notwithstanding, some of the police used their 'lathis' (bamboo canes) on a few photographers for breaking the rules. So we all had to suffer for the transgressions of a few.

NG's Traveler Photo Contest Winners

I am always perplexed by photo editors' choices when judging photo contests like the one by the National Geographic's Traveler magazine. It appears that some 15,000 entries were received by the judges, out of which only 10 made the cut. Frankly, the results of the 2006 photo contest don't impress me at all, except for Anna Rhee's entry (#3) of an image made on the island of Santorini. To me, it captures the essence of Greek male identity. It's a good picture, but is it good enough to be a prize winner? I don't think so.

I suspect that many serious photographers are put off from participating (real professionals are not allowed to enter) because of the National Geographic's terms and conditions. To win provides good publicity and is a nice add-on to the resume, but not much else. Sour grapes? Maybe.