One Shot: Claude Renault

Image Copyright Claude Renault-All Rights Reserved
Claude Renault is a photographer originally hailing from Brittany (Bretagne) in France, and is now making Iceland his domicile. Incredibly "Indiaphile", he travels regularly to India, and based on what I've seen of his immense collection of photographs, has traversed the Indian subcontinent many times and in all and every directions.

He avoids mainstream India and its tourist circuits, but is seduced by the people of India...the regular people, the village and small town cultures. He followed the flow of India's many sacred rivers, from the sources of such rivers to the sea, immersing himself in the rituals along the Ganges, the Yamuna, the Narmada and the Cauvery. Inspired by the Gauguin and Vuillard, he uses India's commonplace to create potent scenes of humanity.

Claude tells us that he's not religious nor spiritual, but is fascinated by Hinduism covering every facet of life in India. I know precisely what he means by this statement, as I feel the same way....perhaps not about Hindusim per se, but about India's inherent spirituality which I've witnessed so personally during the Hindu pilgrimage of the Kumbh Mela, on the banks of Varanasi and Rishikesh, in the Sufi dargahs of Delhi and Ajmer and in the Buddhist enclaves of Dharmasala and Sikkim.

From his immense gallery of photographs, I chose this one of a woman giving water to a beggar. The photograph was made in the village of Badami in Karnataka. Claude says that the woman had fed the beggar before giving him water. A way of life in India. (Click on the photograph for a better resolution).

Claude's website/blog

Soundslides Plus: Out of Beta

The public beta period for Soundslides Plus has ended today, and its official release version is now available from its website for$69.95. This version offers new features to include the Ken Burns effect (ie )pan-and-zoom, individual transitions for each photograph, thumbnail menus, the ability of producing slideshows without audio...as well as all the features of the original Soundslides (which will still be available for $39.95). To upgrade from Soundslides to the new Soundslides Plus will cost you US$30.

I've tested Soundslides Plus in its free beta version, and found it to be a nice upgrade. What interest me most is its new feature to produce slideshows without audio. The remaining features are nice but are not terribly important to me. I fear that many users will overdo the Ken Burns effect in their Soundslides Plus slideshows, as it's easy to get heavy handed with this neat effect...so I'm bracing for the endless pan and zooms.

Soundslides

Angkor Photography Festival: Update

The Angkor Photography Festival is looking for more photojournalistic series about : Philippines, Sri lanka, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam and Nepal. The deadline for submission is June 30st. You can find the requirements for submission on its website

What The Duck

Courtesy of What The Duck

Travis Fox: China

Image Courtesy of The Washington Post
Travis Fox, the prolific videojournalist for the Washington Post , has produced another stunner for its website. He is an Emmy Award-winning video producer, and assignments have taken him to the war in Iraq and across the Middle East, Europe and Asia. His distinctive web video and panoramic photos are considered innovative in the field of Internet journalism

His latest production examines the redefinition of China's family, and how its staggering growth overshadows subtle shifts in Chinese society.

Redefining China's Family

NY Times: Mekong Fishermen

Image Copyright © Suthep Kristsanavarin-OnAsia-All Rights Reserved

The New York Times Travel editors have been busy this past week, and now bring us a photo slideshow of the Lao fishermen who work on the Mekong River as it flows into Cambodia.

The area is called Si Phan Don, and its largest island is Don Khong. I visited the area, and saw Khone Phapheng which is considered the largest waterfall (by volume) in Southeast Asia. The area is also home to the rare Irrawaddy dolphins, which can be seen at the southern tip of the island. There are many comfortable (but simple) lodgings available on the banks of the river, so spend some time there if Laos is on your itinerary. Time moves very slowly in Don Khong and it's an idyllic place.

I am surprised that Suthep of the OnAsia photo agency decided to use flash in so many of the photographs. I recall the light to be exquisite in the early morning and late afternoon...more like the golden light seen in the photograph above.

Fishermen of the Mekong (Registration may be required)

M8 Leica Test Drive (UK Only)

According to a UK-based photo magazine, Leica is offering photographers across the British Isles the chance to test drive its M8 model, the company's first digital rangefinder. Until 30th September, participating stores will offer a three-hour test drive for the price of £45. Any fee paid is redeemable against purchases of the model – so long as they fall within three months of the test drive – with current M system owners entitled to a free trial. 

UK resident photographers really get no breaks...whether through this "offer" or through the exorbitant prices of cameras and accessories in the UK....add to this the dollar/sterling exchange rate....and it's even worse.

In my view, to pay the equivalent of $90 for a 3 hours test drive is absurd. Anyone can walk in B&H or Adorama here in NYC, ask to see the M8 and test it right there for as long as they want...or as long as the vendor's patience allows.

NY Times: Venezuela's Devil Dancers

Michael Stravato for The New York Times-All Rights Reserved
An interesting, but predictably produced, multimedia feature has just been published in the New York Times. It covers (rather superficially) an Afro-Venezuelan tradition in parishes near Venezuela’s Caribbean coast which has been practiced since the late 18th century. The tradition of the “Dancing Devils” has received support from President Hugo Chávez’s government as it seeks to raise awareness about Venezuelan folklore and promote new forms of tourism.

In a small town south of Caracas called Yare, on the Roman Catholic feast day of Corpus Christi, the "devils" dance around the main plaza before resting at the entrance to the whitewashed church. After morning Mass, they succumb in an act of submission before the Eucharist, the representation of the body and blood of Christ in wafer and wine, before dancing throughout the town with stops for prayer at dozens of altars.

I liked the audio, but felt the photographs could've have focused much more on the dancers. I leave it to TTP readers to decide which is a better multimedia production: this one of Venezuela Dances to Devilish Beats or mine of the Dancing Monks of Prakhar. I know which is better.

Here's the background article by Simon Romero. (Registration may be required for The New York Times' features).

Andrea Bruce: Widows of Varanasi

Image Copyright © Andrea Bruce-All Rights Reserved
Andrea Bruce is a Washington Post photographer, who graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has won innumerable awards, and was nominated for a Pulitzer prize as well as being chronicled by NPR, and appearing on PBS NewsHour.

For TTP, I chose her superlative work on the Widows of Varanasi...a subject matter after my own heart with my own work in Vrindavan and Varanasi. Her gallery is, unfortunately, too short...only 8 black & white photographs, but each is a piece of art. The one I chose for this post is absolutely breathtaking...the image of this skeletal widow drinking from the Ganges, the source of life for Hindus is one the best I've seen...its luminosity and its composition are just perfect.

I'm also providing a link to Andrea's piece on the widows which appeared in the Washington Post. These images are in color, but I found their black & white versions to be much more effective to impart the poignancy of the subject matter...inexplicably, my favorite one is absent from the color gallery.

I've photographed such widows in Varanasi in ashrams...living in penury and on charity and donations, waiting for the liberation of death. Little has affected me as much as the sadness of these lonely elderly women discarded from their families, and left to their solitude.

Andrea Bruce's website is here

The Washington Post featured Andrea's photographs (the color version) of the Widows of Varanasi in October 2005. You can see it here .

Digital Picture Converter?

This hard gear post is topical in a way because I've been busy scanning all my transparencies during the past 4 months or so, saving the resultant TIFFs on my LaCie drives, and burning copies unto DVDs. I'm justifiably sick of scanners, of scanning and have had my fill of digitizing.

While I used my reliable Canonscan to scan these slides, I was intrigued by a recent "no name" device which claims to easily convert old 35mm slides and film negatives into digital images. Slides and negatives are placed into a tray that aligns each properly; the touch of a button scans the image instantly. It has a 5MP CMOS sensor that provides 10 bits per color channel for data conversion, and uses fixed focus and automatic exposure control and color balance, resulting in clear digital images without loss of resolution. It can scan images up to 1829 dpi and uses three white LEDs as a back light source. It has a USB cable that plugs into a computer for photo transfers and power.

It sells for less than $100 and might be a viable answer to photographers who decide that it's time to digitize slides or negatives. I suspect that it's painfully slow (I don't buy the 'instantly' in its description) and that its 1829 dpi scans will not satisfy professional or advanced enthusiast. However for less demanding others, this device -which is called a digital picture converter- might be ideal. Why it's not called a scanner? I have no idea.

If it sounds interesting, click here

Dagmar Schwelle: Istanbul

Image Copyright © Dagmar Schwelle _ All Rights Reserved
Dagmar Schwelle is an Austrian photographer/photojournalist currently based in Germany. She recently produced her first multimedia gallery of her photographs of the wonderful city of Istanbul, entitled 'Metropolis-In Between'. Her interesting photographs are essentially of Istanbul's street life...some hint at the 'in-between' or the dichotmy of Istanbul. From these, I chose the above photograph taken on one of the city's public ferries. By the way, I admire any photographer who has the guts of beheading anyone like that!

Dagmar's multimedia gallery Istanbul

POV: Better Travel Photography

Cambodia-Image Copyright ©Tewfic El-Sawy
I don't know the photographer Dale Neill, but I read his interview on an Australian website and most of his quotes are just spot on. Here's a couple that I wholeheartedly agree with:

"I have some grimacing stories of people who've spent 20 or 30 thousand dollars on their holiday, $10,000 on their camera and come back with a big, fat zero." and also this one, "The essential ingredient is, you have to befriend your subject."

The first quote reminds me of a photograph I've seen in the Times of London some years ago of a large gaggle of American (according to its caption) tourists clustered together, aiming their expensive digital cameras at a hapless solitary camel trader in Pushkar. A rather frightening spectacle from the camel trader's viewpoint, especially taking into consideration the number of gigantic telephoto zooms aimed straight at him.

The second quote also reminds me of this photograph, since it was quite clear from the tourists' body languages and the camel trader's facial expression that there was no relationship...no connection between the two...it was more of the "hey, here's a camel trader...let's photograph!"...the camel trader was the quarry, the prey, the "shot".

Perhaps basic, but the suggestions made by Dale are worth remembering when we're out in the field, photographing people of a different culture. On my solo photo travels, I always engage my subjects before and after I photograph them...well, maybe not always as in 100% of the time, but certainly 95%. The remaining 5% are either too far, busy doing something more important than talking to me, or I'm in the midst of a crowd, etc. When leading my photo expeditions to India and South East Asia, I noticed that most of the participating members generally make the effort of 'connecting' with whoever they photograph...but a few don't or can't. Invariably, those who do connect have much better photographs...realte better to these photographs...and also have better memories.

Here's the whole article (Courtesy Imaging Insider).

Latitudes Magazine

This month's gorgeous Italian-made Latitudes magazine is now on-line. It's Flash-based and emulates a real magazine with pages...and an accompanying audio. This month's issue has an photogenic article on Mongolia titled "Where Gengis Khan Roamed", with color photographs by Frederico Klausner.

Here's this month's issue of Latitudes

Kloie Picot: Exhibition

I've already written about Kloie Picot, a Canadian photojournalist and filmmaker specializing in documenting conflicts, critical social issues, cultural events and religious rituals from around the world, in this post. She has now compiled a collection of her photographs into an exhibition which she titled "In Conflict And In Crisis, Where Do The Children Play?".

The exhibition will be held on 12-30 August, 2007 at the Medicine Hat Cultural Centre, 299 College Drive SE, Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada (403-502-8580).

Kloie's website is here