Le Meridian Kota Kinabalu

I will post photo of Le Meridian Kota Kinabalu. Its a good hotel, so good I am sure I will be going there again.





Coffee house, living room and bedroom of the suite. Its called Le Royal Club by the way.

Mikhail Baryshnikov: Dance Photography

Photograph © Mikhail Baryshnikov-All Rights Reserved
Mikhail Baryshnikov, one of the most famous dancers in history, has turned dance photographer. His dance photographs are exhibited at 401 Projects, and is titled “Merce My Way” in reference to Merce Cunningham. I like dance photography, particularly those of ethnic character, and I frequently include photo shoots involving dancers during my photo-expeditions. The Apsara dancers in Angkor Wat, the Tantric dancing monks in Bhutan, Balinese Rejang dancers and the Guelaguetza dancers in Oaxaca have all been the subjects of my photography. Hence this post!

The New York Times has some of Baryshnikov's photographs and his narration in a slideshow feature. The narration (and the accompanying article) is stuffed of heavily artistic buzzwords (which are barely comprehensible to me), but it's well worth it.

I agree with Baryshnikov that dance photography is about photographing the movement...blurring the actions of the dancers. Obviously blurring conveys movement and I find that freezing dance movements by using a high ISO setting or a (gasp!) flash, does not appeal to me. When I use a flash, the results are often more akin to publicity posters for performances etc where the dancers seem made of wax.

New York Times' Mikhail Baryshnikov's Merce My Way


The accompanying article

NGM: Pilgrims' Progress

Photograph © Francisco Leong-AFP/Getty-All Rights Reserved
As we're in the midst of the Easter Week, I thought of posting Pilgrims' Progress, an interactive feature from the National Geographic Magazine. Its an interactive map showing pilgrimage sites on and off the beaten path.

On the map are the two Middle Eastern pilgrimage destinations; Jerusalem (Al Quds) and Mecca. The Indian sub-continent alone has 5 pilgrimage destinations. It would be an interesting project to photograph each of these destinations in depth...and document the similarities between all the world's faiths. The two pilgrimage destinations of Mecca and Medina are off-limits to non-Muslims, but the project could be a collaborative effort between a number of photographers.

The above photograph is of the statue of the Holy Mary of Fatima at the Catholic shrine in Fatima in Portugal.

National Geographic's Pilgrims' Progress

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.

Wisata Astana Giri Bangun In Karanganyar.

:: Astana Giri Bangun ::

Astana Giri Bangun adalah sebuah pemakaman yang terletak di sebelah timur kota Surakarta, Indonesia, tepatnya di Desa Girilayu, Kecamatan Matesih, Kabupaten Karanganyar, sekitar 35 km dari Surakarta..
Istri presiden Indonesia, Soeharto, Ibu Tien, dimakamkan di sini.

Situs pemakaman ini dirancang untuk dipakai oleh seluruh keluarga Pak Harto. Pada saat pembangunannya dimulai, jauh sebelum Ibu Tien Suharto wafat, telah menuai badai kritik dari berbagai kalangan masyarakat. sehingga diisyukan bahwa liang-liang lahat yang dipersiapkan untuk peristirahatan terakhir itu dilapisi dengan emas maupun perak. pada hal pada saat yangsama (saat itu) keadaan ekonomi rakyat sedang tidak membaik. Astana Giri Bangun, komplek makam khusus keluarga Yayasan Mangadeg Surakarta, dibangun tahun 1974. Lokasinya di atas Bukit Giribangun yang puncaknya dikenal sebagai Bukit Mangadeg. Di puncak bukit ini terdapat makam raja-raja Mangkunegaran, Surakarta. Termasuk makam Mangkunegara I alias Pangeran Sambernyawa, Mangkunegara II, III, dan VIII.
Beratap joglo -- khas bangunan rumah Jawa -- luas seluruh bangunan
sekitar 200 meter persegi. Komplek makam ini memiliki tiga tingkatan
cungkup. Cungkup Argo Sari teletak di tengah-tengah dan atapnya
menjulang paling tinggi. Di bawahnya, terdapat cungkup Argo Kembang,
dan paling bawah adalah cungkup Argo Tuwuh.
Jenazah Ibu Tien akan dimakamkan di bawah cungkup Argo Sari. Di situ
telah pula dimakamkan ayahanda Ibu Tien, KRMTH Soemoharjmo, ibunda Bu
Tien KRA Soemoharjomo, dan kakak perempuan Bu Tien, RA Siti Hartini
Odang. Makam Ibu Tien terletak satu deretan dengan makam-makam
tersebut, dan berdampingan dengan lokasi yang disiapkan untuk makam
Pak Harto kelak.
Cungkup Argo Sari disangga oleh empat tiang utama, terbuat dari beton
yang dilapis kayu ukiran Jepara. Pada tiang-tiang yang terkesan kokoh
itu, dilengkapi cincin-cincin logam berwana kuning. Cincin inilah yang
dulu pernah diisukan terbuat dari bahan emas. Sukamdani Sahid
Gitosarjono, ketua harian Yayasan Mangadeg, meluruskan isu ini. "Yang
benar, terbuat dari tembaga yang diasah," ujar pimpinan New Sahid
Builders yang dipercaya membangun komplek makam ini.
Menurut Sukamdani, tembaga yang dipergunakan untuk hiasan di kompleks
makam senilai (waktu itu) Rp 450 juta. Marmer untuk lantai,
didatangkan dari Tulungagung. Di atas marmer berwarna krem itu,
terhampar karpet coklat. Dengan wafatnya Ibu Tien, Astana Giri Bangun
telah terisi empat belas makam. Empat makam (termasuk makam Bu Tien)
terletak di bawah cungkup Argo Sari, dan sepuluh lainnya berada di
bawah cungkup Argo Kembang dan cungkup Argo Tuwuh. Menurut Sukamdani
S. Gitosardjono, ketiga jenis cungkup menggambarkan filsafat siklus
kehidupan yang tumbuh, berkembang, dan bersiap memenuhi panggilan Yang
Maha Pencipta. Penentuan lokasi di atas bukit, lanjutnya, agar tidak
mengganggu atau diganggu masyarakat sekitar. Astana Giri Bangun memang
satu-satunya bangunan di puncak bukit itu, dengan latar belakang
pepohon hijau yang lebat. Jalan menuju kompleks makam tidak terlalu
lebar, menanjak dan berkelok-kelok.
Kompleks makam juga dilengkapi bangunan pendukung di sekelilingnya.
Ada paseban selatan, paseban timur, dan di sebelah barat disediakan
bangunan paintry dan sebuah musholla, juga rumah untuk juru kunci
makam.
Hari-hari ini, Astana Giri Bangun menjadi pusat perhatian. Di sini
telah bersemayam salah satu putra terbaik bangsa ini. Suara tahlil
yang terdengar sambung menyambung, seolah tidak hanya terlantun dari
mulut puluhan orang yang khusyuk tafakkur di seputar cungkup Argo
Sari, tapi juga dari rindang pepohonan yang menaungi komplek ini.

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

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

Robert Reid Talks about the Future of Travel Guidebooks

Robert Reid is a Lonely Planet writer who publishes an amazing internet guide to Vietnam, and doesn't mince words in his recent interview with WorldHum. He laments the demise of experienced travel guidebook writers for novices who will work for peanuts under the illusion it will lead to fame and riches, and thinks internet travel guides will someday replace traditional published guides, when technology advances and handhelds can display the chief advantage printed guides continue to have over internet sources: maps.

Robert Reid: I used to think the most important thing we guidebook authors did for travelers was hotel reviews. People like to have some sense of security that the $5 or $300 place they’re staying in won’t be a brothel or rat-infested dump. But the Internet has already completely changed this. Previously if I had a new budget hotel in a town center, or a mid-ranger with pool, travelers would have to wait nine or 12 months from the time I “discovered” it until it appeared in a guide.

Now Internet booking sites often get them immediately. When I went to China a couple years ago, I stayed at a brand new hostel in Beijing that the Trans-Siberian author had just found, but that hadn’t yet appeared in the guide. It was already full! I was amazed at how nearly all the people there had found it online, and were booking their full China trip’s accommodations online.

At a Lonely Planet workshop a couple years ago, I asked a high-up at LP who they saw as their biggest competitor, and they immediately answered “Google.” I was impressed. So publishers like LP definitely see the Internet as a growing competitor, and have for a while. When the BBC bought LP a couple months ago, one of the key things they cited for future development was online content.

Another thing is that many sites with travel content online don’t have maps. And maps are HUGE. I sometimes think seasoned travelers need only a map, with barebones details of few places to stay, and barebones details of what to see and where to eat. If they trust the author—and that’s a big if, of course—not as much needs to be said as some people think. This, again, is for seasoned travelers only.

The only other thing I fear regarding online guidebooks is if they follow the “I stayed here and it was great” TripAdvisor or Amazon.com model. Those are useful, no doubt, but they’re only based on isolated experiences. If publishers turn things over at some point to reader-generated content, you won’t have the authoritative overviews that guidebook writers can offer, and it’ll end up with deeper beaten tracks, with more travelers doing the same thing.

But I do want to say David Stanley is right, it’s sad and reckless if an old author who did good work on several editions is cut for a new author. In my opinion, in-house editors don’t completely understand what goes into researching these guides—I was an editor for years, and only figured it out once I started writing full time. The best experience for writing a guidebook to X is not living in X but actually having written a guidebook to X. Sometimes publishers forget that a bit.

Sometimes I think we’re living a doomed profession, and that we’ll look back on the wacky wild period from the 1970s to the 2000s when scores of notebook-toting travelers went and sought out the mysteries of places that are no longer mysterious. People will look back on the era like reading Graham Greene books about far-flung places at wilder times.

Will guidebooks in book form die? Probably so. But to be honest, I think there will always be room for the perspective of the “guidebook author,” at least online. Once hand-held devices get even more sophisticated, so that maps and reviews are more easily referred to—or we old folks die out and the younger generations who are not so soft on books take over—things will probably go online completely.

But I sometimes think people like holding those books. So far, though, the TripAdvisor-type sites are excellent resources, but don’t account for perspective. One person goes to Y hotel and says “it’s super!” But they don’t realize A, B, C are similar and $40 less. Who goes to all 15 museums in Bucharest but a guidebook author? So only they can tell you that something like the Romanian National Museum of the Peasant is about the best museum in the world?

WorldHum Interview with Robert Reid

How to be a Travel Writer in Five Easy Pieces

Robert Haru Fisher is a New York based travel writer and author of the guidebook pictured above, available at Amazon at London Off-Season And On : A Guide To Special Pleasures, Better Rater And Shorter Lines. He also wrote the Crown Insiders Guide to Japan, which is from his own publishing company. Fisher also contributes to the Frommer website and has, over the last few months, published a series of "so you wanna be a travel writer" articles with enough positive spin to keep the dreamers happy, and enough reality to discourage all but the most brave. It comes in five parts.

I haven't mentioned money yet, so will say only that you should have resources of your own, or a spouse/partner with a regular job, so someone can pay the bills. The travel writers who have good incomes are either on the staff of some publication and drawing a salary, or have honed the art of freelancing well, usually after many years of hard practice. Newspapers pay chicken feed (e.g. $75 for a column of print), magazines maybe $1 a word at best for writers without a famous following, websites little, and books smallish advances (if any, maybe $5,000) or flat fees not much more than that for a small book.

Part One

Part Two is a short history of travel writing, with a well deserved plug for Arthur Frommer, a man I have great admiration for and was once interviewed by on The Travel Channel.

"You have a dream job!" Half the people I meet for the first time tell me that, and I agree. It's heaven for me because I am intensely curious, always wanting to know what's around the next corner. When you travel, there's always a new next corner, a new surprise. It's no way to get rich, and it can be hell on family and other relationships because you seem never to be home, from their point of view, anyhow. You can't be a new parent, for instance, or taking care of an ailing family member. The most prolific travel writers are away at least a quarter of the time, I believe, sometimes half the time.

Part Two

Part Three tries to define what is travel writing.

Anyone can be a travel writer. You can write your blog, your memoir, your diary of a trip, and the only difference between you and, say, Pico Iyer, is that he writes more beautifully than almost anyone, and he may publish in Harper's and The New York Times while you are just broadcasting your thoughts on your own website, perhaps.

Part Three

Fisher in Part Four espouses the advantages of having a travel blog, and claims he is not trying to sell anything to anyone these days, including his travel writing seminars in Key West as advertised at the bottom of each of these posts.

(Full disclosure here: I don't have a site or a blog myself, as I am not trying to sell anything to anybody these days.)

If you are freelancing, you should also be working on a book, as having a book under your belt makes you an expert, ipso facto.

Part Four

Fisher in Part Five finishes with his analysis of the history of travel writing to reveal a few facts about the income side of the average travel writer. Finally.

"Get paid to travel" reads one headline. "How to Make a Six-Figure Income Traveling the World" is another. In the last few years, several websites have popped up urging you to learn how to become rich while writing about travel. For fees of several hundred dollars, they promise to teach you how to lead the good life.

It's a life I don't recognize as being anywhere near the reality of those led by many friends of mine who are freelance travel writers. To me, the freelancer is a knight errant, the leaderless samurai, a solo gun-slinger, and my hero much of the time.

My first advice to aspiring freelance writers is to marry rich, or otherwise obtain a partner who has, at least, a steady income. Markets are hard to break into, payment is often laughably cheap. One young writer for a major series of guidebooks approached me on a press trip a few years ago and asked me if I had worked for the series and what they paid. I mentioned some figures, and he said, "Good, I'm working for nothing right now, but they told me if I did a good job, they would pay me next time." The figures I mentioned then were a range from $75 for updating a small chapter of a book through a few thousand to revise the entire book up to about $15,000 for the original writing of a new, fairly small title (under 300 pages of print).

Your writing in a newspaper can pay as little as $75, in a magazine $250, though there are higher and lower figures, depending on the publication. When you are successful, you can command a figure of $1 a word or even higher, however. Traditional print outlets (general purpose newspapers) are down, but niche print publications (birding, ballooning, kayaking, etc.) are up. The Internet is fraught with possibilities, very few of them paying much, if anything, though. You may have to self-publish, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Moreover, one site has its sample author writing "In fact, my own editor is crying out for correspondents to report on destinations throughout the world ... and she's not the only editor seeking fresh talent. To be honest, I have to turn work down -- there simply aren't' enough hours in the day to take up all the writing commissions I'm offered." Not bloody likely, as many of my freelancer friends would say.

Part Five

Ami Vitale: NGM: Kolkata Rickshaws

Photograph © Ami Vitale-All Rights Reserved
"The strategy of drivers in Kolkata—drivers of private cars and taxis and buses and the enclosed three-wheel scooters used as jitneys and even pedicabs—is simple: Forge ahead while honking. There are no stop signs to speak of." And so starts Calivn Trilin's essay on Kolkata's rickshaws in the April issue of National Geographic.

I thumbed through my fresh-off-the-press National Geographic magazine, and stopped slack-jawed at pages 92-93...a double spread of Ami Vitale's magnificent photograph of a rickshaw puller, S. K. Bikari, who regularly pulls a pair of girls to school in Kolkata, yet rarely sees his own five children back home in the state of Bihar...one of the poorest states in India. Although this photograph may be partially posed, I frankly don't care. I just find all its elements to be just right....yes, even the woman intruding on the scene from the right. The two schoolgirls, in their pristine uniforms, look bored (or uncomfortable) while Bikari is on the verge of overtaking some obstacle on the left. Ami Vitale's is a wonderful photographer, and the rest of her photographs live up to her reputation...but it's this one that I prefer. Naturally it looks better in print form.

I had already posted on TTP on Kolkata's rickshaws, and it seems from the National Geographic article that the city hasn't yet been able to ban them from its streets. Again, the great performance of Om Puri as the rickshaw puller in City of Joy comes to mind whenever I come across such photographs.

The National Geographic did a great job with this subject...however I must say that the video with Ami's narration could be improved upon.

Ami Vitale's Kolkata Rickshaws Photography

Ami Vitale's Video

Calivin Trillin's Kolkata Rickshaws Essay

TTP Recap of the Week

Aaaaargh...I always forget tp post this weekly recap! For your convenience, here's the past week's (March 10-16, 2008) most read posts on TTP:

Photo Contests: Grabbing Your Rights?.
Rumors of a Canon 5D Mark II?
Altars of the Zapotecs

Michael Wolf: Hong Kong

Photograph © Michael Wolf-All Rights Reserved
Michael Wolf is a German photographer who studied at UC Berkley and at the University of Essen. He has been living and working as a photographer and author in China for ten years.

In addition to a wide spectrum of publications for international magazines, three books by him on China have been published, and he has been deeply involved with the topic of vernacular culture for many years. His most recent work deals with the issue of the cultural identity of the city of Hong Kong.

There are many galleries to explore on Michael's website, but the one that intrigued me most is the 100x100 project, in which he photographed 100 residents in their flats (100 rooms each 100 square feet in area) in Hong Kong's oldest public housing estate. Each of these photographs tells us a story...about the persons inhabiting the tiny space, their taste in furnishings, and even their income level.

Hong Kong's oldest (Shek Kip Mei Estate) public housing estate was the one photographed by Michael Wolf, and its buildings were condemned in 2006 and torn down.

Michael Wolf's 100x100

Michael Wolf's Website

Reuters: Iraq War

Reuters, in partnership with multimedia studio MediaStorm, has published a multimedia feature to observe the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The feature is laden with photos, maps and videos, along with interviews with three Reuters journalists, including photographer Goran Tomasevic (who was featured on TTP).

I wonder if this somber anniversary will be adequately observed by the mainstream media, especially as we have lost nearly 4000 soldiers in the meaningless conflict so far, and far more innocent Iraqis have lost their lives.

And lest we forget:

The photograph above is from the multimedia show, and shows George W. Bush in full military regalia on May 1, 2003 when he announced to the world that major fighting in Iraq was over.

Reuters' Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War

Ami Vitale: Frontline: Kashmir

Here's a PBS/Frontline multimedia feature on Kashmir with photographs by Ami Vitale. It's not a new feature, but I thought it timely as I am traveling to this area in July.

Kashmir has been described as a paradise on earth but it's a disputed area that has seen more than its share of violence and bloodshed in recent years. Indians insist Kashmir is an integral part of their country, and without Kashmir, they could not embrace their secular credentials. Indian Kashmir is more than 60 percent Muslim, making it the only state in India with a Muslim majority. Pakistanis say the "k" in "Pakistan" stands for "Kashmir" and that they will continue to offer moral and diplomatic support to the separatists.

However Kasmir has been calm since this feature has been published, and tourists have returned to the area, enjoying the magnificent views and the hospitality of Kashmiris in this paradise on earth.

Frontline's Kashmir slideshow.

Ami Vitale Interview

Barbara Paul: Ghana, Benin & Togo Exhibit

Barbara Paul is welcomed by the Black Rock Art Center where her photography exhibit entitled “Voodoo, Villages, Festivals: Ghana , Benin and Togo" will be shown April 5 through June 7, 2008. An opening celebration is scheduled for April 5th from 4:00 – 7:00 pm. Gallery hours are 1:00 – 5:00 pm Mon – Fri, and upon request.

From the press release: "Barbara Paul has traveled through some of the most remote regions of Asia and Africa, as well as other parts of the world, with the goal of capturing and sharing the region’s customs, dress, festivals and way of life.

Black Rock Art Center General Manager, Melissa A. Bernstein, said of the exhibit, “This is an incredibly ambitious show to produce, because Ms. Paul has a vast collection of work. We will be displaying approximately 120 pieces, taken in three countries. The pieces are bright and full of spirit, and you can tell from each one that she loves sharing her adventures with the public”.

Educated at Wellesley College and NYU School of Business Administration, Barbara Paul has been taking photos around the world for many years. Her work has been shown locally at such galleries as the Darien Library, Earthplace of Westport, and the Thomas J. Walsh Gallery at the Quick Center at Fairfield University, in Westchester at venues like the Rye Library, and in New York City at Tibet House and Gallery Vietnam. Exhibits have included photographs taken in such diverse countries as Laos, Tibet , Ethiopia and Mali.

Further info from: Black Rock Center

Five Years Ago

Photograph © Eros Hoagland/NY Times-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times observes the fifth year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by publishing various articles, graphics and photographs. The main slideshow is entitled The Baiji Refinery in Iraq with photographs by Eros Hoagland and is on the largest oil refinery in Iraq. The US military believes that at least one-third, and possibly much more, of the fuel from the refinery, is diverted to the black market, and funding the insurgency. Hence the need for our soldiers to take the role of policemen and custom officials.

The accompanying article contains some depressing news, such as reports that "at least 91,000 Iraqis, many of them former enemies of the American forces, receive a regular, American-paid salary for serving in neighborhood militias." In essence, we're paying Iraqis to defend and protect their own country.

Another article Five Years by the incomparable John F Burns has this sobering final sentence: " It is small credit to the invasion, after all it has cost, that Iraqis should arrive at a point when all they want from America is a return to something, stability, that they had under Saddam.