Saturday, July 5, 2008

Alessandro Vincenzi: Mumbai Monsoon

Photograph © Alessandro Vincenzi-All Rights Reserved

Alessandro Vincenzi is an Italian photographer living in Madrid. A trained biologist, he joined Medecins Sans Frontieres and traveled the world with the humanitarian organizatio.

He has added new galleries to his website; one on transgenders and the other on the monsoon in Mumbai. The latter is classic street photography, and many of the gallery's photographs are full of humor, and 'decisive moments'.

Alessandro Vincenzi

Friday, July 4, 2008

Happy Fourth of July


A Happy Fourth of July!

biggest lake enchantment in indonesia lake toba


biggest lake enchantment in indonesia lake toba

toba lake, north sumatra. photo: h. haerumen js

when do you pay a visit to lake toba, you may be amazed because find this lake more resembles ocean is compared lake. cool atmosphere and refresh, beautiful scenery and memesona, with ridges that surround this region may be will make you will feel. island samosir situated the pridely at island midst. at midst samosir, still there lake again, this tour place uniqueness increase.

lake toba measure around 1700 square meters with depth approximately 450 meters. situated 906 meters above sea level, this place is heaven for many plant interestings. several one who enjoy sunrise scenery and sunk at this area says that lake toba make them forget all their problems although for.


manner achieves this region

by using rented car from field city, you can achieve parapat during approximately 4 clocks. parapat situated around 185 kilometer the far from city mother sumatra north. you also can use bus or follow tour to visit this lake.



place stays

various inn and hotel available at parapat. several hotels even prepare facilities likes swimming pool and jacuzzi to coddle tamu-tamu.


go around

you can boating to achieve island samosir.



place dines

many restaurants that founded at this region. you also can taste local food at hotel or inn.
toba lake, north sumatra. photo: paul hofmann 1994




present

suvenir like t shirt, hat, key hook, and as it can you buy at field, parapat, and or at island samosir. at tuk tuk you can buy tribe special industry batak unique for example ulos, special carving, calendar batak, tradisional castanets, and other as it.



can you do

you can swim at lake, or climb boat surrounds lake. you also can visit island samosir to see kings custom house batak period formerly also king cemetaries at area tomok. also available for menggemari sport one this.
source:
http://www.my-indonesia.info

lake ngebel that still virgin

lake ngebel that still virgin

cool and shade. that's first impression that be throwed by whom when does first time will enter lake area ngebel, regency ponorogo, east java. berhampar clear water nan calm, this lake is adorned with old trees at the edge. beautiful, of course. and this can be tired bargainer tourists after they pass by devious road, fluctuate, to aim this tour object.

while enjoy that beautiful view, cool mount wind blows menelusup pore. reside in mount back wilis, this area is almost every berselimut mist. in morning and evening, this mist lump will be scenery memesona. moment that's, that mist lump nudges lake water level. ”jika want to see panorama ngebel with the mist enchantment, look at in morning and evening. at the (time) of that's ngebel has remarkable enchantment, ” word mbah kasmorejo, one of the elders at ngebel.

in this time, along lake lip is surrounded bituminous road. tourist can enjoy hollow that beautiful lake body from various corner. even, if want a little busy, tourist can rise footpath and enter semak-belukar above hill. from that points, lake beauty ngebel outspre be our stare. from that points also, you will see mount wind will monkey tree foliage trembesi and sono up to menjilat-jilat lake water level.

lake for the width of 148 hektare that be mainstay tour object ‘kota reog’ ponorogo this, can mengata still virgin. how not, tool development and infrastructure not yet nudge this tour object in an optimal fashion. conceive, at this vast lake is there's only a boat. also, at this lake lip is there's only a little building a kind of verandah of ancient palace, as procession place larung offerings, at month time suro arrive. along this lake lip only is filled tradisional cafes made from gedhek (bamboo wall).

”tapi, cafes that's that make lake ngebel more memesona and natural, ” day word muhammad fachri, one of the tourist from jakarta, when berekreasi at lake ngebel. unfortunately, his word, to be able to spend the night at this tour object bothing;there is no hotel memadai. there's only several inns as place stays, with facilities very minimalis.

besides beautiful panorama and still virgin, lake ngebel also rich nature source, predominantly clean fresh water from sources at base lake sedalam approximately 52 meters. fertile soil around this lake also produce various fruit tree have a certain quality. dorian ngebel, so reputedly, be fruit primadona this area. besides that thorny fruit, thrive also mangosteen tree, jackfruit, and estate plants likes clove and coffee. enjoy lake panorama beauty while eat special fruits ngebel aim tourists. ”itu beauty story and comfort at lake ngebel, ” word fachri again.

not that lake speciality ngebel as tour area. besides the location that interesting, also fresh, clean, and cold. a natural blend that decoys. this matter is maked because lake ngebel outspre above fertile tune as high as approximately 734 meters above sea level, surrounded four hills: hill semampir, tambak, ngoro, and kumambang. mount liman, rise out tall, also melatarbelakangi one of [the] lake corner ngebel.

if a time haves to tour to this place, possible you will agape to see trees trembesi that aged hundreds year. so the old those trees is so that akar-akar big menyembul above soil surface. cusorily, trees trembesi plating that resemble to dwarfs giant.

with all the beauty, lake ngebel in this time be favorite tour place for society at area ponorogo and regions other at east java. for them hobby ramms, this lake has also fascination very strong. only at here, fishermans can get ngokngok, this lake special fish. not only ngokngok. lake ngebel also occupied many indigo fishes. approximately, like to what fish face ngokngok? than angered, sambangi lake ngebel.

source: www. republika. co. id

Reoq ponorogo


Reoq

Reoq Art has become the identity for the Ponorogo regecy.
Because of this, Ponorogo was also as the Reoq city. The theatre has been known to be wide in Indonesian even foreign.
each year was spread out by the Festival Reoq National along
with the anniversary warning of the Ponorogo regency and Grebeg Suro celebration. Reoq art was also staged nightly Twons Square.
Reoq art told about the struggle for aprince who will propose to a prety daughter lovely. This art was staged by about 25 - 40 dancers and the musician. The interesting of this art was his man leading figure who was nmed Singo Barong The Dancer of Singo Barong bear the mask weighing 30 - 40 kg and being supported with the strenght of his teeth.

The other leading figure in this Reoq art including Kelono Sewandono, Bujang Anom , Jatil and Warok.

Grebeg Suro
Is the biggest culture in the Ponorogo regency that was held on the occasion of welcomed the Islam New Year or the Saka New Year that often was known as the date one suro. This agenda
entered the East Java tourism calender ( calender event ). Grebeg Suro was the ritual incident and became the party site of the Ponorogo People. usually it begum a week before the date 1 Suro.
It is series of the Grebeg Suro agenda was the festival Reoq National, Various good activit sort the race and the exhibition and was ended with the larungngan agenda in the Ngebel lake. The parade of the elephant statue Consisting of the musical proccession and the elephant statue that in this statue were received by humankind and were climbed onto by two children. This art was often influenced by the Islam Culture

Odrot
Musical Art that is influenced by islam performace art, usually was staged at the wedding reception or circumcision.

Kongkil
Art that combined the element of the dnce and traditionl music. This art is usully staged by less than 10 people of the gamelan beather and the dancer , the interesting one from this art his musical that took the form of big bamboo that was blown

Welcome to Bumi Reoq Ponorogo


Welcome to Bumi Reoq Ponorogo
Welcome to Bumi Reoq Ponorogo


The Ponorogo Regency was located on South-West of Surabaya.
The distance of the capital of the Ponorogo
regency of this East Java province is about 200 km.
This distance could reached by the land trip by bus
during 5 hours. While , from the capital of the Country Jakarta be at 800 km. From Solo, the city
Central javacould be 3 through Wonogiri or 4 hours
through madiun. Usually Madiun becomes the capital of transit when the travelling person travelled bay the train. In the meantime when they want to travel by the aircraft they could change to plane in Surabaya or Solo.

From the South, could be served by the Pacitan bus route - Ponorogo and Trenggalek - Ponorogo. There are varius sort of the route the rural Transport ( ANGDES ) and urban.
Transpot ( ANGKOT ) In the personally regency. The connected subdistrict with the capital of the regency. Could be said, there was no subdistrict that was not covered by the public's transport. Beside the ANGDES and ANGKOT they also has the pedicab transport, the buggy and the taxi bike.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Michael Robinson Chavez: Senegal

© Michael Robinson Chavez/Washington Post-All Rights Reserved

Michael Robinson Chavez's work has often appeared on TTP, and for good reason; he's a consummate professional, and his work is not only consistently excellent, but is also varied...from conflict reportage to religious ritual, Michael has done it, and has done it well. Now that I met him at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW), it's only natural that his work will be featured here even more frequently.

One thing for certain...Michael's taste in music is eclectic. One of the pieces of music he chose to accompany a slideshow of his photographs at FPW was "Allah Hu", the magnificent qawwali song of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. His most recent photo slideshow in the Washington Post is on Senegal, and one of its chapters has as its audio a song by the superb Senegalese artist Baaba Maal. I don't know for sure if Michael chose it or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did.

Here's A Changing Senegal from the Washington Post.

Foto Week DC


FOTOWEEK DC seeks to establish itself as the nation’s premiere photography festival, and to recognize the most talented photographers in the DC, MD and VA area. The achievements of area professional photographers will be recognized by their peers through submissions of work in six categories.

A panel of judges will select images to be awarded on Saturday, November 22 at the FotoWeek DC awards ceremony and gala to be held at the National Geographic Society’s Headquarters.

The sponsors are the National Geographic, PDN, Discovery and the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) among others.

As always, please read the rules' fine print before submitting your photographs.

I found FOTOWEEK DC's definition of "professional photographers" very interesting...it defines a professional photographer as someone who "publishes photographs in books, magazines, newspapers, or online regularly."

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Foundry Photo Workshop: Group Photo


Here's an out-take from a bunch of photographs taken of the instructors at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) held in Mexico City. This is of the instructors asked to horse around at AAVI, where all of the panel discussions and presentations were held.

(L to R,back row): Eric Beecroft (FPW's founder), Guy Calaf, Tewfic El-Sawy, David Griffin (National Geographic).

(L to R, middle Row): Rodrigo Cruz,Shaul Schwarz, Stephanie Sinclair, Adriana Zehbrauskas, Benjamin Rusnak, Ben Lowy, Hugo Infante, Stanley Greene, Kael Alford.

(L to R, seated): Eros Hoagland, Andrea Bruce, Paula Bronstein, Michael Robinson Chavez, Renée C. Byer, Scott Mc Kiernan and (horizontally, Kadir van Lohuizen)

Conrad Louis Charles: Brazil

Photograph © Conrad Louis-Charles-All Rights Reserved

I met Conrad Louis-Charles at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City, he briefly described his background, but it wasn't until I returned that I discovered his work, and that the adage that still waters run deep is certainly true in his case.

Conrad is an independent photographer and cameraman currently based in Philadelphia and Sao Paulo in Brazil. He worked with various corporate clients, and he specializes in travel, documentary and editorial photography...making him a perfect candidate for the pages of TTP. He's represented by Getty Images.

His website showcases work from mainly Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Brazil. However, I was impressed by his Work-In-Progress gallery, which has a large number of his sensitive photograph of religious rituals and pilgrimages in northern Brazil. I'm not too fond of mixing color and black & white photographs, but Conrad kept the color photographs bunched together on his gallery, so it's not really mixing.

Explore his other galleries as well, and compare his Haiti work to that of the earlier post.

Anthony Karen: Voodoo

Photograph © Anthony Karen-All Rights Reserved

I came across Anthony Karen's work through NPR's website, on which he's described as having made a career out of breaking into secret circles from Voodoo rituals in Haiti to white-robed Ku Klux Klan initiations in the South of the US.

Indeed the work on his website centers around what he calls "intimate images of taboo people doing taboo things". His images are of swastika-clad families at the annual Nordic Fest gathering of white nationalists, Haitian Voodoo priests beheading goats and, even "Brother Number 3," a former official in the brutal Khmer Rouge regime hiding out in Cambodia before his 2007 arrest.

There are two links for Anthony Karen that are recommended: his website, and his interview with NPR which includes audio.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Travel Photographer on Photoshop TV


I'm thrilled to see that The Travel Photographer blog was featured on PhotoshopUser TV, which is brought by NAPP (the National Association of Photoshop Professionals). Both Matt and Dave are industry icons, and present their weekly informative television episodes to an appreciative public.

My thanks to both Matt and Dave, the hosts of the program.

The episode is PhotoshopUser TV Episode 140 (June 30, 2008)

Loupe: Another Piece of "Uselessness"


Uniden, a Japanese camera accessory maker launched a new magnifying glass for LCD screens of digital cameras on their website. The magnifying glass can be used by owners of SLRs and compact digital cameras with LCD screen size of 3 inches. The images are magnified three-fold, and it's claimed that it will not scratch the surface of LCD screens.

I have no idea who will buy -and use- this utterly useless piece of equipment...unless it's an obsessive pixel/histogram-peeper, with $47 to burn.

Via CrunchGear

Nikon D700 Announced


I'm not a Nikon user, but I heard much about the newly announced Nikon D700 at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City. It was just a rumor then, but some of its specs were being discussed among the photojournalists there. It was described by a fervent Nikon user as a certain Canon 5D "killer".

The British Journal of Photography has published an article describing the D700 as having many of the Nikon D3's features, including full frame, a 12.1 million pixel resolution, a 36x23.9mm CMOS sensor and a reinforced D300 body. The price is said to be GBP 2000 ($4000), however this includes VAT. I read elswehere that it'll be around $3000 here in the US.

The New York Times also has an article on the D700

Only time tell if the D700 is really a Canon 5D "killer", or if the rumored new 5D II regains Canon's momentum.

Michael Reichmann of the Luminous Landscape shares his thoughts about the D700 and the coming match-up with the Canon 5DII here

Monday, June 30, 2008

Rant: My Blog My Rules

I know. I haven't been ranting for a while, and some of my readers tell me they miss my acerbic diatribes. I haven't mellowed at all, it's just that I didn't have much to rant (at least of relevance to this blog) about...however, before I lose my so-called acerbic trademark, here's my position about what gets on my blog and what doesn't.

By the way, at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City which had over 160 attendees, I was taken aback by the surprisingly large number of photographer/photojournalists (famous and emerging) who knew of The Travel Photographer blog and of my photography. This proves to me two major facts: the power of blogging and the power of branding about this earlier on TTP (I've posted about this earlier on TTP here).

But I digress. Here are the general terms of acceptance that cover what kind of photographic work is, and will be, posted on The Travel Photographer. Firstly, this blog is ad-free, and as I'm not beholden to anyone (corporate or individual), I only post what I like. This is also known as editorial privilege...and it's what counts. There are thousands of blogs dealing with photography and some are much better than mine, so photographers can pick and choose.

My preferences are too many to list, but photo essays/stories, in multimedia or stills, appeal to me a great deal. Work by emerging photographers are always welcome, provided it deals with travel (non stock stuff) and editorial. Particularly interesting is photography that can be described as ethnographic, and deals with religious or secular rituals, tribal cultures, among others. I have a hard time with websites that have dinky photographs, but if the subject matter is really interesting, you're in. If you're a photographer with a travel portfolio better destined to the pages of Travel & Leisure magazine, you don't need this blog.

In terms of geographic preferences, while my own photography is biased towards Asian and South Asian cultures, it doesn't mean that this is true for what gets on my blog. I'm not that interested in what is generally defined as "Western" photo projects...so projects of European and/or North American provenance don't really excite me that much. On the other hand, photographic work by emerging photographers from South Asia, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America are especially welcome....but please, have functioning websites.

If you want to know what photography work turns me on, drop by my website or if you have the time, explore this blog. You'll know.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Tewfic El-Sawy: Los Migrantes


Here's a multimedia photo essay I produced about the migrants from Central America and beyond, who pass through Mexico City by hitching rides on freight trains. Their ultimate destinations are the southern states of the United States, where they hope to find jobs.

Similar to the hobos of the past in our own country, the migrants have support from generous people along the way. The last frames of the slideshow are of famished migrants given hot tamales by an impoverished household in the La Lecheria neighborhood of Mexico City. I spoke with them in my less-than-fluent Spanish, and it's impossible not to be compassionate with human beings trying their best to improve their lives by any means.

A number of participants in my class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop produced similar photo essays.

Los Migrantes by Tewfic El-Sawy

Tom Wool: ONE

Photograph © Tom Wool-All Rights Reserved

Tom Wool is a British photographer currently living in NYC. I'd describe his work as "ethnographic photography" since the work he presents on his website ONE is of 160 portraits made during his travels to Bolivia, Irian Jaya, Kenya, Morocco, PNG, Suriname, Tanzania, Tibet and Venezuela.

His biography tells us that he worked in a number of fashion publications in the 1980s, and this background served him extremely well in photographing his subjects. Tom traveled to Tibet to work on a project, and with the sale of his photographs, he raised enough funds to build a school in Tzombuk, where some of his portraits were made.

We've been spoilt by the ever-increasing web's bandwidth, and are now used to much larger images than what Tom Wool's are. Perhaps an updated website is in the planning?