Dai Sugano: Left Behind

Image © Dai Sugano/Mercury News-All Rights Reserved
Native of Japan, Dai Sugano is an Emmy award winning photojournalist and senior multimedia editor at the San Jose Mercury News. He produced Left Behind, a powerful multimedia essay on the poverty-stricken of India, left behind in the wake of the country's economic growth.

Dai co-created MercuryNewsPhoto.com whose interactive storytelling has been judged among the world's best two years in the Pictures of the Year International contest, and he covers a wide range of assignments such as Hmong refugees' immigration to the United States; the California Recall; former Japanese internment camp survivors, and a number of stories in politics.

In 2008, "Uprooted," which looks at displacement of a group of mobile home residents in Sunnyvale, won an Emmy Award in the category of New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming: Documentaries. His other works have been nominated for an Emmy Award and a Pulitzer Prize in photography; and have received international and national recognitions.

Canon 5D Mark II: Adding Copyright Data

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon flipping the pages of my new 5D Mark II's manual, trying to figure out how to add a copyright notice and my name to its EXIF shooting data, with no success.

A friend with infinite patience (and truth be told, doubly so because he's not a 5D Mark II owner) took the time to really read the relevant part of the online manual, and suggested that I ought to install the EOS Utility software instead of using the CD as a coaster as I usually do.

To cut a short story even shorter, the copyright notice and my name are now embedded in each image's EXIF.

As a public service to those of you who are manual-phobic like me, there's also a link of the Canon Digital Learning Center (Gee, who would have thought to look there?) that explains all this in details much better than I can.

My thanks to Ralph Childs, who's a patient man.

PS. I've been testing the camera's video capabilities, and immediately concluded that its built-in microphone's quality is limited. So I've been using the external Sony ECM-DS30P stereo microphone. It juts out from the camera's side, but the audio quality is infinitely better.

NYT: Behind The Lens in Iraq #1

Photo © Max Becherer/Polaris-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times brings us an audio slideshow of a conversation with three veteran war photographers in Iraq: Joao Silva, Max Becherer and Franco Pagetti, three highly experienced photographers who have covered every phase of the Iraq conflict, and hosted by The New York Times’s Baghdad Correspondent Stephen Farrell.

Joao Silva is a Portuguese-born photographer who has worked for The New York Times as a contract photographer since 2000. The same year he was co-author of “The Bang-Bang Club,” a factual account of news photographers who covered the end of the apartheid era in South Africa. In 2005 he published “In The Company of God,” a photographic book on Iraqi Shiites during and after the 2003 invasion. He is based in Johannesburg.

Max Becherer is a Cairo-based photojournalist who has covered Iraq for The New York Times since 2004. He has also worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Times. He has been represented by Polaris Images since 2004.

Franco Pagetti is an Italian photojournalist who has covered the Iraq war since January 2003, mainly on assignment for Time magazine. He has also worked in Afghanistan, the Middle East, the Balkans and Africa. He joined the VII Photo Agency in November 2007.

Eric Meola: India

The last few posts of 2008 on The Travel Photographer have been about misery...massacre in Gaza, circumcision of a sweet 7 year-old Kurdish girl, an orthopedic rehabilitation program in Afghanistan...so it's about time for a joyous post, and what better way to usher in 2009 than with the colorful (really colorful!) imagery of Eric Meola, and his new book, India: In Words & Images. My favorite photographic destination and blinding color...what a treat!

I haven't yet seen the book in its real format, but from the images on its website, it's immediately obvious that Eric Meola's book is suffused with light and color. The photographer's journeys took him from the Himalayas and monasteries in India's north to the temples of Tamil Nadu in the south, from the color and pageantry of Rajasthan in the west to the tea plantations of Darjeeling in the east.

Eric is a self-taught photographer, who opened his own studio in 1971. For over twenty years he has done editorial and corporate photography for major clients and agencies. His photographs are included in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the International Center of Photography in New York, the George Eastman House and the Museum of Modern Art in Munich.

Give yourself a break from the drabness of current events, the venality of international and local politics, the horrors of religious racism and tribalism, etc and take a peek at India: In Words & Images...2009 may be sunnier!

Gaza's Massacre

Photo: Khalil Hamra/Associated Press
As we read of the unfolding massacre in Gaza, I thought it appropriate to excerpt the following from an opinion piece written by Tariq Ali in yesterday's The Guardian newspaper.

Here it is:

And Israeli citizens might ponder the following words from Shakespeare (in The Merchant of Venice), which I have slightly altered:

"I am a Palestinian. Hath not a Palestinian eyes? Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Jew is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that … the villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."

For those interested, here's the actual quotation from The Merchant of Venice:

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. (III.i.49–61)

WP: Female Circumcision in Kurdistan

Photo © Andrea Bruce/Washington Post
Here's a photo reportage by Andrea Bruce for The Washington Post titled Sheelan's Circumcision, which makes me cringe for two reasons.

The first reason is obvious; female genital cutting (FGC) is an abhorrent and an utterly repellent practice. The graphic photographs show us how Sheelan, a seven-year-old girl is taken by her mother to be circumcised in Kurdish Iraq, where more than 60 percent of women have undergone the traditional and controversial procedure. It is much beyond controversial...it's a horrible tradition and no efforts should be spared in trying to eradicate it. It's perhaps through photo essays like these that such efforts will increase, and young girls will be spared the indignity and pain of this procedure.

On the other hand, I'm shocked that The Washington Post editors decided not to preserve Sheelan's privacy and dignity. Here's a 7 year old whose mutilation, a terribly humiliating and painful experience, is now seen on the internet. Would the editors be so cavalier in invading the privacy of a 7 year old in New York City for instance?...or is it because Sheelan and her mother are impoverished Kurds that they ignored their basic rights??

And let me take this thought a little further...has Sheelan's mother given her consent after being explained exactly where these pictures would eventually appear? Was she given money? What did the photographer tell her to convince her? People in the Middle East have human emotions just like us...they want (and have the right) to be treated with respect and dignity like everybody else. Unfortunately, since there are no accompanying explanatory article in the newspaper's website, we are left to speculate.

I'm all for publicizing the atrocity of female genital mutilation in order to combat it, but certainly not at the expense of anyone's privacy as this photo essay does. There are ways to photograph (or edit) this event and not identify the girls' (yes, there are others!) faces.

So shame on The Washington Post's photo editors. Would they be so outrageously cavalier had Sheelan been their daughter?

For those of you who don't know: There is nothing in the Qur'an that mandates female genital cutting, and it is not practiced by the majority of Muslims. So when Sheelan's mother is reported to say: "This is the practice of the Kurdish people for as long as anyone can remember. We don't know why we do it, but we will never stop because Islam and our elders require it", she's wrong. Her tribal elders may think so, but it still doesn't make it right.

In fact, the Grand Mufti Ali Jumaa of Egypt, signed a resolution denouncing and totally banning the practice, as it goes against the principles and teachings of Islam.

The Washington Post's Female Circumcision in Kurdistan with graphic photos by Andrea Bruce.

My Canon 5D Mark II !!!

All's well that ends well. I was at B&H this morning to buy a card reader, and while at the desk to have it invoiced, I asked the salesman if they had any Canon 5D Mark II in stock, fully anticipating an exasperated no. To my surprise, he looked up and said he had one in stock....just like that. Naturally, I grabbed it.

In life, it's all a matter of timing. Had I gone to B&H five minutes later, it's quite possible that it would've been gone. In any event, I charged the battery and fiddled with the camera. My initial impression is that this camera is extremely intuitive and responsive, with a solid feel to its body. The shutter sounds a little soft. I haven't opened the manual yet, but the Movie function and the Live View will require some reading.

Incidentally, B&H was packed with customers. Recession? Not at B&H.

Denis Dailleux: Egypt

Photo © Denis Dailleux-All Rights Reserved
"Between Denis Dailleux and Cairo, it is a true love story : on one side, an insatiable fascination for this unique place, its mood, its magical lights and an unspeakable tenderess towards its inhabitants ; on the other, a natural generosity, a city which offers itself to this subjugated look, inhabitants full of spontaneous kindness."

Denis Dailleux is a French photographer, who visits Cairo with regularity. He developed an obsession with this ancient city that teems with people, cars and activity. He doesn't seem interested in the superficial Cairo, but delves in the character of the "real" people...those he describes as possessing spontaneous kindness...those who live in the slums but who are willing to share the little they have with anyone...an Egyptian trait.

His gallery Egypt, My Love is replete with soft-hued images of Egyptians...some posing with candor, others exhibiting shyness in being photographed by a khawaga. In the above photograph, the young clashes with the old...the "in-your-face" of the young man showing off his torso, and his mother demurely looking away from the camera...the story of Egypt in one photograph.

Another photograph in his galleries is of a mosque caretaker beating an old carpet out of its dust in the courtyard of either Al-Hassan or Al-Hussein mosque. Just looking at it, I can smell the Egyptian dust.

Canon 5D Mark II: Adorama

Within a hour of having read on 1001 Noisy Cameras that Adorama had the Canon 5D Mark II in stock, I sauntered rather skeptically down there to investigate the report with my VISA card in my back pocket.

As I expected, the somewhat condescending (note: condescension arising from the knowledge that he had an item that many people wanted) salesman flashed his gleaming canines, and told me they had run out of stock, but he had a bunch of the Canon 5D Mark II in kit form for the grand amount of $3499...and he even showed me the box...as if that would tempt me.

As they say in Alaska, thanks but no thanks. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that lens, its price point is reasonable...but I just don't need it...and this brings me to why Canon dropped the ball in marketing this camera.

In my opinion, Canon missed the holiday buying spree by about 3 weeks. In the long run, it may not lose sales volume because of this, but many photographers now wonder why the camera was uncharacteristically late. Was that caused by some unresolved tech problem, like the black spots?

The other is the illogicality of its bundling the Canon 5D Mark II with a lens in kit form. The large majority of its buyers are professional working and serious photographers with little interest in adding another lens to their original inventory. Selling the camera in kit form is aimed at first-time buyers, and that's why these are now unsold at some retailers. Is Canon trying to get rid of its EF 24-105L Image Stabilized Lens by bundling it with a best selling camera?

I just don't get it.

Note: Another thing I don't get: The price of a BP-E6 battery grip for the 5D II is about $380, and an extra LP-E6 battery costs $80...a total of $460. That's more expensive than an EOS Digital Rebel XTi body!

Yep...I'm in a bad mood.

NGS: International Photo Contest 2008

The National Geographic announced the 2008 winners in its International Photography Contest. Frankly, the NGS lumped so many contests together that I lost track of what is what but in any event, here's another one.

The winner of the International Contest is Ilvy Njiokiktjien of the Netherlands for a photograph of elderly women in Mozambique. Quite a nice photograph with everything coming together, as one of the judges said.

Alison Wright

Photo © Alison Wright-All Rights Reserved
Here's the work of a consumate travel (and documentary) photography professional which I take delight in featuring on this blog. Alison Wright has traveled the corners of the globe during the past 20 years, documenting endangered cultures and highlight human rights issues which she cares about.

She's represented by the National Geographic and Corbis, and has been published in so many publications that it's virtually too long to list them all here, but among those are the National Geographic, Adventure and Traveler magazines, TIME magazine, The New York Times and so on. Her talent was recognized with various prestigious awards, and she published her work in her many book.

I won't single out any particular gallery on her website, as her images are all spectacular, but I will say that the one above of the woman in burqua, and the man in the alcove at Mazar-e-Cherif is, in my view, perfection.