NY Times: One in 8 Million

Photo © Todd Heisler/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved

One of the "props" I used very effectively during my Intro To Multimedia Storytelling class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop is the stunning work done by The New York Times photographer Todd Heisler (along with others) with the One In 8 Million series. The class participants watched The Medical Tourist, and realized how effective a few stills and well edited audio can be in storytelling.

One of the participants in my class, Dar Yasin, was so captivated by what he viewed that he decided to base his multimedia SoundSlides project on the One In 8 Million series, and produced a black & white photo essay on The Street Barber, a 3 minute window into the life of Shyam, a barber in the streets of Manali, India. Dar shot the project in an hour or so, and recorded the audio at the same time.

The New York Time has featured a "shoptalk" with Todd Heisler, in which provides insights into his work. Interestingly, he tells us that he photographs a subject over two to three visits, makes a broad edit of 80 to 100 images, narrows them down to 25 to 40 images, then sits with a sound producer and start pacing the images with the final sound edit.

I know I've said it before, but for anyone interested in multimedia, done simply and very effectively, One in 8 Million is a must-see.

Gerak Jalan Kolosan Tanggul-Jember(Tajemtra) Semakin Meriah

event Tahunan gerak jalan Tajemtra yang melewati jalur Tanggul-Jember mulai siang hingga malam dengan ekpresi diri setiap warga yang berbeda-beda dari wajah yang di cat berbagai warna maupun yang mendesain bentuk ular dan lainnya. gerak jalan ditempuh oleh warga adalah dengan tempuh menempuh 30 km . para peserta tak hanya merebutkan tropi Mahmudi Cup III tetapi lebih dari itu
Saat Tajemtra 2009 ini tidak hanya di ikuti oleh warga jember dan sekitarnya melainkan dari berbagai daerah seperti NTB, Surabaya, Ngajuk,Pasuruan dan kabupaten lainyaa

Matt Brandon: Bangla Sahib Gurudwara

Photo © Matt Brandon-All Rights Reserved
Matt Brandon of The Digital Trekker blog has produced Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, a SoundSlides photo essay on the most prominent Sikh gurudwara (or Sikh house of worship) in Delhi. The gurudwara is known for its association with the eighth Sikh Guru, Guru Har Krishan, and for the pond inside its complex, known as the "Sarovar", whose water is considered holy by Sikhs. It was built by Sikh General, Sardar Bhagel Singh in 1783, who supervised the construction of nine Sikh shrines in Delhi in the same year, during the reign of Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam II.

It is situated in the Connaught Place area of Delhi, and is instantly recognizable by its stunning golden dome. While in Delhi for the Foundry Workshop, I was told of a massive Sikh religious festival occurring at the gurudwara, but I was too tired to attend it. Perhaps next year.

Tyler Hicks: Afghanistan's Elections

Photo © Tyler Hicks/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved

The New York Times is featuring Tyler Hicks' photographs of the currently under way Afghan elections in a slide show titled A Precarious Election. The accompanying article is by Carlotta Gall, and this caught my eye:

"With Taliban insurgents active in half the country, many Afghans remain doubtful that the Aug. 20 election will take place at all. The Taliban issued a statement last week calling for a boycott, a threat that could deter voters in much of the south, where the insurgency is strongest."

Reading the rest of the article, i couldn't help wondering if what we describe as the so-called Taliban are merely Pashtuns who are alienated from the increasingly corrupt government infrastructure. The pervasive and venal governance of Hamid Karzai and his acolytes is well documented, and the electoral results will surely reflect not only "irregularities" (as the New York Times rather quaintly describes them) but outright fraud. This does not bode well for Afghanistan.

I was also struck by the above photograph showing the portrait of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir, prominently displayed. If he hadn't been assassinated in 2001, Afghanistan would look very different than it is today.

National Geographic Photo Contest 2009

The National Geographic Society has announced its international photography contest 2009, for which English-language-edition readers in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom are eligible to enter up to a total of six photographs across three categories: People, Places and Nature.

The contest began Wednesday, Aug. 5, and ends Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009. The entries will be judged at National Geographic headquarters by a panel of three judges: National Geographic staff photographer Mark Thiessen; design editor of the international editions of National Geographic magazine Darren Smith; and White House photo editor Jenn Poggi. First-place category winners of the English-language-edition competition will win a digital camera kit.

As in all and every photography contests, I strongly encourage all interested photographers to make sure they carefully read the contests' terms and conditions, especially since misunderstandings between organizers and contestants over terms, prizes and other issues sometimes occur.

Via Imaging Insider.

Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Here are the photographers/photojournalists who volunteered to teach at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali.

From left to right: (instructors in bold) Tewfic El-Sawy, Jerry Mossy, Kael Alford, Michael Robinson-Chavez, Mansi Midha, Guy Calaf, Eric Beecroft (FPW founder), Andrea Bruce, Adrian Fisk, Neal Jackson, Kirsten Luce, Adriana Zehbrauskas, Ron Haviv. Missing from the line up are Ami Vitale and Henrik Kastenskov.

Yes. mother...it's a beer bottle in my hand.

Ami Vitale Does The New Nikon D300s

While I was in the wilderness of Manali last week, the buzz amongst the workshop's participants was about Nikon's new D300S, an updated version of its successful mid-level DSLR. The D300S offers full 720p HD video recording at 24 fps, a 7 fps (see that, Canon?) continuous shooting and Dual CF and SD card slots, and its selling price is $1799.

As it happens, Ami Vitale was one of the instructors at the workshop, and she has done some video work with the D300S. It now appears here on the Nikon website.

I'm always skeptical of advertisements of that type, but if push comes to shove I'd rather have a photographer like Ami showing her work, than having a corporate-generated clip showing how great the camera is. In reality, it's not simple to move from still photography to videography, and it certainly takes more than flipping a switch at the back of a camera to produce a reasonably successful movie. It requires a different mindset, and different disciplines...and training.

The Nikon D300S specifications can be found here on DPReview.

Adu Cepat Dan ketangkasana dalam karapan sapi

bila ingin melihat karapan sapi sekarang tak perlu jauh-jauh ke pulau madura. dibulan berkunjung ke Jember terdapat lomba karapan sapi yang digelar di Dusun Curahbanban, Desa Tanggul Wetan, Kecamatan Tanggul. dengan panjang lintasan 200 meter

Kecamatan yang berbatasan dengan Kabupaten Lumajang tersebut bakal menggelar karapan sapi tingkat regional Jawa Timur. Pelaksanaannya dipastikan jatuh pada akhir minggu ini, 1-2 Agustus 2009 di Lapangan Klatakan Desa Tanggul Wetan.

Selama karapan digelar, panitia menyediakan lahan seluas 4 hektar apalagi sesuai data yang masuk sudah ada 72 pasang sapi telah mendaftarkan diri dan siap berlaga diarena lapangan Klatakan. Sejumlah hadiahpun sudah disiapkan panitia, diantaranya, 6 unit sepeda motor dan hadiah menarik lainnya.

Photo Plus Expo: New York City

Keynote speakers and seminar presenters have just been announced for the PDN PhotoPlus International Expo and Conference, which takes place October 22 to 24 in New York City. The event will be located at the Jacob Javits Center and will bring us hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of new products and a conference with over 100 seminars.

I haven't been to this event for a number of years now, as it coincided with my fall photo~expeditions, however this year my Bhutan photo~expedition will be over by October 7, and I ought to be back home in NYC and perhaps attend this year's event. Who knows? I might be lucky and land myself a free t-shirt or something.

I see that James Nachtwey, Phil Borges, Ron Haviv and others will be giving talks during the conference. The schedule of these seminars are here.

Masaru Goto: Sri Lanka

The conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has lasted nearly 30 years, and is one of the longest-running civil wars in Asia. The Tamil Tigers want an independent state for the island's Tamil minority but after a year-long military offensive, the Sri Lankan government recently claimed that it had defeated the separatist group, and killed its leader.

Here's Masaru Goto's Invisible Victims: Sri Lankan War Scars, powerful and incisive photographs, documenting the war-affected individuals who bear the wounds from this conflict.

Masaru has 19 years experience photographing social and human rights issues in Southeast Asia and South America, and he made it his mission to highlight the plight and resilience of ordinary people who are caught in conflicts, suffering under oppression or economically disadvantaged.

In 2002, Masaru won the prestigious Fifty Crows Foundation award for Documentary Photography for his photos essay on Human Rights in Colombia “got rights? Human Rights in Colombia”. His photography books include “My Journal of Cambodia 1997-1998”, a photographic essay about the final years of civil war waged by the Khmer Rouge and “Smile in Despair: Stories from a Cambodian AIDS ward” on the HIV/AIDS crisis in Cambodia. In 2004, his images of HIV/AIDS in Cambodia won two of the category, "LOVE" and "ILLNESS" for "the River of Life" World Health Organization (WHO) photo competition.

Walk-About: Delhi's Chandni Chowk

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

This Monday afternoon, some of the FPW staff and participants went on a walk-bout with Adrian Fisk in the narrow alleys of Delhi's Chandni Chowk. This is the major street in the walled city of Old Delhi, originally called Shah Jahanabad. It runs through the middle of the walled city, from the Lahori Darwaza of the Red Fort to Fatehpuri Masjid.

Chandni Chowk is replete with authentic Indian food, delicacies and sweets to saris, and from spices to automobile cannibalized parts.

The above photograph was made at the spice market at Pili Kothi Chowk (or Pul Mithai).

Final: Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Photo © Neal Jackson-All Rights Reserved
The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali is over, and instructors and students have all departed (some students have remained in the region of Himachal Pradesh). Most of the instructors are now in Delhi, and after a possible walk-about in Old Delhi and lunch at the famed Kareem's, and an evening party, will depart to their home countries or work countries.

The highlight for me was that Mumbai-based photographer Dhiraj Singh received the top student award for photography during the ceremony in Manali. Dhiraj was one of the participants in my Multimedia Storytelling class, and worked incredibly hard and creatively to produce a multimedia piece based on the SoundSlides platform titled "My Name is Dechen"...a gripping tale of Tibetan woman afflicted with psychological problems. I had no advance information that Dhiraj would win until instructor and photojournalist Andrea Bruce, with her innate courtesy, came over to let me know.

Two other participants in my multimedia class also deserve particular praise; Dar Yasin, a photojournalist based in Kashmir, presented The Street Barber, a personal look at the craft in Manali, and Mohit Gupta from Delhi presented a soulful color-rich Thangka, a look at the process of painting of the Tibetan religious scrolls.

I am waiting for Dhiraj, Dar and Mohit to upload their work on their websites, and will post some of commentary about these projects.

I had posted work by Dhiraj earlier in July, not knowing that he was to be a student in my multimedia class. This is the link. Watch this space, as they say. We will hear of Dhiraj Singh a lot in the weeks, months and years to come.

A Passenger Survey at an Airport.

Quite often students listen to situations in English related to tourism or they are asked to do some sort of role plays in the classroom in which they take roles they will have to assume when they start working in the tourism sector. Why not take students out of the classroom and to authentic places so that they can practice English in a real situation? That is why last May, aftert doing a listening about a passenger survey at an airport, we decided to carry out a passenger survey in a nearby airport, where students would have to use English to communicate. Thus, we ended up going to Faro airport (Portugal) which is one and a half hour from our town, Huelva, in the southwest of Spain. An example of the questions from the survey are included here although each student made slight variations:

Questions at the Airport

Below you can find a sample video of the work students did during a morning at Faro airport (Southern Portugal). If you want to see the rest of the videos students recorded carrying out passenger surveys, go to the right-hand side of the blog and you will find them in the section "My students´videos":

Here are some pictures that illustrate our trip to Faro airport in Portugal:

Jember Fashion Carnafal 8

Dalam Agenda bulan ke jember(BBJ 2009) Jember fashion Carnafal menjadi ajang Carnafal fashion dengan Catwalk terpanjang.yang merauk penonton dari berbagai daerah untuk datang ke jember. jember fashion carnafal 8 (JFC 8) ini mengusung tema " World Unity" yang pelaksanaannya tanggal 02 Agustus 2009 pukul; 12.00 - 17.00 dengan Catwalk : Alun-Alun - Sultan Agung - Gajah Mada- GOR
dengan devile

1. JFC Marching Band
2. Rana Minang
3. Upper Ground
4. Animal Plants
5. Off Life
6. Hard - Soft
7. Container
8. Techno - Eth
9. Rhythm


Seperti yang terkutip di website JFC ( http://www.jemberfashioncarnaval.com/)


Meningkatkan aset sumber daya manusia dan kekayaan budaya daerah tidak selalu harus melalui penggalian peninggalan budaya lama. Kita dapat saja mencapai tujuan diatas melalui penciptaan sebuah maha karya baru yang belum pernah dilakukan sebelumnya. Sebab kebudayaan itu sendiri selalu berawal dari ketiadaan.

Fashion Carnaval dengan tema trend fashion dunia tidak dimiliki oleh daerah lain, bahkan di dunia pun belum ada yang mengangkat potensi ini. Melalui penyelenggaraan event yang memiliki konsep yang jelas, SDM yang berkualitas, dan berkesinambungan, maka akan menjadi potensi unggulan yang nantinya dapat memberikan multiplier efek terhadap potensi lainnya. Salam JFC !

Sumber
1. website JFC ( http://www.jemberfashioncarnaval.com/)