La Santa Muerte: Lorne Matalan

Photograph Lorne Matalon-All Rights Reserved

Here's an audio slideshow of photographs by Lorne Matalon of La Santa Muerte, which is a saint-like figure worshiped and venerated in Mexico, probably as spiritual fusion of Mesoamerican and Catholic beliefs. Its cult attracts those who are inclined to seek the non-traditional ways for spiritual solace, and many of its followers live outside of the law.

Lorne Matalon has been reporting from Mexico for The World since November 2007. He covered the Mexican 'war on drugs' from the front lines, going on patrol with the Mexican armed forces. He also covered immigration and economic stories from south of the border. He worked at NPR Member Stations WUNC and WBUR, also filing for NPR from Haiti, Panama and Mongolia. Lorne is a contributor to National Geographic's Ethnosphere Project and a National Fellow at the Explorers Club of New York.

While in Mexico City, I visited Tepito, the infamous barrio where many of Santa Muerte sanctuaries are found, and produced my gallery: La Santa Muerte.

More posts on La Santa Muerte appeared here.

Kirsten Luce: Kashmiri Family Portrait

Here's a new portfolio by the talented Kirsten Luce titled A Kashmiri Family Portrait; a family living with the ghosts of their loved ones.

Kirsten is a freelance photojournalist working in New York City. Her work was published in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Time, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald (International Edition), AP, Bloomberg News and CARE International.

Apart from gleaning various awards, she was a key staff member of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali last summer, which is when she continued on to Srinagar to produce these soulful and sensitive Kashmiri images. Many of those images are beautiful with lovely light, but my favorite image is that of the young girl combing her hair.

An interview with Kirsten was published on TTP here.

OP: Mystical Adventures Photo Contest

Outdoor Photographer magazine has announced a Mystical Adventures Photo Contest, with a sponsorship of India's Ministry of Tourism.

According to the rules, submissions must be in keeping with the general theme of the Mystical Adventures Photo Contest, including, but not limited to photos of historical locations, landscape and travel, but I'm not sure if the submissions are restricted to a Indian theme or not.

The prizes are mostly of photographic gear, and there's no entry fees that I noticed.

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.

Tree Kangaroo

One of the most unique, and cutest animals in Papua New Guinea is Tree Kangaroo.
As the name tells itself, it is a family member of Kangaroo, Wallaby & Koala in Australia - Marsupials. It doesn't hop much as Kangaroo & Wallaby, but is a very good tree climber.

Local people hunt the animal and eat the meat for thousand of years - many say the meat is "sweet" but I have never tried it yet...
There was sound population of Tree Kangaroo across the country, however, dramatic increase of human population and cutting down of the forest has been a great threat to the tree kangaroo these days. Thanks to the American-based NGO, first-of-its-kind Nature Conservatory was started in the remote mountains of Huon Peninsula to protect the bio-diversity in the area and particularly the Tree Kangaroo.
We also would like to support any positive action to protect the Tree Kangaroo.

My Work: The Dancers of Tamshing Goemba

Here's a gallery of new photographs made during my recent Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition™.

The gallery is a collection of photographs of various performers at the tsechu at Tamshing Goemba near Chamkar town, in the religious heartland of Bhutan.

The performers range from the jovial jokers who wave wooden penises around, and whose principal role is to distract spectators, to the more austere Black Hat dancers who are defenders of the "dharma" and who battle enemies of Buddhism.

Tamshing Goemba was established by Pema Lingpa in 1501, and is the most important Nyingma temple in the country. Its external murals (as seen in the photographs) are badly damaged by the elements, but those inside the Goemba are magnificent.

Kundu & Kanu Festival, Bigger & Better

Kundu & Kanu Festival was held in Alotau over the last weekend (6,7 & 8 Nov).

People from all over the Milne Bay province, other provinces & overseas flocked into the normally quiet town of Alotau and witnessed the cultural festival.

Kanu (=Canoe in Tokpisin) has been a main transportation in the Milne Bay where more than 600 islands are scattered around.The larger canoe was used for the "Kula Trade", traditional barter system involving circle of islands.
Even now, people use the canoe for going to school, church, fishing and carrying the garden crop
for sale. Canoe is still one of the lifeline in Milne Bay and rest of maritime provinces in Papua New Guinea.

Begnas di Padog 2009

Begnas di Padog
a Celebration for the start of the Sowing
location: "Picong" Demang
date: November 8, 2009

Every year, at no precise date, Sagada celebrates a unique cultural festival. It happens 3 to 4 times a year, designed to start or end different cycles of events.

At the "Dap-ay" the younglings simultaneously butcher the Pig, the Dog, and the a Chicken.

"lakay" bawing of patay keeps his tobacco on his head while conversing with the "begnas" celebrant "lakay" Cadiogan.

The Boys marching their way to the dap-ay while the Ladies followed.

Sumit Dayal: The Sundarbans

Photo © Sumit Dayal-All Rights Reserved
Sumit Dayal is a freelance photographer, traveling extensively to cover stories in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. While of Kashmiri origin, he spent his childhood in Kathmandu and was educated in Delhi. He graduated from the Documentary and Photojournalism Program at the ICP in New York.

His work documents the plight of marginalized people, disappearing cultural traditions and changing landscapes in South Asia. Some of his clients include Time, Glamour, Vrij Nederland, Shell UK, Soros Foundation and Nepali Times.

His diverse galleries range from fine art photography to editorial photojournalism, and from documenting his memories of Kashmir to the urgent environmental issues faced by the Sundarbans in India.

The Sundarbans is the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world, and lie at the mouth of Ganges, and spread across areas of Bangladesh and West Bengal. Rising sea levels have swamped many islands of the Sundarbans, and thousands of families have lost their homes.

Rant: Email Newsletters

I use Campaign Monitor to send my (almost) monthly newsletter, which informs my subscribers of my new photo galleries and forthcoming The Travel Photographer's Photo~Expeditions™. Although these newsletters are only sent to those who subscribe through my sign-in box on this blog, I still get a spam notice, or even two, once in a while.

So here's the rant:

1. The mailing list for my newsletter is by subscription only. In other words, the person wanting to subscribe has to fill in his/her email address and his/her name in the sign-in box.

2. Upon doing so, each subscriber gets an auto-rely from me thanking them for subscribing, and saying that they can unsubscribe at any time by clicking a clearly marked link on the newsletters.

3. So why report my newsletter as spam? Even though I have a minuscule spam rate, it's annoying. Sending a newsletter costs me money, and if subscribers change their minds, the unsubscribe option is there! So use it, for heaven's sake!

The definition of spam from Wikipedia is this: "Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately."

Obviously, my newsletters are neither unsolicited or indiscriminate.

So is it illiteracy? Confusion? I'm mystified.

The Heroes City of Surabaya

Underwater Jungle

Papua New Guinea has Forest everywhere, from Lowland Tropical Jungle to "Cloud Forest" in the Highlands. But it is not only found on Land.
If you go for snorkeling or scuba diving, you can also enjoy the "Underwater Forest."
The coral reefs are so healthy and attract thousands of colorful reef fish.
Diving & Snorkel ling are available in different locations all year round, namely in Alotau, Kavieng, Kimbe bay, Madang, Port Moresby, Rabaul & Tufi.

Penelope Gan: Malay-Chinese Opera

Photo © Penelope Gan-All Rights Reserved
Although Penelope Gan works in the financial industry in Kuala Lumpur, she's also passionate about photography, and particularly about photojournalism. She recently embarked on documenting various social issues that concern her, and produced a number of audio-visual photo essays to assist a number of local NGOs and government organizations that are involved in resolving these issues. An alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali this summer, she attended Ami Vitale's class (and mine).

She recently worked on what I deem to be an captivating project, documenting a special brand of traditional Chinese opera performing in Kuala Lumpur. According to Penelope's blog, the Chinese operas initially made their appearance in the mid-19th century when large numbers of Chinese migrated to Malaysia (or Malaya then) in search of employment and economic opportunities. Having settled in their new country, the Chinese brought in opera troupes from China, performing their art and mirroring the cultural developments in China.

The Malaysian Chinese opera may soon be a relic of the past, as it unsuccessfully competes with changing cultural tastes, and against the current of technological advancement and globalization. This makes Penelope's project timely, and I hope she is able to finalize it soon. The merging of what I imagine will be stunning visuals and the audio is something that I am certain will be awaited by many people.

So go for it, Penelope!

DPReview: Canon 7D Review

From DPReview's just published write-up on the new Canon EOS 7D has this interesting paragraph:

"In some respects the 7D is even a better camera than the EOS 5D Mark II and a viable alternative for all those who do not want or need a camera with a full-frame sensor. Its 8 fps continuous shooting speed and highly flexible AF system might even make it a consideration for credit-crunch battered sports photographers on a budget."

The full comprehensive review runs to 30 pages, and is worth to read very carefully if this camera is of interest. I am interested in the $1,700 Canon EOS 7D as a second camera to my current full-frame low-light capable 5D Mark II, and for its 8 fps capability, so I will parse every word before I make any decisions.

Update (11.21.09): For another review of the 7D, check Bob Atkins' here.

I've handled the 7D for a few moments at B&H (oblivious of the theatrical throat-clearings and discreet shoves from other gawkers), and can vouch that it's solidly built and that it's frames-per-second sounds really fast. I read somewhere that it's more like 7 fps than 8, but that's being pedantic.

I'm not a sports photographer, but in my line of work I do need fast continuous shooting speed, so this camera (and at this price) may come in handy. The other option is the expensive ($5,000) full frame EOS-1D Mark IV with its 1.3 crop factor, 10 fps and 16 effective megapixels APS-H CMOS sensor.

Kumarakom - Kerala

Kumarakom is one of the tourist spot of Kerala state. It is located in Kottayam District. It is a cluster of little island in Vembanad Lake in Kerala. Kumarakom has variety of Flora and Fauna. Here, Kumarakom Birds Sanctuary is one of the noted Birds Sanctuary in Kerala. There are many species migratory birds visit here. This sanctuary extends in 14 acres. The Vembanad Lake is one of the largest backwater in Kerala.

Fishing and Tourism are the major agriculture in Kumarakom. Fruits like banana, mango, jack fruit, aathaycka and pineapple are also cultivating here.

Another famous thing in Kumarakom is Houseboats. Tourists from all over the world, are coming to Kumarakam and staying in Houseboat for a day/week in rental basis. Boat races will be conducted here during the time of Onam festival.

How to reach?

From all over India, airline facilities are available in daily basis. By flight, we can reach upto Cochin airport, then we have to go by roadways.

Trivandrum to Kumarakom - 190 kms

Cochim to Kumarakom - 70 kms

Allappey to Kumarakom - 35 kms

Munnar to Kumarakom - 160 kms

Thekkady to Kumarakom - 122 kms

if u need more details about Kumarakom, click here

Yercaud Hills - Tamilnadu

Yercaud is one of the hill region of Tamilnadu. And it is also called "Poor Man's Ooty". The meaning of Yercaud in Tamil is "Yeri means Lake and Kaadu mean Forest". The feet of Yercaud is 1500 from the sea level. The Yercaud hill is in Salem District. One of loveliest spot in that hill is Yercaud Lake. The Lake is surrounded by lush green forest and the lake is used for boating by the tourist from all over India. The summer festival is held in this lake every year in the month of May.

Tourist Spot in Yercaud:

Yercaud Lake

Anna Park

Lady's and Gent's Seat

Killiyur Falls

Shervaoyan Temple

Pagoda Point

The Grange

Bear's Cave

Wild life like beer, bison, ant eater, foxes, rabbits, mangoose, squirrels, sparrows, buibuls and snakes are living there.

Jack fruits, Guava, Orange, Tea, black Pepper are the main crops of Yercaud hill.

Yercaud has developed into major trekking destination in this region. A lot of treks are available there.

Its around 350 kms far away from Chennai to reach Yercaud, from Salem its around 33 kms far away. The nearest airport for Yercaud Hills is Trichy airport. The nearest Railways station to the destination is Salem.

For more details about Yercaud and its tourism, visit http://www.yercaud.com/

Kolli Hills (Kolli Malai) - Tamilnadu

Kolli Hills (Kolli Malai) is a small hill region which is located in central part of Tamilnadu. The is around 1000 to 1300 feet high from sea level. Its around 70 hair pin bends to reach the top of the hill. Kolli Hills is a part of Eastern Ghats, and it runs mostly parallel to east coast. These mountain sometime known as Mountains of Death. This hill has very adventurous and shocking history.

Two view points are located in Kolli Hills, one is nearby Seekuparai and another one is in Selur Nadu. These are being developed by Tamilnadu Government to encourage Tourism. This mountain is also a site of pilgrimage, due to Arapaleeswarar Temple which is believed to have a secret path to Shiva Temple which located in Rasipuram. There are three reserved forest which is in control by Tamilnadu Government.

The mountains are covered with evergreen forest, but nowadays it has been cleared for farming. The main cultivation of Kolli hills are Coffee, Tea, Jack Fruit, Pine Apple and Black Pepper.

This hill is also one of the growing tourist spot in Tamilnadu. For this, several lodges and resorts are available there. One of the famous resort is Nallathambi Resort which has been operating for mare than 15 years.

To know more about Kolli Hills details, visit http://www.kollihillresorts.weebly.com/

Kutralam (Courtallam) Waterfalls - Tamilnadu

Kutralam waterfalls is in Tirunelveli Dist., Tamilnadu. Here water is falling with various herbs, so it has medicine qualities, and it is called "Spa of South India". There is also a belief that the mentally ill gets cured after taking bath here. It is located at an elevation of about 550 feet in Western Ghats and it attracts the tourist from all over India.

While we take bath, the force of the waterfalls touches our body then we will feel relax and tension free. Actually, Kutralam has nine waterfalls. They are Peraruvi (Main falls), Chitra Aruvi, Shenbagadevi Falls, Thenaruvi (Honey Falls), Aintharuvi (Five Falls), Old Courtallam falls, New Falls, Pazhathotta Aruvi and Puli Aruvi (Tiger Falls).

The season in Kutralam is June to September every month. Kutralam is 640 kms far away from Chennai, 115 kms from Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram), 137 kms from Kanyakumari, 40kms from Tirunelveli. The nearest airport for Kutralam is Tuticorin and the nearest railway station is Tenkasi.

For more details about Kutralam click here

Tim Chong: Hemis Festival

Hemis Tsechu 2008 from Tim Chong on Vimeo.

Hemis Tsechu is a festival commemorating the birth of Guru Rimpoche, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. It's observed and celebrated on the 10th day of the fifth Tibetan lunar month, which usually falls between the end of June and the beginning of July.

The festival is a two-day event held at the Hemis monastery, almost 30 miles south of Leh in Ladakh, India. During the festival, resident Lamas and monks perform a series of masked dances (Cham) which are re-enactments of the magical feats of Guru Rimpoche. Similar to the Cham dances of Bhutan, these dances depict the eternal struggle of good versus evil. When these dances come to an end, an idol made of dough is destroyed by the leader of Black Hat dancers. The destroyed pieces of the figure are then spread in four directions.

This is the well-done documentary work of Tim Chong, a senior photo sub-editor/photographer for the Reuters Global Pictures Desk based in Singapore.

Note: For more of the tsechu dances, visit Cham!, a multimedia gallery of my own photographs made during last year's Bhutan Photo~Expedition.

Hard Gear: Iomega's eGo Helium

I plead guilty to the sin of impulse buying. It's not often that I do that, but the Apple store in the West Village has such a cornucopia of irresistible temptations. So a sleek and elegant 500GB Iomega's eGo Helium Hard Drive is now part of my external hard drive panoply.

While its design (and its intent) makes it a natural for the MacBook Air, I'll be using this baby with my Acer netbook, in tandem with my other portable hard drive, G-Drive Mini. I deemed the eGo Helium's weight of 7oz to be an important factor in the decision. It only offers one USB 2.0 port, but that doesn't bother me as I only intend to use it with the said Acer. In contrast, my G-Drive Mini has two FireWire 800 and one USB 2.0.

Naturally for a product that really looks like a baby MacBook Air, the device is formatted with Apple's HFS+ file system, which meant I had to reformat it for my Acer's Windows XP OS. A minor pain in the neck, but nevertheless a pain. Since XP pretended that the drive didn't exist, I had to refer to Iomega's website and read (imagine that!!!) the instructions as the "short-on-details" manual included with the device didn't address that issue properly.

It now works nicely, and for my forthcoming photo~expedition to India I will have storage capacity of the eGo Helium's 500gb, the G-Drive's 320gb and the Acer's 160gb (well, almost 160gb). Not bad.

Now, all that's left to do is to paint the Acer in a shiny silver aluminum color and paste the Apple decal on it!

Update: It was annoying that the device wasn't recognized by my MacBook free USB port, but the solution was to plug it in the USB ports of my Cinema display.

Ami Vitale: Updated Website

As TTP readers know, Ami Vitale is one of my favorite documentary photographers, and has been featured on many occasions on this blog. Ami worked on contract for National Geographic for many years, been published in all or most of the top-name media outlets, and won a ton of awards for her impressive work. She lived in India for almost 6 years out of which nearly 4 of those were spent in Kashmir.

Currently based in Miami, Ami believes in spending time on a story, and in living with the people she photographs. This, she says, has helped her to get beneath the surface of a story. During the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali, Ami and I shared some of the students in our respective classes, and I know she stressed that particular ethic during her instructions.

In any event, there are many posts on TTP on Ami, but she has recently updated her website which I encourage you to visit if you haven't done so already.