Michael Nye: About Hunger

Photo © Michael Nye-All Rights Reserved
I've briefly touched upon the issue of hunger in a POV a few days ago, and coincidentally found Michael Nye's compassionate work at the same time.

Michael Nye’s exhibition About Hunger & Resilience, consists of fifty portraits and accompanying audio stories of individuals who experienced hunger in the United States.

Michael Nye has been listening, photographing and recording hunger for the past 4.5 years. He lives in downtown San Antonio, and practiced law for 10 years before pursuing photography full time. He's the recipient of a Mid-America National Endowment for the Arts grant in photography, and a Kronkosky Foundation grant. He also participated in two Arts America tours in the Middle East and Asia, and has exhibited and lectured widely in museums and universities, including Morocco, India and Mexico.

"About Hunger & Resilience" opened at the Witte Museum,San Antonio, Texas in January of 2010 and is currently traveling around the United States.

Aaron Vincent Elkaim: Jewish Morocco

Photo © Aaron Vincent Elkaim-All Rights Reserved
On the occasion of Passover, I thought of posting an interesting visual-historical-religious photo essay relating to the long Judeo-Muslim history of Morocco by Aaron Vincent Elkaim.

Jewish history in Morocco dates back to over 2000 years, and Jews have lived in the country as a protected minority. Prior to the arrival of the French in 1912, the currency and flag of Morocco carried the star of David, a recognition that it represented a prophet revered by Jew and Muslim (as Dawood) alike. During the Second World War, the king of Morocco famously declared to the Nazis (who wanted a list of Jews) that there were no Jews in Morocco, only Moroccan citizens.

Following the establishment of Israel, most of the Moroccan Jews have left their country of birth for the USA, France, Canada and Israel itself.

Aaron is an emerging documentary photography who initially studied Film and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Manitoba. His work was awarded on numerous occasions and published in newspapers and magazines across Canada.

His photographs in the mellahs of Marrakesh and Essaouira remind me of my own at the synagogues in these two cities last summer, during the Essaouira Gnawa festival.

POV: iPad

Photo Courtesy WIRED-All Rights Reserved
I'm far from being a geek or remotely resembling one, but I still like gadgets provided they're useful and have a purpose...which brings me to the iPad.

Unless you're traveling in North Korea, you must've heard that Apple is launching its iPad in its stores this coming Saturday. I live not too far from its 14th Street store and I intend to walk by just to see the gawking crowds.

The New York Times' David Pogue has an interesting article (and well-balanced) titled Looking At The iPad From Two Angles which I found to be the most intelligent of whatever has been recently written about the device. He concludes the article with this:

"The bottom line is that the iPad has been designed and built by a bunch of perfectionists. If you like the concept, you’ll love the machine. The only question is: Do you like the concept? "

And that's the question. The iPad is really a "looker" not a "doer"...in other words, like its midget cousin the iTouch, it'll be mainly used as a reader, as a viewer of text, of website (minus Flash), of emails, of pictures, and so forth. Its success or failure is also dependent on the available applications, current and future, which I understand are close to 1500 in number already.

So far, I haven't seen any merits for photographers to get one. I read somewhere that an enterprising photographer will buy a few and, when asked for his portfolios, will send them out to his best clients instead of the old-style books. I'm quite certain that the iPad will be great in impressively displaying our images, but that's all.

Will it be fun to have an iPad? Of course, but will it be useful? I don't know. I'll wait and decide in another 6 months. Let others be the testers.

WIRED has a roundup on the first reviews of the iPad.

The Sabarimala Pilgrimage: Asim Rafiqui

Photo © Asim Rafiqui-All Rights Reserved
It's always a pleasure to start off the month with a super interesting post.

Here's a religious event/festival that not only fires up my adrenaline and imagination, but whose descriptive details I savor with relish, particularly as these are written by one of my favorite writers, William Dalrymple, and photographed by one of my favorite photojournalists, Asim Rafiqui.

And naturally, this event (as one of the largest pilgrimage festival in southern India) will be added to my list of possible destinations for a photo~expedition in 2011 or beyond. Not as overhyped as the Kumbh melas, it's the sort of authentic event I would love to photograph and attend...and then produce photo-essays and audio slideshows. It is this kind of destination that I seek for my photo~expeditions, which are destination/event-driven rather than just hopscotching from one tourist spot to the other. The trek up to the temple takes a minimum of five hours on a crowded path and unfortunately, women aged 10-60 are excluded from the pilgrimage.

The festival is the Sabarimala pilgrimage, and it brings Hindus and Muslims together in a fashion that is seldom witnessed. It would be redundant for me to re-post what Dalrymple describes, so here is his article as published in The Guardian.

Here's Asim's post in his opus; The Idea of India, and in which he writes:

"Here, in this small town in Western Kerala, members of two communities have managed, through legend, lore and ritual, to create a shared spiritual and social space and bridged what many claim is an insurmountable divide. The Sabarimala pilgrimage, in the course of about forty days, will bring nearly 50 million pilgrims through this town, and to the Vavar mosque. The seventy kilometer trek from Erumeli to the mountain top shrine of the god Ayyappa at Sabarimala cannot be completed without first paying respects to his friend the Muslim pirate/saint Vavar and asking his permission to proceed."

Asim meets a guruswami who invites him to join his group to Sabarimala and, being of a different persuasion, assumes wrongly that the invitation was only rhetorical. As the guru leads his group towards the mountain shrine of Ayyappa, he waves and tells Asim that perhaps Ayyappan did not call him yet, but that when he was ready he'd ask him to come.

I hope Ayyapan includes me as well.

Paulette Waltz: Tibetans In Exile

Photo © Paulette Waltz-All Rights Reserved
Here's an audio slideshow of black & white photographs of the Tibetan community in Manali by Paulette Waltz.

There are 3 Tibetan monasteries in Manali; two of which are located in the main downtown area of Manali, while the third monastery is on the opposite bank of the Beas river. In common with other Tibetan communities, there are a number of handicraft stores and restaurants. The two I frequented -while teaching at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop- was Chopsticks (not much imagination in the name, but decent and cheap food) and the delightful Peace Cafe which served a wonderful granola and yogurt breakfast, as well as noodle soup and other staples.

Paulette Waltz lives and works in Tokyo, but was born and raised near Washington, DC. She pursued Psychology at Emory University, studying in Europe and Africa. Post-graduation, she traveled Asia and lived in northeast China as well as Japan. She developed her interest in photography in Namibia, where coming across photogenic Himba women.

My Work: Baneshwar Pind Daan

One of the highlights during my Tribes of South Rajasthan & Kutch Photo~Expedition™ was a few days spent photographing in Baneshwar during its annual fair, or mela.

The Baneshwar mela is popular tribal gathering held in the Dungarpur district in south Rajasthan. The gathering is followed by a fair held at a small delta formed by the river Soma and Mahi. It's a relatively modest event, without the hype and the attendance of the Kumbh Melas, but it's nevertheless a deeply religious gathering with simple and traditional rituals. Bhil and Garasia tribals come from the neighboring states of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat to offer prayers to Lord Shiva, to perform pind daan, and to socialize.

Here's Baneshwar: Pind Daan, an audio-slideshow of photographs made and ambient sound gathered during the mela. Photographed in a documentary style, I chose to process the images in black & white despite their vivid colors.

The audio-slideshow was featured in my March email newsletter sent to my subscribers.

Ryan Pyle: Chinese Turkestan

Here's a feature by photographer Ryan Pyle on Chinese Turkestan, which touches on the Uyghur people and their efforts to preserve their cultural and religious practices in China.

Chinese Turkestan is now known as Xinjiang, and is an autonomous region of mainland China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.

Its major ethnic groups include Uyghur, Han, Kazakh, Hui, Kyrgyz and Mongol.It also has a documented history of at least 2,500 years, and a succession of different peoples and empires vying for control over the territory.

Ryan Pyle obtained a degree in International Politics from the University of Toronto, moved to China permanently in 2002 and began taking freelance assignments in 2003. He became a regular contributor to The New York Times covering China, where he documented issues such as rural health care, illegal land seizures, bird flu and environmental degradation. He also has published magazine work, such as the Sunday Times Magazine, Der Spiegel, Fortune, TIME, Outside, Forbes and Newsweek.

Normally, the Muslim call to prayer is melodious but the one chosen for this piece's soundtrack is not, so perhaps you may want to turn the audio off.

The Travel Photographer's 2011 Photo~Expeditions™

I am planning my forthcoming Photo~Expeditions™ for 2011, and thought I'd write a heads-up concerning the direction these will take in the next year.

After some deliberation, I've decided to further accentuate the travel-documentary thrust of my photo~expeditions, and reduce the maximum number of participants to only 5 (excluding myself) on each trip. My recent expeditions have become so popular that they've swelled up to 9-10 participants, and generated long waiting lists. As of 2011, participation will no longer be based on "first registered first in", but will be based on a portfolio viewing and other criteria.

I intend to maximize the photo-journalism and travel-documentary components of my photo~expeditions even further, and largely focus on story-telling...and add a multi-media workshop element to them. This is the future of photography, and I fully intend to structure my photo~expeditions accordingly.

Here's an example of what I mean:

One of the photo~expeditions I intend to lead in summer 2011 is to Kashmir. I will announce its itinerary and the terms in due course, however it will be restricted to 5 photographers (excluding me).

The photographers will have visual and intellectual interest in Kashmir's Islamic culture, would have previously traveled to India, would be self-starters, have an affinity for photo-journalism & travel documentary photography, and want to work on individual projects and produce photo essays.

I chose Kashmir as an example because it's a destination that lends itself very well to both documentary photography (which is the objective of my photo~expeditions) and "pretty picturing" (which is not my aim). The overriding purpose in Kashmir will be to document its rich culture, its people and their faith. Will we photograph Dal Lake at dawn? Yes we will, but the major thrust will be on documenting the culture, and on projects of human interest.

Whether it's Kashmir, Kerala & Gujarat, Kathmandu, Havana, China, Siem Reap, Vietnam or any other of my possible 2011 destinations, carefully selecting participants and capping their number to 5, will accentuate the travel-documentary philosophy that I gained a reputation for, and will further enhance the quality of my photo~expeditions.

For further insight, here are a couple of my older posts (a) and (b) defining my philosophy behind my photo~expeditions. You'll find these quite interesting.

Here is an updated description of my photo~expeditions on my website.

Bengkulu Tourism

Bengkulu Province in the region there are many tourist objects consisting of natural tourist attractions, history and culture. Here are some tourist attraction located in the areas of Bengkulu province.

1. Museum Bengkulu

In this museum there Drukkey Populair printing brand "Golden Press" made in USA in 1930 which was once used as a printing machine "red money", a kind Oeang Republik Indonesia (ORI), which serves as legal tender for prefectural area of Bengkulu.

2. Hot Suban

This tourism object is a natural tourist town located in the capital Curup Rejang Lebong. At this location there is a hot water bath by the local government and there is a waterfall with a height of 75 meters berhawa cool with a beautiful natural panorama. Hot Water Suban in there "Weeping Rock" which according to legend is the incarnation of a princess who was left by his lover. Location is about 90 km to the northeast of Bengkulu, or about 2 hours drive.

3. Long Ivory Coast Cempaka

This beach extends along 7 km with clean sand. Along the coast there are many pine trees and a few restaurants, side cottages and swimming pool. Location of the beach about 3 km from the city center.

4. Rafflesia flowers arnoldi

This flower was first discovered in Bengkulu during the British occupation by Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles and Dr. Arnold in the hamlet Lubuk But, South Bengkulu District in 1818. Diamater rates up to 100 cm so that is kind of the world's largest flower. These flower buds period ranged from 6 to 8 months, whereas the growth of the fresh bloom approximately 15 days. The uniqueness of this flower in addition to a large and attractive colors that are not rooted, not leaves and not trunked.

This flower locations scattered around the area of Bengkulu on the hillside Barisan, but which has dikonservasikan by the Directorate of Nature protection of Bengkulu, which is at:

• Fence Location Mountain I, II, III in the Kepahiang, Kab. Rejang Lebong (about 55 km from Bengkulu)

• Penanjung Taba Protected Forest I and II, North Bengkulu (about 30 km from Bengkulu)

• Village Lubuk But, 15 km from the town of Manna Kab. South Bengkulu

5. Bukit Kaba

Location Kaba hill is located about 19 km from the city Curup with a height of 1937 meters above sea level. In this area there are 2 pieces of sulfur craters large enough with 12 kepundannya are still active. This area has been visited by many tourists to witness the sulfur Bukit Kaba Crater is amazing.



6. Marlborough Fortress

Marlborough Fortress is a legacy of the British fort, founded by the East Indian Company in the year 1713-1719 under the leadership of Governor Joseph Callet is England's strongest fortress in the East after Fort George in Madras. The fort was erected on the artificial hill, overlooking the town of Bengkulu and back to the Indian Ocean. When standing on one side of the castle, we can witness a panorama of beautiful beach dikala Padri sunset. Not far from the location of the fort is a monument of Thomas Parr of the British government built to commemorate the resident Thomas Parr, who died in Bengkulu

7. Abode House Museum Bung Karno

Bung Karno, proclaimer of independence and first president of the Republic of Indonesia, before independence had exiled in Bengkulu. Long residence in exile is located at Jalan Soekarno Hatta and relics of his in there. Currently the house has a museum by the Ministry of Education and Culture

8. Masjid Melayu

Masjid Melayu uniquely shaped located in the center of Bengkulu city is the work of Bung Karno while exiled in Bengkulu.

9. Grave Sentot Alibasha

Sentot Alibasha, commander of the Diponegoro's struggle once exiled in Bengkulu to the end by the Dutch East Indies government and was buried in the city of Bengkulu.

10. Celebration Mass Tabot

The ceremony is held once a year in the city of Bengkulu from 1 to 10 Muharam. During the 10-day ceremonies and performed traditional dances that are traditional and rooted in religious life. Implementation is quite festive celebration that is one of the exciting entertainment in the province of Bengkulu and surrounding areas.



11. Wildlife and Parks Hunting

- Bukit Gedang Seblat

Area of 48,750 km2 is part of the National Park established Seblat government located in North Bengkulu district about 110 km from the city of Bengkulu.

There is lots of wildlife and protected by law including elephants, tigers, deer, deer, crocodiles, monkeys and various species of birds and other reptiles.

- Mount Nunua

Located in Enggano Island, an area of 10,000 ha area which is directed as Hunting Park (wild pigs and buffalo).

- Semindang Hill kabu

Located in North Bengkulu, an area of 15,300 ha for hunting pigs, deer, deer and monkeys.

12. Food and Souvenir Sentra Khas Bengkulu

Located at the Soekarno-Hatta road (Anggut Top). Along this path can be found shops selling food and souvenirs such as Bengkulu lempok typical durian, stomach pigeon pie, emping and others.

13. Simpang Lima - Soeprapto

It is a shopping area that lies along Jalan Soeprapto. This region there are shops selling daily necessities, from food to clothing.

Jan Sochor: Nukak-Maku

Photo © Jan Sochor-All Rights Reserved
Jan Sochor has documented the Nukak Maku people, a nomadic indian tribe from the Amazon, who were driven out of the jungle by the Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary squads. More than half of the Nukak population have died of western diseases like flu. In refugee camps, the Nukak are taught from (mainly Christian) aid workers concepts and habits that were never part of their tradition.

Jan is a freelance photographer, working between South America and Europe. He lived and worked in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain and the Czech Republic during the past five years. His photographs and stories have appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers and websites, including Sunday Times, National Geographic, Reuters, Burn magazine, Foto8, 100Eyes, UNESCO, Boston Review, PDN online,and others.

I've always considered proselytizing by any religious group to be an abhorrent practice...hand in hand with racism and bigotry.

Found via The Click