Alixandra Fazzina: UNCHR Interview

This interview is really worth watching and reflecting on.

In July 2010, British photo-journalist Alixandra Fazzina was awarded the annual UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award as a recognition of her work documenting the often overlooked consequences of war. In this video by UNCHR, she speaks about the plight of the uprooted.  She traveled to some of the worst hit areas in Pakistan where she saw first hand the devastation caused by the floods, and reminds us that refugees are human beings too.

UNHCR cares for more than 40 million uprooted people.

Alixandra Fazzina, who's based in Pakistan, is a member of the NOOR foundation and photo agency.

Western Digital iPad App

Hmmmm.....that's interesting.

Western Digital announced a free photo viewing application called WD Photos for the iPad that works with its line of external storage products like the My Book World Edition, My Book Live, and WD ShareSpace.  The app is said to allow the user to access up to 285,000 images placed in a shared folder.

The advantage in this is that saved images can be accessed using the app from anywhere through a web connection. The benefits to photographers are obvious...for instance, while traveling I could show my portfolio to anyone in the world on my iPad using this app. The app has pinch and zoom functionality,  and the images can be viewed in 1024 x 768 resolution on the iPad.

However,  wouldn't it be phenomenal if the iPad could connect to a portable external drive, on which I could download my travel photographs as I made them in the field? Once the photographs were saved on the portable drive, I could then use this app to access them (at least the jpegs) through a web connection.

Some Beautiful Images From "Koh AngThong"

Hello Everybody,

Thank god it Friday, wish you all have a good weekend. Just a brief massage, i have no time for writing the post today but i want to show you some images from my trip to Koh AngThong earlier this year taken by my Sony DSC-WX1 . I promised to post the story about my fantastic trip to Koh AngThong next time. For today,  let see some beautiful images of the island below;

Beautiful Seaside view from the 1st viewpoint of this Island

From viewpoint at the top of Ko AngThong

Sweep panorama image by Sony DSC-WX1 at the top of viewpoint

Inner Sea one of the most favorite place for travellers

Thank for viewing the image. See You Then



NPR: Tibet 100 Years Ago

Photo Courtesy Bonhams

NPR's The Picture Show recently reported that a part of Tibet's history recorded through old photographs was auctioned in London. The photographs (consisting of 70 platinum prints and 2 folding panoramas) were taken by British political officer John Claude White during a 1903 British mission to Tibet, and were sold for £38,400 (or about $60,000).

I love news like that because it fuses history (military), Asia, adventurism and photography. John Claude White was part of the British expedition led by Francis Younghusband who, under orders from George Curzon, was to settle disputes over the Sikkim-Tibet border. In reality, the expedition was to establish British hegemony in Tibet, and morphed into an invasion and occupation of Tibet. This was one of the many chess pieces in The Great Game between Great Britain and Russia to control Central Asia.

Younghusband is subject of a well-documented biography by Patrick French, titled The Last Imperial Adventurer. A fascinating man (comparable in my view to Sir Richard Francis Burton...another incredible adventurer), Younghusband is said to have experienced revelatory visions in the mountains of Tibet, toyed with telepathy in Kashmir, and eventually espoused a sort of atheism, even though he was brought up as an Evangelical Christian.

I always think photojournalists (especially those who work in Iraq and Afghanistan) to read up on history instead of believing the crap we see on television...they'll have a better grasp of what's still going on. The Last Imperial Adventurer is one of those books.

I know...I may be wasting my breath.

Destination for Your Winter Holiday "Doi Ang Klang, Chaing Mai"

Hello Everybody,

Now it is October and winter holiday season are coming. Of course, the top destination for travellers in winter season is Chaing Mai which is the most famous city in the northern region of Thailand. Generally, Chaing Mai has many interesting places for travellers including mountain, historical site and shopping center.

Today, i'm gonna talk about one of the most famous mountain in Chaing Mai named "Doi Ang Klang". This mountain situatated in Fang district, northern district near Myanmar border, around 137 kilometers from the city center of Chaing Mai. Doi Ang Klang is not only famous in its beautiful mountain scenery but also outstanding in its tough and slant road which is the one of the great lesson for drivers to test. After driving to the camping site, i can feel the cold weather like the feeling when i visited European country at Doi Ang Klang camping site. At the top of the mountain, there're 2-3 sites available for camping. At the camping site, you will see the scenery of beautiful hill together with the view of devious road (look like a snake). Of course, most travellers are now waiting to see the scenenery of the beautiful sunset which is very fascinating for me.

The next morning, i plan to visit other outstanding site of Doi Ang Klang that you can't miss which called "Royal Agricultural Station AngKlang".At this station, you will have a chance to see flowers and plants that usually grow in cold weather countries like tulip, maple and many more. Moreover, fruits in cold weather countries like kiwi can also be found here and you can taste it with very cheap price.

In my opinion, Doi Ang Klang is amazing place for travellers but my recommendation is it will be better for you to hire for local drivers to bring you to the top of this mountain because the road to the top of Doi Ang Klang is very danger for rookie drivers.

Thank for reading my post. See You Then! 

Jean-Marc Giboux: Holy Men

Photo © Jean-Marc Giboux -All Rights Reserved

Jean-Marc Giboux started his photographic career in 1988 in Los Angeles where he was a correspondent for the Gamma-Liaison photo agency covering news, social issues and cultural trends for European publications.

In 1997, Giboux was awarded a grant from Rotary International to cover the progress of the worldwide polio eradication programs, traveling in India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Yemen, Mali, Niger, to name but a few. He also covered the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan for Doctors without Borders, and this was featured in an exhibition touring the USA and Europe from 2004 to 2006.

Currently residing in Chicago, Jean-Marc continues to collaborate with Doctors Without Borders, CARE, WHO, UNDP and the Rotary Foundation.

In an interview with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Jean-Marc told the interviewer that funding was the most difficult part of his photography career. Outside of a major grant he got from Rotary to shoot the polio project and a couple of excursions with Doctors Without Borders, his projects are mostly self-funded.

Among his many humanitarian photo galleries, Jean-Marc has a gallery of portraits devoted to Hindu holy men...or sadhus. I assume that these were made while covering the Aardh Kumbh Mela in Hardiwar earlier this year. Have a look...they're made in sepia and in a square format.

How Many Arms Do I Need? And WTF?

I just read in WIRED's Gadget Lab that Zoom will launch a new Flip-like recorder that records beautiful audio for about $300. Stores expect it soon.

Zoom is the Japanese company that manufactures the various audio recorders that are popular with many multimedia producers, and which recently announced the affordable H1 Handy Recorder that I posted about here.

The plethora of useful (and others not so useful) products and gear aimed at multimedia producers, photographers, and videographers is incredible...but how do we carry and operate all this stuff?

And in the WTF? Department, here comes the Leica M9 Neiman Marcus Edition limited to a only 50 units. Engadget reports that it's "wrapped in a brown ostrich leather trim this time around, and it comes paired with a chrome-finished Summicron-M 35mm f2.0 ASPH lens", and costs $17,500.

A bargain. A trifle. A bagatelle.

I used to say (tongue-in-cheek like) that only orthodontists could afford the high end Leicas...but for this one, only hedge funds honchos need apply.

My Work: The Bali Trilogy

I'm glad to present Bali: The Trilogy; a three-part audio-slideshow (based on a chaptered SoundSlides platform), which consists of black & white documentaries of Balinese ceremonies.

The Melasti ceremony is an all important Balinese tradition of purifying temple deities in the waters of the ocean, the Ngaben is the Balinese tradition of cremating the dead, while the third is Tajen, the ancient tradition of cockfighting, technically illegal but still practiced on the island (and elsewhere in Indonesia).

This above link will not work on iPads (by the way, about 6-7% of my daily readers view this blog on their iPads, and I think this percentage is growing every day), however the following links will allow iPad owners to watch the individual audio-slideshows on their devices:

Bali: Melasti Purification Ceremony
Bali: Ngaben Cremation Ceremony
Bali: Tajen Cockfighting Event

A word about the choice of black & white;  I'm not sure if I'm entering a sort of black & white phase in my photography work, and this is its manifestation...or whether I've been influenced by the likes of John Stanmeyer and others...or whether it's a contrarian reaction to the surfeit of color I've witnessed when attending these ceremonies last month...or whether it's because the Balinese believe these ceremonies inherently involve spirits and dark forces...I don't know. It just felt better.

Let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy these audio-slideshows.

Justin Guariglia: A Leica Interview

Photo © Justin Guariglia-All Rights Reserved

Justin Guariglia has had a lifelong passion for documentary photography and Leica M cameras that eventually led to a distinguished career as a magazine and travel photographer.

He currently lives in Taipei, and was recently interviewed by the Leica Camera Blog, in which he says:

"Of course, one cannot travel without money, and that is how I discovered photojournalism. Even back in the late 1990s, unlike today, there was still a good amount of work available—a shoot here, a story there, a portrait needed…so magazine work became the way to pay my bills and to travel and see the world, but I always came back with lots of personal images that editors usually never saw. At that stage National Geographic Traveler and Smithsonian magazines ran short stories on distant countries, and that helped pay my way to see the world."

Naturally the interview lauds the qualities of Leica versus other brands of cameras, and highlights how unobtrusive it is in comparison to the large DSLRS currently used by many other photographers. Justin's lenses consist of a 24mm f/2.8, a 35mm f/2, and a 50mm f/2, although he tries to only carry the 35mm f/2 Summicron.

For Leica fans, there's also a Leica contest with the grandiose name of In The Footsteps of the Great Explorers, which calls for adventurers and travel blog writers to submit their entries, and travel with Leica from mid-January 2011. A very fancy website!!!

Justin Guariglia's interview via The Click

Faces of a Vanishing World: Joey Lawrence

I've posted a few times about Joey Lawrence (he also goes by Joey L), the young photographer who's been involved in commercial photography, photojournalism and music videos around the world by the age of 17, and who now has the established reputation of being a pioneer of new aged digital hyper-realistic photography, lighting and manipulation.

Joey has released a documentary titled Faces of a Vanishing World available for purchase on DVD or as an instant download. The official trailer for the documentary is above. Joey also says he's donating a portion of all the documentary's sales to Survival International, who are supporting the tribal people of the Omo Valley defend their rights, protect their lands and determine their own futures.

I am always a little hesitant in accepting cliches such as "vanishing world", "dying cultures", etc...because cultures are usually more resilient that people think, but in this instance, I'm convinced the Omo Valley tribes are under severe threat.

This relates to the Ethiopian's government building a massive dam that will block the south western part of the Omo River. The Lower Omo Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage site, in recognition of its archaeological and geological importance, and is home to several tribes.

I have neither acquired the DVD nor have I downloaded it...but from the trailer and from Joey L's quality of work, I'm certain it'll be money well spent.

POV: My Photo~Expeditions: Verdicts

Wade Laube is a photo editor, a photographer and an opinionated ranter (the two last descriptions make him a "my-kind-of-guy"), and he's penned an interesting post on his blog titled Buyer Beware of the Dodgy Workshop.

He says this:

"The travel industry has offered photography-themed holidays for years. Hobbyists spend their annual leave somewhere picturesque, get expert tuition and access to expensive gear they wouldn’t normally, while the organisers make some money and everyone’s happy. But what aboveboard entrepreneurs started, parasites are mimicking."

And I couldn't agree more. Caveat Emptor is the rule here. I would also add that great photographers are not necessarily great travel photography workshop teachers and/or leaders. Some are and others are not.

Once again, here's Wade's wisdom:

"Ultimately what you need to ask yourself is whether you are purchasing a valuable educational experience. Are you just paying for the brand-value of a big name photographer and getting little more?"

Having one of the highest number of "repeaters" (returning participants) in the business is a fillip that I wear with great pride, and as one of the few in this business who's decided to reduce the number of expedition participants to a maximum of 5, I thought it useful to once again feature the verdicts of my past photo~expeditions as follows:

Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition

Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat 2010 Photo~Expedition

Bhutan Photo~Expedition 2009

Morocco-Gnawa Festival Photo Expedition 2009

Theyyam of Malabar Photo~Expedition 2009

Next Week On The Travel Photographer

Most of my posts are scheduled ahead of time, but there are exceptions, which occur when and if I stumble on an interesting portfolio, website or issue...

For the week starting Monday October 4, I have posts on:

1. A poignant multimedia project involving the treatment of Women In India .
2. A movie trailer by a super talented ethnophotographer showing off his work on endangered cultures.
3. An interview with a travel photographer's talking about his passion for documentary photography and Leica M cameras.
4. The work of a documentary photographer featuring daily life along the Ganges.
5. My as yet unreleased work from Bali featuring a new audio slideshow on deity purification ceremonies.