Discover Unseen Thailand at "The Emerald Cave" in Trang, Thailand

Hello friends,

The Emerald Cave in Trang, Thailand


I think it is not too late to say Happy New Year 2011 to all of you.

Today i will bring you to the natural site that can be truly say the unseen Thailand in Trang, province in the southern region of Thailand. In general, Trang has many beautiful island in its own region including Koh Kradan, Koh Muk, Koh Ngai and one of the most famous sites for travellers in Trang is known as ”the Emerald Cave“.

The Emerald Cave or in Thai named as Morakot Cave located in the area of“Koh Muk“, one of the attractive island in Trang province. Currently, this cave becomes one of the most favorite destination for both Thai and foreigner tourists.

You can easily book your trip to discover the group of gorgeous island in Trang region via one day trip package as the package normally included Koh Kradan, Koh Muk, Koh Ngai, Koh Chuak in the program and the price for one day trip package is approximately 700-850 baht per person (including lunch, tea, coffee and beverage).



Inside the Emerald Cave



One thing that you should know is the Emerald Cave is The Cave, therefore, the only way to access the Morakot Cave is swimming and the distance to the other site of this cave is approximately 70 meters. If you can’t swim, it is not a big problem because there're life vest and fin available for you. Also, there will be the Guide to take you to the other inside of the emerald cave as well. On the other side of the cave, you will see the scenery of clean white sand beach together with emerald sea color generating fantastic scenery as you may discover from the picture that i’ve taken.

Most tourists would like to take beautiful images in this gorgeous cave and Of course, you may worry about your camera because you can't bring your own camera with you in the sea. Don't worry it is not a big problem because you can store your camera with the local Guide who have the marine pack.

Inside the cave, you will discover that why this cave named as "The Emerald Cave" due to the colorful blue sea color contrasting with the sun shine ggenerating the emerald sea color together with white sand beach.

In my opinion, it can be said that when you have a change to visit Trang, you can't miss to this attractive natural creature at "The Morakot Cave".

Note

The suitable period to visit the Emerald Cave is during November to April every year.

Ed Kashi's Interview (Silber Studios TV)

Screen Capture Courtesy Silber Studios

Ed Kashi is of course a well known photojournalist with a list of awards and achievements as long a man's arm, and then some. I thought his interview with Marc Silber would be of interest to my readers if they haven't caught it before I did.

In this video-interview,  Ed shares some ideas (tips if you prefer) on advancing one's photography. He makes many interesting points such as describing himself as a long form visual storyteller, and uses the phrase "candid intimacy" to describe his work.

The blurb accompanying the video interview mentions that when a photograph achieves that look, then its viewers can see into the soul of the subject...perhaps a little hyperbolic, but one that some of us travel photographers (and certainly the majority of photojournalists) relate to.

I'm not talking about "pretty pictures" here, but as far as I'm concerned, it's about what I like to call "travel photography meets photojournalism". ...a phrase I use to describe my photo~expeditions. I wasn't surprised at all to hear Ed say that more and more of his work is being shot from his hip or his shoulder, to avoid provoking people who are not comfortable with having a lens poked in their direction. I also smiled when I heard Marc Silber mention Morocco as being a difficult place to photograph people, as they disliked being photographed...it brought back my few photographic ventures to that part of the world.

Ed (and others like him) shooting more and more from his hip or his shoulder is something that camera manufacturers ought to keep in mind. Perhaps that's one of the benefits of owning and using an EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens) camera which can be used like an inoffensive point & shoot. The Panasonic GF1 (now GF2) and Olympus E-PL1 are such cameras. I have the former with a 20mm f1.7, and have a lot of respect for what it can do.

Helen, Georgia For Travel Refresh

In the mountains of Georgia, near Chattanooga and the Tennessee border in a small town called Helen. This is another place, most of the passengers lost if they do not see. Located in the Appalachian Mountains in an old-fashioned small town by all means to remind visitors of the old mountain village of Germany.

Appalachian Trail hikers travel will know it's there. This is one of the first places to stop, get real food logistics and rest before continuing increase in length up to Maine. The city has a border-style general store carried them through the walker out for a day trip or a visitor could want. If that is your inclination and nature walk, but you may not know about the existence of the town, which is a shame.

With all the tourists who travel to Chattanooga every year to visit the theme parks and resorts, this beautiful gem of a small town that looks rare. It is located along Chatahoochie River, which flows beside the main road for the entire length of the city.

The building is all designed to complement the architectural style associated with the Bavarian Alps, and the city is full of souvenir shops and restaurants in Germany. If you wish to try the best German food to offer, or to enjoy a good beer ancient Germans, look no further than the House Hofbrau.

If golf is the case, three of course, makes the city of destination. If you go into other outdoor activities, the area offers access to whitewater rafting, fishing, hiking, camping and mountain biking.

Alpine Antique Auto and Buggy Museum is a pleasant place to bring family, and Mom and Dad will enjoy a visit to the Habersham Winery. Maybe in the weird side, but fun for everyone: babies delivered each day at Babyland General Hospital, home of Cabbage Patch Kids.

Hand made blankets of Southern Comfort Quilts, ceramics and pottery from The Willows do Nacoochee Village south of the city to Ga # 75 of the shopping experience to enter the glory days of Williamsburg, Virginia Ceramics Factory. Blown glass crafts can be found in small shops along the High Street as well.

Places to stay in Helen's so different to the entire city. Why not enjoy your private staircase carved in stone from the hillside towards the River Chatahoochie? Vacation cabin rental tenants R1 and you can get exactly that. Castle Inn, a Bavarian-style building with spectacular views is located in the center of Alpine Helen on the banks of the Chattahoochee River and some mountain scenery is quite nice. Enjoy the convenience of space after a full day fishing for trout in the Chattahoochee River, action and fun for the family of Helen Street, the main attraction, or for hours of browsing and shopping some of the most exclusive shops in the mountains of Georgia.

Jashim Salam: Celestial Devotion

Photo © Jashim Salam-All Rights Reserved

Jashim Salam is a Bangladeshi photographer, who's currently working for Driknews international photo agency. He was recognized with a Jury Special Award in the 6th Humanity Photo Awards 2009 Contest, sponsored by the China Folklore Photographic Association, the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee and UNESCO. He also received awards in the 69th International Photographic Salon of Japan (Asahi Shimbun) in 2008, a honorable mention in the USA Legatum Center Photo Contest in 2009, a special award in the People & Planet photo contest 2009 in Australia, and otjers.

Jashim's atmospheric photo essay Celestial Devotion is featured by the website SocialDocumentary.net, and is about an an orphanage and Islamic school in Chittagong. The orphanage/school claims to have mentored thousands of youngsters to memorize the Qu'ran since it was established in 1970. It currently hosts some 200 orphans who share very basic facilities. According to UN statistics, 6 million students are enrolled in the madrasa system in Bangladesh.

Madrasas have received (some deservedly) a bad reputation in the West, and being synonymous with fundamentalist teachings. Some are just that, but the larger majority seem to be nothing more than institutions providing social assistance to orphans and the poor. This is not a novel concept, but one that is shared by many other religious traditions such as Buddhism, and Hindu Vedic schools as an example.

Frederic Lemalet: Tibet

Photo © Frederic Lemalet-All Rights Reserved

Frederic Lemalet is a French travel photographer who, evidenced by his focus on Tibet, is in love with that region. He traveled to Alaska, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, China, and Nepal...but it's Tibet that seduced him

Between 2003 and 2009, Frederic spent 3 years in Tibet, documenting its culture which may soon disappear. Distributing his time between his native France and Tibet, he's currently working on publishing books, and displaying his images in exhibitions. The last exhibition was "Himalaya" and held in Montier-en-Der (north-eastern France).

His Tibet gallery has 44 photographs, with a number of lovely portraits like the one I chose above...but don't miss those of the famous Tibetan wide open spaces, and of the Tibetan pilgrim praying in a sort of crude shelter made of stones. The photographs span the four seasons; a testament to Frederic's dedication to the region.

BBC's Human Planet

The BBC's Human Planet is a landmark series that marvels at mankind's incredible relationship with nature in the world today. Each episode takes you to the extremes of the planet: the arctic, mountains, oceans, jungles, grasslands, deserts, rivers and even the urban jungle.

A word of caution...exploring the Human Planet website will take you a while. I've barely scratched its surface so far.

Human Planet crews have filmed in around 80 locations, bringing us stories that have never been told on television before. The team has trekked with HD cameras and state of the art gear to film from the air, from the ground and underwater.

For more on Human Planet offerings, check Human Planet Explorer Collections

One of the forces behind Human Planet is Timothy Allen. Timothy's work focus is on the remaining indigenous societies, and he devotes his time to documenting the diversity of humanity’s cultural heritage. He writes a blog for the BBC documenting his photographic work around the world for Human Planet.

In case you're interested to see what the cameras used by Timothy look like, here they are:

Photo Courtesy Timothy Allen

Voice-Over Artist

Photographers who produce multimedia photo essays are notoriously voice-over calamities...flat, unfunny...you name it. I ought to know...I break into a cold sweat whenever I have to do a voice-over (which is rare).

Audio will make or break a multimedia photo essay, so a lifeless or unattractive voice-over (when needed) will doom one's product.

But here's a natural talent who ought to be employed as a voice-over artist by photographers, in radio or even on television. So here's a chance to do good and employ this man!

Via Duckrabbit.

Nagore Sessions: Sufi Song

A recent article appearing in The New York Times on music used in some of the city's yoga centers led me to the Nagore Sessions. These are Sufi chants accompanied by percussion from the Middle East and contemporary Western instruments.

While the musicians are from many different nationalities, faiths and backgrounds and came together to produce the Nagore Sessions, the singers (Abdul Ghani, Ajah Maideen and Sabur Maideen Babha Sabeer) are Sufis from India. They usually perform at religious and social ceremonies at the Sufi shrine of Nagore Dargah in coastal Tamil Nadu.

This song follows the qawwali style as it includes verses praising God, but I'm also told that it's sung in Tamil. Traditional Qawwali songs are mostly sung in Urdu and Punjabi, and a few in Persian.

Finding this is timely, as one of the highlights of my forthcoming In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™ is to document the Gujarati Siddis who have retained their Sufi heritage.

One of my long-term projects involves the various Sufi traditions in the Middle East and South Asia, and the Nagore Sessions reminds me of my work with the Gnawa (aka Gnaoua) of Morocco. These are also traditional Sufi music performers, albeit with African roots. During the Essaouira Gnawa festival, a number of international performers played fusion music alongside the Gnawa musicians....incredible mind-blowing stuff!!

I've produced a multimedia photomovie Gnawa: The Sufis of Africa of some of the performers at the 2009 festival.

Elizabeth Herman: Durga Puja

Photo © Elizabeth Herman-All Rights Reserved

Elizabeth Herman is a photographer and a recent graduate of Tufts University. She's currently residing in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where she is a Fulbright Fellow. At Tufts, Elizabeth intertwined her studies with her passion for photography through "Exposure", the Tufts’ student-led documentary studies group.

Whilst in Dhaka, Elizabeth documented the annual Durga Puja. The annual event is an Hindu festival in South Asia that celebrates worship of the Hindu goddess Durga. As far as Bangladesh is concerned, Durga Puja is its largest religious festival for Bengali Hindus.

As an aside, Durga Puja will be the objective of my Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo-Expedition/Workshop in early October 2011.It's sold out but a standby/waiting list is available.

While logged on to Elizabeth's website, be sure not to miss her Women Warriors, a visual project focusing on Vietnamese women who fought in the war with the United States.

Sophie Gerrard: The Coal Cycle Wallahs

"I load the bike then push it for 50 kilometers. It takes me 2 days."

Here's The Coal Cycle Wallahs story; the work of Sophie Gerrard, a British freelance documentary photographer in the UK and India who specializes in environmental and social issues.

The Coal Cycle Wallahs documents the impoverished men who haul coal along Jharkhand's steep and twisting forest roads. As the Indian Government owns all the resources under the land, these coal-wallahs are technically stealing the coal from mines...but the authorities turn a blind eye.

Jharkhand is a state in eastern India, carved out of the south Bihar in 2000. It shares its border with Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal. It's home to the largest coal belt in Asia, but is been plagued by poverty, lawlessness, bad governance and corruption for over 50 years. It has experienced Naxalite-Maoist insurgency.

Sophie holds a Masters degree in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication. Her work was recognized with a Jerwood Photography Award and selected as a UK winner by The Magenta Foundation.

Her clients include The Guardian, Greenpeace International, Geographical Magazine, Foto8 Magazine, The Big Issue, and The Independent on Sunday Magazine. Her photographs are held in private collections including Coutts & Co and The Sir Elton John Collection.

January? Must Be TTP's 4th Year!!!

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

As I'll be traveling on January 24 when it's officially The Travel Photographer blog's fourth birthday, I thought why not observe it today...?

I started this blog on January 24, 2007 with a post on the Ardh Kumbh Mela, which was being held in Allahabad in that year.  Since then, I've posted over 2116 posts, posted about no less than 900 photographers and ranted, pontificated, expressed considered and unconsidered opinions on issues, important and trivial....gleefully aroused the ire of a dogmatic few and provoked the generous compliments of many.

I learned of new and interesting things about photography, world history, geopolitics, culture, religious and non religious traditions...I was influenced by the work of those I featured here...I was taught a few life lessons that I would never would have known otherwise....my name became synonymous in some circles with The Travel Photographer; what a case study in real-life marketing and branding this is!...and, because of the reach and popularity of this blog, my photo~expeditions got such that I had to reduce the number of allowable participants.

I made friends in the photography industry...many new acquaintances and a number of good friends across the globe...through my photo~expeditions, during my involvement in the Foundry Photojournalism Workshops, and elsewhere... I am glad to have more than 1000 "followers" on this blog, thousands of newsletter subscribers, and a thousand or so more on the social networking sites such as Facebook plus Twitter. My two self-published books have sold more copies than I expected...so life's good.

What else is there to say? I could go on and on...but I 'll summarize it by saying I look forward to the continuation of this blog's delightful journey into 2011...and I'll continue to encourage emerging photographers and photojournalists, especially those from the non-Western world...and hope to see more of them on The Travel Photographer's blog!

Next Week On The Travel Photographer

What's on tap for the week starting Monday, January 3? Take a look:

1. The work of a French photographer/photojournalist featuring  Tibet and Kilimanjaro.
2. A photomovie by a Scottish photographer...on the Coal Wallahs of India.
3. The work of an emerging photographer on the Durga Puja.
4. An interview with an award-winning photojournalist, along with his tips and techniques.

Plus potential "shooting from the hip" posts....who knows what the first week of 2011 may bring!

As a footnote: a reader wrote me the other day complaining that the Next Week On The Travel Photographer posts were a waste...saying that he would much prefer if I was to post daily, including Sundays!!!

Tough crowd my readers!