The Beat of New York: Thomas Noesner

Filmmaker Thomas Noesner captures the energetic pulse of the big city. Along with the folks at Stereoscreen, including Tim Hahne, Noesner took the sights and sounds of New York city and laid them down to a remixed soundtrack of a drummer performing in a subway station.

I live in New York city and just loved this piece. You can smell and feel "it" in this short clip of 3 minutes. The drummers who use empty drywall compound containers to play their infectious beats are fixtures in subway stations or parks, and the piece used in this movie is a perfect for it. Excellent choice, and it gives a highly recommended buzz.

I hope it inspires me to get on with film-making using my Canon 5D Mark II in the West Village and Chinatown!

Via LA Times The Framework

NY Times: Madagascar's Famadihana

Having just returned from Bali where I attended and photographed exhumations and cremations, I was interested in reading a The New York Times' article and watching its accompanying video about the celebratory exhumation of the dead in Ambohimirary, Madagascar.

The article written by Barry Bearak (with accompanying photography by Joao Silva) reports that in the island nation of Madagascar, ancestors are frequently taken from their tombs with musical fanfare from brass bands, sprayed with perfume and wine and the skeletons lovingly rearranged.

It's a testament as to how many traditions are carried over from one continent to the other, from one race to the other and from one culture to another.

Nicky Loh: Tattoo Girls of Taiwan

Photo © Nicky Loh-All Rights Reserved


Nicky Loh is a photographer with Reuters working in Taiwan, whose specialty is news, sports and feature photography, who's interested in documenting traditional art forms such as Chinese opera.

On his employer's blog, he writes of having had an assignment to cover the 2010 Taiwan International Tattoo Convention in Taipei which, while not newsworthy per se, offered him a good opportunity to produce colorful photographs.

He describes how he decided to set up an impromptu studio in one of the empty booths of the convention, and do portraits of women with fully tattooed backs.

Not only beautiful artwork, but also very attractive women...so a "twofer" as they say.

Jon Vidar: The Tiziano Project

The Tiziano Project presents the journalistic efforts and personal accounts of Iraqi citizens living in the Kurdish north, along with stories produced by their professional multimedia journalism mentors.

An extremely well-made multimedia project, it includes stories such as those on the Yazidis, nomadic mountain-dwelling Kurds, a pigeon keeper, a muezzin, a klash maker, and many more.

The mentoring team consist of Jon Vidar (one of the talented instructors at the Istanbul Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, and a freelance photographer who developed self-assigned projects spanning six continents, including work in Iraqi Kurdistan, Southeast Turkey, Rwanda, and Brazil), Victoria Fine, Grant Slater and Chris Mendez.

Matt Allard Captures Geishas

Matt Allard is a Team Leader- Cameras for Aljazeera International based out of Kuala Lumpur covering Asia/Pacific and the sub continent, and has produced a movie documenting the changing culture of geishas. Due to the world financial crisis, even well-entrenched traditions have had to adapt in Japan, as elsewhere, and geishas in Kyoto have had to follow suit.

Matt used a Canon 7D, 5Dmk2 and 7 lenses to shoot this assignment. The lenses used were a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS II, 50mm f1.2, 135mm f2, 24-70mm f2.8, 100mm Macro f2.8, 16-35mm f2.8 and a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. All interviews were shot on the 70-200mm. All the audio was recorded on a Zoom H4N using either Seinnheiser radio or shotgun mics. It was edited using FCP and ran on Aljazeera English on the 19th August 2010 around the world.



Also from Matt Allard is this movie depicting the same modern day girl transforming into a Geisha in Kyoto, Japan. It was made using a Canon 7D and a 5D Mark 2 using a Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro and a Canon 16-35mm f2.8. The ambient light and the angles used by Matt are just perfect...the colors are beautiful.

Via DSLRrnewsshooter.com

VII's Seamus Murphy: Phoenix Afghanistan

“Photography is part history, part magic.”
-Seamus Murphy

Here's a multimedia piece published by VII The Magazine with stills and audio by Seamus Murphy titled Phoenix Afghanistan.

Seamus began photographing in Afghanistan in 1994, and for two decades, he has worked extensively in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America and most recently America on an ongoing project during what he calls “a nervous and auspicious time.” His accolades include six World Press Photo Awards.

Phoenix Afghanistan compares photographs of life in Kabul from 1994 to photographs in 2010. You'll notice that the 1994 photographs are in black & white, whilst those of 2010 are in color, thereby enhancing the contrast between the two eras.

I wish I hadn't found found the narrative by Seamus to be so stilted...he was probably reading off a sheet of paper rather than having a conversation or reminiscing aloud. Same like good photography, compelling narration is a difficult skill to learn, and requires training.

Mongolian Racer

Reading and posting Stan Greene's excellent interview yesterday will probably satisfy my photojournalism interest for this week, so for a change in pace here's a lovely travel multimedia piece titled Mongolian Racer by The Guardian photographer Dan Chung, and narrated by Tania Branigan. (click the arrow).

The multimedia piece is on a horse trainer and his 10-year-old jockey who face the biggest day of their year at Mongolia's Naadam festival, which dates back to before Genghis Khan's time and celebrates the 'manly sports' of wrestling, archery and racing.

The Mongolian traditional festival of Naadam is also called in the local dialect as "the three games of men". These are Mongolian wrestling, horse racing and archery. The festival is held throughout the country during the midsummer holidays, however the largest is in Ulaanbaatar.

For the geeks, the piece was shot using Canon 1DmkIV, 5DMkII, 550D and GoPro HD camera, and a load of ancillary gear which is described in length in Dan Chung's blog DSLR News Shooter.

Apart from it being gorgeous videography, I noted the simple and clean font used for the title of the piece, and how it's placed against the dark cloud in a red sky...nice touch, that. And I also liked how the voice-over expertly blended with the ambient sound/voice.

Mervyn Leong: Hammams, Spreader of Warmth

Here's a lovely audio-slideshow by the gifted Mervyn Leong W.Y. which you can either view on Vimeo (click above) or via his website here. The quality of the latter is better.

Mervyn attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul (he also attended last year's in Manali), and participated in Rena Effendi's Telling A Human Story Through A Compelling Portrait class. I spent time with Mervyn as he prepared to photograph inside the less-than-hospitable-for-photography interiors of the hammams, and can vouch for his meticulous planning, and how he took pains to wrap his camera, lenses and audio gear in saran-wrap (to protect them against moisture and steam).

An engineer by profession, Mervyn took photography and photojournalism more seriously a couple of years ago, and has made impressive strides in his work. He's also endowed with an encyclopedic knowledge of gastronomy, cooking and food in general.

I think that Hammams: Spreader of Warmth is a very well made audio slideshow (I particularly like the opening image of the slideshow, which is almost a painting), and the audio tracks are well sync'ed. You'll find it a delight to watch...and like the patrons enjoying the turkish bath, you may feel equally relaxed and refreshed.

The hamams in the Ottoman culture started out as annexes to mosques, and quickly evolved into institutions and eventually into monumental structural complexes in the mid 1500s. Typical hamams consist of three interconnected rooms: the sıcaklık which is the hot room; the warm room which is the intermediate room; and the soğukluk, which is the cool room.

Photojournalism From SE Asia

For those who are hard-core fans of South East Asian photojournalism, OPEN-i hosted a live webinar a few months ago which featured work from photographers living and working in South East Asia, and who discussed the challenges and rewards of working in that region.

The webinar (moderated by Paul Lowe) is unusually long (about 105 minutes), and the acoustics are not great, but it offers insight into the work and working conditions of 4 photographers/photojournalists.

Jack Picone - Thailand
Justin Mott - Vietnam
Veejay Villafranca - Philippines
Rony Zakaria - Indonesia

OPEN-i is a global online community of practice for the professional photojournalism industry where members can discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the industry in live webinars and online forums.

POV: Les Chiens Aboient La Caravane Passe

My post on McCurry's taking a celebrity photography project was criticized on another blog by a handful of readers as being misplaced, rude and judgmental...which puzzled me since I specifically wished him the best of luck with his new project, and described him as a pioneer and an inspiration to many.

The thrust of my post was not about McCurry or his future but to stress the need for all of us to diversify by learning and using multimedia, FCB and Soundslides...and not remain stale and repetitive. In fact, here's a quote from the post which encapsulates my point of view:

"McCurry is one of the pioneers of travel photography and is an inspiration to many who follow his style....and to read of this new project is an uncomfortable reminder that things are changing in this industry, and that photographers (whether involved in travel, documentary and editorial) need to be sharp, varied and inventive."

So to these half dozen readers I make no apologies nor do I need to rethink/reword a single syllable of my post. Not only did you misunderstand my post's intention, but dismissed it as a rant (my POVs always are), denigrated my photography (I do that all the time so get in line and get a number), sneered at my having been a banker in my previous life (many people have more than one career, so I don't understand your point unless, God forbid, you're envious) and so on. Heck, even my country of birth was mentioned...what does it have to do with my blog posts unless it's a jingoistic innuendo? Yes, the mind boggles.

Let me also say that one of my readers also misunderstood what I meant, and had the courtesy of emailing me expressing his viewpoint, and asking for clarification. I responded, and we ended up agreeing on certain issues and disagreeing on others.

As for my pontificating, as a couple have described my post(s), that's exactly what I do here on this blog. That's what this blog is about and will continue to be. You don't have to pay any attention to it. If it aggravates you, just improve your life and remove it from your reading list, because the mission of this blog is to pontificate and to support emerging talent...period. If you don't like it, just don't read my "rants" and "pontifications"...it's really that easy. I'm only a banker-turned-photographer after all...remember?

However, I'm so enamored by the term that I will soon change the sub title of this blog to include it...perhaps like acerbic pontification...or acerbic soap boxing...thank you for the unintended suggestion!!

New Note: I have to thank all of those who emailed me expressing their support and sharing their unbridled puzzlement at the criticisms, and to those new friends who, as a consequence of all this, have now joined my newsletter mailing list! No new post today...i want to keep this one up for a while.

FPW Istanbul: Intro To Multimedia Class

I was privileged to teach a class titled Introduction To Multimedia for the third straight year at this year's Foundry Photojournalism Workshop which was held in Istanbul June20-26.

As a couple of my class attendees are in the process of shopping their projects to publishers, I'm unable to publish them until they're made public by their creators. However, I am able to show an image from each project along with a description.

The attendees were Brenda Bravo, Pierre Claquin, Yagmar Dolkun, Pedro Gomes, David Hagerman, Jeroen de Kluiver, and Roubina Margossian.

1. Brenda Bravo: Kadikoy Underground Puppetry

Photo © Brenda Bravo -All Rights Reserved
Brenda's project documented an underground puppetry group in Kadikoy, from applying their make-up to walking in the streets performing to crowds. Apart from recording ambient sound of the performances, and of the street, Brenda also narrated the piece which was titled Kadikoy's Underground Puppetry. Her subjects attended the final show wearing the same make-up they use during their walk-abouts in Kadikoy.

2. Pierre Claquin: Leaves of Tolerance

Photo © Pierre Claquin -All Rights Reserved
Pierre's project was titled Leaves of Tolerance, and documented Nick Merdeyan (the self described Lord of the Leaves) who, from a small store in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, produced artistic masterpieces of Islamic calligraphy on leaves, dried according to a proprietary process, and sold all over the world. Merdeyan, an Armenian Turk, narrated the piece showing his Islamic, Christian and Judaic motifs using Qur'anic script, underlining the similarity of the three Abrahamic traditions.

3. Yagmar Dolkun: Live Broadcast

Photo © Yagmar Dolkun -All Rights Reserved
Yagmar's project was on CNN-Turk, which took us into the back room of the television station before going live with a sports program. Yagmar chose to produce the piece in black & white without any narration, leaving the images tell the story, and relying on a mesmerizing music loop. The project can be seen by clicking here.

4. Pedro Gomes: Esmeray

Photo © Pedro Gomes -All Rights Reserved
Pedro's project documented Esmeray, a transgendered actor, a sex worker, a feminist, a Kurd and a home-keeper. Inspired by the NY Times' series One In 8 Million, Pedro interviewed Esmeray, and followed her through the day. He photographed during her theater perfromances, at a feminist meeting and later on at her home. Pedro's wife, Asli Maci, provided the excellent voice-over narration.

5. David Hagerman: The Ferry Boats of Istanbul

Photo © David Hagerman -All Rights Reserved
David chose to document the ferry boats of Istanbul as a symbol of this city. The ferries are part of the daily life for many Istanbullu, and beyond providing a commute alternative, also provide an escape from the daily tribulations of the city. A travelogue of sorts, David used ambient sound recorded on the ferries, the sound of their motors, the din of the passengers and a couple of short interviews.... one with a young man who claimed that "girls are like grains of sand".

6. Jeroen de Kluiver: The Alevi

Photo © Jeroen de Kluiver -All Rights Reserved
Jeroen documented the Alevi in black & white project. The Alevi are a religious sub-ethnic and cultural community in Turkey. Its tradition is related to Shi'a Islam and Bektasi Sufism, and its worship takes place in assembly houses rather than mosques. Jeroen photographed and recorded a ceremony known as cem, which features music and dance and during which both women and men participate.


7. Roubina Margossian: Symbolism In Religious Tradition

Photo © Roubina Margossian -All Rights Reserved
Roubina is one of the recipients of a scholarship to attend the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop. She produced an audio slideshow titled Symbolism in Religious Tradition, focusing on a religious service in an Armenian church. Narrated by Father John of the church, Roubina's fondness for photographs of reflections is evident in the project!

Matthieu Paley: The Pamir Mountains

Here's a 6 minutes trailer from a multimedia documentary "Forgotten on the Roof of the World" by photographer Matthieu Paley and anthropologist Ted Callahan that tells the story of a little-known tribe of Kirghiz nomads in one of earth’s most remote regions - Afghanistan’s High Pamirs mountains.

The full documentary will be screened by Matthieu at the Royal Geographical Society (Hong Kong) on Tuesday 22nd of June.

Matthieu Paley is an Asia-based (currently based in Hong Kong) photographer specializing in editorial and documentary photography. His work appeared in Geo, National Geographic, Newsweek, Time, Outside, Discovery and various others.

Think Tank Multimedia Buyer's Guide

Photo Courtesy Think Tank
I don't have any Think Tank products (except for its see through bag for cables and stuff), but I must say that it's one of the companies that seems to be in lock-step with the industry's evolution with multimedia.

Here is it's latest effort in the multimedia field which is the Multimedia DSLR Buyers Guide. It's essentially a fluff piece about various products that can be used by photographers as additional tools for story-telling purposes. While some of the information is pretty basic, I found it quite useful when I got to the Accessories and Wired It Up sections. Naturally, Think Tank also lists its various bags as "must-haves" in the guide, and deservedly so.

As readers of this blog know, I do not advertise products of any kind, unless I've tried and liked them. I haven't tried Think Tank bags but I like what it's doing with its product line. Otherwise, I have no relationship of any sort with it.

Joey L. : The Mentawai (The Movie)

Here's a highly recommended 16-minute long movie documentary of Joey L.'s (and his team) excursion into the land of the Mentawai. It starts with the 10-hour crowded cargo ferry ride from Sumatra across the strait to the islands of the Mentawai, approximately 150 kilometers off the Sumatran coast.

The excursion took 2 years to plan and prepare, and we are treated to a behind the scenes look at the photo shoots along with snippets of the Mentawai's life. The amount of gear that Joey and his team had to carry was quite significant. This is not a destination where you show up with a couple of cameras and flashes. They had to lug heavy lighting equipment, large reflectors and lightboxes, cameras, lenses, video equipment, generators, food and so forth.

The most visible Mentawai tribesmen in the documentary are Bajak Tarason and Bajak Tolkot, who seem to have a pessimistic view of the Menatawai's future. They address the interference of the Indonesian government in their ancient tribal customs, and of the Christian missionaries who seek to change their belief system.

It's Bajak Tolkot who invites the world to visit the Menatawai islands, to witness their way of life before it's too late. I really hope very few people take him on this invitation. I realize that an influx of tourists could bring a much needed infusion of prosperity to the Mentawai, but it would also accelerate the demise of their way of life, or turn them into performers; wearing their loin cloths and brandishing their arrows for the tourists' cameras.

In the documentary, I've seen young Mentawai wearing graphic t-shirts, including one of Donald Duck, posing next to a traditional Mentawai tribesmen. So the infiltration has already started, and not before too long, the baseball caps will appear as well. It's a shame that similar cultures and traditional ways of life can so swiftly disappear.

My thanks to Cathy Scholl for the heads-up on this movie.

POV: The Guardian Eyewitness iPad App

I saw this posted on various blogs, and thought I'd add my two cents. It's the newly released Guardian Eyewitness app for the Apple iPad, shown off by photographer David Levene. I can't argue with the premise that it's gorgeous...but what does it bring to the table beyond what a laptop and/or netbook already does? The Guardian photographs can be appreciated on a laptop/netbook as well, no?

I have a Mac Book Pro and its display is equally gorgeous. I have a cheap Acer netbook, and its display is certainly not as great, but it's cheaper than the iPad, and it allows me to use all types of software, and fiddle with my photographs using Lightroom...infuriatingly slow perhaps, but it does, and iPad does not.

I frequently visit the Apple store in the Meatpacking district to play with the iPad (by the way, there are fewer tourists on the second floor, where iPads are also available).

As I've said before, I haven't seen anything to convince me that the iPad is a must-have for photographers...so until it does, and despite the Guardian's app and others like it, I'll wait and see what comes with the device's future iterations and new apps.

NPR: The Grand Trunk Road

The Grand Trunk Road played an important role in India's history at every step of its way. Some 3500 years ago, with the Aryan invasion of the subcontinent, it served as a corridor starting at the Khyber Pass winding eastward between the Himalayas and the Thar Desert onto the Gangetic plain. Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism spread through it, and Muslim proselytizers traveled on it. Since 1947, Pakistan controls the 300-mile segment between Peshawar and Lahore, while the remaining 1,250 miles link six Indian states, making it lifeline of northern India.

Nowadays, the road used by Alexander the Great, Ibn Battutah, Mughals invaders and other conquerors and the just curious, is ruled by truck drivers roaring through countless tiny villages.

NPR features a hybrid multimedia project in which its journalists travel the route and tell the stories of young people living there, who make up the majority of the populations in India and Pakistan.

Bruno Barbey: Shanghai World Expo

Not entirely travel photography related but Magnum In Motion is featuring an audio slideshow of Bruno Barbey's photographs of the construction of Shanghai's World Expo construction site and parts of its old city.

Shanghai saw the opening of the 2010 World Expo today, starting an event to herald the Chinese financial hub's return as a major world city after the spartan industrialism following the 1949 communist revolution.

According to the news reports here in the UK, no expense was spared and like the 2008 Olympics, the World Expo will showcase China's immense economic and geopolitical importance; almost bragging its power and influence.

I haven't been to Shanghai yet, but it's quite obvious the degree by which China has developed, and is continuing to develop its main cities. It's in stark contrast with the crumbling infrastructure of many large cities in the United States.

China is spending over $4.0 billion on the Expo itself, and many billions more on other improvements for this city of 20 million people. While in the United States, we are faced with economic difficulties caused by the mismanagement of the Bush Administration, the spectacle of hypocritical Tea Baggers and a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

It's depressing.

Frontline: Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

On Tuesday night, I watched the harrowing Frontline: The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan which exposed an ancient practice know as as "bacha bazi" which, literally translated, means 'boys' play'.

This illegal practice exploits orphans and street boys, and has been revived by powerful warlords, businessmen and military commanders in Afghanistan. These men dress the boys in women's clothes, who are trained to sing and dance for their enjoyment. The dancing boys are also used sexually by these men.

This is outstanding journalism by Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi, and my hat's off to PBS and to the Frontline producers for doing such an admirable job. I was particularly impressed by Quraishi and his producers' attempts to arrange the rescue of one of the dancing boys profiled in the film, an 11-year-old boy bought from an impoverished rural family.

In contrast with other productions (see my post of yesterday, for instance) the 11-year boy's face was blurred throughout the film to preserve his anonymity and self-respect.

Homosexuality is forbidden in Islam, and yet pederasty and boy concubinage has had a long history in the Persian cultural world which includes much of Afghanistan.

WP: India In Motion

The Travel section of the Washington Post has featured a collection of short videos titled India In Motion. The videos are somewhat eclectic, and start with fast paced clips of Mumbai, then Udaipur, Jaislamer, Agra, Haridwar and Rishikesh.

The videos are by Whitney Shefte, while the design is by Kat Downs. It's unfortunate that some of the music choices chosen to accompany the videos are incongruous. For instance, I'm still scratching my head over the logic of having music which sounds it's played by a Central European zither group with a video clip featuring camels in Jaisalmer!

I realize that the Washington Post is not the National Geographic, but India In Motion is superficially researched, and seems to meander with no clear objective and purpose. It puzzles me when a project such as India In Motion, with the considerable backing and funding of one of the premier newspapers in the world, ends up being an incoherent mess like it is.

The Travel Photographer's Motion

I set up The Travel Photographer's Motion as a parallel portal (using the F8 Graph Paper Press theme) for my audio slideshows, which are originally produced in the SoundSlides format, and subsequently converted to mp4s, then uploaded to Vimeo. I have no real preference between Vimeo or YouTube, and I'll eventually have these mp4s uploaded on both.

The current line-up consists of Baneshwar: Pind Daan (the annual rite of remembrance for Rajasthan tribals), White Shadows (my favorite! The sad life of the widows of Vrindavan), Debates at the Sangha (Buddhist debates in a Bhutanese monastery...much more animated than those in our Senate), Gnawa (the rhythmic Sufis of Morocco), The Street Chinese Opera (intense musical cacophony in NYC's Chinatown) and Cham! (the tsechus of Bhutan).

More of my audio-slideshows converted to mp4s are in the works.

Both Vimeo and YouTube’s have adopted the HTML5 video element (although the former is restricted and the latter is in beta), which permits most browsers (not Firefox, I think) to bypass the Flash plug-in and use video native to the browser’s player. That will prove useful for such movies to be seen on the iPad.