POV: This Thing Called 'Vision'

In an interview about my photography a few weeks ago, I was asked what my vision was, and after figuratively scratching my head for a few seconds, I replied candidly and honestly (and possibly disconcertingly to the interviewer) as follows:

"Vision? What vision? I have no vision. I am a documentarian. I see something I'm interested in and I photograph it. That's my vision." 

I posted my quote on my Facebook page, and from the comments by the community of friends, it seems it had struck a funny bone. The comments were interesting... some serious; others tongue in cheek. 

So I thought I'd also write a POV for the readers of this blog who are not on my Facebook feed..

It's really simple. Being a documentary travel photographer frees me from having to espouse a noble purpose or a visionary concept. I never claimed to be an artist not have had any aspirations to be one. Artists may have a vision; fine art photographers, fashion photographers, glamour photographers, and even social issues photographers, and possibly photojournalists, may have artistic vision. Not me. I could pretend to have a lofty vision, a calling if you will...some do, but that's not what I do.

It's certainly a question of semantics, and how we define vision. I wrote in one of my comments that it was a matter of terminology and a question of context. When I was asked the question, I construed "vision" to be shorthand for "artistic vision" or "humanitarian vision", none of which I'm blessed with. Naturally, one can argue that a documentarian captures what he sees based on his or her own biases and that's "vision", but I prefer to describe that as "focus".

In other words, my focus on what interests me aesthetically and intellectually is derived from a mindset and plans that are tangible, rather than an abstract "vision". As examples, when I photograph Sufi events or Hau Dong ceremonies, it's to document what's happening in front of me...the colors, the forms, the expressions, the body movements...as well as imbibing the surrounding aural elements. Sometimes I  know what I'm looking for ahead of time, but that can hardly be called 'vision'. 

And like many other photographers, many of my favorite images were made because I was right there at the right moment, and clicked at the right instant. No vision there.

One of my Facebook interlocutors provided me with quote from Dorothea Lange:

"To know ahead of time what you're looking for means you're then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting and also false. I wouldn't criticize a photographer who works completely without plan and photographs that to which he instinctively responds." 

So I'm in good company, it seems. Yes, an instinctive response is so much more my kind of thing. I see something I like, and I instinctively click the shutter. That's my kind of vision.

NB: My thanks to Ms. Nguyễn Vi (appearing as Bà Chúa Cafe) whose permission I obtained to use one of the frames I made of her with her eyes closed during our photo shoot in Hanoi last July.

Blank Lands | In Search of Zhuang Xueben

A friend, Matteo Vegetti referred this very interesting project to me a few weeks ago and whilst, I don't feature crowd funding projects on this blog, this particular one captured my imagination for its novelty, difficulty and exoticism.

Zhuang Xueben (1909-1984) was a young photographer from Shanghai, who was the first to photographically describe China's blank lands; its territories that in the 1930s were not yet plotted on publicly available maps. He did so with thousands of photographs and detailed diaries, collected over 10 years of travel from 1934 onwards.

His pioneering work opened a window on a little-known parts of China, often unexplored and yet regarded with great prejudice. He was able to reveal the richness of local cultures and ethnic groups such as the Tibetans, Yi, Qiang, Tu and Salar.

Photo ©Zhuang Xueben-All Rights Reserved

The project seeks to trace the history of this pioneering Chinese photographer Zhuang Xueben who, because of the Cultural Revolution, faded into undeserved oblivion.

His name and work have only recently resurfaced. After the chance discovery of his first book of photographs, reprinted decades later, the Blank Lands project came to life and has been developed collectively by Alessandro Galluzzi, Ralph Kronauer, Federico Peliti and Luca Tommasini, who make up the Blank Lands Collective and are co-producers of the project with Nacne, HLJTV and ICTV Solferino.

Should readers of this blog be interested in supporting (or reading more about) this project, its crowd funding page is Blank Lands - Searching for Zhuang Xueben.

Marylise Vigneau | Havana | About Time 1 & 2

Photo © Marylise Vigneau-All Rights Reserved

"In Havana, time is an unavoidable character. Destructive or facetious, sardonic or nostalgic, political or imaginary, irreverent in any case, time sprawls its texture and shadow all over the city." -Marylise Vigneau

It's absolutely 'about time'... Cuba's embargo by the United States has been in place since 1960, and the restoration of its full diplomatic relations and the opening of our embassy in Havana only occurred very recently.

Marylise Vigneau's work returns to the pages of this blog with her updated Havana galleries, which she has titled About Time I  (color) and About Time II (monochrome).

I envy her her photographic style, which -to me- defies an easy characterization. Is it street photography, urban photography, environmental portraiture? I end up deciding to make it easier to myself,, and accepting it's a mix of many styles and that it represents a multi-faceted eye that defies pigeon holing, and categorization.

What better photograph represents Havana's exhaustion and faded grandeur than the aging woman in her gilded bed, reading a local newspaper (news? gossip column?) with a knowing smile on her lips? Or its poverty and its famous 'can-do' attitude of its people than the decrepit legless armchair resting on cinder blocks, and a Mother's Day kitschy graffiti on the wall?

Photo © Marylise Vigneau-All Rights Reserved

These are Marylise's glimpses of Havana...one of the best cities in the world for street photography, and where my fondness for this style was probably born more almost 14 years ago. Life in Havana happens outside of its dilapidated buildings, and I don't have to tell my readers that its people are incredibly photogenic; the mix of African, Carib Indian, and European has created a melting pot of handsome people, endowed with wonderful hospitality, remarkable musical talent and exuberance.

Marylise Vigneau is a French photographer who traveled to and lived in a number of countries as her galleries attest. These include work from Cambodia to Uzbekistan, from Mongolia to Myanmar, from China to Sarajevo including powerful and compelling images made at a mental hospital in Lahore.

Her work has been shown in Angkor Photo Festival, Foto Istanbul, Yangon Photo Festival, Nairang Gallery in Lahore and Focus Photography Festival in Mumbai. It has also been published in Pix Quarterly (India), Asia Life and Milk (Cambodia). She is also an alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (Sarajevo).

Charles Fréger | Queens of Cebu (Sinulog)

Photo © Charles Fréger-All Rights Reserved

I chanced on the work of photographer Charles Fréger whose series of various ethnographic exotic (and not so exotic) communities, rituals and festivals are incredibly colorful. 

Choosing a single portfolio from 55 galleries to feature on this blog was not an easy task, but I finally decided on the Queens of Cebu, since it combines a religious tradition with superb fashion in the Philippines. The photographer describes the Sinulong festival as a mix of Christian and pagan traditions, and a fusion of a Latin carnival and a religious procession. 

The Queens of this annual cultural and religious festival, which is held on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City, hold small replicas of the “Santo Nino de Cebu”.  

The Santo Nino de Cebu is a statue of the infant Child Jesus venerated by many Filipino Catholics who believe it to be miraculous. The original is the oldest religious Christian image in the Philippines, and was originally given in 1521 as a baptismal gift by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan to Rajah Humabon, the sovereign of Cebu of that time.

One of the main highlights of the festival is the large street parade which lasts for 9 to 12 hours with participants coming from the different towns and cities across the Philippines.  It is these participants that Charles Fréger photographed during a visit to the country.

Charles Fréger is a French based photographer with a Fine Arts photography background. His work is a mixture of contemporary and traditional elements.

POV | Bali's Foundry Photojournalism Workshop 2015

Presenting My Photo Essays on Balinese Ceremonies/Photo © Neal Jackson-All Rights Reserved

Because of reasons beyond my control, as well as having to be in Hanoi for a few days on my personal assignment, I barely made it to Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) this year. But I did, and I was -as always- pleased and privileged to have attended it.

The Bali event was my seventh workshop as a faculty member; having only missed the Sarajevo event out of the workshops held in Mexico City, Manali, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Chiang Mai and La Antigua.

Firstly, let me reiterate what I've consistently said and wrote about FPW; enormous credit is owed to Eric Beecroft, the visionary behind the Foundry Workshops. He had the brilliant idea of creating these workshops some 8 years ago, and made it a reality despite enormous obstacles.

But it's also the unsung heroes of the Foundry's staff, its administrators and the local volunteers who consistently make them such wonderful successes. The Bali event's logistics, venue, intrustors' hotel, class location and other requirements were very well organized, and everything worked quite smoothly (at least from my perspective) but I am certain that there was a phenomenal amount of work going on behind the scenes.

Ubud's Betelnut Cafe. Venue for the Bali FPW. Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I would be remiss if I did not mention the generous support given to FPW by Photo Wings, a nonprofit organization dedicated to utilizing the power of photography to further deep thinking, communication, and action.

Much to my regret, I was not able to attend all of FPW's final ceremony as I had to catch my night flight to Hong Kong and NYC, but I've experienced first hand how rewarding it was to rub shoulders with some of the best photographers/photojournalists in the business, to exchange ideas with enthusiastic participants, whether these were peers, or just starting their photography careers, or veterans, and talking about other styles of image-making.

To my delight, my class members quickly grasped the mechanics and software requirements of my Travel Documentary storytelling class, and produced commendable multimedia photo essays.

Portfolio Review with Hassanoor Hussain. Photo © Neal Jackson-All Rights Reserved

I was chuffed to present three short photo essays of Balinese ceremonies during one of the evening sessions at the Betelnut Cafe. Pulau Dewata: The Island of Gods was a collection of images made during my many trips to the island. My presentation's duration was roughly 15 minutes long.

As I wrote on a previous blog post, some students thought it ought to have been shown on the first night of the workshop, helping them to choose their self-assigned photo essays. I was the only instructor to show work directly relating to Bali. A sensible observation, but the timing choice of the presentation was not mine to make.

I thought some (as in not all) of the presentations by the remaining instructors, while interesting and containing compelling imagery, went on for far too long. Perhaps future FPWs will address this issue since many of the students are, at the end of the day, exhausted. Fifteen minutes for each instructor's presentation seems adequate, and instructors can always present their work at whatever length they want to their respective classes and others.

Another thought I have is to offer the students more access to all instructors. Every time I attend a FPW, I sense the same thing...a strong desire by all students to have one-on-one meetings with the members of the faculty. The portfolio reviews (as much as they are exhausting for the instructors) are one of such options. These often evolve into career and personal advice, and are universally appreciated by students. Perhaps instead of only one evening of portfolio reviews, FPW could offer two evenings of such one-on-one interfaces. After all, limiting the instructors presentations to a shorter duration may allow the time to incorporate this additional face-time. 

Till the next Foundry Photojournalism Workshop!!!

Chin-Pao Chen | Betel Nut Girls

Photo © Chin-Pao Chen-All Rights Reserved

In my travels to South and Southeast Asia, I've frequently come across the ubiquitous betel nut, and the people who are addicted to chewing it. Whether in India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Cambodia and Vietnam, betel nut chewing is a habit that unfortunately many take up as a stimulant, and which can cause oral cancer.

In Taiwan, the betel nut is the second largest agricultural crop, and its seed, when chewed, is nicknamed “Taiwan Chewing Gum”. This, along with other economic reasons, has created the phenomenon of the "Betel Nut Girl" known locally as "bin lang xishi".

These are young attractive women (usually not well educated, and prone to exploitation) usually wearing skimpy dresses or small bikinis in clear glass booths whose only purpose is to attract clients to buy their small packages of betel nuts. These booths are found all many of the main avenues and streets, where traffic is high.

Working on the streets since the 1990s when this trend started in earnest, these women have been shedding more and more clothes to lure customers as competition intensifies among betel nut sellers.
An estimated 100,000 brightly decorated kiosks can be found on the island, though they are banned in the city limits of the capital Taipei.

Chin-Pao Chen's Betel Nut Girls is a collection of photographs of such young women, who are controversial in Taiwan. Conservative politicans in Taiwan see the provocatively dressed women as morally reprehensible, while women's rights groups see the work as degrading. 

Chin-Pao Chen attended the Department of Photography of School of Visual Arts in New York in 1996, and earned his degree of BFA with an award for outstanding Achievement three years later. He holds a MFA degree from School of Fine Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts and was awarded The Overseas Photographer Award of The 26th Higashikawa award at 2008.
 

Soegee Sugiarto | Tari Kecak

Here is Tari Kecak, a multimedia project produced in its entirety by Soegee Sugiarto during my The Travel Documentary : Sound & Image class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Bali. The project was produced in class using Soundslides software, and the audio editing program Audacity.

The Tari Kecak dance was created in the early 1930s, and is now internationally recognized as one of Bali’s top-three signature dances, along with Barong and Legong.

Kecak has no musical background but for the chanting of a male capella chorus intoning a “keh-chack” polyrhythmic sound during most of the performance. Kecak’s storyline is taken from the Ramayana Hindu epic which it depicts in summary form. The men wear black-and-white sarongs and are seated in tight, concentric circles with a central space reserved for the protagonists.

According to Wikipedia, Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance.

In the 1930s, Walter Spies, a Russian-German painter and musician, became deeply interested in the ritual while living in Bali, and adapted the epic drama to a dance.

Sugiarto "Soegee" Sugiarto is a sales manager and a photographer from Jawa Barat, Indonesia who describes himself as a "hobbyist". However, this "hobbyist" won first prize in the Travel Photographer Asia contest with his monochrome image of a Pacu Jawi racer with his buffalos during a traditional bull race in Sumatra.

Fuji X-T1 | Fuji 56mm f/1.2 | Fuji XF 16-55mm f/2.8

Photo © 2015 Tewfic El-Sawy- X-T1 & Fuji XF 16-55mm f/2.8 

I rarely write up technical posts about the photographic gear I use when traveling, since there are many more photographers better qualified than I am to do so. However, I thought I'd share my impressions on two of my recently acquired Fuji lenses used on my just completed two weeks in Hanoi and Bali.

These two lenses are the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 and the Fuji XF 16-55mm f/2.8. Some months ago, I acquired the former specifically for portraiture, especially for its low-light capabilities and it impressed me as an excellent lens for such a purpose.

And just a few weeks before my traveling, I added the Fuji 16-55mm to my collection of lenses. I much prefer primes to zooms, but I was attracted to this particular zoom lens because it would give me a lot of flexibility when photographing rituals, festivals and crowds.

The Fuji 16-55mm f/2.8 is the first pro-level standard zoom lens for the Fuji's X series of cameras. It maintains a maximum f/2.8 aperture throughout its zoom range, and is sealed to protect against dust and moisture. Having no short zooms during my March self-assignment in Hanoi meant that I had to constantly switch primes and or cameras whilst shooting various religious ceremonies.

This zoom gave me the flexibility I needed, and I used it almost 70% of the time in Hanoi and Bali. I was very pleased by its capabilities (low-light and otherwise), and it 'converted' my X T-1 to a go-anywhere camera when mounted with it. While it has no OIS, it performed virtually flawlessly and its sharpness is commendable. It's a tad large and heavy, so is better suited for the X T-1 with a battery grip. That said, it provides prime-like image quality over a range of focal lengths.

And this brings me to the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 prime lens. I know some Fuji photographers had to consider very carefully the merits of each lens, as these two 'competed' with each other. I have both, and I believe that the  Fuji 16-55mm f/2.8 is as good as the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 in terms of optics. In the zoom, one doesn't have as wide an aperture, so the bokeh will be less pronounced, but the zoom's flexibility ought to compensate for that.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy- X-T1 & Fuji XF 56mm f/1.2

The Fuji 56mm f/1.2  is the equivalent of a f/1.2 on an 85mm full frame, and my intention was to use it for environmental portraiture and shallow depth-of-field effects. So far, my experience has been that it is truly remarkable at large apertures, and provides a lovely blur in the out-of-focus parts (aka bokeh). At just under $1000, I deem it to be one of the best lenses I've ever had and used.

The question now that I have both lenses is whether the Fuji XF 16-55mm f/2.8 negates the usefulness of the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 . The above portraits of Ms. Nguyễn Vi are almost similar in quality., and one could argue that having the zoom lens is enough. I have yet to decide on that, but I also know that the low light capability of the prime lens is an important consideration for my type of photography.

For those who like that sort of thing:

The photograph's settings using the Fuji 16-55mm f/2.8 are: 1/320, 800 iso, f/2.8 and spot metering.
The photograph's settings using the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 are: 1/3200, 800 iso, f/1.2 and pattern metering.

Roger Anis | Closet Full of Dreams

Photo © Roger Anis-All Rights Reserved

"To be a woman in Egypt is to live with the crushing inevitability of sexual harassment. The magnitude of the problem is epidemic, with 99.3% of Egyptian women having been sexually harassed, according to a 2013 U.N. Women report."

Despite faltering and sporadic government efforts, sexual harassment of women in Egypt has been described as a cancerous epidemic, especially during druing the past few years which saw the country's numerous political upheavals.

Roger Anis is a photojournalist working at an Egyptian daily newspaper whose recent and meaningful work "Closet Full of Dreams" was recently featured on TIME's Lightbox. His objective was to publicize the issue by making diptych portraits of women next to the clothes they would wear on the streets, if only they felt safe enough.

On a personal note: While I have no intention of generalizing (since I'm certain that this behavior is not universal amongst Egyptian youths), I do not know what happened to the Egyptian male psyche. Growing up in a Cairo suburb, which was totally Westernized at the time, I rarely -if ever- witnessed or heard of any sexual harassment. Women dressed as they chose; some provocatively, some less so... but there was no fear of them being harassed anywhere they chose to go. Yes, they may have drawn admiring glances, perhaps a whistle or two and even a funny comment...which would be frowned upon by passers-by and others.

There must be root causes for this epidemic. Is it caused by over-population, poverty, absence of cicil societal norms that progressively evaporated? I recall often hearing the word "shahama"...the Egyptian word for 'chivalry'...and 'honor', and an innate duty to assist and protect women, whether these were known to us or not. What happened to it? Is it a perverted misinterpretation of Islam one of the reasons to treat women in such a despicable way? True Islamic teachings call for the exact opposite; treating women with respect and dignity.

I have no answer. I just don't know. What I do know is that the Egyptian government must eradicate this epidemic as forcefully as any other public health issue, through the power of its courts and through the power of its media.

The age-old Shahama must return to Egypt.

Roger Anis is working as a photojournalist in the daily newspaper Al-Shorouk since 2010, covering various social issues in Egypt. He is one of the contributors to the Associated Press Agency, and received a Diploma in Photojournalism from the Danish school of Media & Journalism in June 2015. During his work in the newspaper and with AP, he covered a number of local important and historical moments, including the disenfranchisement of Coptic Christians.

His work has been published in international newspapers and magazines such as TIME, New York Times, Newsweek, Guardian , Le Monde, The Daily Mail, Newsweek, Aftenposten, and De Grone Amsterdammer. He has also been awarded a number of international and local recognitions.

He is also an alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (Chiang Mai 2012).

Nguyễn Vi | The Fortune Teller

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Ms. Nguyễn Vi is a Cô Đồng, a fortune teller....a medium and a Hầu Đồng practitioner.

Followers of this blog know of my ongoing project in Hanoi, which aims at documenting practitioners of the Đạo Mẫu religion, also known as the worship of Mother Goddesses in Vietnam. This project has also opened doors to various ancillary documentary possibilities that I could not have envisaged when I first got started.

One of these 'sub-projects' is the documenting the life story of Ms. Nguyễn Vi, who is not only an active Hầu Đồng practitioner and a medium, but also is a psychic, a clairvoyant and a fortune teller. She tells me that her innate insight into people's futures helps them in their lives. As with many Vietnamese Buddhists, Vi embraces its teachings on compassion and altruism.

I already started documenting Vi's life story last month when she graciously invited me to her family home in Hanoi. It is there that she worships, actively follows her belief system, and deploys her fortune telling skills. In our conversations, it was evident she hasn't had an easy life, and had suffered a number of personal setbacks over the past years until finding her calling in the Đạo Mẫu religion.

A stylish young woman with a sense of dramatic flair, she has worked as a photographer and a graphic artist...but discarded her career to obey a spiritual calling. Her favorite incarnation during her Hầu Đồng performances is Chúa Cà Phê (Princess Coffee) of Lang Son province, and one of the many ladies-in-waiting of the Mother Goddesses.

It is in this incarnation of Chúa Cà Phê that she agreed to pose for me in a photographic studio near her home.

Photo ©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I am hoping to complete the production of a multimedia photo essay on Ms Nguyễn Vi in the coming few months.

The above photographs were made using a Fujinon XF16-55mm F2.8 on a Fuji X-T1.