Shiho Fukada | The Samurai of Fukushima

Photo © Shiho Fukada - Courtesy Bloomberg

Here's another photo essay on the Sōma-Nomaoi festival by photojournalist Shiho Fukada as featured by Bloomberg Pursuits.

The annual festival involves horse-riding participants don elaborate armor like samurais, who aim to recreate scenes from Japan's Sengoku period (1467–1603) which was marked by social upheaval, political intrigue and near-constant military conflict.

The festival's original purpose was a military exercise designed to sharpen the fighting skills of the samurai. One event in the festival, Shinki Sodatsusen, sees the samurai compete for flags that have been shot into the air. The festival has been designated as an "intangible cultural asset" by the Japanese government.

Shiho Fukada is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, cinematographer, and photojournalist based in Boston and Tokyo. She started her career as a news photographer in New York and has a decade of experience shooting and producing stories nationally and internationally. She currently pursues underreported stories both in video and photography. She has a degree in English literature from Sophia University in Japan and received a diploma in Multimedia Journalism from Ateno de Manila University in the Philippines.

Her work has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Time, Stern, New Yorker, Le Monde, CNN, MSNBC and others.

Incidentally, I've never heard of Bloomberg Pursuits, which describes itself as its hub for lifestyle news and luxury reviews, your guide to the best food, fashion, travel, cars, watches, real estate, gadgets, wine, and cocktails.

And here is a short movie on the Soma Nomaoi festival.

Richard Atrero de Guzman | Sōma-Nomaoi

One of the great summer festivals of Japan’s northeastern Tōhoku region, Sōma-Nomaoi dates back over a thousand years and is held every year for three days during the month of July. Some 500 armored and helmeted warriors ride on horseback, and take part in this military recreation.

There are primarily two main attractions during the festival: the Koshiki Kacchu Keiba and the Shinki Sodatsusen. The former event involve 12 samurais in their armor who race over a distance of 1,000 meters. The latter event involves several hundred samurais on horses that compete for the 40 shrine flags known as "goshinki" that are shot into the air with fireworks.

Richard Atrero de Guzman (also known as Bahag) was recently at the festival and produced a number of photographs viewable on his Photoshelter website.

Bahag (or Bahagski) is a Tokyo based photographer/filmmaker whose photographs have been published in local and international publications. Despite photographing the glossy world of fashion and advertising, he is more inclined to produce socially relevant work in the tradition of documentary photography and photojournalism.

Traveling the globe for the past eight years, he was commissioned by core civic institutions like the United Nations and the Drik Picture Library in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is represented internationally by M4 Collective and Bahaghari World Photography Philippine. He is also a stringer for Anadolu Agency & RT Ruptly TV, a German international news agency.

World Body Painting Festival

Photo © Heinz-Peter Bader - Courtesy Daily News

I wasn't aware that a World Body Painting Festival even existed, but I should have. It is an annual body painting festival and competition held in Pörtschach, Austria, and attracts artists from 45 nations, and attracts more than 30,000 spectators. The event was held on July1-3, 2016.

It's a competition between artists (I suppose they're called 'body painters') who work on models for the festival's three days with a given theme. The categories are brush & sponge, airbrush and special effects for the World Champion Award.

I've done some digging, and I chose a couple of galleries that feature the wildest body painting examples; the Daily News has a gorgeous gallery with large images, while the UK's Daily Mail has a set of equally interesting images here.

I viewed many more of these galleries and noticed the number of photographers carrying the quasi-obligatory DSLRs with 70-200 lens were cheek-to-jowl surrounding the stage where the painted models strutted and showed off their body canvasses. I would imagine that getting as close as possible to the stage requires sharp elbows and a thick skin...these cluster-fucks must have a lot of shoving and pushing, and are not for the faint-hearted.

Perhaps an event on my bucket list?

Dorie Hagler | Semana Santa

To continue religious posts which I've added to my blog over the few past weeks, and to provide equal opportunity to the three main world religions, I'd like to feature Dorie Hagler's Semana Santa photo story.

I attended a Semana Santa in La Antigua (Guatemala)in 2002, and it was quite an experience. Although small, it featured rituals indigenous to this Central American nation, which included covering streets of La Antigua with natural, aromatic carpets of flowers, pines, clover and fruits, which the residents made and placed in front of their homes.

I recall the tremendous fervor expressed by the Guatemalans who participate in the processions and its preparations, creating an extraordinary outpouring of Christian faith and devotion. I found it quite easy to photograph in Antigua during the Semana Santa, as there are ample accommodations, the routes of the processions are planned in advance and no one minds photographers.

The processions in Antigua feature huge platforms, called andas, on which religious statues are mounted. The first platform, holding a figure of Christ with a cross, is carried by 60 to 100 men, called cucuruchos, dressed in purple biblical clothing. This is followed by a platform with the Virgin Mary, borne by women wearing black mourning.

I was also in this delightful small town while teaching at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in 2015 mainly using a Leica M9 and a Voigtlander 40mm f1.4 as I walked the quaint cobblestones streets of La Antigua, not straying too far from its epicenter, Parque Central.

Dorie Hagler is a New York City based photojournalist, storyteller and an advocate. Her photographs appear in distinguished publications such as Tina Brown Live Media, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Elle, The Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, The Albuquerque Journal, Ski Magazine, New Mexico Magazine, and many others. She was commissioned by international non-profits, local non-profits and documentary film-makers and has been awarded a public art commission by The State of New Mexico. Images from her personal documentary projects are collected by The State of New Mexico, museums, state agencies and individuals throughout New Mexico and the United States.

Remera | With The Book

I haven't posted photographic work documenting Judaism for quite a while, and thought I'd remedy this unintentional lapse by featuring With The Book, a series of photographs made at the Western Wall in Old Jerusalem by Remera (more about him follows).

The Western Wall, also referred to as the ‘Wailing Wall’ is the most sacred place for Jews who believe it to be the only surviving structure of Herod's temple. For Muslims, it is known as the Buraq Wall, where the Prophet Muhammed tied Buraq, the winged riding animal which he rode during the Night of Ascension to heaven.

The wall has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage for centuries; the earliest source mentioning this specific site as a place of worship is from the 16th century. Rabbinic tradition teaches that the western wall was built upon foundations laid by the biblical King Solomon from the time of the First Temple.

The Sages of the Talmud stated that anyone who prayed at the Temple in Jerusalem was as if he had prayed before the throne of glory because the gate of heaven is situated there and it is open to hear prayers.

Remera is a photographer of Rwandan heritage, who trained as an architect in France, and is currently living in Luxembourg. In 2009, he acquired a camera to document a trip to China. This journey has sparked an interest in photography and the desire to show other cultures. This road leads him around the world; Europe, Africa, North America, India, Nepal, Middle East.

Now! | Hầu Đồng : The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam

Available for a limited time! Get an exclusive first run advance copy of Hầu Đồng : The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam

Hầu Đồng : The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam
US$ 235.00
(This exclusive price is for one advance copy. It's on a first come first served basis.
The price includes USPS shipping to an address within the contiguous United States.).
(Image-Wrap hard cover) 170 pages 13 x 11 inches/33 x 28 cms
Printed on Proline Pearl Photo Paper (Semi-Gloss/Best Quality 190 gsm)
Book weight approx 5.6 lbs/3 kgs
A large coffee-table format photo book with over 100 large color photographs and more than 60 pages of text, "Hầu Đồng : The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam" explains the ancient Vietnamese syncretic religion of Đạo Mẫu, its rituals, its pantheon of deities, along with a narrative of my own experiences documenting it in Vietnam since late 2014.

Hầu Đồng is a ritual of Đạo Mẫu, and involves mediums being possessed by deities-spirits. It combines trances, spirit worship, sacred music, spectacular costumes, theater, superstition, nationalism and history. Prohibited by the French colonials and by the Ho Chi Minh regime, it went underground and is now going through a resurgence.

I am the only non-Vietnamese photographer to have photographed Hầu Đồng ceremonies in such depth.

In addition to the large color photographs and scholarly explanatory text, the book also features interviews with 7 prominent Vietnamese mediums-clairvoyants on their life stories, and on their spiritual connection with Đạo Mẫu deities.

These are exclusive first run advance copies, and will individually be signed by me (if so wished)
and may also be personalized with the recipient's name (and any message) on request.

A Labor of Love by Tewfic El-Sawy on Exposure

Diego Huerta | Inside Oaxaca

“It is surprising that we have more than 57 native cultures in Mexico and we don’t know at least half of them. The information is nearly nonexistent.”- Diego Huerta

Diego Huerta discovered the depth of his country's dazzling cultural traditions and the myriad of its indigenous communities when traveling to Oaxaca, and attending the Guelaguetza, its biggest annual celebration and parade that features traditional dances and customs from the States’ eight regions.

Photographing this event launched Diego's Inside Oaxaca project in which he photographed carefully thought out portraits individuals of four of the eight regions that exist in Oaxaca. This project also led to a larger photo project called Native Nation, which consists of documenting Mexico’s more than 50 indigenous groups.

I attended a number of Guelaguetza dance performances (not the annual event which is held in the second half of every July), and when performed by experienced dancers, the choreography and costumes are extraordinary. That said, the Guelaguetza annual event is based on a celebration dating to much before the arrival of the Spanish, and remains a defining characteristic of Oaxacan culture.

Its origins and traditions come from pre-Hispanic earth-based religious celebrations related to the worship of corn and the corn god.

Diego Huerta was born and raised in Mexico, and currently resides in Austin, Texas where he bases my photography business. I found two excellent articles on his craft on the Huffington Post here and here.

The Puppeteer of Monipally | Untold

Photo Courtesy of Untold

The portal website of Untold is a veritable trove of photo stories of endangered traditions and art forms of India, and one that piqued my interest is The Lone String Puppeteer of Monipally.

Monipally is a small and peaceful village in Kottayam district, Kerala, and according to Wikipedia earns the sobriquet of 'The Spicy Virgin Village', but no further explanation is given.

The photo story of The Lone String Puppeteer of Monipally is of a 15-year-old women named Renjini, who is said to be the only person in the world today that can maneuver the entire epic of Ramayana on the tip of her lips – on a pole of string alone. Renjini and her grandmother are the only practitioners of this delicate ancestral art.

In Kerala, a centuries old legacy comes to life with wooden string puppets that tell the entire Ramayana and Mahabharata. The art form is called Nokku Vidhya Pavakalli, and is an indigenous puppet theatre form practiced for centuries in Kerala.

The puppets are perched atop a pole that rests vertically on the upper lip of the puppeteer squatting on the floor. The puppets are animated with the help of strings held by the artiste. The act of balancing the puppets and animating them call for extreme concentration and practice, as the puppets are made to move in tune with the tempo of the accompanying music.

Viviana Peretti | Salaam Harlem

Eid al-Fitr or the Islamic festival of breaking of the fast is imminent, and millions of Muslims around the world are eager for it as it marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. The religious Eid is a single day during which Muslims are not permitted to fast, and it celebrates the conclusion of the 29 or 30 days of dawn-to-sunset fasting during the entire month of Ramadan.

Viviana Peretti, with her Salaam Harlem photo essay, documented the Murid Islamic Community of America in Harlem, New York City, as part of her larger NEW YORK PRAYS photographic work.

A Murid (or Mouride) is generally defined as an initiate into the mystic philosophy of Sufism originating in Senegal and the Gambia. A high proportion of the Senegalese in New York City are “Murids, and they practice a Muslim work ethic that provides money to create mosques and sustain their operations. The ethic is based on the Quranic injunction that Muslims must do ‘amal saalih, or wholesome work, that is acceptable to Allah and will be rewarded. Many of these Murids work as street vendors.

I featured Viviana Peretti's work on many occasions on this blog. s an Italian freelance photographer based in New York where in 2010 she graduated in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the International Center of Photography (ICP).

In 2000, after graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Anthropology from the University of Rome, she moved to Colombia where she specialized in photojournalism and spent nine years working as a freelance photographer.

Viviana has received fellowships and awards from the International Center of Photography, the Joannie M. Chen Fund in New York, CNN, the Fondation Bruni-Sarkozy in France, FotoVisura, the University of Salamanca, the Spanish Embassy in Colombia, the Photo Museum in Bogota, and the Colombian Ministry of Culture. In 2010 she has been selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop, Barnstorm XXIII. In 2013-2014 Viviana has been an Artist-in-Residence at L’École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (ENSP) in Arles, France.

Her work has been published in a number of international media outlets including The New York Times, Newsweek, BBC, CNN, L'Oeil de la Photographie, New York Magazine, Le Journal de la Photographie, and L'Espresso.

Hầu Đồng : The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam

The highly anticipated photo book Hầu Đồng : The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam will soon be available to coincide with the inclusion of this ancient indigenous in the UNESCO Registry which is expected in September 2016.

With over 100 large color photographs and more than 60 pages of text, it explains the ancient syncretic religion of Đạo Mẫu, its rituals and its pantheon of deities, along with my narrative of my own experiences documenting it in Vietnam since 2014.

I am one of the very few non-Vietnamese photographers to be welcomed during countless Hầu Đồng ceremonies, and allowed to produce a photo book of this tradition in this magnitude.

Serendipity is a funny thing. Having literally stumbled on this Vietnamese religious tradition and its ceremonial tangential manifestations of Hầu Đồng and Hát Chầu Văn in late 2014 literally supercharged, and reinvigorated, my enthusiasm for documentary photography, audio recording, storytelling and multimedia production.

I completely immersed myself in this project, traveling many times to Hanoi from New York City to attend often undeclared ceremonies in the capita, its suburbs and in other distant regions to its north and east. To have access and be welcomed in these ceremonies wherever they are held, one must gain the confidence and trust of the community, and initially be accompanied by someone known to the mediums or the musicians.

Producing a book is an achievement for certain, but there's something infinitely more important to me than the photographs I made...and that's the friendships and the human kindnesses I've been privileged to experience while at these ceremonies.

Mario Cruz | Modern Day Talibes

A few posts back, I featured the work of Indonesian photographer Ulet Ifansasti on an Islamic boarding school in East Java, and I follow it up with the powerful monochromatic work of Mario Cruz on a similar subject; an Islamic boarding school in Senegal...however difference abound.

The long tradition of sending boys to study at Islamic boarding schools (also called madrasas) in Islamic countries is often rooted in positive values of religious and moral education, and on teaching classical theological, legal, and Qur'anic texts. However, politics and social exploitation have intruded in some of these institutions.

Over the last decade in Senegal, the educational purpose of these boarding schools has been used by unscrupulous so-called teachers to exploit thousands of children who are known as "talibes"...the Arabic term for students..

Cruz spent months documenting the physical abuse of talibes, although much of it takes place behind the closed doors of these "schools". The teachers also known as "marabout" (A North African term for a learned Islamic teacher), know that their actions of treating these children as slaves, and sending them into the streets to beg and steal are criminal, but it's a slow progress to apprehend them and close down these schools due to Senegal's limited resources.

The number of children exploited by this system of modern-day slavery is estimated to number as many as 30,000 in the Dakar region alone and 50,000 across the country.

Mario Cruz is a Portuguese photojournalist, and studied studied photojournalism at Cenjor - Professional School of Journalism. In 2006 he began working with LUSA – Portuguese News Agency / EPA – European Pressphoto Agency. Since 2012, he has been focused on his personal projects dedicated to social justice and human rights.

Xavier Guardans | Windows

Here's a gallery of monochromatic portraits of individuals belonging to a variety of Kenyan tribes, such as the Turkana, Samburu, Masai, Rendille, Gabra and Pokot, which were all made using the simplest of staging.

All of these were photographed through the window of the photographer's vehicle. The vehicle's window act as a simple picture frame, almost forcing the viewers to focus only on the subjects' expressions, hands and arms.

Over multiple trips to Kenya in 2006, the photographer took 25 black-and-white portraits from the backseat of his vehicle, photographing his subjects, members of Kenyan tribes, through a rear window.

Xavier Guardans was born in Barcelona in 1954 and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Bournemouth College of Art in England and was included in exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Madrid, Museo de Arte Abstracto Español in Cuenca and the Museu d’ Art Espanyol Contemporani in Palma. His work is held in private and public collections, including at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and the Center of Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. Guardans has also had an extensive commercial career publishing his work in major magazines and worldwide advertising campaigns.

In Production | Hầu Đồng: The Spirit Mediums of Vietnam

It's been quite a long road to get to the point where I now have my ducks in a row, and have the first full "skeleton" of my forthcoming photo book Hầu Đồng: The Spirit Mediums of Vietnam ready to be printed as a dummy first cut book. I have had two made a few months ago, but these were of a much smaller page and image count.

The current iteration is of 168 pages, of which 104 are full-bleed photographs and 64 text pages, and at 15 inches x 11 inches (38 cms x 28 cms) is of one the largest image wrap landscape hard cover sizes I could find.

It ought to be ready by the end of this week, and I ought to see it by the end of the month. It's being printed in Kuala Lumpur, and because of an operational snafu, I've had to have it shipped to Ahsan Qureishi of Travel Photographer Asia, who has kindly agreed to ship it to me in New York City.

Once received, examined and reviewed I shall decide on further formats and sizes, and naturally on prices, as well as produce a trailer type of video to market it as widely as possible using social and other medias.

I am hoping to have it all set up by early September 2016 to coincide with the Việt Beliefs in the Mother Goddesses inscription to the UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list.

Ulet Ifansasti | City of God

Many in the West have a skewed view of Islam and its 1.4 billion adherents, and much of the fault lies at the door of the mainstream (and other) media that is unwilling or unable to portray a balanced and more nuanced view of this worldwide religion.

Philosophically, I'm against schools that are not secular but in many cases (such as this one) it's poverty - rather than faith- that forces parents to place their children in an Islamic boarding school.

City of God is a photo essay on Lirboyo, an enormous traditional 'pesantren' (Islamic boarding school) in Indonesia. Located in Kediri, East Java, the boarding school is home to roughly 17,000 students, or 'santri'. It was founded in 1910 by KH Abdul Karim. Its pupils and students spend their days reading the Quran, studying Islamic scriptures and learning Arabic. They have around 20 hours of activities daily, beginning at 4am and finishing at midnight.

Ulet Ifansasti is a freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer, with a particular interest in social, environmental and cultural issues. Born in Papua and currently based in Yogyakarta-Indonesia, he started his career at a local magazine in Yogyakarta, Indonesia before joining Getty Images in 2008.

His work has been published in many leading organizations and publications including GREENPEACE, World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, STERN, The Guardian, TIME Magazine, USA Today, LIFE, National Geographic Traveller among others.

Nick Ng | Forgotten Faces of China

I've been admiring Nick Ng's photography since I viewed his work on Chinese Opera, which I featured earlier on this blog, so I was glad to have found more of it on The Huffington Post.

The collection of his photographs are titled The Forgotten Faces of China, and are of elderly Chinese who live in the rural regions of the country, and have been left behind by their kin. Millions of Chinese have migrated from the countryside, with a majority of the country's population now living in urban areas.

Millions of older Chinese are facing poverty and loneliness as their children flee villages for cities. The years of societal turmoil (radical communism followed by rampant capitalism) have frayed the ties that once bound the nation’s families together.

As a result of China's "One Child" policy, more than 160 million Chinese families have only one child. Similarly, these family members are 60 years or older. Although many Chinese children still care for their parents, it is clear that the old traditions about loyal Chinese sons and daughters may no longer be as solid as they once have been.

Currently appointed as and sponsored by Sony Malaysia as their Alpha Professional photographer, Nick Ng is a freelance photographer based in Kuala Lumpur. who started photographing in 2007. He has won many photographic awards in Malaysia and abroad since then as well having been featured in various publications and exhibitions.

Mecca | Asif Khan | Roads & Kingdoms

Photo © Asif Khan- Courtesy Roads And Kingdoms

With the advent of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, I thought it timely to feature an interesting essay published by the eclectic journals Roads And Kingdoms as Mecca's Other Pilgrimage.

The rather tongue-in-cheek, but not irreverent, writing is by Asif Khan, a documentary photographer who is based in India. His description of the Umrah, the lesser version of the Hajj or pilgrimage that is demanded from every able Muslim will enlighten those who are unfamiliar (or even those who are familiar) with the Muslim rituals.

It reminded me of my own experience visiting Mecca many years ago when I was visiting the nearby Jeddah on a business trip. I worked for Citibank at the time, and it was suggested I spend a few days in that port city to explore whether a job there was for me. While the job dimensions were great, the social restrictions in Saudi Arabia on my family were difficult to accept, so I turned it down.

Whilst in Jeddah's Citibank offices, I was approached by Said Hafez, a colleague from Egypt, who convinced me to visit Mecca before I flew home to New York. The distance of 40 miles or so was covered very quickly and that evening, I found myself along with my companion in the very heart of Islam. It was before all the new glass-concrete monstrosities were built, and the Haram Al Sharif was superb.

Not being up-to-date with the rituals of ablutions and prayer, I faithfully copied the actions of my devout companion who knew exactly what to do and when. I mumbled the only verse of the Qur'an I knew, over and over like a mantra....hoping no one would ask me anything that could prove my religious inadequacy (at least in their eyes).

The Kaaba itself was not as large as I had thought it to be, and at this time of the evening few people were about. Consequently, I had ample opportunity to touch the black meteorite known as Al Hagar Al Aswad which surface was made concave by the millions who had touched it before me during past millennia.

The whole area was calm, quiet and serene and I easily imagined how the atmosphere brought the devout to their knees, and tears of devotion streaming down the faces of the supplicants. But for fresher and more descriptive account of Mecca and the Haram, read Asif Khan essay.

Roads & Kingdoms is an independent journal of food, politics, travel and culture. In its second year of existence, it was voted the Gold Winner for Best Travel Journalism Site by the Society of American Travel Writers. “Roads & Kingdoms” is borrowed from The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, an early travelogue written in the 11th century by Abu Abdullah al-Bakri in Córdoba.

Nick Ng | Chinese Opera

Readers of this blog know I immerse myself in personal projects that "speak" to me for many reasons; some of which are unknown whilst others are obvious. Documenting endangered cultures and traditional life ways, with particular emphasis on religious traditions and events, cults and esoteric practices, is what attracts me the most for my photography.

I've very recently started the process of exploring the tradition of Chinese Opera. Earlier this year, returning home after completing my work photographing the Vietnamese religious tradition of Đạo Mẫu, and its ceremonial manifestations of Hầu Đồng, for my forthcoming book "Hầu Đồng: The Spirit Mediums of Vietnam”, I spent time admiring large photographs of Chinese Opera performers displayed at Hong Kong Airport.

Perhaps it was the visual/aesthetic connection between the Hầu Đồng mediums and the Chinese Opera performers that was at play, but it was then that I decided to add this project to my to-do list.

During my recent trip to Kuala Lumpur to attend Travel Photographer Asia 2016, I met Lim Li-Ling, a Malaysian part-time photographer, who had documented the Xiao Qi Lin Hokkien Troupe of Singapore for a number of years, resulting in a book titled Wayang (A Javanese term for theatrical performances). Discussing it and receiving a copy of her book cemented my decision to go deeper into this traditional art form.

In contrast to Hầu Đồng which is relatively unknown by photographers outside of Vietnam, Chinese Opera has been popular with a large number of documentary photographers. I found a expansive amount of photographic essays documenting Chinese Opera; the first of which is by the very talented and prolific Nick Ng, a Kuala Lumpur resident and a Sony Malaysia's Alpha Professional Photographer.

Chinese Opera is one of the oldest dramatic art forms in the world. Many of the features that characterize modern Chinese Opera developed in northern China, particularly Shanxi and Gansu Provinces. The main forms are the Shanxi Opera, the Beijing Opera, the Shanghai Opera and the Cantonese Opera.

However, as Lim Li-Ling asserts in her Wayang book, Chinese Opera in the region of South East Asia is currently a dying art from whose performances are limited to key religious festivals.

The Old China Cafe

I've spent just over a week in Kuala Lumpur to participate in Travel Photographer Asia 2016 during which I gave a no-spin phototalk on travel photography, and a class-workshop on The Travel Documentary.

The class workshop's objective was for its participants to learn and complete a short travel documentary consisting of 15-20 still photographs. During our forays in Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown and its neighboring area, we spent some time at The Old China Cafe hiding from the sun or from the rain.

I returned to the cafe to meet two of my Malaysian friends a few days later, and had the chance of taking a few photographs of the very atmospheric interior. No one seemed to mind, even the patrons who were enjoying their lunch and drinks.

The cafe was formerly the guild hall of the Selangor & Federal Territory Laundry Association, which was set up at the turn of the century and moved to this part of Chinatown in the 1920s. The owner of the cafe kept many of the architectural details of the building, and even the doors to the kitchen still have wooden latches. This type of pre-war shophouses may not exist much longer.

The concept of the woman in a red cheongsam hoped for by a stranger in the cafe (possibly an alter ego) was born during a conversation with my class. They were quite supportive of the idea, and even suggested enhancements....some of those inventive but impractical to include in this short piece.

I think this very simple audio-slideshow exemplifies the very spirit of my class....The Travel Documentary. Weaving 15-20 images to tell a story...whether factual, or like this one, a figment of the storyteller's imagination is what makes travel photography such a wonderful genre of image making.

POV: Visual Storyteller | Fact or Fiction?

"....so I would say that today I am a visual storyteller..."

The Steve McCurry controversy rages on, unmitigated by his recent statements (which I am paraphrasing here) saying that, except for a brief stint at a small newspaper, he didn't work as a photojournalist per se, but considered himself as a visual storyteller.

I have been critical of McCurry's work for quite some time, and never considered him to be a photojournalist. I recall being harshly criticized by many of his fans when I published this point of view, and wonder where are they now. He might have explicitly described himself as a photojournalist or insinuated it, but I always viewed him as a travel photographer with a high propensity to stage his images, with a concomitant affinity for post processing.

During my recent photo talk at Travel Photographer Asia 2016 in Kuala Lumpur, I addressed the recent fracas and, in a way, condoned his evolution from photojournalist in the distant past to the current commercial-fashion photographer (Louis Vuitton, Valentino, etc) specialization.

In that photo talk, I said that it must have been the forces of the marketplace that molded McCurry's evolution. We all know how difficult it is to make a living from photojournalism and documentary photography, even for photographers as famed as he. So, I'm not surprised or shocked that he chose the route he's following right now.

Some of us argue that storytellers ought to tell the truth; others like me argue that stories can be fictional or non-fictional. In my view, travel photography can be either. I adopt a true story telling discipline in my own travel imagery, adopting my "travel photography meets photojournalism" philosophy, but on rare occasions, I've staged some of my photographs. If I had to put a percentage to this staging, I'd say 5% of my images were/are staged....or directed. I've never hid that fact when asked, nor will I do so in future. And I'm not a photojournalist, and never claimed to be.

With that in mind, McCurry's prevarications about being a photojournalist (hence no staging and no heavy-handed post processing) have disappointed many of those who viewed him as an "eminence grise" in his field. Many more are outraged and angered because the image manipulations (especially the cloning and removal of things) discovered so far are tainting the whole industry with the same brush. Photojournalists who have abided by the strict ethics of photojournalism are justifiably angered.

McCurry has been recently shown to digitally modify (or have his staff digitally modify) some of his images to show what he wished he had seen and taken the picture of. That, in my view, is fictional visual storytelling, and is as far from the truth and photojournalism as can be. To wit, the 1983 photograph of the locals riding a rickshaw through heavy monsoon rain in Varanasi, in which people were removed. It's fantasy...it's what McCurry would have liked to see but didn't. It's also what McCurry wants us to see, and believe that it happened as shown. As for blaming a staff member for heavy handed post processing, it's always the photographer who must take final responsibility. Blaming an intern or staff is unworthy of someone of McCurry's stature.

However, many of the public took him to be a "reality visual storyteller", but he wasn't and from his many interviews, he didn't dispel this widely held view and possibly encouraged it.

It's always tragic when a renowned figure in any field falls from grace, but it also serves to remind us that truth is always liberating, and is always the best approach in anything we do. Is this an idealistic concept? Yes, it is, but it's also the right one.

TPA 2016

Alexander Khimushin | The World In Faces

"While travel is my life, photography is my passion.

And it’s never been about the money…"

It is said that, in photography, a portrait is a composed image of a person in a still position, and often shows the person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer.

Many photographers also use an optical illusion used by painters since time immemorial, by placing the person's dominant eye in the center of the frame, to give the impression that the eyes are following the viewers.

And with more than 7.3 billion people of countless cultures and traditions, portraiture is a wonderful way to demonstrate the diversity, ingenuity, and beauty of humans.

I wouldn't be wrong in assuming that most travel photographers have started their careers and craft by photographing simple portraits; perhaps setting up their subjects against attractive backgrounds, or against anything they found. I recall my own start when, a 70-200 lens on my camera, I'd roam the exotic places I traveled to in search of faces that 'spoke' to me.

My craft has evolved during the years, and I've become inclined to photograph perhaps more complex scenes, however travel portraiture is always the primary visual "magnet". And from my experience, it is always portraits that attracts the most attention amongst a wide swath of viewers.

Alexander Khimushin explored 84 nations with cameras in hand over the past two years in order to photograph portraits of people he met for “The World In Faces,” a photo project celebrating diverse cultures around the world.

There will always be critics for whom this project (and others like it) will not sit well, but insofar as I'm concerned, it's a project that brings us all together.

Alexander Khimushin is an Russian/Australian independent traveler. He tells us that 8 years ago he packed a backpack for a journey around the world. Since then he's been traveling the globe non-stop.

The Huffington Post also has an article with larger versions of his photographs.

Alessandra Meninconzi | Time For Holi!

One of my favorite travel photographers is Alessandra Meninconzi who has recently uploaded her new work from India, which she titled It's Time For Holi. Her photographs were mostly made in Vrindavan, and its surrounding towns and villages, during the festival of Holi.

I remember Alessandra messaging me from Vrinadavan complaining that her new Canon Mark 3 was in danger of being permanently colored in pink. She is a Canon Professional, so I'm certain that Canon didn't mind. That said, by many recent accounts, in many areas Holi has devolved into a a color "slug fest" that goes beyond fun with colors, and is no longer a religious observance.

Alessandra's galleries range from the Arctic Siberia to Ethiopia, from Lapland to the Silk Road, and from Greenland to Tibet and the Himalayas. She worked extensively for more than a decade in the remote areas of Asia, documenting minority people and their traditional cultures. More recently, she focused on the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions that are threatened by climate change, development, and resource extraction.

Alessandra Meniconzi is a Swiss photographer fascinated by the lives and traditions of indigenous people in remote regions of the world.Her photographs have been published widely in magazines, as well as in four books: The Silk Road (2004), Mystic Iceland (2007), Hidden China (2008) and QTI -Alessandra Meniconzi, Il coraggio di esser paesaggio (2011).

Travel Photographer Asia Invalidates 2016 Original Winner

Travel Photographer Asia and its judges have taken the difficult, but unavoidable, decision to revoke its 2016 winning photograph of Malaysian photographer Yen Sin Won, and replace it with the above photograph by Alex Varani of Italy.

The new winning photograph was originally first runner-up, and with the said elimination is now the overall winner of Travel Photographer 2016 contest. It is of Indonesian fishermen battling a shark near Cenderawasih Bay.

The updated line-up of the winners is here.

Although Yen Sin Won's monochromatic photograph (see my previous post to view it) was compelling enough to garner the admiration of the jury, it came to the attention of the judges when asking for and viewing the RAW version that it violated the rules and spirit of the contest regarding post processing restrictions on submitted images.

As I posted earlier, Travel Photographer Asia is much more than a photographic contest. It is also a travel photography festival consisting of photo talks, an exhibition and photography master class & workshops for the professional and amateur photographer.

I shall join photography luminaries Ms Huang Wen, Mr. Che' Ahmad Azhar, Dr. Shahidul Alam and Mr. Vignes Balasingam in giving photo talks during the festival. My photo talk will focus on travel photography, and I'll touch upon its challenges and rewards, how to approach people and build trust, how to take the right photos for an article, how to build up a story with photos, and how to brand yourself. I will share how I started as a travel photographer, how I built my travel photo workshops business from scratch and how I go about developing personal projects.

Travel Photographer Asia 2016 Contest Winners

Ahsan Qureshi of Travel Photographer Asia has announced the winners (and best 50 photographs) of its 2016 contest in which more than 3000 images were submitted for consideration.

The winning photograph is "Jump Over" by Malaysian photographer Yen Sin Wong**. As a judge, I was immensely impressed by the quality of the submissions (which made the judging extremely tough), and by the fact that amongst the 50 top submissions, 6 are monochromatic. In my view, it took courage from these six photographers to submit entries in black & white to a travel photography contest. Color is frequently the instinctive choice for submissions to travel photography contests. I also noticed that the judges seemed to generally coalesce behind photographs that told a story, and that were more complex than simple portraiture. Naturally, all submissions were anonymous to the judges.

** see update.

Congratulations to all the winners and to all who submitted...you gave the judges a very difficult task to do. Well done. For those interested in the prizes, check them here.

However, Travel Photographer Asia is much more than a photographic contest. It is also a travel photography festival consisting of photo talks, an exhibition and photography master class & workshops for the professional and amateur photographer.

Julie Higelin | Thisksey Gustor Festival

Julie Higelin brings us her images of the Thiksay Gustor festival which usually takes place during the month of November in Ladakh. It is held from the 17th to 19th day of the ninth month of the Tibetan calendar. This short (two-day) festival is held at three different Ladakhi monasteries—Spituk, Thiksey and Karsha Zanskar.

The festival commemorates the assassination of the 9th Century Tibetan apostate king Lang Darma by a Buddhist monk. The assassination is re-enacted during the festival by burning effigies symbolizing evil. Morning prayers are offered to bring divine peace to those who take part in it. After the two day celebrations, there are a ritualistic events and dances by Black Hat dancers.

Julie Higelin is a Belgian self-taught travel photographer who, rather than pursuing a full time career in physiotherapy, traveled the world and developed a passion for a nomadic existence, learning photography at the same time. She started off her photographic career by taking on an assignment for an NGO in Madagascar, and her road map was set.

She has photographed in India, Ladakh, Madagascar, Romania and Guatemala amongst others. She generally uses a Canon 5DMark3, and a Canon 24-70mm F2.8 L and a 16-35mm F2.8 L.

Travel Photographer Asia 2016 Kuala Lumpur

I'm very pleased to be included amongst a panel of prominent individuals in the photography industry scheduled to give photo talks at the forthcoming Travel Photographer Asia 2016 event in Kuala Lumpur at the end of May.

In association with with “Fuji Film X“, Travel Photographer Asia 2016 offers a unique and ultimate travel photography festival consisting of a photo contest, photo talks and photography master class & workshops for the professional and amateur photographer.

The photo talks will be given by:

Ms. Huang Wen, currently the Secretary General of the Chinese Photojournalists Society, and one of the biggest names in Chinese photography. She is also is the director of the International Business Development Division of the News & Information Center, Xinhua News Agency

Mr. Che' Ahmad Azhar, currently a lecturer at the Faculty of Creative Multimedia, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia. He taught in the field of Visual Communication and Photography for eighteen years.

Dr. Shahidul Alam; well known for having established the Drik Picture Library, The Bangladesh Photographic Institute, Pathshala, The South Asian Media Academy and others. A member of advisory board of National Geographic Society and the first Asian to chair the International Jury of World Press Photo.

Mr. Vignes Balasingam is a photographer and curator based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is the director of the OBSCURA Festival of Photography and the Monsoon Artist In-Residence program. He has curated over 40 exhibitions featuring international and Malaysian photographers.

And myself.

Kiki Xue | Ethno-Fashion

I've written up a number of posts about the fusion of fashion and travel photography, and this is certainly not the last. It is no surprise that I am frequently influenced by fashion photographers' aesthetic, by how they set up their shoots, and by the postures and poses adopted by the models, the color schemes and the lighting. It would be an exaggeration to say that this kind of photography inspires me, but it certainly leaves a visual and and subconscious residue which I reach for when I'm photographing in the various countries I travel to.

Having spent all of 2015 and almost half of 2016 photographing hầu đồng ceremonies in Vietnam to produce my forthcoming photo book: Hầu Đồng: The Spirit Mediums of Việt Nam, I've realized that much of my resulting images were instinctively influenced by fashion photography, especially those that had an Asian theme to them.

One of these influences is certainly Kiki Xue; a Chinese photographer who is currently base in Paris. Inspired by Irving Penn, Xue uses a digital Hasselblad, and creates an artistic atmosphere in his photography.

With one exception, I failed in convincing any hầu đồng practitioner to pose for me as in a fashion shoot. The exotic costumes they wear during the ceremonies are religious, and wearing them outside of temples during ceremonies is considered a sacrilege. Nevertheless, the mediums offered me ample opportunities to photograph them during their ceremonial incarnations.

Dom & Liam Shaw | Vida Cubana | Fuji X Pro 2

My Twitter feed is not entirely useless after all!

It brought me to a blog post by two Yorkshire-based wedding photographers who, after a street photography stint in New York City, continued their adventures to include 15 days shooting during the Easter break in the streets of Havana (and Trinidad).

Not only are the super-saturated photographs of Havana just a joy to view, but they were made with the newly released Fuji X Pro-2.

There are a number of world cities that are especially spectacular for street photography; New York City, Kolkata, Hanoi and many others...but in my view, Havana is probably ranked amongst the top five, and these photographs certainly support my contention.

I was in Havana in 2000 (during the Elian Gonzales controversy) attending a photography workshop with Costa Manos, and it was a revelation. I was a photo novice at the time, but I immediately realized the incredible magnetic pull this city had to photographers.

To accompany this post, I chose one of the couple's photograph featuring Wilke (or Wilki), a well-known 'Habanero' to visiting photographers. He earns a living by dancing in various bars and by posing as a model on account of his elegance, white sideburns and enormous cigars. His dancing partner, Adelaide, is also a fortune teller. I met them during my week-long stay in Havana, and they introduced me to a private session of Santeria.

Traveling to Cuba for US citizens has become much easier recently, however Cuba's infrastructure hasn't yet caught up with the influx of tourists coming from its northern neighbor. Lack of hotel rooms, exacerbated by underdeveloped airport facilities, results in frustrated travelers.

As many things in life, I guess it's a trade-off.

Taylor Weideman | Poy Sang Long

Here's another festival I would love to photograph...so in the bucket list it goes. The annual Poy Sang Long festival is a three-day long rite of passage for young Buddhists from the Shan ethnic group in Thailand.

The festival marks the initiation of 7-14 years old boys, as novices in the Buddhist community. It essentially consists of these boys taking novice monastic vows and participating in monastery life for a period of time that can vary from a week to many months or more. It's widespread in Myanmar, but the practice crossed into Thailand, where Shan immigrants have brought over their traditions.

The festival goes on for three days, as the boys are dressed like princes in imitation of the Buddha, himself a prince before setting out on the religious path, spend the entire time being carried around on the shoulders of their older male relatives.

Photographer Taylor Weidman's lovely images of the Poy Sang Long festival were featured in The Huffington Post. The accompanying article tells us that the photographer followed two youngsters, as they prepared for their initiation. The two boys are neighbors from Chiang Mai who traveled to Mae Sariang, a small town in northern Thailand near the Burmese border for the ceremony.

The festival of Poy Sang Long in Thai is called Buad Loog Gaew, which means "ordaining the beloved sons", and is held in early April when, in the city of Chiang Mai, pre-teen boys are inducted into the Buddhist novice-hood.

Taylor Weidman is a photojournalist based in northern Thailand. As photographer for Getty Images, his work has appeared in many of the world's most prestigious news outlets, including The New York Times, TIME, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, BBC, The Guardian, GEO, Der Spiegel, and others.

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