La Santa Muerte: Lorne Matalan

Photograph Lorne Matalon-All Rights Reserved

Here's an audio slideshow of photographs by Lorne Matalon of La Santa Muerte, which is a saint-like figure worshiped and venerated in Mexico, probably as spiritual fusion of Mesoamerican and Catholic beliefs. Its cult attracts those who are inclined to seek the non-traditional ways for spiritual solace, and many of its followers live outside of the law.

Lorne Matalon has been reporting from Mexico for The World since November 2007. He covered the Mexican 'war on drugs' from the front lines, going on patrol with the Mexican armed forces. He also covered immigration and economic stories from south of the border. He worked at NPR Member Stations WUNC and WBUR, also filing for NPR from Haiti, Panama and Mongolia. Lorne is a contributor to National Geographic's Ethnosphere Project and a National Fellow at the Explorers Club of New York.

While in Mexico City, I visited Tepito, the infamous barrio where many of Santa Muerte sanctuaries are found, and produced my gallery: La Santa Muerte.

More posts on La Santa Muerte appeared here.

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Posted in: Mexico,Photographers: Photojournalists

Kirsten Luce: Kashmiri Family Portrait

Here's a new portfolio by the talented Kirsten Luce titled A Kashmiri Family Portrait; a family living with the ghosts of their loved ones.

Kirsten is a freelance photojournalist working in New York City. Her work was published in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Time, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald (International Edition), AP, Bloomberg News and CARE International.

Apart from gleaning various awards, she was a key staff member of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali last summer, which is when she continued on to Srinagar to produce these soulful and sensitive Kashmiri images. Many of those images are beautiful with lovely light, but my favorite image is that of the young girl combing her hair.

An interview with Kirsten was published on TTP here.

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Posted in: India,Kashmir Photo Tours,Photographers: Photojournalists

OP: Mystical Adventures Photo Contest

Outdoor Photographer magazine has announced a Mystical Adventures Photo Contest, with a sponsorship of India's Ministry of Tourism.

According to the rules, submissions must be in keeping with the general theme of the Mystical Adventures Photo Contest, including, but not limited to photos of historical locations, landscape and travel, but I'm not sure if the submissions are restricted to a Indian theme or not.

The prizes are mostly of photographic gear, and there's no entry fees that I noticed.

As in all and every photography contests, I strongly encourage all interested photographers to make sure they carefully read the contests' terms and conditions, especially since misunderstandings between organizers and contestants over terms, prizes and other issues sometimes occur.

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Posted in: Contests

My Work: The Dancers of Tamshing Goemba

Here's a gallery of new photographs made during my recent Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition™.

The gallery is a collection of photographs of various performers at the tsechu at Tamshing Goemba near Chamkar town, in the religious heartland of Bhutan.

The performers range from the jovial jokers who wave wooden penises around, and whose principal role is to distract spectators, to the more austere Black Hat dancers who are defenders of the "dharma" and who battle enemies of Buddhism.

Tamshing Goemba was established by Pema Lingpa in 1501, and is the most important Nyingma temple in the country. Its external murals (as seen in the photographs) are badly damaged by the elements, but those inside the Goemba are magnificent.

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Posted in: Bhutan,Photographers: Travel,TTP Show Off

Sumit Dayal: The Sundarbans

Photo © Sumit Dayal-All Rights Reserved
Sumit Dayal is a freelance photographer, traveling extensively to cover stories in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. While of Kashmiri origin, he spent his childhood in Kathmandu and was educated in Delhi. He graduated from the Documentary and Photojournalism Program at the ICP in New York.

His work documents the plight of marginalized people, disappearing cultural traditions and changing landscapes in South Asia. Some of his clients include Time, Glamour, Vrij Nederland, Shell UK, Soros Foundation and Nepali Times.

His diverse galleries range from fine art photography to editorial photojournalism, and from documenting his memories of Kashmir to the urgent environmental issues faced by the Sundarbans in India.

The Sundarbans is the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world, and lie at the mouth of Ganges, and spread across areas of Bangladesh and West Bengal. Rising sea levels have swamped many islands of the Sundarbans, and thousands of families have lost their homes.

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Posted in: India,Photographers: Photojournalists

Rant: Email Newsletters

I use Campaign Monitor to send my (almost) monthly newsletter, which informs my subscribers of my new photo galleries and forthcoming The Travel Photographer's Photo~Expeditions™. Although these newsletters are only sent to those who subscribe through my sign-in box on this blog, I still get a spam notice, or even two, once in a while.

So here's the rant:

1. The mailing list for my newsletter is by subscription only. In other words, the person wanting to subscribe has to fill in his/her email address and his/her name in the sign-in box.

2. Upon doing so, each subscriber gets an auto-rely from me thanking them for subscribing, and saying that they can unsubscribe at any time by clicking a clearly marked link on the newsletters.

3. So why report my newsletter as spam? Even though I have a minuscule spam rate, it's annoying. Sending a newsletter costs me money, and if subscribers change their minds, the unsubscribe option is there! So use it, for heaven's sake!

The definition of spam from Wikipedia is this: "Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately."

Obviously, my newsletters are neither unsolicited or indiscriminate.

So is it illiteracy? Confusion? I'm mystified.

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Posted in: Rants

Penelope Gan: Malay-Chinese Opera

Photo © Penelope Gan-All Rights Reserved
Although Penelope Gan works in the financial industry in Kuala Lumpur, she's also passionate about photography, and particularly about photojournalism. She recently embarked on documenting various social issues that concern her, and produced a number of audio-visual photo essays to assist a number of local NGOs and government organizations that are involved in resolving these issues. An alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali this summer, she attended Ami Vitale's class (and mine).

She recently worked on what I deem to be an captivating project, documenting a special brand of traditional Chinese opera performing in Kuala Lumpur. According to Penelope's blog, the Chinese operas initially made their appearance in the mid-19th century when large numbers of Chinese migrated to Malaysia (or Malaya then) in search of employment and economic opportunities. Having settled in their new country, the Chinese brought in opera troupes from China, performing their art and mirroring the cultural developments in China.

The Malaysian Chinese opera may soon be a relic of the past, as it unsuccessfully competes with changing cultural tastes, and against the current of technological advancement and globalization. This makes Penelope's project timely, and I hope she is able to finalize it soon. The merging of what I imagine will be stunning visuals and the audio is something that I am certain will be awaited by many people.

So go for it, Penelope!

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Posted in: Asia,Photographers: Travel,Photojournalism