NPR: Tibet 100 Years Ago

Photo Courtesy Bonhams

NPR's The Picture Show recently reported that a part of Tibet's history recorded through old photographs was auctioned in London. The photographs (consisting of 70 platinum prints and 2 folding panoramas) were taken by British political officer John Claude White during a 1903 British mission to Tibet, and were sold for £38,400 (or about $60,000).

I love news like that because it fuses history (military), Asia, adventurism and photography. John Claude White was part of the British expedition led by Francis Younghusband who, under orders from George Curzon, was to settle disputes over the Sikkim-Tibet border. In reality, the expedition was to establish British hegemony in Tibet, and morphed into an invasion and occupation of Tibet. This was one of the many chess pieces in The Great Game between Great Britain and Russia to control Central Asia.

Younghusband is subject of a well-documented biography by Patrick French, titled The Last Imperial Adventurer. A fascinating man (comparable in my view to Sir Richard Francis Burton...another incredible adventurer), Younghusband is said to have experienced revelatory visions in the mountains of Tibet, toyed with telepathy in Kashmir, and eventually espoused a sort of atheism, even though he was brought up as an Evangelical Christian.

I always think photojournalists (especially those who work in Iraq and Afghanistan) to read up on history instead of believing the crap we see on television...they'll have a better grasp of what's still going on. The Last Imperial Adventurer is one of those books.

I know...I may be wasting my breath.

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Posted in: Books,Events,Kashmir,Tibet

Jean-Marc Giboux: Holy Men

Photo © Jean-Marc Giboux -All Rights Reserved

Jean-Marc Giboux started his photographic career in 1988 in Los Angeles where he was a correspondent for the Gamma-Liaison photo agency covering news, social issues and cultural trends for European publications.

In 1997, Giboux was awarded a grant from Rotary International to cover the progress of the worldwide polio eradication programs, traveling in India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Yemen, Mali, Niger, to name but a few. He also covered the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan for Doctors without Borders, and this was featured in an exhibition touring the USA and Europe from 2004 to 2006.

Currently residing in Chicago, Jean-Marc continues to collaborate with Doctors Without Borders, CARE, WHO, UNDP and the Rotary Foundation.

In an interview with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Jean-Marc told the interviewer that funding was the most difficult part of his photography career. Outside of a major grant he got from Rotary to shoot the polio project and a couple of excursions with Doctors Without Borders, his projects are mostly self-funded.

Among his many humanitarian photo galleries, Jean-Marc has a gallery of portraits devoted to Hindu holy men...or sadhus. I assume that these were made while covering the Aardh Kumbh Mela in Hardiwar earlier this year. Have a look...they're made in sepia and in a square format.

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Posted in: India,Photographers: Photojournalists,Photographers: Travel

How Many Arms Do I Need? And WTF?

I just read in WIRED's Gadget Lab that Zoom will launch a new Flip-like recorder that records beautiful audio for about $300. Stores expect it soon.

Zoom is the Japanese company that manufactures the various audio recorders that are popular with many multimedia producers, and which recently announced the affordable H1 Handy Recorder that I posted about here.

The plethora of useful (and others not so useful) products and gear aimed at multimedia producers, photographers, and videographers is incredible...but how do we carry and operate all this stuff?

And in the WTF? Department, here comes the Leica M9 Neiman Marcus Edition limited to a only 50 units. Engadget reports that it's "wrapped in a brown ostrich leather trim this time around, and it comes paired with a chrome-finished Summicron-M 35mm f2.0 ASPH lens", and costs $17,500.

A bargain. A trifle. A bagatelle.

I used to say (tongue-in-cheek like) that only orthodontists could afford the high end Leicas...but for this one, only hedge funds honchos need apply.

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Posted in: Audio,Hard Gear

My Work: The Bali Trilogy

I'm glad to present Bali: The Trilogy; a three-part audio-slideshow (based on a chaptered SoundSlides platform), which consists of black & white documentaries of Balinese ceremonies.

The Melasti ceremony is an all important Balinese tradition of purifying temple deities in the waters of the ocean, the Ngaben is the Balinese tradition of cremating the dead, while the third is Tajen, the ancient tradition of cockfighting, technically illegal but still practiced on the island (and elsewhere in Indonesia).

This above link will not work on iPads (by the way, about 6-7% of my daily readers view this blog on their iPads, and I think this percentage is growing every day), however the following links will allow iPad owners to watch the individual audio-slideshows on their devices:

Bali: Melasti Purification Ceremony
Bali: Ngaben Cremation Ceremony
Bali: Tajen Cockfighting Event

A word about the choice of black & white;  I'm not sure if I'm entering a sort of black & white phase in my photography work, and this is its manifestation...or whether I've been influenced by the likes of John Stanmeyer and others...or whether it's a contrarian reaction to the surfeit of color I've witnessed when attending these ceremonies last month...or whether it's because the Balinese believe these ceremonies inherently involve spirits and dark forces...I don't know. It just felt better.

Let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy these audio-slideshows.

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Posted in: Bali,Multimedia,Soundslides,TTP Show Off

Justin Guariglia: A Leica Interview

Photo © Justin Guariglia-All Rights Reserved

Justin Guariglia has had a lifelong passion for documentary photography and Leica M cameras that eventually led to a distinguished career as a magazine and travel photographer.

He currently lives in Taipei, and was recently interviewed by the Leica Camera Blog, in which he says:

"Of course, one cannot travel without money, and that is how I discovered photojournalism. Even back in the late 1990s, unlike today, there was still a good amount of work available—a shoot here, a story there, a portrait needed…so magazine work became the way to pay my bills and to travel and see the world, but I always came back with lots of personal images that editors usually never saw. At that stage National Geographic Traveler and Smithsonian magazines ran short stories on distant countries, and that helped pay my way to see the world."

Naturally the interview lauds the qualities of Leica versus other brands of cameras, and highlights how unobtrusive it is in comparison to the large DSLRS currently used by many other photographers. Justin's lenses consist of a 24mm f/2.8, a 35mm f/2, and a 50mm f/2, although he tries to only carry the 35mm f/2 Summicron.

For Leica fans, there's also a Leica contest with the grandiose name of In The Footsteps of the Great Explorers, which calls for adventurers and travel blog writers to submit their entries, and travel with Leica from mid-January 2011. A very fancy website!!!

Justin Guariglia's interview via The Click

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Posted in: Interviews,Photographers: Travel

Faces of a Vanishing World: Joey Lawrence

I've posted a few times about Joey Lawrence (he also goes by Joey L), the young photographer who's been involved in commercial photography, photojournalism and music videos around the world by the age of 17, and who now has the established reputation of being a pioneer of new aged digital hyper-realistic photography, lighting and manipulation.

Joey has released a documentary titled Faces of a Vanishing World available for purchase on DVD or as an instant download. The official trailer for the documentary is above. Joey also says he's donating a portion of all the documentary's sales to Survival International, who are supporting the tribal people of the Omo Valley defend their rights, protect their lands and determine their own futures.

I am always a little hesitant in accepting cliches such as "vanishing world", "dying cultures", etc...because cultures are usually more resilient that people think, but in this instance, I'm convinced the Omo Valley tribes are under severe threat.

This relates to the Ethiopian's government building a massive dam that will block the south western part of the Omo River. The Lower Omo Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage site, in recognition of its archaeological and geological importance, and is home to several tribes.

I have neither acquired the DVD nor have I downloaded it...but from the trailer and from Joey L's quality of work, I'm certain it'll be money well spent.

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Posted in: Ethiopia,Multimedia,Photographers: Travel

POV: My Photo~Expeditions: Verdicts

Wade Laube is a photo editor, a photographer and an opinionated ranter (the two last descriptions make him a "my-kind-of-guy"), and he's penned an interesting post on his blog titled Buyer Beware of the Dodgy Workshop.

He says this:

"The travel industry has offered photography-themed holidays for years. Hobbyists spend their annual leave somewhere picturesque, get expert tuition and access to expensive gear they wouldn’t normally, while the organisers make some money and everyone’s happy. But what aboveboard entrepreneurs started, parasites are mimicking."

And I couldn't agree more. Caveat Emptor is the rule here. I would also add that great photographers are not necessarily great travel photography workshop teachers and/or leaders. Some are and others are not.

Once again, here's Wade's wisdom:

"Ultimately what you need to ask yourself is whether you are purchasing a valuable educational experience. Are you just paying for the brand-value of a big name photographer and getting little more?"

Having one of the highest number of "repeaters" (returning participants) in the business is a fillip that I wear with great pride, and as one of the few in this business who's decided to reduce the number of expedition participants to a maximum of 5, I thought it useful to once again feature the verdicts of my past photo~expeditions as follows:

Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition

Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat 2010 Photo~Expedition

Bhutan Photo~Expedition 2009

Morocco-Gnawa Festival Photo Expedition 2009

Theyyam of Malabar Photo~Expedition 2009

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Posted in: Photo Tours,POV