Matthieu Paley: Prisoners of the Himalaya

I've featured the extraordinary work of Matthieu Paley a number of times on The Travel Photographer blog already, and while my favorite is still his work on a Sufi festival honoring Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Pakistan, it's also this recent ongoing film project "Prisoners of the Himalaya" that is equally remarkable. It's a documentary film aimed at capturing the life of the last Kyrgyz nomads of Afghanistan.

Matthieu returned to the Afghanistan's Pamir mountains to cooperate in the production of his first movie, along with Louis Meunier (as Director of the project) and others.

When you finish viewing the above trailer, drop by the movie's main website The Roof of the World which gives you more background to the project, and lists the team members that were involved in its making. Also spend time exploring Matthieu's website, and his unique galleries. You certainly will not regret it.

Currently based in Istanbul, Matthieu photographs explore themes of remoteness and isolation in geopolitically sensitive areas, and his work has appeared in Géo, National Geographic Adventure, Newsweek, Time, Outside, Discovery, Vanity Fair and Figaro among others. He has collaborated on numerous books. Since 1999, he travels extensively throughout the mountainous regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern India and Central Asia.

His photographs have been exhibited in galleries in New York, Hong Kong and Munich, and his multimedia presentations were projected at festival such as the Perpignan Photojournalism festival, the Banff Mountain Festival, and MountainFilm in Colorado. He has lectured at the Royal Geographical Society and the Asia Society in Hong Kong, at the Grand Bivouac Festival in France as well as at the Vancouver Mountain Festival.

The New Power Pairing

Basic tee + Fancy skirt = The new power pairing for this spring and summer.

If you haven't tried this formula yet, you should try it. I promise you that you will instantly look effortless, yet chic.

Proenza tee and skirt, Ysl pumps, Natalia Brilli necklace, and sunglasses from NastyGal.

Have a wonderful day ahead! xo...Hanh :)

Diego Verges: Ludruk

Photo © Diego Verges-All Rights Reserved

Ludruk is a theatrical genres of East Java in Indonesia. It's a form of traditional performance presented by a troupe of actors on a stage, re-telling the life stories of everyday people and their struggles. Most of the characters were performed by male actors who take the roles of women, but more recently, the sketches and farces feature mostly contemporary domestic stories, and have become commercial entertainment popular with urban and rural working-class audiences.

Diego Verges (featured many times of The Travel photographer blog and one of its Favorite 2011 Photographers) has produced a comprehensive photo essay on the Ludruk, with black & white (and color) facial portraits, and as well as environmental portraits and scenes of these performers.

Ludruk is a must-see for my readers as it merges portraiture, documentary and travel-ethnography photography, and also visually documents an art for that could well vanish in the years to come.

Note: I encountered a similar kind of performance in Bali where it's called Arja. This type of performance enacts old stories in a farcical manner and uses dialogue understood only by Balinese-speaking audiences.

Blurb Goes Mobile...

Blurb has just announced Blurb Mobile for iPhone, which is a way to create stories by easily capturing and sequencing photos and videos into short visual stories that can be instantly shared and viewed by all.

The app is available on the App Store. It's basic version is free, while a version with more bells and whistles is for $1.99. It's also compatible with iPads, so with iPad2, it'll be possible to take photographs (albeit at low resolution) directly and create stories on the fly. Or use photos saved in one's photo library. It'll record ambient sound and video clips as well.

Is it for photojournalists and the like...probably not, but for people who wish to quickly create short visual stories.

I'm sure that this may be of use to photographers who like the Hipstamatic and Instagram apps for their iPhones.

Poland -- another synagogue restoration wins award

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The restoration of the synagogue in Ostrow Wielkopolski has won the "Facade of the Year" award for historic building preservation.

This is the second announcement this month of a synagogue restoration in Poland garnering an award, joining the synagogue in Zamosc, for whose restoration the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland won the 2011 Conservation Laurel, an annual award granted by the regional authorities and monuments conservator in eastern Poland's Lubelskie Region, where Zamosc is located

I posted about the Ostrow restoration project last fall, providing links to the town web site with a lot of photographs illustrating the transformation.

My Work: Three New Photo Galleries

I've now completed a sort of trilogy...three new photo galleries of stills from my just completed In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™.

The first of the three galleries is of the pilgrims that flock daily in their hundreds to the shrine of Hazra Mira Datar, a renowned Sufi saint in Gujarat, hoping to get rid of evil spirits, other health issues and personal problems. A black & white audio slideshow can also be seen here.

I recommend reading the journal of my experience at the Mira Datar shrine can be read here for a fuller understanding of this 600 year-old phenomenon, which is not restricted to this particular Sufi saint.

The second gallery is of the Jains pilgrims who visit the temples of Palitana; one of the holiest sites for the Jain community. Climbing the 3800 steps to the top of the hill for the main temple is an incredibly arduous task, and the Jain nuns do it continuously for three days while observing a total (food and water) fast. An audio slideshow can also be seen here.

Th third gallery is of various portraits and scenes of Sufi communities encountered during the photo~expedition, which started and ended in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

I hope readers of The Travel Photographer blog will enjoy them.

Germany/Music -- Alan Bern to Speak in NYC about Yiddish Summer Weimar, etc

Street dancing led by Zev Feldman at Yiddish Summer Weimar. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Folks in New York -- Don't miss Alan Bern  speaking in New York on May 9 at the Center for Traditional Music and Dance about the Yiddish Summer Weimar and related events and developments.  The talk is called "Weimar Republic."

Center for Traditional Music and Dance’s An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture, the Center for Jewish History and the American Society for Jewish Music present a multi-media lecture by composer/musician Alan Bern about klezmer and Yiddish music in Germany and his work in creating Yiddish Summer Weimar - now 10 years old and one of the most celebrated institutes for Yiddish culture in the world. In addition to founding and directing Yiddish Summer Weimar, Bern is Musical Director of the internationally renowned Brave Old World ensemble, and leads the Other Europeans, an amazing new international ensemble of 14 leading musicians who explore the deep connections between Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) musical traditions. A reception will follow the program. We are grateful for the support of the Keller-Shatanoff Foundation in making this program possible. 

Poland -- New project on pre-WW2 Oshpitzin (Auschwitz)

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Auschwitz Jewish Center is launching on April 28 a new guide to pre-World War II Oshpitzin -- AKA Oswiecim, AKA Auschwitz.  The town had a majority Jewish population before World War II, and the project include an online map and hard-copy guide to the town's Jewish history and heritage.

The Auschwitz Jewish Center, opened in 2000, occupies a complex including the only surviving synagogue in Oswiecim and hosts a Jewish museum and education programs.

Planet Magazine: 2011 Global Travel Contest

Photo © Terri Gold-All Rights Reserved

Planet magazine has announced the winners of its Global Travel Contest (General Category), and in which I was pleased to see that Terri Gold was named as one of the runners-up with its above infra-red images made during my Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat Photo~Expedition, which took place in January 2010.

Terri Gold's distinctive infrared images can be seen on her website Terri Gold World Imagery.

I was also pleased to see that Claudia Wiens was recognized with her portrait of a Syrian woman in the contest's Portrait Category. Claudia is a terrific photojournalist based in Istanbul and Cairo, and an alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City.

Anindya Chakraborty: Charak Puja

Another religious festival comes to The Travel Photographer from Anindya Chakraborty, a self taught photographer from Kolkata. A software engineer in "real" life, Anindya started photography in 2006. He's gravitating towards documentary photography, and on his moving the United States, did a series on Bodie Ghost Town, New Orleans and finally on broken American Dreams. Some of his work was published in Picsean Travel Magazine.

These can be seen on his SmugMug website.

However, I recommend you view Anindya's Charak Puja on The Invisible Photographer website where the photo essay is presented as a flash slideshow.

Charak puja is a traditional festival celebrated mainly in the rural areas of Bengal. It's unique amongst Bengali festivals because it's dedicated strictly to penance. The men and women, seeking to undertake the ritual, have to go through a month-long day fast, subsist only on fruits & perform daily worship.

On the day of the Charak, bamboo poles are erected with height ranging from 10 to 15 feet. The devotees step up to the stages, and are impaled with hooks which are attached to the poles. The devotees are then suspended from these poles.

Reminiscent of the Thaipusam festival, the Hindu devotees of the Charak festival seek penance and self-mortification to achieve salvation.

View on Naples from the Castle Sant Elmo

This sunday I passed in Naples. I wanted to visit the castle and the museum that you have seen together with me from the port but did not planned it for the next days. My husband said me: the weather is still good and who knows if it will maintain so -go now there. And I followed his advise. Fortunatelly -because the weather changed yesterday, it's too cold and the wind is very strong.

Here in the center, on the hill, is the place I visited. What you can see is the wall of the Carthusian monastery. Behind it is situating the castle. I thought, it is the castle from early medieval times but I was wrong. It was built in XVI century. The monastery is older.



The castle is interesting because there are very beautiful views from it's walls. There were 2 exhibitions there, too. One, I did not visit it, -something about cartoons. Ther other is permanent and you can follow the development of the trends in the painting from the beginning till the end of the passed century. The guides explain what you see there.

After it I went up on the wall and made some photos. Here is the "classic" view of Naples with Vesuvius. By the way, if you look forward, behind the volcanoe, more or less the same distance, I think, will be the house where I sit now to tell you about this city. :-)))



Here is the other famous image. Probably you've seen it many times. But I'm sure, you did not associated it with Naples. Next time you'll visit it, remember that this helmet ("elmo" in Italian) is collocated in Castel dell' Elmo (with the island Capri behind it).



Surprising was the other view from the wall. The very desired in the Roman times part of this region where there were ( and there are till today) healing springs. Where Virgil ( Publius Vergilius Maro) collocated the entrance in the Hell. Where the other volcanoe, Solfatara, scares the persons living around it. Where there are many interesting attractions for the discovering this zone tourist.

The Leica File: The Xiangqi Player

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy- All Rights Reserved (Leica M9. 1/250 sec f2.8 Elmarit 28mm)

I 'm starting a new category on The Travel Photographer blog called The Leica File which will have posts/photographs of my efforts with the M9.

When the weather is good during the weekends, Columbus Park in NYC's Chinatown sees large numbers of Chinese playing xiangqi, a two-player board game similar to Western chess, and one of the most popular board games in China. Xiangqi is believed to be descended from the Indian chess game of chaturanga, and may have been played as early as the third century BC.

The majority of Chinatown's inhabitants are from the Guangdong, Toisan and Fujian provinces in China, as well as from Hong Kong. They flock to Columbus Park for socializing, play cards and chess, listen to Chinese street opera and even air their caged birds.

This fellow was so intent on his game that I could've aimed my lens an inch from his face and he wouldn't have noticed. Click the picture to enlarge.

I must say that the recent Thumbs Up EP 1 purchase has greatly improved my comfort level in handling the M9...it now fits much better, and I have better control. The only inconvenience is that with the EP1 on, the M9 is more difficult to pull out of my jacket pocket...but it shouldn't be in there in the first place, should it?

Random

We had an amazing Easter Sunday. I hope you had an amazing day too!

Here is our little Easter garden that the kids decorated. Oh! Easter bunny and his egg...so cute!

Thank you Easter bunny for dropping us a few presents at our Easter garden. You're always so kind and sweet to the children.

After Easter egg hunting, we played Mexican confetti eggs. Following Mexican tradition, Easter confetti eggs are often broken over someone's head as a symbol of good luck. It's a part of the holiday celebration.

We were ready for racing the flying paper air-planes.

Time for sweet.

3pm snack time: we all enjoyed our red velvet cake and berries smoothie while watching the Home Alone movie. YUM!!!

The kids were playing bubble blowing while the adults were chatting and grilling some meat for dinner.

Look at this one! It's the coolest bubble ever!

"Mama, I'm getting good at blowing bubblegum" :D

Cute little baby!

Time for dinner :D

Apple, grape, dried cranberry, and arugula salad with balsamic vinaigrette is one of my favorite salads that it's easy to prepare at home.

Grilled lamb, chicken, and rose wine.

Berries pie for dessert.

Have a wonderful day to you all!! xoxo...Hanh:)

Paul Patrick: Sabarimala Pilgrimage

Photo © Paul Patrick- All Rights Reserved

Paul Patrick is a Norwegian freelance documentary photographer who started traveling the world alone at very early age. His quest was stories to tell with his camera. Since starting his travels, he has produced stories on Algeria, Burkina Faso, China, Europe, Ghana, India, Nepal and Morocco.

What drew my attention to his website was that one of his galleries is of Sabarimala pilgrimage in Kerala which Paul describes as one of the largest religious festivals in the world, with an estimated 50-60 million pilgrims visiting it every year. It's virtually unknown outside of India.

The Sabarimala pilgrimage is frequently described by the Indian press as the 'Mecca of Hindus'. The temple is dedicated to Ayyappa, who is believed to be Shiva’s third son and brother of Murugan and Ganesha. It is situated on the mountain ranges of the Western Ghats. The temple is accessible only by foot, and the millions of pilgrims to Sabarimala vow to abstain from sex, and other acts, for 41 days before embarking on the pilgrimage. No women over the age of 60 is allowed on this pilgrimage, nor are girls younger than 6. The routes taken by the pilgrims can range in distance between 8 kilometers (the shortest one) and another of more than 60 km across three hills.

Note: I am in the process of scheduling a photo~expedition in March 2012 to document a couple of religious festivals in Kerala (but not Sabarimala though). Details will be forthcoming shortly.

Note: Sreekanth Sivaswamy, a photographer and reader of this blog emailed me a correction. It's women between certain ages (some websites claim it's between 6 and 60, while others it's between 10 and 50) who are not allowed to enter the temple, since the legend attributed to Ayyappa prohibits the entry of the women in the menstrual age group.

Holy Week Celebrations

Photo © Alvaro Barrientos-Courtesy Photoblog MSNBC

Photo © Alvaro Barrientos- Courtesy Denver Post

Holy Week in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter, and provides remarkable opportunities to photographers to capture the various religious festivals, rituals and pageants that are scheduled, particularly in Catholic communities, during the period. The week includes the religious holidays of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Some of the featured rituals in Spain, Portugal and Italy include the processions of hooded flagellants during Lent, as well as self-crucifixion in the Philippines considered as a form of devout worship.

In the top photograph, a masked flagellant is comforted by a colleague at the end of his penance during the 'Los Picaos' brotherhood Good Friday procession in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, northern Spain. The second photograph is of a penitent dragging his chains at the same venue. Both photographs are by Alvaro Barrientos, and I think they're some of the best amongst featured by the various photo blogs.

Flagellation is not restricted to Catholicism, but is also practiced in other religious traditions, notably in Shi'a Islam during the Day of Ashura. Much older religious tradtions, like the cult of Isis in Egypt and the Dionysian cult of Greece, practiced their own forms of flagellation.

Apart from a Holy Week spent in Guatemala in 2002 photographing the processions, I haven't photographed Catholic religious traditions (except for a short photo shoot at a small festival in Oaxaca), and I ought to plan for 2012.

Of course, it depends if the 21st of May doesn't turn out to be the end of the world as a demented US preacher predicts....then I (and the majority of us) would've missed the chance.

But something tells me we needn't worry.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it!

Sweet Look

Christopher Ross Rabbit buckle belt. I found most of my CR pieces from eBay with great deals, and a couple from Christopher Ross website.

Balenciaga dress and shoes.

BCBG ring.

Feeling like dressing up and spending Good Friday with my girls. I normally don't dress up like this when I'm with my kids, but once in awhile it's fun. We had an amazing time. We especially enjoyed the nails spa time. They behaved like elegant ladies. It was like a growing up experience for my kids...Baking cookies for Easter Bunny was one of the best parts, and flying the paper air-planes was also a blast...Family happy time!!

Anyway, this outfit with the Christopher Ross rabbit buckle belt is perfect for Easter. Oh! my blue nail polish! It's a lovely bright blue; OPI Ogre-the-top-blue. I love the fact that it's so deep and reminds me of the ocean or the pool. It's a great color for spring and summer. I've enjoyed it as much as the yellow nail polish.

Wishing you all a happy Easter day and a wonderful week ahead!xo...Hanh :)

ps: photos were taken by my husband.