Sunday, 20 November 2011

Siem Reap Journal

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

It was a good move to arrive early at the opening of the Angkor Photo Festival last night. Held at the Foreign Correspondents Club (known locally by its acronym FCC), it quickly filled up with almost 400 people to watch the projected slideshows of some 21 photographers. The slideshows included The Mercy Project/Inochi by James Whitlow Delano, Nishant Ratnakar's Fistful of Dreams, Nur by Rahman Roslan, Kauser Haider's A Hall Full of Cinema and my own The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar.

I introduced myself to Francoise Callier, the indefatigable energy behind the festival and its curator. I also met Jean-Yves Navel, the co-founder and director of the festival, as well as Camille Plante and Jessica Lin, both indispensable to the success of the festival for a number of years. The photo slideshows were all highly impressive, and the large audience was held in rapt attention.

Tonight saw the second installment of the slideshow program of about 13 photographers which included Whale Hunting In Lamalera by Ardiles Rante, Wendy Marijnissen's Dr Musarat, and ended with the lengthy Exodus by Sebastiao Salgado.

The photograph above is of one of the caretakers at Wat Bo, and has nothing to do with Angkor Photo Festival...but I thought it would be appropriate to feature it for a post on Siem Reap.

Another bit of information: I have yet to use my Canon 5D2. All I carried and used since my arrival in Siem Reap is the M9 and a couple of lenses.

Call Me KIJU

Here are impromptu street portraits of Kiju on Crosby Street in Soho, NYC. Kiju is an alternative rock performer.