POV: Size (And Content) Matters

It's been quite a while since I've posted about photojournalism-related matters. I'm not a photojournalist but I haven't come across really seminal photographic work for at least a year; work that could have encouraged me to shake off the blahs.

But the recent feature Life In The Valley of Death published by The New York Times did just that. It's about the aftermath of the Bosnian war, and the ongoing efforts to find the mass graves containing thousands who disappeared during that conflict, and how the remains of those killed in the genocide keep turning up, unsettling the reconciliation between Muslims and Serbs.

The photographs are by Paolo Pellegrin, and the well written article is by Scott Anderson.

While both the photographs and the story are certainly powerful, I was initially drawn to the feature by its 'packaging'. The large sized photographs, the article's layout and the haunting title all pulled me in, and pushed me into delving more deeply into the feature.

On reflection, I would've added audio clips of the main protagonists such as Amor Masovic, Fazila Efendic, and Robert Zomer. These would've added an aural texture to the feature, making it more tactile and palpable, bringing home the nuances of their voices, accents and expressions. Alternatively, short video clips of interviews with these people would've worked very well.

I believe that this format is one of the future directions for photojournalism, travel, documentary, human interest stories, weddings....any and all photo narratives. It's one of the formats that photographers would be foolish not to use...either via some of the already existing platforms (see below), or via their own blogs and websites structured to look like these photo narratives.

I have used a number of platforms that provide a similar format such as my own travel-documentary essays in Exposure, Storehouse, Maptia and to some extent Cowbird. I have enjoyed creating these photo narratives, it's easy, effective and well worth your time.

Jean Christian Cottu | Nagaland's Konyak

Photo © Jean-Christian Cottu-All Rights Reserved

The Konyak are a Naga people, living in India's Northeast and in Myanmar. The Konyak tribes had a strong warrior tradition, and were still headhunting until the end of 1960. Recognizable by their intricate facial and body tattoo, the Nagas believed that only with the skulls of their enemies could they could guarantee the fertility of their fields.

While Christian missionaries (and British colonialists) convinced or forced the Nagas to give up the practice, it's said that they still observe these ancient rituals, using wooden heads instead. Most of the Konyaks in Cottu's portraits are in the 80's or over, and in a few years, most if not all of these former headhunters and their wives will be dead. With their death, the living memories of their unique cultural existence will disappear forever.

In his interview with the UK's Daily Mail, Jean-Christian Cottu tells us that he traveled to the Mon district of Nagaland with a portable photo studio and a medium format digital camera to make these portraits. Refreshingly, he also discloses that his photographs were the result of a material exchange between him and his subjects; either in the form of a printed copy of their photographs or a monetary one, in the form of a few hundred rupees, and on some occasions both.

Leila Alaoui | Les Marocains

Photo © Leila Alaoui-All Rights Reserved

I recall featuring the portraits of Moroccans by Leila Alaoui in a 2011 post, and was very glad to see them again featured in Slate's Behold (its photo blog) with the title of Capturing The Stunning Faces of Morocco.

Morocco is, in my estimation, one of the most difficult countries in which to photograph people. Ms. Allaoui agrees with that, saying that Moroccans are especially apprehensive about being photographed due to their belief in witchcraft, the evil eye and as an Islamic country, espouse a belief that image-making is a direct contravention of Islamic tradition.

However, she persevered and went on about 20 road trips across the country in the last few years, traveling through the Atlas Mountains, the Rif Mountains, the Sahara, and a variety of coastal and inland regions of Morocco including Essaouira, Tangier, and Marrakech. She would set up a portable studio in public places, markets, and other private gatherings after spending a few days getting to know the locals. Eventually, some people would agree to pose and be photographed by her.

Leila Alaoui is a French-Moroccan multimedia artist working on cultural diversity, identity and migration using video installations, studio and documentary photography. After studying film and photography in New York, she moved back to Morocco in 2008. Her work has been exhibited internationally since 2009 and has been published in newspapers and magazines, including in The New York Times. She now lives and works between Marrakech and Beirut.

POV: Street Photography | Should It Be Furtive?

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

“Of course it’s all luck.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

This POV is prompted by a number of recent posts expressing soul-searching angst from various quarters, as well as various photographers expressing some discomfort in utilizing 'guerrilla' (their term...not mine) tactics to get candid photographs of the street.

It seems that a hands-on review of the Fuji X-T1 by the photographer Zack Arias in Marrakech included some of his tips and tricks in capturing unguarded moments of street life, and a number of photographers questioned the ethics of furtive street photography.

I don't have this issue. To me, street photography is furtive in its very essence...and there is no presumption of privacy for individuals in a public place. By definition, street photography is making photographs on the sly.

When I'm pounding the New York City pavements with a M9 or a X Pro-1, I shoot from the hip about 90% of the time. This technique -if you can call it that- ensures that the people I photograph are totally unaware that I am making a photograph of them...and frequently, unaware that I'm even there.

Street photography is -to my mind- synonymous with candid photography. The latter "...is achieved by avoiding prior preparation of the subject and by either surprising the subject or by not distracting the subject during the process of taking photos". (Source: Candid Photography:Wikipedia).

We all know the father of candid photography was the iconic Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose book Images à la Sauvette was published in 1952, was the master of candid photography. Setting aside that his photographs were mostly of unguarded moments, the very title of his book is French for 'furtively'...and not The Decisive Moment as his publisher translated it.

I recall Costa Manos exhorting us in a Havana workshop that successful street photographs ought to have no one looking at the photographer or noticing the camera. It may not have been accurate, since there are many examples of terrific street photography images in which the subjects look directly -and even pose- for the photographer.

When I photograph in religious spaces such as Sufi dargahs or Hindu temples in India...or wherever I am mingling with people going about their daily life, I much prefer photographing furtively and shooting from the hip. This is to capture candid expressions, unposed body language and unplanned layers.

It's impossible for me to avoid attention wherever I travel. A foreigner with a camera is always a focus of attention, and I have to use all sorts of stratagems and 'techniques' to grab frames as I can...ranging from the "I'm a lost tourist in NYC...and I'm looking for street names/landmarks/addresses" while shooting my iPhone...to the gazing in another direction or pretending to be talking on my iPhone whilst shooting my rangefinder from the hip...yes, there are myriads of ways to play the dumb tourist, sightseer or a disinterested photographer.

The iPhone image of the two musicians going for a hug was made by (1) anticipating what they were about to do, and (2) holding the device in my hand as if I was looking at a map. The other image of the Indian men having a snack near the shrine of Nizzam Uddin was made by shooting my X Pro-1 from the hip whilst pretending to be talking on the iPhone. Had I planted myself in front of them with a camera to my eye, they would've stopped eating and awkwardly froze to pose for the picture.

Remember, I'm not photographing to capture people in awkward or embarrassing moments...that's not my interest. My interest is capturing scenes where people are at their most unguarded, at their most normal and candid moments. If one of my frames accidentally depicts someone picking his/her nose...or a man scratching his crotch, the frame gets deleted.

To those who take that as being furtive, sneaky or sly...I say to each his own.

Wanderings In NYC | Monochromatic Hipstamatic

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I think it was photographer Chase Jarvis who said "the best camera is the one you have with you...", and he was exactly right.

I happen to love street photography and walking...and living in a city such as New York City gives me so much opportunities to indulge in these two occupations that they've become become a virtual addiction. I rarely take a cab or the subway...and provided the weather is reasonable (and sometimes, even if it's unreasonable), I prefer to walk wherever I need to be (or not to be) no matter the distance.

I'm lucky to live in a neighborhood of lower Manhattan that is still relatively multilayered, and that provides innumerable and diverse opportunities for street photography; where I can photograph moneyed tourists shopping on Bleecker Street and moments later, capturing regular New Yorkers carrying on with their daily grind near West 4th Street....or go further to Chinatown and the Bowery.

I frequently carry my Fuji X Pro-1 or Leica M9 with me...these are the days when I decide I will "do" street photography for a few hours...and that's all I do for that time. There are other days when I don't carry any cameras with me, save my iPhone...but, provided I have the time and inclination, I still hunt for street photography opportunities with the same intensity as I do when I have the "real" cameras.

It's liberating to be using an iPhone to make photographs. The simplicity, the portability and the ease of making photographs on the go with the device are just wonderfully conducive to the kind of street photography I am interested in. At this point of time, as far as the iPhone is concerned, I'm addicted to the Hipstamatic app, and use its Watts lens and the monochrome BlacKeys B+W film. I might do a tiny amount of post processing on the resultant images, but the combination is quite adequate for my taste.

Since I need a place to offload these iPhone images, I created a new blog gallery, titled Monochromatic Hipstamatic with a growing number of street photographs made during my wanderings in New York City.

I also continue to "feed" my older blog gallery The Leica File (New York City with a Leica M9, and a Fuji X Pro-1) with my ongoing street photographs of the city that never sleeps...or relaxes.

Photito Travel | Travel Photography

Photo © Photito Travel-All Rights Reserved

I'm not sure where I stumbled on Photito Travel's website...probably on Zite.

It's a veritable cornucopia of travel photography from a wide range of destinations...close to about 20 or so, including Sri Lanka, Egypt, Morocco, India, Norway, Israel and Ethiopia...to name but a few.

I chose to feature Photito Travel's Vietnam in this post, principally because of this lovely woman's portrait, and because I shall soon be leading another photo expedition to North Vietnam.

But don't restrict your viewing just of the Vietnam gallery...but knock yourselves out this weekend with an virtual endless galleries of wonderful large sized (for the most part) images of these 20+ destinations. It'll prepare you for whatever your international travel plans are...and whet your appetite for more.

The people behind Photito Travel are Spencer and Vibeke, a husband and wife team of travel photographers. They've been doing this type of travel photography-reportage for over 11 years. They author an interesting blog named Photito Travel Blog, which was included in 2010 by Lonely Planet in its Blogsherpa Program; a collection of travel blogs dedicated to wanderlust.

I shall peruse the various galleries this week end, and I recommend you do the same. You won't regret it...especially if it's raining!

Bob Newman | Holi 2014

Bob Newman was a member of my The Sacred Cities Photo Expedition-Workshop last March which saw us photographing in the ancient city of Varanasi, and in the sacred city of Vrindavan during the festival of Holi. He is a first time participant in my expeditions-workshops.

Bob just published his first multimedia project of the photo expedition-workshop, and titled it Holi 2014. The multimedia package features photographs made during the week-plus long festival of Holi in Vrindavan. The sound tracks accompanying the slideshow were also recorded on site by Bob.

The project was completed whilst we were in Vrindavan; a task that was especially difficult in view of the intensity of the photo shoots. Bob earned the award of being the trip's most diligent participant, in having completed in record time two multimedia assignments required from the participants. 

He joined our photo-expedition after attending another workshop in Venice, and then went on to Gujarat for a few days.

Bob is a surgeon with 34 years of experience and practices in urology and surgery.

Selvaprakash L. | Vanishing Tribes

Photo © Selva Prakash-All Rights Reserved

On every single trip to India, I am amazed at the Indians' ingenuity in creating and crafting employment and occupational opportunities for themselves...whether it's the punkawallahs waving their flag at Sufi shrines for a few paisas to the young boys who peer in the waters of Haridwar in search of coins donated by the visiting pilgrims.

Most of these "jobs"are slowly disappearing, largely because of India's rapid modernization and socio-economic progress, its modern generation prefers not to follow ancestral trade practices, and the desire to escape caste restrictions. Many ancient practices are fading or have already faded out, while others are currently on their way to become a quaint relic of the past.

What prevents the punkawallah at the Nizzam Uddin shrine being replaced by electric fans? Tradition perhaps...but that too might well change.

Vanishing Tribes by photographer Selva Prakash is a collection of 8 color environmental portraits depicting such transitory trades, ranging from the milkman who delivers milk to homes to the roving knife grinder.

As for the man holding a sort of doll at the end of a pole in the above photograph...I really have no idea what he sells. He seems to have been photographed against the backdrop of a Ferris wheel...so perhaps he's involved in a carnival.

Note: Through the photographers Selvaprakash and Subrata Bose, I learned that this man is a 'Jow Mittai" or candy seller. The red, white, green and yellow strips seen on the pole are gelatinous candy strips popular among rural and semi urban children of India.

I recall the occasional cry of "robabekyah" in the streets of the Cairo suburb of my youth. Most probably extinct now, it announced the man who bought one's old clothes and miscellaneous junk such as empty glass bottles, cans, old shoes, etc. Probably the cry was derived from the Spanish (or Ladino) ropa vieja. Ladino of course, was originally spoken in the former territories of the Ottoman Empire, as Egypt was.

But I digressed.

Selvaprakash L. started his career in photography as a staff photographer for a leading Tamil newspaper. He was Chief Photographer with Dinakaran and DNA, and is now Chief photographer with TIMEOUT, Bangalore. He participated in a number of international photo workshops such as ingapore International Photo Festival 2008 (SIPF), Angkor Photo festival( Projection) 2010 and Photovisa International Photo festival, Russia 2010, Noorderlicht International Photo festival 2011, Delhi Photo Festival 2011 and Lagos Photo Festival 2011 and won numerous international awards.

His photographs have been published in Asian Geo, New Internationalist, and several leading newspapers and magazines in India.

Mark Hartman | Bole So Nihal...

Photo © Mark Hartman-All Rights Reserved

You must be wondering what does 'Bole So Nihal..." mean? Well, it's part of the traditional greeting used by the followers of the Sikh religion, and a call to action or duty. In Punjabi it essentially means "Whoever utters, shall be fulfilled.")

According to Wikipedia, it's a popular mode of expressing ebullient religious fervor and an integral part of Sikh liturgy. It is said at the end of Sikh prayers and holy congregations.

I was pleased to have been referred by PDN to photographer Mark Hartman's Bole So Nihal wonderful photo essay, consisting of over 30 square color photographs of Nihang Sikhs. He spent most of March and April 2014 in India working on personal projects, which include these terrific photographs.

Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded during the 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, by Guru Nanak. Sikhs do not have a gender for God, nor do they believe God takes a human form. All human beings are considered equal regardless of their religion, sex or race.

The Nihang are an armed Sikh order, and their distinctive dress consists of blue robes, bracelets of iron, and steel rings tied in their lofty conical blue turbans, along with the traditional sword carried by all baptized Sikhs.

Mark tells us in the PDN article that he was granted access to the Nihang while traveling in Amirtsar and Anandpursahib in Punjab, and that he decided to photograph them is a posed formal way because he hadn't seen anyone set up on-location portraits of the Nihang Sikhs before.

Mark Hartman is a New York City based photographer. He studied photography at Rochester Institute of Technology. He has shown work his work internationally. His work has been featured and published in Esquire, Monocle, Communication Arts, PDN, CNN, British Journal of Photography and others. In 2012, he was named a photographer to watch by Photo District News.

Rachel Carbonell | Moroccan Medinas

Photo © Rachel Carbonell-All Rights Reserved

One of the most difficult countries for people photography is -in my experience, at least- Morocco. This is caused by the local combination of traditional beliefs and the Islamic distaste for the reproduction of the human form. The latter is known as aniconism, which is the practice of or belief in the avoiding or shunning of images of divine beings, prophets or other respected religious figures...and in the case of some Islamic countries, is also misinterpreted as images of all human beings.

Notwithstanding that difficulty, talented travel photographer Rachel Carbonell has just featured Moroccan Medinas: The Colors And Shadows of Life; a photo gallery of more than 40 photographs of the medinas from the blues of Chefchaouen, Larache, Essaouira to the ochres of Meknes and Fez, and from the pinks of Marrakech and Tiznit to the whites of Azemmour, Moulay Idriss, Tetuan and Asilah.

This is a project that took more than two years to complete, over many voyages to Morocco. It's also how Rachel tells us how the atmosphere of its bustling streets and alleys hopelessly caught and seduced her.

The word medina is the Arabic for city or town, and are generally found in many North African cities. They are typically surrounded by a wall, and contain many narrow and maze-like streets, and can also contain historical fountains, small palaces (or riads), and mosques. Some medinas were also used to confuse and slow down invaders because of how narrow and winding their alleys were.

Rachel has also published a book Moroccan Medinas which is available on Blurb.

Rachel Carbonell is a Spanish photographer who graduated from the University of Deusto, and studied Photography at IDEP (Barcelona). She is a Getty Images Contributing Photographer, and her images have been published in press, books, magazines, websites etc. such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, MC Ediciones, Random House Mondadori S.A, Glamour France, Iberia, Nulle Parts Ailleurs Productions and others.

Andy Richter | Kumbh Mela

Photo © Andy Richter-All Rights Reserved

"I wanted to go deeper and connect with the Kumbh from a participant’s point of view. I wanted to see what it was like from the inside, to really experience this massive gathering, and photograph that. It was essential to slow down and spend time with people." -Andy Richter (The Leica Camera Blog)

The Kumbh Mela is the one pilgrimage-festival that seems to really emit a powerful magnetic force, gathering not only Hindu devotees, but all sorts of people including photographers and photojournalists from every corner of the world.  It's one of the world's most extraordinary religious events.

Its main objective is to bathe in the Ganges, as it's said that bathing in sacred rivers during the annual pilgrimage breaks the circle of life & death, and allows Hindus to attain moksha. While attended by millions of authentic pilgrims and devotees, it also attracts an enormous number of charlatans, magicians and fake sadhus who are surrounded by the unwary, the gullible, the curious and naturally, the tourists.

I know this first hand having attended and photographed the 2001 Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, which is reported to have attracted approximately 60 million people, making it the largest gathering in the world at that time.

I am pleased to feature Andy Richter's Maha Kumbh Mela, which was mostly photographed with a Leica M9 with a 35 mm Summilux. One of his essay's photographs shows a mass of pilgrims crossing a pontoon bridge, where I also walked, and I still recall the sensation of being shoulder to shoulder with this moving mass of humanity, giving me the impression I was standing on a flat escalator.

Andy tells a fine story on The Leica Camera Blog, and mentions how he was surrounded by the naked babas bathing in the river...and meeting Alex Webb at the same spot.

Toufic Beyhum | Mecca

Photo © Toufic Beyhum-All Rights Reserved

"...though neither Koran or Sultan enjoin the death of Jew or Christian intruding within the columns that note the sanctuary limits, nothing could save a European detected by the populace, or one who after pilgrimage declared himself an unbeliever."-A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah (1855)-Richard Francis Burton

Mecca...or more accurately Makkah, is the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and a site of his first revelation of the Qur'an. It is regarded as the holiest city in Islam, and a pilgrimage to it (the Haj) is obligatory for all Muslims physically and financially able to make the journey. Mecca is home to the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site as well as being the focal point of Muslim prayer.

Photographer Toufic Beyhum had the inside view to the holy site when he undertook his own pilgrimage. While photography inside the mosque enveloping the Kaaba is forbidden, he was able to enter the site with his camera, and photograph almost at will.

A rather journalistic article in The Daily Telegraph has more background information on his photo shoot, and it may come as a surprise to some of my readers that the inside of the holiest of Islam's religious sites is the only place in Saudi Arabia where sexes are allowed to mingle freely. Yes, women and men stand, walk, pray, circumambulate the Kaaba shoulder to shoulder...with none of this ridiculous strict segregation of sexes which is currently en vogue in Islamic countries.

I had the opportunity of visiting the Kaaba some years ago while on a business trip to Jeddah, and it left a deep impression on me as a place of piety and peace. At that time, the hideous newly built monstrosities surrounding the mosque hadn't been erected, and the Meccan skyline was still unmarred by the Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower, which is the tallest clock tower in the world.

According to the article, there’s a hotel nearby the mosque where rooms are $500 a night, along with a mall with a Starbucks and a Paris Hilton handbag shop.

Historically, it appears that in the 5th century, the Kaaba was a place of worship for the deities of Arabia's pagan tribes, and Mecca was an important trading destination of the caravans, carrying goods from Africa and the Far East passed through it including spices, leather, medicine, cloth, and so forth.

Toufic Beyhum was born in Beirut, and moved to London at a young age. He graduated from Art College and started a successful advertising career as an Art Director for multinational advertising agencies in New York, Dubai, London and Berlin. He exhibited his work in London, Berlin, Los Angeles and Dubai. He was featured in National Geographic Shot, The Independent, Esquire Russia, WIRED, BILD, Die Zeit, Der Tagesspiegel, Zeitung, Welt Am Sonntag, Complex art+design, Exberliner, Time Out Dubai, BMI and Emirates In-flight magazine.

Currently based in London, he's isworking on a film documentary called "After Tomorrow" filmed in Petra, Jordan.

Matjaz Krivic | Urbanistan

Photo © Matjaz Krivic - All Rights Reserved

"As soon as you hear the word Urbanistan your imagination is whisked off into the traffic mayhem of Calcutta, the tawdriness of the neon sex nightlife in Bangkok, the unbelievable structuralised yet frenzied Tokyo, the suffocating and dusty streets of the (hardly) living body of the decaying Cairo, the roundabout of the hedonistic and aggressive Rio, the unstoppable narcissistic Manhattan, the global supermarket of turbo consumerism."

I suggest you start off by reading the preamble for Matjaz Krivic's Urbanistan, which introduces and describes his photo gallery of 74 photographs with intriguing prose, such as "it (Urbanistan) is a story of survival through play, prayer, tradition, rituals, traditions, travel, socializing and especially a special light..."

The 74 exceedingly well composed photographs were made over Matjaz's 15 years of traveling, and include images from remote places such as Lalibela in Ethiopia, Hatgal in Mongolia, Shugruf in Yemen, Oraman Takht in Iran, and of course Varanasi...among many others. His photo essay will take you to these places that some of us have never been...or to those we already know well.

Matjaz Krivic is a globe-trotting photographer from Slovenia specializing in capturing the personality of indigenous people and places. He has covered the face of the earth in his intense, personal and aesthetically moving style that has won him several awards. He has made the road his home and most of the time you can find him traveling with his camera somewhere between the Sahara and the Himalayan region.

The Birth of Color | When Krishna Met Radhe

I'm pleased to feature my photo essay titled The Birth of Color-When Krishna Met Radhe with more than 20 "full-bleed" color photographs of the festival of Holi in Vrindavan and Mathura. I chose to publish this 'sampling' of photographs on Exposure, one of the photo-narrative portals that is designed to give photographers space to publish photo essays. Some of these images and others will also be published on my website.

These photographs were made during my recent The Sacred Cities Photo Expedition-Workshop to Varanasi and Vrindavan. We spent around a week photographing the festivities of Holi in Mathura and Vrindavan and in retrospect, it was one of the most difficult photo expeditions-workshops to operate due to the chaotic nature of the festival, and other factors which I address in more details here.

Part of the title to this photo essay is obviously inspired by the movie When Harry Met Sally...an iconic movie if there was ever one. There's no direct link with the movie's story, but I thought it was a catchy title. In fact, the festival of Holi is based on a number of legends; only one of which is based on the love story between Krishna and Radhe.

Producing an audio-slideshow of Holi is quite difficult because of the disparate events that took place whilst we were there. Particularly difficult is the editing that will have to go into producing a coherent audio track.

Photo © Charlotte Rush-Bailey-All Rights Reserved

Seeing the imagery I returned with, I now think whatever happened to me: getting whacked on the elbow by stick-wielding out-women during one of Holi's 'rituals', getting smothered with color powder or doused with colored water, was really worth the trouble.