Philip Montgomery | The Masjid

Photo © Philip Montgomery - All Rights Reserved

I had planned to feature an Islamic-themed photo essay a few days ago on the occasion of Eid el-Fitr, but I was in Guatemala for the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, so couldn't find the time to do so.

The Masjid, or the mosque, is the place of worship for Muslims. These places of worship range from the simplest to the most elaborate architectural structures (the most beautiful, in my view, are those in Istanbul and were either built or influenced by the great Ottoman architect Koca Mi'mâr Sinân Âğâ, who was either an Armenian, or a Greek).

The smaller places of worship are technically not mosques, but are called 'mussaleya" or some derivative thereof.

"...a person kneeling towards Mecca is not a stranger, but a brother or sister in faith."

The Masjid is the work of Philip Montgomery, and is a photo essay on the places of worships for the
the immigrant Muslim communities within New York City. Philip writes that for these new immigrants, the Masjid acts as an incubator, a neutral space, providing refuge from the outside world.

He found an incredible diversity of cultures and practices; whether in Harlem, Jamaica, Brooklyn or Queens...practices divergent from one origin to the other, whether West African Muslims, Egyptians, Palestinians, Indonesians...all bringing their rituals and characteristics to New York City's melting pot, and keeping their individual traditions intact but united under Islam, despite the slight nuances of each.

Originally from the San Francisco Bay-Area, Philip Montgomery is a freelance photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the Photojournalism and Documentary Program at the International Center of Photography and is a recipient of the 2009-2010 ICP Directors Scholarship.

La Antigua | The 'Multimedia For Photographers' Class of 2014

Photos © Cheryl Nemazie-All Rights Reserved

Well, the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop 2014 ended last Saturday, after a week long of grueling work from instructors, assistants and class participants (aka students).

I'm not getting into the daily details of what the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop was all about in La Antigua, but I will certainly say is that this class exerted their very utmost to produce individual projects that included still imagery, text and ambient audio over the course of what is in reality only 4 full working days.

The above collection of "mug shots" was the brainchild of Cheryl Nemazie. She thought our group photograph should consist of individual mug shots, wearing my eyeglasses, a Cambodian krama scarf and holding a Leica M9...creating a Tewfic "tribe" or "team".

Despite the well publicized travel warnings about La Antigua, none of my class participants experienced any difficulties or issues (at least that I'm aware of) during the Foundry week-long event. The classes were held at one of the town's most prestigious hotel, with conference rooms allocated to each class, and the venue generally worked very well.

The Multimedia for Photographers Class 2014 Hard at Work

The class projects included an intimate look at Guatemala's chocolate-making process, Pollo Loco (the 'chicken' buses of Guatemala), two stories on traditional Mayan-Indian weavers, the art of making typical Guatemalan bread, a teacher of reading/literacy for Mayan Indian women, and a light hearted canine love story. Except for one, all the stories were in color.

La Antigua | First Class Day | Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

The first day of class for the Multimedia For Photographers course was completed, and the class participants (pictured above) are already on their way to gather photographs and audio for their multimedia projects.

There are a number of project ideas popping on individuals' radar screens, and we'll have to wait to see if these materialize or not. The advice given is to always have a couple of optional projects just in case the one chosen doesn't pan out.

Parque Central in the center of La Antigua is rife with interesting characters, and hopefully participants will be able to craft visual and aural stories as quickly as possible, as one week is really too short to create an in depth story with a multimedia component.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

The eco-system that exists and gathers around the Parque Central, whilst touristy, is fascinating. The woman trying to sell some dubious looking liquor must have had luck selling it in the open in such a fashion. There was nothing furtive about her, and she brandished the bottle, offering it to me with no compunction.

La Antigua | La Fotografia De La Calle

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Although this morning was totally consumed by exchanging US dollars to Quetzals, getting a Claro SIM card (getting two for the price of one...un regalo, as I was told), and changing hotels, I did manage to wander about La Antigua, especially around the Parque Central.

I concluded that this little town is made for street photography. I have yet to unpack my gear...relying on my iPhone to grab some casual shots of whatever interests me...especially those with human interest in them.

Under the cloisters of San Jose Cathedral, I watched a photographer setting up a shoot for a Quinceañera celebrating her fifteenth birthday in a satin dress, while the assistant with the reflector is fiddling with his phone.

Street photography here is probably going to be like shooting fish in a barrel...I hope. I regret not having unpacked my cameras, but first things had to come first.

Oh, and by the way...I had a fantastic avocado gazpacho (courtesy of the house), and great penne with salmon at a nearby restaurant. Losing weight won't be an option here in La Antigua.

Can I find the restaurant again? Probably not.

La Antigua | Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Well, tomorrow I'll be flying off to Guatemala to join the rest of the faculty of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop. I'll be spending most of the week-long workshop teaching the fundamentals of multimedia and storytelling, but I'll try to fit some street photography.

Having been to La Antigua a few years ago, I remember its streets offered strong contrast between shadows and sunlit corners, and hopefully I'll be able to do some interesting work with that.

I have a small class...which is what I always ask for and much prefer, since there's a substantial amount of one-on-one coaching in the audio editing module of the class. Having a larger class would be unmanageable, and would diminish its benefits.

I'll try to post while I'm in La Antigua, and keep my readers appraised about what I'm up to there....whether it's about the Foundry itself, my street photography, excellent coffee hang-outs or restaurants.

Keep tuned.

Bijoyeta Das | The Last Aryans (Al Jazeera)

Photo © Bijoyeta Das-Courtesy Al Jazeera

"Now we charge $5 from tourists to pose for photos and more to wear traditional clothes and a lot more if you want to shoot videos"- Thinely Aryan, a Brogpa.

The Brogpas (also known as Drogpas) live in Ladakh, as well as in India-administered Kashmir. They claim to be the last of the Aryans. Out of the 5 Brogpa villages in India, two have are open to foreign tourism.  The villages of Dha and Biama are entirely populated by last remaining remnants of the Dards who are considered as last race of Aryans confined to Indus Valley. The Dards practice an ancient pre-Buddhist religion known as Bon-Cho, and have remained in total isolation for over 2000 years until 1947. 

Al Jazeera In Pictures features a gallery of photographs of Brogpas by Bijoyeta Das.

While no one knows for certain if the Brogpas' claim of belonging to an Aryan race have any merit, and whether their origins are true, the tourism industry is endeavoring to capitalize on these claims, and bring tourists to the area. These villages are about 170 km from Leh, so it is a hardy tourist that goes there...but it seems that it's picking up.

According to entries in Wikipedia: In the 19th century, the speakers of the Indo-Persian or Indo-European languages came to be called the "Aryan race", to differentiate them from what came to be called the "Semitic race". By the late 19th century, the notions of an "Aryan race" became closely linked to Nordicism, which meant Northern European racial superiority over all other peoples. 

Bijoyeta Das is a journalist and photographer. She has reported from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, South Korea and USA and holds a masters degree in Journalism from Northeastern University, USA and a photojournalism postgraduate diploma from Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.

Chris McGrath | The Vanishing Dokar

Photo © Chris McGrath-All Rights Reserved

What's a "dokar" you ask?

Well, it's a two-wheeled horse-drawn cart found throughout Indonesia, usually decorated with colorful motifs and bells. Its small horses or ponies often have long tassels attached to their bridle. Typical dokars have bench seating on either side, which can comfortably fit three or four persons...and luggage (and huge bags of rice).

Regretfully, the dokars are on their way to extinction due to other more efficient and modern ways of transport. More than 200 dokars were working in Indonesia's Denpasar region, but only a handful remain these days. Denpasar -as in other large cities- experiences an uncontrolled population causing chronic traffic jams that make it difficult for the dokar to work effectively. Cheaper motorcycles have also made the dokar obsolete.

Chris McGrath has documented these last remaining vehicles in his The Vanishing Dokar in lovely monochrome tones, along with copious information about the photographs as captions.

Chris McGrath is an Australian photographer with Getty Images, specializing in editorial and commercial assignments. He has photographed, four Olympic games, the Paralympics, Commonwealth games, the FIFA World Cup, the Rugby World Cup, the MLB World Series, the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, US Open Golf, numerous US Open and Australian Open Grand Slams, the 2004 Asian Tsunami, the election of Barack Obama and the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan and the London 2012 Olympics.

He has worked for clients such as Nike, NFL, Coca-Cola, the LPGA, NASCAR and the New York Times, and his images appeared in Stern, Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated, The Independent, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, ESPN the magazine, The Guardian, L'Equipe and on daily news and sport websites worldwide.

He currently works in Tokyo, Japan.

Going Minimalist | Guatemala Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

In just over a week, I'll be traveling to La Antigua in Guatemala to join the rest of the faculty of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop.

Since I'll be spending most of the week-long workshop teaching the fundamentals of multimedia, I won't have much time to work on any personal projects, so will probably only do some street photography.

It'll be an opportunity (and a joy) to leave behind the heavy DSLRs, and travel with a minimalist gear which, as shown in the above photograph, may consist of a Fuji X Pro-1 with a Fujinon 18mm and a Zeiss Touit 12mm, a Leica M9 with an Elmarit 28mm and a Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f1.4 as well. And just in case I need to record some audio, I'll pack a Marantz PMD 620, much smaller than my Tascam DR-40 that I use on my photo expeditions.

In the last Foundry Photojournalism I attended (Chiang Mai), I relied on these two "rangefinders", and it was a relief to be carrying one or even two of these comparative light tools instead of my two Canon DSLRs.

It's not my first time to Guatemala or La Antigua. I was there some years ago during its famous Semana Santa. Some of my photographs are on Las Tierras de Popol Vuh.

For those who don't know, The Foundry's goal is to help emerging photojournalists and documentary photographers to hone their skills, to have a chance to work with some of the world’s best shooters in the field, on real reportage projects, to create multimedia, to see some of the best work being done today, to collaborate, to make contact, plan future projects, develop your own vision and leave the workshop energized, and more committed then ever to concerned photography, storytelling and to documenting the world through the lens.

Truyen Than: The Art of Conveying The Soul

TRUYEN THAN

(click on image)

With my photo expedition-workshop to Vietnam looming, I revisited some of imagery made during my earlier visit to Hanoi in 2012, and decided to rejig some of the photographs which had appeared on a gallery I had titled The Portraitist Of Pho Hang Ngang onto Medium, a blogging platform.

The portraitist is Nguyen Bao Nguyen, and he works as a “Truyền Thần” artist. The art aims at conveying the soul of a person from a photograph to a drawing-painting.

Speaking of Medium, I'm a fan of these new platforms; noting that some are free while others are not, since they provide an easy way to feature one's work, whether prose, photographs or both...and these promise to widen the reach of such "publications".

Apart from Vietnam being on my mind, the other prompt for uploading Truyen Than is the recent photo essay appearing in The New York Times titled To Be A Russian, which follows the same design characteristics as Medium...large photographs filling the whole viewing real estate on one's monitor (if one chose the photographs to do that), sparse prose (but to the point) interspersing these images.

I recall some years ago various POV posts encouraging fellow photographers to go big...that the era of small dinky photographs on websites didn't cut it any more. One of these POV posts is dated April 2009, some 5 years ago...and since then, we've seen a proliferation of large photographs on websites.

But back to Nguyen Bao Nguyen...I read somewhere that he had passed away, but I believe that the information is wrong since it pre-dates the dates (September 2012) when I met with him in Hanoi. I hope I find him well and healthy when I'm back in Hanoi in a couple of months.

I'd like him to see this photo essay.

Marylise Vigneau | Havana I & II

Photo © Marylise Vigneau-All Rights Reserved

"I do not pretend, I don’t explain. Those who look at my photographs can invent their own story. I pass by, ask questions, wonder at things. And the little click of the shutter is no more than a reverence. And that is all that really matters." --Marylise Vigneau

Havana! Amongst the best cities in the world for street photography, and where my fondness for this style was born more almost 14 years ago. Life in Havana happens outside of its dilapidated buildings, and I don't have to tell my readers that its people are incredibly photogenic;  the mix of African, Carib Indian, and European has created a melting pot of handsome people, endowed with wonderful hospitality, remarkable musical talent and exuberance.

So it was with great pleasure that I saw that Marylise Vigneau uploaded photographs of Havana on her website. In fact, there are two galleries; Havana I (color photographs) and Havana II (monochrome photographs which competed for my attention...and I decided to show both in this post.

Photo © Marylise Vigneau-All Rights Reserved

I honestly don't know which I prefer from these two; the young man showing off his biceps to the photographer while around the corner, another man and his dog are unaware of this unfolding story...or the monochrome photograph of three young girls making dance moves in a street.

Marylise Vigneau is a French photographer and has traveled quite extensively, as her galleries attest. These include work from Cambodia to Uzbekistan, from Mongolia to Myanmar, from China to Sarajevo including powerful and compelling images made at a mental hospital in Lahore.

In an interview she tells us "I walk and wait to be surprised, intrigued, moved or amused." Perhaps she does that...but her work transcends this simple philosophy.

Andrea Orioli | Thaipusam

Photo © Andrea Orioli-All Rights Reserved

The Thaipusam ritualistic event occurs 13 kilometres outside the Malaysian capital city, Kuala Lumpur in a sacred Hindu shrine called the Batu Caves.

The festival of Thaipusam was brought to Malaysia in the 1800s, when Indian immigrants started to work on the Malaysian rubber estates and the government offices. The festival is celebrated mostly by the Tamil community, and commemorates the occasion when Parvati gave Murugan a spear to vanquish the evil demon Soorapadam.

On the day of the festival, devotees shave their heads and undertake a pilgrimage along a set route while engaging in various acts of devotion, notably carrying various types of heavy burdens, while others may carry out acts of self mortification by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with skewers and sharp hooks.  The devotees perform “Kavadi”, an act of faith where they suffer the pain of dozens of hooks and spears piercing their body during the 272 steps that bring them to the cave temple.

Andrea Orioli photographed Thaipusam, and provides us with yet another view of these not-for-the-faint-of-heart rituals. He is  a biologist working in Switzerland, and has had the good fortune of traveling widely and making photographs. Far more interested in people and cultures than anything else, he's passionate about documenting endangered cultures before they disappear.

He also has featured interesting galleries on his website, including one in Sumba (Indonesia) and another in Kyrgyzstan.

Viviana Peretti | Happy Pride

Photo © Viviana Peretti-All Rights Reserved

I was out of town so this was the second time in a row that I've missed photographing the annual New York City's Gay Pride parade. The neighborhood I live in witnesses the end of the parade, and the cornucopia of characters who participate in it, as well as those who come to watch it, provide incredible images to those photographers who prefer to shun the parade itself, and congregate in the West Village for more close and personal street photography...as I did in 2012.

That said, I'm glad to have seen Viviana Peretti's Happy Pride iPhone photographs of the event, which are much more personal than those I've seen so far of the event.

For those who don't know, June was chosen as LGBT Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall Inn riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969. As a result, many pride events are held during this month to recognize the impact LGBT people have had in the world. The Stonewall is a gay bar at 43 Christopher Street in New York City, and is traditionally where the parade comes to its end.

Viviana Peretti is an Italian freelance photographer based in New York where in 2010 she graduated in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the International Center of Photography (ICP).

In 2000, after graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Anthropology from the University of Rome, she moved to Colombia where she specialized in photojournalism and spent nine years working as a freelance photographer.

Viviana has received fellowships and awards from the International Center of Photography, the Joannie M. Chen Fund in New York, CNN, the Fondation Bruni-Sarkozy in France, FotoVisura, the University of Salamanca, the Spanish Embassy in Colombia, the Photo Museum in Bogota, and the Colombian Ministry of Culture. In 2010 she has been selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop, Barnstorm XXIII. In 2013-2014 Viviana has been an Artist-in-Residence at L’École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (ENSP) in Arles, France.

Her work has been published in a number of international media outlets including The New York Times, Newsweek, BBC, CNN, L'Oeil de la Photographie, New York Magazine, Le Journal de la Photographie, and L'Espresso.