Luis Alarcón | The Last Dragons

Photo © Luis Alarcón - All Rights Reserved

I've become much more selective in terms of what appears of The Travel Photographer blog, and only post photography work that I personally would've loved to do myself, or have done (or doing). The work of Luis Alarcón falls very neatly in the first category, and I nod in appreciation to Photography of China for having brought his work to my eyes.

Alarcón's calls his latest work "Yellow", Last Chinese in Cuba, or perhaps more poetically, The Last Dragons (a title I much prefer). This excellent work is part of a larger visual anthropological project about the four main races that constitute the Cuban people's identity by documenting their current lifestyle and culture. 

Cubans largely originate from American Indians (which Alarcón labels as Red), Spanish conquistadores (White), Africans (Black) and Chinese immigrants (Yellow).

Having visited Havana in the late nineties, I had totally forgotten it had a Chinese presence, and was reminded of the fact when in Hong Kong last month and the subject was brought up by a fellow photographer who had recently been to Cuba.

The Last Dragons project focuses on the reduced Chinese community still existent in Cuba today, and documents some of their memories, surroundings and the few places they congregate in. Alarcón tells us this is a long term project in which he seeks to find and photograph all the China-born Chinese who live in Cuba, as part of the diaspora of the Chinese people.

Luis Alarcon is a documentary photographer, writer and travel designer based in Havana. He is an expert on the history of Cuba, and specialized in anthropology, genetics, migrations and miscegenation among the different ethnic groups that populate the island.

Peng Xiangjie | The Wandering Tent

Renyao ("ladyboys") Photo © Peng Xiangjie | All Rights Reserved

The origins of the circus are debatable; some say that circuses date to Roman times with horse and chariot races, equestrian shows, staged battles, gladiatorial combat and displays of (and fights with) trained animals....whilst others say the circuses as we know them today originated in England, and started by a Philip Astley in 1768.

In common with my current long term project of documenting the unsophisticated Chinese opera troupes, I imagined that Chinese circuses offer an enormous disparity between the "glitz" of the shows and the ordinariness - and shabbiness - of its backstages.

And it is the backstages' ordinariness and seediness that are so photogenic! 

It is with delight that I explored The Wandering Tent; the work of Peng Xinagjie (彭祥杰/简历 ), a Chinese photographer, whose monochromatic work of rural circuses in Shaanxi, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia. 

Peng is said to have dedicated himself thoroughly to a single project at a time. For The Wandering Tent, he followed one specific troupe during their tour, befriended the performers and returned to their village, in order to get an a deeper insight into their background.

This specific project was started in 1992, when he followed a circus performers company to witness the life of jugglers, acrobats, dancers and singers; with a special interest in the quirky characters that are the circus world’s soul: the dwarves, strippers, and the snake women to mention but a few.

Similar to Chinese Opera, rural circuses in China will soon be a thing of the past in the face of technology and modernity.

How I wish I could that with a rural Chinese Opera troupe!

Peng Xinagjie started his photography by focusing on rural daily life and funerary ceremonies in Shaanxi in Central China. His photographs are taken by a Mamiya from the 70s and are printed in his dark room.

Kevin Frayer | Sichuan Opera

Photo © Kevin Frayer | All Rights Reserved

I have long followed the work of Getty's Kevin Frayer; an award -winning photojournalist based in Asia, who was a photographer at the Canadian Press and a Chief Photographer for the Associated Press based in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and New Delhi. He is currently working with Getty Images.

However I didn't realize that he had done lovely work documenting a rural Chinese opera troupe in Sichuan featured on the International Business Times..thus providing me with valuable inspiration for my own long term book project involving Chinese opera of the Diaspora. My primary focus in this project is on the "rural" or provincial troupes who perform their art during Chinese celebrations and religious observances.

The troupe photographed is the Jinyuan Opera Company in Cangshan (Sichuan province), which was founded in 1984 and in the absence of government asistance and subsidies, currently operates on a shoestring with poorly paid enthusiasts as performers.

Chinese opera has a long, rich history that dates back to 200 A.D. Over the centuries, a handful of styles of opera emerged — each with its own distinct makeup, music, and acting traditions — reflecting the eras and tastes of the changing dynasties. Sichuan opera is the youngest style, emerging around 1700 in Chengdu, Sichuan province, where it is still performed today by a dwindling roster of troupes.

I am more interested (visually-speaking) in the elderly performers, whose features show the tribulations of their hard lives still visible despite the heavy make up. This image by Mr. Frayer is an exemplar of what I mean:

Photo © Kevin Frayer | All Rights Reserved

And of my own while, not as colorful, is of an elderly performer awaiting his turn during an opera performance in Kuala Lumpur.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy | All Rights Reserved

The Beijing style of opera, widely known as Peking Opera, was popularized under the Qing Dynasty, which was brought down by the Chinese Revolution of 1911. It had ample support from the court and spread because it was sung in a language widely understood across China, while regional varieties such as Cantonese, Shanghainese and Sichuanese opera stuck to their own dialects and songs.

Although the Communist leadership remained keen on Peking Opera after it took power in 1949, it was later during the Cultural Revolution that it was banned. It not until the 1980s that private theatre companies began to form again in China.

However all forms of Chinese opera have had to compete with new forms of entertainment that came with China’s economic boom. In the 1960s there were more than 300 varieties of Chinese opera, dwindling to about 200 at this present time. 

Robert "Bud" Glick | NYC's Chinatown |MOCA

Photo © Robert "Bud" Glick | Courtesy BuzzFeed News 

I seldom attend photo exhibitions -and particularly avoid previews of of any sort of exhibitions- however I made an exception with the interesting Interior Lives: Photographs of Chinese Americans in the 1980s currently at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York City. The exhibition will run from October 18, 2018 - March 24, 2019.

The story behind the exhibition is also very interesting. In 1981, the New York Chinatown History Project (now the Museum of Chinese in America) commissioned photographer Bud Glick to document the street life, people, and domestic scenes of NYC's Chinatown at a time when more immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China were moving into Chinatown, opening up new businesses just as older shops were closing down. The photographs in the series were captured between 1981 and 1984.

The complete (52) photographs can be viewed on Mr Glick's website. There are also various links to his work and interviews. These can be viewed on BuzzFeedNews, Slate, and HyperAllergic.

My interest in this exhibition was not only for the admirable monochromatic images, but because I'm fond of photographing Chinatown's streets which give me the smells, the sounds and the feel of the exotic produce of Hong Kong or Shanghai. Viewing the exhibition's photographs in MOCA's setting gave me the same sensations. I also read in the many interviews by Mr Glick that he connected with his subjects by establishing a good rapport with them, which is the optimal way to photograph people...and a way of photographing which I share wholeheartedly.

The exhibition is not a large one, but is well arranged to the left of the entrance in the museum. I estimate there is about 40 framed photographs on the exhibition walls. My very favorite image is of the late Mrs Chiu (above) who photographed in her apartment in 1981 just exudes an air of regal serenity.

Photo © Robert "Bud" Glick | All Rights Reserved

The other image I liked a lot is the one of an elderly dapper gentleman sitting in a cafe watching the world pass by.

According to an interview with PetaPixel, Mr Glick shot all his images on Tri-X using either a Leica M4P, Leitz Minolta CL, Nikon F3 or a Mamiya 645, and used Photoshop just to bring out the blacks. Mr. Glick is also embarking on a project with MOCA’s co-founder to reconnect with the subjects of his photographs. 

Robert "Bud" Glick has been a photographer for over 25 years. His clients include: Assurant, Inner-City Scholarship Fund, United Hospital Fund, Visiting Nurse Service of New York, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, NYU Medical Center, NYU, Pace University, Fordham University, NJIT, New York YMCA, Gannett, Stein Communications, Pfizer, AT&T, Syms Clothing, Fortis, Smithsonian Magazine, People Magazine, hgDesign, Arnold Saks Associates, DeSantis Breindel, Suka Creative.

He has taught as an adjunct professor in the art departments of Brooklyn College, Queens College, C. W. Post and William Patterson University.

Mindy Tan | Teochew Opera

“As long as the Chinese shrines exist and people continue praying, any Chinese Opera can survive”

Continuing my obsession with Chinese Opera (and for photographers who show work that resembles mine), I discovered the lovely work of Mindy Tan who produced a video-slideshow of her images of a Teochow (aka Chiu Chow) opera troupe called Sai Yong Hong.

The Sai Yong Hong Chinese opera troupe has been performing in the Bangkok area for over 10 years. Considered as the most well known Chinese Opera troupe in the country, Sai Yong Hong has 34 actors in total. Five members come from China and the remaining 29 actors are from Thailand. There are about 20 Chinese opera troupes in Thailand, but they are reputed to be the most professional.

There are almost 10 million Thai Chinese in Thailand, making it one the largest Chinese communities in the diaspora, however the opera is not as popular as it once was.

Chiu Chow opera is a traditional art form with more than 500 years history, and is currently enjoyed by 20 million Chiu Chow people in many regions and countries. Based on local folk dances and ballads, this type of opera formed its own style under the influence of Nanxi Opera; one of the oldest Chinese operas and originated in the Song Dynasty, and originated in southern China's Chaoshan region. Clowns and females are the most distinctive characters of its shows, as well as fan-play and acrobatic skills.

Mindy Tan is a documentary and Street photographer focusing on Singapore and other Asian countries. Mindy began her career as a newspaper journalist. She won the Society of Publishers Asia (SOPA) award for excellence in Human Rights Reporting in 2007, before becoming a successful commercial and documentary photographer.

She worked for brands like Shell, Uniqlo, Mini Cooper and Huawei, and produces commissioned work for various editorial clients including Reuters, the Associated Press and Die Zeit.

An ambassador to Fujifilm on its international team of X-photographers, she has exhibited with Fujifilm in Cologne, and presented at Fujikina 2017, in both Kyoto and Tokyo. She is currently on artist residency with the Exactly Foundation.

POV : William E. Crawford | Hanoi Streets

Photo © William E. Crawford | Courtesy The New York Times

I don't recall writing a blog post about an article that appeared on The New York Times' Lens feature, but I could not let the wonderful photography of William E. Crawford on Hanoi Streets go without giving it its due merit on the pages of this blog.

One of the photographs that I couldn't stop looking at is of this Vietnamese general. I have no idea who he is or what his history may have been...but I've met Vietnamese men (and women) of his age with similar facial expressions, whose astounding gentleness and courtesy to me -as a visitor to their country- are the most rewarding experiences I took away from my travels in Vietnam.

In the Lens article, Mr. Crawford is quoted as saying "despite the embargo and the wounds of the American War there was no obvious anti-American hostility ... the lack of hostility towards Americans, at least in the North, was a relief to me."

This is so true! Everywhere I went in Hanoi and elsewhere in Vietnam, I was received with open arms even though I was seen as an American (the difference between being American-born or naturalized seemed irrelevant to them). Even Vietnamese men who told me were Vietcong during the American War were friendly and extremely cordial...and shared meals and many cups of rice wine (and ribald jokes) with me.

William E. Crawford is a documentary photographer who spent three decades documenting Vietnam, and in particular Hanoi, its people and the surrounding countryside. As one of the very first Western photographers to work in post-war North Vietnam, he was drawn back to the country numerous times at regular intervals between 1985 and 2015 to record this fascinating country's culture, people, and society with beautiful, compelling and intimate photographs, concentrating on colonial and indigenous architecture, urban details, portraits, and landscapes. 

While he used a large format camera an tripod, he -as I did, but not with the same gear- wandered Hanoi’s busy streets returning to the same places, especially in the 36 streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter.

I could not find Mr Crawford's website, but he is publishing a book Hanoi Streets 1985-2015 which has close to 200 color photographs.

Since I mentioned the wandering in Hanoi's Old Quarter, I thought I'd add a link to my own Hanoi Color: Moments in Hanoi's Pho Co.

Poy Sang Long | Reuters' Wider Image | Jorge Silva

Photo © Reuters/Jorge Silva - Al Rights Reserved

I was planning to attend the Poy Sang Long celebration in Chiang Mai in early April, but the opportunity of my Shanghai lecture and workshop intervened, and so I had to postpone traveling to northern Thailand till next year.

However, I viewed the recent wonderful photo essay and reportage titled Beloved Princes Become Buddhist Novices by Jorge Silva of the annual event which was featured in Reuters' Wider Image blog, and it definitely reaffirmed my intention to attend the celebration in April 2019.

The essay/reportage is quite thorough in explaining what Poy Sang Long is all about, but here's more information:

The days of April 4-6 are usually the time for the three-day festival of Poy Sang Long when, in the city of Chiang Mai, pre-teen boys are inducted as Buddhist novices. On the first day of the 3-day festival, the youngsters are in the midst of family feasting and gift giving before they are escorted to the temple to have their eyebrows and heads shaved. They are then ritually cleansed and anointed by bathing in sacred water. The parade to the temple is accompanied by the flute music, the beat of drums and the clash of cymbals by local musicians.

On the second day, the boys will parade to the temple to offer gifts to Buddha and the resident monks. The parade will move slowly from Thapae Gate through the road up to Chiang Mai Gate and eventually arrive at Wat Pa Pao.

Early morning on the third day (ordination day), the boys will be transformed into "Princes". Their faces will be covered with powder, rouge and lipstick and they'll be dressed in resplendent costumes, with white turbans on their heads. 

Isabel Corthier | Believers : Myanmar

Photo © Isabel Corthier | All Rights Reserved

It's not often that I stumble over a truly wonderful photographic website, and when it happens, I pore over its images very carefully...as long as it takes and relish the opportunity to share it on this blog.

The work of Isabel Corthier is worth poring over; especially that one its themes "Believers" happens to be one that has attracted me for quite a while during my own photographic journey.

For "Believers", Ms Corthier focuses her lens on Ecuador, Ethiopia, Uganda, Nepal and Myanmar. In the latter, her protagonist is a Buddhist nun called
Ayethikar, who at 21 years was sent to the Agayar Tawya nunnery in Yangon because she was sickly.

A few years later, she contracted Hepatitis C after being treated for dental issues. However, Ayethikar accepts her disease with Buddhist acceptance and equanimity.

The nunnery houses 30 nuns; one of which is 7 years old. The nuns arise from sleep at 4:00 am to start their meditation and for their housework.

Temples and monasteries are an integral part of life in Myanmar. It is estimated that they accommodate about half a million males, who are either vocational monks or novices, and around 50,000 nuns. Roughly-speaking, one percent of the population lives in one of the country's monastery or nunnery, completely dependent on the laity for all their material needs.

Ms Corthier's humanitarian work is prolific; her websites galleries include Refugees, Ex-Child Soldiers, Patients, Workers, Daily Life, Survivors and Believers.

Isabel Corthier is a freelance documentary photographer who works internationally for humanitarian organizations. Her work has been used for fundraising campaigns and communications for NGO’s such as Caritas, Trias, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF – Doctors without Borders), Vredeseilanden (VECO), Louvain Coopération, Ondernemers voor Ondernemers, Solid International and more…

Ms Corthier's work has been exhibited in China (Lishui, Pingyao), India (Calcutta), France (Barrobjectif), and Belgium, and some of her pictures have won awards. In 2014 she received the EP European Photographer certificate.

Since 2015 she has worked as a Fujifilm X-Ambassador for Fujifilm Belgium.

Nick McGrath | Chinese Opera Bangkok

Photo © Nick McGrath | All Rights Reserved

As followers of this blog may know, I've been deeply interested in Chinese Opera for a while, and I'm in the midst of a long term work-in-progress project to publish a photo book on the Chinese Opera in the Diaspora.

So it was with great pleasure and interest that I discovered the work of photographer Nick McGrath in his lovely gallery Chinese Opera Bangkok, and from which I chose the above image of a performer's compelling portrait to accompany this post.

Bangkok’s Chinese opera has long been a vibrant staple of Bangkok's Chinatown life. The Teochew Chinese, who immigrated to Thailand a couple of centuries ago, brought it with them as part of their cultural traditions, and to this day, during the Chinese festivals, there are regular performances at venues along Yaowarat Road.

In common with others regions that have received the influx of a Chinese diaspora, the art form is in decline. Partly caused by a younger generation who are interested in other more modern entertainments, Chinese opera has been relegated to that of a sideshow, now found in Bangkok's back streets and alleyways only during Chinese holidays and festivals, with its performances enjoyed by dwindling and elderly audiences.

Nowadays, the future of Chinese opera in the diaspora seems dismal if not for the valiant efforts of dedicated and passionate artists, individuals and organizations which are trying to keep this venerable art form alive.

Nick McGrath is a editorial and documentary photographer (as well as a videographer) based in Bangkok. He graduated from the Photography Studies College in Melbourne and was awarded the JR Haynes Award for High Achievement in the Advance Diploma of Photography major in Photojournalism. His work focuses on Southeast Asia's culture and sub-cultures, looking specifically at how people live within these contexts.

Here's more of his video work on Bangkok's Chinese Opera.

Christian Berg | The Old Ones

Photo © Christian Berg | All Rights Reserved

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) previously known as Saigon, has a population of about 8.5 million people, making it the most populous metropolitan area in Vietnam. The city's population is expected to grow to 13.9 million by 2025. Its French-influenced buildings earned it the nickname of “the Pearl of the Orient”, especially because of its tree-lined boulevards flanked by grand hotels with wide verandas.

Saigon's old buildings also formed the backdrop for “The Quiet American,” the Graham Greene novel set during Vietnam’s war for independence from France in the early 1950s, and for indelible images of the Vietnam War. The city was full old apartment buildings; built in the 1950s or 1960s while others dating back to French colonial times. 

As an aside: Although I've been to Vietnam many times, I've only been to Saigon once back in 2004, and I distinctly recall the Rex Hotel; the old and famed hotel where the United States military would hold its delusional briefings during the American (or Vietnam) war, and its roof top bar (where I had an excellent seafood meal), and which was the favorite watering hole for journalists, spies and military people.

These old buildings (as those in Hanoi and elsewhere in many Asian cities) have been, and still are, inhabited by generations of families. Some of the buildings contain living quarters, small shops, markets, and restaurants. However, more and more of these structures are being demolished due to safety reasons and to make way for new (and expensive) real estate projects. There has been much loss in Saigon's urban heritage which rips the city's social and historical fabric.

Christian Berg's The Old Ones is a gallery of photographs made of some of Saigon's heritage buildings. 

Christian is a Ho Chi Minh City based documentary photographer, available for freelance work in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. He holds a degree in Southeast Asian studies, and is fluent in Vietnamese.is work was published in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Elle, Forbes, National Geographic Traveler, The Telegraph, DKSH, Atlas Industries, Strategic Marine, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Goethe Institute, Medicins du Monde and others.

Sebastião Salgado | Amazônia

Photo © Sebastião Salgado | Courtesy Folha de S.Paulo

I'm very glad to have stumbled on the latest work by the legendary Sebastião Salgado. It's published as a reportage in the magazine (or blog?) of the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, and while its descriptive text is in Portuguese, I used an online translator tool to feature it here.

The remote tribe known as the Korubos received Sebastião Salgado, in September 2017. He was welcomed with guttural sounds such as "hey hey hey", and stayed in their village in the Javari valley for 20 days to produce his new project, "Amazônia".

The Korubos number about 80, and maintain regular contact with officials of the Brazilian State... but have had little contact with the "white" culture. They are divided into two villages on the banks of the Ituí River, in the Indigenous Land Vale do Javari, in western Amazonas, along the border with Peru, 3,500 km from São Paulo and 1,200 km from Manaus.

This tribe was known in the 20th century for the violence with which it attacked invaders of its territories. Their defensive attacks were followed by reprisals from non-Indians. Nowadays, the Korubos want to talk.

Sebastião Salgado produced a series of photographic reports about the Amazon, with an emphasis on indigenous groups that have had little contact with the "white" culture. "Amazônia" is a continuation of his earlier work, "Genesis". It seeks to portray the autochthonous peoples of Brazil, inhabitants of the world's largest forest, threatened by the destruction caused by an unsustainable exploitation.

For this long term project, Salgado visited several tribes and will conduct other expeditions in 2019, which he hopes will see publications and exhibitions that will form part of the project.

C. Glendening & S. Leahovcenko | Mongolian Eagle Hunters

This is a double feature on the eagle hunters of the Altai mountains of Mongolia; one is the cinematic work of Cale Glendening, and the other is a photographic essay by Sasha Leahovcenco.

The golden eagles live in the high Altai mountains, in far-western Mongolia, and build their nests in the crags of the area’s rugged peaks. The hunters, a Khazak minority, are traditional nomadic clans who learn to climb up to these crevices to capture and domesticate the young eagles. The birds are hand fed, and live with the hunters’ families for years.

The hunters take their eagles high into the mountains, so they can fly down and catch foxes and other small mammals. It's a dying tradition, with an estimated number of only fifty or sixty authentic eagle hunters left.

Photo © Sasha Leahovcenco | All Rights Reserved

Although eagles can live for thirty years, the hunters keep each one for only about ten years, then release it to live out its last years in the wild.

The hunters are called burkitshi, and try to pass their long standing tradition to their sons. The tradition of hunting with golden eagles is said to have been started by the nomadic tribes of Manchuria in northern China around 940 AD.

Sasha Leahovcenco's Mongolian Eagle Hunters photo essay is here. 

His biography reveals that is a humanitarian, entrepreneur and photographer. He was born in Moldova, an Eastern European country and former Soviet republic. A martial art champion, he eventually took up photography as a career, and traveled to Chukotka (the northern most part of Russia), Haiti, Central America, the Middle East and several countries in Africa. He covered stories of the earthquake in Haiti, the aftermath of typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, the ongoing war conflict in Ukraine and the Syrian and Lebanese refugee crisis.

Cale Glendening is a director and cinematographer who has spent the last eight years traveling the world filming on five continents in over 35 countries. His clients include Google, Red Bull, Cholula, Valvoline, Dollar General, BBC, ESPN, and Animal Planet.

The Travel Photographer's 5 Favorite 2017 Photographers

Photo © Nagi Yoshida-All Rights Reserved

I now feature my favorite 5 photographer for 2017. I do so in no particular order, either alphabetically, nor chronologically nor by preference...just randomly.

Nagi Yoshida: 

My first favorite photographer of 2017 is Nagi Yoshida which was featured on this blog on June 26 with her work on Ethiopia. I liked her imagery of the various tribes in the Omo Valley such as the Mursi, Bume, Hamer and the Afari people. 

The Japanese photographer's love affair with Africa started when as a child, she was fascinated by being African. Some children want to become pilots, some models, but her dream was just to become African. 

Photo © Corentin Fohlen | All Rights Reserved

Corentin Fohlen:

Another favorite is French photographer/photojournalist Corentin Fohlen featured in my post of March 3, with his incredibly colorful and fantastical portraits of Haiti's Karnaval. This festival has been held for over 100 years in different towns of Haiti.

Fohlen began to photograph Haitians by creating a makeshift studio on a city sidewalk near the Karnaval celebrations, where he could create portraits of each unique costume. Since 2012, he has been involved in long term projects in Haïti, and has published two books on this country and its culture.

Photo © Hiroshi Watanabe - All Rights Reserved

As for the next favorite photographer, it's Hirshoshi Watanbe.

He was featured in my post of May 23 for his lovely work on Kabuki performers. This gallery is of square format monochromatic portraits of non-professional kabuki performers in the small town of Nakatsugawa; located midway between Tokyo and Kyoto.

Hiroshi Watanabe was born in Sapporo, Japan and graduated from the Department of Photography of Nihon University in 1975. He moved to Los Angeles working in Japanese television commercials, obtained an MBA from the UCLA Anderson Business School in 1993 and subsequently, started to travel worldwide, extensively photographing and since 2000, has worked full-time at photography.

Photo © Robert van der Hilst | All Rights Reserved

Robert van der Hilst:

I was happy receiving Robert van der Hilst's lovely 'Chinese Interiors' voluminous coffee-table photo book as a gift in Shanghai, and discovered the talents of this Dutch master photographer who was influenced and inspired by Dutch mid-17th century genre painting. Naturally, I wrote of him in my post of November 8.

Robert van der Hilst is certainly an inspiring photographer, and his website's galleries feature his lovely work from Mexico, Fukuoka (Japan), Shanghai and his Cuban Interiors is particularly worth viewing. 

Photo © Leonid Plotkin | All Rights Reserved

Leonid Plotkin:

Closing the list is a long time favorite photographer; Leonid Plotkin whose Men of Heart work was featured on my blog on March 5. 

Men of Heart is about the Bauls who are a group of mystic minstrels from Bengal (Indian State and Bangladesh). The Bauls are members of a syncretic religious sect, and a follow a distinct musical tradition. A very heterogeneous group, with many sects, but their membership mainly consists of Vaishnava Hindus and Sufi Muslims.

Leonid Plotikin is a freelance documentary photographer and writer. His work has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, The Economist, Penthouse Magazine, Student Traveler, Budget Travel, Discovery Magazine, MSN.com and others.

Patrick Aventurier | The Ma Song

Photo © Patrick Aventurier | All Rights Reserved

Having attended the Nine Emperor Gods festival's celebrations in Kuala Lumpur last month, I was interested to discover a gallery of 50 portraits of The Ma Song by French photographer Patrick Aventurier (which were in all probability taken during the festival in Phuket, and known there as the Vegetarian festival. 

My own experience at the Nine Emperor Gods festival in Ampang was very much milder than what these portraits depict....but let's start with what the festival is all about. 

The Nine Emperor Gods Festival is a nine-day Taoist celebration beginning on the eve of 9th lunar month of the Chinese calendar, and celebrates this community's belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health, peace of mind, as well as spiritual cleansing. Its sacred rituals grant good fortune on those who observe this rite.

In accordance with the traditions, many religious devotees will perform ritualized mutilation upon themselves and one another (always consensual). 

The Ma Song are the people (usually men) who invite the spirits of gods to possess their bodies. Only pure, unmarried men or women without families of their own can become Ma Song. At the temples, they must first undergo a series of rituals to protect them for the duration of the festival, during which flagellation and self-mutilation is practiced. This ritualistic tradition doesn't exist in China and is believed to have been adopted from the Indian festival of Thaipusam.

Notwithstanding, it's said that the Ma Song follow a Chinese logic of fair trade: they volunteer their bodies to be used by the gods in exchange for being kept alive through the gods’ use of their bodies in the future.

Patrick Aventurier is a French photographer/photojournalist with Gamma. He covered conflicts in Lebanon, Israel, Cambodia, Myanmar, North Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Somalia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. He is the recipient of a number of awards and recognitions ranging from World Press 1988, a UNESCO award, War Correspondents Prize in Bayeux, and many others.

Note: I seldom -if ever- post commentary from readers, however I make an exception for photographer Cheryl Hoffman, a friend, a long time resident of Kuala Lumpur and an expert in the local cultures of Malaysia, including Taoist rituals and their significance.

Edited for space reason, here's what Cheryl wrote on my Facebook page about The Ma Song blog post:

"The sensationalism of the Vegetarian Festival has removed it almost entirely from the intent of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival. The festival is intended to bring the forces of yin and yang into balance in order to provide for the health of the people. Yes, within Taoism there is a purpose for spirit mediums to show the power of their connection to the gods and sometimes that involves some kind of self-mutilation (or something that looks like self-mutilation but isn't). The antics played out by the Thai spirit mediums are unnecessary to achieve that. It's a circus really. And I don't know why the connection to Thaipusam keeps coming up. I think that increasing extremism amongst Chinese spirit mediums is based in Thailand and trickling into Malaysia. What's happening in Thailand is off the charts compared to the Hindu/Thaipusam version. Piercings for the puja of Thaipusam are undertaken as vows of silence mostly, even in their extremes. There has been increasing sensationalism around Thaipusam at Batu Caves and other places in the past decade. 

(Although) Patrick's portraits are good and they make me sad to think about the young people who are under pressure to do this kind of thing to make an impression and a living."

Chen Haiwen | China's 56 Ethnic Groups

Photo © Chen Haiwen-All Rights Reserved

Whilst in Shanghai, I was very pleased to meet with Mr Chen Haiwen; a master photographer, the founder of Shanghai Museum of Antique Cameras, the recipient of the highest photography award in China twice in a row and Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Photography Association. He and his family were a model of gracious hospitality and assistance.

Between the summers of 2008 and 2009, he and his support teams visited 28 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, 554 cities and counties of China (and Taiwan), to produce The Family Photos of China's 56 Ethnic Groups.

Mr Chen and his team took 57,228 family photos of 1,125 cultural heritage  ethnic group representatives. These are analog images that provide a complete ethnographic record of China's 56 ethnic groups.

Using a VIP invitation to the Shanghai PhotoFairs, I posed in front of one of Mr Chen's large format images.

At Shanghai PhotoFairs

Aside from his masterly work with China's ethnic groups, take a look at his monochrome photographs which are in a separate gallery titled Zǎoqí Zuòpǐn (Early Works) which presents various images from (presumably) Shanghai and other towns....street and interiors. 

Photo © Chen Haiwen-All Rights Reserved

Daoquing Opera | Li Jianzeng

Photo © Li Jianzeng | All Rights Reserved

I'm currently immersed (well, partially) in research for what I hope may be a long term project, involving various types of Chinese Opera. It's a lot to chew on since Chinese Opera has innumerable varieties.

For instance, there's the well known Beijing Opera, known also as Peking Opera (Jing Ju), and which is regarded as the standard opera of China. There's also the Cantonese Opera, (known as Yue Ju) and that's performed in Cantonese; the Sichuan Opera which is also widely known in mainland China and is delivered in Mandarin; the Ping Opera (Ping Ju) which is easy for the audience to understand, and thus popular with rural communities and especially where people are not well educated. There's also the Henan Opera (Yu Ju), the Qinqiang Opera, the Kunqu Opera and the Huangmei Opera.

For this post, I am featuring a gallery by Chinese photographer Li Jianzeng* of the Daoqing opera popular among villagers in some of the poorest areas in northern Shaanxi province. It traces its roots to the Taoist belief system and evolved from Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) storytelling traditions. Li Jianzeng’s images take us to the countryside and behind the scenes to the lives of the performers.
These performances are the real thing...no artifical lighting, no show biz glamor, no sound effects...raw performances. It is the type of performances that I much prefer due to their unfiltered authenticity, and that I hope will be available in Ampang during the Ninth Emperor festival.

For more background, Daoqing opera originates from Taoist (or Daoist) stories in the Tang Dynasty and is a folk dramatic form which includes four kinds of stories: Daoist sanints, moralistic teachings, domestic life and historical events. It is only performed in Shanxi and Gansu provinces.

* I could not find a website for Jianzeng.

Christian Rodriguez | Xiếc (Vietnamese Circus)

Photo © Christian Rodriguez - All Rights Reserved

I've always thought that circus performers had sad lives. Perhaps it was becasue of the clowns with their tragic-comical faces and makeups. So I'm not all all surprised that Hanoi’s prestigious state-run circus, a relic of Vietnam’s Marxist past, lost a third of its budget and will have no government funding at all by the end of the decade.

It is reported that a majority of circus artists suffer occupation-related illnesses.Common conditions include broken limbs, fractured bones, spine curvature, and stomach ailments, while bruises and bleeding occur on a daily basis. And circus artists in Vietnam are paid poorly, face numerous health risks, and even suffer life-threatening, debilitating conditions from their lifelong dedication to their profession.

Christian Rodriguez brings us close to the backstage lives of these Vietnamese circus performers in his compelling Xiếc photo essay. He spent eight months in Vietnam over the years of three trips from 2009 to 2012, and managed to produce intimate images of these workers by living amongst them; taking up residence for four months in an abandoned theater in Hanoi, where the performers had to build their own rooms out of wood and plastic. 

He tells us that the circus artists in Vietnam make about $150 a month, plus another $4 for each performance. This is not enough to live on, so most of them augment their salaries by performing at private parties or nightclubs. The Vietnam Circus Federation was founded by Mr. Ta Duy Hien (1889-1966) on January 16, 1956. However, things change and although circuses are still popular in Vietnam, especially in small towns and villages, the Vietnamese in the larger cities have found other forms of entertainment.

Christian Rodriguez is an Uruguayan photographer, whose work focuses on issues related to gender and identity. He studied different drawing and painting techniques, and worked as cameraman at VTV (Uruguay). He joined the staff of the newspaper El Observador (Uruguay), and collaborated with various news agencies such as France Presse, AP, EFE, and Reuters. He also produced fashion and advertising campaigns. Amongst his assignments were the coverage of the conflict between Israel-Hezbollah in the southern Lebanon. In 2011 he was nominated for the Joop Swart Masterclass of the World Press Photo. His work has been published in different international media such as The New York Times, ​The Guardian, The New Yorker, El Mundo, Yo Dona, Esquire, La Nación, El País, Página 12, ABC, El Observador, and Lento, among many others; and it has been exhibited in Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, United States, Spain, France, Italy, UK and Cambodia. 

Corentin Fohlen | Haiti's Karnaval

Photo © Corentin Fohlen | All Rights Reserved

Every year in the small port of Jacmel, in the south of Haiti, the most important festival is held with residents wearing incredibly colorful and fantastical costumes. The festival is called Karnaval and for more than 100 years, it has been held in various cities around the island to showcase the island's unique creole culture.

Corentin Fohlen began to photograph Haitians by creating a makeshift studio on a city sidewalk near the Karnaval celebrations, where he could create portraits of each unique costume. 

The Karnaval festivities were traditionally considered sinful to Protestant Haitians, and participation was discouraged by their churches.  The festivities were criticized for condoning sexually-suggestive dancing, profanity-filled plays, music lyrics mocking authority, and vodou music rhythms.

As with other Mardis Gras carnivals, the festivities in Haiti enabled its people to enjoy the pleasures of life before the beginning of the Catholic Lent season, a period of 40 days and nights of fasting and penance leading up to Easter. The tradition was imported to Haiti and elsewhere in the Americas during European settlement. 

I am always fascinated at how Haitian Creole has absorbed French words, and morphed them into its own language. For example, here is a phrase used during the Karneval:

mete menn' anlè which in French is 'mets les mains en l'air' ('put your hands in the air').

Corentin Fohlen is a French photographer, whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Monde magazine, Paris Match, Libération, Stern, Polka Magazine, Le Monde, le Figaro, 6 Mois, Le Point, l’Obs, le JDD, l’Express, Marianne, Le Temps, L’Hebdo, Die Zeit, la Vie, les Inrockuptibles, Jeune Afrique, Afrique Magazine, le Pèlerin, Causette, La Croix, Le Parisien Magazine, Wondereur. He has also worked for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Handicap International, le Haut Commissariat aux Réfugiés (UNHCR), ASMAE-association Soeur Emmanuelle.

Since 2012, he has been involved in long term projects in Haïti. He is endeavoring to show a different view of the island nation. As a consequence of his 19 stays in Haïti,  he produced the book HAÏTI, published in January 2017. 

Yvan Cohen | Chinese Opera

Photo © Yvan Cohen - All Rights Reserved

I've been interested in Chinese opera for quite a while; way before watching Farewell My Concubine. As a photographer, I'm attracted by its visual aesthetics and by its colorful make up and costumery...but I am also interested in its history and its influence on other similar art form in Asia.

For instance, I've photographed a performance of Hát Tuồng in Hanoi a few years ago. Influenced by Chinese opera, it is one of the oldest art forms in Vietnam, and is said to have existed since the late 12th century. I wanted to spend much more time in photographing its performers, but was constrained to do so as I was leading a photo workshop, and couldn't set aside enough time for it.

Together with Greece tragic-comedy and Indian Sanskrit Opera, it's one of the three oldest dramatic art forms in the world. I won't go into much background detail about the art, as it is widely -and more ably- described on scholarly websites, as well as on other blogs (including in previous posts on my own blog.)

Here's a wonderful photo essay by Yvan Cohen on Chinese Opera which combines traditional photojournalism and closeups of the performers' faces and make up. Presumably photographed in Bangkok's Chinatown where opera companies, hired by local Chinese shrines, perform mythical stories in Mandarin to observe celebrations marking the Lunar New Year.

Don't miss his photo essay on Bangkok's Chinatown which he has been photographing for some 7 years now – visiting once or twice a week, mostly at night.

Fluent in English, French and Thai, Yvan Cohen is a photojournalist based in Bangkok who works mainly in Asia. As a freelancer, he has been published in international publications including covers for Time Magazine and the New York Times. His work includes fashion, features and commissioned portraits. Other credits include The Sunday Times, Forbes, L'Express, AsiaWeek, La Vie and others.

He is also a co-founder of the LightRocket media management platform.