NPR: Ed Kashi On Pakistan

Photo © Ed Kashi/National Geographic-All Rights Reserved
Apart from joining the agency VII, Ed Kashi was also featured on NPR's The Picture Show in a piece titled On Photographing Pakistan. He also has more of his photographs on the National Geographic blog.

Ed Kashi's objectives were to show how the people of Punjab live, and how millions of Pakistanis just try to live their lives despite the threat of religious fundamentalism, especially as it's also home to the peaceful sect of Sufism.

I had the pleasure of meeting a number of young Pakistani women photographers at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul just last week or so, and I was amazed at how they just lived their lives to the fullest, worked and crafting their impressive body of work seemingly unperturbed by the events that get reported in our mainstream media.

The above photograph was made at the mosque of Badshahi in Lahore, which is the second largest mosque in South Asia and the fifth largest in the world. The way Ed Kashi photographed the scene by slightly tilting the camera seems to be giving motion to the barefooted man and his cane. Nicely thought out and it gives a different perspective to the mosque which must've been photographed countless times.

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Travis Dove: The Holy Mountain

Photo © National Geographic/Travis Dove -All Rights Reserved
Travis Dove interned on the photo staffs of several American newspapers including The Boston Globe and The Charlotte Observer, and was named the 2007 College Photographer of the Year by the Missouri School of Journalism. He also completed a prestigious photo internship at National Geographic Magazine.

His work has been awarded by World Press Photo, POYi, PDN, the NPPA, and the WHNPA, among others. In the fall of 2008, and appeared in the National Geographic, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, amongst many others.

I loved his photo essay The Holy Mountain made amongst the monks in Mount Athos, the spiritual center of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Mount Athos is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece. It was established more than 1,000 years ago. Though land-linked, it's only accessible by boat. It's also home to communities of Christian hermits who follow a monastic rule, allowing them to worship in comparative solitude, while also affording them a level of mutual practical support and security.

Excellent work by Travis Dove!

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FPW Istanbul: Intro To Multimedia Class

I was privileged to teach a class titled Introduction To Multimedia for the third straight year at this year's Foundry Photojournalism Workshop which was held in Istanbul June20-26.

As a couple of my class attendees are in the process of shopping their projects to publishers, I'm unable to publish them until they're made public by their creators. However, I am able to show an image from each project along with a description.

The attendees were Brenda Bravo, Pierre Claquin, Yagmar Dolkun, Pedro Gomes, David Hagerman, Jeroen de Kluiver, and Roubina Margossian.

1. Brenda Bravo: Kadikoy Underground Puppetry

Photo © Brenda Bravo -All Rights Reserved
Brenda's project documented an underground puppetry group in Kadikoy, from applying their make-up to walking in the streets performing to crowds. Apart from recording ambient sound of the performances, and of the street, Brenda also narrated the piece which was titled Kadikoy's Underground Puppetry. Her subjects attended the final show wearing the same make-up they use during their walk-abouts in Kadikoy.

2. Pierre Claquin: Leaves of Tolerance

Photo © Pierre Claquin -All Rights Reserved
Pierre's project was titled Leaves of Tolerance, and documented Nick Merdeyan (the self described Lord of the Leaves) who, from a small store in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, produced artistic masterpieces of Islamic calligraphy on leaves, dried according to a proprietary process, and sold all over the world. Merdeyan, an Armenian Turk, narrated the piece showing his Islamic, Christian and Judaic motifs using Qur'anic script, underlining the similarity of the three Abrahamic traditions.

3. Yagmar Dolkun: Live Broadcast

Photo © Yagmar Dolkun -All Rights Reserved
Yagmar's project was on CNN-Turk, which took us into the back room of the television station before going live with a sports program. Yagmar chose to produce the piece in black & white without any narration, leaving the images tell the story, and relying on a mesmerizing music loop. The project can be seen by clicking here.

4. Pedro Gomes: Esmeray

Photo © Pedro Gomes -All Rights Reserved
Pedro's project documented Esmeray, a transgendered actor, a sex worker, a feminist, a Kurd and a home-keeper. Inspired by the NY Times' series One In 8 Million, Pedro interviewed Esmeray, and followed her through the day. He photographed during her theater perfromances, at a feminist meeting and later on at her home. Pedro's wife, Asli Maci, provided the excellent voice-over narration.

5. David Hagerman: The Ferry Boats of Istanbul

Photo © David Hagerman -All Rights Reserved
David chose to document the ferry boats of Istanbul as a symbol of this city. The ferries are part of the daily life for many Istanbullu, and beyond providing a commute alternative, also provide an escape from the daily tribulations of the city. A travelogue of sorts, David used ambient sound recorded on the ferries, the sound of their motors, the din of the passengers and a couple of short interviews.... one with a young man who claimed that "girls are like grains of sand".

6. Jeroen de Kluiver: The Alevi

Photo © Jeroen de Kluiver -All Rights Reserved
Jeroen documented the Alevi in black & white project. The Alevi are a religious sub-ethnic and cultural community in Turkey. Its tradition is related to Shi'a Islam and Bektasi Sufism, and its worship takes place in assembly houses rather than mosques. Jeroen photographed and recorded a ceremony known as cem, which features music and dance and during which both women and men participate.


7. Roubina Margossian: Symbolism In Religious Tradition

Photo © Roubina Margossian -All Rights Reserved
Roubina is one of the recipients of a scholarship to attend the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop. She produced an audio slideshow titled Symbolism in Religious Tradition, focusing on a religious service in an Armenian church. Narrated by Father John of the church, Roubina's fondness for photographs of reflections is evident in the project!

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Jon Guido Bertelli: Last of Zapatistas

Photo © Jon Bertelli -All Rights Reserved
Jon Bertelli is an international photographer, who currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, but was raised in Florence and academically trained in the visual arts there and in Oslo.

He lived in Mexico in the late nineties, and documented the last surviving Zapatista fighters; the veterans of the 1910-20 Mexican Revolution of the South, led by the famed (and feared) Emiliano Zapata. While Pancho Villa's revolution was concentrated in the north of the country, Zapata and his insurgents represented the south.

Jon photographed the surviving insurgents; most of which were over 100 years old. These were idealistic men and women who sacrificed their well-being and lives to follow Zapata. Many were decorated as war heroes by the Mexican government, and some have been recognized internationally for their bravery.

You have the choice of seeing Jon's The Last of the Zapatistas on his website, or on FOTO8 where his portraits have been made into an audio-sideshow.

The audio track used is La Soldadera by Garcia-Pujol and Jimenez. While it's a beautiful and appropriately evocative piece, imagine if the audio of the elderly Zapatistas' voices, telling us a bit of their exploits, was also included!!

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NYT's LENS: A.K. Kimoto

Photo © A.K. Kimoto-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times' LENS blog features a poignant photo essay on opium addiction in Afghanistan by the late A.K. Kimoto. The photo essay is in black & white; dark and brooding as befits such a subject matter. See it...I highly recommend it, along with its accompanying article.

Kimoto was a 32-year-old Japanese photographer based in Bangkok, who died in March while traveling to Australia.

He spent years photographing families in the remote northeastern mountains of Afghanistan, controlled by the Taliban. He roamed remote settlements in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, to find out why so many of the inhabitants (even the young) had become addicted to opium. As Emily Anne Epstein explains in the piece: "The poverty in this region is so harsh that parents blow opium smoke into their children’s noses to soothe the pangs of hunger."

A.K. Kimoto wrote:

“I offer to transport the mother and child to a clinic. One of the elders cuts me off before I can finish my thought. He smiles gently as he tells me that the child would never survive such a journey in the cold rain, and anyway, this way of life and death have been repeated for centuries in these mountains.”

Coincidentally, the New York Times reported yesterday that the United States has discovered nearly "$1 trillion" in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, which translates into approximately $35,000 for every inhabitant of the country. Naturally, massive investments will be required to mine these deposits, but in any event there's little chance that the poor of Badakhshan will see their lives improve from this eventual wealth. Cronyism, and venal corruption are endemic to the region...and only those with the power and connections will reap the benefits.

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Trevor Snapp: La Santa Muerte

Photo © Trevor Snapp-All Rights Reserved
Trevor Snapp is a self-taught photographer with degrees in anthropology and African studies, and his work is syndicated with Corbis and Millennium Images. His clients include Stern, National Geographic Traveler, BBC, Time.com, Chicago Tribune, Marie Calire and others. He has also worked for a variety of NGOs such as Heifer International, Gates Foundation, and Intrahealth in Africa.

Now based in Kampala, Trevor photographed La Santa Muerte in Mexico, among other galleries of Central Amercia

The cult of Santa Muerte is unusual because it's the cult of the drug lords, the dispossessed, and criminals. There are many shrines to Santa Muerte in the capital city, but Tepito is where the most popular shrines are. Tepito is an infamous barrio and its tough reputation dates back to pre-Hispanic times. The neighborhood is a warren of mean streets and alleys, lined with auto-body shops and small stores. It's here that the prostitutes, drug dealers and petty thieves come to pay their respect to the saint. It's also where the common folk; housewives, cab drivers and street vendors come to make their offerings...tequila bottles, candles, money and flowers.

The gallery strikes a chord with me since I photographed in Tepito in 2008, along with two other photographers, when we were within a hair's breadth of being mugged.

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The Daily Beast: Veronique De Viguerie

Photo © Veronique de Vigurie-All Rights Reserved
One of my favorite photojournalists, Veronique de Vigurie, was featured on The Daily Beast blog in an article/interview titled The Bravest Photographer.

Veronique de Viguerie is based in Paris and, at the age of only 32, has already won prestigious awards including Canon’s coveted Female Photojournalist of the Year Award in 2006. Her photographs regularly appear in Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, Marie-Claire, and The Guardian.

She's known for her empathy with her subjects, and that trait got her in hot water in 2008 when she photographed a group of Taliban fighters who had killed 10 French soldiers. Paris-Match published her photographs, and her critics accused her being used to spread Taliban propaganda.

I recall writing about this, and suggesting that if anyone was to be accused of anything, it should have been the Paris-Match editors.

The article quotes Régis Le Sommier, deputy editor in chief of Paris Match, that he believes de Viguerie is "one of the most daring and promising photographers of her generation."

More of de Viguerie's images are on Getty Images Reportage website.

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Paolo Evangelista: Zanzibar

Photo © Paolo Evangelista-All Rights Reserved
Paolo Evangelista holds degrees in music and anthropology, but decided to pack his bags, his espresso machine (after all, he's Italian) and his cameras to live in Australia for a while. Currently based in Perugia, he traveled to Zanzibar where most of his galleries are of.

Most interesting are Paolo's street photographs in Stone Town.

It's the old city and cultural heart of Zanzibar, where nothing much has changed in the last 200 years. Its winding alleys, bustling bazaars, lovely mosques and typical Arab houses are exquisite backdrops for this sort of photography. Its name conjures sea traders, explorers, Sultans and the fragrance of exotic spices. It was also declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Also of interest to me is Paolo's gallery of Sydney's Chinese market, since I photograph in New York Chinatown.

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Wenjie Yang: Nuo Opera

Photo © Wenjie Yang-All Rights Reserved
Wenjie Yang is a freelance photographer, who was born and raised in Shanghai. She comes to photography and photojournalism with a background in advertising production and production of movie crews for a number of years.

She currently attends the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism One-Year Certificate Program at International Center of Photography, and worked on editorial assignments from various magazines, including “Travel + Leisure”, “Marie Claire”, “Elle Decoration”, "Burn Magazine" and “Chinese Photographers”. She also was awarded third prize in the 2008 National Geographic International Photography Contest (China Region).

Wenjie introduces us to Nuo Opera through her photo essay here.

Nuo opera is an ancient and a popular folk opera in southwest China. It is characterized by the use of frightening masks, characteristic dresses, strange language used in its performances, and mysterious scenes. It integrates religious and dramatic culture, and its performance aims drive away evil spirits, disease and unholy influences, as well as supplicate blessings from the gods.

Traditionally, Nuo is performed by specially trained shamans as a means of exorcism. In fact, the professional Nuo performers are viewed as "spiritual tutors" wielding supernatural powers to disperse evil spirits, sickness and disease.

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Asim Rafiqui: The Idea of India

"The close relationships between the island’s Muslim and Hindu communities in fact reveal a blurring of religious and spiritual lines, reminding us of the artificiality of the labels of ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ and the ordinary human being’s ability to find accommodation and tolerance of the practices and values of his neighbors." - Gujarat’s Faded Testaments – The Parables Of Bet Dwarka

Asim Rafiqui is not only an excellent photojournalist, photographer, a thoughtful blogger, writer and commentator, but also a friend and an inspiration in many ways.

I've written a number of posts on his wonderful project The Idea of India, and its being supported by The Aftermath Project and Blue Earth Alliance in the past year, so it gives me great pleasure to announce that he was just awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue this extraordinary project.

Asim will be based for a year in New Delhi starting this September, and the scholarship will allow him to continue, expand and delve deeper into this important project.

I encourage you to visit Asim's The Idea of India writings, as well as his accompanying blog The Spinning Head. I'm certain you'll bookmark both, and follow his explorations into India's past, present and perhaps future.

As a footnote, I am undeservedly privileged to be mentioned in Asim's The Idea of India, and hope to reciprocate the acknowledgment in a small way very soon.

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Antonin Kratochvil : Moscow Nights

Here's an audio slideshow of photographs by Antonin Kratochvil titled "Moscow Nights" that takes us to Moscow's decadent underworld, which is the latest feature on VII Magazine. The images themselves are vintage Kratochvil; some of which are tilted to impart uncomfortable tension (and also to be different). Although he's known for his black and white documentary photography, a few here are in color, and all show the dissolute circus-like atmosphere of this other dimension. The accompanying soundtrack is of a popular Russian music played on the accordion.

The blurb that accompanies Moscow Nights suggests that it's hard not to feel "the raw edge and danger" that exists in that underworld.

I may be mistaken, but I haven't felt that at all. All I felt was disdain tinged with pity for the characters who live such an empty existence, and watching the slideshow reminded me of the decadent characters and atmosphere in Cabaret, the 1972 movie with Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey.

Moscow Nights is also a book soon to be available, and is described as "a voyeuristic tour through the decadence and hedonism of the new "Golden Youth" as they enjoy their spoils."

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Munem Wasif: Old Dhaka

Photo © Munem Wasif -All Rights Reserved
Here's a response in many more ways than one to Howard W. French's Old Shanghai galleries which I posted about yesterday.

It's by well-known Bangladeshi photographer Munem Wasif, whose trademark gritty high-contrast black & white photographs seem to be the common denominator amongst many of his equally talented compatriot photographers.

Old Dhaka -as we've seen of the old neighborhoods of Shanghai- offers endless scenes of unadulterated humanity to photographers. The Western affinity for privacy doesn't exist here. Mothers bathe their children in the open, while the elderly help one another to perform basic needs and people live virtually in the open without shame or embarrassment.

It's quite evident from this photo essay that Munem Wasif (and others like him) are photographers who have the ability to achieve a no-holds barred intimacy with their subjects. Achieving this closeness undoubtedly enhances the humanness of the subjects we see in their pictures.

Old Dhaka is featured on the incomparable ZoneZero, the site dedicated to photography founded 16 years ago by Pedro Meyer.

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Howard W. French: Old Shanghai

Photo © Howard W. French -All Rights Reserved
The NY Times featured Howard French's exquisite portfolio of black & white photographs of residents of old Shanghai's densely packed neighborhoods inside their own homes, which is titled Discovering Shanghai's Secret City.

I was so taken by this type of work (and I guarantee you will too) that I looked for Howard French's other work and discovered his main photography website, and his equally wonderful Disappearing Shanghai: The Landscape Within among other galleries.

Howard French lived in Shanghai from 2003-2008 as chief of The Times’s bureau, and spent many weekends exploring the lesser known areas of Shanghai or the "densely packed place of tumbledown, two-story housing and long internal alleyways" as he describes them. He became a familiar sight for many of the residents, and knew what to expect at every corner, whther it'd be a mahjong game or a regular siting in a chair in his pajamas.

He returned to Shanghai last summer and for three months, he knocked on the doors of homes and asked himself in to document what he encountered.

To me, this is what documentary photography is all about. The photographer as a fly on the wall...seemingly unnoticed by his subjects...who perhaps either ignore his presence, got used to it or tolerate it....and from these frames, one can build a storyline. In the photograph above, the woman on the left is laughing at something/someone outside of the frame, and the younger woman looks at her somewhat pensively, while a third person is lying on the bed, possibly asleep. Can we guess the dynamics in this photograph? The wedding photograph hanging from the wall begs the question: is the bride and groom present in the room? Are they the laughing woman and the sleeping figure? Is the young woman their daughter?

Simple yet complex. I love it.

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One Shot: NYT's Rina Castelnuovo

Photo © Rina Castelnuovo-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times' Lens blog features the work of Rina Castelnuovo in Palestine & Israel. Essentially a "smooch" job by the writer, but there's no denying that she deserves every word of it.

After all, she's the photographer who captured the infamous photograph of the thuggish Israeli settler tossing wine at a Palestinian woman on Shuhada Street in Hebron.

Amongst Ms Castelnuovo's photographs on the Lens blog, I chose the one above as my favorite. The photograph is of a group of Haredi Jews (or Haredim) during a festival in the Mea Shearim district of Jerusalem. The Haredim are Ultra-Orthodox Jews who consider their belief system and rituals to extend in an unbroken chain back to Moses.

I'm intrigued by some of the hats worn by these Haredim. The fur hats worn by some are called spodik while the flat ones are called shtreimel, however I can't figure those worn by the fellows on the left of the photograph which resemble white fezzes complete with black tassels.

The fez of course, is the well-known red hat with tassel of the Ottoman Empire, which was popular in its dominions such as Egypt, the Maghreb and some Greek islands. The fez was banned by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as being regressive.

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