Bhutan Photo Expedition: Just Because

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy/All Rights Reserved
I found this photograph amongst the thousands I made during the Tamshing Lakhang tsechu during my photo expedition Land of the Druk Yul. It appeals to me just because there's a human story unfolding here...unfortunately, I was whisked away to another spot before I could find out whether this was a monk greeting his wife and child, or whether he was the uncle, brother or just a friend. All I know is that this beautiful woman and her child had been waiting outside the lakhang for a while until he emerged, smiling broadly at them.

This is totally unrelated to this photograph, but I just read a hilarious post on David duChemin's blog...it has references to intestinal mutiny, a threatened body cavity search, a brief rant about how Kathmandu was maggoty with tourists, and an apt description of annoying European and American tourists.

I encountered a lot of those characters as well in Bhutan. The issue with Bhutan itineraries is that no matter how hard one tries, you'll invariably meet the same annoying tourists over and over again...either at one of the festivals or worse, at the same hotels. It's quite simple to identify the various nationalities...if they're really loud and look freshly showered in the mornings, they're usually Americans...if they hijack the only plate of butter from the buffet (and I have to walk up to their table and retrieve it), they're usually French...and as my friend Gavin Gough pointed out, they're British if one steps on their toes, and they're the ones who apologize.

The wisdom one acquires from traveling is just breathtaking, isn't it?

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Adriana Zehbrauskas: Daily Life Mexico

Photograph © Adriana Zehbrauskas/All Rights Reserved
Adriana Zehbrauskas is a Brazilian photographer/photojournalist, currently living in Mexico City. She received her degree in Journalism in 1989 and then moved to Paris where she studied Linguistics and Phonetics at the Sorbonne Nouvelle. Adriana worked as a staff photographer for Folha de Sao Paulo for 11 years, traveling extensively throughout the country and abroad, covering a variety of subjects. She also worked as James Nachtwey’s assistant in Brazil and New York, and studied with Mary Ellen Mark in Mexico and with Susan Meiselas in Colombia.

She's a frequent contributor to the New York Times, and her work appeared in Newsweek, Time, Glamour, The Guardian, Paris Match, Le Figaro Magazine, Elle U.S.A, Architectural Record, Time for Kids, The International Herald Tribune and La Nación, among others.

I had the privilege of meeting Adriana during the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City. Knowing the quality of her work, and despite having to teach my own multimedia classes, I was sorely tempted to play hookey and attend hers as a student...maybe the second Foundry Workshop will provide another opportunity to do so. I also had the pleasure of visiting her lovely home for lunch with a group of photographers, and can personally vouch for her gracious hospitality.

While I emphasize with Adriana's Faith portfolio, I was also struck by her images of her Daily Life in Mexico; the above photograph of a street musician in Oaxaca just clinched it for me. An immensely talented photographer, with an enormous capacity to share her talents with others.

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TOP's Canon G10 Review

The Online Photographer blog has a recent review of the Canon G10 by Edward Taylor, which is interesting on many levels. I'm in the market for what the article/post calls a DMD (Decisive Moment Digital) camera...in other words, a small camera that is easily portable and that can deliver a near-DSLR quality image, and one that I can use for whenever I get a street photography whimsy attack.

The dilemma will arise when I buy the Canon 5D II. I'll then have my trusted 1d Mark II as back-up when I travel, so where does that leave the G10, if indeed I get it? Is that what they call a Solomonic decision?

The G10 is attractive, not only because of its price, but because it's small (although larger than its predecessor, the G9), is solid, starts up fairly quickly, it has a wider 28mm to 140mm (equivalent) lens, it shoots RAW and the image quality is reported to be good.

I'm tired of reading highly technical gibberish-laden reviews that are seemingly written for rocket scientists...and chancing on such a meat & potatoes kind of review is a breath of fresh air. It tells me what I need to know...I may not agree with all of it, but at least I understand what I read.

Update: I now have the G10. Here are my first impressions. (Link)

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Bhutan Photo Expedition: Le "Chimping"

Photograph © Gavin Gough/All Rights Reserved
Here's a Soundslides candid behind the scenes look at the going-ons during the Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul photo expedition. All photographs are courtesy and copyright of Gavin Gough (those of him are obviously not...unless they were self-taken).

As can be seen from the above photo capture, we were singularly adept at the art of chimping during the Thangbi Mani tsechu.

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Book: Monumental India

As is my habit when I'm in London, I dropped by the High Street Kensington branch of Waterstones to browse its offerings of travel photography books. In the middle of a wobbly table, there was a large brick-colored sleeve enveloping The Monumental India Book by photographer Amit Pasricha, with an introduction by William Dalrymple...an Indiaphile and a damn good writer as well. Glancing at the price tag, and finding it to be a rather steep GBP 100 (at today's exchange that'll be about $165), I drew a sharp breath and flipped its pages...really savoring what I viewed.

The handsome book contains breathtaking panoramic views of India, its regal monuments and religious sites. It's obvious that Amit was given unfettered access to many hidden treasures. According to the Times of London, the photographer used "cutting-edge technology that enables a panoramic vista of up to 360 degrees, shot in several sections, to be encompassed within a two-dimensional picture – an impossibility with the naked eye."

An online preview of the book can seen here (LINK) Recommended.

Also, and courtesy of the TimesOnline, a set of ten photographs can be seen here (LINK)

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Bhutan: Land of Druk Yul Expedition

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy/All Rights Reserved
Here's one of the many images I made at the Tamshing Lakhang during the Tamshingphala festival in Bumthang, Bhutan. This was one of the festivals or tsechus on my Land of Druk Yul photo expedition's itinerary. It is of a young monk practicing with a conch shell before one of the festival's dances. The conch is used in Tibetan Buddhism to call together religious assemblies, and during rituals is used both as a musical instrument and as a container for holy water.

Tamshing is the original home of sacred dances that are celebrated at traditional Tsechus (festivals) throughout Bhutan, and is the most important Nyingmapa temple in Bhutan. The temple and monastery are remarkable for their direct connection to the Bhutanese saint Pema Lingpa.

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The 37th Frame

Pete Marovich, a photojournalist based in Harrisonburg, Virginia has started The 37th Frame a few weeks ago. The site seeks to bring to its readers the best of photojournalism and photography on the internet, by searching web sites of newspapers, magazines and independent photographers around the world, and posting links to the work.

Marovich states that his objective is to create a central place where photographers and fans of great photography can find exceptional photographs and essays. Having visited The 37th Frame (what a cool name!) a few times already, I look forward to many return visits in the months to come.

My thanks to Cathy Scholl for bringing it to my attention.

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Another Me Project

Photograph © Achinto Bhadra
The Terre des hommes Foundation (Lausanne, Switzerland) conceived the Another Me project in which the documentary photographer Achinto Bhadra and counselor Harleen Walia guided 126 girls and women through a healing journey of psychological transformation. Achinto’s portraits record trafficking survivors’ imaginative visions of themselves as human, animistic and divine beings of power, love, revenge and freedom.

The girls and women in the photographs, from 8 to 25 years old, are survivors of trafficking, rape or abandonment, or are the children of sex workers. They have been in the care of Sanlaap, a non-governmental organization based in Kolkata, India. The photography sessions were conducted at Sanlaap’s Sneha Girls Shelter.

The project's photographer is Achinto Bhadra, who studied photography at Chitra Bani, Kolkata and at the London College of Printing. He's a recipient of the Charles Wallace Scholarship. As an independent documentary photographer, he has spent years photographing the urban poor and marginalized children and women for national and international development agencies.

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DenverPost.com: Sukkot

Photograph AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh-All Rights Reserved
The Denver Post is another of the newspapers adopting large format images for its Captured Photo Blog of photo galleries, multimedia and video. While many of its features are of Colorado, it also offers international coverage such as the festival of Sukkot, which occurs during the latter two weeks of October in 2008. This Jewish festival commemorates the 40 years of wandering in the desert after the exodus of Jews from Egypt some 3200 years ago.

Browsing the photographs on the Sukkot feature, I stopped at the above image, which I initially thought to be of a Muslim imam, but is of a member of the Jewish Samaritan community. According to tradition, the Samaritans are descendants of Jews who were not deported when the Assyrians conquered Israel in the 8th century B.C. Click on the image to see it in a larger size.

The rest of the photographs are on the Denver Post's Captured

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Verdict: Bhutan Land of the Druk Yul

Photograph Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
After almost 3 weeks of not posting, getting back in the "groove" is not as easy as I thought it would be, but what better way to restart this blog's activity than by writing on the results of my photo expedition in the Land of the Druk Yul.

All of the festivals we photographed at were regional (or less), since I make it a point not to bother with the large tsechus in Thimpu or Paro. Incidentally, I heard the Thimpu festival was held outside of its traditional venue in the dzong's courtyard because of the number of the tour groups....so these large well-known (and well publicized by travel & tour companies) festivals are never destinations for my photo expeditions and never will be.

The local or regional festivals (tsechus) offered us an enormous amount of photo opportunities, as I made sure we were in the very heart of the activities as well as behind the scenes to capture the best there is in such events. Mostly through the hard work by our fixers and guides, and occasionally by serendipity, we ended the expedition with an hefty amount of photo inventory that will certainly occupy us for many months to come. Especially notable was our first day at the Tamshingphala festival, when the light was incredible due to the earlier thunderstorm. The photographs made in the lakhang's inner courtyard are just luminous.

Some members of another photo tour saw us photographing in the Tamshing monastery's inner courtyard, and joined us. Out of professional courtesy, I decided not to mention that what they were shooting so gleefully was actually a private photo shoot that we had pre-arranged, and made some donations to make it happen. In reality, the organizer of this photo tour should've thought of that, and arranged it...but he didn't.

On the downside, I noticed a number of souvenir vendors displaying their wares to tourists on the path to Tiger's Nest, and outside of a number of monasteries visited by tour groups. Nothing's really wrong in that since people need to make a living...but it was disconcerting to see them in areas where there was none just 2 years ago. There's absolutely no hassle involved, nor any touting...the Bhutanese are too polite for that...but it's a new phenomenon.

As is usually the case with travel in Bhutan during the high season, there's no firm guarantee as to whether we would end up in the hotels on our itinerary. We largely did however. However, the quality of accommodations vary from one hotel to the other...and we experienced tiny rooms (in realtor's parlance also known as "charmingly rustic") with wood-burning stoves, to enormous suites with all modern amenities. I was told that clients of large tour operators such as Mountain Sobek had the same hotel experience to the one we had. In fact, there was one such group in our hotel in Wangdue, so being part of a tour group set up by a large international travel company is no guarantee for uniform accommodations.

In Jakar (Bumthang) we were asked by our originally chosen hotel to share, by doubling up, our rooms, and I refused. So our guide Sonam, assisted by Ugyen and Norbu, found us alternative accommodations at the just-opened beautiful Peling hotel in Tamshing. Not only was this hotel a few minutes away from the scheduled festival, but it was the nicest hotel experience we've had in Bhutan. Despite teething problems (frequent power outages) during its soft opening, the staff of the Peling hotel were incredibly nice, accommodating and helpful. The owner of the Peling hotel is said to be one of the queens of Bhutan, and the hotel will eventually be a prime choice for many travelers to the area.

Finally, the group's synergy and chemistry was notably good on this photo expedition. The tribute for such an amicable and agreeable environment goes to the participants who were extremely supportive of one another. Much credit is deserved by our local support team of Sonam, Ugyen, Norbu and Dawa, who all performed their duties as guides, fixers, comfort blankets, picnic organizers etc. perfectly well. Our travel agents Samdrup of Jachung Travel in San Francisco, and Pema of Adventure Travel Bhutan in Thimpu, also kept a daily watch over our progress. Arranging for a support staff of 4 to our 11 members is a testament to the quality of these two travel companies.

I'm not shy of blowing my own horn when it comes to my expeditions, and I can justifiably tout the logistics and conduct of the Land of Druk Yul photo-expedition as having exceeded even my own high expectations. We consistently "scooped" other competing photo tours during the festivals, and stayed in accommodations where much more expensive tours also stayed...we were at festivals earlier than the rest of most groups, and this allowed us to pick our favored positions, make contacts amongst the festivals' clergy, and thus photograph behind the scenes.

The above photograph is of the dancers during the Tamshingphala tsechu who traditionally take the role of jokers...essentially warming up the crowd before the ritualistic dancing starts. if interested in the details, click on it for a larger version.

I'll be working on many more of my photographs made during the festivals, and as I also managed to record beautiful ambient sound, I'll eventually upload a multimedia feature.

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