POV: A Tribute to Palestinian Photographers

Photo © Mahmud Hams/AFP-Getty-All Rights Reserved
We all see the wanton carnage and loss of innocent civilians in Gaza on our television screens, in newspapers and on the web. We also learn that the Israeli government has denied access to Gaza for the world’s media despite its country's Supreme Court ruling otherwise.

The Foreign Press Association said this denial amounts to a violation of press freedom and puts the state of Israel in the company of a handful of regimes around the world which regularly keep journalists from doing their jobs.” (Source: The New York Times).

Despite the clamp on the media, some courageous Palestinian photographers have worked in Gaza, putting their lives at risk, working under unimaginable difficulties, and facing incalculable psychological damage from documenting all they see. So I thought of naming them here...a small tribute to their courage:

Mohammed Abed
Suhaib Salem
Ismail Zaydah
Said Khatib
Khalil Hamra
Mohamed Salem
Mahmud Shams
Abid Katib
Eyad Baba

In the meantime we wait to hear from Elie Wiesel, the celebrated "humanitarian" voice who famously said:

"...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all..."

Will you at least whisper the same words Mr Wiesel, or are the Palestinian dead children in the above picture still not worth it?

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Cham! The Dancing Monks of Tamshing!

Image © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Here's a recently produced audio slideshow titled Cham !! of the photographs I made during my October 2008 photo-expedition Land of the Druk Yul. The audio was recorded live while at the monastery of Tamshing in the religious heartland of Bhutan.

For uploading to my website, I prefer to use large format images as you see in this slideshow, however for publishing in a commercial website, I would use a much smaller size and reduce its footprint.

(Click on the image to see it in larger format).

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PBS: The Story of India

Image © Callum Bulmer-All Rights Reserved
Yesterday's New York Times' reports that “The Story of India”, a six-hour, three-night mini-series will begin Monday on most PBS stations.

The series is from the British historian Michael Wood, whose projects have included “Art of the Western World” and “Conquistadors.” I met Michael Wood in 2001 while photographing the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabd. I presume that some of the footage he produced there will make its way in the series.

The article promises a documentary with lush photography, fascinating facts, and sense of discovery. Just in time to whet my appetite for my forthcoming Theyyam of Malabar photo-expedition!

I'm surprised that there are no credits for the photographs which appear on the PBS website.

Correction: Ethan Goldstine (Producer at kapow, inc) emailed me pointing out that there is a photo credit on the film credits page, and the correction has now been made.

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Bhutan Photo Expedition: Candid Shot

Photo © Alicia Conde-All Rights Reserved
I recently received an email from Alicia Conde, who's a photographer from Belgium I met on various occasions during our stops in Bhutan last October, and she kindly attached this photograph made in the Chorten Memorial in the capital city of Thimpu.

It shows (right to left) Ugyen, one of the photo-expeditions two fixer-guides wearing the traditional gho, Gavin Gough (with the hat and his back to us), Ralph Childs aiming his camera carefully at the spinning prayer wheel, and I at the left.

Unfortunately, Alicia's mail server keeps spitting my thank you email back at me. As she tells me that she reads The Travel Photographer blog (and let's be honest...who doesn't?), this post will let her know that I'm trying to thank her.

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Marcus Bleasdale: Banker-Photojournalist

I just read an article in the UK's Telegraph on the photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale, and his change of career from banker to photographer. The article highlights how someone who clearly didn't feel comfortable in the world of finance moved towards the uncertain and dangerous life of a photojournalist involved in conflict.

The article starts with this:

"As an investment banker, Marcus Bleasdale was paid £500,000 a year to sit in front of 10 computers and 25 phones. 'My job was to produce for the bank,’ he remembers, 'almost like being a battery chicken, sitting there laying eggs.’ There were perks, of course, and before the age of 30 Bleasdale was the owner of two houses and a 1968 Porsche 911, and he spent weekends skiing in the Alps.
"

And ends with this:

"Does he feel he has changed? 'I think I appreciate life a lot more. I think I’m more sensitive. I think,’ he concludes, 'I’m a nicer guy.’"

Marcus Bleasdale spent 8 years covering the brutal conflict within the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the work was published in his book “One Hundred Years of Darkness". He is widely published in the UK, Europe and the USA in publications such as The Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Saturday Magazine, Geo Magazine, The New Yorker, TIME and Newsweek, LIFE and National Geographic Magazine. In 2004 he was awarded UNICEF Photographer of the Year Award, the 3p Grant and the Alexia Foundation Grant. Marcus was awarded a World Press Photo award in 2006 and the Olivier Rebbot Award by the Overseas Press Club 2006, and is represented by VII.

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Lenovo ThinkPad W700: Mac Killer?

Photo courtesy Lenovo
Lenovo is expected to announce the first significant update of its ThinkPad W700 laptop since it was introduced in the fall of 2008. Included in the new specs is an optional (which usually means more $$$) slide-out second screen in a model called W700ds, a more affordable quad core processor option, the ability to order the machine with as much as 8GB of RAM (up from a maximum of 4GB previously) and the correcting of a problem that rendered the optional built-in CompactFlash slot unusably slow.

Yes, you read correctly. A second slide-out screen! This laptop is principally aimed at photographers and graphic artists. The W700ds incorporates a 10.6 inch, 768 x 1280 pixel LED-backlit display alongside the unit's 17 inch, 1920 x 1200 pixel CCFL-backlit primary display. The smaller screen slides in and out of a slot on the back of the main screen, and will add $400-500 to the already pricey laptop.

The Lenovo ThinkPad W700 via Rob Galbraith.

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Dai Sugano: Left Behind

Image © Dai Sugano/Mercury News-All Rights Reserved
Native of Japan, Dai Sugano is an Emmy award winning photojournalist and senior multimedia editor at the San Jose Mercury News. He produced Left Behind, a powerful multimedia essay on the poverty-stricken of India, left behind in the wake of the country's economic growth.

Dai co-created MercuryNewsPhoto.com whose interactive storytelling has been judged among the world's best two years in the Pictures of the Year International contest, and he covers a wide range of assignments such as Hmong refugees' immigration to the United States; the California Recall; former Japanese internment camp survivors, and a number of stories in politics.

In 2008, "Uprooted," which looks at displacement of a group of mobile home residents in Sunnyvale, won an Emmy Award in the category of New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming: Documentaries. His other works have been nominated for an Emmy Award and a Pulitzer Prize in photography; and have received international and national recognitions.

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Canon 5D Mark II: Adding Copyright Data

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon flipping the pages of my new 5D Mark II's manual, trying to figure out how to add a copyright notice and my name to its EXIF shooting data, with no success.

A friend with infinite patience (and truth be told, doubly so because he's not a 5D Mark II owner) took the time to really read the relevant part of the online manual, and suggested that I ought to install the EOS Utility software instead of using the CD as a coaster as I usually do.

To cut a short story even shorter, the copyright notice and my name are now embedded in each image's EXIF.

As a public service to those of you who are manual-phobic like me, there's also a link of the Canon Digital Learning Center (Gee, who would have thought to look there?) that explains all this in details much better than I can.

My thanks to Ralph Childs, who's a patient man.

PS. I've been testing the camera's video capabilities, and immediately concluded that its built-in microphone's quality is limited. So I've been using the external Sony ECM-DS30P stereo microphone. It juts out from the camera's side, but the audio quality is infinitely better.

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NYT: Behind The Lens in Iraq #1

Photo © Max Becherer/Polaris-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times brings us an audio slideshow of a conversation with three veteran war photographers in Iraq: Joao Silva, Max Becherer and Franco Pagetti, three highly experienced photographers who have covered every phase of the Iraq conflict, and hosted by The New York Times’s Baghdad Correspondent Stephen Farrell.

Joao Silva is a Portuguese-born photographer who has worked for The New York Times as a contract photographer since 2000. The same year he was co-author of “The Bang-Bang Club,” a factual account of news photographers who covered the end of the apartheid era in South Africa. In 2005 he published “In The Company of God,” a photographic book on Iraqi Shiites during and after the 2003 invasion. He is based in Johannesburg.

Max Becherer is a Cairo-based photojournalist who has covered Iraq for The New York Times since 2004. He has also worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Times. He has been represented by Polaris Images since 2004.

Franco Pagetti is an Italian photojournalist who has covered the Iraq war since January 2003, mainly on assignment for Time magazine. He has also worked in Afghanistan, the Middle East, the Balkans and Africa. He joined the VII Photo Agency in November 2007.

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Eric Meola: India

The last few posts of 2008 on The Travel Photographer have been about misery...massacre in Gaza, circumcision of a sweet 7 year-old Kurdish girl, an orthopedic rehabilitation program in Afghanistan...so it's about time for a joyous post, and what better way to usher in 2009 than with the colorful (really colorful!) imagery of Eric Meola, and his new book, India: In Words & Images. My favorite photographic destination and blinding color...what a treat!

I haven't yet seen the book in its real format, but from the images on its website, it's immediately obvious that Eric Meola's book is suffused with light and color. The photographer's journeys took him from the Himalayas and monasteries in India's north to the temples of Tamil Nadu in the south, from the color and pageantry of Rajasthan in the west to the tea plantations of Darjeeling in the east.

Eric is a self-taught photographer, who opened his own studio in 1971. For over twenty years he has done editorial and corporate photography for major clients and agencies. His photographs are included in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the International Center of Photography in New York, the George Eastman House and the Museum of Modern Art in Munich.

Give yourself a break from the drabness of current events, the venality of international and local politics, the horrors of religious racism and tribalism, etc and take a peek at India: In Words & Images...2009 may be sunnier!

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