POV: Swords Are Closer Than They Appear!

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy- All Rights Reserved

I've been asked as to how close (or far) this particularly fierce looking and menacing Oracle devotee was to me whilst I made this photograph. After all, he's wielding a ceremonial sword with a curved tip that seems to threaten my well-bring...and, depending on what lens I am using, could be inches or feet away from where I was.

This is one of the photographs I made during the festival of the Oracles of Kodungallur celebrated at the Bhagawati temple, which was one of the highlights of my Oracles of Kerala Photo Expedition-Workshop this past March. It involved the sacrifice of cocks and shedding of the Oracles own blood, to appease the goddess Kali and her demons who are said to relish blood offerings.

Well, I was inches away from him and was so close that I felt the draft or the swoosh made by the whirling of the sword above his head. My eye was glued to my viewfinder, shooting like crazy...and since I was using my 17-40mm f4.0 lens, set at probably 17mm.... I "saw" him at quite a safe distance.

Though he seemed rather out of it, I think he was still very aware of me...so I don't think I was in any danger despite the proximity.

But the moral of the story is that when one is photographing something like that, shoot with both eyes open! You'd avoid a splitting headache.

For the rest of the Oracles of Kodungallur photo essay, the gallery of stills is here, while the audio-slideshow is here.

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.

One Shot: Arun Bhat

Photo ©Arun Bhat-All Rights Reserved.
Arun Bhat is a travel photographer and writer based in Bangalore. He has been traveling all over India for past five years, especially the mountain regions, photographing the country's diverse culture and landscapes. He's also the author of The Painted Stork travel blog, and rides a Royal Enfield Bullet Thunderbird motorcycle during his travels across India.

While on my Theyyams of Malabar photo-expedition, I came across Arun as we were photographing a Theyyam ceremony at the Trikannad Temple near Kasargode. He mentions our encounter here, where you will find many more of his well composed images of the Theyyam. He captioned the above image of the Theyyam as practicing the raudra rasa, or anger expression, by looking at his refection in a hand mirror. (The image is not as sharp as the original sent by Arun...that's because I had to enlarge a bit for the blog).

One Shot: Fabiano Busdraghi

Photo ©Fabiano Busdraghi-All Rights Reserved.
I haven't posted a One Shot feature in quite a while, and Fabiano's work in Antarctica seemed just right for it.

Fabiano Busdraghi is a Milan-born Italian photographer. He has a master in Physics at the University of Pisa, and another in Oceanography and Meteorology at the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris where he now lives and works. He recently took photography and writing as his full time occupation, traveling to various remore areas of the world including Antarctica.

Fabiano's photographic works range from travel, reportage and more artistic and personal work. He works in digital and traditional photography, and has been using alternative techniques, such as palladium and platinum, gum bichromate, cyanotype, Van Dyke Brown, and carbon prints.

His main website is here.

One Shot: Aloha Diao Lavina: Bali

Photo ©Aloha Diao Lavina-All Rights Reserved
Aloha Diao Lavina's photographs have been featured in Estamos! a lifestyle magazine in Ecuador, in an illustrated poetry book in the US, and various online magazines including Utata Tribal Photography. She won second place in the Betterphoto contest, and is a fellow of the Bangkok Photographic Society, and a featured photographer of Fotegrafik, an image bank in Singapore.

Aloha, apart from being a multi-faceted photographer, is also a doctoral student researching the interaction of culture and creativity in children.

From her many excellent galleries, I chose the above photograph for the One Shot feature, and it's from her Eye on Bali. Her travel galleries include Myanmar, Rajasthan, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos.

One Shot: Peter Bendheim: Sangoma

Photo ©Peter Bendheim-All Rights Reserved
Peter Bendheim is a documentary photographer in Durban, South Africa. He's represented by africapictures.net and his work is part of the permanent collection of the Durban Art Gallery, and his documentary work was exhibited in various galleries to include on the Digital Journalist website.

Peter's favorite photographers are Sebastiao Salgado, W. Eugene Smith, Gary Winogrand and Martin Parr. His favorite camera equipment is Nikon, and is the editor and principal photographer of MetroBeat, a full color magazine of 400,000 copies in circulation. He also worked with the National Geographic Traveler magazine on a specific assignment.

I chose his portrait of sangomas for this post. Sangomas are practitioners of herbal medicine, divination and counseling in traditional the Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swazi societies of Southern Africa. The practice is based on a belief in ancestral spirits.

One Shot: Anoop Negi

Image Copyright © Anoop Negi-All Rights Reserved
Anoop Negi is a photographer from India, whose above photograph of a Theyyam dancer in Kerala can only be described in my view as "National Geographic" quality. I found his work on Flickr, but his biography is sparse.

This photograph is of a dancer symbolizing a male deity in the dance form popularly known as "Theyyam". Theyyam is a popular ritual dance of north Kerala,generally performed in front of the village shrines, and also performed as ancestor worship with elaborate rites and rituals.

In earlier posts on TTP, here and here, I wrote this on Theyyam: Theyyam is a popular ritual dance of north Kerala, south India, particularly presented in the Kannur and Kasargode districts. It originates from centuries old traditions, rituals and customs, and as such embraces almost all castes and classes of Hindu religion in this region. The term Theyyam is a corrupt form of daivam or God. It is a rare combination of dance and music and reflects important features of a tribal culture.

Anoop Negi's Flickr page is here.

One Shot: Goran Tomasevic

Image Copyright © Goran Tomasevic-All Rights Reserved
I chanced on this great photograph on the MSNBC photoblog (link below). The photograph is by Goran Tomasevic for Reuters, and is of an Afghan little boy looking at Dutch soldiers as they search his family's home in the Uruzagu province in Afghanistan. Tomasevic photographs for Reuters, and has made quite a name for himself in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mish Whalen, one of MSNBC's multimedia editors (who must've chosen this photograph for inclusion on the blog) commented on the photograph by writing this: "This photo caught my eye at first glance. I love the one eye of the woman on the left peeking out from the hood."

Whaaaat?!!! Ms Whalen ignores the overall tension in the scene, ignores the fear in this little boy's eyes, glosses over the apprehension in the woman's eye, and ignores the mother's protective crouch over her children... and crows about the "eye peeking out"?

Yes, I know...it's a storm in a teacup, but I'm just saying.

MSNBC's Photo Blog

One Shot: Tatiana Cardeal

Image Copyright ©Tatiana Cardeal -All Rights Reserved
Tatiana Cardeal is a Brazilian independent photographer based in Sao Paulo, who spent her early career as an art director and graphic designer for international magazines. She decided to shift her focus to photography and document social, cultural and human right issues in 2003.

Her particular interest in South American indigenous people started at an early age, when she studied indigenous traditions and cultures. She calls her photography "social photography" because of the consequences and possible social changes that evolve from it. Her photographs can be interpreted as a denunciation, a call for action or a petition to help indigenous people by respecting them, respecting their land, their economy, their needs and their culture.

Tatiana says that her projects are long term in nature...some take at least 4 years to complete...but despite the difficulties, the lack of funding and the skepticism and frequent bureaucratic obstacles, she perseveres in documenting the various South American indigenous people. With the quality of her photography and her tenacity, I hope she is successful in her noble objectives.

Tatiana Cardeal's Blog

NY Times: Christian Lebanon

Image Copyright © Bryan Denton for The New York Times-All Rights Reserved
An interesting slideshow and an accompanying article from the New York Times deals with the current political situation in Lebanon...interesting to those who follow events in the Middle East. Robert Fisk, the preeminent journalist at the Independent newspaper and bestselling author, who's an expert on Lebanon (and the Middle East), has warned repeatedly that the Lebanese are on the edge of a civil war.

The article in the NY Times highlights that the current "struggle is over who gets to be the next president, a post reserved for a Christian under Lebanon’s Constitution, and which must be filled by the end of November. But the larger question — one that is prompting rival Christian factions to threaten war — is whether Lebanese Christians must accept their minority status and get along with the Muslim majority or whether Christians should insist on special privileges no matter what their share of the population."

Isn't majority rule one of the fundamental principles of democracy?

Another telling paragraph in the article: "The Christians allied with Hezbollah have had to overcome their own deeply entrenched prejudice against Muslims, Mr. Franjieh said: “We were always taught that we were superior to the Muslims. Now we must realize they are our brothers, and we must help each other.”

Ah, yes...the poison of religious racism.

In my view, Muslim political dominance in Lebanon is inevitable...it'll either be achieved by changing the country's constitution or through civil war.

The slideshow is of photographs by Bryan Denton.

Here's The New York Times' Christian Lebanon Registration may be required.

One Shot: Subhash Sharma

Image Copyright © Subhash Sharma-All Rights Reserved
Subhash Sharma is a freelance photographer based in Mumbai, who frequently chooses his own photo stories rather than those handed over to him by editors. An admirer of the works of Ernst Haas, Andre Kersetz, and Sebastiao Salgado, he's primarily interested in photographing ordinary people in their daily environment and circumstances. His first book titled “Digital Glimpses Of India” was well received, and his forthcoming book “ The Land Of The Holymen “ is currently under print and explores the lifestyle of the Naga Sadhus (naked aescetics) of India.

For this week's One Shot feature, I chose Subhash's sobering photograph of Maina Bai, a Jain in the process of committing the act of Santhara. This is a procedure in which a Jain stops eating with the intention of preparing for death. It is differentiated from suicide as it is not done in an emotional state of mind, but is undertaken only when the body is no more capable of serving its owner as a instrument of sprituality and when inevitability of death is a matter of undisputed certainty.

Subhash tells me that Maina succumbed after 25 days of Santhara. She felt guilty that it was taking so long for her to die as her guru and disciples had to wait. He was witness to Maina's final days, and was awed by the certainty in her decision.

There's an ethical debate in India concerning the legality of Santhara. In India, euthanasia is banned and suicide is a crime, but proponents of Santhara argue that it cannot be termed as suicide... the persons who undertake it do so with an open mind and conscious thought, and it's part of the Jain religion and customs, traditions and rituals are protected by India's constitutional guarantees.

Subhash's other photographs on Bishnois, Jainism, Pushkar, Indian Islam, the festivals of Kumbh Mela, Holi and Dahi Handi can be seen in his Photoshelter Galleries

One Shot: Mahesh Shantaram

Image Copyright © Mahesh Shantaram-All Rights Reserved
Mahesh Shantaram lives in Bangalore, India and earned his diploma in photography from the Spéos Institute, Paris. He currently is an independent photographer. Having spent seven years into a career in technology media and publishing, he worked as a tech research analyst in Washington, DC, but returned to India last year.

As a photographer, Mahesh is dedicated to working on modern themes, especially on the phenomenon that is Bangalore, with a contemporary style of art-meets-documentary photography that is firmly rooted in the here-and-now.

I chose this image of bus commuters in Kandy, Sri Lanka...I chose it because of its mix of lighting: inside the bus and from a street lamp. An urban street scene, with just the right amount of blur to indicate the passenger getting into the bus.

For further images and blog thoughts from Mahesh, go to The Contrarian.

One Shot: Claude Renault

Image Copyright Claude Renault-All Rights Reserved
Claude Renault is a photographer originally hailing from Brittany (Bretagne) in France, and is now making Iceland his domicile. Incredibly "Indiaphile", he travels regularly to India, and based on what I've seen of his immense collection of photographs, has traversed the Indian subcontinent many times and in all and every directions.

He avoids mainstream India and its tourist circuits, but is seduced by the people of India...the regular people, the village and small town cultures. He followed the flow of India's many sacred rivers, from the sources of such rivers to the sea, immersing himself in the rituals along the Ganges, the Yamuna, the Narmada and the Cauvery. Inspired by the Gauguin and Vuillard, he uses India's commonplace to create potent scenes of humanity.

Claude tells us that he's not religious nor spiritual, but is fascinated by Hinduism covering every facet of life in India. I know precisely what he means by this statement, as I feel the same way....perhaps not about Hindusim per se, but about India's inherent spirituality which I've witnessed so personally during the Hindu pilgrimage of the Kumbh Mela, on the banks of Varanasi and Rishikesh, in the Sufi dargahs of Delhi and Ajmer and in the Buddhist enclaves of Dharmasala and Sikkim.

From his immense gallery of photographs, I chose this one of a woman giving water to a beggar. The photograph was made in the village of Badami in Karnataka. Claude says that the woman had fed the beggar before giving him water. A way of life in India. (Click on the photograph for a better resolution).

Claude's website/blog

One Shot: Penni Webb

Image Copyright © Penni Webb - All Rights Reserved
Penni is a photographer, photo stylist, photography teacher, and finds the time to run a business as an interior designer and as an organizer for businesses in San Francisco. She received Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree from the University of Arizona and worked on my Master’s degree in Photography at the city's Art Institute. She created etchings and monotypes at the Kala Institute in Berkeley, and her work traveled to several museums and art centers in Colorado and Arizona. She was the artist in residence at Magnolia Editions (Oakland) where she worked on lithographs from her own photographs.

Her Beauty of Aging series were taken on her travels. The collection is a look at old building, walls, cottages, windows, gates, and other structures from the past that still carry a sense of elegance from the effects of time and weather. She hand paints her photographs like the artists of the early 19th century. Describing her work, she says "Painting creates another dimension for the photograph, and the final result is a unique fusion of fact and fantasy, the world as it is and as it is imagined. I have worked on this series for a number of years, and it is a reflection of my own feelings about aging, a transition that can be beautiful."

Penni also worked as a mentor for “Bridges to Understanding” on the Navajo Reservation (Northern Arizona), in Ollantaytambo (Peru), and in Dharmasala (India) teaching children digital photography, a project for the Smithsonian and other American museums. In fall 2006, she joined me on my Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon photo expedition, photographing the culture and people.

Her hand painted image of a novice monk darting into his monastery was photographed at Wangdichholing Palace (converted to a monastery) near the town of Jakar. It was built in 1857 as the principal residence of Bhutan's first king and was used by the second and third, but it is now used a Buddhist school.

Here are Penni Webb's: The Beauty of Aging and Penni Webb Design websites.

One Shot: Jon Ryder

Image Copyright © Jon Ryder - All Rights Reserved
Jon Ryder is a dentist, a photographer, and a teacher who uses his skills to help the children of Cambodia. He currently provides dental care at the Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap.

He is also involved with the United Planet Organization which provides financial and educational support to professionals in countries such as Cambodia.

I am pleased to welcome Jon's photograph of a Buddhist monk praying at the feet of a gilded Buddha statue as this week's One Shot. The photograph could have been taken in Thailand for two reasons: the Subduing Mara sitting position of the Buddha (which is common in Thailand), and the orange color of the monk's which is characteristic of the Southeast Asian Theravada Buddhist order.

The Buddha's hand gesture signifies the calling the Earth to witness. It's only found in the sitting position, and is similar to the meditation position. The left hand remains in the lap, while the right hand rests on the thigh near the knee, palm inward, and fingers touching the ground slightly. It represents the moment when Buddha took the earth as testimony when he had resolved the problem of cessation of suffering while he was under the peepal tree at Bodh-Gaya.

The photograph is probably posed, but I liked the composition and the complementary colors of the robes and the gild on the statue. I would've probably photographed the scene from a wider angle, but I think it's evocative as it is...although a bit stilted. It's certainly a typical travel photograph...excellent for stock.

Jon Ryder's website is full of similar photographs, and I urge you to visit it as well as his worthwhile cause, United Planet's website.

One Shot: Felice Willat

Having co-founded Day Runner Inc, Felice Willat is now founder and president of Tools With Heart, a company that develops products to inspire and enhance personal discovery and well being. A successful entrepreneur, and with a strong background in network television production, Felice is also an accomplished photographer, selling a selection of her photographs through Tools With Hearts' website.

Felice recently visited Vietnam, and I chose one of her beautiful photographs from Hanoi, which she titled "Hanoi Prayers". The photograph of this serene scene was taken in the very early morning hours as she walked around Hoan Kiem Lake located in the center of Hanoi. It is also called Lake of the Restored Sword derived from a legend. Felice tells me that thousands of people arrive daily at the lake for prayers, tai chi and many other beautiful movements with colorful fans and swords.

It is said that when visiting Hanoi, if the visitor does not see the Sword Lake, then they would not have actually been in Hanoi. The lake is an endless topic and inspiration for painters, poets, writers, music composers, etc, and innumerable works about the lake have been produced.

One Shot: Candace Feit

Image Copyright © Candace Feit - All Rights Reserved
One Shot is a brand new feature on TTP. It'll be similar in concept to the weekly Beyond The Frame, but will focus on a single photograph by a featured photojournalist or travel photographer rather than on my own work, giving the background story on the chosen photograph. I can't say how frequent or regular that feature will be, as it will entirely depends on whenever I find a photograph that 'speaks' to me and that has a really interesting cultural or historical story behind it.

I'm happy to start off the One Shot feature with a photograph by the enormously talented Candace Feit of a young student (a talibe) studying and memorizing Qur'anic verses in an Islamic school in the Senegal. These students (the "talibes"), are mostly from poor rural families, and study at a daara, or school, run by a religious teacher or a marabout, with whom they live. Classes consist mainly of memorizing Koranic verses, but most of the day is spent on the streets begging. Some critics say that marabouts are a cross between a modern-day Fagin and a tutor, while others see them as performing a social service by taking in these needy children but, in the absence of social services, having to survive through begging.

Candace tells me that these young boys are also known as "tomato-can" children because that is what they use to collect money, sugar, rice, or whatever they are given when they are begging in the streets. Another interesting fact is that the wooden boards on which the youngsters write the Qur'anic verses are washed clean as soon as the verses are memorized. However, the washed ink is never thrown out but is given to sick people who add it to their bathing water for healing purposes. Although I have an old wooden writing board with Qur'anic inscriptions and the diagram of a mosque on its face, I never knew that about the washed ink.

I like the way Candace made this particular photograph, standing above the student...the back of his head contrasting with the bright surface of the wooden board (what do they call these boards!?...they must have a name), and the curvature of his hand against the elegant Arabic script. (Click on it to see it in a larger size).

The whole concept behind these Islamic schools or daara as they're called locally, is virtually identical to the monastic schools for Buddhist novitiates in many Asian countries.

I've already featured Candace Feit's immense photographic talents in an earlier post, and you can see the rest of Candace's photographs of the Islamic Schools in the Senegal on her website.