Archive for February, 2010
Photo © Greg du Toit- (Courtesy The Daily Mail) -All Rights Reserved
Here’s an interesting story reported by The Daily Mail (a UK newspaper) which tells us that Greg du Toit, a wildlife photographer living in south Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, spent 3 months submerged in a wild lions watering hole for three months, just to get what he deemed to be the perfect photograph of these lions drinking.
The photographer had tried to get the right photograph for a year, but failed to get “it”, so he waded into the murky pool with his camera where he spent 270 hours and ended up contracting several tropical diseases, including the potentially deadly Bilharzia.
There are some inconsistencies in this story as the Daily Mail’s article mentions that the photographer spent 3 months in the watering hole, and then mentions 270 hours. Obviously, the hours (or days) he spent in there were not consecutive, but notwithstanding, it’s a testament to Greg’s single mindedness. Why he didn’t wear a wet suit to protect him from waterborne diseases is another question which is not addressed in the article.
Yes, photography is a waiting game. I think travel photography, in particular, requires infinite patience, certainly not to the extreme lengths this photographer seems to have gone to, but nevertheless persistence and tenacity are needed. “Parachuting” in a remote Indian village hoping to capture a bunch of wonderful images in an hour or two is -unless one is very lucky- an overly ambitious goal…a holy grail kind of thing. For that, one has to spend the time, establish the requisite connections and know how to engage people honestly, respectfully and with kindness.
Feb
27
i’m stripping away all the lies before the next millennium:
lies that my father loved me more than his masonic brethren,
lies that he married my mother while she was still a virgin,
lies about blackness, about whiteness, about who i am.
for the lies are like dead weights that pull me down
into the undertow of money, class, culture, race, and class,
distorting my features–the true reflection
Feb
26
Stas Horency, right, and Jeff Karolski man the kitchen Friday at the fish fry at Holy Trinity Polish National Catholic Church in Canton Township, Pa. (Scott Beveridge photo)
A coworker walked past my desk this afternoon and said, “Whatever you are eating smells good. It’s making me hungry.”
“Oh that’s me you smell,” I replied. I had just returned from spending two hours at a Lenten fish fry at a Catholic church for a newspaper assignment, and felt as if “I had been rolled in batter and dropped in the fryer.”
So fish fry is the cologne I wore at the office today.
Feb
26
Soldier’s goodbye & Bobbie the cat, ca. 1939-ca. 1945 / by Sam Hood, originally uploaded by State Library of New South Wales collection.
Western towns will benefit if sites are federally protected
An internal memo about more than a dozen natural areas considered for possible National Monument designation has surfaced. The areas that the Department of Interior is studying for management and protection by the National Park Service or other federal agency reported are:
- San Rafael Swell, UT
- Montana’s Northern Prairie, MT
- Lesser Prairie Chicken Preserve, NM
- Berryessa Snow Mountains, CA
- Heart of the Great Basin, NV
- Otero Mesa, NM
- Northwest Sonoran Desert, AZ
- Owyhee Desert, OR/NV
- Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, CA (expansion)
- Vermillion Basin, CO
- Bodie Hills, CA
- The Modoc Plateau, CA
- Cedar Mesa, UT
- San Juan Islands, WA
I suppose Messrs. Hatch and Herbert don’t think of the economic benefit that accrue to their state annually from visitors to Utah’s magnificent national parks: nearly 1 million Arches, more than 1 million to Bryce Canyon, nearly half a million to Canyonlands, about 600,000 to Capitol Reef and 2,689,840 who visited Zion. And that doesn’t include those who visit Monument Valley Tribal Park at the Arizona border and assorted national monuments, federal wildlife preserves and other public lands under federal jurisdiction. Rather than tourist dollars, I suppose Utah’s H-team prefers landmarks like the enormous, open-pit Kennecott Copper Mine, the world’s largest, just outside of Salt Lake City or uranium mining, even though a tailings pile from a mill near Moab is still leaching into the Colorado River.
The Grand Staircase-Escanlate National Monument in southern Utah was declared and placed under Bureau of Land Management protection under the Clinton Administration, raised howl of indignant protests from the legions of highly placed Utah aginners, including Senator Hatch who called it a “land grab.” It it was, the government grabbed 1.9 million acres, including land eyed for coal mining development Andalex Resources, a Dutch company.
Today, regardless of its stance then, the Kane County Chamber of Commerce now boasts: “Near the National Parks you will also find many State Parks and National Monuments, such as Kodachrome Basin State Park, Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Pipe Spring National Monument, Cedar Breaks National Monument, and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. With ninety-five percent of county lands administered by State and Federal Agencies, you’ll never run out of things to do, or places to go. Drive roads less traveled, and find a place to call your own.” Unspoken is” and stay, shop, eat and pump gas in Kanab and other nearby towns. And people who never would have heard of the place without national monument status do just that.
Fingers crossed that the government ignores the likes of Hatch Herbert, creates more federally protected areas — and provides the funding to manage them well
I’ve just received the book Soul Survivors from its author Charlotte Rush-Bailey, who was a participant in The Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat Photo~Expedition, and it’s certainly a wonderful addition to anyone’s travel book collection.
It’s essentially a tribute to the people of the Sahel, and focuses on Niger which Charlotte visited in the fall of 2005, amidst a food crisis that had enveloped that nation. Despite the food shortages, Charlotte marvels at how she was welcomed with generous hospitality everywhere she went. The book is full of lovely photographs; many of which are portraits, processed in the photographer-author’s signature style.
Published and available through Blurb, the link above provides a preview of some of the book’s pages. My favorite photograph of the book is the 5th on the preview strip, which is of a camel caravan. Just a perfect composition.
Charlotte Rush-Bailey’s website has more of her photography.
Agnes Dherbeys is a freelance photographer based in Bangkok since 2001. She decided to take up photography as a career after graduating from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and Sciences of Communication at the Sorbonne.
Since then, she mostly worked in Thailand, Cambodia, East Timor, Aceh), Nepal and the Palestinian Territories. She was recognized with numerous awards, and is member of the photo collective Eve Photographers
Her galleries generally depict social and humanitarian issues in South East Asia, such as Tibetans in exile (Nepal), 5 years after the tsunami (Aceh), the temple of doom (Thailand), and I chose her work in Cambodia titled The Street With No Name. This is a photo essay on the Karaoke girls in Siem Reap, and was photographed when Agnes attended Gary Knight’s workshop in July 2009.
Feb
26
Photo © Antonio Perez Rio-All Rights Reserved
Antonio Perez Rio is a Spanish emerging photographer with a special focus on documentary and travel photography. He has two degrees in Law and Social Work, as well as a specific training in creative writing. He has traveled to more than 20 countries, and speaks Spanish, English, French and is learning Arabic.
Antonio tells me that he plans to join the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul (June 2010) to broaden his already considerable skills.
His Omo Valley slideshow features many of the tribes found in southern Ethiopia, including the Hamer, Karo and the Arbore. Antonio’s use of flash brings to my mind the photographs made by Brent Stirton in the Lower Omo Valley.
Antonio also documented the various religious traditions of Benin, and the photographs can be found here.
For those of us who keep tabs on upcoming travel photographers, I predict we will see much more of Antonio’s work.
