SAMSARA

Many are familiar with the breathtaking movie Baraka... but now its film makers have produced Samsara.

Samsara is the new non verbal documentary film by the creators of "Baraka". It took five years to make, and was shot in over 100 locations in 25 countries. It is one of only a handful of films to be shot on 70mm film in the last forty years.

The documentary takes us to sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial sites, and natural wonders. It was photographed entirely in 70mm film utilizing both standard frame rates and with a motion control time-lapse camera designed specifically for this project.

It will be shown on August 23 in New York City at the Landmark Sunshine theater (143 East Houston Street), and subsequently in other major US cities.

Charlotte Rush Bailey: The WPGA Portraits Awards

Photo © Charlotte Rush-Bailey-All Rights Reserved

A third-time participant in my photo-expeditions/workshops, Charlotte Rush-Bailey was just short listed on the prestigious Worldwide Photography Gala Awards (WPGA) Portrait Awards for her monochrome portrait of Fatima. Naturally, I wish her the best of luck to win it!

This lovely portrait was made at the Kodungallur medrasa near the Cheraman Juma Masjid, during The Oracles Of Kerala Photo-Expedition-Workshop. I am especially pleased that this environmental portrait is in landscape format...as I consistently encourage participants in my workshops to adopt it as much as possible as it lends itself better to multimedia, and allows a more layered composition. I'm also gratified that participants in my photo expedition-workshops, not only learn new skills on them, but enter serious photographic competitions, and frequently win.

Charlotte is a photographer who migrated to the world of photography from a corporate career that covered three decades of marketing and communications positions in a variety of global industries including energy, financial services, media, conservation, technology and professional services.

The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards (WPGA) provides a juried competitions for professionals and amateur photographers from around the world to compete in the WPGA Annual Award for the WPGA Photographer of the Year Award and the Humanitarian Documentary Grant

Anthony Pond: Kathakali, The Story Dance

Anthony Pond is hardly a stranger to The Travel Photographer blog, as Kathakali, The Story Dance of Kerala is the newest one of his many audio slideshows I've already featured.

In this latest one, Tony has very ably merged stills, ambient audio with video clips to produce a 3 minute multimedia look into the backstage preparations for a Kathakali performance, and then the performance itself.

Tony was a participant in The Oracles Of Kerala Photo Expedition-Workshop during which I had arranged a private photo shoot involving the performers of this ancient art form. The 3 hours make-up session, and the 2-1/2 hours performance took place at the Kalatharangini Kathakali School near Cheruthuruthy. The performers' intensity was incredible, and I recall mentioning that earlier on this blog that it had been the best Kathakali performance I'd ever witnessed...Tony's stills and video have very well captured that intensity.

Anthony Pond worked for more than two decades in the criminal courts in California as an attorney for the Public Defender’s Office. Now pursuing his passion for travel and photography, he travels repeatedly to South East Asia and India, amongst other places, to capture life, the people and the culture.

Sea Turtles watching (lay eggs) during night time at the beach of Terengganu

We being bought to the first stop (N4.19112 E103.44248), then got to know that the sea turtles had made a U-Turn back to sea...initially, I thought...'what a disappointment!'...but the 'tour guide' received a phone call and ask all of us go to the second spot (N4.20295 E103.43993) which was about 1.5km away (both were at the same Mak Nik Beach) from the original place.

At the second spot, the 'tour guide' explained about the sea turtles and showed us the turtles hatching area while waiting for the Sea Turtles to comfortly dig the hole...

The sea turtles hatching area at the second spot

Everyone has a experience to touch and hold the baby turtles which just born 2-3 hours ago...

Feel the baby turtle...

The 'tour guide' told us that every egg need to hatch for at least 45 days, and out of One Thousand baby turtles which return back to the sea...ONLY One will survive! Oh! That's One out of A Thousand! And if the surviver is female, it'll be back to this same beach after 25 years...but if it's male, it won't be back for its whole life....

The sea turtles took a long time to dig a big hole for herself and another small hole for the eggs...we were waiting at total dark beach...once the signal given, all of us separate to few groups and take turns to watch the sea turtle laying eggs...

The huge sea turtle was laying eggs...

Everyone was busy taking photos and NO FLASH is allow! Only lights...

But my luck wasn't that good because when I stand closed to the turtle, its started to covered up the small hole...that means its finished laying eggs for the night! OH! I miss the golden chance to snap the laying eggs photos! My goodness!

The turtle covered up the small hole at her back...

Even the turtle finished laying the eggs, everyone still continue to take photos non-stop...

The Sea Turtle at Mak Nik Beach, Chukai - Terengganu

The turtle was huge! It's about 1.5 meter long and 1 meter wide...
As you can notice the 'tears' in its eyes after she finished laying eggs, some said because its upset that going to leave all its baby on the beach....But, Actually...the 'tour guide' said it's because of the 'sea water' and another reason is trying to protect the eyes from sands...That's the true reason! Everyone was laughing after the explaination....Haha!

Can you see the turtle is crying?!

The turtle will going to take some times to cover back the big hole before it get back to the sea...at that time, our tour guide ask all of us line up in one line on the beach where not far away from the mother turtle...

Everyone was given with one or two baby turtles in hand. He said "name your turtles!" And wish the baby turtle 'Good Luck!'  Because in the next moment, we'll be letting all these baby turtles back to the sea! Exciting isn't it? :)

One of the baby turtle...

Everyone line up in one strait line...

All the baby turtles can't see anything on that moment, because they just born 2-3 hours ago, but they will 'follow the light'. Therfore, one of the assistant of the tour guide was light up a Spot Light from the sea direction....
1, 2, 3! Everyone started to let go the baby turtles!

All the baby turtles ran Very Fast towards the light, yeah...to the sea! ...back home...
We got to be Very careful to see front and back by avoiding to step on them! Because its everywhere on the beach! Haha!

Some of them were lost their way, our responsibility to direct them to the sea...

One of the lost baby turtle...(wrong direction...)

When I saw partial of them got into the water....the moment was so Touch! Awesome!
You have to feel it yourself on the spot...hehe!

Partial baby turtles found in the water...

Then we started to prayed for them...to be strong and survive! Most of the little turtles will become the food of the bigger fish and birds during day time...that's why Only one will survive from the thousand...

The little one no need food for the first week, then they will start to eat the sea weeds and jelly fish. The tour guide said, he saw some dead sea turtles on the beach sometimes ago, because the sea turtles ate some plastic bags and they thought that was jelly fish!

So we have to keep our ocean clean and don't let the sea turtles die again from the rubbish!

Once all the little turtles swim into the sea...we heard someone shouted : "The mother is going back to the sea!" At that time, the mother turtle finished cover up the hole and crawl heavyly toward the sea...

All of us greeted the turtle and said "Bye-Bye and see you again"...

The next program will be the time to dig out all the eggs and bring them to the hatching center...

Everyone has a chance to feel the eggs...

Total of 91 eggs as counted...

It was A Great educational trip! I advise you have to go for it at least Once! We like it very much!

If you drive yourself to the beach, there will be no charges at all! But the disadvantages are no tour guide to explain and no chance to feel the little baby...

I will watch the sea turtles again in our next visit to Cherating!

Once we got back the Resort, me, Mr Anthony, Mr Praba and Mr Siva (The Resort Manager) end our day in a few mugs of Tiger Draught in the pub...

Related post :
*  Media FAM Trip 2012 at Cherating, Pahang.

Location map of the Turtle laying eggs at Mak Nik Beach, Chukai - Terengganu.

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Luj Moarf: Thaipusam

The Hindu festival of Thaipusam is about faith, endurance, mortification and penance. In Malaysia, it's an intensely devotional event which can stretch for 3 or 4 days, and is attended by about a million and a half people each year. It's a time for Hindus of all castes and cultures to be grateful to Murugan, a son of Shiva.

It was brought to Malaysia in the 1800s by Indian immigrants working on Malaysian rubber estates and in its government offices. The festival is celebrated mostly by the Tamil community, and commemorates the occasion when Parvati gave Murugan a spear to vanquish the evil demon Soorapadam.

On the day of the festival, devotees shave their heads and undertake a pilgrimage along a set route while engaging in various acts of devotion, notably carrying various types of heavy burdens, while others may carry out acts of self mortification by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with skewers and sharp hooks. Not for the faint of heart.

Faith-Thaipusam is a 5 minutes video by a photographer called Luj Moarf who describes himself as a traveller, wandering into the world discovering places and people.

Some of the rituals followed during Thaipusam, including the red garments worn by some of the devotees, reminded me of The Oracles of Kodungallur.

LGBT At The Pier (With The Fuji X Pro-1)

Having spent most of the late morning and early afternoon on Fifth Avenue photographing the Gay Pride Parade, I felt rather bored by the commercialization of the parade with the incessant floats carrying some form of corporate logo and, although having found a nice shady spot, being unable to penetrate the phalanxes of barricades, I decided to switch gears...and walk down to the West Village and get some street photography going.

From the West Village, I followed the young crowds along Christopher Street to the Hudson River Park, and once there, started the shoot from the hip.

Within an hour of my return home, I put together an audio slideshow of some of the photographs I made with the Fuji X Pro-1. Most of the photographs were shot from the hip...some were Hail Marys...and a few were composed through the viewfinder. I used the Vivid film simulation setting, and I'm very pleased with the results. None of the photographs were processed beyond a little sharpening.

Dinner by the poolside of Legend Resort, Cherating.

After the short speech of Pahang Tourism Minister - Mr Amran Abdul Rahman, we proceeded to the poolside for our first dinner at Legend Resort Cherating.

I took some photos before the area getting dark, where the staffs did their preparation...

Alfresco dinner by the pool...

Dinner by the pool...

 

The area was really a nice place for dinner!

All of us were there about 8pm, and it was a right time because everyone was Hungry! :)

Let me show you what we had that evening...

The common foods on the buffet dinner...fried rice, curry and etc...

Fruits and salads...

Western foods like lamb racks, steaks and seafoods...(this was Special!)

I like this area very much! Because it had all my favorite! They had prawns, squids, lobsters and fresh oysters!

Fried Lobsters...

Fresh Oysters (my favorite corner)

Everyone was enjoying the dinner very much! My wife and daughter were had some simple foods with seafood, I had the steak, lamb rack, squids, half lobsters and 2 fresh oysters for the first round...:)

My first round of the buffet dinner...

The weather was good on that evening, that was our only worry...haha!

Dinner with all the guests, media and bloggers.

Most of the fodos taste were above average! Great! That made me took the second round of the foods...and it was Only Oysters! :)

The satisfied smile from everyone showed that all of us were enjoyed the buffet dinner served by Legend Resort Cherating...there was a unplug band companied us during the dinner, I enjoyed the oldies very much...especially with the Delicious foods!

I had a good chat with the organizer - Mr Anthony Clement after the dinner...and suddenly I heard : "The Turtles had landed!" Oh! That was our next itinerary - Turtle watching!

So we group ourselves immediately at the Lobby and prepare for the Turtle Watching trip!

Related post :
*  Media FAM Trip 2012 at Cherating, Pahang.

My Interview on Auto de Fe Is On The Web

"Tewfic El-Sawy is a blogger, travel photographer and champion of increasingly popular photography expeditions. He talked to Auto de Fe about what photography means to him, the much discussed death of photojournalism and what the future holds for lovers of the still image."

I am gratified that Auto de Fe magazine has featured my In Focus interview on its website, after launching its very first issue for the iPad a few days ago.

So have a read to find out what I think of the so-called 'death of photojournalism', the democratization of photography and how I came to set up my photo expeditions-workshops.

Auto de Fe describes itself as a cross-platform magazine of inquisitive journalism and intelligent photography. It showcases compelling writing, investigative reporting and visual documentary projects from around the world.

Note: This is a very quick post as I'm working on my images from yesterday's Coney Island's Mermaid Parade.

BBC: TPOTY & The Royal Geographical Society (London)

Photo © Malgorzata Pioro-All Rights Reserved

The BBC has featured an audio-slideshow of Travel Photographer of the Year 2011 photographs which are on show at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in London, from 22 June to 19 August 2012.

I found the conversation between one of competition judges, photographer Nick Meers, and RGS Director Rita Gardner to shed a little light as to what goes through the minds of photo competition judges...some of it was interesting and other parts were not, but it reaffirmed my long standing belief that photo competitions of that sort are won by photographs that speak to the judges...or to the majority of judges. In such competitions, a photograph might be technically perfect, but it could well be arbitrarily chucked out of the running because of the judges' subjective values...

I think the criteria for categories in photographic contests and the like are too broad. The image above is a winning entry in the Exotic Portfolio category.  For the life of me I can't see what's exotic in it. It's of a man passing a sex shop in Soho in London. It's a colorful, well timed and well composed street photograph, but exotic?

Most of the photographs I saw on the slideshow are really good, but it's a pity that the BBC chose music by Norah Jones and Lenny Kravitz. Good music for sure, but with no logical linkage to the photographs.

Superior and Junior Suite rooms at The Legend Resort Cherating, Kuantan - Pahang.

Sharing some photos of Superior room and Junior Suite room at The Legend Resort Cherating.

We were invited to these 2 type of room for photography on the last day before we say bye-bye to Cherating. I just wanted to share the photos before I continue with my blog post of Cherating's vacation.

Junior Suite Room

Once we enter the room, the small little living hall is in front of us, the small pantry is just next to it.

The living hall of the Junior Suite room

The pantry is behind the sofa...

The pantry

The Private balcony is connected from the living hall to the bedroom...

Photos of the bedroom and the bathroom...

Spacious Bedroom of Junior Suite

The bathroom...

The bathtub is behind the entrance to the bathroom...

That's all about it, let's move on to the Superior room...

Two single beds and 2 sitter sofa in the Superior room

The balcony is facing the Resort swimming pool...

The room is pool view...

The bathroom...

The shower...

If you like to know more about the promotion package, please visit my previous post HERE.

Related post :
*  Media FAM Trip 2012 at Cherating, Pahang.

Location map of The Legend Resort Cherating, Kuantan - Pahang.

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Kris Bailey: Red Rivulets (The Oracles of Kodungallur)

Apart from being an attorney in Northern California, Kris Bailey is a photographer who's keenly interested in South and South East Asia, and is particularly attracted to unusual rituals and religious festivals. She joined my The Oracles of Kerala Photo Expedition/Workshop™, which was her second expedition-workshop with me; the first being Kolkata's Durga Puja.

On her blog and Vimeo page, Kris describes herself as "Inspired by the stories of a young adventurer with a french accent and a cheap wooden guitar, Kris ran home from school one day and announced that she was going to live in Europe. Eight months later, wearing a cowboy hat and white bell-bottom jeans, Kris boarded a DC-10 bound for Brussels. She was 15 years old."

No longer with a hat and white jeans, she has just produced her audio-slideshow Red Rivulets, of her stills and ambient sound recordings made during the festival of the Oracles in Kodungallur. As readers of this blog probably know by now, this was one heck of an intense religious event, and Kris reveled in photographing it.

As background, the festival is called Kodungallur Bharani, and is a wild and unusual localized religious festival near Kochi. It is here that once a year the so-called Oracles of Kodungallur meet to celebrate both Kali and Shiva. By their thousands, these red-clad oracles arrive in this area of Kerala, and perform self mortification acts by banging on their heads with ceremonial swords repeatedly until blood trickle down their foreheads, then daub the wounds with turmeric.

Kieran Doherty: Solstice (Druids & Pagans!)

Photo © Kieran Doherty-All Rights Reserved

I really should've posted this yesterday...

Kieran Doherty thought of me as he finished his new gallery Solstice, whose photographs he thought would be suitable for The Travel Photographer blog. He was right...they are.

He has been covering the druids and revelers at Stonehenge during the summer and winter solstices over the past 10 years, and this gallery consists of 31 large sized color photographs of the scenes in that famed site.

Stonehenge is an ancient pre-historic site, and its well known stone monument is believed to have been constructed anywhere from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. It has been a place of worship and celebration at the time of Summer Solstice since time immemorial. In summer, pagans and druids make it a ritual to witness the sunrise on the longest day of the year at the prehistoric site marking the event with unusual rituals and religious ceremonies.

Kieran Doherty is a photojournalist whose career started with the Reuters News Pictures service in London. He remained with Reuters 15 years until resigning his position to undertake commissions in 2008. His photography has taken him to almost every part the world and his work has appeared in all the major international journals and magazines including Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, Stern, National Geographic, The New York Times and The Sunday Times magazine.

Tea break at Penthouse (President Suite) of Legend Resort Cherating

We were invited to the Penthouse (President Suite) of Legend Resort for the welcome drink and having some light snacks before the dinner on 7.30pm.

Once I stepped into the Penthouse, there is a Alfresco area with the snacks to serve all the coming guests...

The Alfresco area of the Penthouse

Let me show you some photos of the Penthouse...
I started to take photos from the right...where the small living room of Penthouse located.

.

The living room of the Penthouse

Follow by the Master bedroom...

The master bedroom of the Penthouse

King size bed...

And with the private sea view balcony...

There's also a nice sofa in the room...

The little cozy corner in the master bedroom

Then I went into the bathroom...

There's the shower area behind the mirrors...

The Spacious bathroom

The toilet bowl is located on the right of the bathroom...

The toilet area...

A Jacuzzi pool in the bathroom where you can enjoy the pool with a scenic view of South China Sea...

Jacuzzi pool in the bathroom

The master bedroom is definitely comfortable!
Now, let's move on to the second room (guest room)...

There are two single beds in the guest room, and a bathtub in the bathroom. Comfort enough for 2 persons...

The two single beds in the guest room

Bathtub in the bathroom

That's about it. The whole Penthouse is spacious. I like the balcony area...not the private balcony in the master bedroom but it's located btween the two room...
According to Mr Anthony (The event organizer), the Penthouse cost RM2000.00 per night.

The public balcony between the two rooms

All the Media persons, Magazine editors and bloggers were serve with the light foods before the dinner...chocolate cake, sandwiches and local snack - Keropok Lekor.

Chocolate cakes

Sandwiches

The local famous snacks - Keropok Lekor

This was also a Ice-breaking session for all of us, where we got to know each others and chat about Cherating. After about an hour, we were invited to the room beside the swimming pool for the Pahang's Tourism Minister Speech...

Related post :
*  Media FAM Trip 2012 at Cherating, Pahang.

Location map of The Legend Reosrt Cherating, Kuantan - Pahang.

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