TASCAM PCM iPhone App

I've just discovered this lovely app by browsing the web, and it's the TASCAM PCM Recorder, which is free and turns your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad into a portable stereo recorder.

It has input and output level faders with an “on-screen” meter to check levels, and includes high and low EQ and a limiter to prevent overload. Pretty neat, isn't it? I tested it very briefly at home, and intend to test when Hurricane Sandy is out of the way...perhaps with the musicians in Washington Square Park.

It records in WAV format, and these audio files can be uploaded to Soundcloud as well. It seems it's only for iPhone (iPad and iTouch as well) for the time being. TASCAM also produces the iM2W, a small microphone designed specially for the PCM, which effectively turns the iPhone into a field recorder. It retails for $59, and might provide better audio quality than the built-in iPhone mic.

This is certainly worthwhile to consider, especially for those who are interested in joining my photo expeditions-workshops and/or my class at the annual Foundry Photojournalism Workshop...especially the latter who often are on budgets.

I shall recommend this alternative to buying an entry-level recorder, provided those interested already have iPhones. I expect the quality won't be much different between the two devices.

Disclaimer: I have no relationship with TASCAM other than being a consumer.

Terri Gold: Where Earth Meets The Sky

Photo © Terri Gold-All Rights Reserved

"No matter where I am, I am always happiest with a camera or three in my hands…"

Terri Gold is an award-winning photographer and artist based in New York City, and has built an impressive reputation for her rituals, rites of passage, festivals, celebrations and portraits from all over the world. She specializes in infrared imagery, which is her signature work.

She has just returned from Ladakh and has posted a new series of infrared imagery in a gallery she titled "Where The Earth Meets The Sky", which is just fabulous. He infrared treatment of her photographs gives the already ethereal moonscapes of Ladakh a unique look and feel. 

Ladakh is the mountainous region in northwest Jammu and Kashmir in north India and in the area known as the Trans-Himalaya. Called by some as The Last Shangri-La (although a fistful of other regions and areas have been called that as well), its capital (or major town) is Leh. Ladakhis people are equally mixed between Buddhist and Muslim, but the majority of the tourist attractions are in the east and relate Tibetan Buddhist culture.

Terri describes Ladakh as a different world...and that certainly is an apt description, especially with her imagery talents.

Elijah Solomon Hurwitz: Kashmir

Photo © Elijah Hurwitz-All Rights Reserved

Illegal transmigration through neighborhoods with unusual names such as Kumpkapi and Shapira, a doomed neighborhood called Tarlabasi, the Roma people, unfamiliar countries such as Romania, Moldova and the region Transnistria, as well as Kashmir and a drive through South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia, are all subjects and issues that Elijah Solomon Hurwitz captured with his photography.

I especially liked Eli's Kashmir gallery...an eclectic mix of documentary, landscape and travel photography.

Elijah Solomon Hurwitz is an NYC based photographer with special interest on documentary and street photography, and social and cultural issues. He has traveled in over 40 countries. 

Dani Planas Labad: Burma

Photo © Dani Planas Labad-All Rights Reserved

With its governmental reforms of 2011, Myanmar (Burma) has enhanced its "go to" status amongst Western tourists much farther than what it used to be, and travel photographers are now very keen to travel to this wonderful country to document a culture before it become too influenced by Western trends.

Dani Planas Labad is a Spanish travel photographer who's traveled and photographed in Morocco,  Cambodia, India, Nepal, Iceland, Burma, New York and his native Barcelona. He tells his audience that he discovered his passion for photography when he turned 30, and toured Asia for 5 months with a Nikon F80. He bought a medium format Seagull camera in a Chinese street market, and subsequently took up digital photography.

The young boy in Dani's photograph is wearing thanaka paste on his face; widely used in Myanmar for the past 2000 years, it serves as sunscreen.

Lovers of Myanmar will relish Dani's gallery with over 80 photographs of the people and landscapes of the country.

The Travel Photographer's Việt Nam Vignettes

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy- All Rights Reserved

I realize that following my photo expedition-workshop to Vietnam, my blog has been perhaps overly focused on this wonderful country but that's what happens when things click, doesn't it? Whether photographically, culinary, culturally and people-wise...when a country clicks with me, it clicks.

No apologies whatsoever for the overloading...it's just that Vietnam was wonderful.

It's no secret at all that India is my favored photo destination, and that Bhutan and Indonesia come close...but Vietnam is now joining these two longstanding contenders.

So here's another photo gallery titled Vietnam Vignettes...the photographs are in color this time, and with an Alien Skin's Exposure 4 treatment. I used its Polaroid 669 film simulation, applied some added creamy effect and enhanced some vignetting.

It's essentially going back to my roots...sort of. All are travel photographs in the purest sense, with a few street photos included. No documentary photography...and no "travel photography meets photojournalism"...in these photographs.

And yes...one of the photographs is The White Honda & The Red Dress...one of my favorite street photographs of Hanoi. It's the third in four frames shot with the X Pro-1, and the woman's pose is just perfect.

They were mostly made with my Canon 5D Mark II and a 24-70mm 2.8 lens, but a few were made with the Fuji X Pro-1/Fujinon 18mm.

To view my Leica photographs of Vietnam, you may want to drop by my other blog The Leica File, and for black & white photographs made in Sapa and Bac Ha, you can view them on The Indigo People.

Maika Elan: The Pink Choice

"I want to show simply how they care and love each other in daily activities."-Maika Elan

According to the web edition of Thanh Nien, an influential newspaper in Vietnam, Maika has changed Vietnam’s entire conception of what it means to be gay and in love with her seminal work The Pink Choice.

Sensitive and compelling...that's The Pink Choice in two words.

I'm not going to rewrite what has already been written on Maika and her various projects, but I have to mention a couple of things: first off I had written a post on her work two years ago, much before I met her at subsequent photo events, and I ended that post with this:

"In my view, Maika has an extremely bright future in photography."

I was right.

I subsequently met her in Siem Reap where we were both attending the Angkor Photo Festival, and invited her to work with me in planning and setting up my Vietnam Photo Expedition-Workshop, which she did. She helped me during the 15 days of its duration and earned the heartfelt appreciation of all involved.

The Pink Choice will be exhibited from the 15th of November to the 2nd of December at the Goethe Institut, 56 – 58 Nguyen Thai Hoc, in Hanoi.

Do go see it if you're there!

Bon Odori 2012 at Taman Desa Tebrau, Johor Bahru

As usual, the yearly Bon Odori 2012 event had just over and this year the event was held at Taman Desa Tebrau (which is behind Aeon Jusco Shopping Complex Tebrau City). (Total of 39 photos...be patient on the loading...)

Before the event start, a extremely heavy rain pour down...and I thought...Oh! No....it might going to spoil the mood of everyone who planned to have fun in Bon Odori. But fortunately, I was Wrong! The rain stop around 6.30pm and I see the peoples visited to the event in gourp by group non-stop! Great!

Bon Odori 2012 at Johor Bahru

The Bon Odori Dance had started when we were there...

Bon Odori Dance

The cute little girls had attracted many peoples to took photos of them...:)

The mother and her cute little girl...

This year, the dance was different where peoples dance on the stage and also circle the stage on ground level! Good response!

The stage of Bon Odori 2012, Johor Bahru.

Before we started to walk around the area and the activities, we decided to fill up our stomach first....variety of foods in that evening, even some are non Japanese food...

Japanese Oden. One Cup - RM6...anyone?

Very popular Rice-cake stall (above) where you can hear some kind of slogan : "Hei-sho! Hei-sho!" all the time...

They will bring the bunch of flour for the women to finish packing for customer...I didn't try it because of the Long Queue! This Japanese Rie-cake should be Delicious...!

The women packed it (top), and the customers queuing for it (bottom).

I like the BBQ Chicken very much! Nice!

If I'm not mistaken, this is the Japanese restaurant (above) at Crystal Crown Hotel, JB (correct me if I'm wrong).
Every year, the Kinsahi's stall will be Pack with peoples and it was no different this year too!

Kinsahi booth was Full of peoples!

Pan fried dumplings...

BBQ Sweet corns, anyone?

We settled our dinner in this booth and I had a onion fried rice from other booth, Nice! During the dinner time, the stage had the 1 Malaysia dance that I miss the chance to take photos...luckily manage to took some on the last Culture dance...

The photograhers started their busy moment...

Follow by the game activities....you can look for these games (below) at the Honda booth...

The Game session...

Met a group of pretty ladies on the Bon Odori that evening...

Before the Japanese Drum Performance start, I took a chance to walked to their preparation booth to snap some photos...

The two pretty drummers from 鬼太鼓

The leader had some short briefing and encouragement for the Japanese Drummers

Huge crowd of audience had positioned in front of the stage before the Drum Performance start, one of my favorite performance on every year Bon Odori!

The stage and the audience...

The Drums set up was done fast and perferct before 8.15pm!

The preparation of the Japanese Drum Performance

And the show started...

The Japanese Drum Performance was performed by the teams from Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru.

I enjoyed the show VERY MUCH!!

The last performance on that evening was the 2nd Bon Odori Dance...tremendous response from the public! Everyone (included children) was happy to dance together and the moment was Great!

The Bon Odori Dance

The 4 cute little girls

I like the dancing style of this senior...

Some pretties spotted...

Everyone was circle the stage and the Bon Odori Dancers were having fun on the stage too! Beside that, the senior drummer performed again in the middle of them...

Bon Odori dance on the stage

The senior drummer...

The Bon Odori encore once...requested by the public...Yeah!

Sometimes I just felt the time passed so fast...after the dance, it came to the end of the event and we have to wait for another year again! We had another unforgettable evening at the Bon Odori 2012!

For those who miss this event, don't miss it next year! It can be a joyful evening for you and your family!
See you next year!

Related post :-
*  Bon Odori JB 2011

Location map of Bon Odors 2012 at Taman Desa Tebrau, Johor Bahru

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POV: New Stuff

Oaxaca-Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
(Click To Enlarge)

Hanoi-Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
(Click To Enlarge)

I've mentioned the evolution of style over time in yesterday's post, and I thought I'd add my experience in that one's style evolves with one's exposure to, and the availability of, new imaging software...as well as to improved photographic gear.

I was always a sort of purist (if that's the right word) when post processing my digital images; resisting almost any modification in them except for some sharpening and exposure changes...and seldom, if ever, cropping my photographs (except when street photographing and shooting from the hip).

Having a phobia of spending more than a few minutes on Photoshop, I welcomed Lightroom's preset filters (that I still use) which allowed me with a click of a button to obtain the "look" I wanted for my images. I relied on simple and plain vanilla presets, eschewing the funkier ones that were, in my opinion, too extreme.

With the advent of Instagram and Hipstamtic filters on my iPhone, my limited tolerance for these funky filters turned into an embrace of sorts, which eventually widened my willingness to experiment with other software.

So it was with undisguised eagerness that I started using Alien Skin's Exposure 4 on my return from Vietnam. I had heard of it, but given my allergy of "manipulation", I never thought of trying it out before.

I used it to give a pseudo-Daguerreotype look to some of my photographs from Sapa and Bac Ha, and I was hooked ever since.  I now happily toy with its various options, especially the classic films, like Kodachrome, Polaroid, and Panatomic-X.  A click...a few nudges here and there, and I have the look I want.

The two photographs above; the top made in Oaxaca of a street festival in 2010, and the lower one made in Hanoi last month, were processed in Exposure 4, using the Polaroid 669 film simulation preset...one of my current favorites...enhanced with vignetting. Another milestone in my evolution.

Something else to report is that I recently got two Bip soft shutter buttons manufactured by matchTechnical Services. They're the outfit that manufactures the Thumbs Up for the Leica, which I have on my M9, and -as I previously posted a few times- like very much.

You can see them on my two cameras; one on my M9 (right) and the other on my X Pro-1. It's very smooth on the M9, but as I mostly shoot from the hip with the X Pro-1, I am finding that I have to get used to the different "travel" time of the shutter with the Bip on it.

In retrospect, I ought to have chosen red Bip for the M9.

Disclaimer: I have no relationship with matchTechnical Services or with Alien Skin other than being a consumer.

POV: The Gotipua And Style Evolution

Photo ©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I wrote how time flies in my yesterday's post, and that remark brought me back to 2004 when I traveled to Orissa via Chhattisgarh, and stopped for a short while in Raghurajpur, a small village near Puri.

This village is quite famous for being the centre for training Gotipua dance troupes. In the local language, “goti” means “single” and “pua” means “boy”, and this folk dance of Orissa has been performed for centuries by young boys who dress as females to praise Jaggannath and Krishna. The acrobatic movements in the dance is performed by the young boys, who are inspired by the life of Radha and Krishna. More information can be found here.

Looking through my image files of the time, I noticed how I still favored verticals back then. I now know that 90% of my photographs are shot in the landscape mode, principally because they lend themselves much better to multimedia storytelling.

In 2004, I used a Canon 10D (remember those?) which was my first digital camera. I used the venerable Canon 1D MarkII as my workhorse film camera. This image of this young gotipua must've been made with a 70-200 f2.8 lens...it was my favored lens back then. I seldom use it now.

I state the obvious but yes, time flies and personal styles evolve. I'm certainly not alone in this. On most of my photo expedition-workshops, I have photographers who are in the midst of their own evolution cycles. Some favor their 70-200 lenses, while others have already gone wider...and others are in the middle of the cycle.

I encourage the former to leave their heavy lenses back at our hotels, and use wider zooms or primes, and get closer...sometimes they listen..sometimes they don't.

In 2004, would I have thought that 8 years later I'd be principally using a Leica M9 rangefinder and a Fuji X Pro-1 on my travels? I don't think so.

Evolution comes slowly...at least for me. But one thing for sure...time flies.