Suchet Suwanmongkol: Theyyam

Here's a short video trailer featuring Suchet Suwanmongkol who was recently in Kerala to document the ritual of Theyyam, amongst other of the area's cultural and religious events.

Suchet is not only a well established photographer, well known for his photography in his country of Thailand and beyond, but he's also the owner of the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi hotel in Chiang Mai, which he painstakingly built in an effort to restore and preserve the region's Lanna culture.

His travel photography website features galleries from Myanmar to the depths of Papua New Guinea, from India to Tibet and from Venice and Cinque Terre to China's interior. He also has an impressive portfolio of fashion photographs.

He has another website SUWANMONGKOL, which I believe is the most recent, and that also features a number of his galleries.

Theyyam is a Hindu ritual exclusive to North Malabar in Kerala, India. Suchet (as I did as well) photographed the Theyyam rituals in Kannur. This is a cult going back several thousand years, with ancient traditions, rituals and customs, and it includes all the castes and classes of the Hindu religion in this region.

The performers of Theyyam belong to a lower caste, and this in itself is unique since only in Kerala do the upper caste Brahmins and the lower caste share important roles in religious rituals.

I am told that the final version of Theyyam ought to be finalized soon, and naturally I will bring it to you on this blog as soon as it is.

CameraBag2: Photo Editing

Photos © Tewfic El-Sawy - All Rights Reserved

I chanced on the Camerabag2's website just yesterday, and thought I'd share it with my readers, especially as it offers a free trial for 30 days.

Camerabag2 describes itself as a photo app for Mac and PC with a new approach to editing. It claims that its Analog Engine pairs a full suite of photographic tools with filters and vintage simulations. It uses a straightforward approach to layering, rearranging, and tweaking all of these effects in realtime. It has 100+ fully-adjustable filters and 25+ professional controls.

Purists will probably not be interested in such as app, but for those who like presets, and appreciate tweaking these to suit their own preferences, Camerabag2 does deliver. It has all sorts of tools, from simple exposure and cropping to advanced vignetting, color correction, and curves. However, I didn't see any sharpening tools...but I may have missed it.

The image I made on Bleecker Street the other day was processed in Camerabag2 as seen above.

Does it compete with Lightroom, Photoshop et al? Of course not. But it offers a quick fix to those who have no time or interest in getting involved with these two heavyweights...and it does so at the price of only $29. Not too bad.

Note: I have no direct or indirect relationship with the makers of Camerabag2 and/or its distributors.

Another visit to Eden Eco Farm at Saleng, Johor.

Visited the Eden Eco Farm (N1.64016 E103.64092) again for photography about 18 months ago, I almost forgot about the photos I took...let me share the farm photos with you.

Mr Steven Seow - owner of Eden Eco Farm

We paid RM10.00 for the entrance fee and Mr Steven Seow (the owner) keep us company along the farm...

Inside Eden Eco Farm

It was a sunny day, some of the area in the farm was really Hot! Mr Steven walked with us and introduced us about most of the plants and flowers in the farm.

Once we started the walk, my friend also started his shooting....

Some kind of fruits which I forgot the name...

At one of the area of Eden Eco Farm, there are Full of Passion fruits...

Passion fruit

Mr Steven asked us to taste it, and it was a Wasabi leaves! Surprised!

Wasabi plant

Photos of flowers in the farm...

Pineapples series....

The duck pond...

The duck pond

Do you know the name of the fruit below?

Forgot the name of the fruit...

The lemon...

Me Steven and his partner

After we finish walking in the farm, there were a special fruit juice complementary by the farm...then Steven showed us the cute baby owl in the small box! This was my first time so close to the Owl and they are Cute!

The three cute little baby owls...

The cute little baby owl

The home of the Owl was on top of this special tree (below)...

I think it's time for us to visit the farm again after 18 months...the cute little animals in the farm should be grown up...haha!

If you want to know more about the Eden Eco Farm, please visit my previous post : http://j-travel.blogspot.com/2010/01/paradise-within-city-eden-eco-farm-of.html

Location map od Eden Eco Garden at Saleng, Johor.

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Lisa Wiltse: Daulatdia Brothel

Photo © Lisa Wiltse-All Rights Reserved

In Bangladesh, on the banks of the Padma River, is the village of Dauladtia. It is here that the largest brothel in the country thrives , with over 2000 servicing 3000 men every day. The sex workers have usually been kidnapped by gangs, sold by their families or step families or tricked with promises of good jobs. It's estimated that there are 100,000 women selling sex in Bangladesh.

It is here that Lisa Wiltse photographed her photo essay Daulatdia Brothel, and documented the atrociaous practice of procuring a drug called Oredexon, a “cow-fattening” steroid to underage girls, in order to make them plumper and look older, despite the dangerous side effects on their health.

Lisa Wiltse is an American photographer who moved to Sydney, Australia where she worked as a staff photographer for the Sydney Morning Herald until 2008, when she moved to La Paz, Bolivia to pursue her freelance career.

Her photography has been recognized by Photo District News, the National Press Photographers Association, Sony awards, and is the recipient of The Walkley award in Australia, among others. Her work been published in The Sydney Morning Herald,The FADER, Time Magazine, Internazionale, Private photo review, The Sun magazine and The Australian Financial Review.

Leica M9 vs Fuji X Pro-1...Result!

JPEG #A FUJI X PRO-1

 JPEG # B LEICA M9

Well, the results of the poll are correct!

The results are (at the time of writing this post) 139 voted for image A to have been made with the Fuji X Pro-1, while 114 voted for it to have been made with the Leica M9.

I think the point of the poll's question is to demonstrate that, to me at least, both cameras are very close in terms of quality of images...in my experience, the Leica M9's images have a little greenish tint to them (probably depending on the light source?), while the X Pro-1's images are warmer (again perhaps of the light source).

Naturally, the images I used were JPEG's 'out of the box' so to speak...and perhaps I should've used the RAW files from each camera instead. As I always maintain and say, cameras are nothing but tools. A carpenter needs a claw and a ball-peen hammer in his/her tool box. Brand loyalty taken to unreasonable partisan levels is always silly and unproductive. Both the M9 and the X Pro-1 have their weak and strong points...as mostly everything else in life. and that's all there is to it.

Yesterday I went to the Occupy Wall Street protest in Union Square with both the M9 and X Pro-1. Some of the images I made using both cameras can be viewed on The Leica File in a slideshow. I used the X Pro-1 when I needed the speed because of its AF, and used the M9 when I had the luxury of time to focus.

I was accosted by a number of photographers who were curious as to what I thought of the X Pro-1.

My Work: The Spice People of Mattencherry

Here's a short audio slideshow which I produced in under an hour yesterday of some stills I made on Mattencherry's main street during my The Oracles of Kerala Photo Expedition/Workshop™. 

Mattencherry, part of Kochi, was once a bustling centre of trade, particularly in spices but is now but a shadow of its historical vibrancy, however godowns of ginger, basmati rice and other spices can still found on its main street. It is there that traders and porters work from the same small stores occupied by their forefathers.

All the stills are with a Leica M9 and post processed in Lightroom using my own split tone preset.

I, like many others, am at loss at what to call an audio slideshow. It seems to me that audio slideshow is cumbersome and old fashioned. Some like Benjamin Chesterton of Duckrabbit Multimedia call it photo-film...while others like John Stanmeyer call it audio-visual. Joe Weiss of SoundSlides calls it just that..soundslides.

But none of those have clicked with me.

Naked Eye: Leica M9 vs FujiFilm X Pro-1

JPEG #A STRAIGHT OUT OF CAMERA

 JPEG # B STRAIGHT OUT OF CAMERA

JPEG #A  (AUTO FIX IN PHOTOSHOP)

JPEG #B (AUTO FIX IN PHOTOSHOP)

Another poll for those who like playing the game.

Here are JPEG #A and JPEG #B; one is made with a Leica M9 at 200 iso with a Leica Elmarit 28mm at f2.8, while the other was made with a Fuji X Pro-1 at 200 iso with a Fujinon 18mm (equivalent of 27mm) at f2.0. The photographs were made within a few seconds from each other under the same lighting conditions, and using an automatic shutter speed.

The lower two are the same images after using Auto Fix in Photoshop. No other processing was done to either of them.

So what's your call? Which image was made with the M9, and which with the X Pro-1?




After having handled the M9 for about 15 months and the X Pro-1 for just over a week, I feel that both have a place in my tool box.  It took me a few hours to understand the ins and outs of the X Pro-1, and I haven't had frustrations to speak of once I ironed out its quirks. In contrast, the Leica M9 is a difficult camera with which I had considerable frustrations (and some pleasures) so far.

I am neither a Leica cheerleader nor a X Pro-1 groupie, and as I imply earlier, I consider them both to be useful tools for different jobs. That said, while the M9's build is better (more solid) than the X Pro-1, its many shortcomings (lack of AF, abysmal display, image quality issues at ISOs higher than 640, etc) are difficult to tolerate with the appearance of the X Pro-1 that is also well-built, has reasonable quality glass, has good image quality to 6400 iso, and a lovely display, apart from its many other technical advantages, such as its revolutionary hybrid viewfinder as one of numerous examples.

"Will the FujiFilm X Pro-1 dethrone the Leica M9? "

Sure, the Leica M9 not only has a mystique, but more tangibly, also provides a special 'feel' to the  photographs it produces...but the X Pro-1 image quality is excellent. Does it have the Leica "feel"? No it doesn't. The M9 is a full frame camera, and the X Pro-1 isn't. However, it has an APS-C sized sensor, which produces images that are said to be equal, if not superior, to those of full-frame cameras.

Will the FujiFilm X Pro-1 dethrone the Leica M9? I doubt it...but it's a very serious contender, and fills a niche for photographers who seek to add a digital rangefinder-like camera to their gear, and do not want to spend upwards of $7000 for a body to do it.

And for those who have voted in the previous poll in which I ask for the readers preference between photographs made with a Leica M9, a Fujifilm X Pro-1, a Canon 7D, a Canon 5D Mark II and a Panasonic GF1, the results favored the Leica M9 which got 38.5% of the votes, then the X Pro-1 which got about 33%.