Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Canon 5D Mark II Batteries

A recent post on a professional photo forum complaining about the non-availability of extra Canon LP-E6 Camera batteries for the Canon 5D Mark II was joined by a rep for a retailer whose post reveals how Canon completely dropped the ball by not supplying sufficient extra batteries to its authorized retailers; totally mismanaging a critical component of the camera's launch, and which eventually gave rise to price gouging by unscrupulous vendors.

Why was Canon caught with its pants down? It had to know that the camera would appeal to serious photographers who would need an extra battery.

I've ranted about this in a previous post. (LINK)

Note: This post was redacted on April 20, 2009.

Sylvain Savolainen: The Afars

©Sylvain Savolainen-All Rights Reserved.

Sylvain Savolainen is a photographer and reporter based in Geneva, and is regularly published by international newspapers and magazines such as Geo, La Stampa, IHT, The New York Times and Le Figaro. In Paris, he worked with Sygma and Gamma agencies, and currently Cosmos and Grazia Neri partly distribute his work. He is also a contributor to the French and Swiss national radios. In 2007, he won the Swiss Press Photo award for the best foreign feature of the year.

Sylvain has documented many ethnic groups, including the Afars. The Afars, or Danakil, are an ethnic group in the Horn of Africa, residing principally in the Danakil Desert in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, as well as in Eritrea and Djibouti. They constitute over a third of the population of Djibouti, but the majority still remain nomadic pastoralists, raising goats, sheep, camels and cattle in the desert.

Here's Sylvain's Those Who Gaze Into The Horizon: The Afars

Geisha Peeping!

Photo ©Hiroshi Yamauch-All Rights Reserved.

How awful! The New York Times has an article on how Kyoto, the historic and former imperial capital, is attracting hordes of tourists wanting to photograph the geisha and maiko, who, with their "elaborate dress, white-painted faces and stylized gestures, exercise a special allure for Western imaginations as the seeming embodiment of Japanese tradition."

Further on in the article, I read that a record 927,000 foreigners spent a night in Kyoto in 2007, a substantial growth over the preceding year. On the other hand, the estimated number of geisha is only 1,000 to 2,000, as compared to 80,000 in the 1920s.

I'm saddened, but not surprised, that the Kyoto residents, and the geisha, are now complaining that tourists with cameras are aggressive, and even "ambush and surround the young women for close-ups. Sometimes, they say, the tourists block their way, pull their sleeves, and at times have even caused them to trip over."

On the other hand, I'm not fussed by the fellow in the above photograph. He's maintaining a reasonably respectful distance from the two geisha, and I don't see that as harassment. However, I can imagine the behavior of tourists with small compact cameras wanting to get close-ups on the geisha faces! Disgraceful.

The article is authored by Miki Tanikawa.