Frances Schwabenland: "The Photographer of Jaipur"

Frances Schwabenland is a photographer and a videographer whose work was featured on The Travel Channel, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel and in Popular Photography Magazine. She's a multifaceted professional involved in travel, architectural, documentary, landscape and portrait photography.

Currently in the process of updating her website, Frances nevertheless featured a lovely video story of her special encounter with Mr Chand, a street photographer in Jaipur, who uses an ancient wooden camera weighing no less than 50 lbs to make photographs of passer-bys. She tells us in her blog that "he recreated for me that magic that drew me in years ago when I first started with a darkroom in my basement."

The tripod-mounted wooden box camera may well be a 1860 Carl Zeiss, which I've also seen in use in Pushkar and Havana. Photographers who still use these cameras are in a sense choreographers...perhaps even magicians, since they have to expose the negative by uncovering the lens cap for a fraction of a second with a deft flip of the wrist, then develop the sensitive paper to produce the negative...then the process is repeated to photograph the negative to produce the final positive image!

A far cry from all the digital hoopla we are now accustomed to!

FujiFilm FinePix X100: New Promotional Clip

As many of us may already know, Fujifilm has started shipping the FinePix X100 in Japan, and it should begin arriving elsewhere soon. The X100 is a large-sensor compact camera aimed at most photographers, whether professionals or otherwise.

Its sensor is based on a 12Mp APS-C CMOS sensor, Fuji EXR processor and 23mm F2 Fujinon lens, and the body features traditional analogue controls for shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation. The buzz is around its new 'hybrid' viewfinder system which allows the user to switch between an optical and electronic viewfinder.

Its price point in the US is $1,199, and is available for pre-order from Adorama, as an example. B&H Photo doesn't seem to do pre-orders, and will only list it when it's in stock.

It's certainly a beautiful camera, but I've lost interest in the FujiFilm FinePix X100 for a bunch of reasons; the first is that I am very satisfied with the capability of my Panasonic GF1 and its 20mm f1.7 lens, the second is that I am not impressed by the X100's price which I think is too high, the third is that it's a fixed lens camera (in contrast to the GF1), and the fourth (intentionally cryptic) is because of a dot.

POV: Egypt's Iconic Revolutionaries

Photos © Kim Badawi-Courtesy The Independent

The Independent newspaper has featured the photographs of some of the young Egyptian revolutionaries who, against all odds, overturned a despised regime in a matter of days. It is these young people who made history, not only their own country's, but of the world's.

These are the young men and women who led a populist uprising against Mubarak and his repulsive henchmen and sycophants...these are the young men and women who took the West's proclaimed democratic values as their own, and fought for them...not only paying lip service, not mouthing bromides...but with real action, risking their lives and futures. These are the young men and women who are the future of Egypt, and who'll take it to where it deserves to be...these are the young men and women who will accept no foreign influences...these are the young men and women who scoffed at the naysayers who described them as nothing more than errant juveniles, and who give the finger to the sclerotic and biased Western pundits who see Islamist bogeymen everywhere...these are the young men and women who have shown us that the people of the Middle East want democracy...their own democracy, not one imposed by others...these are the young people who must be immensely proud to be Egyptians.

I was also amazed by reading this, from The New York Times (March 6, 2011):

Egypt’s popular revolution was the work of men and women, bringing together housewives and fruit sellers, businesswomen and students. At its height, roughly one quarter of the million protesters who poured into the square each day were women. Veiled and unveiled women shouted, fought and slept in the streets alongside men, upending traditional expectations of their behavior.

Jonathan Owen's in his accompanying article calls these photographs "Portraits of Courage", and indeed they are.

Finally, about the photographer. Kim Badawi, a 30-year-old documentary photographer of French-Egyptian descent, endured beatings, bullets and tear gas to find out what these young revolutionaries went through, and these portraits are his work.