beautiful places and sights

Monday, March 21, 2011

Cristina Mittermeier: River People of the Amazon

Cristina Mittermeier grew up just outside of Mexico City, and is a photographer, a marine biologist, a writer, a world traveler, has a 20 year-long career in conservation and raised children. She is also Executive Director of the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP). Her passion in life is to use her photography to protect the planet’s resources.

Cristina is also a SONY Artisan of Imagery Photographer.

My favorite gallery out of Cristina's many galleries is that of the River People of the Amazon with photographs of the Kayapo people of the Amazon basin. However, before exploring Cristina's galleries, stay a moment on the main page of her website, click on Hide Menu at its bottom, and revel in her handful of glorious large photographs of the Amazon...these alone are worth the visit!

The Kayapo people are the native people of the plain lands of the Mato Grosso and Pará in Brazil, south of the Amazon Basin and along Rio Xingu and its tributaries. Their population was just over 7000 in the latest census. Interesting, they extract medicine from 650 different plants that they find in the rainforest, and have a trade agreement with Body Shop!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

My Work: The Sayid & The Banni

Although I'm more inclined to photograph in a "photojournalistic" style during my photo~expeditions and/or assignments, with the aim to merge travel photography with reportage, I also do work in travel portraiture. Not to be confused with environmental portraits, travel portraiture is a simpler style and obviously can be used for stock, travel brochures and the like.

From my just completed In Search of Sufis of Gujarat photo~expedition, I feature a couple of portraits. The one on top is of a Banni woman at the doorway of her circular mud hut in the Kutch area of Gujarat. Her expression belies her capricious attitude while being photographed. She see-sawed between being flattered that I was photographing her (she's cute, after all) and asking me for money then turning away or shooing me off. She might've had success in getting paid by tourists, who walk in her village to buy handicrafts and the like. Despite her reluctance to cooperate, I managed to position her so that one half of the frame would have a black background, and the other half would be of a mud wall...but that didn't last long.

In short...a tiresome model.

The lower photograph is of a buffalo herder (or grazer). A proud man, with a regal bearing, he was herding the buffaloes back to the owners' farm. In my eagerness to photograph him with his animals against the setting sun, I tripped and went diving down on the ground...belly and chest first. I have no idea how I managed to protect my camera which, in contrast to my knees, escaped unscathed.

A Muslim, who introduced himself as a Sayid, he works for a Hindu community of farmers. He was welcoming, extremely cooperative, and patient with us. However, he was very serious during the whole of the photo shoot, only relaxing when we had finished. Those of us who've photographed in India (as an example) know the drill...the subjects are relaxed when the camera is not aimed at them, but the second the lens is directed at them, they freeze and become super-serious.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Kongkrit Sukying: The Sufis of Gujarat

A first time participant in my photo-expeditions, and in my just completed In Search of Sufis of Gujarat, Kongrit Sukying is a photographer from Bangkok, who was a marketing executive in the beverage business for over 10 years, but changed careers in 2009. He currently is a freelance commercial photographer who also specializes in wedding photography, as well as for books and magazines.

He's the fourth participant to send me samples of his work during the photo expedition.

The top photograph of the girl running down the stairs was made at one of the Islamic sites in Ahmedabad, while the second is of a pilgrim at one of the Sufi shrines who is supplicating the saint for a favor. The strings attached to the shrine's windows are left there by women as reminders of their prayers.

The lower photograph is of a Muslim woman at one of the Muslim mosques, probably in Ahmedabad.

Similar to Teerayut, the other participant from Thailand, most of Kongkrit's photographs in his external portfolio are post-processed, and while some may find these over-worked, it's a style which finds favor amongst many in Asia. In fact, Kungkrit emphasized the fact that he attended workshop at Digital Darkroom.