beautiful places and sights

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

SacBee's The Frame: Holi Festival

The Sacramento Bee's photo blog The Frame is featuring 45 remarkable photographs of Holi, the colorful (to say the least) festival which is currently being celebrated all over India. I know we'll soon see much more from travel photographers and photojournalists who are covering this annual festival...but The Sacramento Bee's spread is the first I've seen so far.

Holi is known as the Hindu festival of colors, and is celebrated in Spring by people throwing colored powder and colored water at each other. The tradition is based on the legend of Radha and the Hindu God Krishna. The latter was envious of Radha's fair complexion and in a mischievous mood, he applied color to his beloved Radha's face.

In Vrindavan (which is the place to be during Holi), the festival is celebrated for 16 days in commemoration of the divine love of Radha for Krishna. The above photographs were made at Krishna's Bankey Bihari Temple in Vrindavan. It's the most popular Hindu temple of Krishna in the city.

It's quite evident that protection for one's cameras and lenses is mandatory to photograph Holi anywhere. Perhaps an underwater camera housing or a sturdy zip-lock bag...press the shutter and back in bag it goes?

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.