beautiful places and sights

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Gary Knight: New Website

Gary Knight has recently launched his personal website, appropriately titled Gary Knight Photography which features his portfolios, workshops, multimedia (soon) and his current academic involvement in Tufts and Harvard universities.

Gary Knight started working as a photographer in Southeast Asia during the 1980s at at the time when its countries were slowly recovering from bitter wars. He then moved to Europe when Yugoslavia was collapsing, and where he documented the siege of Sarajevo through the fall of Kosovo. Following 9/11, he worked in Afghanistan and two years later independently followed U.S. troops into Iraq. Notwithstanding his conflict photography involvement, his focus is on the survival of the world’s poor and human rights issues.

Knight is founding director of VII Photo Agency. He established the Angkor Photo Festival, is a board member of the Crimes of War Foundation, a trustee of the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation and Vice President of the Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Foundation.

All this is public knowledge, but I also have a personal connection with Gary. In 2005, I attended a workshop in Bali with him and John Stanmeyer at the latter's lovely home and studio in Cannggu. At the time, I was keen to move away from the traditional travel photography (stock images et al) and wanted to get involved in more story-telling and documentary/editorial photography...so I jumped at the chance of getting guidance from these two top photojournalists. And when I look back at where I was then and where I am now...I clearly see their fingerprints.

Alia Refaat: Bali Island of Odalan

Here are work samples from Alia Refaat, the final participant in the Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition ™ . It is Alia's second travel photography expedition, and she plans a series of exhibitions in Cairo of her photographs.

Alia is a commercial photographer from Cairo, Egypt. Alia studied Mass Communications, and trained at Spéos Paris in commercial, portrait and studio photography.

The above photograph is of Balinese devotees returning from the ocean having purified their temple's deities. The all day ceremony was performed near the famous temple of Goah Lawah.

The above intriguing photograph is of Balinese playing Kocokan. This is a sort of roulette in which the players put some money on a vinyl mat decorated with six different pictures of cartoon version of Hindu gods, demons or animals. Surprisingly, this gambling is allowed during a temple odalan.

Cremations are one of the most sacred events in Balinese culture. In this photography, Alia was quick to notice the rather macabre juxtaposing of the body's exhumation and the t-shirt worn by one of the cremation's attendees.

Friday, October 15, 2010

My Work: Old Delhi's Khari Baoli

Khari Baoli is reputed to be one of Asia's largest wholesale spice market, and is accessible from Chandni Chowk Road in the heart of Old Delhi. It's one of my favorite haunts whenever I'm in Delhi, and it's a wonderful area for some serious street photography. Of course, going there is also an excuse to stop by Kareem's for its famed kebabs.

The area is full of explorable narrow alleys, while porters hurry with massive jute bags of spices jostle passer-bys. The atmosphere is almost medieval, with the spice and rice traders carrying on the business of their ancestors. Nothing has changed much over the years.

In a small cubicle under a store, one of the area's chai-wallahs is straining the concoction into glasses. Chai or masala chai is a blend of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and black pepper, mixed with a rich black tea, milk, and a sweetener.

The spice market's feverish activity of carrying or unloading of huge sacks of spices and goods from manual trolleys is occasionally interspersed by laborers resting and smoking their sweet-smelling bidis .

I am definitely in the midst of a black & white phase. When I was producing my Bali: The Trilogy audio slideshows, I thought it was a contrarian reaction to the surfeit of color I've witnessed in Bali. Perhaps it was...but I looked at the above photographs in color, and sensed they'd look better in monochromatic tones. Perhaps I wanted to convey the grittiness of Khari Baoli, and black & white does that better.

Whatever it is, I'm enjoying it a lot.