Diego Verges: Ludruk

Photo © Diego Verges-All Rights Reserved

Ludruk is a theatrical genres of East Java in Indonesia. It's a form of traditional performance presented by a troupe of actors on a stage, re-telling the life stories of everyday people and their struggles. Most of the characters were performed by male actors who take the roles of women, but more recently, the sketches and farces feature mostly contemporary domestic stories, and have become commercial entertainment popular with urban and rural working-class audiences.

Diego Verges (featured many times of The Travel photographer blog and one of its Favorite 2011 Photographers) has produced a comprehensive photo essay on the Ludruk, with black & white (and color) facial portraits, and as well as environmental portraits and scenes of these performers.

Ludruk is a must-see for my readers as it merges portraiture, documentary and travel-ethnography photography, and also visually documents an art for that could well vanish in the years to come.

Note: I encountered a similar kind of performance in Bali where it's called Arja. This type of performance enacts old stories in a farcical manner and uses dialogue understood only by Balinese-speaking audiences.

Blurb Goes Mobile...

Blurb has just announced Blurb Mobile for iPhone, which is a way to create stories by easily capturing and sequencing photos and videos into short visual stories that can be instantly shared and viewed by all.

The app is available on the App Store. It's basic version is free, while a version with more bells and whistles is for $1.99. It's also compatible with iPads, so with iPad2, it'll be possible to take photographs (albeit at low resolution) directly and create stories on the fly. Or use photos saved in one's photo library. It'll record ambient sound and video clips as well.

Is it for photojournalists and the like...probably not, but for people who wish to quickly create short visual stories.

I'm sure that this may be of use to photographers who like the Hipstamatic and Instagram apps for their iPhones.

My Work: Three New Photo Galleries

I've now completed a sort of trilogy...three new photo galleries of stills from my just completed In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™.

The first of the three galleries is of the pilgrims that flock daily in their hundreds to the shrine of Hazra Mira Datar, a renowned Sufi saint in Gujarat, hoping to get rid of evil spirits, other health issues and personal problems. A black & white audio slideshow can also be seen here.

I recommend reading the journal of my experience at the Mira Datar shrine can be read here for a fuller understanding of this 600 year-old phenomenon, which is not restricted to this particular Sufi saint.

The second gallery is of the Jains pilgrims who visit the temples of Palitana; one of the holiest sites for the Jain community. Climbing the 3800 steps to the top of the hill for the main temple is an incredibly arduous task, and the Jain nuns do it continuously for three days while observing a total (food and water) fast. An audio slideshow can also be seen here.

Th third gallery is of various portraits and scenes of Sufi communities encountered during the photo~expedition, which started and ended in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

I hope readers of The Travel Photographer blog will enjoy them.