travling photography

Photo �  Jean-Claude Moschetti - All Rights Reserved African spirituality, such as worship of ancestors and protective spirits, also includes traditional secret societies and voodoo, and is a fertile field for unusual ethnographic photography. Jean-Claude Moschetti's photographs in Magic On Earth is about these African occult traditions where masks are considered to be mediators between the living world and the supernatural world of the dead, ancestors and other entities. He tells us that in Burkina Faso, these masks represent protective spirits that can take animal forms or can appear as strange beings. These spirits watch over a family, clan or community, and if the rules for their propitiation are followed correctly, provide for the fertility, health, and prosperity. The word Egungun signifies all types of masquerades or masked, costumed figures worn by the Yoruba people, and which are connected with ancestor reverence, or to the ancestors themselves as a collective force....

Photo � Berta Tilmantaite -All Rights Reserved I am saddened by the recent news of a major earthquake affecting Myanmar, and at the loss of life and at the reported damage to over 150 historic pagodas in Bagan...so I was glad to have noticed the work of  Berta Tilmantaite on my Facebook timeline-wall. It's not as much on Bagan and its pagodas, but is a visual and musical journey through Myanmar, specifically while Berta and a friend were traveling on a public boat from Yangon to Pathein, and onwards to Bagan. They stayed on the deck with all other people - locals, traveling to small villages along the river. I recall taking this public boat at dawn from Mandalay to Bagan, and it was a wonderful trip. Berta Tilmantait� is a Lithuanian multimedia journalist, photographer and videographer. Her visual stories from different parts of the world often focus on the connection between human and nature. Berta has BA in Journalism from Vilnius University (Lithuania), also took a cours...

I found this fascinating short movie on my Facebook timeline. The many readers of my blog know of the recent publication of my book H?u �?ng: The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam (on Amazon ), and this short movie which was filmed in 1934 not only fits perfectly fits in the book's narrative, but also provides me with an incomparable view of the past, and how the ceremonies I documented were conducted over 80 years ago. If the movie doesn't play, click here  to watch it on YouTube. Let me start by the title of the movie: in French it reads the cult of the immoral. French colonialism in Vietnam lasted more than six decades, and by the late 1880s it controlled Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, which it referred to as Indochine Francais. It became one of France�s most lucrative colonial possessions. The French justified their imperialism as being a �civilising mission�, a pledge to develop backward nations. Consequently, most indigenous traditions were considered as barbaric, especially thos...

Photo � Chu Vi?t H� -All Rights Reserved It's been a while since I've posted the work by a Vietnamese photographer, especially one that specializes in street photography, which is one of my very favorite activities when I travel to H� N?i; that is when I can drag myself from photographing H?u �?ng ceremonies. I've been following the work of  Chu Vi?t H� on Facebook link is for his Flickr page) for a while, and he has always impressed me with his keen eye. I know some of the locales in H� N?i's  Old Quarter where he photographs, and perhaps that adds to my enjoyment of his technique and his timing.  Many of his photographs are made around Hoan Kiem Lake (as the one above), while others document the shopkeepers and the teeming life near Dong Xuan market. According to a recent interview , Chu Vi?t H� considers Robert Capa as one of his ideal role models, as well as Henri Cartier Bresson for his "decisive moment"...however I see much of Alex Webb's ...

For My Personal Blurb Bookstore, Click on Above Image I am pleased to announce the official publication of H?u �?ng: The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam; a 170-pages photo book. I've been working on this book over the past two years, during which I traveled to H� N?i no less than six times to attend and photograph various ceremonies, conduct interviews and research the tradition and its impact on Vietnamese society. I am the only non-Vietnamese photographer to have photographed H?u �?ng ceremonies in such depth. H?u �?ng is one of the main rituals of �?o M?u, the worship of mother goddesses in Vietnam. During these rituals, the mediums go into trances to allow their bodies receive the spirits of various deities. The journey of the spirits into the bodies of the mediums is an incarnation, and the process involves the spirits briefly hovering then moving into the mediums. The mediums change their costumes to indicate which deity has entered their body Vietnam submitted The Mother Goddesse...

A recent article (or a post) in the Hanoi Grapevine caught my attention, and aroused my ire. It appears that an American photographer is seeking volunteers in Hanoi to assist her in producing a another of her photographic projects that involves making photographs of people living in their apartments or living quarters through their windows. I am told the project does not involve surreptitious photography, but all is staged and arranged for beforehand, and although I fail to appreciate the aesthetics (if any) of such a project, others might find it interesting. However this is not the issue. According to the article, the  issue is that this photographer -presumably reasonably well-off- is soliciting the help of about 20 or so young Vietnamese photographers to scout Hanoi's neighborhoods (while she is still in the USA), take pictures of buildings and residents that may fit her requirements, obtain the approval of the residents to be photographed, and show her these prints on her arri...

Photo � Udit Kulshrestha _ All Rights Reserved The Nocte people, are an ex-headhunting lower hill tribe of the Patkai hills of eastern Arunachal Pradesh. They are ethnically related to the Konyak Nagas, and are originally from the Hukong Valley in Myanmar, from where they migrated during the 1670s-1700s. They originally followed Theravada Buddhism and animism, but have adopted Hinduism since the 18th century. Many of them converted to Christianity by American missionaries whose objectives were to convert tribes in Myanmar and China. The Nocte society is divided into two groups, the chiefs and the commoners. Udit Kulshrestha has photographed the Noctes, and his monochromatic gallery is on his website .  An interview with him and on his Noctes work is also on The Wire , a web publication in Delhi. Udit is an Indian photographer whose primary focus is on subjects of culture and social issues. I have particularly admired his excellent work on the Nautch Girls of Sonepur , Sanskaa...