travling photography

Photo � Mia Haggi | Courtesy MAEKAN Through NEOCHA, I stumbled on an interesting  Hong Kong based  media entity called MAEKAN , which describes itself as a platform for " original storytelling in its purest through captivating audio, engaging words and beautiful visuals " and an " audio-first publication exploring unexpected connections in culture ". A few months ago, I was in Kuala Lumpur photographing various temple ceremonies celebrating the Nine Emperor Gods festival, and being a strong advocate in merging still photography with ambient audio, I consequently was interested in MAEKAN's iPhones For The Dead story. (Don't miss the audio link to the narrated story).  In a Taoist temple in Kuala Lumpur, I recall walking in a warehouse full of paper replicas of money, miniatures of cars and appliances and other luxury items which were destined to be burned as offerings in the memory of Chinese ancestors. Photo � Tewfic El-Sawy | All Rights Reserved One of Chi...

Photo � Wing Shya - All Rights Reserved "Of course Wong Kar Wai yelled at me. Imagine some guy coming to photograph Leslie Cheung and everything comes out blurred. You'd wonder, what's this guy's attitude?" Whilst thinking and working on one of my side projects (tentatively known as The Red Qi Pao), I sought the influence of Wong Kar-Wai 's cinematography, especially in evidence in his seminal In The Mood For Love. Then discovered the photography of Wing Shya, known for his raw, smoky images from the golden era of Hong Kong cinema. Reading various of Wing's interviews just a few days ago, I learned that he writes film scripts for his editorials, and that every photograph has a complete, fictional backstory. And this is what I started doing almost a year ago in my initial effort of that sort, and which I titled The Old China Cafe , and whose sequel will be The Red Qi Pao, currently a work in progress.  I write about this very thing in a previous blog post, ...