travling photography

Photo � Tewfic El-Sawy | All Rights Reserved The Beyond The Frame posts on The Travel Photographer blog are currently its most popular feature, and I'm glad to have recently restarted it after a long (and inexplicable) hiatus. However, I intend its posts to not only be photographically  informative, but  also to include snippets of culture that may not be widely known, and which I frequently either intentionally seek or stumble upon on my photo journeys. While  wandering at the back of the stage  of a Hokkien (Chinese) opera troupe in Klang (near Kuala Lumpur) taking photographs of the performers applying their intricate makeup and putting on their costumes, I noticed a young woman in an unusually constructed dress, nervously pacing to and fro, rehearsing her lines which she read off a scrap of paper. She wasn't part of the troupe, so I engaged her in a conversation to find out how she fitted in the upcoming show. She informed me that she was the 'warm-up' show for t...

During my regular photo walks in New York City's Chinatown, I chanced upon another poster advertising a forthcoming Chinese (Cantonese) Opera at the Chinese Community Center's theater on Mott Street. Naturally, I booked my seat, and attended its featured show titled The Legend of the Purple Hairpin. All the front and center seats were booked (at $100 each, I suppose that the show's sponsoring businesses and VIPs got them for free and/or at a discounted price), but I secured a front row aisle seat at the side...not ideal, but it gave me the freedom to move should I need to. I chose to use my Fuji X-Pro2 and the Fujinon XF 18-135 F3.5-5.6 OIS WR (the equivalent of a 28-200mm) to give me the reach I would need. The  Fujinon  XF 18-135 F3.5-5.6 OIS WR is my least favorite (and least used) Fuji lens because of its aperture limitation. However, I found that its OIS ( Optical Image Stabilizer) compensates for this limitation quite well, and from my previous experience at the sam...

Laosheng (??, old man) As another string to my 'Chinoiserie' phase, I've been very attracted (visually and culturally) for quite some time to the art of what is generally known as Chinese Opera. I speak no Chinese, but it (in its many different ethnic varieties) being centuries old and performed in colorful costumes make for an visually appeal that's hard to resist capturing with my cameras. Following my 5-6 hour photo shoot of performers at the Yuet Wan Cantonese Opera Association in Kuala Lumpur a few weeks ago, I resolved to continue on the path that I hope might lead me to another long term project similar to my two year long  H?u �?ng: The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam , and discovered from an ad plastered all over NYC's Chinatown featuring a Chinese Opera to be  held at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association Auditorium on Mott Street. I booked my seat for May 21 and with my Fuji X-Pro2 and a a panoply of lenses, was at the door half an hour before the op...

Photo � Tewfic El-Sawy - All Rights Reserved Chinoiserie (from ' chinois ' the French for Chinese) is a style inspired by art and design from China, Japan and other Asian countries. Fashion designers, furniture makers, wallpaper designers, artists and photographers have consistently been heavily influenced and inspired to produce work that reflect this aesthetic. My c hinoiserie "phase" has been bubbling for quite a while. Certainly influenced by my travels over the past two years to Hanoi, and annual visits to Kuala Lumpur, it was triggered by a couple of visits to The Old China Cafe; an atmospheric eatery in KL's Chinatown's vicinity, and which in turn resulted in a short  audio-slideshow bearing the same name. My immersive experience in the Vietnamese  H?u �?ng  rituals for my photo book was another push in this direction, especially with the fashion sense and the ethnic costumes of the mediums. Yet another influence of mine is In the Mood for Love (Chine...

In his 2013 episode of Parts Unknown,  Anthony Bourdain  called the Robot Restaurant as "The Greatest Show On Earth". It is in the narrow streets/alleys of Kabukicho, Shinjuku, that the Robot Restaurant's facade immediately assaults one's senses, by standing out in its utter glitzy gaudiness amongst its more "normal"neighboring establishments. Since Bourdain got the shock of his life here, it has become a magnet for foreign visitors seeking to experience the same "buzz' he had. the cabaret show is reported to have cost in excess of $10 million (some say $100 million, which beggars belief), and provides an overwhelming LSD-like experience of robots, loud thumping electronic music, strobing neon lights, giant animatronics, hyper pop songs and naturally, scantily-clad shapely dancing girls whose names range from Namie Osawa, Love Katase and Rin Tanba. While the whole atmosphere looks more like the interior of a very gaudy cruise ship and more lights t...

CHINATOWN NOIR by Tewfic El-Sawy on Exposure I am lucky to live in a neighborhood within easy walking distance to New York City's Chinatown. A mere 15 minutes or so, and I'm in Asia. It's as if I am walking in the cacophonous streets of Hong Kong, perhaps with a tiny smidgen of Hanoi thrown in, but without its motorcycle traffic madness. My Fuji X-Pro2 with its 18mm f2.0 dangling from my neck, I take in the visual, aural and olfactory vibes of this quintessential Asian ambience, rub shoulders with its Fujianese and Cantonese residents; try to avoid and ignore the slow-walking sidewalk-hugging out-of-state out-of-shape tourists who gawk at them, and concentrate on catching interesting interactions and expressions. I wear all black, with a dark scarf to sort of mask my camera. It might be a superfluous "precaution" since no one so far has noticed, nor minded me, taking pictures. They are far too engrossed in their daily to and fro, mostly shopping for seafood, veg...