Wenjie Yang: Nuo Opera

Photo © Wenjie Yang-All Rights Reserved
Wenjie Yang is a freelance photographer, who was born and raised in Shanghai. She comes to photography and photojournalism with a background in advertising production and production of movie crews for a number of years.

She currently attends the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism One-Year Certificate Program at International Center of Photography, and worked on editorial assignments from various magazines, including “Travel + Leisure”, “Marie Claire”, “Elle Decoration”, "Burn Magazine" and “Chinese Photographers”. She also was awarded third prize in the 2008 National Geographic International Photography Contest (China Region).

Wenjie introduces us to Nuo Opera through her photo essay here.

Nuo opera is an ancient and a popular folk opera in southwest China. It is characterized by the use of frightening masks, characteristic dresses, strange language used in its performances, and mysterious scenes. It integrates religious and dramatic culture, and its performance aims drive away evil spirits, disease and unholy influences, as well as supplicate blessings from the gods.

Traditionally, Nuo is performed by specially trained shamans as a means of exorcism. In fact, the professional Nuo performers are viewed as "spiritual tutors" wielding supernatural powers to disperse evil spirits, sickness and disease.

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Asim Rafiqui: The Idea of India

"The close relationships between the island’s Muslim and Hindu communities in fact reveal a blurring of religious and spiritual lines, reminding us of the artificiality of the labels of ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ and the ordinary human being’s ability to find accommodation and tolerance of the practices and values of his neighbors." - Gujarat’s Faded Testaments – The Parables Of Bet Dwarka

Asim Rafiqui is not only an excellent photojournalist, photographer, a thoughtful blogger, writer and commentator, but also a friend and an inspiration in many ways.

I've written a number of posts on his wonderful project The Idea of India, and its being supported by The Aftermath Project and Blue Earth Alliance in the past year, so it gives me great pleasure to announce that he was just awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue this extraordinary project.

Asim will be based for a year in New Delhi starting this September, and the scholarship will allow him to continue, expand and delve deeper into this important project.

I encourage you to visit Asim's The Idea of India writings, as well as his accompanying blog The Spinning Head. I'm certain you'll bookmark both, and follow his explorations into India's past, present and perhaps future.

As a footnote, I am undeservedly privileged to be mentioned in Asim's The Idea of India, and hope to reciprocate the acknowledgment in a small way very soon.

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Antonin Kratochvil : Moscow Nights

Here's an audio slideshow of photographs by Antonin Kratochvil titled "Moscow Nights" that takes us to Moscow's decadent underworld, which is the latest feature on VII Magazine. The images themselves are vintage Kratochvil; some of which are tilted to impart uncomfortable tension (and also to be different). Although he's known for his black and white documentary photography, a few here are in color, and all show the dissolute circus-like atmosphere of this other dimension. The accompanying soundtrack is of a popular Russian music played on the accordion.

The blurb that accompanies Moscow Nights suggests that it's hard not to feel "the raw edge and danger" that exists in that underworld.

I may be mistaken, but I haven't felt that at all. All I felt was disdain tinged with pity for the characters who live such an empty existence, and watching the slideshow reminded me of the decadent characters and atmosphere in Cabaret, the 1972 movie with Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey.

Moscow Nights is also a book soon to be available, and is described as "a voyeuristic tour through the decadence and hedonism of the new "Golden Youth" as they enjoy their spoils."

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Munem Wasif: Old Dhaka

Photo © Munem Wasif -All Rights Reserved
Here's a response in many more ways than one to Howard W. French's Old Shanghai galleries which I posted about yesterday.

It's by well-known Bangladeshi photographer Munem Wasif, whose trademark gritty high-contrast black & white photographs seem to be the common denominator amongst many of his equally talented compatriot photographers.

Old Dhaka -as we've seen of the old neighborhoods of Shanghai- offers endless scenes of unadulterated humanity to photographers. The Western affinity for privacy doesn't exist here. Mothers bathe their children in the open, while the elderly help one another to perform basic needs and people live virtually in the open without shame or embarrassment.

It's quite evident from this photo essay that Munem Wasif (and others like him) are photographers who have the ability to achieve a no-holds barred intimacy with their subjects. Achieving this closeness undoubtedly enhances the humanness of the subjects we see in their pictures.

Old Dhaka is featured on the incomparable ZoneZero, the site dedicated to photography founded 16 years ago by Pedro Meyer.

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Howard W. French: Old Shanghai

Photo © Howard W. French -All Rights Reserved
The NY Times featured Howard French's exquisite portfolio of black & white photographs of residents of old Shanghai's densely packed neighborhoods inside their own homes, which is titled Discovering Shanghai's Secret City.

I was so taken by this type of work (and I guarantee you will too) that I looked for Howard French's other work and discovered his main photography website, and his equally wonderful Disappearing Shanghai: The Landscape Within among other galleries.

Howard French lived in Shanghai from 2003-2008 as chief of The Times’s bureau, and spent many weekends exploring the lesser known areas of Shanghai or the "densely packed place of tumbledown, two-story housing and long internal alleyways" as he describes them. He became a familiar sight for many of the residents, and knew what to expect at every corner, whther it'd be a mahjong game or a regular siting in a chair in his pajamas.

He returned to Shanghai last summer and for three months, he knocked on the doors of homes and asked himself in to document what he encountered.

To me, this is what documentary photography is all about. The photographer as a fly on the wall...seemingly unnoticed by his subjects...who perhaps either ignore his presence, got used to it or tolerate it....and from these frames, one can build a storyline. In the photograph above, the woman on the left is laughing at something/someone outside of the frame, and the younger woman looks at her somewhat pensively, while a third person is lying on the bed, possibly asleep. Can we guess the dynamics in this photograph? The wedding photograph hanging from the wall begs the question: is the bride and groom present in the room? Are they the laughing woman and the sleeping figure? Is the young woman their daughter?

Simple yet complex. I love it.

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One Shot: NYT's Rina Castelnuovo

Photo © Rina Castelnuovo-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times' Lens blog features the work of Rina Castelnuovo in Palestine & Israel. Essentially a "smooch" job by the writer, but there's no denying that she deserves every word of it.

After all, she's the photographer who captured the infamous photograph of the thuggish Israeli settler tossing wine at a Palestinian woman on Shuhada Street in Hebron.

Amongst Ms Castelnuovo's photographs on the Lens blog, I chose the one above as my favorite. The photograph is of a group of Haredi Jews (or Haredim) during a festival in the Mea Shearim district of Jerusalem. The Haredim are Ultra-Orthodox Jews who consider their belief system and rituals to extend in an unbroken chain back to Moses.

I'm intrigued by some of the hats worn by these Haredim. The fur hats worn by some are called spodik while the flat ones are called shtreimel, however I can't figure those worn by the fellows on the left of the photograph which resemble white fezzes complete with black tassels.

The fez of course, is the well-known red hat with tassel of the Ottoman Empire, which was popular in its dominions such as Egypt, the Maghreb and some Greek islands. The fez was banned by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as being regressive.

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FP: Tomas van Houtryve's Maostalgia

Photo © Tomas van Houtryve-All Rights Reserved
When one thinks of Foreign Policy magazine, large photographs and photo essays don't really come to mind...but that would be incorrect. The magazine regularly features photo essays from well-known photojournalist and, contrary to many online newsy magazines, does a nice job showcasing them in a large size.

This month, Foreign Policy published Maostalgia, a photo essay by Tomas van Houtryve, who traveled in the heart of China and found Mao's legacy in the most unexpected places.

For instance, he photographed in the town of Nanjie, where its government provides for all its citizens' needs, supplying them with everything from cough medicine to funerals.

A different take from the recent photo essays on glitzy China we've been accustomed to see, and which for the most part extol the virtues of the Chinese economy.

Tomas van Houtryve is a documentary photojournalist who spent much of the past five years photographing the few remaining countries still under Communist Party rule. His 2009 photo essay for FP on North Korea, "The Land of No Smiles," was nominated for a National Magazine Award.

More of his images on China can be seen here.

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Giulio di Sturco: Dreaming Fashion

I've been meaning to feature Giulio di Sturco's photography for a while now, and recently revisited his website, to which he added a number of galleries.

One of those consists of his work during Indian Fashion Week in New Delhi, and is titled Dreaming Fashion.

You may wonder what I chose to feature this gallery on what is essentially a travel photography blog.

My rationale is multi-faceted: this gallery of edgy fashion and striking models underscores the enormous strides made by India in becoming an Asian economic powerhouse with a new growing middle class and modernizing cities, but also emphasizes the growing wealth disparity between its haves and have-nots.

Another reason is Giulio's photographic style. His blurry photographs impart both a dreamy look and one that suggests motion and energy.

The third reason is the pretty models...always a magnet.

Giulio's work also includes more sobering work. His galleries of photographs of the Ganges' pollution, the misery of Bihar residents after a flood and violence in Kashmir provide a reality check, and a reminder that not all is rosy in India.

Giulio di Sturco is an award-winning Italian photographer working between Milan and New Delhi. He studied photography at the European Institute of Design and Visual Arts in Rome, and was published in D (La Repubblica delle Donne), Internazionale, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Anna, Amica, Geo, L'Espresso and others.

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One Shot: Kate Holt

Photograph © Kate Holt-All Rights Reserved
I'm severely pressed for time, so this post will unfortunately be short in prose but hopefully not in substance.

I just thought to showcase this magnificent photograph by Kate Holt of an Afghan woman holding a malnourished infant at a therapeutic feeding center in Kandahar.

Kate is a news and features photographer, covering events throughout Africa and Afghanistan.

PS. Being tall, I'm quite fond of environmental photographs of that type, which tell a story from "above". Many photojournalists/photographers seem to prefer frontal views for obvious reasons, but in this case where faces are covered, Kate's choice of vantage point is just perfect.

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Michael Rubenstein:India

Photograph © Michael Rubenstein-All Rights Reserved
Michael Rubenstein is a photographer based in Mumbai to cover South Asia for Redux Pictures, having lived in New York City and Portland, Oregon. He has a degree in Environmental Policy and has studied at Ohio University's School of Visual Communications.

His clients include: Time Magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, The Oregonian, The Chicago Tribune, The Financial Times, Complex Magazine, The Paris Match, Bloomberg News Service and W+K.

Some of his work on Andheri, a Mumbai suburb being transformed into a hip neighborhood appeared in the NY Times. And it's interesting to see the stylistic difference between this photo sideshow and his India gallery on his website.

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Stephen JB Kelly: Qi Lihe

Photo © Stephen JB Kelly-All Rights Reserved
Stephen JB Kelly is an English photographer, currently based in Hong Kong. He obtained a diploma in Photography from the London College of Communication, which was followed by a degree in Documentary Photography from the University of Wales, Newport.

Aside from winning a number of awards for his photography, Stephen has been published in various magazines including The Independent Magazine, The Observer Magazine, D La Repubblica delle Donne, IL Magazine and The FADER Magazine.

One of his portfolios is of Qi Lihe, on the outskirts of Lanzhou which is the most destitute area of this heavily polluted industrial city in northwest China. During the recent years, there has been an influx of migrant Hui and Dongxiang Muslim minorities into these urban centers. The main cause of the influx is the desertification of their land, forcing these farmers and families to seek a better existence in Lanzhou.

The Hui’s ancestors were Silk Road traders, largely of Arab and Persian descent, who first came to China in the 7th Century. The Dongxiang are closely related to the Mongolians and as an independent ethnic group they arose through contact with Central Asians who converted them to Sunni Islam in the 13th century.

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Francesco Lastrucci: Kashgar

Photo © Francesco Lastrucci-All Rights Reserved
Here's the work of Francesco Lastrucci, an Italian freelance photographer who specializes in editorial stories. He's currently based between Italy, New York and Hong Kong from where he works on projects involving Europe, Latin America and East Asia.

From Francesco's diverse editorial stories, including a story of the ubiquitous areca nut and betel leaf chewing in Taiwan (as indeed it is in many other Asian countries), and its marketing by beautiful young women, I chose his excellent work on Kashgar, the capital city of the Uyghur.

The Uyghur live in modern Xinjiang, the westernmost province of China, but the name Xinjiang is considered offensive by many Uyghur who prefer to use Uyghurstan or Eastern Turkestan. Kashgar is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 inhabitants, and its old city has been deemed overcrowded and unsafe for its residents, and will have at least 85% of its structures demolished. Demolitions have already begun, with many of its former denizens forced to move.

Kashgar’s old city has been called “the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in Central Asia, but it is now being razed by the Chinese government which plans to replace the old buildings with new.

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Julie Jacobson: Afghans' Opium Addiction

Photo © Julie Jacobson/AP-All Rights Reserved
It is estimated that Afghanistan supplies nearly all the world's opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin, and while most of the deadly crop is exported, enough remains in it to feed a cycle of addiction among its population. It's also estimated there are at least 200,000 opium and heroin addicts in Afghanistan.

It's a fact of life that many rural areas in Afghanistan have no access to basic medicine such as aspirin, so whenever a villager needs a painkiller for a minor ailment, they are given opium instead.

Julie Jacobson is an Associated Press Writer and Photojournalist, who produced a video on opium addiction amongst a family in Afghanistan. In many of Afghanistan's remote mountain villages, opium addiction has infected toddlers to old men.

Julie has also written an interesting article published by Nieman Reports titled Crossing The Line: From Still To Video, which includes these four main guidelines:

"Some moments should be captured in photographs only. With those, be true to your photography and don’t worry about video."

"Remain as true to your photography while capturing video imagery. Make good “pictures” in your video".

"Some moments and events clearly call for video. But it isn’t possible to be everywhere and to get everything, so don’t try".

"When shooting stills and video, anticipate moments carefully. If they’re not there or time doesn’t permit, then make sure to be complete in shooting only one or both will suffer."

A worthwhile read to photographers and photojournalists facing this transition.

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Michael Nye: About Hunger

Photo © Michael Nye-All Rights Reserved
I've briefly touched upon the issue of hunger in a POV a few days ago, and coincidentally found Michael Nye's compassionate work at the same time.

Michael Nye’s exhibition About Hunger & Resilience, consists of fifty portraits and accompanying audio stories of individuals who experienced hunger in the United States.

Michael Nye has been listening, photographing and recording hunger for the past 4.5 years. He lives in downtown San Antonio, and practiced law for 10 years before pursuing photography full time. He's the recipient of a Mid-America National Endowment for the Arts grant in photography, and a Kronkosky Foundation grant. He also participated in two Arts America tours in the Middle East and Asia, and has exhibited and lectured widely in museums and universities, including Morocco, India and Mexico.

"About Hunger & Resilience" opened at the Witte Museum,San Antonio, Texas in January of 2010 and is currently traveling around the United States.

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Aaron Vincent Elkaim: Jewish Morocco

Photo © Aaron Vincent Elkaim-All Rights Reserved
On the occasion of Passover, I thought of posting an interesting visual-historical-religious photo essay relating to the long Judeo-Muslim history of Morocco by Aaron Vincent Elkaim.

Jewish history in Morocco dates back to over 2000 years, and Jews have lived in the country as a protected minority. Prior to the arrival of the French in 1912, the currency and flag of Morocco carried the star of David, a recognition that it represented a prophet revered by Jew and Muslim (as Dawood) alike. During the Second World War, the king of Morocco famously declared to the Nazis (who wanted a list of Jews) that there were no Jews in Morocco, only Moroccan citizens.

Following the establishment of Israel, most of the Moroccan Jews have left their country of birth for the USA, France, Canada and Israel itself.

Aaron is an emerging documentary photography who initially studied Film and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Manitoba. His work was awarded on numerous occasions and published in newspapers and magazines across Canada.

His photographs in the mellahs of Marrakesh and Essaouira remind me of my own at the synagogues in these two cities last summer, during the Essaouira Gnawa festival.

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Jan Sochor: Nukak-Maku

Photo © Jan Sochor-All Rights Reserved
Jan Sochor has documented the Nukak Maku people, a nomadic indian tribe from the Amazon, who were driven out of the jungle by the Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary squads. More than half of the Nukak population have died of western diseases like flu. In refugee camps, the Nukak are taught from (mainly Christian) aid workers concepts and habits that were never part of their tradition.

Jan is a freelance photographer, working between South America and Europe. He lived and worked in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain and the Czech Republic during the past five years. His photographs and stories have appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers and websites, including Sunday Times, National Geographic, Reuters, Burn magazine, Foto8, 100Eyes, UNESCO, Boston Review, PDN online,and others.

I've always considered proselytizing by any religious group to be an abhorrent practice...hand in hand with racism and bigotry.

Found via The Click

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Best Of Photojournalism: Dhiraj Singh

It gives me singular pleasure to learn that Dhiraj Singh was awarded Honorable Mention (Feature Audio Slideshow) in the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism 2010 for his My Name Is Dechen.

Dhiraj attended my MultiMedia class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali last summer, and not only received a standing ovation on showing his audio slideshow (Soundslides), but was also awarded Top Award For Photography by the workshop's instructors.

A well-deserved honor to this immensely talented photographer and photojournalist...and he's a very nice guy as well.

I don't think Dhiraj will mind me plugging the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in this post...so if you are still on the fence about your participation in the Istanbul workshop, you may want to take into account that if you do attend it, you may produce a similarly powerful project or photo essay that could earn you prestigious awards!

The Foundry offers the best instructors there is...real working professionals who will show you the ropes, and either change or reinforce your mindset. All you have to do is to leave your ego at the door...that's all.

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Ashley Gilbertson: Bedrooms of the Fallen

The New York Times Sunday Magazine has featured The Shrine Down The Hall: Bedrooms of America's Young War Dead, a powerful photo essay in slideshow format by photographer Ashey Gilbertson (VII Network), which looks at some of the empty bedrooms of the over 5000 U.S. military personnel killed in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dexter Filkins starts his accompanying article with the words "Just kids". The ages of these military fallen range from 19 to 25...indeed, just kids.

George McGovern in 1969 speaking about Vietnam said:

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in".

Now of course, it's also women who die in combat, as indeed Karina Lau did. Her bedroom still has a stuffed teddy bear and floppy-eared rabbit on top of her floral bedspread. She was killed seven years ago when insurgents shot down her helicopter in Falluja, Iraq. She was 20 years old.

In my view, this slideshow should be mandatory viewing by every politician who supported our senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I just read that George W. Bush is visiting Haiti. How about visiting these bedrooms first?

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Peter Turnley Does Rio's Carnaval

Photo © Peter Turnley -All Rights Reserved

..."I became aware of the value of turning my attention away from the main event. So often, the temptation is to look where everyone else is looking. But, time after time, I have chosen to observe what’s going on by looking in the other direction—before, or after, or at the edges of the main attraction." - Peter Turnley

And that he did. Turnley's just featured On the Fringe of the Rio Carnaval photo essay on The Online Photographer is unusual because it doesn't concentrate on the scantily-clad gorgeous women of the Rio's Carnaval as many other photojournalists do, but it rather takes us away from the glitz of the main event to the less glamorous side show...to the fringe as he calls it.

The photographs represent moments that occurred away from the main event. It is this amazing spirit which, in Turnley's mind, exemplifies the Carnaval, and inspires him to return to Brazil year after year.

The complete photo essay is on The Online Photographer.

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Tiana Markova-Gold: Haiti

Photo © Tiana Markova-Gold -All Rights Reserved
Here's another post on Haiti.

Tiana Markova-Gold is a documentary photographer based in Brooklyn, and graduated from the full-time Photojournalism Program at the ICP, where she was the recipient of a New York Times Scholarship. She traveled extensively in Latin America, Asia and Africa working on social documentary projects.

Her work was recognized by New York Photo Awards, PDN Photo Annual, American Photography and International Photography Awards. She also traveled throughout nine Asian countries on a photography fellowship from Johnson & Johnson, documenting various social issues.

Here, I feature Tiana's work on Haiti which depicts scenes from Souvenance and Saut d'Eau. In Souvenance, Holy Week is marked by colorful parades and traditional music played on bamboo trumpets, maracas, drums, and even coffee cans. Voodoo believers make this annual pilgrimage to Souvenance, carrying offerings to the spirits.

Saut-d'Eau is the home of Haiti's most celebrated patron saint, Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Vierge Miracle) whose anniversary is celebrated on July 16th. Saut-d'Eau is said to be the most important pilgrimage site in Haiti, with thousands of pilgrims participating in the festivities. Its waterfall is said to have healing powers, and song and music are part of the bathing ritual where pilgrims wash themselves covering their bodies with aromatic basil, dandelions, and perfumed soaps.

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