Dom & Liam Shaw | Vida Cubana | Fuji X Pro 2

© Dom & Liam Shaw- All Rights Reserved 

My Twitter feed is not entirely useless after all!

It brought me to a blog post by two Yorkshire-based wedding photographers who, after a street photography stint in New York City, continued their adventures to include 15 days shooting during the Easter break in the streets of Havana (and Trinidad).

Not only are the super-saturated photographs of Havana just a joy to view, but they were made with the newly released Fuji X Pro-2.

There are a number of world cities that are especially spectacular for  street photography; New York City, Kolkata, Hanoi and many others...but in my view, Havana is probably ranked amongst the top five, and these photographs certainly support my contention.

I was in Havana in 2000 (during the Elian Gonzales controversy) attending a photography workshop with Costa Manos, and it was a revelation. I was a photo novice at the time, but I immediately realized the incredible magnetic pull this city had to photographers.

To accompany this post, I chose one of the couple's photograph featuring Wilke (or Wilki), a well-known 'Habanero' to visiting photographers. He earns a living by dancing in various bars and by posing as a model on account of his elegance, white sideburns and enormous cigars. His dancing partner, Adelaide, is also a fortune teller. I met them during my week-long stay in Havana, and they introduced me to a private session of Santeria.

Traveling to Cuba for US citizens has become much easier recently, however Cuba's infrastructure hasn't yet caught up with the influx of tourists coming from its northern neighbor. Lack of hotel rooms, exacerbated by underdeveloped airport facilities, results in frustrated travelers.

As many things in life, I guess it's a trade-off. 

Taylor Weideman | Poy Sang Long

© Taylor Weideman - Getty Images | Huffington Post

Here's another festival I would love to photograph...so in the bucket list it goes. The annual Poy Sang Long festival is a three-day long rite of passage for young Buddhists from the Shan ethnic group in Thailand.

The festival marks the initiation of 7-14 years old boys, as novices in the Buddhist community. It essentially consists of these boys taking novice monastic vows and participating in monastery life for a period of time that can vary from a week to many months or more. It's widespread in Myanmar, but the practice crossed into Thailand, where Shan immigrants have brought over their traditions.

The festival goes on for three days, as the boys are dressed like princes in imitation of the Buddha, himself a prince before setting out on the religious path, spend the entire time being carried around on the shoulders of their older male relatives.

Photographer Taylor Weidman's lovely images of the Poy Sang Long festival were featured in The Huffington Post. The accompanying article tells us that the photographer followed two youngsters, as they prepared for their initiation. The two boys are neighbors from Chiang Mai who traveled to Mae Sariang, a small town in northern Thailand near the Burmese border for the ceremony.

The festival of Poy Sang Long in Thai is called Buad Loog Gaew, which means "ordaining the beloved sons", and is held in early April when, in the city of Chiang Mai, pre-teen boys are inducted into the Buddhist novice-hood.

Taylor Weidman is a photojournalist based in northern Thailand. As photographer for Getty Images, his work has appeared in many of the world's most prestigious news outlets, including The New York Times, TIME, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, BBC, The Guardian, GEO, Der Spiegel, and others.

Jorge Silva | Chinese Opera | Boston Globe

Photo © Jorge Silva - Courtesy The Boston Globe

A recent photo essay appearing on The Boston Globe's The Big Picture got my attention because it featured photographs of the performances of a Chinese opera in Bangkok. 

Chinese opera is a popular form of drama and musical theatre in China, and elsewhere in Asia where Chinese have established presence, with roots going back to the early periods in China. Together with Greece tragic-comedy and Indian Sanskrit Opera, it's one of the three oldest dramatic art forms in the world.

Many of the features that characterize modern Chinese Opera developed in northern China, particularly Shanxi and Gansu Provinces. These included the use of certain characters: Sheng - the man, Dan - the woman, Hua - painted face, and Chou - the clown.

Chinese opera was virtually killed off during the years of Mao Tse Tung's rule, but was revived in 1976. Since then, there are more than thirty forms of Chinese opera that are regularly performed throughout the country. The most well known are the Qinqiang Opera type, the Beijing Opera, the Shanghai Opera and the Cantonese Opera.

The reasons for my interest in Chinese opera are multifold. I've photographed a performance of Hát Tuồng in Hanoi in 2012. It is one of the oldest art forms in Vietnam, and is said to have existed since the late 12th century. It’s believed to be influenced by Chinese opera performance techniques, but subsequently evolving and changed into a new form embodying Vietnamese characteristics and nature. I wanted to photograph its performers more in depth at the time, but was constrained to do so because I was leading a photo workshop, and couldn't devote enough time to it.

Hong Kong Airport

On my return from Hanoi last month, I viewed a photographical installation in Hing Kong's airport featuring a number of images of Chinese opera performers, and thought it'd be a great forthcoming project.  It would touch all the bases I like: culture, history, music, fashion, and artistic performances. Perhaps I was subconsciously hooked to it after viewing the famous movie, Farewell My Concubine.

Although I'll be in Kuala Lumpur at the end of May, Chinese opera is only performed on certain occasions, however I'll try to do some research beforehand.

Leonid Plotkin | Followers of The Real

Photo © Leonid Plotkin-All Rights Reserved

I've featured the work of photographer of Leonid Plotkin a few times already, and I'm glad he he has just uploaded photographs of his walking pilgrimage with Sufis from Delhi to Ajmer in Rajasthan to attend the annual Urs of Nawaz Gharib.

He and I share a passion for documenting the esoteric traditions and rituals of Sufism in the Indian sub-continent, and I'm quite certain that our paths have crossed there in May 2013. He was the only non-Indian I saw at the festival, apart from the photo workshop group that I was leading at the same time.

Sufism has a history in India evolving for over a millennia. Islam literally walked into the subcontinent since the 8th century. Sufi mystic traditions became more popular during the 10th and 11th centuries of the Delhi Sultanate, and these have existed since then. Sufism helped to build a syncretic medieval culture tolerant and appreciative of non-Muslims, and its saints contributed to a growth of stability, vernacular literature, and devotional music in the subcontinent.

Many Sufis make the pilgrimage from various Sufi dargahs in Delhi to the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti (aka Nawaz Gharib) on the anniversary of his death. Hundreds of devotees walk the distance of about 400 kilometers (250) miles over the period of ten days.

Leonid took part of this walk, and photographed its participants on Followers of The Real. Many of his captions are very interesting so read them when you view the images.

He is a freelance documentary photographer and writer. His work has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, The Economist, Penthouse Magazine, Student Traveler, Budge Travel, Discovery Magazine, MSN.com and others.

Eric Mencher | Tradition!

Photo © Eric Mencher-All Rights Reserved

I ought to feature the work of photographers who work with iPhones more often on this blog, especially if they are as talented as Eric Mencher.

Not only is he talented, but he also has a number of galleries on his website of images made with his iPhone of religious traditions in Guatemala, of Maya villages of Lake Atitlan and life around San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Most are in monochrome, but he includes brilliant color photographs made in both Guatemala and Mexico.

Having been to Antigua in 2014 and photographed in its cobblestoned streets during its annual fiesta of Santiago de los Caballeros (also in monochrome), my favorite gallery is of the religious traditions, fiestas and processions in Guatemala.

Eric frequently uses the iPhone's Hipstamatic app as well as its native camera. In the Hipstamatic mode, he uses the Lowy lens with the BlacKeys Super Grain, Blank Noir, Ina’s 1982 and Robusta films. He also likes the AO BW film with both the Akira and John S lenses, as well as the Watts lens with the D-Type Plate film.

Eric Mencher is a documentary photographer concentrating on long term projects and everyday street photography. His recent projects include life along the Lincoln Highway (the first cross-country road in the United States), contemporary life in the Maya villages of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, religious traditions in Guatemala, and life around San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

He was a photojournalist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and covered assignments all around the world, including the post-apartheid era in South Africa, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, life under Fidel Castro in Cuba and the civil war in Chechnya.

You can read an interview with Eric here.

Ta-Tung | Rooe | Storehouse

Photo © Rooe | Courtesy Storehouse

I'm always intrigued by out of the mainstream religious traditions and rites, and was often able to photograph and document them wherever they occurred. This is how I have been working for the past 18 months on my forthcoming photo book Hầu Đồng: The Spirit Mediums of Việt Nam.

Cap Goh Meh is a festival celebrated in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore on the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar. It officially ends the Chinese New Year celebrations. In Singkawang, Kalimantan, Tatung performers - people believed to be possessed by the spirits of ancestors – perform various ancient rituals, during the festival, the performance has similarities with Dayak rituals and is also performed by local Dayaks.

The Dayak are the native people of Borneo, and were feared for their ancient headhunting tradition.

Tatungs are mediums who exercise their craft during the Cap Go Meh ritual to ward off evil spirits, and cleanse the town and temples from evil and bad luck. During the Tatung rituals, participants enter into a trance and perform many bizzare actions, such as stepping on a sword, or piercing steel wires or nails into their cheeks or through their tongues.

The Intermediary is a photo essay by Indonesian photographer Rooe on the Tatungs published on Storehouse.

Louise Porter | Infrared Tribal

Photo © Louise Porter | All Rights Reserved

Infrared photography is a different technique that will appeal to those of us who have an adventurous streak, and seek to present an alternative vision to their audience. Infrared photography provides a new way to see what we like to photograph because our eyes cannot see infrared light as it is beyond the "visible" spectrum that humans can detect.

Using digital cameras modified to shoot infrared reveals photographs that are different from what we are used to see. Everything is different; colors, skies, clouds, faces, textures, and skin to mention just a few. The infrared "look" cannot be duplicated with post-processing software despite filters and techniques. Some photographers have converted their digital cameras by having the sensor's infrared blocking filter removed, and substituted with one that allows only infrared light to pass through.

One of those photographers is Louise Porter, whose infrared galleries Infrared Tribal Travel and Infrared Niger are lovely examples of this techniques. Readers of this blog post might be tempted to try this style of photography after viewing them.

Photo © Louise Porter | All Rights Reserved

Louise Porter has been a documentary and travel photographer for over 20 years. She trained at New York'sWorld Photography International Center of Photography, and has traveled to Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, India, Laos, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bhutan, Ladakh, Iceland, Cuba, Barbados, Ireland, Bali, Sulawasi, UK and other European countries. Her work was included twice in the 2013 and 2014 SONY World Photography top 10 short list for People along with another selected infrared photo in the Commended category.