Penelope Gan: Malay-Chinese Opera

Photo © Penelope Gan-All Rights Reserved
Although Penelope Gan works in the financial industry in Kuala Lumpur, she's also passionate about photography, and particularly about photojournalism. She recently embarked on documenting various social issues that concern her, and produced a number of audio-visual photo essays to assist a number of local NGOs and government organizations that are involved in resolving these issues. An alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali this summer, she attended Ami Vitale's class (and mine).

She recently worked on what I deem to be an captivating project, documenting a special brand of traditional Chinese opera performing in Kuala Lumpur. According to Penelope's blog, the Chinese operas initially made their appearance in the mid-19th century when large numbers of Chinese migrated to Malaysia (or Malaya then) in search of employment and economic opportunities. Having settled in their new country, the Chinese brought in opera troupes from China, performing their art and mirroring the cultural developments in China.

The Malaysian Chinese opera may soon be a relic of the past, as it unsuccessfully competes with changing cultural tastes, and against the current of technological advancement and globalization. This makes Penelope's project timely, and I hope she is able to finalize it soon. The merging of what I imagine will be stunning visuals and the audio is something that I am certain will be awaited by many people.

So go for it, Penelope!

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DPReview: Canon 7D Review

From DPReview's just published write-up on the new Canon EOS 7D has this interesting paragraph:

"In some respects the 7D is even a better camera than the EOS 5D Mark II and a viable alternative for all those who do not want or need a camera with a full-frame sensor. Its 8 fps continuous shooting speed and highly flexible AF system might even make it a consideration for credit-crunch battered sports photographers on a budget."

The full comprehensive review runs to 30 pages, and is worth to read very carefully if this camera is of interest. I am interested in the $1,700 Canon EOS 7D as a second camera to my current full-frame low-light capable 5D Mark II, and for its 8 fps capability, so I will parse every word before I make any decisions.

Update (11.21.09): For another review of the 7D, check Bob Atkins' here.

I've handled the 7D for a few moments at B&H (oblivious of the theatrical throat-clearings and discreet shoves from other gawkers), and can vouch that it's solidly built and that it's frames-per-second sounds really fast. I read somewhere that it's more like 7 fps than 8, but that's being pedantic.

I'm not a sports photographer, but in my line of work I do need fast continuous shooting speed, so this camera (and at this price) may come in handy. The other option is the expensive ($5,000) full frame EOS-1D Mark IV with its 1.3 crop factor, 10 fps and 16 effective megapixels APS-H CMOS sensor.

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Tim Chong: Hemis Festival

Hemis Tsechu 2008 from Tim Chong on Vimeo.

Hemis Tsechu is a festival commemorating the birth of Guru Rimpoche, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. It's observed and celebrated on the 10th day of the fifth Tibetan lunar month, which usually falls between the end of June and the beginning of July.

The festival is a two-day event held at the Hemis monastery, almost 30 miles south of Leh in Ladakh, India. During the festival, resident Lamas and monks perform a series of masked dances (Cham) which are re-enactments of the magical feats of Guru Rimpoche. Similar to the Cham dances of Bhutan, these dances depict the eternal struggle of good versus evil. When these dances come to an end, an idol made of dough is destroyed by the leader of Black Hat dancers. The destroyed pieces of the figure are then spread in four directions.

This is the well-done documentary work of Tim Chong, a senior photo sub-editor/photographer for the Reuters Global Pictures Desk based in Singapore.

Note: For more of the tsechu dances, visit Cham!, a multimedia gallery of my own photographs made during last year's Bhutan Photo~Expedition.

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Hard Gear: Iomega's eGo Helium

I plead guilty to the sin of impulse buying. It's not often that I do that, but the Apple store in the West Village has such a cornucopia of irresistible temptations. So a sleek and elegant 500GB Iomega's eGo Helium Hard Drive is now part of my external hard drive panoply.

While its design (and its intent) makes it a natural for the MacBook Air, I'll be using this baby with my Acer netbook, in tandem with my other portable hard drive, G-Drive Mini. I deemed the eGo Helium's weight of 7oz to be an important factor in the decision. It only offers one USB 2.0 port, but that doesn't bother me as I only intend to use it with the said Acer. In contrast, my G-Drive Mini has two FireWire 800 and one USB 2.0.

Naturally for a product that really looks like a baby MacBook Air, the device is formatted with Apple's HFS+ file system, which meant I had to reformat it for my Acer's Windows XP OS. A minor pain in the neck, but nevertheless a pain. Since XP pretended that the drive didn't exist, I had to refer to Iomega's website and read (imagine that!!!) the instructions as the "short-on-details" manual included with the device didn't address that issue properly.

It now works nicely, and for my forthcoming photo~expedition to India I will have storage capacity of the eGo Helium's 500gb, the G-Drive's 320gb and the Acer's 160gb (well, almost 160gb). Not bad.

Now, all that's left to do is to paint the Acer in a shiny silver aluminum color and paste the Apple decal on it!

Update: It was annoying that the device wasn't recognized by my MacBook free USB port, but the solution was to plug it in the USB ports of my Cinema display.

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Ami Vitale: Updated Website

As TTP readers know, Ami Vitale is one of my favorite documentary photographers, and has been featured on many occasions on this blog. Ami worked on contract for National Geographic for many years, been published in all or most of the top-name media outlets, and won a ton of awards for her impressive work. She lived in India for almost 6 years out of which nearly 4 of those were spent in Kashmir.

Currently based in Miami, Ami believes in spending time on a story, and in living with the people she photographs. This, she says, has helped her to get beneath the surface of a story. During the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali, Ami and I shared some of the students in our respective classes, and I know she stressed that particular ethic during her instructions.

In any event, there are many posts on TTP on Ami, but she has recently updated her website which I encourage you to visit if you haven't done so already.

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China's Tibet: Desmond Kavanaugh

China's Tibet from Desmond Kavanagh on Vimeo.

This is hardly a travel feature, but is more of a statement against the encroaching Sinification of Tibet. Desmond Kavanaugh is an a Dublin-based photographer, who produced a documentary made of still images titled China's Tibet.

The collection of photographs is an exploration of the effects of Chinese occupation and development on the ancient culture and land of Tibet as it is pulled into the 21st century by one of the worlds fastest growing economies.

As Desmond writes: "This new Tibet is powered and connected, and is a haven for Han Chinese migrants attracted by Government subsidies. The documentary focuses on the issues of militarization, immigration, construction, propaganda and and repression of culture all set against the backdrop of the stunning plateau."

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My Work: A Bhutanese Nun

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Here's one of my favorite portraits made last month during my Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition. I met this nun while she was circumambulating the Jambhey Lhakhang goemba in Jakar, spinning the many prayer wheels in its walls.

Circumambulation of temples or deity images is an integral part of Hindu ritual. It is also practiced in Buddhism, as in this case here. In Islam, circumambulation is performed around the Kaaba in Mecca in a counter-clockwise direction.

The Jambhey Lakhang is one of 108 Buddhist temples built in the 7th century by the Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo, and it's revered as one of the oldest landmarks of the arrival of Buddhism in Bhutan, explaining the number of pilgrims who visit it all day.

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