My Work: Old Delhi's Khari Baoli

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Khari Baoli is reputed to be one of Asia's largest wholesale spice market, and is accessible from Chandni Chowk Road in the heart of Old Delhi. It's one of my favorite haunts whenever I'm in Delhi, and it's a wonderful area for some serious street photography. Of course, going there is also an excuse to stop by Kareem's for its famed kebabs.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

The area is full of explorable narrow alleys, while porters hurry with massive jute bags of spices jostle passer-bys. The atmosphere is almost medieval, with the spice and rice traders carrying on the business of their ancestors. Nothing has changed much over the years.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

In a small cubicle under a store, one of the area's chai-wallahs is straining the concoction into glasses. Chai or masala chai is a blend of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and black pepper, mixed with a rich black tea, milk, and a sweetener.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

The spice market's feverish activity of carrying or unloading of huge sacks of spices and goods from manual trolleys is occasionally interspersed by laborers resting and smoking their sweet-smelling bidis .

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I am definitely in the midst of a black & white phase. When I was producing my Bali: The Trilogy audio slideshows, I thought it was a contrarian reaction to the surfeit of color I've witnessed in Bali. Perhaps it was...but I looked at the above photographs in color, and sensed they'd look better in monochromatic tones. Perhaps I wanted to convey the grittiness of Khari Baoli, and black & white does that better.

Whatever it is,  I'm enjoying it a lot.

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MediaStorm For CFR: Pakistan

Here's Crisis Guide: Pakistan (click on image), a magisterial multimedia production featured by The Council of Foreign Relations and produced by MediaStorm.

As we all know, Pakistan is critical, if not the most critical country, to the national interests of the United States, and yet it's misunderstood and viewed through a prism of apprehension and, from some quarters, of distrust.

The concern over its stability with the current escalation of drone attacks on its tribal areas, the horrific human toll following the recent floods and its geographical and ideological positioning underscore its importance. The New York Times reported last night that international lenders estimate that the floods in Pakistan caused $9.5 billion in damage to its infrastructure, agriculture and other sectors.

According to MediaStorm's web page on the project, it was challenged to create an immersive website, which allowed the user to focus on the complex history of Pakistan and the issues facing the country.

One of the CFR interviewees makes the point that Pakistanis fault the United States' support of Afghan insurgents to battle the Soviet in the 1980s, who fled to neighboring Pakistan when the US invaded Afghanistan in retaliation for the 9.11.2001 Al Qaeda attacks.

I found this is a production that cannot be assimilated, nor reflected on, in a single sitting...it's best viewed over time...bookmark it....it's worth keeping it and returning to it every now and then. Having said that, no production (whether immersive or not) can really explain the complex intricacies that are at play in Pakistan. It's facile for pundits (whatever their political and ideological agendas) to postulate their views...but these will still fall short of reality.

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My Work: Traversing The Kachchh Part Two

I've uploaded around two dozen of new photographs unto a still gallery titled Traversing The Kachchh Part Two. These photographs were made during my Tribes of South Rajasthan & Kutch Photo~Expedition ™ earlier this year.

As the title suggests, this is the second of my still galleries of photographs made in that area; the first was Traversing The Kachchh.

Both galleries are precursors to my forthcoming photo-expedition In Search of Gujarat's Sufis to south Gujarat and the Kutch.

The In Search of Sufis Photo~Expedition ™ was sold out a week or so from its being announced.

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Rich-Joseph Facun: Darshana Ganga

Rich-Joseph Facun is a documentary, lifestyle, travel, commercial, editorial and portrait photographer based in the United Arab Emirates.

He recently published a personal project titled Darshana Ganga which documents the daily life, culture and heritage along the Ganges River over a number of trips to India. The latest trip saw him in Haridwar, an important pilgrimage city, Rishikesh, the yoga capital of the world and Devprayag, where two rivers converge to form the Ganga.

Darshana is a Sanskrit term signifying "visions of the divine", and is the central act of Hindu worship, and Rich built his photo essay around the reverence that all Hindus have to the Ganges. He also interspersed it with some excellent photographs of street life scenes in Varanasi...have a look of the one titled Shiva Music House.

It's been quite a while I haven't been to Devaprayag. It's there that the confluence of the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi forms the Ganges, and where the river is as translucent as a California swimming pool. I know it's hard to believe that when one encounters the Ganges' toxic waters in Varanasi, but it is emerald green in Devaprayag and beyond.

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Canon 7D Is Here...Well, Almost.

I've finally decided to replace my trusted and loyal (but ageing) Canon 1D Mark II with a Canon 7D. I hummed and hawed about whether to get the Canon 1D Mark IV, but balked at its price ($4900ish) and its weight....I thought of getting a second Canon 5D Mark II but wanted a much faster fps rate...and seeing a Canon instant rebate of $100 on the 7D, I jumped at it and now have it.

Well, I should say I almost have it, since although it's physically here I can't touch it for another few days. It's technically a birthday gift so it's in the no-touch zone until then.

I think I took the right decision in choosing the 7D. It's light in comparison to the 1D models, and its smaller sensor doesn't really bother me, especially since I have the 5D Mark II's full frame when I need it. The fast fps rate of the 7D will come in handy during festivals, religious rituals, ethnic celebrations...wherever there's action.

Next step? It might be either the Zacuto Optical Viewfinder or the more affordable LCD Viewfinder LCDVF. Santa will decide.

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Hamid Sardar: Mongolia

Hamid Sardar-Afkhami is a photographer and a scholar of Tibetan and Mongol languages with a Ph.D. from Harvard University. After moving to Nepal in the late 1980’s and exploring Tibet and the Himalayas for more than a decade, he traveled to Outer Mongolia, and determined to document its nomadic culture by setting a mobile studio ger camp in Mongolia. With his arsenal of cameras and different formats, he mounts yearly expeditions into the Mongolian outback to document her nomadic traditions.

Apart from the two movie documentaries (these are not short, and run for almost an hour), take a look at Hamid's photographic gallery titled Dark Heavens, which has color and platinum portfolios.

Photo © Hamid Sardar-All Rights Reserved

Impressive, huh? Especially since Hamid is able to combine the two imagery disciplines so well.

I was introduced to Hamid Sardar's work and website through The Empty Quarter Gallery newsletter.

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Storyboard Doodles

Planning a multimedia photo essay or audio slideshow needs a sort of bird's eye view of the project as a whole, and that's what storyboards are essentially supposed to do. Storyboards help to pre-visualizing the photo essay's sequencing, and act as blueprints for the project.

The above photo shows my rather elementary storyboard for one my recent Bali audio slideshow Ngaben: Cremation Ceremony, which has the sequencing of images and audio clips, timing, etc.

Naturally, it would have been more professional/efficient to use a proper storyboard template downloaded from the web, but where's the fun in that!?

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