A Look At The Zoom H1

I've blogged a couple of times about the H1, the new handheld audio recorder from Samson Audio, and what seemed to be a handy portable stereo recorder at an unheard-of $99 price.

I haven't bought the H1 (as I already have a Marantz PMD 620 which I'm happy with), but a number of my readers have expressed their interest in seeing a review...so the above movie by Shawn Harrel will do just that.

As I expected, the H1 seems to feel a little flimsy, it has a few quirks, but does the job quite well. The price can't be beaten, so I predict I'll see it used by emerging photojournalists on a budget testing multimedia waters.

Speaking of multimedia: I have my new Canon 7D next to me as I'm writing this, but I have yet to really test it. I've ignored the manual as always, fiddled with it and so far it's quite intuitive, especially to a long time Canon user like I am. I'll be putting up some photographs as soon as I can...but one thing for sure: the 8fps is great!

In the meantime, I've added this cheap rig to my 5D Mark II. It's my Marantz audio-recorder attached to a standard mounting plate from Home Depot, which in turn is attached to the camera's tripod socket. From my Mamiya medium-format years, I had an old Hama grip that I also attached to the tripod socket, and it gives me much better control over the camera when I'm filming video.

All I need now is the LCDV.

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Cathy Scholl: Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat

Photo © Cathy Scholl-All Rights Reserved

Cathy Scholl is a photographer and a participant in my Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat Photo~Expedition, which took place earlier this year between January 23 and February 7, 2010. She has traveled to India no less than 13 times, as well as to Nepal, Bhutan, and Burma.

Her photographs were exhibited in galleries throughout Southern California. In addition to winning awards, her work was selected to hang in juried exhibitions curated by leading experts in the field of photography, such as Arthur Ollman, founding director of the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego.Cathy is also an active member in the Burn magazine community, which is curated by David Alan Harvey

Photo © Cathy Scholl -All Rights Reserved

Following her participation in my photo~expedition, Cathy continued to Haridwar where she also photographed at the Kumbh Mela. I chose these photographs made during the photo~expedition from her blog More Than Just A Pretty Picture...an appropriate title as Cathy's style is more inclined towards documentary travel photography, and she eschews cookie-cutter travel photographs.

Photo © Cathy Scholl -All Rights Reserved

The top photograph is of a Gujarati villager and her child, made in one of the countless villages we visited during the photo~expedition. The middle photograph was made in Baneshwar, during a pind daan ceremony which extends for about a week, and during which the tribal people of Rajasthan and Gujarat come to remember their dead....notice how Cathy framed the characters in this photograph.

The third photograph was made in a grain distribution room in the village of Poshina, where tribals and villagers receive their subsidized rations. 

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A Storyboard Template

Following my earlier post on my handwritten storyboard doodles I used for one of my audio-slideshows, I thought I'd prep one that looked a little more sophisticated, and could serve as a template. The templates I found on the internets were not exactly what I wanted, so I basically created one using an existing Excel template.

So here's The Travel Photographer's exclusive storyboard template (PDF) available as a free download to anyone who needs it. I hope you'll find it useful to plan and set up your slideshows.

Is it better than the doodly one?

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Next Week on The Travel Photographer

I had to rejig my posts this past week to diversify the posts a bit, so I omitted some I had originally planned to feature.

For the week starting Monday October 11, I have posts on:

1. A poignant multimedia project involving the treatment of Women In India, which I planned to post last week.
2. The work of a documentary photographer featuring daily life along the Ganges, that I also wanted to post last week.
3. The work of a Saudi Arabian female photographer, whose work (and herself) shatters all stereotypes.
4. The very interesting work of a photographer and a scholar of Tibetan and Mongol languages on Mongolian cultures.
5. A photo essay on the Tibetans living in India.

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One Million Visitors!

I'm immensely gratified that since inception in mid-January 2007, The Travel Photographer blog has now received a total of 1,000,000 visitors!

What originally started as a lark has taken a life of its own, and The Travel Photographer blog seems to have its comfy little place place amongst other photography blogs. A million visitors is a drop in the ocean for blog behemoths, but for this one-man blog, it's enormous.

I sometimes hesitate in calling it a blog, because in reality it's more of a compilation of photo-essays, galleries (my own but mainly by others), multimedia, occasional geo-political rants and diatribes (some serious others downright silly), opinions (some ridiculous and others touching a nerve or two) and whatever else took my fancy.

However, nothing is more gratifying that getting emails from photographers expressing appreciation for being featured on The Travel Photographer....and responding as best I can to requests for advice and guidance virtually every day.

I hope the best is yet to come as Sinatra and Bennett told us....but in the meantime, I've got to run...I can hear my blog yelling "Feed Me!".

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Got it! Panasonic GF1 + 20mm f1.7 Lens

Having lost patience with Amazon's delivery system, and the fact that its delivery was now estimated to be between June 1 and June 14, I called yesterday and canceled my order. The customer service lady was extremely pleasant and nice, making me feel somewhat guilty for a while.

My guilt didn't last too long after I saw that Adorama had a Panasonic GF1 with a 20mm/F1.7 for $847 excluding NYC tax, but including some stuff like an 8 GB SD Sandisk memory card, a Lowepro carrying case (I much prefer my own pouches), a wonderful USB 2.0 SD card reader (like a memory stick), and a cleaning kit (of dubious use except for a nice lens brush).

I walked over to the store, got served by a lovely young woman (inexplicably wearing a scarf in NYC's heat) and had my new camera and accessories in under 10 minutes.

As with every camera and electronic gadgets I buy, I tried to work through the controls and settings without opening the manual. I got reasonably far, and was stumped a number of times, especially as I am used to a Canon "nomenclature". So I'll have to spend some time studying the manual after all.

I will soon test the GF1 and will post some of the street shots here. However, my first impressions holding it, shooting a few interior shots and so forth, gave me a sense that it's a solidly-built small camera. Not a point & shoot, not a rangefinder...but a hybrid in between the two.

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Darren Ornitz: East Africa

Today I'm featuring the work of Darren Ornitz, who as a freelance photographer, traveled for 14 months in Africa and Asia including Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Yemen and Oman.

Quite a number of photographs in Darren's East Africa gallery are of Lalibela, one of Ethiopia's holiest cities, and a center of pilgrimage for much of the country. The population of Lalibela is almost completely Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, and having spent a few days there photographing during the Epiphany celebrations, I can only describe it as "Biblical".

Part of the East Africa portfolio are some photographs of Zanzibar, and more specifically Stone Town. A UNESCO listed old city, Stone Town was David Livingstone's base when preparing for his final expedition in 1866. The above photograph is of Stone Town.

Darren studied at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse until transferring to Fordham.

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