Showing posts with label China. Show all posts

Andrey Kovalenko | Yao Women

Al Jazeera features non-news photo essays on its In Pictures web site, and these occasionally are of ethnic minorities that are rarely showcased on other similar mass media blogs.

This time it's a photo essay by photographer Andrey Kovalenko of ethnic Yao who live in Huangluo village. Virtually unreachable until 10 years ago, a tourism reform brought development, and attracted visitors to it.

The Yao women are well known for colorful traditional dresses decorated with bright embroidery. They use wooden looms to weave their clothes, and it can take up to three months to finish a traditional costume. Traditionally, the women leave their dark hair to grow as long as they can; some reaching almost 6 feet in length. They only cut their hair once during their lifetime between the ages of 16 and 18, believing that long hair is the symbol of long life and prosperity.

In addition to China, Yao also live in northern Vietnam (where they are called Dao, pronounced Zao), northern Laos, and Burma. In China, Yao peoples are distributed primarily in the provinces Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan.

POV: Waxing Lyrical

Photo © Wang Qing-Al Rights Reserved- Courtesy The New York Times

I'm certain many photographers are frequently so impressed by a photographic essay, or by a single photograph, that they wished they had been the ones that had made the photographs. I'm prone to have this feeling, especially as I view a large swath of photographic work every week for this blog.

But in this instance, not only did I think that, but I stopped right in my tracks as soon as I viewed the stunning photo essay Rituals In Life by Wang Qing, a obviously very talented photographer who, sadly, seems to have no website presence on the internet (unless Google search is not omnipotent as we think). To me, this type of photography is the holy grail...merging ancient culture, religious traditions, Asia, monochrome and chiaroscuro ...

The comments left by readers on The New York Times' Lens blog describe Ms Wang work as "stunning", "breathtaking", "incredible" and "beautiful"....well deserved accolades for her series of photographs made over a span of seven years, and which show the daily experiences and rituals of several ancient Uighur villages near Turpan, the desert oasis that was once a flourishing trade center on the historic Silk Road.

Ms. Wang, a Han Chinese who grew up in Turpan, is familiar with the religious traditions of the Uighur, however it took her many years to gain the trust of the villagers she wanted to photograph. Slowly but surely, she gained their trust and friendship. She brought prints of her photos as gifts for the families.

There's no question that this is one of the best photo series I've seen in a long while...perhaps eclipsing in breadth, in depth, in reflective contemplation, much of what I've seen since I started this blog including the winning entries of most international photo/photojournalism contests.

Yes, it's that good. Well done, Ms Wang.

I read that Ms. Wang is currently making preparations for a photographic project set in the Wudang Mountains in Hubei Province, a historical center for Daoism dating back to the early Tang dynasty in the seventh century.

I can't wait to see it, and I hope she'll impress us once more as she did with the Uighur series.

James Whitlow Delano | Hipstamatic

James Whitlow Delano, a friend and a colleague-instructor at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, was recently in China and supplemented his regular and distinctive Leica M6 work with lovely snaps using Hipstamatic for the iPhone.

Most of these photographs (more on his Facebook page) were of Xizhou (near Dali) in Yunnan province, where he reports that the old city of Dali has been pretty much been reduced to a shopping mall but Xizhou is still a treasure trove of traditional Bai (ethnic minority) architecture.

I frequently use this particular Hipstamatic filer and lens combination, and James' work reaffirmed my intention to supplement my forthcoming work in India (especially in the old alleys of Varanasi...and on its ghats) in the similar style. In contrast with Instagram, Hipstamatic forces its user to pre-determine the filter (lens, film and speed) before making the photograph...in effect, to pre-visualize the photograph before clicking the shutter.

James's biography is longer than my arm...so here's a shorter version. He has lived in Asia for 18 years. His work has been awarded internationally: the Alfred Eisenstadt Award (from Columbia University and Life Magazine), Leica’s Oskar Barnack, Picture of the Year International, PDN and others. Delano’s series on Kabul’s drug detox and psychiatric hospital was awarded 1st place in the 2008 NPPA Best of Photojournalism competition for Best Picture Story. His first monograph book, “Empire: Impressions from China” and work from “Japan Mangaland” have shown at several Leica Galleries in Europe. “Empire” was the first ever one-person show of photography at La Triennale di Milano Museum of Art. “The Mercy Project / Inochi” his charity photo book for hospice received the PX3 Gold Award and the Award of Excellence from Communication Arts. His work has appeared in magazines and photo festivals on five continents from Visa Pour L’Image, Rencontres D’Arles; to Noorderlicht. His new iPad book, Black Tsunami (FotoEvidence) documents the Japanese tsunami and nuclear crisis.

Dave Tacon | China's Salt Village

Al Jazeera occasionally features non-news photo essays on its web site...and buried amongst the various photo reportages on Mandela's death, I found a gallery of a village in the Chinese province of Yunnan called Nuodeng.

Dave Tacon photographed the village of Nuodeng, China's Village of Salt.

The village has been in existence as far back as the Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago, and its plentiful reserves of potassium-rich salt was harvested and traded via Yunnan's many trade routes that connected Southeast Asia with Tibet and the rest of China. Many of its current houses are from the Ming and early Qing dynasties and haven't changed much since those times.

Salt, a rare and precious commodity, was essential for food preservation and led to Nuodeng being known as the richest village in China. Its salt was carried by horse caravan as far as India along the Tea Horse Road, which was also known as the Southern Silk Road. The route earned the name Tea-Horse Road because of the common trade of Tibetan ponies for Chinese tea, a practice dating back at least to the Song dynasty, when the sturdy horses were important for China to fight warring nomads in the north.

Its prosperity ended when China's salt industry was nationalized in 1949. However, descendants of a Huang salt merchant family continue to extract salt from brine by boiling it over huge wood-fired cauldrons. Along with tourism and salt-cured Nuodeng ham, salt is still a major source of income for the village.

Dave Tacon is a 2012 Walkley Award winning photographer and writer based in Shanghai. He is a finalist in Australia’s National Photographic Portrait Prize, and specializes in reportage, features and portraiture. His work has appeared in such publications as Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, ELLE, Corriere della Sera, Die Welt, Geographical, Sydney Morning Herald, and many more. His portrait and photo-documentary work is held in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, The National Library of Australia, State Library of Victoria and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Leonid Plotkin | Sacred Mountains of China

Travel photographers...brace yourself for a collection of compelling cultural and religious photo essays.

Out of Leonid Plotkin's many photo essays, I chose to feature his lovely work on the sacred mountains of China, which he photographed over several months. The mountains are important pilgrimage sites since ancient times, and total thirteen. The sacred mountains of China are divided into several groups. The Five Great Mountains refers to five of the most renowned mountains in Chinese history, which were the subjects of imperial pilgrimage by emperors throughout ages. In addition, there are The Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism and The Four Sacred Mountains of Taoism.

Apart from this photo essay, there are many others; one more interesting than the other. Bolivia, Chile, India, Nepal, Thailand, Bangladesh, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia...need I to add more?

Another interesting thing...Leonid photographed the Urs of Nawaz Gharib in Ajmer while I was there in May...and yet we don't seem to have run intp each other. I'm not totally surprised of this in light of the crowds, but it's still unusual as there were almost no non-Indian photographers beyond those in my workshop, and 2 or 3 others.

Leonid 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.

Li Xinzhao | Through The Unknown Tashkurgan

I had never heard of Tashkurgan. You probably haven't either.

It turns out that it's an area on China's western frontier (Xinjiang Province), located in the eastern part of the Pamirs and on the so-called "roof of the world", and it has a long history as a caravan stop on the Silk Road. In the Uyghur language, tash kurgan means 'stone fortress'.

Li Xinzhao is a fine art photographer, who documented the inhabitants and way of life of the region since 2009. She stayed in Tashkurgan for several months photographing the Tajik nomads using a Hasselbald large-format digital camera and Profoto lighting. Being driven in an old pickup truck by a Tajik driver, she traveled the sparsely populated landscape searching for the nomads, staying with local families along the way.

She studied at the University of the Arts London, China Central Academy of Fine Arts and the International Center of Photography in New York, and began her photography career in 2007. Since then, she has completed projects in England, United States, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Cambodia, Nepal, Thailand, Tunisia, Kenya and others. She has won a number of awards and contests.

You can also watch the above video on Vimeo. It's posted by Photographie.

NPR | Lisa Ross' Sufi Shrines in China

Photo © Lisa Ross-Courtesy NPR

Here's another Sufi-related blog post following the one of yesterday. It features the work of Lisa Ross, which recently appeared in NPR's The Picture Show. These photographs document the shrines created for and during pilgrimages by the Muslims of Western China, many of which have been maintained over several centuries.

Some of my readers will know that this is not a haphazard coincidence, but relates to my forthcoming Sufi Saints of Kashmir & Rajasthan Photo Expedition in May.

An important distinction to note is that orthodox Sunni Islam (as with Saudi Arabia's Wahabism) prohibits the worship or recognition of saints, and the erection of shrines or tombs for anyone is not allowed. This austere version of Islam forbids grave markers or tombs in burial sites and the building of any shrines. However, the burial practices (and the recognition of saints) varies from one Islamic country and sect to the other. Sufism, the more liberal of Islam's doctrines, does recognize saints, and sees no shirk (the sin of idolatry or polytheism) in such a practice.

I recall being in the Muslim area in Ahmedabad (Gujarat), and having been to Hindu temple a few days earlier, had around my wrist the red threads granted to those who make an offering or visit. A Muslim shopkeeper told me that wearing it was shirk. My facial expression in response was one of "get a life, buddy".

Sufi shrines are known as mazar, an Arabic word meaning ‘a place for visit’ or a ‘place of paying homage’. Its equivalent Persian word is ‘dargah’. In India and Pakistan, to name but two in South Asia, shrines are built on the graves of sufi saints.

Lisa Ross is one of the few foreign artists permitted access to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region since it fell under Chinese rule in 1949. Via Ross' relationships with an Uyghur anthropologist and a French historian studying Central Asian Islam, she was allowed to explore the province for the past eight years as it modernizes and transforms.

Michael Yamashita | Tea Road To Lhasa

Michael Yamashita of the National Geographic Magazine will share his images and stories from his newest publication, Shangri-La: Along the Tea Road to Lhasa at the Asia Society on February 21st, 2013 in New York.

His journey starts in Jiuzhaigou (The Valley of Nine Villages), whuch is considered by Chinese photographers as the most photogenic place in China. It was here that Yamashita first heard of the ancient trade route, the Tea-Horse Road. This route was established roughly 4,000 years ago when Chinese merchants began trading tea to Tibetans, in exchange for horses, much in need for China's constant battles against mounted Mongol invaders.

Often mistakenly known as the Southern Silk Road, the Chamagudao has also served as a major channel for cultural exchange between China and Tibet. More recently this region has become plagued by many new environmental challenges such as a booming trade in chongcao, catetpillar fungus, a Chinese medicament much in demand which has lured whole villages to dig destructively through virgin lands.

There'll be a free live webcast of the talk on the 21st of February.

Mathias Braschler/Monika Fischer : The China Project

I noticed the work of Swiss photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer in the always-interesting The New York Times LENS blog (co-edited by James Estrin). This time their work is of epic scope since it involved going to China on a road trip to visit its 33 provinces and regions to make portraits of the people.

The result is The China Project. The project includes notes made during the trip: a sort of blog entry for every city and town where the portraits were made.

The duo traveled across China, got arrested a few times and lugged a a 4x5 camera with a flash, and soft box to make the portraits. The portraits are of yak farmers, gynecologists, television personalities, village chiefs, singing gondoliers, prostitutes, aging revolutionaries, circus stars, bank employees, beggars and trash collectors.

I recalled having featured the work of these two talented photographers in a 2009 blog post relating to their similar work on climate change, and which was shown in Vanity Fair magazine.

Global Post | The Year Of The Snake

Photo © Hoang Dinh Nam - AFP/Getty Images

恭禧發財!!!

The Year of the Snake starts from Feb. 10, 2013 and lasts to Jan. 30, 2014...and some Chinese traditional astrologers expect some political turbulence during the year, since in Chinese mythology, snakes were often associated with monsters, or with incarnations of monsters. Others believe that much-needed liquidity will be injected into struggling world economies, and that babies born over the next 12 months will be agile.

In China, an estimated 200 million people have already traveled to be with their families in what is considered the biggest mass human migration on Earth. And for another staggering number, it's estimated that more than one billion people worldwide celebrate Lunar New Year.

Global Post's PlanetPic is one of the first photo blogs to feature photographs of this celebration.

Nicole Tung | Old Kashgar

Beijing has been pouring billions of dollars into Kashgar, which was designated as a special economic zone back in 2010, and one of only half a dozen such zones in China, with the intent of transforming it into the transport hub of old - opening up markets in Central Asia and beyond. In the process, many of its historic buildings were demolished....and an old way of life is fast disappearing, raising the anger and discomfort of local the Uighur community.

I thought of featuring Nicole Tung's Old Kashgar Renewed photo essay, which is about 3 years old, which perfectly captures the spirit and ambiance of Kashgar. I haven't come across any recent photographs of the impact of Kashgar's "Sinification".

Kashgar is a important hub on the Old Silk Road, a vibrant Islamic centre within Chinese territory, where over a thousand years ago, traders from all over Asia, sold and bought their goods on its streets. It is the largest oasis city in Chinese Central Asia and 90% of its population are Uygur.

Nicole Tung graduated from NYU after studying journalism and history, and freelances for The New York Times and other international newspapers. Her work has been recognized by the International Photography Awards, the Maybach Foundation, the Hearst Foundation, and the NYPPA. She won the PX3 silver award (war reportage professional category) for her work in Libya in 2012. She was also widely exhibited in various international venues.

A recent interview with Ms Tung on her work from Syria was published here.

Colin Corneau I China

So I'm returning to this blog's roots and raison d'être today by featuring the work of Colin Corneau, and specifically his photographic work of China, which he showcases in both color and monochrome.

His website will please those who -like me- appreciate images that fill up the real estate of large monitors. For instance, the image I feature on this post is truly spectacular in its large size....almost as if the viewer was actually in the same location as the monk and the prayer wheels.

Colin Corneau is a Manitoba based photographer who's interested in using photography to connect with, understand and convey other people. His interest is centered on – but not limited to – film-based, black-and-white photography. He has exhibited his photographs in shows at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon University and galleries in Winnipeg and Edmonton.

You may also want to drop by his iPhone blog, C-this-C-that, on which he posts various photographs of daily life. You'll see he uses the new Hipstamatic Tinto 1884 filter as well.

Muhammad Fadli: The Wa People

I stumbled on the website of Muhammad Fadli, an Indonesian travel and documentary photographer, whose various galleries include photographs made in Taiwan, China, India, Singapore, and his native country.

I favored his work from Wengding, a Wa minority village in Yunnan which he titled Wa Frontier. Wengding is about 20 miles from Cangyuan county seat. The village is made up of 98 families who've kept primitive Wa residential architectures and ethnic culture. It has been the best-conserved primitive ethnic community and the must-see tourist site in Lincang Municipality.

You'll see images of buffalo skulls in the gallery, and that's because the Was used human skulls in their religious rituals, which included sacrifice to the God of Rice. These have been replaced by buffalo heads which are a symbol of wealth.

As for the woman with blackened teeth in the above photograph; blackened teeth is relatively common amongst ethnic minorities and tribes in Vietnam, China, Laos and Cambodia. Most of us have noticed that some Asian women cover their mouths when talking or laughing. This is a remnant of a superstition that exposing teeth is uncivilized savagery, and that's the reason behind blackened teeth. In Vietnam for example, the original rationale for blackening of teeth at puberty was the assurance that one would not be mistaken for an evil spirit!

Monica Denevan: Burma

I'm glad to have found Monica Denevan's website with its gorgeous photographs of Burma and China. Trust me...you will find that her some 120 photographs are indeed luminous and gorgeous.

Monica travels with her medium format Bronica, one lens, and a bunch of plastic bags filled with Ilford Delta 400 film. She tells us that her photographs are printed from negatives in her traditional darkroom and selenium toned.

Classic photography in the full meaning of the word, and the farthest thing from the Instagram and Hipstamatic fad.

Born in San Francisco, Monica studied photography at San Francisco State University. She started visiting parts of Burma and China for many years, and always had her Bronica along. Her work was published in ZYZZYVA, Communication Arts Photo Annual, SHOTS, Black and White Magazine, The Photo Review, The Sun, and Artvas-The Photo (Korea) among others.

She is represented by Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco, Duncan Miller Gallery in Santa Monica, Capital Culture Gallery in London, and Tao Evolution Gallery in Hong Kong which produced a small catalogue of her work. Monica’s photographs are in the permanent collection of UCSF Medical Center.

Kevin WY Lee: The Return of Hundred Daughters

"...a fortune teller told my grandparents that demon gods wished harm upon their first-born son. So when my father, the only son in the family, was born, they named him Pak Noi – Hundred Daughters – to fool the demon gods."

Kevin WY Lee is a photographer based in Singapore, whose creative work was honed in Australia and Singapore for more than 15 years. He's the founder of Invisible Photographer Asia (IPA); a well known multi-faceted platform for Street Photography & Visual Journalism in Asia. He also participated as a judge for various creative and photography awards including Singapore Creative Circle Awards, Angkor Photo Workshop, and KLPhotoawards.

Kevin's just recently featured a fascinating photo essay which chronicles the return of his father to his ancestral home in Zhaolong Li (mainland China) after a prolonged absence of almost 56 years. He was accompanied by his wife, his sisters and families as well as his only son, Kevin...who documented this incredibly touching and intimate experience, and recorded it for posterity.

Because of a fortune teller's tale, Kevin's father was named Pak Noi (Hundred Daughters), and it's utterly appropriate it's also the title of this very well done photo essay.

As I'm fond of stressing in my multimedia classes, a photo essay of that type is always successful if it has two main ingredients: access and intimacy. The Return of Hundred Daughters certainly has both.

I only wish it had an accompanying audio track to it...but perhaps not having one was a conscious decision by the photographer.

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