Tony Smith | Pèlerinage Des Gitanes

Photo © Tony Smith-All Rights Reserved

Here's another photographic essay in an audio-slideshow format documenting the gypsy pilgrimage, an annual event held in Saintes Maries de la Mer, a small village in the heart of the Camargue, South of France. Tony's photography, his narration plus the unusual music of the gypsies during the festival are certain to interest viewers in a lesser known religious festival held in the very heart of Europe...and which has its roots in the Middle East and South Asia.

This time it's by Tony Smith, a Welsh born photographer who specializes in photographing ethnic, cultural and religious festivals and environmental portraiture.

On May 24 of each year, more than 10,000 travelers (including Roma, gypsies etc) come from all over Europe to Saintes Maries de la Mer to venerate their patron saint Sara the Black (also known as Sara la Kali), and take the opportunity of having their children baptized during the festival.

In my previous post about this particular pilgrimage/festival, I mentioned that I was struck by the similarities between this gypsy religious festival and those of West Bengal's Durga Puja and the odalans (temple anniversaries) in Bali.  It's also curious to learn that the nickname given to the gypsies' patron saint is Sara la Kali. Kali is the Hindu goddess associated with empowerment, time and change., and the name Kali comes from kāla, which means black.

This is most interesting as the Romani originated from India and arrived in Europe by the 14th century, and the Kali name given to their patron saint could have its origin as theirs.

Tony provides more information on the festival in his own words (with some redaction):

"The main pilgrimage is held in May every year. This is when the town is besieged by thousands of Gitanes from France, some Gitanos from Spain and other Roma from once Eastern Europe, Hungary, Romania, etc. The people of the area, in national costume, also participate in the processions though it is not their event. The same can be said for the gardians, the Camargue cowboys who seem to police the event by leading the processions. The music (accompanying the slideshow) is an evolved mix, and coming out of Eastern Europe will no doubt have some Yiddish violin in there somewhere. For anyone thinking of going who might be worried about security, don't be. It's primarily a religious festival and I have not seen a single incident there."

Tony attended my 2011 Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo Expedition/Workshop, which was principally aimed at documenting the annual West Bengali religious event over the course of almost 2 weeks.

Viviana Peretti | Camargue Gypsy Pilgrimage

Photo © Viviana Peretti-All Rights Reserved

I sometimes discover a photographer's work that is so interesting that I hurry to post about it as soon as possible, upending the predetermined order of future posts on my blog.

The work of Viviana Peretti is one of those.

So I'm glad to feature Viviana's Gypsy Pilgrimage in La Camargue which she covered so well using her iPhone and the Hispstamatic's Tintype Tinto 1884 lens and the D-Type film pack...which is by far my favorite.

The Gypsy Pilgrimage celebrate the saints Mary-Jacobé and Mary-Salomé, and it is held in Saintes Maries de la Mer, a small village in the heart of the Camargue, South of France. The legend is that a boat landed near the village's site from Palestine, carrying Mary Magdalene, Marie-Jacobé, and Salomé, as well as Lazarus. With them was Sara, whose identity is unclear. There are some who believe that she was the daughter of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ...while others believe she was the personal maid of Marie-Jacobé. As the only dark-skinned woman on the boat, she was embraced by the Romani as their patron saint.

Romani (aka gypsies) from the region carry the the saints' effigies in a long procession to the beach to be blessed in the sea. The procession is not only made of Romani, but of the region's Arlesiennes in their distinctive costume, as well are the Gardians (Camargue's cowboys) and pilgrims.

This ritual's concept reminds me of the Hindu Durga Puja and the Balinese odalan, where effigies are carried to the river or sea to be blessed.

Viviana Peretti is an Italian freelance photographer currently based in Europe. After earning a BA in Anthropology from the University of Rome, she moved to Colombia where she specialized in photojournalism and worked as a freelance photographer for 9 years. In 2010, she graduated in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the International Center of Photography, and worked in NYC as a freelance photographer until her recent move to Europe.

She received fellowships and awards from the International Center of Photography, the Joannie M. Chen Fund in New York, the University of Salamanca, the Spanish Embassy in Colombia, the Photo Museum in Bogotá, and the Colombian Ministry of Culture. In 2010, she was selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop (Barnstorm XXIII), and has been published in a number of international newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, the New York Magazine, BBC, CNN, Le Journal de la Photographie and L'Espresso.

Comptoirs du eTourisme Marseille Travel Massive - DMOs, Bloggers and Digital Marketers working together.

Last week I participated in Marseille's #Travelmassive organized by my friend @claudebenard of Hotelitur. It was a fun and interactive chat among Keith Jenkins, blogger extraordinaire of VelvetEscape fame, the sweet and brilliant Fabienne Wintle of Untanglemyweb and myself. We connected to the event via Group Skype, and even thought we had a couple of technical glitches, we did have a great time. Our task was to address the question of how can digital marketers, travel bloggers, hoteliers and destination management organizations (DMOs) best work together? Not an easy topic to summarize because there are many variations on the theme. For example we talked about the different types of travel bloggers and their different objectives. A professional blogger working for a large organization (like Conde Nast, for example) would not have the same objectives that a blogger who does note depend on his or her blog to generate revenue. We commented as well on the different projects a digital marketer might encounter. Fabienne, for example specializes in assisting, training, educating and helping small tourism businesses in Australia on the various topics related to digital and social media marketing. Her challenges are very different than those a digital marketer/consultant working for a large DMO or a multi-national hotel chain might face.  Keith addressed the issue of fees for blogging - something that might have been taboo 2 years ago, but something that's very important. Some bloggers are quite happy with getting travel invitations from destinations and blogging about them without getting paid for this content hoping that they will generate revenue through advertising. Other bloggers are offering sponsored blog posts thereby getting fees per post.  Still other bloggers are now getting speaking fees at various conferences and events.

My conclusion after our very interesting chat is that there are great opportunities for bloggers, digital marketers, hoteliers and DMOs to work more effectively and strategically to achieve the ultimate goal - more satisfied visitors and guests.  One of the points we touched on was international collaborations wherein we could share our audiences with each other, offer a syndicate of bloggers (guest blog posts as well) to destinations, access our different networks to offer clients more bang for their marketing dollars - bring in our Facebook and Twitter followers.  For example, I offer my clients campaigns that include display advertising, blogging, tweeting, facebooking which reach Hispanic travellers everywhere. What if when I am pitching to them I can offer increased reach by offering them coverage from Keith who reaches another audience altogether. Destinations do this all the time with bloggers. A group of bloggers (Kim Mance, Wendy Perrin, and Shannon Hurst Lane), were invited to Toronto for Canada-e-Connect 2010 in Montreal. Since they  were going to be in Montreal, Ottawa invited them to visit there before or after the conference. So destinations and bloggers can reach out to each other to maximize social media and digital marketing opportunities. 

As for Travel Massive Marseille, I hope a group of us bloggers get together in Marseille in the near future under a strategic digital marketing plan from the DMO there. We can certainly get some traction in the blogosphere. En Français, in English y en Español.

Bon voyage,

Jaime