Truyen Than: The Art of Conveying The Soul

TRUYEN THAN

(click on image)

With my photo expedition-workshop to Vietnam looming, I revisited some of imagery made during my earlier visit to Hanoi in 2012, and decided to rejig some of the photographs which had appeared on a gallery I had titled The Portraitist Of Pho Hang Ngang onto Medium, a blogging platform.

The portraitist is Nguyen Bao Nguyen, and he works as a “Truyền Thần” artist. The art aims at conveying the soul of a person from a photograph to a drawing-painting.

Speaking of Medium, I'm a fan of these new platforms; noting that some are free while others are not, since they provide an easy way to feature one's work, whether prose, photographs or both...and these promise to widen the reach of such "publications".

Apart from Vietnam being on my mind, the other prompt for uploading Truyen Than is the recent photo essay appearing in The New York Times titled To Be A Russian, which follows the same design characteristics as Medium...large photographs filling the whole viewing real estate on one's monitor (if one chose the photographs to do that), sparse prose (but to the point) interspersing these images.

I recall some years ago various POV posts encouraging fellow photographers to go big...that the era of small dinky photographs on websites didn't cut it any more. One of these POV posts is dated April 2009, some 5 years ago...and since then, we've seen a proliferation of large photographs on websites.

But back to Nguyen Bao Nguyen...I read somewhere that he had passed away, but I believe that the information is wrong since it pre-dates the dates (September 2012) when I met with him in Hanoi. I hope I find him well and healthy when I'm back in Hanoi in a couple of months.

I'd like him to see this photo essay.

The Oracles of Kerala | Medium

The Oracles of Kerala

I've played around with Medium, which describes itself as "a place where people share ideas and stories, designed for little stories that make your day better and manifestos that change the world, and is used by everyone from professional journalists to amateur cooks". It also claims that it's simple, beautiful, collaborative, and helps you find the right audience for whatever you have to say.

I suspect that the photo story I chose isn't going to make anyone's day any better, nor will it change the world....but I can attest that it's an easy and beautiful platform to use. I have the feeling it's more adapted to text...articles, essays and such, although the uploading of edge-to-edge images is simple, and quick. Medium recently introduced an app for the iPad.

As to whether it helps me to find the right audience will be tested over the course of the comings days and weeks.

Take a look at my first effort; The Oracles of Kerala.

WotanCraft Ryker (Urban Classic 001) Review

Image Courtesy Wotancraft Atelier

I seldom review products that I don't use or haven't used myself...but one of the very few (possibly the only one) I did review in that fashion almost two years ago was the Urban Classic 005 Safari camera bag manufactured and sold by Wotancraft Atelier.

This time, the Taiwan-based manufacturer of high-quality camera bags (amongst other leather luxury products) sent me two bags to test and review: the Urban Classic 001 Ryker (pictured above), and the City Explorer 006 Scout (which I reviewed in India).

On my way for a bit of street photography in New York City with the
Urban Classic 001 Ryker camera bag and a Leica M9

The two camera bags were delivered by Fedex to my front door, and the first thing I noticed when unpacking the large box was that each were in their own individual cotton bag. Clearly, there's an ethos of quality in making sure that the bags were well wrapped during their shipment. The second thing I noticed while untying the strings, was the whiff of real leather!

It's the same sensory sensation one gets when sliding into the seats of a luxury car...the smell of quality leather and its tactility. Soft and pliable...everything with this camera bag screams "well-made and detail attentive. I tried hard, but failed to find a single errant strand of stitching, a knot or anything that seemed out of place. It's extremely well-made, and quality control at Wotancraft must be handled by an eagle-eyed individual(s), with no tolerance for any defect, no matter how insignificant.

Crammed the Ryker with my street photography equipment: a Leica M9, a Fuji X Pro-1,
a Voigtlander 40mm lens and a Tascam DR40 audio recorder

It's size is deceiving...it initially appeared small to me, but I managed to cram a Leica M9 with an Elmarit 28mm, a Fuji X Pro-1 with a Fujinon 18mm, a Voigtlander 40mm lens and the Tascam DR40 audio recorder with no difficulty. Schlepping it with all this gear on my street photography walk in New York City last Saturday, I kept the M9 dangling from my neck as I usually do, and had easy access to the rest of the rest of my gear. I could have carried my iPad Mini in the bag's integrated pocket if I wished to, but I never take it on my street photography routes.

This particular model of the Ryker is made of black and brown leather, which makes it virtually invisible when wearing dark colored clothes as I mostly do, so it doesn't stand out at all. Its purple microfiber inner lining is soft, and safeguards the finish of the stowed equipment, which is a very smart idea. Both of my cameras show some wear and tear...so the softness of the inner compartment is probably superfluous in my case, but will surely be appreciated by photographers with new cameras and lenses.

The bag is stylish, and feels very comfortable. It easily holds my Leica or my Fuji X Pro-1, and 2-3 lenses as well as my iPad mini. . It feels secure across the shoulder, and its inner compartment is well padded. It's made of soft leather which every time I used it, smelled like the interior of a brand new Jaguar or Bentley.

Image Courtesy Wotancraft Atelier

There are no Velcro fasteners on this bag...not one. Instead there are invisible magnetic snaps in its main flap, which is a nice touch since these make opening the bag totally silent. The inner compartment has removable pads to divide it into sections for the cameras and lenses....and these pads are affixed to the walls of the inner compartment with Velcro.

The curved removable shoulder strap is comfortable, with a non-slip shoulder pad. Since the Ryker was laden with my heavy gear, it stubbornly remained on my shoulder with no slippage. I don't know if that would be the case if it had been lighter. The strap's buckles are heavy duty, and feel well made and solid.

So who is the Ryker for? First off, it's not at all for DSLR-totting photographers because of its size limitations, but it's ideal for those who work with rangefinders, whether Leicas or similar rangefinders (or rangefinder-like cameras such as the Fuji X Pro-1, X-100, X-100S et al.) As I mentioned earlier, its low profile is perfect for the street photographer with a need for a camera bag whilst walking around.

On the way to the subway with the Ryker in tow.

I imagine that the Ryker's design, aesthetic and its price point of US$379, make it an interesting accessory to Leica (of Fuji X Series) aficionados. It's a camera bag well suited for photography in urban centers such as New York City, Paris, London, Hong Kong etc., but it was not designed for, nor would it be suitable for, photographic expeditions, treks and adventures in non urban centers or in unsavory neighborhoods...and that's why its name is Urban Classic.

I must also mention that Wotancraft Atelier generously made a City Explorer 006 Scout available as a contest prize during my The Sacred Cities Photo Expedition-Workshop in India in March. It was won by Charlotte Rush Bailey, and you can read all about it in this post.

Wanderings In NYC | Storehouse

I chose a number of my iPhone photographs and uploaded them unto Storehouse, and added a few choice quotes by well known personalities about New York City...just to add some spice to the mix.

I've been extolling the virtues of photographing the streets of New York City with an iPhone for some time. It's truly liberating to be using an iPhone to make photographs...the simplicity, the portability and the ease of making photographs on the go with such a small device are just wonderfully conducive to the kind of street photography I am interested in.

At this point of time, as far as the iPhone is concerned, I'm addicted to the Hipstamatic app, and use its Watts lens and the monochrome BlacKeys B+W film. I might do a tiny amount of post processing on the resultant images, but the combination is quite adequate for my taste.

Storehouse is a wonderful iPad app that lets photographers and videographers  to build stories on the fly from text, video and images. It has a great visual editing interface, and is quite easy to use with an iPad.

Storehouse was co-founded by ex-Apple iPhoto veteran Mark Kawano, who also worked at Adobe and Frog design studio and The Daily alum Timothy Donnelly. The app has hundreds of thousands of users, and tens of thousands of stories. An important facet of Storehouse is that its stories can be embedded on other websites, blogs etc.

The company has raised some serious funding recently, which will allow it to be free ‘for now’ to spur growth.

Thaipusam | Yeo Kai Wen

Here's an interesting and compelling photo essay on Thaipusam, the Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community during January or February. It's mainly observed in countries where there is a significant presence of Tamil community such as India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mauritius Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar.

This particular series of monochrome photographs were made during Thaipusam at Sri Thendayuthapani Temple in Singapore, by Yeo Kai Wen and was featured by Exposure.

It's unusual to see Thaipusam photographs in black and white as it's a colorful festival, with devotees shaving their heads and undertaking a pilgrimage along a set route while carrying out various acts of devotion, which may include self-mortification by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with skewers.

The photographer, Yeo Kai Wen graduated from the School of Film and Media Studies with a Diploma in Mass Communications in 2009, and is now specializing in documentary production, print and photojournalism.

Exposure is a storytelling platform specifically created for photo sets which are described as 'narratives'. It appears to have an extremely simple and easy to use editor that lets you drag and drop photos into your browser, and then add headers, body text and captions between photos. The posts feature full-bleed images and imaginative fonts and white space. Three Exposure posts are free, but for unlimited posting, custom domains, password-protected posts, and more, one has to shell out either $5 or $10/month, depending on the package chosen.

In The Field Review | Wotancraft Atelier's City Explorer Scout 006

Image courtesy Wotancraft Atelier

Hello, readers of The Travel Photographer blog...let me introduce myself; my full name is City Explorer Scout 006, and I'm manufactured by Wotancraft Atelier, the maker of top quality handmade camera bags.

Why am I here on these pages? Well, I accompanied Tewfic El-Sawy, The Travel Photographer, on his The Sacred Cities: Varanasi & Vrindavan Photo Expedition-Workshop! Yes, that's right...I went to India for 20 days. I hadn't been to India before, and I'm so glad I chose to go with Tewfic, who has many trips to this phenomenal country under his belt.

Flying directly from Taipei (my home town), l met Tewfic in his home in New York City and he put me through some endurance tests, explaining that if I failed them, he wouldn't take me along. He packed me with a few of his camera lenses, and a couple of cameras...and I was really nervous.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

But he told me how he liked my vegetable tanned cowhide leather/waxed canvas exterior, and how he appreciated my leather straps, the shoulder pad and the strong buckles. My two Y-shaped fastening straps are riveted and sewn to the bag, and this gave him the feeling that his cameras would never tumble out by accident. He seemed to particularly like my two outer pockets, and tested their snaps many times. Tewfic realized that these snaps were attached to me with small leather straps, which allowed him to slip a finger behind these straps when snapping close the pockets. Easy!

He tried how I felt on his shoulder straight down, or across the chest bandolier-style, and felt comfortable in both cases. We seemed to be a match made in heaven...except when he noticed that I didn't have a short handle. He thought I ought to have one, since it would help carry me when using the shoulder strap was inconvenient. A small flaw...but who's 100% perfect?

On the eve of our flight, he removed my waterproof inner pouch MK-lI and filled me with his 13-inch MacBook Air, an iPad Mini in the interior pocket, his Fuji X Pro-1 camera and a detached Fujinon 18mm lens (in one of the outer pockets). A couple of folders with all the necessary information for his workshop, an iPhone, his passport (I didn't need mine)...and we were ready to go. The rest of his camera gear was stashed in another bag.

At check-in, the Emirates agent noticed that I looked new, despite the 'distressed' look that Wotancraft Atelier gave me, and gave me a lovely luggage tag. Boarding the flight, I was nestled comfortably in the bin, and quickly fell asleep despite my excitement.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Now let's fast forward to Varanasi...the ancient city on the Ganges where Tewfic officially started his photo expedition-workshop. I have never seen such intensely powerful colors before!

It was here that I got my first in-depth experience with India, the river Ganges and the life on the ghats. Tewfic packed me with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens (boy, is that lens heavy or what?!), his Fuji X Pro-1 with the Fujinon 18mm lens, his iPhone and a small bottle of water...and we went exploring the riverside steps that are always teeming with daily life.

Photo Kaushik Ghosh-All Rights Reserved

Hanging from across Tewfic's shoulder, he had easy access to his lens when he chose to replace the one he had on his camera. He didn't even bother to zip up the compartment...he just closed one of the two Y-shaped fastening straps and that was enough to keep the contents safe.

The other group members kept looking at me...not only gauging my usefulness in the field, but also evaluating my overall style, and they obviously liked what they saw. After all, one of my sister bags would soon be won by one of these photographers in a fiercely contested photo contest sponsored by my makers Wotancraft Atelier.

Photo © Kaushik Ghosh-All Rights Reserved

Early dawn photo shoots are to be expected in Varanasi, and I was ready to go at a moment's notice. Tewfic always packed me up with whatever he needed the night before, so whether it was at 4:00 am or a little later, I was flung over his shoulder...and taken wherever he wanted. The most startling experience I had was when Tewfic and his group photographed a handful of sadhus on the banks of the river Ganges.

I attracted the attention of one of these ascetics, who kept touching my vegetable tanned cowhide leather/waxed canvas exterior and gently pulled at one of my straps. I didn't like that one bit, and neither did Tewfic. He told the sadhu to keep his hands to himself, but the man just smiled and gestured if he could have me! My heart sank...

Tewfic gently but firmly told the ascetic that I was way too useful to him to give away, and that he relied on me to carry his equipment during this photo expedition and many more to come.

He later told me that he considered me to be an excellent everyday bag, with ample room to carry a DSLR and a medium size zoom lens with ease...and perfect for those travel photographers who have opted to carry either rangefinders and/or mirrorless systems (such as the Fuji X series) on their journeys. He lauded my resiliency, my exterior water-resistance and the top-quality that went into my production.

I expect I'll be traveling the world with The Travel Photographer many years to come, and you'll be seeing photographs of me on this blog in the very near future. In fact, Tewfic let it slip that he'd take me to Guatemala and Vietnam this year! 

The Indigo People On Storehouse For iPad

Perusing my Zite feed the other day, I stumbled on Storehouse, a brand new app and service for the iPad. The app was co-developed by an ex-Apple designer who worked on Aperture and iPhoto, and it really shows.

It describes itself as "the easiest way to create, share and discover beautiful stories...and I took it to task to quickly produce and process The Indigo People, a gallery of my images made in the north of Vietnam, as I recently announced a photo expedition-workshop to the region for September 2014.

It was quite a simple and quick process to upload the gallery of my images, and add a few text paragraphs. Storehouse allows you to import images or video clips from your camera roll, Dropbox, Instagram or Flickr...and I could re-arrange these images at will, by moving them around the "page" and by cropping them to fit the space I wanted for them. Interestingly, the cropped images are cropped only on the layout, but when clicked, they appear in full size. The limit for photographs is 50.

My next step is to try its video uploading feature. There's a time limit for videos, and it is 30 seconds. Hardly enough time to tell a whole story, but enough to grab the attention of viewers. Videos can be used for the cover of the story, and that can be very effective.

It's certainly a gorgeous app, and one that should be popular with storytellers, photographers and such. How it'll be eventually monetized remains to be seen.

I toyed with the idea to use it as a multimedia tool on my photo expeditions-workshops, but it's currently limited to be a simple but gorgeous storytelling tool. There are a number of similar apps available, and whilst I have not used them, I gather that Storehouse's philosophy is different.

TRVL for iPad | Timothy Allen Special

I recently received a welcome email from Timothy Allen, the former BBC and Human Planet photographer, who wrote saying that TRVL was celebrating its 100th issue by featuring 40 of his most compelling photographs along with a long interview on his career as a professional photographer.

TRVL is the first iPad-exclusive magazine, and was started in 2010 by Joachim Wijnands and Michel Elings. Wijnands brought travel writing and photography skills honed at the National Geographic and GEO to the game, while Elings' technical knowledge was used to design the app.

Take it from me...TRVL is gorgeous.

I have enormous respect for Timothy Allen and his work, and I'm glad TRVL chose him and his work to celebrate it's 100th issue. 

Regular readers of this blog know I seldom put golden calves on a pedestal, whether in the photography field or otherwise, but Tim is certainly someone who earned my respect (not only for his fantastic photography) but also for having been quoted in the TRVL interview as saying:

"I am certainly not trying to highlight vanishing cultures or 'change the world' as some people have said. One thing I know for sure is that I love it when the people in my pictures like them too. It's a simple personal pleasure that I get through showing people my photographs."

What a refreshing take from a world-class photographer...and a change from the mealy-mouthed platitudes I hear or read from other photographers and photojournalists! Not many have Tim's candor and stand-up attitude.

Finally, I saw with great pleasure that my multimedia piece Milongas: The Seduction of Tango is featured on TRVL's Buenos Aires section, and is described as a beautiful photographic impression of the milonga.

POV | Whoa! Vimeo Goes "Instagramish"!

Is the whole visual world going Hipstamatic & Instagramish???

Vimeo, which in my view, is the best video-sharing website available at the moment, has just added a new feature called Looks in its video Enhancer which provides its users over 500 professional-looking (and some not so much) filters that can be applied to videos for instant and stylistic visual effects.

Vimeo film makers and users can now preview a filter on a single frame of their uploaded video and compare it with their original footage before choosing whether to apply it or not. The intensity of a filter can also be adjusted using a slider, potentially giving the ability of the user to avoid the over-done look of Instagram and Hipstamatic filters.

Looks is available for free to all Vimeo users over the next 90 days. It’s likely to become a paid feature for both Vimeo Plus and Vimeo PRO subscribers.

I've tested it with one of my favorite video...Cafe Dao, made in Hoi An. I chose the Old Black & White filter, and although I think it might be a little too dark, it adds a welcome visual feel to the story of the elderly couple. I haven't decreased the intensity of the filter, and left at it's maximum level. With filters, one has to remember that less is better.

A word of caution...it does take a while to enhance a 3-4 minute video. I don't know if it was because the feature was just announced thus generating a lot of traffic to Vimeo's site, but it took about an hour to enhance Cafe Dao video you see above. And then a little more to convert it to HD. 

The new Looks feature is being powered by Vivoom, a new cloud-based video enhancer that can be customized and integrated by its partners such as Vimeo.

From the comments I've read on the various websites that carried this news, the reactions are mixed. Retro filters are not universally liked by purists and others...but my feel is that many will reconsider, especially as the intensity of the filters can be adjusted.

POV: The So 'God' Made A Farmer Advert

I have no interest whatsoever in American football, so I didn't watch the 2013 Super Bowl last Sunday...however I noticed how the media and blogosphere subsequently erupted with praise for an advertisement for the Chrysler Ram truck, which I guess appeared at halftime.

I must say that it's praise well received from an aesthetic standpoint, since it used gorgeous still photography to fashion a sort of hybrid audio slideshow.

I found, as did many others, that the photographers (Andy Anderson, William Allard, Jim Arndt, Daniel Beltra, Mark Gooch, Andy Mahr, Kurt Markus, David Spielman, Matt Turley and Olaf Veltman ) did a wonderful job, despite the seemingly tight schedule to produce it. The only name I recognize in this group is William Allard, and I thought I could recognize his thumbprint on some of the stills before realizing who the photographers were.

Did God make only white farmers?

That said, it honestly didn't dawn on me (until Paul Rigas -a photographer and a Facebook friend- commented about it) that the ad barely showed non white farmers. According to this The Atlantic article, the Department of Labor's National Agriculture Worker Survey has found that over the last decade, around 70 percent of farmworkers in America were born in Mexico, and yet very few Hispanic workers are featured in the ad.

I suppose that it's a question of target audience and demographics...and it's possible that hard working Hispanics do not buy Ram trucks. I just don't know...or they don't attend or watch Super Bowls.

I did like the narrator's magnificent voice, and was told that it belonged to the late Paul Harvey, who was a radio broadcaster with CBS.  I didn't have a clue as to who he was...thinking the narrator was a contemporary actor or something similar. My quick search revealed that he was an ardent conservative, and his political views would have certainly annoyed me to no end...but he still has a great voice, and his speech was well crafted...rustic verbal imagery compounding the well chosen visual imagery.

But whether God made anything...well, I leave this to your judgement.

But back to our potatoes...this is an incredibly well done ad from an aesthetic standpoint, and possibly the first one I see that involves such a technique...stills made into a movie/video...rather than just videography .

Bill Newsinger | Memory Twenty Two

This is a little gem. No, make that a large gem.

Not only from an aesthetic standpoint, but because it made me (and I hope you) think out of the box.

It's a stop motion project titled Memory Twenty Two by a musician, photographer and videographer Bill Newsinger (Tumblr and Vimeo) who hails from Leicester in the United Kingdom.

It was created from photographs taken with the Hipstamatic Tintype Pak; in particular and the Tinto 1884 lens, and D-Type film....which is absolutely my favorite. It consists of 4500 photos in all, and the music is his own composition.

Let me repeat this...4500 photographs!

Judging from the number of videos on his Vimeo page, Bill is a prolific photographer/videographer...he spends almost everyday shooting in his hometown, and conjuring up short movies, whether it's with his iPhone, GoPro HD or Canon 7D.

POV: Digital "Wet Plate" On Aluminum

As promised to my readers and followers earlier,  I want to share my initial thoughts on my digital "wet plate" picture fused on a 4x4 inch aluminum sheet by PostalPix. (The picture above is lousy...and doesn't render it justice).

Due to its end of year backlog, the company took 2-3 days longer than I expected to deliver the finished product to me. It was quick in alerting me of the expected delay, and advised me of the delivery date, along with a USPS tracking number.

The aluminum-fused photograph was well packaged, and came with a double-sided mounting tape for wall hanging, and an adhesive magnet for the fridge if required. It cost me nothing since the Company offered my a $15 coupon. Normally, a 4x4 aluminum photograph would cost $10, while the 8x8 costs $25. By the way, everything to start the process was done on my iPhone.

So the question is "does it look like a real wet plate (on aluminum)?" The answer is "Sort of". It's the most honest answer I can think of...however it won't fool anyone in thinking it's the real thing. It looks too "modern". That said, it's glossy, and boasts a scratch-resistant surface, and it does look very good.

However, the reproduction of the Rebari herdsman on the aluminum sheet is a little too dark for my liking. I should've lightened it up in post processing.

Now the question is...what can I do with the "wet plate" concept? After all, I've got quite a few on my The Digital Wet Plates gallery. Perhaps go larger...and try the 8x8?

RODE iXY Microphone For The iPhone

It certainly appears the iPhone is becoming the all-in platform for multimedia photographers with the newly announced RODE iXY microphone by the Australian company. The press release claims that this stereo microphone for the iPhone (and iPad) with  the 30- pin connector allows high quality recording at sampling rates up to 24-bit/96kHz,  and that it's the only microphone on the market to do so.

The iXY is supplied with a foam windshield for outdoor recording as well as a reinforced protective zip case, and is sold for $199 on the RODE Store. The initial launch stock has sold out at the time of writing this post, but the company is expecting further shipments soon.

There are two apps available from Apple's iTunes for the RODE iXY microphone. The free version and the $5.99 pro version. The latter allows audio recording features such as gain, input, boost levels, high/low-pass filter options, equalization effects and much more.

I'm not sure how this device will fare against the stiff competition from the TASCAM PCM iPhone app and much cheaper Tascam iM2 microphone ($30), or against the portable audio recorder TASCAM DR-40 ($135) or the ultra cheap Zoom H1 ($90). Perhaps the fact that users won't have to carry two devices (iPhone and audio recorder) and its high sampling rates will be determining factors.

That said, I view the iXY more as a microphone for DSLR videographers than as a handheld audio recorder.

Note: I have no relationship with TASCAM (nor with RODE for that matter) other than being a consumer.

Chiaroscuro | Vitùc

This is a gem.

I've posted a few times about Hipstamatic's new Tintype SnapPack...which consists of the Tinto 1884 Lens, a D-Type Plate Film and a C-Type Plate Film, and how much I liked it....and what I plan to do with it.

But Chiaroscuro, by the very talented Vitùc (who by the way, describes himsself as a passionate non-professional filmmaker) with his use of an iPhone and Hipstamatic App / Tinto 1848 + D-Type Plate, is taking this to new heights.

Hardly travel or documentary related, this is a time lapse of many frames made with the Tinto 1884 lens and the monochrome-ish D-type film. I read that Vitùc uses his iPhone to make almost 2500-3000 photographs and assembles them in a time-lapse to produce the kind of movie such Chiaroscuro.

2500-3000 Hipstamatic photographs! I've tried to sequentially shoot as many as photographs as possible using the same lens and film, and managed to squeeze about 8 or 9...and I then get a message that the "film" is rewinding....which probably means that the photographs are still being processed, and no more can be snapped until they're moved to the phone's camera roll.

Do watch it...it's less that two minutes, and will open up your lateral vision to what can be done with these apps...and with patience.

Introducing The Digital "Wet Plates" Photo Gallery!

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
The Digital Wet Plates Gallery

I took advantage of the lull during the past few days to work on a personal (and fun) project I've been wanting to do for a while...and made some progress in it. .

I've been quite public with my recently found affection for the Hipstamatic's new Tintype SnapPack and it's accessory films, and if the weather hadn't been so cruelly cold in New York City, I would've indulged in much more street photography using this combo last week. I've also been very impressed with Alien Skin's Exposure 4, which allowed me to process some of my photographs to look like pseudo-Daguerreotypes or wet plate images. It was especially effective when I produced Hilltribes In The Mist; a multimedia piece featuring my photographs made in Vietnam's Sapa and Bac Ha regions.

So it was a natural progression to start The Digital Wet Plates; a new blog-based website of a collection of travel portraits I made during my numerous photo expeditions. Not all the travel portraits lend themselves well to being processed in that fashion, and it's hit and miss with many of them...so I have to process the photograph and then decide whether it looks authentic or not.

This gallery is far from being complete, and I'll go as far as possible in my inventory of photographs. I will eventually organize these portraits in pages according the regions.

Oh, and another thing...in a previous post I mentioned a company called PostalPix who fuses iPhone photographs on thin aluminum sheets of varying sizes, and I thought that it may duplicate not only the wet plate look, but also its feel. The company responded and sent me a discount coupon to try the service out. I emailed back the photograph of the Rebari Herdsman you see in this post, and we'll see what it looks and feels like when it's returned to me.

Note: I'm not compensated in any way by Alien Skinware, nor by PostalPix (except for the $15 coupon it sent me).

POV | Ersatz Wet Plate?

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Ersatz means "substituting for, and typically inferior in quality to", e.g. "chicory is ersatz coffee". (Wikipedia)

I mentioned it here on this blog, but I've experienced a sort of love epiphany (or is it epiphanic love?) with Hipstamatic's new Tintype SnapPack...which consists of a Tinto 1884 Lens, a D-Type Plate Film and a C-Type Plate Film. It's not for everyone or for every subject, but when the ingredients of a scene click together, it works well.

And I recently stumbled on this short video (at the end of this post) of Ian Ruhter modifying a Holga to shoot 19th century style photographs based on the wet plate process. It's a fun project, and it doesn't seem too difficult...although I'm sure there a steep learning curve attached to it, but the more one practices it, the easier it gets.

Having also received an email from a company called PostalPix asking whether I'd be interested in having some of my iPhone photographs fused on thin aluminum sheets of varying sizes, I think I might be able to duplicate the wet plate look by sending a few images I snapped using Hipstamatic Tintype filter, and have them infused on metal sheets.

I know...I can sense the purists' hackles rising at this blasphemous idea, but it sounds like fun, and it's only ersatz 'wet-plate'. As Ian Ruhter himself says; "To live by rules that were created by others we may never find out who we really are."

And to endear myself to whoever is interested in wet-plate photography, here's Wet Plate Collodion Day website, which has galleries by dozens of photographers who work in this medium...as well as a list of resources. Ian Ruhter's Vimeo page also has a list of resources...where to buy, etc.

I will keep my readers posted once I hear from PostalPix.

Lights, Toy Camera, Action from Ian Ruhter : Alchemist on Vimeo.

Out of Eden Walk: 30 Million Footsteps

A few posts ago I suggested there were no more explorers in the mold of Richard Francis Burton.

I was wrong.

An incredible exploration trek is being planned by Paul Salopek, a writer for the Chicago Tribune and National Geographic, who will be walking the journey taken by early man tens of thousands of years ago.

The walk, Out of Eden, will take 30 million footsteps, over 21, 000 miles over 7 years to complete. It will start in Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia, and will cross the Red Sea into the Middle East, cross China, into Siberia, cross the Bering Strait into Alaska and then walk all the way down the western coasts of North and South America.

Graphic courtesy The Observer

Salopek will be taking a micro-light laptop, video and audio recording tools, since he intends to record his journey; including landscapes and voices and faces of the people he meets on the walk. He will also be taking a satellite phone through which he will be uploading his journal's recordings to his his website.

He tells The Guardian newspaper that "We will be creating a family portrait of humanity for the next seven years."

That promises to be one damn exciting journey for all of us.

Ian Ruhter: The American Dream Project

If I'm to believe my blog's statistics, posts dealing with photographic alternative processes are hugely popular...as popular as comparisons between the Leica M9 and the Fuji X Pro-1.

So here's one about photographer Ian Ruhter (whose website's front page describes him as an "alchemist"...I think a well deserved self accolade). He processes his large format photographs using the collodion wet plate process, a photographic process used in the 19th century. He also authors the Silver & Light Tumblr blog that has some of his images. By the way, the above video on Vimeo registered some 104,000 plays.

Ian Rihter is traveling across the United States photographing the people and places with a delivery van that he converted into a giant camera. This collodion wet plate process was the fashion during the Civil War era and creates unique images on metal plates. Each plate is hand-coated, exposed and then hand-developed. The plate becomes both the positive and the negative, so each image can only be produced once; creating a singular photograph that can't be replicated.

Photo © Ian Ruhter. All Rights Reserved

The Nifty Mini-Drive

The Nifty Mini-Drive for the Mac Book Air (and the Nifty MiniDrive Pro for the Macbook Pro) is a new hardware project which raised almost $200,000 (at the time of writing) on Kickstarter, much exceeding its original goal of $11,000.

From its introductory videos and write up, it's an easy to use device that will allow a quick and simple add-on to the available memory in MacBook Pros and Airs, and  as well as back-up solution.
All it does is to provide an intelligent 'adapter' that will take a MicroSd Card, which will then be inserted flush in the SD Card slot of the MacBooks, and used as an additional hard drive.


It appears that the price of the Nifty Mini-Drives will be in the vicinity of $30 each, and as the current price of a 64GB microSDXC SanDisk (as an example) is about $60, the total cost to increase one's memory by that amount is about $100 (inclusive of sales taxes or shipping, etc).

As a guidance price, the price of an 11 inch 64GB MacBook Air is $999 versus $1099 for an 11 inch 128GB MacBook Air. However, if one already owns a MacBook Air (or Pro) and wants a quick and simple increase in memory, this might be a smart alternative than to send it for an upgrade.