Wayne Thomas | Myanmar (on Storehouse)

Photo © Wayne Thomas-All Rights Reserved

I'm a great fan of Storehouse, a visual storytelling application for the iPad, which is an easy way to create, share, and discover beautiful stories by combining photographs, videos clips, and text. In fact, I've produced two stories on Storehouse so far, and the number of views on one of them just blew my mind...over 5500 views in a matter of a few weeks.

And I'm glad to see that other photographers have preceded me, and have followed suit. One of these photographers is Wayne Thomas, whose Myanmar, A Nation in Transition has just been published a few days ago. I hope this post will propel his multimedia essay's readership/viewership even further.

It's a great combination of still photographs, short video clips (about 5 of them that loop continuously) and a couple of panoramic photographs of Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda and of the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda's Golden Rock.

The most arresting photograph in the essay is Wayne's photograph of a woman whose face is completely covered in thick thanakha paste, and some sort of brown-black "third eye" in the center of her forehead. I've never seen anyone with that much thanakha paste before.

Wayne Thomas describes himself as a traveler, storyteller and a grower of facial hair. He traveled to Myanmar and writes that it's a developing country sought after by opportunity seeking corporations and travelers hoping to step back in time.

He's right.

Konstantino Hatzisarros | Burma

Photo © Konstantino Hatzisarros-All Rights Reserved

Ah...Burma (or Myanmar!) It's on the mind of many travel photographers...on their itinerary, or their bucket list...some describe it as a fusion of South and East Asia influences, whether cultural, culinary or physical characteristics.

International tourism to Myanmar is mushrooming to unseen parallels after  being virtually closed off to the rest of the world for almost 60 years. It moved from a military to a more democratic government, and the influx of tourism has increased from 300,000 visitors in 2010 to about a million last year, with 7,000,000 tourists  forecast to visit the country by 2020.

I was fortunate to photograph in Myanmar in 2001 and 2002...when few tourists ventured to these magnificent country; at a time when the choice in hotels was limited and the dial-up internet was almost non-existent.

New York-based Konstantino Hatzisarros brings us his large sized photographs of his travels to Myanmar, including a few of the Chin minorities. While the practice of facial tattooing has largely ceased years ago, some Chin women can still be found bearing these, as it was a rite of passage for them as youngsters. However, the new generation are shunning the practice.

The ritual was officially banned by the then socialist regime in the 1960s, and the tattoos became increasingly rare as Christian missionaries converted the previously animist communities.

Sara O'Brien Callow | The Yangon Loop

Photo © Sara O'Brien Callow-All Rights Reserved

One of my regrets while photographing in Myanmar (twice!) some 10 years ago was missing the Yangon Circular Railway. It's a local commuter rail network that extends for about 30 miles with 39 stations. It has about 200 coaches, runs 20 times and sells 100,000 to 150,000 tickets daily. It takes some three hours to complete, and is a great way to see a cross section of life in Yangon.

The cost of a ticket is the equivalent of $0.09 for the Burmese, and $1.00 for foreigners, regardless of the length of the journey

Like Sara's above photograph and the rest of her photo essay The Yangon Loop, it provides photographers a wonderful opportunity to visually capture the people of Yangon....chatting, sleeping, selling vegetables and tea...etc.

A Foundry Photojournalism Workshop alum, Sara O'Brien Callow started out her photography career in 2011 when working at an Elephant Park in Northern Thailand. It wasn't long before she dedicated herself to documentary photography. Currently based in Melbourne, she has numerous projects in development as well as focusing on the completion of her tertiary studies. 

Also take a look at Sara's Project Grey, which she began during her time at the Elephant Park in 2011 and has been developed further in 2013 with plans to continue in early 2015. It's probably the project closest to her heart.

Sara has taken part in numerous workshops under the guidance of; Andrea Bruce, James Whitlow Delano, Les Walking, Maggie Steber, Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb.

Berta upe Tilmantaitė | Myanmar

Photo © Berta upe Tilmantaite- All Rights Reserved

Viewing Vimeo's Staff Pick "A Handful of Myanmar" made me realize that it had been quite a while since I posted photographs or video of this wonderful country.

Myanmar is currently one of the hottest travel destinations. Tour groups, solo tourists, travel photographers are flocking to this wonderful Asian nation, and its hotels are virtually overbooked. Some may say that this influx of tourism (mostly Western), which increased almost 90% over the past 3 years, will eventually be detrimental to its culture, character and personality. Despite the recent cancellation of large tour groups from the US, the UK, Australia and France, Myanmar is planning for a significant tourist influx in the coming couple of years.

A far cry from when I visited in 2001 and 2002, when tourists were few...partly put off by the country's poor infrastructure and by the notion that tourism helped to retain the military junta in power.

Berta upe Tilmantaite is a Lithuanian multimedia journalist, photographer and story teller, currently based in Vilnius. She obtained her MA in International Multimedia Journalism from the University of Bolton / Beijing Foreign Studies University (Beijing) after graduating from Vilnius University.

I am featuring her work from Myanmar here, but also explore her other galleries of the Himalaya region, Tibet, Indonesia, Borneo, Mongolia, Thailand, Georgia and Portugal. Her video titled A Handful of Myanmar was a Vimeo Staff Pick.