…when I travel, I’ll improvise extravagant new identities for
myself only with shopkeepers, hoteliers, and strangers I’m absolutely
sure I’ll never see again. I try on the hats that, but for a few twists
of fate, I might have worn (as well as some I would not have):
anthropology professor, Peace Corps volunteer, Hare Krishna devotee. If
I meet someone who my gut tells me could become a friend (or someone
who–hello Facebook–might know one of mine!), I make sure I keep it real.

Some of you were astounded, saying that we had condoned lying or posing under false pretenses. “What kind of article is this, an encouragement to lie as we travel?” reader Jim asked. “I could not believe my eyes when I read her tacit approval of lying to others.” Others saw the practical benefit: “As long as it’s not illegal, stretching the truth can keep you safer. I once had to fake my way out of an angry protest mob of hundreds,” wrote Dave.

For some like Raechal, it was the artifice of adolesence: “Growing up in a divorced family with my mother in Maine and my father in California I would travel by plane, train, and automobile between the two homes. Quite often I would pretend to be someone else, traveling for some other reason to elicit different responses from people. It was a form of amusement for an adolescent during a long and tedious trip.”

And for others, it was a white lie, depending on the circumstance. Writes Marce: “I have double citizenship, and sometimes I introduce myself with one or another depending on the situation.”

What’s your take? Read the piece and let us know.

Photo: Martin La Delfa, My Shot
















India – Travel – Recreation – Travelogues – Asia

Minas Karatzoglou claims that his likeness was used without his permission by Lindahl’s Dairy of Jonkoping in southern Sweden, and has commenced legal action against the company for compensation for the amount of $9 million.

On a prima facie basis, this appears to be a simple matter of some photographer not having the requisite model release…however there’s more to that than meets the eye, because Karatzoglou is an ardent Greek nationalist who harbors deep-seated rancor against Turkey for its occupation of Greece. His grandfather and great grandfather took part in the War of Independence, which began in 1821, which ended centuries of Ottoman rule, and led to the formation of the modern Hellenic state.

In fact, Karatzoglou wears a panoply of 19th Century flintlock pistols and a curved dagger, which he claims have killed Turks.

The Swedish company claims that it bought the photograph of the mustachioed Karatzoglou from a Spanish photo agency, and that it has all the appropriate rights it needs to use this picture commercially.

I wouldn’t like to be in the photographer’s (or the head of the yogurt manufacturer’s) shoes if he had to travel to Greece. These flintlock pistols seem to be in good working order.

I’ve posted my thoughts and recommendations on model releases in a 2008 post titled POV: Model Releases.

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The beta version of VII The Magazine is presented in the Herald Scotland newspaper, and in Lens Culture.

The first issue of the magazine features multimedia slideshows of projects by several VII photographers, as well as interviews with Jessica Dimmock and Ashley Gilbertson about their projects featured on the site.

I was particularly interested in Ashley Gilbertson’s interview, and struck by one of his statements:

“If you show me one more picture of a soldier kicking in a door, I’m going to blow my head off.”

I sense Ashley speaks for, not only war photographers, but for many of the sentient public who’s been subjected to repetitive and unimaginative visual (and intellectual) presentations of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who’s had (if they’re anything like me) enough of the same stereotypical coverage which passes for cutting edge reporting in our media. I call it the stagnation of war photography…the same scenes over and over, perhaps from different angles…and with no back story. In fact, if I didn’t read the captions beneath these images, I wouldn’t be able to tell if it was in Iraq or in Afghanistan…or whether they’d been made yesterday or a year ago. Stagnation.

Ashley’s powerful and poignant photo essay The Shrine Down The Hall, which shows some of the empty bedrooms of the over 5000 U.S. military personnel killed in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, rammed home the horrors of war much more effectively than seeing (and hearing) yet another photo essay by a gung-ho war photographer following US soldiers in an Afghani village, rounding up “Taliban” members (or whatever the caption writer decides they are), covering their heads with potato sacks while pointing guns at terrified women.

We need to see more work like Ashley Gilbertson’s and much less of the kicking of Afghan or Iraqi doors….please.

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Here’s another post on Matja Krivic’s work. This time, it’s Mali that he shares with us in this lovely audio-slideshow-movie (he calls it multivision…not a bad name.).

Matja just returned from an overland road trip from Slovenia to Nepal via Senegal (Dakar to Katmandu), which took him 13 months of living and photographing out of a 4×4 Nissan Patrol.

For 20 years, he globe-trotted the world capturing the personality and grandeur of indigenous people and places, and found the time to be awarded many prizes, and recognized in various venues and exhibitions. He traveled in Yemen, Mali, Tibet, North and West Africa, Iran, Mongolia, China, Nepal and India.

The spectacular music accompanying the slideshow is Dunya Salam (“world of peace“) by the legendary Senegalese singer Baaba Maal. An excellent choice!

So choose full screen, turn up the volume of your speakers and enjoy the show!

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I was looking for a place to have a simple dinner, and came across this restaurant called San Fah Tang. The dcor is quite simple but tasteful. It has a teahouse ambience. They serve noodles and dim sum, which was exactly what I was after. Since I wasnt that hungry, I ended up ordering just a Pork Chop La Mien. It was a pretty simple but satisfying meal.

The tea house decor inside.

They have an upper floor with private rooms.

Nice table setting.

I loved these pickles.

Now the noodles. Nice big slab of pork chop on top, half an egg. The pork chop was really tender, and the noodles still al dente.

There is a window outside the restaurant where you can see the chefs at work.

My experience with La Mien in Shanghai has been generally very good. This is one of their specialties, and they do it very well. Be sure to give it a try.

Our days in Bali have been long, with back to back photo shoots at temples ceremonies. The best are those which are small and intimate and held by families, rather than communities where rules, more likely, prevali.

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Photo: Andrew Owens; Video: Andrew Owens and Ross McDermott

















South Dakota – United States – Pine Ridge Indian Reservation – Badlands National Park – Lakota people

The photo~expedition is especially structured for established photographers interested in documentary photography, ethno-photography and multimedia, and for those ready to create visual projects from their inventory of photographs, and learn how to control story length, intent, pace, use of music and ambient sound, narration, field recordings and interviews.

As in 2007, the base for this year’s photo-expedition is a small Balinese-owned boutique hotel amidst a working rice-paddy in the art center town of Ubud.

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She is an award-winning photographer and artist based in New York City, and built an impressive reputation for her rituals, rites of passage, festivals, celebrations and portraits from all over the world.

Her infrared photographs of Rajasthan and Gujarat as an audio slideshow have now been added to her ongoing personal project Still Points in a Turning World which focuses on Asias vanishing tribal heritage.

With her acknowledged expertise in infrared photography and its intricate post-processing, Terri provides personalized hands-on tutorship to photographers who are interested in the craft. So visit her website, and email her to learn this exciting photographic technique that is growing in popularity.

A previous post on Terri’s photography is here.

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