Ken Hermann: Sadhus of the Kumbh

Photo ©Ken Hermann-All Rights Reserved

Ken Hermann is a photographer based in Copenhagen, Denmark and is a member of the Behance Network. He has a personal website, but I get a no access message when I try to view it.

No matter, his portraits of Sadhus made during the 2010 Kumbh Mela in Haridwar can be seen on here.

Sadhus attend Kumbh Mela festivals and are amongst the many driving forces behind these festivals, and are also a magnet for photographers and photojournalists because of their appearance, and lifestyle.

The normal Kumbh Mela is celebrated every 4 years. The Ardh Kumbh Mella is celebrated every six years at Haridwar and Prayag, as the one earlier this year. The Purna Kumbh takes place every twelve years at four places: Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nashik. The Maha Kumbh Mela occurs after 12 Purna Kumbh Melas, or 144 years, and is always held at Allahabad. This is the one I attended in January 2001 along with  60 million other people.

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The 900th And 901st Follower

Photo © Debarpita Mohapatra- All Rights Reserved

My list of Google Followers has now grown to just over 900 people. This list is distinct from my Twitter and Facebook followers and/or friends, Feed subscribers or from the subscribers to my newsletters.

To commemorate this milestone, here are the two Followers as they've joined at the same time.

The 900th Google Follower is Debarpita Mohapatra. He's an architect, photographer and biker based in Bhubaneswar and New Delhi. He also authors a blog titled The Indian Expedition.

Photo © Luisa Puccini- All Rights Reserved

As for the 901st Google Follower, she's Luisa Puccini from Camogli near Florence. She's a traveler and photographer, and authors a blog titled Fotovagando, or Photo Wanderer. She seems to have been wandering in the right places since her blog has photographs and entries from Bali, Delhi's Nizam Uddin, Burma, and other interesting places.

Thank you for following The Travel Photographer!

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Human Rights Watch: Burma Defenders

The Human Rights Watch feature Burma Defenders is timed to coincide with the first elections to be held in the repressed country in more than 20 years. Burma has been run by a junta of army generals who have silenced any opposition to their brutal regime with human rights abuses and by silencing any dissent.

Political observers are awaiting the elections and wondering if civil unrest flare up after what is widely perceived as a sham election on November 7, and whether Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, be released when her sentence ends on November 13.

Human Rights Watch and photographer Platon have teamed up to photograph opposition members, former political prisoners, and journalists who have sought political refuge in neighboring Thailand.

Platon is a photographer who attended London's St. Martin's School of Art, holds a BA in Graphic Design and a MA in Photography and Fine Art from the Royal College of Art. Now living in New York, he continues to shoot portrait, and documentary work for a range of international publications, including The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, and The Sunday Times Magazine.

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Panasonic's Lumix DMC GF2

Aaaaargh! It seems that engineers love to spoil a good thing. Panasonic has just announced the Lumix GF2, the updated version of its excellent mirrorless, lens-swappable GF1.

According to WIRED's Gadget Lab, the new GF2 comes with an updated image processor for a maximum ISO to 6400, a do-all touch-screen control, and an upgrade to the HD video mode.

The spoilers? Well, the mode selector on the GF1's top plate is gone, as well as the lever that allowed the user to choose between burst, timer and bracketing modes. The AF/MF selector is gone as well as the DOF preview button.

Moreover, the GF2's body is said to be 18% smaller and 7% lighter than its predecessor....which I think won't provide the satisfactory feel of holding a "serious" small camera as in the GF1.

The GF2 will go on sale in early 2011 but no price was announced yet. Thank you very much Panasonic/Lumix engineering staff...but I'll keep my GF1.

For a video comparison between the GF1 and the GF2 with a British perspective, drop by this website.

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Jimmy Williams: Music Makers

Photo © Jimmy Williams - All Rights Reserved

I couldn't find much in the way of background on Jimmy Williams except the brief biography on his website which tells us that he's a narrative storyteller. That is true, but to me he also captured the essence of the remarkably talented southern music makers.

The series began with an assignment and led to an organization named the Music Makers Relief Foundation which supports musicians who are the true representations of southern music, whether blues, bluegrass, gospel and so forth.

A wonderful section of Jimmy's website groups all the musical genres, and is narrated by him. It will thrill all of us who love authentic blues and its derivatives.

I've promised myself that I would fly down one day to Clarksdale, Mississippi and spend time with blues musicians, and document their music making...yes, an item on my bucket list, if you will.

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My Bali Island of Gods Book: Update

I've been working on my book for a few days now, and I've just sent it to Blurb for publishing. I've chosen for it to be in large format landscape 13x11 inches, and with 82 pages of black & white photographs, it'll be a large coffee-table style book.

I fixed the variations in tone, sharpened the "soft" photographs and those that seemed "muddy" to me. So I'm crossing my fingers. Its shipping date by Blurb is November 9 so I ought to actually get the final product a few days later.

As I was setting up the book, I erred while saving it and Blurb's software just gobbled it up, and it promptly vanished! So I had to start almost from scratch...I say almost because all the photographs had been saved on my laptop's hard drive....so perhaps not a total heart-stopping event, but annoying all the same.

I think that Blurb ought to provide the option for book publishers (especially for photographs and other visual arts) to order a one-time 2-3 pages mock-up for $10 or so. Perhaps it's not commercially viable to do this in a printing business, but it would certainly go a long way to reassure people that their eventual book will look the way they expect. Just a thought.

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Maya Elise Joseph Goteiner: Dia De Los Muertos

Photograph © Maya Joseph-Goteiner -All Rights Reserved

I just saw lovely photographs by Maya Joseph-Goteiner on PDN Photo of The Day, and thought I'd feature her work from Oaxaca and elsewhere relating to the Dia de los Muertos festivities, which was featured on PDN here as well. You can also see more of Maya's work on her blog.

The Dia de los Muertos is a Catholic celebration of the memory of deceased ancestors celebrated on November 1 (All Saints) and November 2 (All Souls). Its origins can be traced back to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, such as the Zapotec, Aztec, Maya, Purepecha, Nahual and Totonac. Rituals celebrating the lives of dead ancestors has been observed by Mesoamerican civilizations for at least 3,000 years.

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Taking A Day Off...Because.

I'm taking the day off because I feel like it.

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