Kevin, Lawrence and Tom with Rockets and Beer (rocket fuel)
Another year has come and gone and once again the “rocket guys” got together to celebrate my 50th birthday. With a full compliment of friends joining in it was as usual a night to remember. A full review will be online soon but here’s a teaser. This year I pulled out my trusty GoPro Hero camera and put it through the paces. Many of the launches went surprisingly smoothly but…. you decide about this one!
A few years back (2005) while I was travelling in Thailand we spent some time in the wonderful town of Sukhothai. While staying there we hired a tuk-tuk to take us down to the incredible wats located within the Sukhothai Historical Park. While returning to the main town our driver figured a photographer would perhaps like to visit an “interesting” wat that many tourists do not see. This wat is certainly interesting but of course I didn’t make note of the name or perhaps never asked. Six years later and time spent on Google Earth and I still haven’t located the wat again.
Has anyone been here? Do you perhaps know the name and location? Maybe you have a friend in the area?
Any help would be appreciated.
The Rabari - Encounters with the Nomadic Tribe
Ebook review: Rabari – Encounters with the Nomadic Tribe by Mitchell Kanashkevich
Mitchell Kanashkevich embarked on a fascinating 4 month journey to photograph the Rabari, a nomadic group of Indian cattle herders. As with so many cultures in today’s fast paced and ever changing world, the Rabari’s culture is quickly changing and Mitchell’s objective with this journey was to photograph the traditional rituals and dress, not just as a documentary but as work of art. This he achieved in a stunning portfolio of well thought out images. Rabari – Encounters with the Nomadic Tribe highlights the thought and process behind 10 of these images.
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Each image is presented with a full page spread with only captioning and exposure information providing us with an uncluttered view of the finished photograph. As mentioned before, these images are stunning and would do well purely as a portfolio but fortunately for us, Mitchell is willing to provide insight into the process that went into each of the photos.
The following pages contain additional background Information and Mitchell’s thoughts about the objectives, lighting, composition and other factors influencing the image. What is most impressive in this collection of images is his use of light. Graphics often illustrate the lighting used for a particular image and work well to explain his use of reflectors for many of the photos.
The Rabari - Encounters with the Nomadic Tribe
Of particular interest to me is the presentation of other images from the same shoot with a discussion about how a decision was made on the final image. Mitchell works his subjects well and this composition discussion highlights the thought and process of working with his subjects.
Rabari Businessman at Rest
What I find most impressive is the way that Mitchell treats the post processing of the images. While his well thought out images are fine the way they come out of the camera, his post processing truly brings out the “wow” factor that has cemented his reputation. The “What” and the “Why” is discussed for every image with both before and after photographs being shown along with a detailed description of the tools used to make the required changes. While he uses Lightroom and Photoshop, these ideas could be applied to most imaging programs. This is the type of information that has me looking at revisiting many of my images and working with them a little more. The results are astounding!
Morning Tea and Swings
It’s easy to see why Mitchell Kanashkevich’s work has gone on to win numerous awards and has been published in many international magazines. If you want to take your travel photography to the next level this book will fulfill your requirements.
Highly recommended!
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The Rabari – Encounters with the Nomadic Tribe by Mitchell Kanashkevich is part of The Insider Series to Travel Documentary Photography published by Light Stalking
Yesterdays post about Fine Wines in Sancerre, France got me thinking about the cork that is used to stopper the wine bottles.
Part of the excitement when travelling is discovering tidbits of information about something that we take for granted; cork for instance. I have always known that cork was a renewable bark and stoppered the fine bottles of wine that I purchase, was used for flooring and corkboards and likely numerous other products but living here in North America I hadn’t thought much about cork trees, I don’t even know if we grow them. How do they harvest the bark and what does the cork tree look like? Well, I finally found out when lost in a valley somewhere in Andalucía, Spain, maybe near Gaucín? What struck me most was the colour of the trees right after the bark has been removed. Pretty cool!
Barked cork tree in Andalucia, Spain
Drying cork bark in Andalucia, Spain
The finished product somewhere in Paris
Parque Nacional Volcán Arenal, Costa Rica
I had the opportunity to revisit the wonderful country of Costa Rica a few weeks ago not as a tourist, but as a photo editor. I’ve written about this before, the experience of looking at one’s photographs months or even years after the initial shooting and the joy that comes form the revisit. Great memories, a fresh outlook on the imagery and for myself, a trip that I can relive virtually. This trip back in time got me thinking about the way I work while on the road.
Often when I travel I wonder why I carry a camera with me at all. In many ways it takes away from the travel experience with my vision always being in “photography” mode for weeks on end. I will admit, I can get awfully lazy when I’m travelling and while I have the best of intentions for documenting what I’m experiencing the idea of being up at 5:00AM every morning is only an unfulfilled dream. I don’t use tripods when I should and when I revisit my photographs at a later date I’m somewhat disappointed at the sharpness or lack of creativity caused by this apparent lack of dedication to my craft. There are few images shot in the early mornings, even fewer after sunset when I prefer to sit around and have one of those “cool” brews with recently met friends.
Cattle in Guanacaste, Costa Rica
Riding Horses, Samara, Costa Rica
This is one advantage I suppose in taking a real vacation without a photography assignment and deadlines lurking in the close future. There’s a more free flow style to the shooting that I actually do, no deadlines, no particular subjects, more of a journalistic approach. What does this really have to do with Costa Rica? Costa Rica was the last overseas trip I took where I purely went on a trip to get away for a vacation. I was burned out after too many 70 hour weeks and endless road trips. I had many plans for photography when I left, took my tripod, did my research and…. spent much of my life sitting on a beach, crawling through holes in the ground and getting a kick out of driving in a country where driving is an art form. In a full 4 weeks I managed too shoot about 4,000 images and while this sounds like a huge number often I’ll shoot this many photos within 3 days when I’m working seriously. There were the occasional thrills of getting the “good photo”; the thrill that keeps photographers going. More often there were times when I took a somewhat lazy attitude with the idea that some day I “will go back”. Whether I do ever get back to Costa Rica is hard to know, I certainly would like to. My snapshots of Costa Rica really aren’t that bad in fact I shot many images that I’m very proud of! I could have shot more but, it wasn’t the right time.
I’ve had the thought a few times recently that it would be interesting to head out with a $98 point and shoot camera and see what comes from it. I could call it art I suppose, the chromatic aberrations and lack of sharpness giving an old photo feel. Perhaps I could even set the camera on black and white and pretend I was back in Australia in the sixties. Would I be happy when I returned? I’m not sure, maybe I’ll try some day as an experiment.
Coca-Cola, Samara, Costra Rica
Let’s face it, the weather in most parts of the world is not always picture perfect. Where I l…
Ebook review: Rabari – Encounters with the Nomadic Tribe by Mitchell Kanashkevich Mitchell Kan…
Another year has come and gone and once again the “rocket guys” got together to celebrat…
Let’s face it, the weather in most parts of the world is not always picture perfect. Where I l…
