Jan Sochor: Nukak-Maku

Photo © Jan Sochor-All Rights Reserved
Jan Sochor has documented the Nukak Maku people, a nomadic indian tribe from the Amazon, who were driven out of the jungle by the Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary squads. More than half of the Nukak population have died of western diseases like flu. In refugee camps, the Nukak are taught from (mainly Christian) aid workers concepts and habits that were never part of their tradition.

Jan is a freelance photographer, working between South America and Europe. He lived and worked in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain and the Czech Republic during the past five years. His photographs and stories have appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers and websites, including Sunday Times, National Geographic, Reuters, Burn magazine, Foto8, 100Eyes, UNESCO, Boston Review, PDN online,and others.

I've always considered proselytizing by any religious group to be an abhorrent practice...hand in hand with racism and bigotry.

Found via The Click

Peter Turnley Does Rio's Carnaval

Photo © Peter Turnley -All Rights Reserved

..."I became aware of the value of turning my attention away from the main event. So often, the temptation is to look where everyone else is looking. But, time after time, I have chosen to observe what’s going on by looking in the other direction—before, or after, or at the edges of the main attraction." - Peter Turnley

And that he did. Turnley's just featured On the Fringe of the Rio Carnaval photo essay on The Online Photographer is unusual because it doesn't concentrate on the scantily-clad gorgeous women of the Rio's Carnaval as many other photojournalists do, but it rather takes us away from the glitz of the main event to the less glamorous side show...to the fringe as he calls it.

The photographs represent moments that occurred away from the main event. It is this amazing spirit which, in Turnley's mind, exemplifies the Carnaval, and inspires him to return to Brazil year after year.

The complete photo essay is on The Online Photographer.

NPR: Traveling Down The Amazon

Here's Traveling Down The Amazon, an intelligently produced NPR multimedia feature that combines audio, stills and graphics to tell the story of transcontinental highway being built in Peru and Brazil which promises to bring economic opportunities, and also acute environmental problems, to one of the most remote places on earth.

NPR correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro and staff photographer John Poole traveled the Peruvian route to produce this series.

I found this via a Twitter post (aka a "tweet") by Tracy Boyer, the editor of the excellent Innovative Interactivity blog, that deals with new multimedia and which she appropriately calls "a digital watering hole for multimedia enthusiasts".

Traveling Down The Amazon is not the kind of feature that one can watch in one sitting...it's too long and too dense to absorb in one go. So bookmark it for whenever you have the time to follow it properly.

I haven't had the time to watch except the first chapter The Road, and found it surprising that the producers of the piece haven't sync'ed the stills and the narration by Garcia-Navarro together. It hasn't bothered me much because I could return or go forward to the still photograph I was interested in, and still keep the narration going on.

Damon Winter: The Kamayurá

Photo © Damon Winter/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved
Damon Winter and The New York Times bring us An Ancient Society, a multimedia essay (narrated by Elisabeth Rosenthal) on the Kamayurá, an Amazonian tribe living in the middle of Xingu National Park in Brazil. This area was a huge swathe of land originally in the depths of the Amazon, but which is is now surrounded by farms and ranches.

The article reports that around 5,000 square miles of Amazon forest are being cut down annually in recent years, affecting the environment and depriving the Kamayurá of their way of life.

Nicely photographed by Damon, the audio slideshow's narration is somewhat stilted, and, for my taste, there isn't enough ambient sound to add what I call "aural texture" to the essay...but it's interesting nevertheless.

Andrew Sullivan; Samba da Bahia

Photo © Andrew Sullivan/Courtesy Burn Magazine
Sometimes I stumble on a photograph that just stops me in my tracks. I can't really explain the reason, but all I know is that it has that effect on me...and Andrew Sullivan's sublime photograph made me stop. The caption reads that a delivery man called the waitress on the right "belleza pura", and he's right, but it's not only her that makes the photograph. All of its elements work...the positioning of the people, the shadows, the look, the colors...it all works just so perfectly.

Andrew Sullivan's photo essay Samba da Bahia is on the wonderful Burn magazine, which is amongst of the best photo websites I've seen in a while. Burn is curated by the legendary David Alan Harvey, one of the heroes of photography for his superlative work, and for his unstinting generosity in mentoring emerging photographers.

Andrew describes himself as a reformed newspaper photographer, but it's best to read his biography in his own words, as well as about his essay on the Samba da Bahia link above.

As a multimedia and samba aficionado, I must confess I literally ached to hear the sound that could have accompanied this photo essay. If only...but I can always look at them and play Jobim at the same time.