Tom Bourdon: Dayakan Dance

Tom Bourdon was recently in Java, Indonesia where he photographed a traditional Dayak dance near Borobodur. He captured the ambient sound with the new and popular Zoom H1, and put together this audio slideshow. You can also view it here.

The Dayak are the native people of Borneo, who live principally in the interior of Borneo, each with its own dialect, customs, laws, territory and culture. Dayaks also live in Indonesia, and have their distinct culture as Tom Bourdon documented.

The Dayak were animist in belief, however many converted to Christianity, and more recently to Islam. Estimates for the Dayak population range from 2 to 4 million.

Tom is a documentary travel photographer specializing in recording cultural festivals & celebrations across the globe. His work has been published in the national & international press as well as guide books & numerous online locations.

I thought I'd add this review of the Zoom H1. It's by B&H, and while it's short and to the point, it gives a reasonable appraisal of the device.

Diego Verges: Ludruk

Photo © Diego Verges-All Rights Reserved

Ludruk is a theatrical genres of East Java in Indonesia. It's a form of traditional performance presented by a troupe of actors on a stage, re-telling the life stories of everyday people and their struggles. Most of the characters were performed by male actors who take the roles of women, but more recently, the sketches and farces feature mostly contemporary domestic stories, and have become commercial entertainment popular with urban and rural working-class audiences.

Diego Verges (featured many times of The Travel photographer blog and one of its Favorite 2011 Photographers) has produced a comprehensive photo essay on the Ludruk, with black & white (and color) facial portraits, and as well as environmental portraits and scenes of these performers.

Ludruk is a must-see for my readers as it merges portraiture, documentary and travel-ethnography photography, and also visually documents an art for that could well vanish in the years to come.

Note: I encountered a similar kind of performance in Bali where it's called Arja. This type of performance enacts old stories in a farcical manner and uses dialogue understood only by Balinese-speaking audiences.

Vincent Prévost: West Papua

Photo © Vincent Prévost-All Rights Reserved

 I occasionally receive emails from photographers such as the one from Vincent Prévost that make the work of maintaining The Travel Photographer blog feel really worthwhile.

Vincent tells me he's been a regular reader of The Travel Photographer blog for about 2 years, and that it has been a source of inspiration to him. He cites my two posts on Grenville Charles and Diego Verges, who documented tribes of West Papua,  as triggering his own photo expedition "Highlands Encounters" to this remote part of the world.

That's what this blog is all about...to inspire photographers to explore other unfamiliar areas, to try new techniques and to document endangered cultures.

He has been teaching French in South Korea since 2002 and is also a freelance editorial photographer who fuses fine art and journalism. While most of his work is in color, he also enjoys black & white photography, and travels with compact audio equipment to add a further dimension to his visual work.

West Papua is an Indonesian province that borders the independent nation of Papua New Guinea and forms the western half of the world's second largest island. The indigenous people of West Papua are of the same ethnic origin as those in the eastern half of the island of New Guinea. Ethnically and culturally, they are also related to other Melanesian peoples of the Pacific.

James Morgan: People of the Coral Triangle

James Morgan features the People of the Coral Triangle, a well made documentary on the Bajau Laut, on his website, along with other multimedia projects such as the Eagle Hunters (previously featured on TTP), and fast-paced documentaries of Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo.

As he explains, the Coral Triangle refers to a triangular shaped area of the tropical marine waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. It is there that 3,000 species of fish live, including the largest fish - the whale shark, and the coelacanth. It also provides habitat to six out of the world’s of seven marine turtle species.

The Bajau Laut are an indigenous ethnic group of the southern Philippines, who have migrated to neighboring Malaysia over the course of the past 50 years. They depend directly in the natural resources of the Coral Triangle, and are the last nomadic marine communities of the world. Mostly Muslims, some also worship local sea spirits.

The Big Picture: National Geo Contest 2010

Photo © Ario Wibisono-All Rights Reserved

The Boston Globe's photo blog The Big Picture is showing off some of the submissions to The National Geographic annual  photo contest. The deadline for the submissions is November 30. The Big Picture editor chose 47 images from the three categories of People, Places and Nature.

No one asked me for my opinion, but I'll give it anyway. My favorite of those shown is the one of the two Indonesian boys playing with roosters in the village of Suradita, near Serpong in West Java. The photographer is Ario Wibisono who's based in Jakarta.

Ario's caption informs us that this was not a real cockfight. I'm confused by their dress as I took them to be Balinese children, but they're not...they're Javanese.

I also liked another one (#5) also by Ario Wibisono of the musician in Tenganan Village in Bali, playing the bamboo flute to a disabled child. I spent a couple of hours with this man during my Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition ™, photographing him playing his various instruments (including a sort of didgeridoo) and recording some of the pieces he played.

Conor Ashleigh: Futu-Manu In East Timor

Photo © Conor Ashleigh -All Rights Reserved
Futu manu means"fighting bird" in the local Tetum language of East Timor. Cockfighting is a tradition that goes back centuries in various countries, and I've witnessed it practiced in India, Mexico and Bali to name but a few.

I was glad to find Conor Ashleigh's website, and see that he has featured a photo essay on cockfighting in East Timor. There, cockfights are complementary to religious rites and ceremonies, but also feed a gambling streak amongst many men.

Conor lives in Australia and works on developing stories that comment on under-reported environmental, political and social issues. He photographed in Egypt, Gaza, South Africa, Thailand, Cambodia and Uganda, as well as working on long term projects in India, Nepal and Timor-Leste. His images have been published in New Internationalist, Sydney Morning Herald, Newcastle Herald, The Asia Foundation, Catholic Mission and Oxfam.

I also suggest you check in Conor's photo essay on The Brick Kilns of Bhaktapur in Nepal.

I'm currently working on my own photographs of cockfights in Bali, which will soon be published here on this blog.