Suzanne Roberts on Cotopaxi, Ecuador

Name: Suzanne Roberts

Age: 39

Cultural heritage / Ethnicity: British mother/Jewish father

Languages spoken: English, Spanish

Based out of: South Lake Tahoe, California

Education: PhD in Literature and the Environment, MA in Creative Writing, BS in Biology

Current work / projects: I am currently working on a book of travel poems, a hiking memoir, and a book of travel essays. I am also co-editing an anthology of skiing and snowboarding stories.

Books published / forthcoming: Shameless (Wordtech Editions, 2007), Nothing to You (Pecan Grove Press, 2008), and Plotting Temporality (forthcoming from Red Hen Press)

Writers / Journalists whose work inspires you: I am a big reader, so I could name hundreds, but here are some of my favorites: Rainer Maria Rilke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, the Brontes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Federico Garcia Lorca, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath. Contemporary writers I especially admire are Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Li-Young Lee, Mark Doty, Louis Glück, and Ann Carson.

Photographers whose work inspires you: Annie Lebovitz, Ansel Adams, and Catherine Roberts Leach (that’s my sister!). I also like Nevada Photographer Peter Goin’s Black Rock desert work and local Tahoe photographer Corey Rich’s work.

Books / magazines / media currently reading: Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit, One More Theory about Happiness by Paul Guest, Black Nature, edited by Camille Dungy, Collected Poems by Lynda Hull, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy. I always have at least five books going at once. I read the New York Times everyday as well.

Last concert attended: Does a Bassnectar rave at Burning Man count?

[DM] Your work seems to fit somewhere at the intersection of poetry and travel writing. Although it seems like there should be a natural overlap (and audience) when you put these two elements together, it seems divided, at least in the publications I’ve found.

Most literary journals seem to publish certain styles of nonfiction (with “travel writing” often seeming a pejorative term), whereas travel magazines publish other styles, much of it very homogeneous (with terms like “literary”or “poetic,” potentially seen as pejorative). Have you found this to be true? And if so, how have you “bridged” it?

[SR] I find everything you have said absolutely true, and to tell you the truth, I was surprised when I found out that travel writing is seen in a pejorative light. I think that’s because of the nuts and bolts nature of the where to stay/what to do/where to eat-type articles, but these serve a very important purpose for their audience.

Poetry is the ideal medium to capture sense of place because of the poem’s imagistic in-the-moment nature, but you are right, the travel journals don’t typically publish poetry. Therefore, I don’t think I have “overcome” or “bridged” the attitudes you suggest.

I have been shopping my hiking memoir around, and one agent told me it would be hard to find a mainstream publisher because I don’t have any real books out—she then said, “You know poetry doesn’t count, right?”

And in the marketplace, poetry doesn’t count unless you are Dante or someone else long dead. We often forget, and I include myself in this, that it is the writing and not the publishing that’s important.

I think most poets finally come to accept this because we have to write the poems while knowing that most likely, they will not find a very large audience. Yet, at the same time, this can be very freeing. In poetry, I often feel like I can write whatever I want, because really, who is going to read it?

In much of the work in your upcoming collection, the narrator is an outside observer to other people’s realities, specifically, poverty in India. The themes deal with distance (the narrator is often looking out on the scene from “the ambassador’s car”) and separation from local people.

As an outside observer to these realities, how do you reconcile creating poetry or art out of them? How do you distinguish what is poetry / art / expression and what is rendering (or even glorifying) guilt or “white man’s burden”?

When I have returned from places, such as India, people have not wanted to look at my photographs; they have said, “Don’t tell me anything sad.” I think by ignoring the sad realities of the word, we make them worse.

My hope is to relay an observation, give an unflinching view of the difficult realities to the reader, and he or she can decide what to do with it.

One of my favorite writers, Chris Abani, says that guilt is a wasted emotion. I think what he means is that we often turn to guilt as a way to make ourselves feel better, which seems paradoxical, but if we can say, “I feel guilty,” then it is enough for us, and we can look away, and move on without really doing anything.

Making poems is my way of not looking away, my way of asking the reader to consider things. Sometimes, the world shows itself to be a cruel place, and I feel helpless, as many people do, and I ask myself, “What can I do?” My answer, I suppose, is to write a poem.

And you are right, I write these poems from the perspective of an outsider looking in, but because I am a visitor, writing the poems any other way seems disingenuous to me. If we think there’s no difference between ourselves and the locals when we visit a place, we are fooling ourselves.

Whenever we are traveling, we are outsiders looking in, no matter how we travel. In some respects, the poet also places herself outside of things because she observes the world from a distance. James Joyce says, ”The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.”

Therefore, in writing about different cultures, that distance is doubled, creating dissonance for both narrator and reader. This dissonance, though, can be powerful in poetry because it is in this place where meaning happens. Carolyn Forché’s beautiful collection The Country Between Us creates an incredible amount of discomfort in the reader, and that’s one of the reasons the poems are so remarkable. No one can forget the human ears pressed to the ground in “The Colonel.”

Do you feel like you write from a developed religious / philosophical / epistemological framework? If so, could you describe it?

Because of my studies in literature and the environment, and before that, biological sciences, my writing is deeply concerned with the natural world, and our human connection to it. I am especially interested in how the ways in which we view and classify nature can reveal cultural values and vice versa.

I dislike didactic writing about the environment, which functions to alienate readers, so I try to stick with observations and let the reader decide what to think.

What is your typical work routine?

I work whenever I can. I am a binge writer, so I prefer long stretches—8 to 12 hours, but I will work on a poem between classes or in a doctor’s waiting room. I also work late at night when I can’t call someone or go out jogging to distract myself. I have gone to writing residencies, and getting away really helps. I would recommend a residency for anyone trying to finish a book project.

How does teaching affect your writing?

I think it depends on what I’m teaching. I am at a community college, so I teach everything from ESL to literature and creative writing, but we often carry a heavy load in composition. Sometimes the grading associated with all the composition courses takes me away from my writing, but at the same time, the interaction with my students inspires me.

I begin every class with a writing exercise, and I write with my students. I have started many of my poems from exercises I give my students. I also believe that I need to stay active in my writing if I am going to teach writing—anything else would make me feel like a phony. I can’t ask my students to develop a daily practice of writing (and reading!) if I am not actively engaged in my own process, so on the whole, I would say that teaching has been good for my writing, especially when I have a fun group of students.

Community Connection

Please visit SuzanneRoberts.org to find more about her work and upcoming projects.

West Bengal. Photo: Al Jazeera English

A FEW MONTHS ago, waves of trucks from rural West Bengal flying red flags spotted with hammers and sickles converged on the Maidan in Calcutta.

The India of adoration to Shiva, Kali, and Microsoft Word suddenly vanished. Was I in Nicaragua? Romania? Was I young again?

There was a picture in the papers when I arrived of a group of white-haired old men giving the clench-fisted communist salute to a white-haired dead man, their comrade, Jyoti Basu. Basu was for many years West Bengal’s Chief Minister.

The shot resembled a relic from some Communist Bloc archive. Or a still from a filmmaker’s political ghost story. But not a Bollywood filmmaker. Too grim for Bollywood.

Strange to think of the wintry clenched fist in West Bengal with its gentle ponds and coconut trees. The CPIM (Communist Party of India Marxist) has ruled West Bengal for the past thirty three years. I realize this is obscene.

There is something wrong with my feeling nostalgic for all the years I never even knew the CPIM was in power in Bengal. Communist parties with actual ruling Secretariats and cadre who know how to spit out the word “reactionary” from the appropriate place deep in the intestines, are not easy to come by in our post-red world.

The CPIM is widely expected to be defeated by Mamata Banerjee, India’s Minister of Railways, and her populist Tiranmool Party in next year’s elections. This doesn’t entirely please me. Bengalis hear this and say, “Are you crazy?” That helps ground me.

I hated the old Communist parties whose dreary exhortations on class politics fell on our heads like acid rain.

But I admit to a low-grade affection for the CPIM. I see them fussing over the grass in their ideological cemetery. Don’t they know they themselves are among the dead?

My apologies to the people of Bengal who under Communist rule have seen their state remain among India’s poorest. To be fair, the CPIM put through land reform in its early years, expanded education, made West Bengal India’s first state to have a Minister of Environment. But an eternity of incumbency has led, people say, to complacency, to the mislaying of its political compass, to incompetence.

Everywhere I go in Calcutta I am chased by hammers and sickles. What if Mamata, humbly assembled in a white sari and flip-flops in her posters, but said to be an autocrat, launches a campaign to change street names? Gone Karl Marx Street. Gone Lenin Street. Gone Ho Chi Min Street. Gone my sly smile of topographical vindication. Our victories have been few.

La Quebrada Cliff Diver, Acapulco, MX. Flickr photo, esparta

**Disclosure: In the researching of this post, the author, as best he can remember, received approximately the following material compensation from sources other than his publisher: one chicken salad sandwich, two chocolate chip cookies, two cups coffee, assorted cut fruit and chocolate, several glasses white wine, one sip champagne, one glass fresh-squeezed orange juice, free parking, sunshine, and wireless internet.*(see comments below for clarification)

Friday, June 18, 9:15 AM, Stanford Terrace Inn, Palo Alto, CA

I PARK IN FRONT OF A CLASSIC STUCCO MOTEL handsomely done-over in Euro boutique style (where I will pay the standard, slightly-discounted group rate of $155 for a room overlooking the ice machine, plus $3 for toothpaste and $4 for shaving cream). I’ve beaten the googlemaps estimate from SF by 14 minutes. I’m dosed up on NPR and coffee, and cheered by the dissolution of the fog.

There’s a waffle bar in the lobby. Guests are gathered around it like a hearth. At reception, two young girls who might be 12 or 14 or 18 (I find I can’t tell anymore) are on their respective smart devices, texting friends in distant lands while Mom works to secure a roll-away. I can’t help but read the latest missive:

top college in US and only 72 degrees!

If I had an iPhone, I might look up who coined the phrase “The future is now.”

I procure a hard-copy map of the campus and gain permission to ditch the car in the underground lot. Remarkably, despite Griffin Dunne talking to me on the radio about his father crashing the funerals of murder victims, I remember to remove the bike from the roof rack BEFORE entering the garage.

9:55 AM, Clubhouse Ballroom. Freeing Your Inner Entrepreneur: Reinventing Yourself for the Changing Media World

I’ve missed the free bagels.

Trudeau does tweeting journos (NPR)

The discussion is well underway by the time I get my nametag and slink over to an open window along the edge of the room. The place is packed. The mood is casual and upbeat, resolutely forward-looking. A fresh breeze blows in from the Pacific. I strain to hear the panelists over the clacking of laptop keyboards and the pleasant swashing of the fountain in the courtyard.

“Err on the side of disclosure…” is about where I catch the train.

From this vantage I can see no one else working with pen and paper. Beside me stands the mastermind behind the whole event, pert, blade-sharp, quietly organizing the world from the dashboard of her red-leather iPad.

Into my current ass-molded Moleskine, with a Mexican-made Bic secured second-hand from the Marriot in Irvine, I scribble:

# of trad notebooks: 0 (am I looking backward?)

On stage, full-time freelancer and whale lover Matt Villano moves from the subject of disclosure into the importance of diversification, of expanding one’s repertoire into new subject matter and new media, “like a stock portfolio.” Having just had a kid, he jokes (sort of) of “breaking into the parenting niche.”

There’s some consensus that writing for free is only a good idea — maybe — if you have something specific to sell, rather than just for the abstract promise of “exposure.” The exposure had better be real and worthwhile. “Writing for 10 cents a word, I don’t care who you are,” says Villano, “at some point it’s offensive.”

As for Twitter and Facebook and such, baseball and tech writer Dan Fost recommends staying off the stuff. Marci Alboher, journalist/author/speaker, describes social media as the freelancer’s water cooler, which draws a wave of nods from the audience. Villano, pulling from MBA theory, advises spending no more than 10% of your overall budget (read: time) on marketing (read: social networking). He does the math:

60 hrs x .1 = 6 hours max per week invested in the public persona.

Damon Brown, who writes about sex and technology for Playboy, says he uses social media to connect more directly with his audience. Then he adds: “if you cover Amish culture your audience might not be on Twitter.”

Meanwhile, on Twitter, #ffrl:

@cmonstah: Agreement in the room that Twitter is the great journalistic water cooler.

@JessicaDuLong: Can I just say how excited I am for the upbeat, forward-thinking energy here at #FFRL ? So refreshing. Looking forward to recalibrating.

@thestrippodcast: I love that we’re having a discussion about the panel during the panel.

@kellymcgonigal: I’ve started using a program called rescuetime, and find I spend ~1/2 my time writing. Feared it was less.

Simultaneously, back at the front of the room, Fost suggests that perhaps his most successful strategy as a freelance writer has been to marry a lawyer.

In the courtyard there is fresh-squeezed orange juice and sunshine. I chat with a former staff-writer for Time magazine. After her section was shuttered, her husband got a job in Modesto and they moved to California. She’s now angling for a future wherein Modesto, which may in fact have redeeming qualities, does not figure quite so prominently.

Next up (Part 2):

In which David Granger, rockstar Editor-in-Chief of Esquire, makes a strong case for The Magazine — his in particular — as the greatest medium ever invented. And then lays out just how much blood, balls and marrow-sapping dedication will be required to participate.

Our man goes on to sample oak-aged tequila at approx. $6/oz., refrains from joining a poker game in the motel lobby, agrees to pay $3 for a sample-size tube of toothpaste, makes note of a variety of fellowships and alternative funding sources for investigative journalism (links to be provided), learns that his father has sliced off the tip of his right index finger in the drive mechanism of an irrigation pump, and also that bonobos experience self-doubt, and is reminded (once again) precisely how much hard-labor will be required to craft his next successful national magazine pitch.

Read it now!

All photos courtesy of Mitchell Kanashkevich

TRAVEL AND DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHER Mitchell Kanashkevich travels the world shooting personal projects and stock photos for Getty and Corbis Images. His work has been featured on covers and inside the pages of Digital SLR Photography, Capture, Get Lost!, and Asian Geo Passport.

Matador editor and photographer Lola Akinmade caught up with Mitchell — fresh off the release of his new eBook, Transcending Travel – A guide to Captivating Travel Photography — for some thoughts on his work and philosophy.

How long have you been a professional photographer?

I’ve been a professional photographer in that I have earned most of my income through travel photography for about 3 years.

What – or who – got your initial interest going in terms of photography?

I’ve always been a very visual person, since I was a child. I studied film in university, but I was actually mostly attracted to the visual side of cinema and eventually got more and more away from film and into photography, though I feel that one day I will come a full circle and get back into filmmaking.

What really got me into travel photography was my love for travel and a need to share my experiences, as well as to express myself. I think it’s a natural thing for many of us — to get into photography once we start traveling a lot.

What were your first photographic experiments or experiences?

Initially I photographed anything and everything. I started off capturing images of everything that was immediately around me, but once I started traveling I started to gain interest in photographing people. That remains my main interest as of today.

You’re known for travel portraiture and absolutely capturing sense of place in your photographs. How would you describe the work you do now?

I guess I would describe my work as predominantly documentary, with a focus on people and whenever possible, a focus on ancient cultures and traditions.

Are you involved in the commercial world also? Any stock photography?

I am involved in stock photography. I shoot for Getty and Corbis Images, though I usually don’t make photos with the specific thought that “This is a stock photo, which will be used for such and such purpose”.

I usually just shoot what excites me, what I am passionate about and I guess I have been fortunate enough that there’s some commercial value in that sort of stuff.

Of course not as much as there is in photos of people in offices or smiling elderly couples taking part in leisure activities, but enough to keep me traveling and doing what I love.

What 3 tips would you share for amateur photographers who are interested in pursuing your style of documentary photography?

1. If you want to create powerful images, you’ll often have to spend more time at a particular place, get to know the light, if you’re photographing people – establish rapport with them. Great images do not come about from simply arriving somewhere and snapping away for a few minutes. It sometimes takes days to get that special shot.

2. Don’t limit yourself to one or a couple of shots. Explore different angles, come closer, step back — give yourself more chance to create a strong image by making the most of the situation you might have at hand.

3. If you’re photographing people, try to learn the language, it will open so many doors for you and allow you to photograph in situations that you could have never created or known about without the language.

You recently released a new eBook on travel photography. Can you give us the lowdown?

The subtitle — A Guide to Captivating Travel Photography — pretty much says it all. It’s a guide to making images that are more than simple snap-shots or photos that only have value because they capture your memories. It’s an eBook through which I basically give advice to beginner and intermediate photographers on how to make travel photographs which appeal to more than just your parents and close friends.

I touch on some of the more important information about equipment and planning. And I get into a little bit of philosophy and a lot of practical tips that will help the reader make powerful travel images.

You can see some sample pages from the eBook and purchase it HERE.

Which other photographers — past or contemporary — inspire you most?

Steve McCurry, Olivier Follmi, Sebastio Salgado, Ami Vitale, as well as a whole list of other contemporary photographers who I keep discovering on the internet. There’s definitely no shortage of inspiration and great imagery out there.

When you’re approaching subjects to shoot, how do you set about it? Do you chat and explain what you’re doing? Or shoot first, ask questions later?

Usually I like to chat with the subject. I either speak some of the language or have somebody with me who translates. If I don’t chat, I at least make some contact: I gesture, smile, joke. I feel that’s an important part of the process when you’re photographing people in close proximity and when they are aware of you.

If I am shooting candid street stuff, then obviously I don’t communicate before I make the shot. That would destroy the moment.

10. What’s the craziest or most inspiring encounter you’ve had?

My most inspiring encounter or at least one which has to be right up there, has nothing to do with photography, though it actually led me to some great photographic opportunities afterwards. While I was traveling in Timor, Indonesia, I met an elderly, retired university professor from Holland who’d been traveling around the country for about a year.

As a former teacher he had this great idea of helping underprivileged youth around Indonesia, who couldn’t afford to pay for school or university education. After visiting a few charity organisations to whom he donated thousands of dollars from home, he became very disappointed. He saw that the “administrators” drove fancy cars, but none of the things he donated money for were put into place.

Rather than become cynical and give up on his idea of helping people, he decided to travel the country and along his journeys he hand-picked the young individuals whom he basically sponsored and got through school, college or university. By the time I’d met him he had sponsored 11 such individuals, of whom I met two.

He had a pension of about 5000 Euros, so you’d think that he would travel in luxury. But he didn’t. He traveled with the poor, because this way he could interact with the people in need. He could have a better idea of what life was really like. Instead of traveling in style, he put most of his money into helping others.

To me his story was quite incredible and indeed very inspirational, he was — and hopefully still is — changing the world for the better in a small, but very real way.

What kit do you use / carry with you? What can’t you do without (camera, lenses, flashguns etc.)?

Canon 5DMKII body, Canon 24-70mm f2.8 and Sigma f1.8 lenses. I also carry a portable, foldable softbox in which I put my 580 EXII flash.

Finally, what are you working on right now and what are your ambitions for the future?

I am currently planning a trip to Vanuatu, so hopefully I can produce some interesting imagery from my journey there.

Community Connection

Please read our other recent interviews with Travel Photographers.

Every photo tells a story, they say. I believe it’s true – but then there are usually many sides to a story, and a question that every appreciator or viewer of photography should perhaps ask themselves is: which part or side of the story is this particular photo telling?

Photo: Duncan McNicholl

Even when photographers don’t think they have biases, they do. It’s impossible for any sentient being to not be influenced one way or another by his or her political, social, cultural backgrounds and/or immediate environments. Aside from that, there’s the ever-present danger of adhering to cliche – photographing in a particular style that’s worked for others in the past.

This important point was raised yet again recently when I came across a Petapixel.com article about a photographer called Duncan McNicholl. McNicholl takes photos of Africa that aim to “expose the dehumanizing way in which Africans are depicted through the media.” His project “Exploring Different Perspectives Of Poverty Through Photography” involves taking two photos of the same person – one with the typical symbols of poverty (a miserable look and ripped clothes, for example) and another of the same person looking their very finest.

The images are striking, showing something we don’t normally see – the other (or at least another) side of the story. As McNicholl states in the article, “a change in perspective is needed to see beyond the familiar stereotypes of poverty, and to see development [as] a means of collaboration for investing in capable people. Collectively, we can initiate a shift in perspectives towards viewing the rural poor with the dignity and the respect that they deserve.”

A very similar perspective is embraced by a new online photography project called African Lens. The site owners state their aims clearly: “The dominant representation of Africa today is one of war, poverty, disease and everything that can go wrong with humanity. It is famously referred to as the “forgotten continent”. African Lens is designed as a platform to document and present a visual Africa in an unbiased way.”

Content comes from a mix of established photojournalists and users and the site makes for an enthralling trawl, with stories and photo essays emerging from all kinds of places and viewpoints. You really get the sense you’re experiencing the continent through multiple perspectives, a liberating feeling compared to the one-dimensional ‘mediation’ we ordinarily experience through the news (and even via famous photojournalists).

I feel both these projects should be applauded and supported for providing us with deeper insights into Africa’s beautiful complexity, and for broadening our understanding of Africa and the world.

Do you know of other sites that offer similar ‘alternative perspectives’? We’d love to hear about them in the comments section…

Photo: eonaxon

TWO SEMI-STRANGE things in the last couple days have occasioned me to think more about place than usual:

A. On a call with a group of travel marketing people, an executive said “position place” as in “there are ways we like to ‘position’ place” [doggy-style?]

B. One of my favorite writers posted a bizarre blog post that talked about a country music song and how the lyrics would lead you to think that the guy singing was from “the country, ” but then after researching the singer’s hometown (and posting statistics about education, jobs, median income there), his conclusion was “I’m way more hick than he is.”

Using these two examples (as well as several others that will follow), I’d like to examine some of the common ways people seem to look at place. It should be noted that I don’t look these ways in the context of “right or wrong” but more as reflections of people’s relationships with place that exist in certain points in time. I don’t think anyone looks at place in one of the forms below exclusively, but as a constantly changing and evolving mix.

14 WAYS OF LOOKING AT PLACE

We’ll begin with two main ways of looking at place, mythologizing and commodifying, and from there look at other ways, most of which are combinations of these two.

Mythologizing

Mythologizing place is looking at place as an abstraction. People mythologize place by (a) assigning some kind of abstraction [ex: virtue, nostalgia, chivalrousness, level of 'hickness' ] to it, or similarly (b) assigning some kind of abstraction or quality to themselves because of it (This is what the writer in example B above was doing).

Ex: “The South taught me how to be a gentleman.”

No, your parents did.

Mythologizing is the act of creating illusions about place. These illusions “exist” within the discrepancy between the concrete reality a person experiences in a place (examples: how long he/she has lived there, where he/she lives–downtown, suburbs, outlying areas, his/her role in the local economy, his/her community / friends) versus the “image” he or she has of the place.

Mythologizing often happens when people look back at where they grew up, or lived, or once traveled, and feel certain emotions that didn’t exist when they actually lived or traveled there.

Ex: “I’ve never been in a hotter place than a soccer field in North Georgia in the summer.”

No, actually it was much hotter when you were in Ecuador.

Commodifying [fundamental]

Commodifying (on a fundamental level) is reducing place into a singular context of resources in concrete reality. Examples would be looking at forests as “timber to be harvested” or rivers as “hydroelectric potential.”

Commodifying [common]

There exists however a much subtler and more pervasive form of commodifying where instead of concrete reality, the context of “resources” includes abstractions, associations, “appeal,” or “image.” This is how the marketing lady in the call above was looking at place–as an image which needed to be packaged a certain way, transformed into a product to be “positioned” in the market.

Most people seem to engage in this form of commodifying without ever thinking about it. For example, when I lived in Seattle, oftentimes I told people more or less “Seattle is good because you have easy access to the mountains.”

Here’s another example:

In one of Lola Akinmade’s blogs, a woman said: “I’ve just been back from The Gambia. . .Desperately poor country. Desperate. . .But they’ve got 500 species of birds!”

One of my bros once described San Francisco as having “culture and surf.”

This all reflects how people tend to reduce place into a few resources which may not even be resources in concrete reality, and then evaluate place within this context.

As terrain

This way of looking at place is a specialized form of commodifying that’s prevalent among surfers, mountaineers, kayakers, snowboarders, and other people who “live for” exploring place. The world may be seen in the context of “terrain” to be ascended, descended, surfed.

As “Inspiration”

This ties in both with mythologizing and commodifying: Some people may look at place within the context of inspiration. These are often writers, photographers, poets, filmmakers, artists, and others who travel or move to places because they have a positive effect on their work.

As “Escape”

This is similar to “inspiration”: Some people look at place as a potential “escape” from whatever they are experiencing “at home.”

Symptomatic of Suburbanization

For many who grew up in situations where they watched (as I did) their hometowns transform from semi-rural areas into congested suburban sprawl, it is common to look at place in the context of suburbanization. Examples of this are “evaluating” place on the basis of local economy (“mom and pop” stores) vs. “big box” retailers, and being hypersensitive to signs of suburbanization (Ex: gated communities, McDonald’s) while traveling.

Symptomatic of Environmental Impact

Similarly, many people look at place within the context of environmental denigration vs “purity.”

As Isolation

Some people look at place on the basis of proximity to other people. One may live “way out there” or, conversely, “close to people.” Throughout history, this way of looking at place has been used for setting up prisons, such as the location of prison camps in isolated regions of South Dakota during WWII.

As “First World vs Third World”

Some people look at place on a spectrum of “First World” vs.”Third World.” Once I heard a retired lawyer in Sarasota Florida compare two neighboring countries in South America based entirely on the local people appearing to be “Indian” vs. “white.”

As “One”

Certain people at particular moments (ex: religious or ecstatic experiences possibly involving hallucinogens, or situations of extreme fear / joy, such as witnessing death, birth, or other situations like getting tubed in some monster wave in Tahiti) may transcend “looking at” place and momentarily “fully inhabit” or “become” place. In my own experiences I’ve found certain moments to cause me to feel as if I were “one” with where the experience was taking place.

As “some other way that most of us having grown up in ‘modern society’ probably cannot comprehend”

I feel like all of these ways of looking at place listed above leave out an important other possibility, which is looking at place when you’ve never known anything else besides that place. I’m thinking about people like Indians in the Amazon who’ve never had “contact” with the outside.

It seems like all of the ways of looking at place above imply a disconnection with place. We “look at” place “in terms of” different things–abstractions, commodities–when there’s a layer separating us from being fully “there.”

I can only imagine how it would feel if everything about a place–the plants, animals, terrain–and the people who live there with you (and who’d died there) all share the same context / reality.

Community Connection

What other ways do people look at place?
How has your ways of looking at place evolved / changed over time?

After my wife, Bridget, flew back to America to witness the birth of our nephew I was left with too many hours. Reverting back to my 5th grade coping mechanisms for boredom and solitude, I began to doodle and sketch the landscape of Saigon and the landscape of my imagination…

The Notre-Dame Basilica, HCMC, District 1

Set adrift in space…

Delusions of grandeur

Incense burning before the Buddha

Community Connection

See more journal pages from the road.

Photo:

NOTEBOOK Founding editor and Matador senior editor David Miller is what you could call a cliché-buster. His bullshit antenna is permanently set to “on.” He has been known spot a writing cliché from 400 yards, even if it’s all dressed up in a wig and fake facial hair.

David’s mission is simple. He wants to rid the travel writing “world” of torpid banalities and lifeless prosaisms. He wants to stop us writers being derivative and encourage us to be bold and honest, even if our brains are compelling us to believe that what we’ve heard or seen before must be what’s “right”.

The same thinking can, and should be – and sometimes is – applied to travel photography. Every photographer is influenced in some sense by the millions of images that have passed before their eyes. It’s truly difficult not to be swayed by the photographs that have impressed us most when we go out and find our own, but it’s a bit like mindlessly regurgitating phrases we’ve seen on the internet.

And yet we must resist. To be a successful travel writer or photographer it’s imperative to discover and promote your own original voice or vision, your own style. Trying to write like Jack Kerouac or shoot images like Steve McCurry will only make you a second rate version of those people.

In that spirit, I’d like to ask everyone to call out the worst travel photography clichés they can think of. Cheesy sunsets, overly familiar landscapes, people pushing over the leaning tower of Pisa. Let’s call ‘em out, gather them up and burn them on David’s next bromide bonfire.

Community Connection

Please give us your worst travel photography cliche examples (descriptions and/or links) in the comments below.

All photos courtesy of Glenna Gordon

Photojournalist Glenna Gordon’s work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, London Times, Foreign Policy, Observer, BBC, Reuters, AFP, Guardian, Christian Science Monitor, MS Magazine, Walrus Magazine, Marie Claire (CZ), Associated Press (AP), just to name a few.

She regularly photographs for international nonprofit organizations such as UNICEF, USAID, and UNESCO. She has been living in Africa (primarily Uganda and Liberia) since 2006 and maintains the blog, Scarlett Lion.

In October 2009, Glenna along with colleague Jina Moore received a grant to work on a project about renewed justice, including an investigative piece about a copyrighted law code, a cover story for Christian Science Monitor about land conflicts, and a multimedia package for World Vision about prosecuting rape.

MatadorU faculty and photographer Lola Akinmade caught up with Glenna to get an insight into the world of day-to-day photojournalism out in the field.

How long have you been a professional photographer?

I sold my first picture to the Associated Press in October 2007. Before that, I had been working for a local paper in Uganda. I kept working there for a bit after that, but also contributed to AP more and more and started freelancing regularly.

I moved to Liberia in 2009, where I’m still based. I’ve been able to do a lot of work here – I now string for AFP and am an active and (thankfully!) busy freelancer.

What – or who – got your initial interest going in terms of photography?

I actually never thought I would be a photographer. I wanted to be a writer. And I didn’t even want to be a journalist, I wanted to write fiction. But then I realized the world outside my own head was more interesting than the one in it, and then I realized that pictures could communicate something about the world that words couldn’t.

What were your first photographic experiments or experiences?

In college, I took a couple of black and white film photography classes. Some of my first photos were of pigeons and old men sitting around on the wharf in San Francisco. I loved film and the dark room, and I still really miss it, but I also think it’s not practical for the way I’m working now.

I hope to one day be able to use film and do some of my own printing again.

How would you describe the work you do now…obviously there’s a strong reportage element to it, but are you involved in the commercial world also? Any stock photography?

Right now I think of my work in three categories: documentary, editorial, and NGO/institutional. The documentary work is my own projects that I’m pursuing that (hopefully) really show my voice as a photographer and reflect what I want to say about the places I’ve been.

The editorial work ranges from wire photographs – anything from rainforests to politicians – and different newspapers or magazines contacting me in search of specific stories – anything from airport security training to maternal health. This is where the bulk of my professional output is.

The NGO work is where the bulk of my income comes from. (More on that in the next question.) Ultimately, I’d like to be spending more and more time on documentary work and hope that the editorial assignments I get will reflect my interest in longer-term projects and reportage.

At the moment, I don’t do any stock or commercial work. I should be selling more of my images as stock, but the problem is that I’m always more interested in taking new photos than selling old ones. But it’s on my to-do list. I haven’t done commercial work but I wouldn’t mind trying if the opportunity arises because I’d love to be able to expand my visual vocabulary like that.

What 3 tips would you share for amateur photographers who are interested in pursuing your style of photojournalism?

1) Go somewhere that there aren’t other photographers but there is media interest. For me, this was Liberia. Because there weren’t many (or at times any) other snappers around, I got a ton of assignments and was able to advance professionally and accrue some great tearsheets.

2) Buy the best equipment that you can afford, but then don’t spend all your time thinking about that one piece of equipment that would make your work so much better. There’s always going to be some piece of equipment that you want and don’t own, but you can’t use that as an excuse for not doing good work. (Note to self: stop spending time online ogling the Mamiya website).

3) Get a website and a blog and spend a good amount of time putting your work up. If a tree falls in the forest…

You work with a lot of non-profits like UNICEF, UNESCO, and USAID. Can you share a little bit more about this? What makes it exciting/challenging?

I like the NGO work because I like taking photos, but I ultimately tend to prefer to do editorial or my own projects. When you’re working for an organization, your job as a photographer is to create images that reflect the message the organization is trying to communicate. There’s nothing wrong with that, but for me the most exciting part of taking photos is knowing where I’m going but not where I’ll end up.

Non-profit work, however, is still incredibly important to me – and not just because it’s the bulk of my income. There are great things about it– I often to get to work with incredibly dedicated people whose focus I find inspiring and invigorating.

Which other photographers – old or contemporary – inspire you most?

Um, where do I start?

I love Tim Hetherington’s Liberia work and that was part of what made me want to move to Liberia in the first place. Lyndsey Addario’s work in Darfur and Congo almost makes me want to be a conflict photographer (but not really).

Ami Vitale’s work from Kashmir is so incredibly beautiful – she has this one photo of some military looking men in these crazy decorated boats floating on water so still it reflects the sky and makes the space surreal and beautiful.

Zackary Canepari has this amazing series of portraits of circus performers in their homes in Dehli slums that really shows you can tell a story through portraits alone.

In terms of older photographers, I love Malik Sidibie and Seidou Keita and how they portray a time of optimism in Africa. Another one of my favorites is the Hungarian photographer Andre Kertez.

At a used bookstore in New York, I once found a small and beautifully printed compilation of his photos of people reading. It was one of the first photography books I ever purchased.

I also spend a lot of time trawling the web and photo websites and there are some less well known people whose work I really love (and everyone reading this should google!) so just to name a few: Marc Wattrelot, Jan Banning, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, Ken Light, Alfredo Bini, Marieke Van Der Velden, Chris Saunders, Wayne Lawrence.

When you are approaching subjects to shoot, how do you set about it? Do you chat and explain what you’re doing? Or shoot first, ask questions later?

I always ask people permission before I take their photos, even if it’s just a quick nonverbal communication where I gesture to my camera as a question and wait for a nod.

Ultimately, I prefer to engage with people and think that this creates the best photos. There are a lot of people who think you’ll miss that one great candid street shot if you wait and ask first, but the truth is that I don’t do all that much street shooting anyway and I never got that one great street shoot.

I think the best photos are where the subject acknowledges the photographer and gives permission for a photo rather than when a photographer takes it without asking.

9. What’s the craziest or most inspiring encounter you’ve had in general?

I’ve spent a huge amount of time at the Ducor Hotel in Monrovia, Liberia. It was once a four star resort, and then a home for squatters during the war.

The government kicked most of them out but now a couple still remain. I’d been going there regularly for quite awhile when this older gentleman named Emanuel, who used to work at the hotel, told me he wanted me to record him singing a song.

I didn’t have an audio equipment with me that day, so I promised to come back. I had bad timing so the next couple of times I went back he wasn’t around, but then finally he was.

And we went off into one of the old hotel room and he sang me this song he had written, tapping a three-four beat out as accompaniment.

And I just sat there thinking, I have the most amazing job in the world.

10. What kit do you use / carry with you / can’t do without (camera make, lenses, flashguns etc.)?

I carry two Canon 5D bodies, a 35 mm lens, a 50 mm lens, and a 24-70 zoom lens. I have a flash but I almost never use it. I prefer to work with available light. I generally use both fixed lens at the same time, but if I’m in a situation where I think I’ll need more flexibility I’ll use the zoom lens and one of my two fixed lenses. I have a tripod too, but carry it only occasionally.

11. Finally, what else are you working on right now and what are your ambitions for the future in terms of your photography work or anything else?

I really hope to continue to develop as a photographer and work on more documentary and long term projects. I was recently working on one project where I knew I needed a couple more images of certain specific things, and I found it hard to be motivated to go out and shoot.

But then on another recent project, snapping at the Ducor Hotel, I couldn’t ever revisit this one place too many times. I could go back every day for months and not get bored.

That’s the kind of thing I want to do – work on projects where I like the project so much I feel like I could never finish it. That doesn’t usually pay the bills, so I’ll probably stick with my current model and continue to try and change how I distribute my time.

Community Connection

Please read our other recent interviews with Travel Photographers.

PUBLISHER‘S synopsis:

“Ten Walks / Two Talks updates the meandering and meditative form of Bashō’s travel diaries.

Mapping 21st century New York, Cotner and Fitch tap their predecessor’s collaborative tendencies in order to construct a descriptive / dialogic fugue. The book combines a series of sixty-minute, sixty-sentence walks around Manhattan and a pair of dialogues about walking—one of which takes place during a late-night “philosophical” ramble through Central Park.”

Notes

1. Getting the book

Getting books in here in Patagonia is sort of magical. The roads are muddy and the special delivery mailman rides a shitty-looking bike. He always comes in the morning when it’s cold. You have to sign something. Then you go back in where it’s warm. You sit back down by your coffee and computer and rip open the package noting the New York address.

2. Opening the package

I looked at the Hiroshige prints on the cover and felt stoked. The book was small (85 pages) and I love little books (all books should be able to fit in your pocket). I looked at the table of contents: “Early Spring, Early Winter, Late Spring, Late Winter.” I read the epigraph by Bashō. I thought: “Damn this is a beautiful little book.” I looked at the the Ugly Duckling Press materials and read how this was part of the Dossier Series: “publications that don’t share a single genre or form. . . but rather an investigative impulse.” I thought: “Damn, I need to send my work to these guys.”

3. Reading the first chapter

The opening paragraph read:

Still spinning out Kristin’s door I decided to change plans. The air stirred gently, made me think of flags. At 9:26 I saw the clean backs of waitresses in a Gee Whiz Diner window.

As I kept reading I thought: “I’m not sure what this is yet, but it’s a really sweet style. I’ve seen those clean waitresses’ backs before. This is what students at the U should read.”

I kept going:

Pigeons spread up sidewalk on Grand, tearing at cinnamon-raisin bagels. I plowed through then felt bad approaching their patron–a compact lady with bags. One mom strained to tie garbage bags without gloves. One squat guy hauled heavy cement-mix bags to a pick-up. Each time he spun back to the vestibule he faced a chic tall mannequins in short denim skirts. He seemed to appreciate this.

I thought “I really like that paragraph–I can see all these people doing these things, but something’s wrong.” I went back and read it again. Then I found the “error” — “cement-mix bags.” I thought “only someone who never worked construction would call them that. It’s not like ‘cake-mix’. If he grew up in the trades he would’ve said ‘bags of concrete,’ but that’s ok.”

4. Finishing first chapter and analyzing

I finished the first chapter, and saw that the next chapter was in a different form.  I was tired and went to bed.  But I felt really excited and like I would learn things studying the style of this first chapter. Later I figured out some of the structures used:

1. Each sentence introduces a new “element” of the narrator’s walk,  whether a character, place, thought, action, or event.  There are occasional instances of a follow-up sentence (or two) continuing to describe the same element (as in squat man loading concrete above) but 90% of the sentences introduce something new.
2. The elements are introduced in an order that seems part chronology of the walks, part reconstructing the walks from memory.
3. There are almost no “smooth” transitions (like a camera panning across a scene, then zooming into something, then zooming out) but elements are grabbed from  all different distances–super close up, super far away–and placed one right after the other.
4. This “disorder” would make the writing hard to read were it not for the short length and repetitive rhythm / structure of the sentences–which in some ways gives it a feel of “taking steps.”
5. This “disorder” also  seems to replicate the feeling of being in an urban area where there are constant stimuli.
6. All elements–from the letters on a kid’s hat to the smell inside an elevator– seem to have the same level of  “importance”  to the narrator.
7. This creates a sense of zen, a mix of alertness and detachment (although not in a dispassionate or uncaring way). You’re just “walking through New York.”
8. Although everything seems equally “important,” the characters described are almost always engaged in some form of action (even a dog lying on the ground is described as “breathing,”) making them seem vital, and making you wonder more about them – who they are, what their stories are – in ways that are sometimes poignant.
9. Except for mentioning certain errands or decisions made spontaneously (such as changing directions) the narrator never explains anything–why he’s taking the walks, what the purpose is.
10. This, combined with the neutral levels of “importance,” makes the walks feel very immediate and “alive” – as if there’s no barrier or layers between the reader and the scenes / characters.  As with the best haiku, everything else disappears, and   “you’re there.”

5. Reading the next chapters

The next day I got sick and was in the bed but was glad I had this book to read. I read through the next three chapters during the day / night as I was going in and out of sleep / fever. The third chapter was another week’s walks written in the same style as above. The other two chapters were transcripts of conversations (including ambient noise) between the authors recorded as they were walking around Central Park, and later, Union Square, W.F. (a natural grocery store).

In some ways the transcripts reminded me of Braided Creek by Jim Harrison and Ted Koosier (a book of hundreds of short poems sent to each other that describe different walks the two poets are taking / things they’re observing.)

But instead of having a conversation through poems, Cotner and Fitch are just kind of vibing, relaxing, having conversations in New York – it’s very transparent (including stutters, grammar mistakes–and one talking over the other) and immediate:

A: You’d you’d mentioned paths to the subway station. Lately I never stop moving walking up or down Manhattan. So long as you stay aware of what the the upcoming light says you can run and make it (although this gets hared [Cough] Holland Tunnel). But I’ll wonder if you find New York walks continuous as they should be say, on the hills of Santa Fe–or has there been jostling, pausing, restarting?

J: No I’ve shared your smooth continuous experience, and I haven’t read much Lyn Hejinian, but she makes the same remark in My Life.

A: About New York specifically?

J: Yes about New, about how this great metropolis provides the sensation of crossing through sheer wildern. . .

A: Hmm.

J: And I’ve noticed . . .

A: That sounds slightly different.

J: even if my path gets blocked by cars or a Don’t Walk sign I can cut to side-streets since I’ll have no destination.

A: I’ll save side-streets as long as I can, so when I need one I’m ready to turn.

J: Sure I love in this city the constant dialogue between drivers and pedestriians. It also. . .

A: And, Let’s say, deliverymen. . .

J: Exactly

(Six more lines of dialogue here, then):

J: Yes you feel this great sense of cooperation.

6. Final thoughts

1. I feel like there isn’t enough experimentation in nonfiction and travel writing forms  (at least what’s being published), and was very stoked and inspired reading Ten Walks / Two Talks. (I’ve already read it through again).
2. That said, the book itself didn’t feel “experimental” necessarily but just written in a style that was different than most other books but very “natural” to these two authors.
3. There are several works (such as Basho’s travel diaries, Braided Creek, also a short story by Talese (I think) that describes minute by minute “happenings” in New York, that have stylistic elements similar to this book. It’s writing that, if you had to categorize it, you’d put (as is on the back of this book) “Poetry / Nonfiction.”
4. I feel like in some ways this is the “kind” of writing I’m trying to promote here at Matador, both what we publish and what we teach at MatadorU–transparency, and recognizing that there can be transcendence, a connection to “the infinite”  in the everyday details of the places you find yourself, the places you travel through.

Community Connection

Please visit Ugly Duckling Presse for more information and to buy this book.

Have you ever read any of the aforementioned books?
What are other examples of books based on daily walks?
Have you ever recorded then written transcripts of your conversations?
Why do “little” books like this one seem “important” whereas “big books’ with massive pr efforts (such as the “Lost Girls” seem “unimportant”?
Do other countries (like Japan? France? England?) have a greater (percentage-wise) readership of books that could be classified as “Poetry/Nonfiction”?
What other publishers besides Ugly Duckling are publishing “Poetry/Nonfiction”?

Don’t be this guy. Photo by newsbiepix

Anything from Austin Powers

The original Austin Powers movie came out in 1997. Chances are good that you don’t even know that you are quoting from the movie while walking through Kmart. You are. You have incorporated vernacular into your language from a decade-old film about a man in a ruffled purple suit.

Two grown, straight men shouldn’t be calling each other “baby”, let alone telling each other to behave with a come-hither voice. What are you, homosexuals?

“Not So Much”

The perpetuation of this saying is driven by dimwitted people who are trying to be clever. An effective punchline five years ago, this saying has now been drained of any power by continual, misappropriated use.

At best, you sound like a reality show star when using it. At worst, you sound like you went to Community College.

Photo by feuilllu

“P.S.”

“P.S., we forgot to get milk!” can just about send me to the moon. Am I supposed to reply “PPS, let’s just buy a cow!”? Is there supposed to be a post-post-postscriptum after that? “PPS, screw the milk, let’s have sex when we get home.”

It’s all so, I don’t know, pee-esque.

“Right?”

The British are the real heroes of affirmation, having mastered the “yeah?” decades ago. “It’s a good burger, yeah?” Somehow, though, it’s cute and entirely Kingdom-y when they go there.

Americans (Californians?) have taken their stab at the same concept and failed in a way that make a Zune Media Player look like a triumph. “I know, right?” has become the new “like”, making people with any pedigree sound like the sort who get Kid Rock tattoos. On their face.

Go ahead, say it. You’re the new Valley Girl.

“I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.”

Photo by daychokesnight

Mother of God. Give this one up. This was h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s the first time it was used and has not been funny since. You did not throw up a little bit in your mouth, because if you had, you would have probably gagged, then spewed all over the tile floor. Throw up a lot, or get out of the game.

If you say this, you probably say it too often. Take stock.

“Dear…”

This is pandemic. “Dear Facebook, I hate your new design.”

Facebook is not listening to you. Also, we’re very aware that there is no body to your letter and that your “Dear” is a precursor to about seven words. Signing your name at the end doesn’t make it any cuter.

This should join the list of that make someone a social media DB.

Literally

This is the most obvious of all. People say it constantly. I have had fantasies of shock collars that could be placed on the English speaking population, jolting the definition back to its intention (word for word).

I agree with David Cross, who has a bit about sportscasters misusing this term. “He literally ripped his head off on that play.” No, he didn’t.

You know that you’re incorrectly using this one and you’re embarrassed by it. But you still do it, which makes “literally” the #1 to work on.

Flikr photo by ~duncanh1~

1. the deal fell through

2. the beer/weed/money/food/firewood’s run out

3. the band’s quit

4. the rent’s due

5. the roommates are getting on your nerves

6. the job sucks

7. he/she wants to settle down and have kids

8. he/she isn’t ready to settle down and have kids

9. you’ve come to the end of the book

10. your friends are gone

11. you’ve done your time

12. the kids are awake

13. the kids are out of school

14. the kids aren’t in school yet

15. the kids are gone

16. the hard drive’s crashed

17. the weather’s perfect

18. the weather sucks

19. the place/people/culture ain’t what you thought

20. it’s Friday

21. it’s Monday

22. you’re (still) not all you can be

23. to get back home

Community Connection

From Matadorian Lucia Byttebier, here’s a brief history of why people travel. And here’s marathoner/adventurer Turner Wright’s 10 Reasons You Know It’s Time To Go Traveling.

How about you? What makes you want to take off?

And hey, if what you really want is to broaden the horizons, consider this: You Don’t Have to Leave the House to See the World.

PHOTO: Six Cent Press

HOOTSUITE is essential for social media ninjas that have multiple twitter accounts or merely want a Twitter base camp to manage their feeds, messages, mentions and keywords.

MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS
Access all your Twitter accounts in one place, tweeting from each easily without logging in or our of various accounts. Merely formulate your tweet and click the icon of the account you would like to tweet from.

View the incoming feeds from each Twitter account and track direct messages with ease using the customizable columns.

COLUMNS
Create columns to display your mentions, direct messages, follower feeds, hashtags and key words. Columns can be customized for update frequency and display simultaneously side by side, creating an nifty base of twitter operations.

SCHEDULE
One of my favorite features on Hootsuite is the ability to schedule tweets for future publication. Craft your tweets then set them up to publish minutes, hours or days in the future.

This feature is perfect for travelers who know they will be away from their Twitter for stretches of time and for professionals who want to load posts for future publication and not have to worry about being on their account all the time.

SHRINK
Shrink URL’s within your dashboard into bite size links!

STATS
Hootesuite allows you to view stats by account, by day and even by individual tweets. Want to know how many people clicked the link of your last tweet? Interested in what countries you are most popular or what websites are referring to you? Hootsuite stats displays useful info in a simple interface that is printable and down loadable.

PHOTOS
Upload pix from your computer from your dashboard to be displayed full size on a custom Ow.ly page that allows people to comment and retweet your photo.

Take Hootsuite for a spin and add a new weapon to your social media ninja arsenal!

All photos by Lola Akinmade.

THERE’S nothing more liberating than a good jump. A whoop is good; a boogie on a dance floor can be great. But thrusting yourself skyward is – unless you’re a stuntman, ballet dancer, hyperactive four-year-old, or astronaut – a vastly underrated activity.

Even better, from a photography point of view, is the ability to capture a good jump: to freeze a leap of joy forever, preserve it in digital amber, as it were. One of our very own Matadorians, travel writer and photographer Lola Akinmade, has mastered not only the art of defying gravity but also the skill of photographing herself doing it.

She’s jumped in Egypt, Hungary, and in snow. She’s jumped during the day and at night, straddling seas and castles as she pirouettes and bounds across the global landscape. If you don’t believe us, just look here.

Here are Lola’s five tips for creating fun jump shots.

1) Forget about self-timers

Getting a good jumping shot with a self-timer can be very tricky and frustrating, so why not grab a perfect stranger to help you?

Nothing breaks the awkwardness between strangers faster than sharing in a silly activity.

2) Scope out your angle

I’ll let you in on a little secret….. I don’t jump as high as it looks. I spend a few seconds quickly gauging a scene, looking for interesting angles.

I find high ledges to launch off so my photographer can capture me floating in the air while cutting out the ledge from their camera frame.

Sometimes, I kindly ask that they squat a little lower.

You are the photographer, not the person snapping your photo so use all your composition techniques to set up the shot before handing off your camera to them.

3) Preset your camera settings

Most passers-by are usually intimidated when handed a bulky DSLR camera by a complete stranger. To make it easier, I preset the right ISO, shutter speed, focal zoom length, exposure, and other crucial settings so all they have to do is stand on the spot I tell them to and hit the shutter button.

4) Nail your timing

This will naturally come with practice, but when someone else is photographing you, factor in a 1/2 second delay. I usually do a test jump to evaluate my photographer’s speed when clicking. By reviewing the photograph, I can jump slower or faster for the next shot which gives the snapper enough time to take a decent jumping shot.

5) Use your limbs

Kick out your legs. Flail your arms. Using your limbs in an exaggerated fashion makes your jumping shot more interesting and dynamic especially when silhouetted against a sunset or sunrise.

Check out Lola’s jumping gallery on Flickr.

And for further inspiration, head to this gallery of “jumpology”.

Calcutta Metro. Image: PHBasumata

THE UNIFORMED woman at the Park Street Metro Station, with the standard issue black Indian braid, tickles my backpack to make sure I am not going to blow up the Calcutta subway system.

Then she smiles, a crescent of supernatural white teeth just inches from my face. Our fighting-terrorism-together moment is already behind us.

Her smile points me to the “booking” window, where the ticket clerk will throw my ticket at me. They have him sitting too far back from the window, so he has no choice but to throw the damn thing.

Before I do anything, I want to say something to this woman about her bag tickling. (I feel I qualify. I am a New Yorker, after all. I saw the twin towers melt before my eyes.) I am trying to imagine what instructions she got in her vigilance class about Westerners with backpacks. Wouldn’t our obvious innocence arouse tendrils of suspicion? Any traveler whose shampoo tube is confiscated at the airport will tell you there is no innocence left in our post-9/11, 7/7, 26/11 world.

Part of me wants Metro security to contemplate: what evil lurks behind this foreigner’s dopey smile? But her rebellion against the gray gong-crashers in our nest fills me with a secret joy. I like her style. Charming, horrifying, taking little holidays from gravitas.

I find myself hopelessly drawn to this uniformed woman. (I am usually allergic to anyone in a uniform.) I want to walk with her and her black braid and her white teeth along the Ganga, and tell her things I have never told anyone.

The further East I travel, the more vulnerable I am to the ripple effects of off-chance encounters like this. Once, at this same station, I was stopped by a young Indian man and asked if I was a writer. I said I was, and he said he had a job for me that would earn me good money. I immediately imagined abandoning my flat in New York and taking up residence in Calcutta. I never called him back.

I am tempted to share with the Security woman a sign in the Park Street Metro Station that I like to believe was written by a maligned surrealist poet who donates his work to the Metro Railway company. You shall not carry: skin, hides, dead poultry or game, fireworks, meat, fish, explosives.

Community Connection

What effect does traveling have on you?
Do you find yourself revealing things to people you might not otherwise?

Artist Cecelia Webber photographed by MFB

SO MANY writers seem entrenched in commodified thinking.

They isolate whatever they’re writing about from its temporal, historical, environmental, and cultural context, thus reducing it to or framing it as a kind of commodity.

I’m always looking out for writers that seem aware of this and are doing something new. I was stoked to find Marcus F Benigno’s website A Sustainable Feast last week.

MFB’s subjects are people and projects that challenge conventional paradigms. Throughout his work there’s always a sense of maintaining a historical perspective, remembering what has been tried (and perhaps failed), but instead of conjecturing about “the future” (an act which often seems to derive from commodfiied thinking), MFB focuses on individuals’ sustainable actions as the necessary, ground-level response.

I immediately wrote MFB asking for an interview. We emailed the following questions / answers back and forth:

Name: Marcus F. Benigno

Age: 24

Cultural heritage / Ethnicity: Filipino-American

Languages spoken: French, Filipino, Arabic, German

Based out of: My 90L Eagle Creek Backpack and cafes with wifi

Palace of Palenque in Chiapas (MFB)

Education: B.A. International Development Studies, McGill University, Montréal, Canada

Current work / projects: 1) Personal travelogue and reports on sustainable constructions worldwide; 2) documentation of youth involved in sustainable/green action (photography, copy)

Writers / Journalists whose work inspires you: Hemingway, André Gide, George Lakoff, Miranda July, among others

Photographers whose work inspires you: Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, Jimmy Chin, Balazs Gardi, …

Artists whose work inspires you: Audrey Beardsley, Paul Klee, Olafur Eliasson, Charles Spearin, …

Books / magazines / media currently reading: Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales, Rory Stewart’s Places in Between, Twombly’s Frank Lloyd Wright Essential Texts, Monocle

Latest MP3 downloaded: An album called Fónok by Czech duo, Dva

Last concert attended: Mahler’s 5th @ the Hollywood Bowl

[DM]: In your blog’s “about” page you write:

“Jaded by academic discourse and journalist frivolity (with which this author has cavorted and gained much insight), mfb is on a lifelong hiatus committed to the decolonization of self and the exposition of sustainable action across the globe.”

Several phrases in that sentence resonated with me, particularly “decolonization of self.” Can you elaborate on what this means?

[MFB]: Everyday, I make decisions whether they be conscious or routine. The belief that I make these decisions autonomously is an illusion. The rationale that guides my choices is dictated by a sphere of influence external to me as an individual. This system is a naturally occurring, socio-cultural phenomenon that is neither good nor bad.

A mural at the Casa del Pan in San Cristóbal (MFB)

However, when the sphere of influence mutates into a sphere of imposition and starts to limit the epistemological framework of the individual through conditioned desires and identities, then that individual has been colonized.

Postcolonial critique and a subsequent reappropriation of identity preconquest are no longer sufficient. What is necessary now in an age of globalization in flux is an active attempt to decolonize oneself. Our collective consciousness and education must no longer be contingent on vocation and capital as an end and must be liberated from the polarization of abstractions (gendering/non-gendering, heteronomy/queering, etc).

The goal is not to vivisect the inherent (imposed) drives that impel us but to meditate upon and mediate these forces by acknowledging their inescapable hold on our existence and from there challenging its role on our perception and actions quotidian. Just as the realization of perfection or nirvana is impossible, the decolonization of self in the postcolonial era is an unattainable state that we must continue to seek.

The second part of your bio that resonated with me:

“Cited as a ‘culture vulture’ by an anonymous reader, Marcus F Benigno (mfb) is a professional traveler and expert sciolist who specializes in everything but nothing including print design, social and cultural commentary, urban nomadism, and photography.”

I like how, instead of non-ironically branding yourself as a “freelance journalist” or “photographer,” you’re stating that you do a bunch of different things but there’s still a pattern to it, which seems an increasingly relevant response to new media / writing / photography / design / art. The one thing that seems to underpin everything though: how do you sustain it? How do you make a living?

On a jaunt through Petra a few years ago, I met a Spaniard working at the front desk at the Valentine Inn. The day I hitched back to Amman, I was surprised to find him on my route. Like the travelers who frequent the inn, he was on the move. He had setup an informal, two-week agreement with the inn’s proprietor: labor for room and board.

Months before, he had abandoned all his possessions and his profession as a construction worker in Madrid. With a light messenger bag and the pair of trousers he had on, he left eastward edging the Mediterranean and stumbling onto odd jobs and warm retreats along an undetermined route. He recounted similar experiences like in Italy where he had picked flowers in exchange for refuge and sustenance.

This encounter among others led to my own reliance on where stability can only be sought, in the present. Currently, I am wwoofing for a family outside of Stockholm. And still, there are possibilities of farming in Siberia and Thailand. But who knows?

In a section of a blog post titled “The Art of Travel Writing” you write:

In Mornings in Mexico, D. H. Lawrence elaborates the exotic with his interpretation of a Mexican narrative. In classic Orientalist fashion, he probes the Other and suggests nuanced customs like an Indian mindset in which “time is a vague, foggy reality.” Essayists like Lawrence and the contemporary Alain de Bouton have codified the voice of travel literature. Their compositions paint pictorials of whimsical excursions and transitory crossings. Their subjects are accidental and their objectives hedonist.

I see this codification continuing to permeate much of travel writing today. My question though: who was the exception to this? Hemingway, for example–in a Moveable Feast (which your blog title plays off)–would you consider that work codified? What about the travel writing of David Foster Wallace? What about people working right now? Whose writing is “decolonized?”

Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast is similar to autobiographical works by Gide and Shalamov whose stories forge on a blurring of historical fiction and fact. Their writings compose a cultural memory arguably more valuable than historiographical renderings of social history and the essentialist accounts by travel writers like Lawrence/de Bouton. But in the same vein as my endeavor to self-decolonization, I wouldn’t consider these or any other postcolonial work to be decolonized in their content. Rather, it is a stylistic question of context and genre.

Nic*Rad at the Rare Gallery (MFB) (MFB)

Traveling, learning about people/place/culture, and documenting and sharing these experiences stem from a natural Orientalism, a curiosity of world and culture and the Other.

It is only when one embarks on this exploration from a position of power and superiority, then the “project” is imperialistic and colonial in nature. When I mentioned the stylistic question of context and genre, I am referring to a respective analysis of literature:

Context. 1) For whom is the writer writing/who is the reader? (academia, bourgeoisie, tourists, public, self) What is the writer’s motivation and purpose? (curiosity, capital, science, status/degree, power)

Genre. 2) Where is the writer in the writing? Is the work autobiographical, anthropological, ethnographic? Is the writer estranged from the “subject”?

From your latest blog, you write:

“For the last twenty-eight days and counting, I have flown, trained, bused, rideshared, and walked across Europe. The goal: travel through Eurasia and document urban space, sustainable development and architecture, and people who challenge conventional lifestyles while (re)creating a more viable world for present and future generations.”

Can you list / link some of these people / places / projects that are challenging conventional paradigms?

Soon enough, I’ll be blogging about these encounters. I just haven’t had a reliable wifi connection in rural Stockholm! But the peoples/places/projects include a Berlin-based artist/singer with a project at the La Fayette in Paris, alternative spaces like a coop coffeeshop in Stockholm, a Czech PhD student in sustainable architecture who built a school in the Himalayas, and much more.

What is your current setup for photography / new media production?

The tech’s pretty compact: Canon 50D, MacBookPro, and a Yamaha PocketTrakC24. I left my Lomo at home

Where are you planning to go next?

Helsinki at the end of month, TransSiberian July-August, and then Mongolia and then?

Community Connection

Please visit MFBenigno.com for more.

I SAT DOWN to brainstorm a post three and a half hours ago and am only now actually writing anything.

The last few hours have been spent uploading photos, blogging and updating my Matador Community page, reveling at the powerful new engine that makes the entire platform faster, slicker and more holistic.

I can’t help but smile as I type photo descriptions.

I had a blast spitting out a free form blog on my profile, it felt a little like cheating on my main blog. I didn’t judge or edit what came up and out, I just wrote. I remember this is how it used to feel before I cared about retweets, staying on topic and blog stats.

Polyblogamy, having or keeping more than one blog, is safe and can actually bring you closer to your personal blog. I discovered this at 3am to my great delight.

Sure, you have your main blog, the blog that brands you as a writer and traveler, but who says you can’t have two, three or four blogs?! The fresh new face of the Matador Travel instigated me to consider going polyblog long term.

Reconnecting with the Community, dropping a few comments, adding new friends and hoping for some requests in return, I had a giddy feeling of stoke I hadn’t experienced online in a long while.

Reading over my new blog I realized it was the kind of thing I used to write on my Joshywashington blog and that somehow I had deemed such writing as off brand or not interesting enough to enough people. I used to write because I loved it, now I try and craft titles that will retweet well and try to stay within some nebulous niche that even I don’t understand.

If you are pursuing a niche audience and hope to monetize your blog, creative freedom can be stifled or pent up in order to stay on topic. A second blog that allows you to let loose, yammer, free flow and rant about your travels and life without worrying about your readership or page rank can be a god send.

Going polyblog can help you get ideas flowing, flex your creative spontaneity and connect with your writing process without any pressure.

Just don’t try explaining that you have gone polyblog to your parents, they won’t understand.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Photo: Medina, Marrakech by Paul Sullivan

As a photographer there’s nothing quite like stalking around a city, camera in hand, attempting to capture something of its nuances, atmosphere and people as the newness assaults you from all sides.

Obviously, this is easier said than done. Those who photograph cities best tend to have lived there a long time, such as Garry Winogrand, whose iconic images speak volumes about New York, or Hungarian photographer Brassai, whose black and white images of Paris are uniquely evocative.

But even as a “tourist” (as opposed to a resident) it’s possible to be bowled over by some cities more than others. Personally, when I’m in cities like Marrakech, Istanbul or Las Vegas I just can’t stop shooting. These places offer so much in the way of exotic sights and beautiful architecture or – in the case of LV – audacious flamboyance that I could happily spend weeks wandering around capturing images.

Conversely Rome, Singapore or Sao Paulo don’t do much for me at all.

Then again when you consider there are over 3,000 cities in the world – almost 500 of them with over a million inhabitants – I have to confess I’ve only been to a relative handful. So of all the cities in all the world: which one would you say is the most photogenic?

Photo: courtesy of Matador

[UPDATE 6/01/10 - Congratulations Alina Rădulescu (@Ariko) for winning this week's Twitter contest at MatadorU!!]

MORE STUDENTS continue enrolling at MatadorU, and the student-teacher interaction, work being shared / critiqued, and strength of our community just keeps progressing. We’re in the process of compiling a complete page on what people are saying, but in the meantime, here are a few quotes from students

Still, we’d like for more people to participate, and so we’re having a special enrollment week / Twitter contest this week. Here’s how it works:

Starting today, and running until next Tuesday, at 12:00 pm EST, we’re offering a promotional code at the U that will give you $40 off your enrollment of either the Travel Photography or Travel Writing programs. Register here using the code: TWITTERPROMO

Additionally, you qualify to win FREE enrollment by doing the following three steps (should take less than 30 secs)–

1) Make sure you follow us @MatadorNetwork so we can get in touch if you win.

2) Post the tweet below to your own Twitter account to help us spread the word about the contest.

3) Leave your @twitter_user_name in the comments below, along with the reason why why you want to join MatadorU.

We’ll be looking at the comments over the next week, and choose whoever seems like they’ll benefit most from the course.

HOW DO I KNOW IF I WON?

Winners will be announced next Tuesday at the end of the contest via twitter, and also update here via a post at Matador.

Good luck to everyone, and we look forward to announcing the winner!

All photos courtesy of Tewfic El-Sawy

The creative force behind “The Travel Photographer“, Tewfic El-Sawy specializes in documenting endangered cultures and traditional life ways of Asia, Latin America and Africa.

His photography has been published in Outdoor Photography, Digital Photographer, GlobalPost, and have been featured by some of the largest adventure travel companies in the United States and Great Britain. He also organizes and leads exciting photo expeditions to places such as Bali, Bhutan, India, and Mexico.

MatadorU faculty and travel photographer Lola Akinmade caught up with Tewfic in the midst of planning his next photo expedition to learn more about the photographer behind the popular The Travel Photographer blog.

How long have you been a professional photographer?

It was a slow and progressive morphing from international banking to travel photography over the past 20 years, however I can say that it really got going in 2000.

Before that, it was almost like having two personalities; one being a “starched” banker during workdays, and a more relaxed personality befitting that of a travel photographer during the weekends.

What – or who – got your initial interest going in terms of photography?

There’s no doubt that my traveling on banking business to various countries ignited my interest in travel photography as a genre. These business trips made me realize that I liked having access to different cultures.

When living in London, my wife booked me in an 8-weekends course in black & white photography at the home/studio of Uri Lewinski and his wife Mayotte Magnus; both professional photographers with opposite stylistic disciplines where I learned basic darkroom work, developing and processing film and prints.

I also attended a street photography class with Constantine Manos in Havana, and a photojournalism workshop with John Stanmeyer and Gary Knight in Bali.

What were your first photographic experiments or experiences?

My first serious camera was a Canon A1 bought when working and living in Houston. It was essentially to photograph the family and my children growing up, however I also started experimenting with still life photography.

My favorite set-up was to back-light wine bottles, with a plate of grapes placed just so. I still have some of those prints, which are probably the most hideous still life studies ever done.

Eventually, I took my camera on my trips, and whenever I had a few moments I would walk the streets of Taipei, Athens or Stockholm and photograph whatever caught my eye. I used to be a black & white shooter at the time, and would return home to process the negatives, and print them in my basement darkroom.

I also experimented with unorthodox photo emulsions, and still have a couple of beautiful calla lilies photographs printed on liquid emulsion which hang on our walls.

However it was the adrenaline of travel photography that turned me on the most…especially exotic cultures. Photographing Stockholm’s Gamla stan or Paris was nice, but I was more in my element shooting in the back alleys of Taipei and Istanbul. It was on the back of these business trips that I started to specialize in documenting endangered cultures.

How would you describe the work you do now…obviously there’s a strong reportage / photojournalistic element, but are you involved in the commercial world also? Any stock photography?

I am drawn to religious rituals and cultural festivals (especially those which have ancient history to them), and by definition these require a photojournalistic approach to them.

I try to research these rituals and festivals so as to become reasonably familiar with their cultural background, history and origins. This allows me to have a better understanding of what’s going on, which I hope come through my images.

Because of this affinity, my work is more reportage-oriented as I try to weave imagery and cultural information together.

I did get involved in stock photography for a few years, but recently found that it wasn’t for me. I’ve moved away from the traditional travel imagery required by stock agencies and travel catalogs/brochures.

The stock photography industry has considerably changed over the past few years, so I lost interest. There are many other excellent photographers who make a living from commercial and stock imagery, and I admire them for doing so.

It’s highly competitive and very tough.

What 3 tips would you share for amateur photographers who are interested in pursuing your documentary style of photography?

In my view, the most important qualification is to have (and continuously develop) a strong and wide-ranging interest in foreign cultures, history and geo-political events. This is the underpinning foundation for the emerging photojournalist.

As for tips, I’d say the first would be to drop the ego, and to remain humble and helpful to others, whether they are in the same field or not.

The second would be to learn and use ancillary visual add-ons to still photography such as multimedia, audio recording, etc.

The third would be to learn some words and sentences in as many foreign languages as possible.

You are known online as “The Travel Photographer”. Can you tell us more about your website and workshops?

My photo~expeditions (as I call my trips) are technically by invitation only, which means that photographers interested in them usually subscribe to my periodic newsletters I send out.

These newsletters list forthcoming itineraries and dates, as well as galleries of my own work, and the subscribers contact me to join. The itineraries are based on traveling to “off-the-beaten-path” destinations as much as possible, and the photography style is best described as “travel photojournalism” or “documentary travel photography”.

Normally, I research specific destinations that have cultural and historical elements, and structure the itineraries with story-telling objectives in mind. During these trips, I tutor participants in story-telling techniques and multimedia using easy-to-use software readily and cheaply available from the internet.

The end objective of each photo-expedition is to have participants return with their locally-produced travel documentaries, as well as regular travel photographs.

Since participation in these photo~expeditions was originally based on first-registered-first in, causing long waiting-lists, I have had to introduce an element of screening based on a quick portfolio viewing and other criteria.

Apart from The Travel Photographer blog, my photography website (www.thetravelphotographer.net) showcases my travel photography galleries, my multimedia galleries, and my photo~expeditions. I am currently working on a parallel website that will be iPad and iTouch compatible.

Which other photographers – old or contemporary – inspire you most?

I have enormous respect for the photojournalistic work of James Nachtwey, John Stanmeyer, Munem Wasif, Gary Knight, and especially Sebastiao Salgado.

On the editorial and travel side, I like the work of relative newcomers such as Shiho Fukada, Jehad Nga, Diego Verges, Joey L. and many others.

Since you do a lot of portraiture, when you are approaching subjects to shoot, how do you set about it? Do you chat and explain what you’re doing? Or shoot first, ask questions later?

I mentioned Sebastiao Salgado as a visual influence. He’s also quoted as saying “If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture”.

That’s my overriding principle when I photograph people. I always try to engage the subjects before photographing them, and have various methods to “unfreeze” people for natural-looking environmental portraits.

The easiest is to show my potential subjects a gallery or two of my photographs which I carry on my iPod Touch. This arouses some sense of vanity…the “me too” syndrome. However, one of my time-tested techniques is to initially photograph children or babies, and showing them to the parents.

This immediately changes my image from being a foreigner into that of a family member. What I’m after during a photo shoot are two things: being accepted and/or being forgotten…I want to go beyond the reflexive smile.

I engage people as much as I can, since I want our “relationship” to be reflected in their eyes, on their faces and in their body language.

I love candid photography, which is frequently necessary and gives great results, but I prefer a more face-to-face approach to my portraits.

What’s the craziest or most inspiring encounter you’ve had in general?

Like most photographers, I faced difficult situations but fortunately none that I wasn’t able to defuse reasonably quickly. The most inspiring moment was during photographing elderly widows in Vrindavan (India), when one of them asked me to publicize their plight.

She called me her “grandson” and despite her poverty, she worried the sun was too strong for me. Along with other photojournalists who had been there before and after me, their plight was indeed publicized and some improvements were introduced by the local authorities.

The craziest (and worrisome at the time) encounter was probably being accused by a group of Indonesians of being an agent for the FBI.

What kit do you use / carry with you / can’t do without (camera make, lenses, flashguns etc.)?

My primary camera is a Canon 5D Mark II, along with a bunch of Canon L lenses such as a 24mm f 1.4, a 28-70mm f 2.8, a 17-40mm f4 and a IS 70-200mm f2.8 zoom.

I also use an older Canon 1D Mark II which is truly a workhorse of a machine. I’d love to replace it with a newer model but I’m emotionally attached to it, and it does the job I want from it.

I don’t use flash much as I prefer natural light, but I occasionally use a Canon 550EX.

Depending where I travel to, I either carry a Mac Book Pro or an Acer netbook to work on my images whilst in the field, or for my multimedia workshops.

Finally, what else are you working on right now and what are your ambitions for the future in terms of your photography work or anything else?

One of my on-going projects is on documenting the Sufis, and it’s a project that I try to work and expand on whenever I’m in India, Egypt, Morocco or Turkey. There are certain countries with strong Sufi influences such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and I’m hopeful that these countries’ political situations improve and calm down allowing me to visit and continue this particular project.

I am one of the instructors at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, where my class is on multimedia for photojournalists, and I hope to continue teaching it as long as it’s of interest to emerging photojournalists. I also intend to continue with my photo~expeditions / workshops and, as I mentioned earlier, to further refine their thrust towards documentary travel photography and multimedia.

Community Connection

Please read our other recent interviews with Travel Photographers.