Sebastião Salgado: The Nenets of Siberia

Photo © Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas/nbpictures

The new work by my very favorite photographer Sebastião Salgado was featured by The Guardian newspaper in the UK. It's been trending very heavily on Facebook and on Twitter, which is not surprising since so many people admire him and his work.

I not only admire his work, but his way of seeing....as he describes it by saying " If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things."

But back to his new work.

Mr Salgado's Genesis project is now complete after 30 trips made over 8 years. The project portrays the beauty and the majesty of regions still in a pristine condition, areas where landscapes and wildlife are still unspoiled, places where human communities continue to live according to their ancient culture and traditions.

From The Guardian's very interesting accompanying article,   Mr Salgado's latest trip was to the nomadic Nenets of northern Siberia. The Nenets are also known as Samoyeds, and are an indigenous people in northern arctic Russia. There are 40,000 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them living in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

The Nenets' lives are defined by reindeer, which are the source of their food, clothing and transport. Every spring, the Nenets move large herds of reindeer from winter pastures on the Russian mainland, travelling more than 1,000 kilometers north to summer pastures in the Arctic Circle.

I ought to also mention that London's Natural History Museum is scheduling an exhibition of Genesis on 11 April - 8 September 2013. There is no way that I will miss it...no way.

Olympus OM-D and Olympus 12-50mm First Impressions Review

Not an early adopter as I was with the Olympus E-P1 and E-P3, I have finally managed to get around to buying an Olympus OM-D E-P5 with the 12-50mm zoom. I was originally going to get the body only but the price difference between the body and 12-50mm kit price wasn't great, so thought it may be useful to have a weather-proof lens.

Initial impressions were mixed but it didn't take long to realise that good things do come in small packages and the benefits of the OM-D are quite deceptive.

The fold out LCD is brilliant and I love the EVF - nice, large and bright. It is taking a little while to get use to the controls. I like the positive nature of the on-off switch, but I am less warm about the location of the switch. I guess I have to get use to it. The size and location of the playback and Fn1 buttons is poor but I will get use to it. The lack of labelling on the control buttons is odd but understandable - I have reassigned most of the buttons to suit my needs anyway. In general the controls are more positive than on the E-P1 and E-P3 and the off-set location of the two control wheels took a little while to get use to. Overall-  a lovely body and great to use.

The 12-50mm lens was a real surprise. It has had some poor reviews and I am less than excited about the f/6.3 aperture at the wrong end. The lens cannot even manage to maintain f/3.5 at 14mm and is a poor f/5.1 at 25mm. This really isn't good enough. The lens should be a half a stop faster across the entire range.

The macro function works really well, I have no issues with sharpness or distortion and the 12mm to 50mm range is excellent. In practice, I haven't found the f/6.3 aperture to be a problem and the lens seems quite sharp and excellent for a low-cost kit zoom. Build quality of the lens is excellent other than the slightly noisy and course geared feel of the manual zoom. Other than the aperture, that is the only time I feel the lens has been built to a price. It would have been nice to have a variable speed to the power zoom, or at least two speeds. I find it a bit slow to go from one end to the other but it would be good for video work. No problems with vignetting or general image quality.

It is taking me a little while to get use to the camera. My first real play was with some low-light work and I haven't been using the Olympus E-P3 much for that as I have not been satisfied with noise control or colour balance for long exposures. Neither are a problem for the OM-D. In fact, low light performance seems better than my Nikon D90 in all respects other than one and that is hot and stuck pixels for long exposures. It isn't bad, but forgetting that when left on sequential shooting, the Olympus doesn't apply dark-frame noise control, there is a little bit of an issue there but it isn't bad. While I never have to bother about it with my Nikon D90, the Olympus E-P1 and E-P3 would result is totally unusable images with the E-P3 slightly worse (in when it became an issue). I was shooting 30 and 40 second images and all were usable. I would be having serious problems at 8 seconds with the E-P3 without the dark-frame noise reduction.

Overall, this is a winner of a camera. Now for some foul weather to test the weather sealing!

Here are some pics...

12mm 1/60s, f/7.1 and ISO1250 (a mistake as I left the camera on auto ISO)

12mm 8 seconds, f/16, ISO200 with a 4-stop (ND16) ND filter. Looks like there is a reflection off the ND filter in that one.

14mm 30 seconds, f/16 and ISO200 with a 1-stop (ND2) filter.

BBC Good Food Show Birmingham Winter 2012

Click on the photograph for a magnified view.

The BBC Good Food Show is always a fabulous fun event for foodies. The show has a great buzz and it's always a pleasure to see lots of foodies enjoying a great day out.  I also had the opportunity to meet a few exhibitors who have kindly sent me their products to review.

The Great British Bake Off attracted a huge crowd all eager to see this years finalist John Whaite. His adoring fans had waited patiently and everyone, including me, gave him a huge cheer when he appeared on stage. 

We had fabulous seats in the Supertheatre to see MasterChef Live with John Torode, Gregg Wallace, Shelina Permallo MasterChef Finalist 2012 and Emma Kennedy Celebrity MasterChef Finalist 2012.

James Martin busy signing Stellar knife sets on his stand.

Olives, Turkish Delight, pastries and nuts on this fabulous stand.

Beautifully decorated cupcakes.

A huge thank you to Haymarket Exhibitions - Ginny and Kate for a fabulous day.

Thomas Cristofoletti: Once Upon A Time In Burma

Photo © Thomas Cristofoletti-All Rights Reserved

I thought I'd feature work of Myanmar (Burma) which is rapidly becoming the must-see destination in South East Asia after its 'opening' up. I'm told that tourists are descending on this lovely country like hungry locusts over Biblical Egypt, and that hotels and flights are difficult to come by.

Ah, well...I hope the benefits accruing to the touring agencies from this surge trickle down to the people of Burma.

I thought I'd feature Thomas Cristofoletti's photographs of this magnificent country, especially as they're different from the standard travel photo portfolios of posed photographs of Lake Inle fishermen or Buddhist monks in Mandalay or Bagan. His photographs are, for the most part, unposed and natural. And his website includes well composed photography of Burmese people in Yangon's streets, on the ferries, in train stations, and on Inle Lake.

Thomas Cristofoletti is an Italian freelance photographer & videographer based in Phnom Penh, who's working in several social video & photography projects in South East Asia and Europe for international NGOs. His photographs were eatured in international magazines and newspapers, such as The Herald Tribune, The Guardian.co.uk, El Pais, Afisha Mir Travel Magazine, LaRepubblica.it, In Style Russia, and others. 

Hydro Flask 40oz Insulated Bottle Review

For quite some time now I have been contemplating getting a thermos/insulated bottle of some sort for my winter outings. The benefit of a thermos bottle during winter backpacking, at least for me is that it can prevent the water inside from freezing, and allows you to carry hot water with you for extended periods of time. The problem of course has always been the weight, and surprisingly, the fact that most thermos bottles are very small in volume, rarely exceeding half a liter.This year I accidentally came across the Hyrdo Flask 40oz bottle, and decided to give it a try.

This particular Hydro Flask bottle holds 40oz of liquid, the same amount as a Nalgene bottle. It weights 16.4oz (actually less than the advertised 17oz), and costs about $35.00. I bought mine from Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS).

The Hydro Flask is a double wall, stainless steel insulated thermos. Because of the double wall design, even though the Hydro Flask holds the same amount of water as a Nalgene bottle, it ends up being a taller bottle.

The width of the 40oz Hydro Flask however remains the same as a Nalgele bottle, and can fit within the same cups that nest with the Nalgene bottle such as the Backcountry Stoic Ti Kettle.

In previous years I have tried different ways to insulate water bottles to achieve a similar effect to a thermos. There are many different type of cozies out on the market, and many DIY versions. I was not able to find one that I liked. None of them appeared to insulate particularly well. Even in moderately cold temperatures, the water inside would freeze during the night. When I got the Hydro Flask, I figured I would compare it to one of the better working cozies. It is an insulated cover for a Nalgene bottle made by EMS.

The Nalgene bottle weighs 6.3oz, and the EMS cozy weighs an additional 3.5oz for a total of 9.8oz. As I mentioned before, the 40oz Hydro Flask weight 16.4oz, which is quite a bit heavier.

For the test, I filled both containers with 16oz of boiling water and put them in the freezer. I then measured the water temperature at the 30 min, 60 min, and 240 min (4 hour) mark. Here are the results:

The Hydro Flask performed significantly better than the insulated Nalgene bottle. While the Hydro Flask is 6.6oz heavier than the insulated Nalgene bottle, it appears that the added weight has not gone to waste. Whether the weight is worth it, is a decision you have to make.

So, why do I like the Hydro Flask as opposed to any other thermos? Well, for starters, it holds a good amount of liquid. If I am going to carry a heavy thermos, I want it to make a difference on the trip. I am not going to carry around a thermos that only holds a cup of liquid. It hardly seems worth it. The 40oz volume is a good one for me. It is also the lightest thermos bottle I have been able to find for the volume. The bottle has no bells and whistles. There are no cups, spouts, or anything else that would add weight. I like that and the simplicity it offers.

Hydro Flask has a wide selection of different types and sizes of insulated bottles. This is the one I like, but they offer wader variety of bottles and accessories.

Is this the best backpacking thermos? Well, this is hardly the perfect solution for a winter backpacking water container, but it is the best I have been able to find. I am still unsure if I would be willing to carry the thermos with me, but if I decide to take one, it will be the 40oz Hydro Flask.