Photograph SLR

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Elissa Bogos | The Last Jew In Afghanistan

Here's a short video documentary by Elissa Bogos on Zeblon Simontov, the last Jew in Afghanistan while he observes the fifth night of Hanukkah alone in his deserted and dilapidated synagogue.

Simontov was born in 1959 in Turkmenistan, and lives in Kabul working as a carpet dealer. He's believed to be the last Jew in Afghanistan...and consequently is the last caretaker of the only synagogue in Afghanistan.

His wife and daughters emigrated to Israel, and when asked why he didn't, he's said to have replied "Go to Israel? What business do I have there? Why should I leave?"

This reminds me that a few years ago, I thought of photographing the last remaining Jews in Egypt. Starting off by photographing one of the ancient (and now restored) synagogues in Old Cairo, I was faced with obstacles by the policemen guarding it, who were uneasy at my presence taking pictures there, I quickly gave up. The synagogue was open to tourists, but there were some restrictions in photographing...at least, that's what they told me.

For a relatively recent article dealing with the remnants of the Jewish community in Egypt that was once one of the vibrant in the world, take a read of Josh Weil's The Last Jews of Cairo.

Elissa Bogos is a freelance photojournalist and videojournalist currently based in Kabul, Afghanistan. Her photographs and video have been published in The New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, EurasiaNet, The Huffington Post, The Montreal Gazette, Reuters, New York Daily News and in other media. In Afghanistan, she freelances for a variety of NGOs and private companies and has worked with the Associated Press, Tolo TV and Channel One TV.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Sponsored Video: Blacksticks Blue

A Taste of the Unexpected - A must watch fun and quirky video.

Blacksticks Blue is a unique British blue veined handmade cheese, by award winning Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses at Inglewhite Dairy in Lancashire. A family business, Butlers have been making speciality cheeses since 1932. Blacksticks Blue cheese has an amber hue, which isn't something we readily associate with blue cheese, and a creamy, smooth yet tangy taste. 'The daddy of all blue cheeses with an after taste of sheer blue cheese - Heaven!' - celebrity chef Simon Rimmer. There are four blue cheeses in the range - Blacksticks Blue, Creamy, Silk and Velvet each with their own unique characteristics. Butlers also produce a wide range of handmade hard and soft cheeses using local milk.

My perfect cheese board is a wedge of blue cheese, and Blacksticks Blue will look magnificent - a soft cheese and also a hard cheese, but I do tend to get carried away and buy other cheeses too. I like to serve these with a selection of fruits, nuts, chutney, speciality biscuits for cheese and home made bread.

Butlers have a recipe on their website for Blacksticks Blue and Basil Brioche which shows the cheese is not only for the cheeseboard but can be used as an ingredient in recipes too.

For those last minute foodie ideas, Butlers have the perfect Speciality Cheese and Beer gift set, a Chunky Cheeseboard and Three Truckles of Love, which can be purchased from their online shop.

Butlers can be found on their fabulous website, Facebook and Twitter. Their cheeses can be purchased direct from Butlers online shop and are also available at supermarkets.

Sponsored Post.

POV: Street Photography & Mental Instantaneous Captioning

I often wonder if my "mental instantaneous captioning" is shared by other street photographers...it must be.

The photograph snapped a couple of days ago on SoHo will serve to illustrate what I mean. Walking on Prince Street, I saw this woman about to enter a well-known artisanal bakery, and on the verge of turning to the dog leashed to the door. I quickly clicked the shutter to capture the image, and simultaneously thought of the caption for it. The caption was “Yes, You’ll Get A Cookie”. So there was a bunch of things happening in an instant: the visual of the scene, the clicking of the shutter and the coming up of the caption...all at the same time.

This happens to be the case in most of my street photographs. I see the scene, click the shutter and have the caption already figured out. A few of the captions come to me later during the editing process, or when I upload the images on my street photography website.

It must be the experience of other street photographers as well, especially if they caption their photographs.

What's funny is that I don't experience this so-called "mental instantaneous captioning" syndrome when I am photographing travel related images. I just returned from Hanoi where I did a lot of street photography, and I had no such captions ready to go...I didn't even think of captions. This only occurs in New York City.

Isn't that weird?

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Olicamp Space Saver Anodized Aluminum Mug Review

As I’ve mentioned before, these days I use a Stoic Ti Kettle as my cup when in the woods. When I was searching for the “right” cup however, I tried out some different ones. One of them was the Olicamp Space Saver cup. I wanted to do a brief review of it since I already purchased and used it.

The cup weighs 3.2 oz, and cost me about $13 from Ben’s Backwoods. I should mention that the customer service was great. The Olicamp Space Saver cup is made of hard anodized aluminum, and is designed to nest with a Nalgene bottle.

The cup has a fairly good design. It has a standard shape that fits over a Nalgene bottle, and hold 24 oz of liquid. Unlike most other similar cups, it has very large handles, similar to what you would see on a US GI canteen cup. I thought the design worked well. The longer handles are good when you have hot liquid in the cup. The handles are riveted to the body much like on the old canteen cups.

While the design on the mug is fine, unfortunately the construction is not. It is just obvious that this cup was made as cheaply as possible. The handles did not line up properly, or more exactly, did not fit together, so the grip was very uncomfortable unless I spent some time adjusting them. The rivets used to attach the handles are very rough, and have not been properly pressed. The ones on my cup protruded so much on the inside of the cup that they gauged out the Nalgene bottle I was using.

I bought the Olicamp Space Saver Mug because it was cheap. Sometimes you get products that are low cost, but are still well made. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. The cost cutting measures are quite obvious. Of course, it is significantly cheaper than my Stoic Ti Kettle, which retails for over $30. That being said, I bought mine on sale for $20. I’ll pay the extra $8 any time because the quality is just light years apart.

Reader' Poll: Who's The Travel Photographer of 2012?

To end 2012, I thought I'd feature a reader's poll to choose which of a pre-selected travel photographers whose work appeared on The Travel Photographer's blog would garner the most votes for the coveted title of "The Travel Photographer of 2012".

There are no prizes...just the intangible glory of being nominated by readers of this blog. And yes, I applied the term 'travel photographer' a little loosely. I will announce the winner in a week or so.

Here are the photographers. I list them in no particular order, with a thumbnail sample of their work, the shortcut link to my post on this blog, and a link to their website. The poll is at the bottom of this post.

I also plan to feature at a later stage which 2-3 posts about travel photography/photographers got the highest number of views during 2012.

1. Monica Denevan: