Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
The answer? It depends.

This time, I'm not referring to visual plagiarism but to the imitation of style and copying of unimaginative itineraries in the travel photography tours/workshops industry.

Many travel photographers recently awoke to the fact that tours and workshops can add a little something to their bottom line (actually, big and small name photojournalists are doing it as well), and their offerings are all over the internet. Their target market is made up of working and non-working photographers, who seek to build an inventory of images, either to show friends and neighbors, enter and hopefully win competitions, or to sell as stock and to publications.

All this sounds lovely but regrettably, the disease currently afflicting photojournalism seems to have spread into travel photography as well. It's rather disconcerting to see a lack of imagination in many travel photography tours, a frequent "borrowing" of regular tourist itineraries, and the liberal sprinkling of the sentence "photo-shoot" and "wake up at dawn" and similar verbiage in the marketing blurbs, as if that's enough to give legitimacy to the notion that these trips are really tailored for photo enthusiasts.

As regular readers of this blog know, I've swatted off a number of attempts by established travel photographers to either flagrantly filch my itineraries (inclusive of hotel names) or to get a copy of my mailing list for my photo~expeditions, or to join that mailing list to get advance notice of my itineraries. Oh, yes...corporate espionage is alive and well in the travel photography workshop business, but that's par for the course.

Have I consciously imitated any other travel photographers as far as itineraries are concerned? Sure, I may have been inspired by some, but I always avoided cookie-cutter itineraries (excepting Bhutan, where these are based on annual festivals), and I consistently base my itineraries on what and where I want to photograph...not on what and where others want to photograph. And the formula works...with my expeditions often with long waiting lists.

Speaking of inspiration: 24 months ago, I introduced multimedia storytelling tutoring using Soundslides on my photo-expeditions, so I'm chuffed to see others have just started to offer it as well. Soundslides...not SlideShowPro, Final Cut Express or other software choices.

Dwindling viable opportunities, reduced prices for images, tougher competition and increased costs are the reasons many travel photographers cut corners, and look for guidance, inspiration and successful examples to emulate; and as a result, some cross the invisible line and become unimaginative imitators.

So back to my question. Is imitation flattery or buggery? It depends on how the one being imitated actually views it, and what is being copied. Some will consider it a rip-off...others -as I do- consider it the sincerest form of flattery.

You see, it's not buggery unless one is willing to be buggered...but let's also remember, taking without giving back is bad karma.

Photo Courtesy WIRED-All Rights Reserved
I'm far from being a geek or remotely resembling one, but I still like gadgets provided they're useful and have a purpose...which brings me to the iPad.

Unless you're traveling in North Korea, you must've heard that Apple is launching its iPad in its stores this coming Saturday. I live not too far from its 14th Street store and I intend to walk by just to see the gawking crowds.

The New York Times' David Pogue has an interesting article (and well-balanced) titled Looking At The iPad From Two Angles which I found to be the most intelligent of whatever has been recently written about the device. He concludes the article with this:

"The bottom line is that the iPad has been designed and built by a bunch of perfectionists. If you like the concept, you’ll love the machine. The only question is: Do you like the concept? "

And that's the question. The iPad is really a "looker" not a "doer"...in other words, like its midget cousin the iTouch, it'll be mainly used as a reader, as a viewer of text, of website (minus Flash), of emails, of pictures, and so forth. Its success or failure is also dependent on the available applications, current and future, which I understand are close to 1500 in number already.

So far, I haven't seen any merits for photographers to get one. I read somewhere that an enterprising photographer will buy a few and, when asked for his portfolios, will send them out to his best clients instead of the old-style books. I'm quite certain that the iPad will be great in impressively displaying our images, but that's all.

Will it be fun to have an iPad? Of course, but will it be useful? I don't know. I'll wait and decide in another 6 months. Let others be the testers.

WIRED has a roundup on the first reviews of the iPad.

Photo Courtesy The Guardian -All Rights Reserved
I was saddened by reading an interview with Steve McCurry recently published in The Guardian in which he shares the news that he's preparing a project in which he would be taking portraits of 30 celebrities in their home cities: Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in New York, Amitabh Bachan in Mumbai. A sort of project that Annie Leibowitz would do...but Steve McCurry? C'mon!

I was also saddened to read that McCurry would be setting the shots, and choreographing the image-taking...the Leibowitz's style. While I'm told by various participants on his photo trips that he frequently stages scenes during his workshops, photographing celebrities requires a different type of discipline, and a different type of mind-set....and is not one hard core travel photographers would be stylistically and intellectually willing to do. Maybe I'm too idealistic?

Naturally, this project will be financially rewarding for McCurry and I wish him the best of luck with it....however, I can't help but feel a twinge of regret (and sadness, as I said twice already) that we are witnessing the dimming of a star.

After all, McCurry is one of the pioneers of travel photography and is an inspiration to many who follow his style....and to read of this new project is an uncomfortable reminder that things are changing in this industry, and that photographers (whether involved in travel, documentary and editorial) need to be sharp, varied and inventive. Resting on one's laurels is always a fatal mistake, and this is especially true in this tumultuous industry.

A photojournalist presented a body of work during the Foundry Workshop in Istanbul, but the consensus was that it was old and passe...and not relevant to the present day and age...photographers or photojournalists clinging to their past are like people breathlessly running after a Third World public bus on a pot-holed road, with young passengers hanging like a bunch of grapes from its doors and windows....and no available toe-holds in sight.

So let's be smart....let's learn multimedia, Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, Soundslides...audio techniques...learn DSLR videography....let's use Twitter & Facebook intelligently...do anything to find a toe-hold. If not, we'll be left inhaling exhaust fumes and waiting for celebrities to show up (if we're lucky).

I saw this posted on various blogs, and thought I'd add my two cents. It's the newly released Guardian Eyewitness app for the Apple iPad, shown off by photographer David Levene. I can't argue with the premise that it's gorgeous...but what does it bring to the table beyond what a laptop and/or netbook already does? The Guardian photographs can be appreciated on a laptop/netbook as well, no?

I have a Mac Book Pro and its display is equally gorgeous. I have a cheap Acer netbook, and its display is certainly not as great, but it's cheaper than the iPad, and it allows me to use all types of software, and fiddle with my photographs using Lightroom...infuriatingly slow perhaps, but it does, and iPad does not.

I frequently visit the Apple store in the Meatpacking district to play with the iPad (by the way, there are fewer tourists on the second floor, where iPads are also available).

As I've said before, I haven't seen anything to convince me that the iPad is a must-have for photographers...so until it does, and despite the Guardian's app and others like it, I'll wait and see what comes with the device's future iterations and new apps.

Update evening of 4.25.2010: Both Marco Vernaschi and the Pulitzer Center For Crisis Reporting responded to the critics.

I was pleased to read this final paragraph of the response (my emphasis):

We do not suggest that the decisions involved in this reporting project are anything but difficult, as we hope was apparent in our statement accepting responsibility for what we believe was a mistaken decision to exhume the body of Babirye and to publish the image on our site. It is our hope that these issues can be discussed without malice, distortions and groundless attacks on the personal motivations of others.-- Jon Sawyer, Pulitzer Center Executive Director

My morning's post follows:

Along with many others, I wrote a post a few days ago on a story being discussed in photojournalism circles and blogs, involving Marco Vernaschi, an Italian photographer/photojournalist who worked on a project documenting the phenomenon of child witches, human sacrifice and organ trafficking in Africa, and the Pultizer Center For Crisis Reporting. The story as it evolved during the past week hinged on the veracity of Vernaschi as to the circumstances behind the exhumation of a Ugandan girl, and the Pultizer Center's publication of the photograph(s) and its subsequent apologies for doing so.

I am listing the links to these blogs/websites all through this post.

Asim Rafiqui in his always insightful (and frequently provocative) blog The Spinning Head asks:

"Why did Marco Vernaschi do it?"

An important and pertinent question, but mine is different. I don't really care why Vernaschi did it. Perhaps he rationalized that exhuming a child's corpse and photographing it was the right thing to do...that it would bring this issue to the West's "consciousness" (as if we really would and could do something about it)...that it would win him more photojournalism awards...that it would make him the best photojournalist in the world...that it would justify his grant from the Pulitzer Center...that it would put bread on his table or pay his mortgage or pay his children's school fees...whatever. I believe he was wrong, and that's the end of it.

I ask the same question but of The Pulitzer Center For Crisis Reporting's Executive Director and his staff . It was The Pulitzer Center which published Vernaschi's photographs and his essays. So here's the real nub of the matter: why did they do it and why didn't they check the details' veracity before publishing? Had they done what in banking circles is called "due diligence", they may have realized what the incomparable Benjamin Chesterton of A Developing Story did. Had they investigated the story a little more seriously, they may have realized what the courageous Anne Holmes of The Vigilante Journalist did.

As I expressed in my POV: And The Outrage Continues involving the publication of a photo essay on a young girl in Kurdistan being circumcised, photographers and photojournalists operate under intense competition and pressure to submit cutting-edge work, and frequently lose sight of what is right. Exhuming the body of a young girl for a photograph is beyond the pale, but the decision for its publication wasn't Vernaschi's...it's the Pulitzer Center's. I'm not at all exonerating the photographer for what he did, but I'm more critical of those who agreed to publish these photographs.


Let's get real. If most publishers (especially those of Pulitzer's repute) refused to publish photographic tripe of dubious ethical provenance, photographers would toe the line....but because sensationalism has pervaded our media, they cut corners and lose sight of what is right..especially when it involves poverty-stricken Africans or Arabs, who have no or little legal recourse to protect their privacy rights.

Let's all remember how aghast we were when photographer Adnan Hajj was accused to have digitally manipulated photographs (ie cloning thicker plumes of smoke from IDF missiles already raining on Beirut), and we kept tut-tutting about it until Reuters fired Hajj and a photo editor, and subsequently issued new policy guidelines for its photographers. Adding some smoke plumes or exhuming a body for a photograph...which is worse?

Yes, the Pulitzer Center apologized, and promised to "redouble (its) efforts to authenticate every claim and to insure the privacy rights of individual victims."

Is that enough? I don't believe so.

Other links:

To stage or not to stage? by Jørn Stjerneklar.

Conscientious by Jörg M. Colberg.

A few days ago, I posted an opinion piece (or POV) on a renowned photographer about to engage in a project which I deemed unrelated to his travel documentary specialty.

As a consequence, I was criticized by a half dozen people in the blogosphere who, perhaps having misread the gist of my opinion, disparaged my photography, my prior career, my being Egyptian-born (as if that made me unfit to speak my mind), etc. Bah.

I was reminded of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who said: "Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect" when I noticed some of the disparaging remarks on that blog were made by the very same people whose photographic work was frequently lauded, applauded and supported on my blog. Double Bah.

I don't know for sure why these people resorted to abusive ad hominem, but one of my guesses (and I have a few) is that they sought to get back at me for not being a lemming, for being an iconoclast of sorts, for not sharing their "gods", golden calves and icons, or to force me into a mold of their choosing. People simply don't like people who are not like them and don't act like they do...it's small-minded tribalism.

So move on boys and girls...I don't need you to tell me what to think and say, nor do I kneel to your golden calves. Get it?

Just so we're clear: A few expressed their disagreement with my view, but did not resort to insults. To those, I say thank you for your point of view...and let's agree to disagree.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved
The Zocalo, with its cultural activities, is the very heart of Oaxaca, and is a daily magnet for locals and tourists alike. It also attracts vendors of various trinkets, as well as poor children (all of them indigenous...possibly Zapotecs) who attempt to make a few pesos by selling chewing gum. Approaching the restaurants' tables occupied by tourists, these children sometimes shyly ask for left-overs. In fact, that's what three little girls did one evening. We gladly gave them whatever was on our table, and one of us even asked our waiter for a bag to give them half her pizza.

During a festive Guelguetza dance festival of schoolchildren, I looked beyond the colors, music, laughter and frenetic motion, and at the periphery of the stage, saw a Zapotec boy with arms outstretched in askance for fruits from one of the young dancers.

You see, after each dance the young dancers would reach into baskets of fruits, flowers and vegetables, and toss them to an appreciative audience. The Zapotec boy was in that audience, and wanted fruit. Mind you, not for keepsake as perhaps the families wanted, but to eat. However, I also noticed he never reached into the basket full of apricots just inches from him...no, that would be stealing. He just wanted the young dancer to give him one...and he got a fruit.

Not only was I sobered at this sight, but I also read in these unfortunate children's eyes an uncomprehending acceptance that they would never take part in an organized Guelaguetza dance such as the one they were witnessing. I also sensed that they understood that it was so because they were poor and were racially different. They would never wear the colorful Guelaguetza costumes. All this boy could muster was an old over sized baseball cap, and a dirty shirt.

No child should go hungry and no child should beg for food. Ever.

My post on McCurry's taking a celebrity photography project was criticized on another blog by a handful of readers as being misplaced, rude and judgmental...which puzzled me since I specifically wished him the best of luck with his new project, and described him as a pioneer and an inspiration to many.

The thrust of my post was not about McCurry or his future but to stress the need for all of us to diversify by learning and using multimedia, FCB and Soundslides...and not remain stale and repetitive. In fact, here's a quote from the post which encapsulates my point of view:

"McCurry is one of the pioneers of travel photography and is an inspiration to many who follow his style....and to read of this new project is an uncomfortable reminder that things are changing in this industry, and that photographers (whether involved in travel, documentary and editorial) need to be sharp, varied and inventive."

So to these half dozen readers I make no apologies nor do I need to rethink/reword a single syllable of my post. Not only did you misunderstand my post's intention, but dismissed it as a rant (my POVs always are), denigrated my photography (I do that all the time so get in line and get a number), sneered at my having been a banker in my previous life (many people have more than one career, so I don't understand your point unless, God forbid, you're envious) and so on. Heck, even my country of birth was mentioned...what does it have to do with my blog posts unless it's a jingoistic innuendo? Yes, the mind boggles.

Let me also say that one of my readers also misunderstood what I meant, and had the courtesy of emailing me expressing his viewpoint, and asking for clarification. I responded, and we ended up agreeing on certain issues and disagreeing on others.

As for my pontificating, as a couple have described my post(s), that's exactly what I do here on this blog. That's what this blog is about and will continue to be. You don't have to pay any attention to it. If it aggravates you, just improve your life and remove it from your reading list, because the mission of this blog is to pontificate and to support emerging talent...period. If you don't like it, just don't read my "rants" and "pontifications"...it's really that easy. I'm only a banker-turned-photographer after all...remember?

However, I'm so enamored by the term that I will soon change the sub title of this blog to include it...perhaps like acerbic pontification...or acerbic soap boxing...thank you for the unintended suggestion!!

New Note: I have to thank all of those who emailed me expressing their support and sharing their unbridled puzzlement at the criticisms, and to those new friends who, as a consequence of all this, have now joined my newsletter mailing list! No new post today...i want to keep this one up for a while.

Yes, I caved and got an Voigtlander 40mm optical viewfinder for my Panasonic GF1. It's well suited to the Panasonic 20mm 1.7 lens.

But this is not about the viewfinder or how much better the GF1 feels with it...it's about the above 'minimalist' gear which is an option when I'm planning an assignment or a photo trip. I can have all this in a small Domke bag, and have spare room for a book, an audio recorder, an itouch and lots more.

Imagine the bliss of having all one's gear in a small and light bag!!!

Here's a statistic: The combined weight of the GF1, the Acer netbook and a WD Passport hard drive (from their individual listed specifications) is 3.8lbs. The combined weight of a Canon 5D Mark II and a 24-70mm 2.8 lens is 3.9lbs.

Am I contemplating chucking out the DSLRs and lenses? Not at all. What I now have available to me is equipment which, depending on the nature and duration of the trip and/or assignment, is a viable alternative.

The easy one first: the WD Passport 750gb is small and worked well so far. It may not be as tough as a Lacie Rugged, but it's functional, provides ample storage and is inexpensive.

The not-so-easy: I've used the Acer netbook on 3 or more photo expeditions, and it also did okay. However, its Windows XP software is a major irritant, and its Atom processor is really sluggish. I seldom have it process any image files, and just use it to save my RAW files on its 160gb hard drive and on the WD Passport. An eventual alternative to the Acer could be an iPad, if and when it allows connectivity to an external HD.

Another not-so-easy: The GF1 is a delight to use, and the quality of its images is almost as good as from an entry-level DSLR....but almost is the key word. Having said that, it's still a lovely tool to use on walk-abouts, for environmental portraits and as a back-up. It'll be very useful in situations where photography may be frowned upon (like religious rituals) or where one doesn't want to be labeled as a professional photographer.

I'll be taking the GF1 (along with my Canon gear) to Istanbul in a couple of weeks, and will further test its walk-"aboutability".

Okay, I've now seen it, touched it and toyed with it for a while at the Apple store. Yes, it's beautifully designed, sleek and really cool...and I'd love to win it in a free contest (or something like that).

However, I don't see its necessity for photographers as yet. Photoshelter's blog recently posed the question as to whether the Apple iPad will revolutionize the way photos are presented and consumed? Various "pundits" responded, and I tend to agree with the views expounded by Stella Kramer, such as this one:

"From discussions I have had and demos I have seen, there is very little that excites me about translating the telling of stories onto the iPad."

I've seen that the iPad shows off photographs incredibly well, and the scrolling of web pages is intuitive and it's light and well designed, and it's...well, cool.

But being cool doesn't translate into it being a necessity nor a tool. Yes, there are some commercial photographers who will use their iPad instead of high end leather-bound portfolio books to show clients, and wedding photographer will certainly upload their work on iPads to give to their high-end clients (and build its cost in their invoice), but the rest of us into the story-telling business? Not much. Perhaps if we had $500-800 to spare and wanted a sleek platform (although the Mac Book Pro 13" display is phenomenal) to show off our photographs...

Redesigning many photography websites from being both Flash-based and iPad-ready may be a boon to web designers and website providers, but photographers can ill afford this additional expense at this time.

The iPad comes in three "flavors": 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive, so it may be useful to commercial and wedding photographers to have by their side on photo shoots, but other than that, I'm still scratching my head at its usefulness. Perhaps in the very near future, there will be really "must-have" applications ("apps") that will convert it from being a toy to being a tool, and while I completely agree that it's a harbinger of the future of internet browsing and more, it's not yet on my list.

It's been reported by a think-tank that 50% of all computers sold for children by 2015 will have touchscreens...perhaps touch is indeed the future, but until the iPad grows up from being a toy to a tool for photographers, I'll be happy to drop by the Apple store and just play with it whenever I feel like it.

The Marco Vernsachi & The Pulitzer Center "affair" seems to have somewhat calmed down after the considerable airing of divergent views, opinions and debate between photojournalists, photographers and journalists in the blogosphere.

Some of these views were expressed on Lightstalkers, which is a popular no-holds barred forum for photographers. Going through the posts, I saw one that claimed that the story (and its handling) was not only a blow to the credibility of photojournalism (which I agree), but also a blow to the credibility of some blogs (and their authors).

Huh? The Pulitzer Center was forced to formally admit (twice) its mistake in publishing an image of an exhumed corpse of a young Ugandan girl on its site, because of the bloggers' criticisms that it violated the rights of a child to dignity and privacy. If it hadn't been for the bloggers, these offensive photographs would be still on the Center's website, circulated on social networks and possibly worse.

I view this story and its results as vindication for those bloggers who had the courage of their convictions, and demand that these offensive photographs be pulled from the Pulitzer Center's website. It's hoped that the Pulitzer Centre will stand by its promise of redoubling its "efforts to authenticate every claim and to insure the privacy rights of individual victims".

The appropriate way to look at it is that the bloggers stepped in and redressed a wrong that would not have been committed had the parents of these unfortunate African children have recourse to a sophisticated legal system preventing such liberties with privacy rights.

Update: 4.25.2010: See my follow-up post So Whose Judgment Lapse Is it?
Update 4.22.2010: Jon Sawyer of the Pulitzer Center responds, and within the response is this:

"Yet we also believe, and Vernaschi agrees, that it was wrong to ask that the body be exhumed. It showed disrespect for the dead, and forced a grieving family to suffer anew. It also had the effect of focusing attention on the actions of one journalist, as opposed to a horrific crime that needs to be exposed.

We regret any damage that may have been caused. We intend to continue this project, documenting the phenomenon of child sacrifice, but in so doing we we will redouble our efforts to authenticate every claim and to insure the privacy rights of individual victims."

Here's my original post 0f 4.21.2010:

Here's another story that is guaranteed to make your stomachs churn. It involves Marco Vernaschi an Italian photographer/photojournalist who worked on a project documenting the phenomenon of child witches, human sacrifice and organ trafficking in Africa, and the Pultizer Center For Crisis Reporting.

I have linked to various photographs, but be aware that these are highly disturbing.

It appears that the Pulitzer Center funded Vernaschi to do a story on child sacrifice in Uganda, and it published some of his hard-hitting photographs in an article titled Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe, in which the photographer convinces a Ugandan mother to allow the exhumation of her mutilated daughter's body in order to photograph it as "visual evidence". The photograph of the corpse is then shown on both Vernaschi's website and on the Pulitzer Center's. Payment (described as "a contribution for a lawyer") was made by the photographer to the mother.

Another photograph on Vernaschi's website shows an abused boy with a catheter protruding from where his penis has been cut off. His face is clearly shown.

Vernaschi's website explains that

"Child sacrifice in Uganda is a phenomenon that has embedded itself within traditional customs but that bears no genuine relationship to local culture. The appeal to "cultural beliefs" is actually an excuse used by witchdoctors to justify their crimes, and by the Ugandan government to avoid taking action. The government tries to minimize the magnitude of the problem because politicians fear losing votes and this is a a country where witchdoctors wield surprising influence at the polls."

I'm all for documentary coverage to expose and stop this barbaric practice...there's no argument there. However, for a photojournalist to ask (and then pay) for the exhumation of a body beggars belief. Had the child died in a ritualistic murder in Italy, could Vernaschi been able to ask its family to exhume the body for a few pictures? Had he been able to photograph an Italian baby boy with a catheter sticking out of his groin? Why can't these photojournalists and publishers understand that they cannot continue to show pictures of mutilated children??

It's immoral. It's as simple and as complex as that.

As I wrote in an older post: To Vernaschi and to the Pulitzer Center's Board of Directors, Advisory Council and Staff: what if Babirye and the baby boy were your children, your niece and nephew or even just a relative...or an acquaintance? Would you still have photographed and published the photographs...or is it because they're "just" Africans?

Vernaschi is an award winning photographer....and well-experienced dealing with gruesome topics. Surely he could have photographed the story differently? Or is it about winning awards and applause from the rest of the lemmings?

Update: For a more detailed and comprehensive opinion, along with some responses from the Pulitzer Center, check A Developing Story.