from Photographers Blog:
In the darkest corner of my soul
By Dado Ruvic
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Bosnian war.
I was only three years old when the war broke out. Although I was only a child, I keep the dark images of horror, blood and the suffering inside me, buried deep in the darkest corner of my soul. I was only a child, but the memories of war will never fade away. It is something all of us carry as a burden on our souls, each every one of us in our own way.
Regardless of my memories, I try to do my job impartially and without any influences. I want to see things rationally. I want to cover the stories that matter; the stories that carry the message. I want to say and express what some people dare not say. The photos are not merely photos, they are tears. They are screams of the desolate despair. They are pain.
from Photographers Blog:
Satan and the partying bunnies
By Lucy Nicholson
For those who have a dark view of Southern California, it might seem fitting to find Satan buried in a cemetery in Orange County next to a Carl’s Jr burger joint.
That’s where I found him resting on another heavenly day in sunny California, in between gravestones for other beloved pets that had departed for the great beyond.
The Sea Breeze Pet Cemetery in Huntington Beach has gone to the dogs. And cats. And bunnies. And guinea pigs. And parrots.
I was driving to lunch between assignments photographing Olympic swimming champ Janet Evans when a flash of color caught my eye on a wide boulevard in Huntington Beach. It wasn’t the gaudy color of strip malls and billboards, but an expanse of flowers in a cemetery.
Nice headline. You just have to read the story. In Mexico, ‘Jesus’ (pronounced “Hay-Zeus”) is a popular name still used today. Wondering if a pet named ‘Jesus’ might also be buried in the same cemetery.
from Photographers Blog:
An egg by any other name
By Lisi Niesner
Egg. Or as it's known in other languages: Ei, яйцо, jajiko, muna, uovo, ägg, yumurta, oeuf, αβγό, tojás, vajce, بيضة, aeg, jaje, ovo, yai, 雞蛋, telur, huevo
It's the hard-shelled reproductive body produced by a bird and especially by the common domestic chicken, which is the definition that first comes to our sense. Obviously an egg is much more than the daily of decision how we like to have our breakfast: scrambled, fried or poached. Tea enthusiasts use a tea egg and we call someone naughty a bad egg. We walk on egg shells when we act cautiously as well as using eggs for certain sayings: no two eggs are exactly alike, for example.
Even scientists, theologians and philosophers have spent quite a lot of time thinking, discussing and literally quarreling about the egg. The question of how life began has always bothered mankind; we come up with approaches and theories to answer one question in particular: which came first, the chicken or the egg?
The egg plays a special role in every culture around the globe. It is the beginning and the end, life and death, birth and mortality. In many cultures, eggs were and still are symbols of cure, fertility, hope and sacrifice. They are also given on the way to the afterlife in some faiths.
from Photographers Blog:
Collecting karma
By Damir Sagolj
An angel-like girl, dressed all in white carries a pack of toothbrushes on a Sunday morning. She walks slowly, smiles all around and seems not to be bothered by music so loud that one can’t hear his own thoughts. She is on her way to the Mang Teung Sua Jung Cemetery in Chonburi province – where members of a local Thai Chinese community will exhume unclaimed bodies. Toothbrushes will be used to clean the dirt from bones.
One of the first books I read after arriving in Thailand more than two years ago was Bizarre Thailand - a collection of strange tales from the “land of smiles”. It was a nice introduction to what I could expect here in Thailand but I thought to myself – I’ve seen enough elsewhere; bizarre things in other countries so nothing can surprise me.
Well, this is Thailand and things go well beyond expectations. On this day, unclaimed dead bodies are taken out of graves in the corner of a massive cemetery in Choburi province. It is a Thai Chinese ritual that has been going on for decades since diseases like malaria killed many people 90 years ago in the province. The legend goes that officials began haphazardly digging up corpses so the city could build an airport and stopped only when they were haunted by ghosts. Since then, residents have felt it necessary to leave the land untouched and to honor those who have died without loved ones.
from Photographers Blog:
Two worlds of Purim
By Nir Elias
As an Israeli and a resident of “ultra” secular Tel Aviv for most of my adult life, Purim -- the celebration of the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther -- has always been a time of partying and dressing up, for me.
Images of Orthodox Jews celebrating Purim were always very familiar. But being present at one of these celebrations was a different experience altogether.
This year I went to photograph the Vizhnitz Hasidic community in Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox city some 7 km (4 miles) from Tel Aviv. The Vizhnitz community members tend to emphasize the joyous gatherings and celebrations commemorated in the Jewish tradition.
When I arrived at their huge hall, it was mostly empty, but within less than an hour it was packed. The atmosphere was welcoming and warm. Thousands stood on grand-stands surrounding the hall and waited for their Rabbi to arrive. When he entered, there was a burst of singing and clapping and one could clearly feel the excitement. They sang songs praising God and emphasizing the importance of being happy during the festival with enthusiasm even though they had fasted the whole day, as is customary on Purim. They also read in unison from The Book of Esther. The atmosphere was electrifying. Looking around, many of them seemed entranced as they joined in to the loud singing and dancing.
Floods meet faith — Thailand’s floods swamp Buddhist temples
The surging Chao Phraya River swamping central Thailand and threatening the capital Bangkok has inundated many of the ubiquitous temples in the deeply Buddhist country. Here are some views of temples and statues taken by our photographers covering the flooding:
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from Photographers Blog:
A village of eternal bachelors
By Vivek Prakash
With the world's population set to hit 7 billion on October 31, photographers in India have been on the move to tell stories that talk about what those numbers really mean in a country as large as India - with 1.2 billion people and counting, this is supposed to be the world's largest democracy.
When you take a closer look at the statistics, you find some surprising and scary figures - the ratio of female children to males born actually declined here over the last 10 years - from 933 females for every thousand males in the 2001 census, to just 914 in 2011. The combination of cheap portable ultrasound technology and a decades-old preference for male babies -- who are seen as breadwinners -- has enabled sex-selective abortions and made worse female infanticide. In a place as wide and as vast as India, these are things that are hard to control, no matter how illegal.
We had been trying to find ways to illustrate this for some time without much success - getting access to tell this story had been taking some time. Late last month, a story about a small village in Gujarat was brought to my attention.
Journalists from the Thomson Reuters Foundation had visited Siyani, a small rural town of just 8,000 people (tiny by Indian standards) - where the social effect of such a low ratio of women meant that men were having a tough time finding brides. I set out to remote Gujarat to try and interpret this story with my camera.
Thanks MadonnaDevotta, It’s been corrected now.
Cheers,
Corinne Perkins
from Photographers Blog:
Two sides of a living God
By Navesh Chitrakar
Born and raised in Kathmandu's Newar community I am familiar with Lord Ganesh. His elephant head attached to a human body makes him easy to identify. Ganesh is honored at the beginning of rituals and ceremonies as we celebrate religious festivals.
This month, I had the opportunity to take pictures of Living God Ganesh after I asked one of my friends who was close to the living god's family. I was pleased and surprised that the family was willing to accept me since they don’t normally allow pictures to be taken.
The first thing I saw was a six-year-old boy sitting on the sofa and yawning. The boy was the living god but he looked totally different from how he had looked when I saw him on the streets during festivals. In his home, the sofa was his throne.
from Photographers Blog:
The trouble with Northern Ireland
Tradition is something that is celebrated, enjoyed and handed down to the next generation, but in the small corner of western Europe where I was born, it has led to shootings and bombings and the loss of thousands of lives.
For 16 years I’ve worked as a photographer covering ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland and in this time I’ve come to realize that what one side of the political and religious divide sees as celebration, the other sees as triumphalism.
The Twelfth of July parades are one such tradition that sparked disturbances on the streets of Belfast this week with rioters throwing petrol bombs and police responding with plastic bullets as Catholics and Protestants once again clashed.
from Photographers Blog:
When monkeys tie the knot
It all started with a phone call. I was being invited to a wedding. Sounded good. I'd finally make my debut in wedding photography.
I had it all planned. I wanted to spend a day each at the groom's and the bride’s respectively. Now the only hiccup was I couldn’t interact with them. After all, they were no regular couple. They were monkeys.
Monkeys have an important place in Hindu mythology. They are worshiped as Lord Hanuman, the mighty ape that fought the devious Ravana alongside Lord Rama to create the epic Ramayana.
When I reached Talwas in the Indian state of Rajasthan, I went straight to the house of the 'groom', Raju. I immediately felt the excitement around the marriage. Many relatives of Raju’s caretaker Ramesh had come to attend the wedding. For them, it almost seemed they were attending the marriage ceremony of Ramesh's son.
But very soon I sensed some apprehension in the air. Apparently the forest department officials had already warned Ramesh against the proposed marriage of his monkey. But like a stubborn father fighting for his son, he told me the wedding would happen as scheduled even if he had to go to jail for it.
But wait, why did the forest department forbade the monkeys’ wedding to happen in the first place?
Lucas
http://china.blog.lemonde.fr
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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