NY Times: Karachi After Bhutto

Image © Tyler Hicks/New York Times-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times brings us this slideshow of Karachi street scenes from one of my favorite photojournalists, Tyler Hicks. The title, Karachi After Bhutto is self-explanatory, and portends an major political upheaval in this critically important country.

It's been reconfirmed this morning that our mass media hasn't lost its timidity in reporting on the current political theater in Pakistan.

Here's an article in the NY Times reporting on yesterday's meeting of journalists with Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, who rejected any suggestion that he or any members of the Pakistani military or intelligence agencies played a role in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

This sets the tone of the article:

" In a televised question and answer session that lasted more than 90 minutes, Mr. Musharraf appeared relaxed and confident, telling journalists that they often got their facts wrong and that they did not understand the situation in Pakistan."

On the same event, here's the final paragraph from an article from the British newspaper, The Independent :

"Instead one was left wondering why Mr Musharraf appeared so desperate to explain himself to the world? Does he genuinely believe he is badly misunderstood? A clue, perhaps, came in his final exhortation to the media – words that were cut from the television broadcast. "Please," he said. "I am not a fraud, I am not a liar."

I know from where I'll continue to get my international news, and you can tell it's not from the New York Times.

For some levity: I've chosen the above photograph because of the white cat meandering among the stains of betel juice and the other detritus. Isn't it amazing that it manages to remain spotless?

Karachi After Bhutto

Update on Batteries

It appears that the flap on the recent pronouncement by the Department of Transportation (DOT) regarding traveling with lithium batteries was much ado about nothing.

Ken Geiger, Senior Editor for Technology at the National Geographic Society has just written a clarifying post on its blog, in which he essentially says that the checked baggage ban is directed only at large lithium batteries. According to his calculations, even high-end digital SLRs, like the Nikon D3 and Canon 1Ds MKlll, use lithium-ion batteries that are below the DOT's threshold.

He also learned that the DOT will restate the wording of the ban on Lithium batteries in checked bags, to make it clear that only larger packs are affected (much larger than typical digital SLR or notebook batteries).

Notwithstanding, I'll repeat my earlier advice: Pack your spare batteries in ziplock bags, cover the terminals with electrical tape if these have no covers and carry them in your hand luggage.

Ken Geiger's NGS Post

Olympus LS-10 PCM Audio Recorder

GIZMODO reports that Olympus announced its new LS-10 Linear PCM Audio Recording Device, a portable professional recording tool for "musicians and everyone who values high-quality recording."

It weighs 5.8 ounces and can track stereo 24-bit 96kHz linear PCM uncompressed. It can record and play back in WAV, MP3 and WMA. The LS-10 has two gigabytes of internal flash memory and also features an SD/SDHC removable media card slot to further expand its capacity. It can run 12 hours on two AA batteries. The LS-10 Digital Audio Device has an estimated street price of $399.99 and will be available in January 2008.

The GIZMODO reviewer adds this: "The only thing I'm truly wary of is the user interface—Olympus has given its recorders some supremely ugly interfaces in the past, and there's no indication that this will be any more intuitive than its predecessors."

GIZMODO's post on Olympus LS-10 PCM Audio Recorder

LaCie Rugged All-Terrain HD

LaCie just announced that it increased the capacity of its Rugged All-Terrain Hard Disk's to 320GB. It's available in USB 2.0 and a USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and FireWire800 version for speedier data transfers.

The company claims that the Rugged (and the new 2.5-inch Little Disk) now offers the largest capacity available for any single-disk portable drive. The LaCie Rugged is a tough portable hard drive, and is designed to protect data against bumps, bruises and hard knocks. Its aluminum shell and rubber bumper protect it from table-height drops for extra protection.

The LaCie Rugged in the 320GB capacity will be available late January.

LaCie Rugged All-Terrain HD

Andrew Gibson: Bolivia

Image © Andrew Gibson-All Rights Reserved
Andrew Gibson is a British photographer who works on cruise ships, which has given him ample opportunities to travel and photograph far-flung places.

He specializes in South America, in particular Argentina and the Andean regions of Boliva and Peru. He plans to move to Argentina to focus on his photography and writings.

The body of his work is slanted towards art-travel photography rather than documentary travel photography, and he often tones his photographs as his lovely image of a church in Puerto Chivica in Bolivia.

There are two reasons for featuring Andrew's work here on TTP; one is that he makes available copies of his e-books in PDF format to anyone who wants to download them. He has three books: Bolivia, Cementerio de Recoleta, and Central Park in NYC. You may want to do the same when circulating your portfolios to editors, clients or even friends...everybody has a PDF reader on their computers.

The second reason is that his blog has an interview with John Cleare, which I encourage you to read. With 45 years experience, he's an inspiration to all photographers, whether interested in mountaineering (as he is) or not. Cleare is not just a photographer, but also a mountaineer, wilderness traveler, writer, author, filmmaker and lecturer.

NY Times: Medicine Hunter

Image ©Jennifer Szymaszek/New York Times - All Rights Reserved
The New York Times seems to have recently enhanced its multimedia features available through its website. These appear to be better edited (except for some of its "fluff" travel slideshows) and are more interesting both visually and content-wise. Let's hope this continues since it provides creative opportunities and avenues to photojournalists and photographers.

A recent multimedia feature is on the efforts of an ethnobotanist who calls himself the Medicine Hunter and about his quest in Peru to study indigenous medicinal plants. His goal is for people to use safer medicine, and by that he means plant medicine.

In Peru, he is studying maca, a small root vegetable that grows in the country's central highlands. He describes it as “a turnip that packs a punch. It imparts energy, sex drive and stamina like nothing else.”

If this is true, the maca will catch like wildfire in the United States, where about 36% of all adults ingest some form of complementary and alternative medicine. The baby boomer generation will provide an enthusiastic target market for the enterprising companies that will make maca pills.

The photographs are by Jennifer Szymaszek, who also recorded the audio. Note to photographers: start learning (and start using) audio recording techniques as soon as you can, if you haven't done so already.

NY Times' Multimedia Feature: Medicine Hunter in Peru

NY Times' Article: On a Remote Path to Cures

Revamped Photo Expeditions Web Site

I've decided to ring the new year with a revamped website for my photo expeditions. I opted for the same color scheme as this blog, and used the same logo. I've simplified the interface and for visual effect, I added a Soundslides with some of my photographs.

Update: I changed the background color to white for legibility purposes. I also simplified the logo.

The Travel Photographer's Photo Expeditions