Silver Digital by Tom Salyer

Sounds Overheard: Yaks & Pilgrims Ring Bells

2012-01-18T13:35:00.002-05:00

Moving shaft of sunlight warms young Buddhist Tibetan Monk studying at temple entrance, Thasilhunpo Monastery, Shigatse, Tibet.

Traveling requires all of your senses to fully experience your surroundings, whether they are in exotic Tibet or some place closer to home, like the dusty strip of sprawling gas stations, fast food joints and mini marts you've stumbled upon after getting off the interstate highway.

Listen to one minute recording as birds chirp and large brass temple bell rings, then to nomad yak herders in outdoor market shopping for bells to hang around their livestock.

Stand still for a moment in front of that mini mart and listen ... traffic and horns asault you, sure. Wait a moment, between traffic lights, those little chirping birds, probably sparrows, hopping around the trash filled hedge. Gee, they are pretty sounding. Hear the salsa music wafting out of that bodega over there, that sound adds some more color. A nice gentle breeze rustles the tree leaves above your head, a bossy black crow barks down from atop the power pole.

Listening to the details, sometimes loud, sometimes subtle, makes this place, this very moment in time, much richer to you. OK, I know, the light has changed and this spot is getting just plain loud, so lets relocate to Tibet. Poof!

Now we're standing under a foot tall brass bell, green with age, hanging from colorful braided cords from the hand hewn rafters of one of the Tibetan Buddhist temples in the Thasilhunpo Monastery. Founded in 1447 in Shigatse, Tibet's second largest city, the monastary is both very quiet and very full of sound. Pilgrims jump with outreached finger tips to ring the bell hanging just out of reach, rich tones reverberating and fading into background sound of happy birds chirping in the sunny courtyard.

An hour later we're visiting the outdoor market in busy downtown Shigatse, and are eavesdropping on two men dressed with red cloth braided into their long hair, silver jewlery around their necks and on their fingers, staying warm in sheap skin jackets.They are test ringing inexpensive bells to hang around the necks of their livestock, some as big as their fists for yaks, some waulnut sized for sheep.

Listening carefully can enrich our travel experiences no matter where we are. Now let me decide, do I stay in Tibet, or Poof, I teleport back and dig into a lime green Double Big Gulp at the mini mart?

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

More stories from Tibet are elsewhere on this blog, and more examples of field-recorded natural sound are at my Miami multimedia production portfolio site.

Sounds Overheard: Incantations Of Tibeten Nuns

2011-12-16T15:29:00.000-05:00

Buddhist nuns wear elaborate head dresses while chanting last October in Lhasa, Tibet.

While visiting the Anezamkang nunnery in Lhasa I was reminded of the nugget of video production wisdom that goes "seventy five percent of what you see is what you hear".

Do you "see" more when you play 1' 15" natural sound recording of nuns chanting?

I must admit I was in a heck of an visually exotic spot, inside a tiny Tibetan Buddhist temple draped ceiling to floor with colorful banners, filled with three dozen nuns wearing elaborately embroidered robes and hammered silver-paneled hats topped with tall turbans. The nunnery was hidden down a tiny stone alley in Lhasa's ancient Tibetan quarter, out of sight of the Chinese army troops patroling with automatic weapons a few blocks away. I was gasping in the thin air at 12, 000 feet, and contentedly digesting a meal of yak noodle soup.

But listen to the above field-recording audio file of the nuns singing and chanting, ringing brass bells and swinging small paddle drums, and tell me how exotic the scene feels to you now ... seventy five percent better? I would say the experience is immeasurably more intense and real.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

More stories from Tibet are elsewhere on this blog, and more examples of field-recorded natural sound are at my Miami multimedia production portfolio site.

Faces of China Photographic Exhibition Now Online

2011-11-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

I’ve been hearing from some of my friends and colleagues that they’ve been unable to see my Faces of China exhibit currently hanging at the Archbishop Curley Notre Dame Gallery of Art, which opened earlier this month, and closes January 21, 2012. Their work or personal schedules have interfered, and some aren’t from the Miami area and won’t have the opportunity to visit.

Faces of China slide show runs just two minutes ... iPhone & iPad version.

So I decided to set up an on-line version of the 38 image exhibit, viewable right here in your web browser. Each image is on screen for just three seconds, so the entire show will take barely two minutes of your time, 30 seconds more if you read the shortened artist’s statement at the end.

For the show’s opening November 5, I mixed a 20 minute audio track of field-recorded natural sound from my trips to China, which played in the background, giving visitors an extra dimension of understanding to the photographs.

This on-line edition of the exhibit is accompanied by a brand new sound track of a guzheng, a multi-stringed Chinese instrument that is plucked, which I recorded at the Buddha Zen Hotel in Chengdu on my last night in China in October. A very peaceful waterfall accompanied the lovely young lady who was performing that evening.

Six images from Tibet are included, shot just two weeks before exhibit opened.

In September I wrote about the then upcoming Faces of China exhibit, and I’ll take the liberty of reprinting my artist’s statement here:

Visiting China as a photographer for the first time was very intimidating. With a population of 1.3 billion and one of the planet’s most ancient cultures, I worried that my images would not contribute anything new. How could I tell the story of the political transformation since Liberation in 1949, the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, and an economy that’s moved hundreds of millions of rural peasants to the cities and transformed the nation into world power?

I decided to meet China’s people one at a time, capture a tiny bit of that nation’s character one photograph at a time. I went into the streets and markets and temples with no particular agenda other than to see the relaxed and candid side of people from a culture very different from my own.

After seven trips to China I present here no insights into their political, economic and environmental challenges. I simply try to look into a pair of eyes just like mine, accept them for who they are at that moment, make a connection that I can digitize, take home and share. These Faces of China are fleeting glimpses of people that are like you and me, people who are trying to live their lives to the fullest, plan for the future, contribute to their community. And sometimes they sneak a peek at an unusual Western visitor with a camera.

My technique to capture these photographs is very basic: I show my subjects respect, smile, indicate an interest with body language, and treat them as I would want to be treated. I say hello in badly mispronounced Mandarin, “ni hao” throughout China, “sain baina uu” in Inner Mongolia, and in traditional Tibetan regions of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai, “tashi dele” brings out the smiles.

Captions accompany maps with featured Chinese province.

For more examples of field-recorded natural sound combined with photography, please visit my multimedia portfolio site. More examples of journalistic photography from China can be viewed at my Miami corporate photography site.

Sounds Overheard: Tibetan Lute Melody And Song

2011-11-16T15:23:00.001-05:00

Musical detail from Buddhist temple wall painting, Reting Monastery, Tibet.

The singer's soulful voice cut through the noisy traffic, his fingers racing over the strings of his lute-like instrument while pilgrims flowed through the gates of the Dreprung Monastery on the outskirts of Lhasa.

His voice was rather raspy, yet melodic, and blended well with the tune he produced from his worn dramyin, a traditional Himalayan folk music lute common in Tibet. Sitting cross legged on the ground, he was accepting offerings of small Chinese currency, many Fen, worth a couple of pennies each, with a few one and five Yuan notes in his collection box, valued at a couple of dimes.

Listen to natural sound recording of street performer singing folk song and playing a seven stringed dramyin. 1 minute 23 seconds.

Last month while traveling in Tibet I encountered several such minstrels, who carry on the Tibetan tradition of oral story telling through song, with dramyins often accompanying their narratives. While in the field I simply enjoyed the music and ambiance of the the ancient temple setting, but upon my return Wikipedia's technical description of the Tibetan lute helped explain what I was hearing.

The dramyin is a long-necked, double-waisted and fretless lute. It is usually hollowed out of a single piece of wood and can vary in size from 60 cm to 120 cm in length (2 to 4 feet). Unlike a contemporary guitar, the dramyin does not have a round sound hole in the wooden sounding board but rather a rosette-shaped ones like a lute. Of its seven strings, only six continue to the pegbox. The seven strings occur in two double courses, and one triple course.

The triple course of the dramyin typically contains the half string on the left, which is usually tuned an octave above the middle unison strings. One of the other two courses are typically tuned an octave apart. The courses are normally plucked in unison during playing. Typically a single note is played at a time, making for melodic music and not harmony.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

Pilgrims Inch Along Ground 300 Miles To Lhasa

2011-10-27T06:04:00.002-04:00

Tibet, People's Republic of China:

We were traveling along a rutted dirt road down the Riteng Zang valley, framed on both sides by distant blue mountains, with a silver river reflecting the sun about a mile off. The October dry season had parched the hills a deep brown, the grass even browner, as dust rose from the pilgrim's full-body prostrations as they inched along the ground toward Lhasa.

Pilgrim inches his way 300 miles to Lhasa making full-body prostrations.

The six pilgrims would take two steps, about one body length, drop to their knees, then both hands, protected by wooden and metal paddles, would touch the dirt as they slid down fully onto their stomachs. Forehead tapping the ground, their hands would swing an arch in front of them in the dirt. Stand up, take two steps, down on the ground as they maneuvered through the rocky terrain.

For these six pilgrims, young men and women mostly in their teens and early twenty's, they had been traveling this way toward Lhasa for the past four months, covering about 150 miles so far. Four more months will be required to complete the final 150 miles, where they will eventually circumambulate the Jokhor, Tibet's holiest temple and monastery.

Pilgrim protects hands with wooden paddles, and wears thick canvas apron with padding that hangs down to his ankles.

Throughout Tibet you see such pilgrims along side the roads and highways, and where terrain does not allow it, they are on the paved roadway where trucks and cars quiz by at high speed. Depending upon terrain, weather and their stamina, they can cover around six miles a day. This group of pilgrims had an advance truck festooned with giant prayer flags carrying their food and camping gear. Other groups pull a small two wheel cart along with their earthly processions.

Leaving their home lands in the far reaches of Tibet, pilgrim groups often pass through two mountain passes on the way to Lhasa, the Sera Gola and the Kana, both about 15, 000 feet in altitude. Winter weather drops temperatures to double digits below zero.

Pilgrims are drawn to countless sacred locations in Tibet, special lakes, mountains, caves and temples, and groups traveling together toward Lhasa will visit as many destinations as possible along the way. They perform a kora or circumambulation of the devotional location, leave offerings of yak butter and paper currency, chant mantras and ask for blessings from the monks.

In Tibet a pilgrimage is not as simple as walking toward your sacred destination. It is considered a great privilege to complete a pilgrimage through full-body prostrations, which focuses your concentration to every step taken, every mantra repeated.

Tibetan Hospitality In Nun's Cave & Monk's Cell

2011-10-24T04:40:00.000-04:00

Tibet, People’s Republic of China

Tibetan Buddhist nun Lousan Drlma has lived in a cave for twenty years just outside the main gate of the Drepung Monastery on the outskirts of Lhasa, and seems to be very content with her way of life. After walking up the dusty road this week, I entered her modest domain through a wooden gate set in a short stone wall. Outside the tiny wooden door into her cave, we sat on low couches covered with Tibetan rugs, where I was offered tea and a round dry bread.

Buddhist nun Lousan Drlma at entrance to cave where she has lived for 20 years.

Our conversation was limited, as my only Tibetan consists of “hello” and “thank you”, so pretty quickly she gave me a tour of her cave. It was about 20 feet wide and 12 deep, lit by one tiny light bulb, which revealed a ceiling long ago blackened by yak butter candle smoke. The walls were decorated with photographs of prominent monks, prayer shawls hung everywhere and low tables supported small shrines. The cave front was closed off with a cement wall.

The next day I met Tibetan Buddhist monk Sherab Juine, who at age 18 was born after Lousan Drlma began living in her cave. We had traveled north of Lhasa to turquoise blue Namtso Lake, which lies at 14,000 feet in the bleak Tibetan plateau. The small Sangr Gompa Monastery sits above the lake, and it’s tiny temple is built into a tall cave in the rock bluff . The two dozen or so monks are easily accommodated on two long benches under the smoky black rock ceiling.

Buddhist monk Sherab Juine, 18, in his private monastery room.

Sherab Juine was in the temple where he seemed to be giving his friend on solo chanting and drumming duty a little boyish teasing. With a big smile he invited us into his private room, brightly painted with the most amazingly bright yellows and oranges. Once again tea was offered, and we warmed ourselves by his stove as he fed the fire with dried yack dung.

After showing us his prized collection of books stacked in the corner, he wanted to take some photos with one of our cameras. The latest digital SLR was putty in his hands, as he knew how to focus, shoot and review images like a pro. After making his portrait, he insisted on posing with each of us, sitting together on his bunk.

I have looked forward to such unplanned encounters as I travel in Tibet these past weeks, and appreciate the warm interactions that make traveling so special. And a steaming hot yak dung stove is a lovely bonus on a cold day.

Yak Chow Mein & Tibetan Speed Traps

2011-10-21T20:57:00.000-04:00

Lhasa, Tibet, People's Republic of China:

You can't travel anywhere in Tibet without encountering a yak, either standing in the middle of the road thinking it belongs there, or on your plate for dinner in some combination you never considered trying before.

Yaks cross the shallow Yangva Chu river north of Lhasa earlier this week.

Today's highway cruising yaks are domesticated from wild yaks, once numbering more than a million and populating the high Tibetan plateau., and now very rare. The domestic ones crazing in the river valleys and high up mountain sides could also be dzo, a cross between a yak and a cow. I frankly can't tell a dzo from a yak, although I'm pretty sure I know a Tibetan cow when I see one.

White yaks are rare, and considered very good luck, while seeing a herd all of one color is a bad omen. I couldn't tell if our Toyota Land Cruiser driver considered the lumbering beasts lucky or bad omens as they blocked our progress this week from Lhasa north to Namsto Lake. The way the long haired beasts stood their ground as the Toyota barreled down on them, I was starting to consider them bad omens.

No worry, every time the yaks moved, finally, seeming to wave their horns defiantly.

The wooly little calves love to scamper at full tilt right past the bumper, and are awfully cute.

Cute or not, yak makes it way into a lot of Tibetan cooking.

Yak-butter tea is a staple of the Tibetan diet, mixing yak butter with salt, milk, soda and tea leaves. One guide book describes the drink as "unlikely to be a highlight of your trip". One member of our party concurs with that assessment of the thick yellowish liquid . But I've eaten strips of yak added to thugpa, a piping hot vegetable noodle soup, and ground with spices and stuffed into momos, a steamed or fried dumpling, both wonderful. We've also enjoyed a savory and thick yak steak (a bit chewy), and very spicy yak curry (excellent). All in all, very beefy tasting.

The Lhasa Kitchen caters to Tibetans and foreigners, and offers yak burgers, yak stroganoff, yak pizza, and of course, yak chow mien. Wouldn't any self respecting citizen of the USA look forward to flying over 10,000 miles from Minneapolis to Tibet just to dig into a hot steaming plate of yak chow mien. Hey, wasn't chow mien invented by the American food and the advertising industry, and is not native to the Orient?

And You Thought You Hated Traffic Intersection Cameras

Life size fiberglass policemen in full uniform have been standing alongside the highways we've been traveling outside of Lhasa, holding speed limit paddles in their white gloved hands. Often mischievous individuals have drawn mustaches and cat whiskers upon their stern faces. The always-on-duty cops warn drivers to slow down at dangerous curves, slow down on the straightaway, slow down when you are passing over a double yellow line going uphill around a blind curve going over a 15,000 foot mountain pass.

Life size fiberglass policeman keeps it's eyes peeled for speeders on the La Gen La Pass north of Lhasa this week.

Apparently the vigilant fiberglass fuzz have not been effective enough, as the Chinese government has instituted throughout Tibet their special twist on getting motorists to drive safely and within legal speed limits.

Regular police check points require private drivers, chauffeurs and truckers to pull over, park, walk up to a booth, show their national identification card and license, and receive a time stamped permit to proceed. You must not reach the next checkpoint before your stamped time, or you will be forced to pay 100 Yuan (US$16.00) fine per minute. Cash, on the barrel.

Check point locations are fairly common knowledge, so a kilometer or two ahead drivers pull over, have a smoke, chat, listen to their car radios, killing time. And they are not all crazy speeders. Our highly skilled and conservative driver proceeds between check points at a very moderate pace, yet still must tread water to avid the expensive fines.

During the check in and check outs, we passengers entertain ourselves studying the graphic traffic accident photos posted at arms length from our windows, full color carnage complete with bodies lying in the road and crumpled vehicles. Maybe they need more of those plastic policemen.

Pilgrims Walk Around Roof Of The World

2011-10-17T09:50:00.000-04:00

Lhasa, Tibet:

One of the first things you notice upon arriving in Lhasa are the number of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims walking everywhere, every one fingering strings of 108 beads, and many are reciting mantras out loud in a quiet voice. Jostling your way through the crowded Barkhor area in the center of town you walk alongside pilgrims swinging prayer wheels, some on yard long poles, always in a clockwise direction.

Just as the sun rises this morning, a Tibetan Buddhist pilgrim makes the miles long circuit of the Portala.

As you enter Barkor Square and approach the Jokhang, a temple and monastery that is the most revered building in Tibet, these random pilgrims join the hundreds and thousands circling the building to form a human river of devotion. Little old ladies, families with tiny babies strapped to mother's back, Buddhist monks and nuns in yellow and purple robes. Traditional Tibetan dress is interspersed with members of Chinese and Tibetan middle class in slacks and sport shirts.

Every beed fingered is a prayer, as is every every circuit of a sacred site. The prayer wheels are filled with dozens of tiny paper prayers hand printed by nuns, so every swing of the drum multiplies the prayers.

At the setting sun reflects from the Jokhang yesterday, a woman caresses prayer flags draped many feet thick around a stupa at the edge of Bokhar Square.

Sadly the Jokhang, built in the seventh century century, no longer houses monks nor services since 2008 when the Chinese authorities shut them down after the bloody rioting in Lhasa. It is now an important government "cultural relic".

Now you see army troops on every surrounding roof top, security cameras, eight man squads carrying automatic rifles and riot helmets marching around the square at regular intervals, and you encounter random patrols through out the central city. The up side is I never worried about being mugged.

A devoted pilgrim in a sea of thousands circling the Jokhang last evening.

Visiting the towering Portala, featured on every picture postcard from the Hermit Kingdom, is not nearly as vibrant a human experience. As if your low land lungs weren't having enough trouble at nearly 12, 000 feet, you must climb, one ancient stone step at a time another 150 yards. Your prize at the top is to be one of 3,000 daily visitors that are allowed to shuffle from one amazing room to another, all within the government mandated one hour limit.

Yet the Portala is a truly amazing site. I was impressed by how small the former Dali Lama's private prayer quarters were, about the size of a small hotel room, rather modest for the political and religious leader of Tibet who is also a living God.

These are a few quick impressions of my first three days in Tibet. Hopefully I'll have time and internet connections to post more in the coming weeks.

My Camera Is My Private Ticket To The World

2011-09-27T16:57:00.000-04:00

I’m currently preparing a gallery show of my photographs from China, and the process has helped me realize how photography has been a heck of a way to encounter the world around me.

Archbishop Curley Notre Dame, the high school that has commissioned a number of my multimedia stories, invites artists associated with the school to exhibit their work as a way to build connections with the community here in Miami.

Ethnic Mongolian girl gathers grassland flowers at summertime Naadam Festival, Xiwuzhumuqinqi, Inner Mongolia, China. Will be included in gallery show November 5.

Colleague Benjamin Rusnak has exhibited at the school his insightful panoramic black and white work - 23 Degrees, Far From Paradise - depicting hunger in the tropical regions of our hemisphere. Carl Juste of the Miami Herald has displayed photographs from his many visits to Haiti.

At first I demurred that my China photography had no insights as profound as theirs, but I got to thinking as I wrote an introduction to the show. I’m not reporting deep into a nation’s character, but more of a casual observation of human nature. People are people. That’s valid too, don’t you think? We all put our pants on one leg at a time, all over the world, rich and poor, powerful and powerless.

Visiting China as a photographer for the first time was very intimidating. With a population of 1.3 billion and one of the planet’s most ancient cultures, I worried that my images would contribute anything new. How could I tell the story of the political transformation since Liberation in 1949, the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, an economy that’s moved hundreds of millions of rural peasants to the cities and transformed the nation into world power?

I decided to meet China’s people one at a time, capture a tiny bit of that nation’s character one photograph at a time. I went into the streets and markets and temples with no particular agenda other than to see the relaxed and candid side of people from a culture very different from my own.

After six trips to China I present here no insights into their political, economic and environmental challenges. I simply try to look into a pair of eyes just like mine, accept them for what they are at that moment, make a connection that I can digitize, take home and share. These Faces of China are fleeting glimpses of people that are like you and me, people who are trying to live their lives to the fullest, plan for the future, contribute to their community. And sometimes they sneak a peak at an unusual Western visitor with a camera.

My technique to capture these photographs is very basic: I show my subjects respect, smile, indicate an interest with body language, and treat them as I would want to be treated. I say hello in badly mispronounced Mandarin, “ni hao” throughout China, “sain baina uu” in Inner Mongolia and in traditional Tibetan regions of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai, “tashi dele” brings out the smiles.

All my life photography has been my excuse to experience the world in my own private way, one on one with the people that make this big world go around. As a child I lived in a black and white world I could only experience vicariously burying my nose in Life Magazine.

After being buried alive by erupting volcano, survivor receives aid from rescuers,
Armero, Colombia, November 1985. Tom Salyer/UPI

But from the very first day working as a photojournalist on a small daily newspaper, the Journal-American in suburban Seattle, I found that my camera was my license to enter where ordinary people could not. I photographed a baby being born in a log cabin, triumphant high school athletes and the unspeakable tragedy of auto accidents.

A few years later as a wire service photographer with United Press International, I captured news from Space Shuttle launches to politics to a volcanic disaster in Latin America.

Fleeing from Fidel Castro's Cuba, refugees cling to overloaded shrimp boat on the way
to Key West, Florida, May, 1980 Tom Salyer/UPI

During the Mariel Boat Lift in 1980, when over 100,000 Cubans fled their island nation on fishing boats, I flew in a helicopter off Key West over the Straights of Florida. About half way to Cuba over the open ocean, we encountered a ship with so many refugees clinging to it’s decks, they looked like ants. We were so close to the water the chopper’s landing struts were lapping the tops of the waves. I told the pilot over the intercom that we just shot tomorrow’s page one photo. And it was, in the New York Times, the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinal and elsewhere. I was there, I got to see a bit of history being made, I got to see things everyday people did not, and my camera was my excuse to be there.

I shared the helicopter that day with Olivier Rebot, a French photojournalist . A year or two later we received word he was killed by a sniper’s bullet while covering the civil war in El Salvador. It struck him in the chest right above the edge of his body armor. As a young UPI shooter I had wanted to see more action, but I slowly realized I was not cut out for the really dangerous stuff. I still got to see some exciting things over the years, and am grateful that I “missed” some of the “real” news stories of the day.

As a commercial photographer and occasional photojournalist, I’m happy with following the work I receive, not worrying about the “big” shoots out there, doing the best job I can on even routine assignments. I’ve meet interesting people on executive portrait shoots, I’ve shared the lives of foster teens, I've paddled down Bolivian rivers with a humanitarian medical team, and I get to visit China. After more than 30 years my camera is still my own private ticket to experience the world.

Sounds Overheard: Swamp Creatures Create Jobs

2011-08-25T16:01:00.000-04:00

Visitors can hear an entirely different Everglades National Park after the sun sets.

I really don’t recommend visiting Everglades National Park during Florida’s summer rainy season, unless you enjoy being part of the food chain by donating blood to the clouds of incessantly buzzing hungry mosquitos.

Recently I witnessed two pale tourists wearing t-shirts and shorts driving a rental car, apparently straight from Miami International Airport as their luggage was sticking from the convertible’s rear seat. They seemed to be enjoying the drive, wind in their hair.

Listen to this natural sound field-recorded this summer as the sun set and then under a sliver of moon: 1) tree bound insects 2) multiple frog species sing 3) an alligator splashes 4) mosquitoes buzz.

They gave me a very curious look as I wadded out of the flooded sawgrass prairie, dressed head to toe in insect protective gear, carrying a shotgun microphone atop a seven-foot long pole. When I drove past the next pullout, they were dancing and swatting and flailing their arms as clouds of bugs descended upon their bare skin. Maybe I should of passed along a warning that insect repellent only makes the bugs madder?

Most important summertime equipment to record nature sounds in Everglades National Park are mosquito jacket, veil, gloves and very thick pants. Bare feet in sandals would prove to be quite foolish!

Actually, being part of the food chain helps fulfill God’s big plan in the swamp: female mosquitos need blood to brood their young, their fry feed inch long mosquito fish, which feed wading birds and larger fish, which end up attracting tourists and kayakers and sportsmen to visit the national park.

Wow, quick, tell Congress that donating blood to mosquitos is really a Jobs Plan for park rangers, scientists and tour guides.The Democrats and Republicans must quit fighting in Washington about the deficit, they should come down here this summer and walk around the swamp in their underwear, baring all to the mosquitos.

All seriousness aside, for the sound clip above my recording gear included: 1) Sennheiser ME 67 long gun mic plus K6 powering capsule 2) Sound Devices MixPre D preamp field mixer 3) Tascam DR-100 dual channel recorder 4) K-tek KE-79 boom pole and K-mount shock mount 5) Windtech MM302 Mic Muff 6) Petro Deca Mixer Bag 7) Sony MDR-7506 head phones 8) Benadryl spray

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

Shamans Appease Mountain Gods, Qinghai, China

2011-07-25T22:55:00.006-04:00

Every July shamanistic festivals featuring ritual dances, holy skin drums, and food offerings are designed to appease the mountain gods and guarantee good harvests in villages around Tongren. After three frenzied days of communicating with ancient Mongolian army generals, reincarnations of the gods, the shamans go into deep trances.

Link to iPhone & iPad friendly version of multimedia audio slide show.

Although not officially Buddhist, the festivals take place in and around Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries, and attract hundreds of observers and participants. Wearing distinctive peaked hats with red tassels, young boys through middle aged men dance for hours, circling the walled courtyard. Senior men carry flags and banners. Young girls solemnly march, enduring heavy coral beads and silver medallions braided into their long hair.

Ethnic Tibetan dancer takes break during Tongren Shaman Festival, Qinghai Province, China

Villagers bring offerings, including long bolts of beautiful fabric that are tied horizontally from the temple’s decoratively carved timbers. Offerings of food arrive, small plates of tsampa, a Tibetan barley flour bread, fruit, flowers and candy. Offerings of liquor are drunk by the shamans, shared with dancers and finally poured on the ground.

I photographed this Tongren Shaman Festival by walking up a steep hill from downtown Tongren, a small dusty town two hours from Qinghai Province's capital Xining. The amazing sounds of goat skin drums, silver bells, brass cymbals and the “brrrrrrrr” of the frenetic shaman were all recorded in the field as I photographed the festivities.

View more multimedia audio slide shows from China, and Miami Multimedia Photography. Last summer I wrote almost daily from my trip to Qinghai, China.

Yes Toto, There's An Illusion Behind The Curtian

2011-06-30T21:07:00.002-04:00

Earlier this month I was invited back to the Art Institute in Ft. Lauderdale by photography teacher Steven Nestler, who asked me to show his Introduction to Photography students examples of my environmental portraits. For this visit I decided to pull back the emerald green curtain, just like Dorothy's little dog Toto in The Wizard of Oz, and show the very ordinary reality of location photography.

While photographing an attorney on top of wind swept terrace high above Coconut Grove, I was unable to keep my usual soft boxes from blowing over. So I improvised, taping a silk down, and blew light up from it, filling in his face with a tight grid spot. Lession, wing it, but hide your tricks behind a curtain. (Andrew Hall, defense attorney for John Ehrlichman of Watergate fame, for the ABA Journal.)

The students were so early in their studies, Steven explained, that they had no idea how portraits of people could be created outside of a studio. Previously, for more advanced classes I've gone into detailed explanations of cross lighting, light modifiers, lighting for depth, dragging the shutter and playing with color temperature. I've then followed up with live lighting demonstrations, picking a cluttered classroom, an empty stairway or outdoor parking lot in which to create an interesting portrait. The students would haul out my lighting kits, and under my direction, set up the scene, translating the theory they had been learning into real life photos.

At those live demos students told me they were surprised you could make such interesting portraits out of such uninteresting locations. So for this most recent class visit I thought I would speed over a lot of the technical stuff that the beginning students had not covered yet, and stick to opening their minds to the possibilities of location portraits.

Photographing in a tiny office, the main soft box stood barely a yard in front of subject, causing me to just poke my lens from underneath. A hard light outside the window projected through blinds from camera left, and a strip soft box stood outside the slightly open door at right. Magazines helped with positioning. (Rita Johnson for My Business.)

From my digital archive I dug out several series of photos, first the final successful portrait, then the very first test shot with no lights, followed by images showing the lights as I added them in. The work in progress shots showed the less than ideal locations I had squeezed photos out of.

It's the finished photograph that counts, I explained, not textbook lighting diagrams and mathematically precise ratios. You do what ever it takes, placing the lights where you are able, flying by the seat of your pants, just so the subject looks great and your client receives a terrific story telling portrait.

And while sweating the lighting, calculating exposure, schmoozing the subject and shooting, I advised, don't let anybody know that behind the photographic magic curtain, there is an every day guy pulling the levers as best he can, hoping for the best. In the end, getting back home to Kansas is all our readers and clients really care about.

To view more Miami corporate photography, please visit my portfolio web site.

Cancer Survivor Only Cried For One Day

2011-06-25T09:53:00.000-04:00

I felt really bad when my question made Lainie cry.

She was sitting on the edge of her bed, her Boston terriers Oliver and Stella curled up in her lap, and, dressed in pink and pearls, she was a very pretty 27-year-old. I certainly didn’t begin the interview with the intention of catching her with her defenses down in order to record her raw emotions on tape.

Watch this multimedia audio slide show and hear cancer survivor Lainie tell her story. iPhone & iPad version.

It was just one of the questions on my two page list:

- paint me a picture of those first days after your cancer diagnosis
- how have you decided to live your life in light of your illness?
- when you were a little girl, what did you want to grow up to be?

That last one made her cry.

As a child, she wanted to be an actress. In college, a nurse. Since cancer ... her dreams have been to live life to the fullest.

Within a few moments she bounced back to the strong and positive Lainie Schultz who has beaten adrenal carcinoma, Stage 2 breast cancer, melanoma, and thyroid cancer. When diagnosed with breast cancer at 24, she cried for “only one day”, and has since refused to let the disease prevent her from enjoying her life.

Young cancer survivor Lainie Schultz wears bracelets during her fight with cancer.

Lainie turned to Broward Health in Ft. Lauderdale to treat her cancer. Because she was so young for a breast cancer diagnosis, her doctors sought genetic testing. More shocking news, she had a rare genetic disorder called Li-Fraumeni Syndrome which predisposes for cancer only about 400 people in the country.

In spite of the many challenges facing her, Lainie decided to embrace life full throttle, and that’s why Broward Health commissioned me to photograph her for an advertising campaign and to produce a multimedia audio slide show for their web site.

Lainie has not only become a force field of positive energy for those closest to her - parents, fiance and large circle of friends - she has taken on the role of cancer survivor evangelist. She blogs intimately at My Journey with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome, and has been interviewed by print, television and online news media. On Voices of Survivors, she wrote the following:

It’s saddening to give up your innocence at 26, but when you’re stripped down to your unrefined self, bald, and have cancer, you find strengths you never knew you had. You develop relationships that are closer than you ever thought possible. You see love and support in those around you that overwhelm you at times. I have been able to meet others who inspire me and have given me a new meaning to the word, “strong.” Every morning I wake up, and thank my lucky stars I am able to call myself a survivor!

After reading her words above it’s time for me to get a little choked up ... I know, I’m the hard bitten newsman with decades of objective story telling experience, never get involved, just keep to the facts please. I held my emotions in check during a week of photography, interviewing, editing audio and composing the multimedia piece. I’m a cancer survivor too, but have pushed aside my experience as being so very far removed from Lainie’s daily challenges.

So today I’m dropping my objectively, and will just come out and say it. I’m impressed by how Lainie is living her life, and I’m inspired by her. I’m sorry I made her cry, but not sorry she made me cry too.

Besides Lainie, I have to thank Jenny Mackie of Broward Health's Marketing Department, who served as creative director, set dresser and dog wrangler. Carolyn Jones was a master with makeup and wardrobe, and Antoine Heusse did the heavy lifting as lighting assistant.

To view more Miami multimedia photography, please visit my portfolio site.

Sounds Overheard: Alligator Primeval Love Songs

2011-05-29T21:22:00.000-04:00

An alligator at sunrise in Everglades National Park.

Listening to big old bull alligators bellow is a primeval experience. After 200 million years on earth, these guys have perfected a low, deep, rumbling sound that raises the hair on the back of your neck. Creepy, and thrilling.

0:00 two male alligators bellow
0:25 alligators thrash
0:38 bees in tree canopy
0:55 Northern Cardinal sings
1:01 Barred Owl in background
1:27 Red-winged Blackbirds
1:52 White Ibis fly overhead

I was deep inside a hardwood hammock in Everglades National Park, and two love struck males were bellowing back and forth as they competed for the affections of a lone female. The three occupied a living room sized water hole, a small refuge during this month’s height of the dry season. I imagined the female being enthralled by their macho display. I kept my distance.

While they arched their backs and raised their massive heads out of the water, I recorded the low rumbles emanating from their vibrating diaphragms. The water along side them pulsated, with tiny water droplets shooting upward from the surface. After their squabble echoed off the surrounding trees, I was left alone with the quiet sounds of a frog or two, a lone cricket, and the low buzz of bees high above in the flowering tree canopy.

At the edge of the hammock I captured song birds, including the Northern Cardinal while a Barred Owl hooted way off in the distance. Upon emerging onto the sawgrass prairie, a rambunctious group of Red-winged blackbirds were chattering away. Then complete silence, broken only when the beating wings of six White Ibis flew right over my head, the leader squawking directions to the group.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

Young History Detectives Discover Segregation

2011-05-18T20:32:00.004-04:00

History was being made 50 years ago this week as the first cross country buses of freedom riders rolled into Alabama and Mississippi, only to face withering racial hatred and violence. As two brilliant PBS television documentaries have shown, the non-violent participants played a pivotal roll in nudging the Kennedy administration to finally act, and the civil-rights movement turned the corner that leads directly to our current times.

Did we really live in an America were segregation of whites and blacks was not only legal, but thrived south of the Mason Dixon line? Where white mobs beat and murdered blacks while racist police did nothing? Where schools and hospitals were segregated, blacks sat in the back of buses and weren’t allowed into restaurants?

Multimedia audio slide show tells 1960 story of first Florida high school to integrate. iPhone & iPad version.

I know we did, as I grew up in the 1960’s. I recall flickering black and white television images of students blasted with fire hoses and reading about the freedom riders in Life magazine.

But do young people today know this history? Recently I found out that some Miami high school students were amazed to hear that segregation was a way of life in their home town.

Being white and living in Idaho and Washington state, to me the civil-rights movement was an abstraction. I had never experienced discrimination. In my family we were raised to be inclusive, my parents frequently reminding us that the color of one’s skin did not matter. Then Martin Luther King died. His assassination shook my college idealism to the core, and for a while my friends and I wondered what sort of world was awaiting us.

When I moved to Miami 30 years ago it rarely occurred to me that I was living in the deep south. I remember in 1980 our realtor remarking that just a few years before our Miami Shores neighborhood had been “red lined”, where banks would keep minorities out by applying more stringent loan requirements than to whites. Though no longer pure white, we wouldn’t have to worry about “them”, she implied.

Miami’s Jim Crow legacy hit home when a family friend told of being able to buy a senior prom dress at a downtown department store, but she was unable to try it on first as the fitting rooms were for whites only. She had to buy it and hope it fit. She went on to be the first African American woman judge in Florida.

When history teacher David Monaco, left, told his AP American History class Miami used to be segregated, Taylor Altidor, right, and her classmates couldn't believe it.

In the years since the lens through which I viewed my adopted community was that of a rich cultural stew, Cubans and Nicaraguans and Colombians, Coconut Grove Bahamians and African Americans, with Haitians rounding out the mix. An occasional remaining Gringo would be tossed in for seasoning. South Florida’s civil-rights legacy was not on my radar screen.

Last February my radar lit up. I was commissioned to produce a multimedia show about the 50th anniversary of Florida’s first high school to integrate, and while interviewing former students I learned first hand what it was like to live in a segregated Miami.

Paul Wyche, who in 1960 entered the then all white Archbishop Curley School for Boys, told me how his cross country team left a Howard Johnson’s restaurant when he was refused service because he was black. And as a student sports reporter for the Miami Herald he and the black basketball players were called the “N-word” in Homestead.

Constance Moore Thornton described to me the “colored” and “white” drinking fountains at her neighborhood Winn Dixie grocery store, which offended her, so she refused to drink from either. Yet as a rebellious teen she rode in the front of Miami’s buses and endured stares from both blacks and whites without incident. She helped integrate sister school Notre Dame Academy, and like Wyche, felt fully accepted by their Catholic school, faculty and fellow students.

Sandwiched between the Spring 1960 student-led sit ins that integrated lunch counters in Tennessee, Georgia and throughout the south, and the May 1961 freedom rides, history was being made in Miami too. The Archbishop quietly admitted black students into his Catholic high schools in September 1960, without “making a fuss” the Miami Herald reported.

Black and white students from the early 1960s returned to their high school to share their experience with integration.

The Archbishop did not have to worry about politics nor historic prejudice within his jurisdiction, plus hundred’s of Cuban students were then flooding his schools as they fled Fidel Castro’s revolution. A few black students moving up from all black parish elementary schools was, as we would say today, a no brainer.

The boy’s school had inherited a legacy of inclusiveness from it’s name sake, Fr. Michael Joseph Curley, Bishop of St. Augustine. In 1916 he led a vocal public campaign on behalf of thee Sisters of St. Joseph who were arrested in violation of state law which prohibited white women from teaching in “negro schools.”

Miami-Dade County schools did not desegregate until the early 1970s, and then only under a a federal court order, which was not lifted until 2001. Observers note, however, that the public schools had to deal with segregated neighborhoods, busing and a sprawling district encompassing hundreds of schools.

To mark the 50th anniversary of it’s integration, Archbishop Curley Notre Dame planned a day long event during Black History Month where students from that era - black, white and Latino - would share their experiences with the students of today. Principal Brother Sean Moffett asked me to tell the story through multimedia, and my first challenge was how.

I decided to interview two former students, now in their 60s, to open the story by talking about their experiences living as teens with segregation. No explanation at first as to why, I wanted a bit of mystery to draw viewers in.

I set up a mini studio at the school the day before the celebration, shot on black seamless and converted the files to black and white to evoke a historic feel. From 50-year-old yearbook photos I cross cut to color as the story shifted to the present day.

Constance Moore Thornton remembered "colored" water fountains at her neighborhood Miami grocery store.

Not wanting to build my visual story on just the official ceremony, I photographed the Advanced Placement American History class researching integration history, including exploring micro fiche film a the public library and interviewing students from the early 1960s. This also gave me a great “History Detectives” hook.

I recorded natural sound from the library trip, machines whirling and students reading, and wired subjects with lavaliere microphones and recorders during classroom discussions.

But I was stuck on how to use audio to tell the overall story, from historic perspective to describing events. My technique of interviewing a subject and building a narrative around whatever came out of their mouths would not work. I had points important to the story and set events already photographed. I decided to write a script, and with the help of Junior Taylor Altidor, who would be narrating, and history teacher David Monaco, that’s what I did.

Taylor leads with her amazement in learning about Miami’s segregationist history, and describes how her multiethnic school of just over 300 students embraces a philosophy of inclusiveness. And she notes how those who pioneered integration 50 years ago led to her way of life today.

The result is a five minute multimedia audio slide show that I hope is an informative and emotional history lesson for today’s students. The school plans to feature the piece on the ACND web site, driving traffic from media interviews with students and administrators. They've also received requests to place the story in several university history archives.

Many thanks for the help of Brother Moffett, CFC, VP of Student Services Douglas Romanik, David Monaco, and Taylor Altidor. And thanks to the freedom riders and all those who took risks during the civil-rights movement ... today our country's race relations are far from perfect, but they've come a long ways in 50 years.

“I Hate Moving Around”, Teen Wants Adoptive Family

2011-04-21T15:56:00.005-04:00

In the card game of life, the dealer has given Corey more than his fair share of tough hands to play. When his mother died two years ago while he was 14, it was after her long struggle with self destructive behavior. His father had long disappeared from his life, and the State of Florida became the orphan's only parent.

His first foster care placement found him forced to clean house and do chores while the family’s biological teens did nothing. “So I went on runaway”, Corey says, and he’s bounced from one placement to another ever since. Temptations not resisted led to spending a year at a structured camp on the edge of the Everglades.

Teenager Corey describes his life in foster care and why he wants an adoptive home.
iPad friendly version.

Corey is the subject of the second multimedia audio slide show I’ve produced on commission for the Heart Gallery of Broward County, the traveling photographic portrait exhibit of children in foster care that long for permanent adoptive homes. Only one in ten teens are adopted from foster care, and multiple agencies will deploy the shows in recruitment and training seminars and on line hoping to improve those statistics.

Last October Corey finally moved to a Broward County home where his foster mom “Miss Michelle” and foster brother “Q”, as he calls them, are providing a loving environment that he says he’s thriving in. He’s attending school, has a girlfriend, is pulling his weight at home.

It may be the momentary clarity of a 16-year-old, but he says he wants to become a chef and attend culinary school after graduating from high school in two years. He’s done with temptations, he says, and adds “some people try to get you into doing bad things, but you just have to show them you are a leader and not be a follower.”

All Corey says he needs now is a family to adopt him, before he ages out of the foster care system at age 18. When be becomes an adult he knows the State of Florida will support him if he stays in school, but he longs for that permanent family. One that can sustain him and give him love, which he can return unconditionally.

Last month two teen girls’ shared their thoughts about why they should be adopted, and the advantages over adopting a baby. See more stories featuring Miami multimedia photography that blend public-radio-style interviews with photojournalism.

Sounds Overheard: Cuban Exiles Play Dominoes

2011-03-23T13:13:00.001-04:00

Playing dominoes with less than two full hands at Miami's Domino Park.

For the older generation of Cuban exiles living in Miami, Domino Park, in the heart the Little Havana neighborhood, is a direct connection to their old lives in Cuba. Located on Calle Ocho ( 8th Street ) just west of downtown with its modern high rises, dozens of men, and a few women, gather all day and night to play a very traditional game.

Be transported to Little Havana's Domino Park with 37 seconds of natural sound.

The clack clack clack of game pieces slapping against the worn metal tables pierce the animated conversation, wafting cigar smoke and aromatic Cuban coffee. The official name of the tiny park is Maximo Gomez Park, named after a Cuban revolutionary who fought against Spanish oppression in the late 19th century.

After the Spanish American War, decades of 20th century strongman governments, the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and 50 years of Fidel Castro rule, these domino players are still waiting for the oppression to finally end on their island homeland.

Meanwhile, they will keep playing dominoes in Miami.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

More audio recording and Miami multimedia photography can be viewed here.

Sounds Overheard: Pig Frogs & Grumpy Birds

2011-02-25T12:23:00.002-05:00

Bottle nose dolphin fishing for lunch alongside my kayak last Sunday at Coon Key where Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge meets the Gulf of Mexico.

The Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge is a hidden natural gem that most motorists miss while racing across busy Tamiami Trail from Miami to cosmopolitan Naples on Florida's south west coast. The refuge protects a unique subtropical estuarine ecosystem, ranging from marsh wetlands to mangrove lined islands along the Gulf of Mexico.

Listen to 1:50 recording of wading birds at dusk followed by chorus of frogs.

About an hour before sundown I pulled off Tamiami Trail and parked in the newly constructed Marsh Trail parking lot. With no other visitors at the tall observation tower, and only the low rumble of an occasional highway truck to distract me, I quickly slowed down and began to hear the amazing sounds of the saw grass marsh settle down for the evening.

Hundreds of wading birds, great blue herrons, snowy egrets, coots and white ibis were settling into the trees of a water surrounded rookery, squakwing and honking and grumbling amongst themselves. As the sun reached the horizon, they calmed down a little, with the ibis flapping their wings in unison.

In the fading light a chorus of frogs croaked back and forth, a high pitched chirp chirp chirp of reptilian love calls soon overpowering the sounds from the rookery. Finally, in the pitch dark, pig frogs got to work sounding like, well, croaking pigs. I imagined tourists thinking wild hogs were crouched hiding in the tall grass, waiting for an opportune moment to pounce and devour the uninitiated traveler.

The only creatures attacking me were the voracious mosquitoes, which were sucking blood from the microphone holding hand I extended from under my bug jacket's protective netting. Hidden natural gem or not, it was time to retreat to the safety of my car.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

More audio recording and Miami multimedia photography can be viewed here.

“Adopt Me, I’m Unforgettable”, Foster Teen Dreams

2011-02-05T21:22:00.000-05:00

Best friends Celene and Sheaundra are hanging out in the park together, seemingly typical teens giggling while swinging, gossiping about school friends and alongside a sun sparkled lake share whispered dreams for their future.

But unlike the other children playing in the park, these two girls have no families. Both have lived in foster care over half their lives, orphans after the State of Florida severed their parent’s rights to raise them. They both long to leave their group homes and be adopted into permanent families.

Teens who’ve lived half their lives in foster care describe why they want to be adopted in this 3:10 audio slide show. iPad friendly version.

The problem is, teens in foster care have an uphill battle finding what the Heart Gallery of Broward County calls “Forever Families”, says Barbara Schechter, Executive Director of the Ft. Lauderdale based traveling exhibit of photographs featuring foster children who are available for adoption.

Of the 90 foster children currently featured in the Heart Gallery, 60 per-cent are teens, but only 10 per-cent, about six, will find permanent families, she says. With children under 12, adoption rates are much better, with 30 per-cent being adopted, and the percentages are even higher for those under eight years old.

Schechter believes some potential adoptive parents let unfounded or exaggerated perceptions about teens in foster care get in the way of their considering older children, fearing the foster care system has hardened children into uncontrollable or defiant teens.

At times, she says, teens “are set in their ways, they talk back, they don’t want to be told what to do or how to do it and they don’t like to follow rules”. Then notes, “actually, this could describe my own teenager”, and can apply to foster teens too.

Schechter suggests approaching teen adoption as a mutual decision between child and family, allowing plenty of time for both parties to get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. “Families who can be open about who they are and what they expect can help to make the matching process much easier for the child”. Teens are old enough to choose their family, she adds.

To help prospective adoptive parents start thinking about teens, the Heart Gallery commissioned me to produce a multimedia audio slide show featuring the voices of Celene and Sheaundra.

Teens in foster care often have some tough history, Sheaudra, 15, frankly told me in December, and that’s why they need a family. “I think that’s why people kinda judge us. They think it’s our fault (we’re in foster care), but it’s not my fault ... because my parents made these mistakes, and I didn’t”.

Celne, 14, thinks adopting teens is easier than adopting babies because “... teens are more mature and it’s easier for them to learn than a little kid ... (who) messes up the house, throws stuff, yells and has temper tantrums...”.

She’s a very self confident young lady when she wraps the multimedia show with “I should get adopted ‘cause I’m awesome, I’m smart, I’m mature ... I’m unforgettable!”

The Heart Gallery of Browad County is not only looking for people to adopt children, but also matches those willing to be mentors, donate time, become a child advocate or donate funds. They work hand in hand with Child Net, the private, not for profit organization that manages the child welfare system in Broward County for the State of Florida.

See more stories featuring miami multimedia photography that blend public-radio-style interviews with photojournalism.

Talking Picture Postcard - Tibetan Harvest Prayers

2011-01-28T12:35:00.001-05:00

While Buddhist monks chanted and tossed paper prayers up to the blue sky, ranchers and farmers whooped, hollered and sprayed cheap liquor over the two dozen people gathered at the edge of Qinghai Lake. Last July an extended family of ethnic Tibetans were praying for a successful harvest and green pastures for their livestock.

View an iPad friendly version of this 28 second audio slide show.

Monks carefully placed prayer flags to capture the breezes at this tiny holy place, a row of low stupas sprouting from the rocky and treeless soil where green grass, endless sky and brilliant blue lake merged.

We had spotted the multiple colors while speeding by on the highway, and when we followed the rutted track toward the lake, the only people around were two dirty children willing to pose for coins atop a horse. I wandered over to the fluttering flags, and within minutes the celebrants arrived, monks and civilians pouring out of 4 x 4 pickup trucks.

Located in a depression of the Tibetan Plateau 10,000 feet above sea level, saline Qinghai Lake has no outlet and is China’s largest. Qinghai means “Blue/Teal Sea” in Chinese, and also names this sparsely populated province that contains only about 6 million of China's 1.3 billion people.

Like the few lines we scribble and mail home describing our vacation travels, this Talking Picture Postcard, a brief five photographs and 28 seconds of field-recorded sound, is my way of saying “The weather is fine, having a great time, which you were here.”

And also, "have a great harvest!"

View more Miami multimedia photography at my portfolio site.

Sounds Overheard: Listening To A Lunar Eclipse

2011-01-09T22:39:00.001-05:00

While camping in the Florida Keys last month during the total lunar eclipse, I actually set my alarm for the middle of the night so I wouldn’t miss a rare astronomical event. What an amazing sight, the moon was a dull orange, the nearly black sky allowed millions of stars to pop into sight above the tropical button wood and gumbo limbo trees at Bahia Honda State Park.

Take a minute and a half from your hectic day, put on a pair of headphones or ear buds, and listen: first, gentle waves on the sand, then soft splashes and bubbles in a rocky tide pool, and finally a lone cricket rhythmically chirping above the distant waves.

I imagined I was looking up at the same disappearing moon just as my ancestors had, possibly from the entrance to their cave, the campfire long burned down, their bellies full of mastodon. I wondered if they were frightened at this unexpected sight? Were they frightened by the sounds coming from the darkened woods? A saber tooth tiger roar, a hissing volcano?

My ears could only hear the ocean gently lapping on the beach a few yards away, the crickets chirping in the underbrush ... did Cave Man Tom hear these same sounds?

Water, crickets, sound, oh my, why was I daydreaming when I could be recording these wonderful sounds? At 3 AM I snapped back to 2010, pulled out my recorder and microphone, and had a great time capturing sounds under that big orange moon.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

Finding Sounds Among The Trees

2010-12-15T09:39:00.002-05:00

Sometimes making sense out of a complex soundscape is like photographing a chaotic scene ... at first, you just can’t see the forest through the trees.

Which are my key sounds ? Can I isolate them from the background noise ? Is that sound reconcilable? How will it help tell my story ? Will the viewer experience the real life scene in front of me ?

In the above audio slide show listen for horns, conch shells, and cymbals fading to chanting, then scooped rice and finally clanging tea cups. I Pad friendly version.

Upon entering the Arou Ba Temple in China’s Qinghai Province, my senses were blasted by the monks blowing low notes on eight-foot-long brass horns. Squawking reed instruments competed with ringing finger cymbals. The Yellow Hat sect Tibetan Buddhist monks were chanting, slowly at times, then as rat-a-tat-tat fast as an auctioneer.

At first I listened and watched to get a handle on the action, and for the monks to become accustomed to my presence. I began to use my recorder’s shotgun microphone to select one sound at a time, choosing my story building blocks carefully. If one monk’s chanting was distinctive, I recorded it. When all the instruments played at once, I sensed the complex acoustic mix would be my intro. Three voices were playing off each other, so I placed my omnidirectional mic to capture the layers of sound.

I especially enjoyed discovering the sound of rice being scooped up and dropped over a seriesof decorated silver bowls and rings, a meditation performed together by two monks.

As I saw a compelling image, I’d break for photography. One by one my story elements, once hidden between the trees, showed themselves to me and were recorded or photographed. An incredibly fascinating forest emerged.

Here's a link to past posts from my three week trip to China last July.

Sounds Overheard: Quacking Toy Ducks & The Law

2010-12-05T22:38:00.001-05:00

Keeping an eye out for the law, grown men are playing with whistling toys on the Saturday morning I visit the San Telmo street market in Buenos Aires.
Hear the bustling San Telmo street market in this one minute sound clip.

Quack quack quack, buy “the little duck !” one man offers. Amid a long shrill and trill, an entrepreneur announces “canaries, for children, help your self !” At first the third is wary of my microphone, explaining they are unlicensed street vendors and keep a look out for the police. “Portuguese roosters!” he shouts as he scurries down a cobble stone side street.

The weekly market overflows from Plaza Dorrego, the Argentine capital’s oldest, along streets lined with colonial era architecture. Street musicians and tango dancers perform, tourists and locals fill the outdoor cafes, and antique shops hide treasurers.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

Never Say Never - Insightful Voices Drive Multimedia

2010-11-29T19:29:00.003-05:00

Roger’s favorite high school subject is English, taught by his favorite teacher Brother John Corcoran, who is also his cross country coach. Such relationships provide many teaching moments. But Roger’s greatest inspiration has been observing his mentor quietly overcoming adversity.

Link to iPad and iPhone friendly version.

During our taped interview earlier this year discussing why he liked attending Archbishop Curley Notre Dame, Roger described Brother Cocoran as an interesting and approachable teacher, as well as a challenging and goal-setting coach.

Over the past school year Roger and his teammates have watched their coach recover from an accident, return to walking and then to full duties at school. Roger has learned “to never say never,” an unofficial lesson.

Such insights, straight from the student mouths, have been the driving force behind the six-part multimedia series ACND commissioned to focus their “There’s A School For That” campaign. By using journalistic still photography and public-radio-style audio interviews, the small Catholic prep school on the edge of Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood is growing enrollment and strengthening ties with its support community.

Anecdotal reports suggest these audio slide shows are succeeding in small ways:
- A mother reported her son insisted on enrolling at ACND after being impressed by their web site, where the shows are featured
- Another new student said he chose Curley “to find my athletic potential," directly borrowing a line from one show.

This is my sixth and last post about this project. Thanks again for the help of Principal Brother Patrick Sean Moffett, CFC, his assistant Daphne Dominique, Dean of Students Douglas Romanik, and former Public Relations director Catherine Doble.

Here are all six multimedia audio slide shows from Miami high school Archbishop Curley Notre Dame.

Sounds Overheard: NYC Subway

2010-11-15T20:49:00.000-05:00

The $ 2.25 to ride the New York City subway is probably the best entertainment admission price in town, especially if you travel through the underground with your ears wide open.

Earlier this month I recorded the sounds of a classical Spanish guitarist, then a Manhattan bound train arriving, doors closing, being whisked to another station, where I’m finally left alone on an abandoned platform. Direct link to two minute clip here.

Sure you need your eyes to read the stories on your fellow traveler’s faces, spot the rat running down the rails, be amused by the zombie Halloween costumes. But listening to the sounds surrounding you will make the trip much richer. 

Conversations in Polish, Spanish, Chinese and where in the world are they from ? Music from violins, flutes, drummed upon plastic buckets. Humming air conditioning, whooshing air brakes, ear shattering screeching. Foot steps, the train fading down the tunnel, now it’s quiet.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't havesupporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

Close Encounters Of The Alligator Kind

2010-10-31T19:00:00.005-04:00

I received a stock photo request this week from National Wildlife magazine expressing an interest in using an alligator photograph of mine to illustrate an article about their favorite places to see wildlife.

While I was digging the image out of my digital archive I got to thinking about the fun times I’ve had with Alligator mississippiensis.

Alligator finds dwindling pond at height of dry season, Everglades NP

Don’t worry, I’m not a mountain man with wild beasts stories, or a species discovering biologist nor an accomplished wildlife photographer. I’m just a guy looking to enjoy the outdoors, and photography and kayaking are great excuses to do so. In Florida, alligators come with the territory.

Nine Mile Pond is my favorite place to paddle in Everglades National Park as it features a five mile loop threading between mangrove islands and over the sawgrass prairie, all with water not much deeper than a paddle blade. Fluffy clouds and blue sky mirror themselves on the water. Wading birds and fish eating Osprey fly above. If you are going to experience just one Everglades paddle, this is it.

Rising sun warms alligator's back, Everglades NP

But by the middle of May two years ago it was the heart of the dry season, and I paddled off the pond and down a mangrove covered trail. The water was as wide as my paddle, about 18 inches deep, and muddy brown. After a hundred yards, I could see about a dozen ‘gators up ahead enjoying the only other body of water left, a house sized pool.

Female gator gently touches male to say she's ready for love, Everglades NP

I stopped paddling and drifted forward, and suddenly felt a solid bump transmitted through the kayak’s hull and directly to my back side an inch above. I listened to a scraping sound run down the length of my boat and imagined rocks protruding from the murky bottom. As my stern cleared, I looked over my shoulder only to see a six foot long alligator rise up to the surface. I had run over a gator, and was drifting toward a dozen more.

American Alligator makes daily stroll from Flamingo Bay to Eco Pond, Everglades NP

Now if you are an experienced swamper please tell me if I’m wrong, but I’ve always reasoned that my 12-foot-long orange craft looks like a big old predator in an alligator’s eye. Why would they attack me? No worries, I thought, I might as well make a few photos, and that’s when I shot the seven footer in the top photo as it drifted by my wide angle lens .

Faces On The Radio

2010-10-20T22:58:00.004-04:00

As my ears thumped to the pounding rhythm of goat skin drums, my eyes were arrested by the heavy coral beads hanging from the young Tibetan girl’s hair. I heard tinkling silver bells. I saw orange color. I heard the crowd, then saw her intense expression. Sound and sight sent my brain the story of hundreds of folk dancers and musicians driving the devil from a Buddhist temple.

Click here for an iPad friendly version of the audio slide show above.

While traveling in China’s remote north western province of Qinghai this July, I found that my ears had become just as sensitive as my eyes. I would discover an interesting natural sound, bleating sheep, whooping celebrants, chanting monks, and then I’d find a portrait to photograph, putting a face on that sound.

When working in multimedia I like to close my eyes and imagine the sound coming from my car radio, and ask, “do I see what I’m hearing” ? Yes, then lets put a face to the sound. Lets put a face on the radio.

Photography and natural sound work together beautifully to produce a richer, fuller story than either component could on their own. In this two minute audio slide show I chose 13 portraits of Chinese I met - Han, Tibetan and Hui - and wrapped a field-recorded sound clip around the photograph.

Close your eyes and listen ... what can you see? Now open your eyes to hear even more.

I wrote almost every day about my July experiences here. More multimedia photography from China can be viewed here.

Talking Picture Postcard: Tango Dancing Ghosts

2010-09-30T12:21:00.011-04:00

Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina:

Wandering the narrow alleyways between the mausoleums, I feel the cold winter breath of grieving stone statues blowing on my neck. I shiver as I look into the faces of those buried here, the bearded military man frozen in brass, the child’s youth photographed and trapped under porcelain.

Click here for an iPad friendly version of the above audio slide show.

Is there anything alive here ? In my imagination I hear the plaintive music of a bandoneon, the accordion-like instrument that’s the soul of Argentine tango, accompanied by a small music hall piano. Are the ghosts dancing, or are the tunes from last night’s bar still playing in my head ?

I’m exploring the famous Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aries, a city of 6,000 graves laid out along orderly streets and avenues. Since 1822 Argentina’s rich and famous have been buried here, including Evita Peron, wildly popular with the poor she championed and the beautiful wife of President Juan Peron. She died of cancer at age 33 nearly 60 years ago.

Her family crypt is often thronged by still worshipful admirers and tourists, yet it was decades before her remains were resting here safely under 27 feet of cement. With the winds of Argentine politics the corpses of Evita and Juan traveled around the world, with Juan’s hands being stolen by politically motivated grave robbers.

No such drama today. Today the only serene living creature I encounter among the granite and marble monuments to the dead is a sleeping feral cat, curled up under the statue of a stately dog and it’s once young owner. I still hear the tango music in my head, blending with the quiet feline’s purr.

All photographs captured in the Recoleta Cemetery with Nikon P6000 “point-n-shoot” camera, with natural sound recorded in San Telmo neighborhood’s Club Sur, August 2010.

For more multimedia visit Miami Multimedia Photographer.

Multimedia Roots Sprouted Decades Ago

2010-09-10T18:00:00.007-04:00

Multimedia story telling is a lot of fun. Simple as that. Why ?

It reawakens that excitement I had a a kid in the 1960s burying my nose in stacks of "Life" magazines over at my friend Mike’s house. Those double page black and white photos depicting a devastating Appalachian flood and solders dying in Viet Nam riveted my attention.

Story telling photography hooked me then and there, exposing the wider world to sheltered me living in a tiny Idaho town.

Click here for an iPad friendly version of the above audio slide show.

Multimedia rekindles the amazement I experienced on my first newspaper job in 1970s Seattle while photographing The Adventuress, a 1913 wooden schooner. My sailing companion, a television photojournalist, opened my ears by using his movie camera attached microphone to highlight wind in the sails, lines singing through pulleys, waves splashing and voices chanting.

Wow, a new way to tell stories other than with pictures. I thought back then that if for any reason I couldn’t continue working as a photographer, I would like to work with sound. It took a while, but here I am, having fun with sound ... and pictures.

Like with the fifth multimedia audio slide show from the “There’s A School For That” series commissioned by Archbishop Curley Notre Dame High School here in Miami. Senior class president Jessica tells why being a leader has helped her grow as a person and prepare for college. Photographs, audio interview and ambient sound allow you to see and feel her commitment in making ( while fasting for a weekend ) and delivering 3,000 peanut and butter sandwiches for the homeless.

Each of these two minute shows took between 40 and 50 hours, two in the field photographing and recording, and at least three more days on the computer cutting audio, editing and processing photos, assembling and tweaking the time line. A lot of work, but also a lot of fun.

I’m grateful those roots for exciting story telling have continued to grow in me all these years. Its fun, simple as that.

View more Miami multimedia photography here.

Tibetan Monk Hand Clapping Debate: Qinghai, Day 16

2010-07-30T12:16:00.009-04:00

Lungwu Monastery, Tongren, Qinghai, China:

Yesterday evening I was exploring this sprawling Tibetan Buddhist monastery and came upon 250 yellow hat sect monks chanting in the fading summer light and seated in a beautiful outdoor courtyard. After about 45 minutes, the orderly formation broke up into a wild scene of shouting and hand clapping as pairs of monks practiced their traditional form of debate.

Listen to hundreds of monks debate in this 40 second sound clip, then fade intodeep throated leader and group chanting.

Debate is an important part of a Tibetan monk's training, and is said to help expand the mind, increase mental sharpness, develop analytical skills and help gain mental clarity.

The debates follow a strict form, with the standing questioner challenging the thesis of the humbly sitting defender. As the questioner raises doubts, the exchange becomes increasingly animated, with exaggerated body language, lunging, hand slapping and loud shouting. The defender mostly sits quietly and looks away, occasionally making a counter point by waving his arm.

During prayer time, I noted the younger monks, some just boys, doing most of the chanting, gathered close to the gravel voiced master up front, with monks in their 20's to 40's fanned out in a large horse shoe shape. Maybe they were more senior and did not need to chant, or were simply seated farther from authority, as they quietly chatted and joked together, or made quick and curious glances at visitors.

This is probably my last post from this province in China's north west. With just 6.5 million of the country's 1.3 billion, it's strong ethnic Tibetan and Muslim ethnic minority population, has given me some amazing photographs and sounds.

I also enjoyed making new Chinese photographer friends at the Qinghai Three Rivers Photography Festival, and along with colleague Nancy Brown of our South Florida chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers, had a blast helping to judge the 6,000 entries.

Stupa & Dalai Lama Objects Of Veneration: Qinghai, Day 15

2010-07-28T19:14:00.007-04:00

Sangge Shong Monastery, Rebong, Qinghai, China:

The Stupa of Kalachakra is an amazing technicolor object of veneration, at six stories tall it's a long way from the original simple mounds of mud that are thought to have housed the remains of the Buddha several millennia ago.

A monk of the Tibetan Buddhist Yellow Hat sect carried a large ring of keys yesterday evening as he opened giant red wooden doors at the stupa's base, and led us clockwise up the layer cake of ramps and steps, circumambulating to a tiny chapel housing a multi-armed and multi-headed goddess.

I noticed a small photograph, about 3 by 4 inches, of the Dalai Lama under the goddess, and when we visited several other temples within this large monastery complex near Tongren, I saw the Dalai Lama's portrait on every altar.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet's portrait in Temple of Tsongkapa last night.

While in China these past weeks I've noted photographs of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet in every Tibetan temple, and have wondered if his difficulties (to put it mildly) with the Chinese authorities are somehow thawing in a small way. I've read that visitors should never give his portrait as a gift as possessing one is a serious offense for Chinese citizens.

Taoist Temple A Hidden Corner: Qinghai, Day 14

2010-07-28T03:57:00.002-04:00

Wenchang Temple, Guide, Qinghai, China:

I've always marveled how China provides an amazing experience around every corner, even those off the beaten track corners that don't exist in any guide book and the only reason you're there is because you turned left instead of right.

Listen to Taoist priest in this 32 second sound file pray, play a silver bell and paddle drum, a large bell rings, and birds chirp in the quiet garden.

Yesterday we decided to turn left and see if a small temple mentioned in town would turn into one of those corners. You bet it was, with chanting Taoist priest, worshipers ringing bells, fascinating art work and animal offerings.

Taoist priest leaves temple, above, while below, fierce looking sculpture of an Immortal looks down on visitors.

Below, animal scull and entrails offering mix with incense smoke in temple courtyard.

Hui People Practice Islam: Qinghai, Day 13

2010-07-26T11:10:00.002-04:00

Guide, Qinghai Province, China;

While traveling these past weeks in China's northwestern province of Qinghai, I've been meeting many Hui in addition to Tibetans, both among China's officially recognized 56 ethnic groups. Traditionally the Silk Road passed through Qinghai and Gansu, bringing Central Asian influences including the Muslim religion to China.

Above a grandson looks on as his grandfather and relative play a board game over tall glasses of herbal tea outside Quilian.

Today I met this Hui woman selling red and green peppers in Guide's market, and this Hui butcher took a break from chopping up mutton to pose for a photograph.

Unlike many other ethnic minorities here, the Hui mostly do not speak their own language and speak Chinese. The Hui are very similar culturally to the Han majority, except they practice Islam and retain their cultural identity through worship and dietary laws.

The Muslim influences I've seen are the distinctive caps for men and scarves for women, golden mosque minarets peaking above city skylines, and lots of spicy mutton at meals.

Below, a young Muslim woman rides her scooter to work while wearing a sequend head scarf, photographed yesterday in Wulan.

For more photographs from China please visit Tom Salyer Photography.

Self Confident Chinese Women: Qinghai, Day 12

2010-07-25T09:58:00.003-04:00

Wulan, Qinghai Province, China:

Today I awoke in Wulan, a small dusty town that could pass for dozens of other Chinese towns I’ve been in ... a wide modern boulevard lined with shops and restaurants, people riding bikes and scooters to work, cooking smells wafting about. No quaint architecture or chic shopping district in Wulan, it sits on the edge of Qinghai’s western desert and is off the main highway.

As often encountered in China the sidewalk I was strolling on was a construction site, no warning barriers of course, just a four foot deep trench where a sewer line was going in. Carrying the bricks and mixing the mortar for support walls were these two women laborers. Posing for me with their protective scarfs lowered, I was impressed with their easy relationship and self confidence.

Heading east, as we entered the Qinghai Nanshan Mountains, the landscape turned to rich green grasslands and we climbed to about 10,000 feet. At this altitude families of Tibetan herders were tending their yaks, sheep and goats and were camping in summer tents.

Just inside the door of one tent I met another very self confident subject, a Tibetan girl about six or seven years old who proudly showed off her festive costume.

Sand Dune Camel Chaos: Qinghai, Day 10

2010-07-23T09:14:00.002-04:00

Mingsha Sand Dunes, Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China:

With their prosperity growing along with their world dominating economy, the Chinese are visiting the far corners of their country as tourists, and today it seemed to me that a goodly percentage of this nation of 1.3 billion had descended upon the same sand dune. What makes the scene even more fun are we were all mounted atop lumbering, grumbling camels.

Listen for tinkling camel bells, shouting camel drivers, bellowing beasts and the shouting chaos of a happy tourist crowd in this 32 second sound clip.

I’m visiting the Mingsha Shan Sand Dunes just outside of Dunhuang, a small oasis town in Gansu Province that once prospered as the last stop on the Silk Road. Here the ancient trade route split north and south to skirt the Taklaman Desert. I’ve read that Taklaman roughly translates to “you go in, you don’t go out”.

After leaving Qinghai Province yesterday, we drove west 700 km ( 350 miles ) across Gansu’s stony desert, which must be the bleakest territory I’ve ever seen. And hot, 39 degrees Centigrade, which I really don’t need to convert to Fahrenheit to know it’s crazy to be out in the noon day sun on top of a camel on top of a giant sand dune. But hey, the camels and tourists don’t seem to mind.

Horse Hair Temple Musical Riot: Qinghai, Day 8

2010-07-21T09:51:00.003-04:00

Arou Ba Temple, Quilian, Qinghai Province, China:

Thecrisp staccato of finger cymbals cut through the musical riot emanatingfrom the monk’s instruments, two high pitched reed horns, a seashelland the long low blasts from a six foot long bass horn. The chantingweaved under, over and around the music, the two dozen monks fillingthe horse hair tent temple with worshipful sound.

Listen for horns and cymbals in this 36 second audio clip, then brass teacups and chanting.

Today we stopped by a dusty little temple complex situated in thetreeless highlands in far northern Qinghai Province, in China’snorthwest corner, and way in the back the chocolate colored tent wasset up to let warm summer breezes enter through open sides.

Whilechanting each monk, of the Tibetan Buddhist yellow hat sect, filledseveral dozen brass teacups on a small table, then emptied them, wipedthem dry, and poured tea again.

While kneeling on the ground, one young monk rolled his bass horntoward my microphone and blasted me, to the amusement of all. Anotherpulled a point-n-shoot camera from his robes to snap my photo. I enjoythe personal touch such small monasteries provide and feel close to a culture very different from mine.

Tibetan Heritage Festival: Qinghai, Day 6

2010-07-19T11:31:00.002-04:00

Haibei, Qinghai Province, China:

Today I attended a Tibetan heritage festival complete with singing contests, amazing costumes and jewelry, all spread across a green grass meadow dotted with wildflowers. At the top of the hill prayer flags quietly flapped in the breeze.

Off in the distance I could see the town of Haibi, the birth place of China's atom bomb, a very strange juxtaposition indeed.

No story telling today, the long days are catching up with me, and we are off tomorrow to travel away from the capital city of Xining through Qinghai Province and into Gansu Province, all the way west to the silk road. I will post when I have internet access ... what did Marco Polo do without it ?

Sun For Embroidery Buddha: Qinghai Day 5

2010-07-18T11:03:00.002-04:00

Kumbum Monastery, Huangzhong, Qinghai Province, China:

Today dozens of monks struggled up steep steps carrying the long rolled Thangka. Accompanied by blowing silver horns and clanging cymbals, hundreds of pilgrims struggled to touch the giant embroidery. Once unrolled and it’s yellow silk protective cover removed, a magnificent Buddha covered the entire hillside.

Once a year this beautiful embroidery Buddha is given sunshine at the Kumbum Monastery of the Tibetan Buddhism yellow hat sect, and is the centerpiece for an elaborate devotional service. With incense burning, pilgrims throw scarves, paper prayers and money onto the Thangka, which is then rolled back up hill by dozens of shouting young monks.

As the Qinghai Photography Festival winds down this weekend colleague Nancy Brown and I had the option of visiting a Tibetan cultural museum, or break away to follow up a tip we received several days ago chatting with a Chinese student practicing English on us. I’m glad we skipped the museum.

Yellow Hat Monks & Parasols: Qinghai Day 4

2010-07-17T10:31:00.002-04:00

Kumbum Monastery, Huangzhong, Qinghai Province, China:

Today I visited one of the six great monasteries of the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism again, as did thousands upon thousands of Tibetan pilgrims, Chinese tourists, and several hundred photographers attending the Qinghai Photography Festival.

But in spite of the multitude I was struck by two things: 1) the monk’s daily routine and worship probably haven’t changed for centuries, such as these three wearing their distinctive yellow hats and pleated crimson robes, and 2) Chinese ladies are capable of wearing six inch heels to climb stone temple steps and simultaneously carry dainty lace parasols for sun protection.

More photographs from China may be viewed at my portfolio site.

Call To Prayer In Muslim China: Qinghai Day 3

2010-07-16T08:43:00.006-04:00

Dong Guan Grand Mosque, Xining, Qinghai Province, China:

Thousands of men were streaming from the mosque onto busy Dongguan Street after Friday afternoon prayers, greeting friends with warm handshakes and stopping to chat. Most had beards and wore embroidered white caps, and ranged from young teen boys through middle age and beyond.

58 second audio clip of the Muslim call to prayer recorded today:

I was visiting the Dong Guan Grand Mosque in Xining, capital of Qinghai Province where several hundred thousand Chinese pilgrims worship during Ramadan. Qinghai has a large Muslim population as historically Central Asian influences have infused this northwestern corner of China since the ninth century.

Visitors are encouraged to enter the mosque’s surrounding grounds, and Chinese tourists in small groups were being shown around by men who were explaining the tenets of Islam. They spoke at great length with strong voices and obvious conviction, answering the occasional question. I speak no Chinese, but the word Mohammed came through loud and clear, as did their calls to prayer.

More Miami Multimedia Photography may be viewed here.

Laughing In The Street Market: Qinghai Day 2

2010-07-15T03:06:00.006-04:00

Mo Jiajie Market, Xining, Qinghai Province, China:

I was busying myself photographing the usual suspects, pigs feet, live fish, delicious looking fresh vegetables stacked chin high in the stalls when the young baker beckoned me over to show off his beautifully baked round bread just out of the oven. We didn’t need to speak each other’s language to see the pride in his eyes. He wanted me to take his photograph, which I did, sharing the results with him on the camera’s screen.

I was walking through the Mo Jiajie Market in the center of busy Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, nestled up against Tibet and Sichuan and Gansu. I hope to blog a photo or two and several paragraphs every day I have internet access.

Further down the street I saw a large crowd gathered outside a music store, the laughter rolling out and into the market. It was coming from the shoppers and the television set outside on the steps playing a comedy show. Everyone was transfixed with smiles on their faces.

I quietly slid through the crowd and up and into the store to shoot out of sight as if in a duck blind. No need really, the crowd didn’t notice me until much later and then the two ladies pictured wanted to see their photos. They seemed pleased, they giggled and pinched my cheek before walking down the street. I wonder if they bought the pigs feet.

To view more photographs from China, visit my portfolio site.

Buddhist Monks, Young & Old: Qinghai Day 1

2010-07-14T10:23:00.004-04:00

Kumbum Monastry, Qinghai Province, China:

The young monk must of been about 12 years old, and after a half dozen prostrations on the ground, he would stand back up, wipe the sweat off his face, and look around at the hundreds of Chinese tourists thronging past the steps of the temple in the pounding rain. About a minute of rest, down to his knees, hands on two cloths, he would face downward and push off until he was lying flat on the ground in complete reverence, only to pull back to his knees a moment later and repeat.

I couldn’t help thinking about the 12-year-olds living in my Miami neighborhood, what they would be doing on this same July morning ... playing with a GameBoy if raining, riding bikes or taking tennis lessons? A long way from this Yellow Hat sect monastery of Tibetan Buddhism about a half hour outside of Xining, the capital of Qinghai. A sparsely populated province with only about 6 million of China’s 1.3 billion people. Qinghai is sandwiched between Tibet to the west, Gansu to the north, and Sichuan to the south.

On the other end of the temple platform was a monk several generations older than the young boy, so old he could only sit on the stone step and slip into his own thoughts. I wondered how many prostration prayers he made when younger.

I’ll be spending about three weeks traveling here - attending a photography festival, judging a photo contest and exploring - and will try to post a photo or two along with a paragraph or two every day I have internet service.

More photos from China may be viewed at Tom Salyer Photography.

Unscripted Audio, Surprising Multimedia (Now iPad Friendly)

2010-07-04T14:11:00.006-04:00

When I began my audio interview of high school senior Rhod for the fourth “There’s A School For That” multimedia show, I really had no idea what the football quarterback and standout basketball player would be saying. Would I get enough good quotes for a two minute audio slide show? Would it be all about himself? Any insights into how his school shaped him? ( iPad compatible version. )

Let see, what do you think?

- “Coach Magner is everywhere really ... if you are a new student, even if you don’t look like an athlete ... he will get you out to play a sport and he will work you as if your the greatest athlete in the world, and make you be the athlete you didn’t think you could ever be.”

- “Coach says something like this ‘you gotta get your work done across the street to be able to play over the other side of the street, you have to have the grades to play.’ ”

- “Coach Magner defines me as cool head and warm feet, because when I’m under pressure I never blink twice or look to do something else. My first decision is always the one I take because I’m the definition of cool head and warm feet.”

Going into each of the six student interviews at Archbishop Curley Notre Dame ( a 300-some student college prep in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood ) Public Relations Coordinator Katherine Doble told me in general terms each subject’s area of accomplishments - athletics, leadership, academics - but we had no predetermined script.

Rhod just started talking about athletic director and coach Greg Magner, so Coach became the show’s focus.

Freshman Silvia had only been in high school a few weeks and hadn’t experienced much yet. But when during her interview she came out with

- “And so far every morning when I come to this school I have a smile on my face, and everyone notices it, and I’m happy when I come”

we knew we had the theme for her show.

Who needed a script when, while I was recording ambient sound in the weight room, I picked up Coach Magner saying over the noise

- “Just show up to work just like your parents do every day, and you’re become successful. ”

I wasn’t even interviewing him, but I used the sound clip as a transitional bridge.

Of course working without a script creates a lot of extra hours in front of the computer editing sentences that sometimes make no sense, thoughts that trail off to nowhere, scrambled grammar. But hey, they're high schoolers, not college professors, and the unscripted gems are worth the effort.

You may now view this show on your iPad or iPhone with OS4, thanks to Sound Slides current beta. Due to Apple’s spat with Adobe, iPad/Phone owners are unable to view content Flash content, which all of my slide shows on this blog are. But now I’m able to post HTML5 versions that auto detect the cool Apple devices. Maybe my blog is the beginning of that print-magazine-to-electronic-reader revolution we are all hearing about ?

To see more Miami multimedia photography, please visit my portfolio site.

Portraits Anchor Multimedia Start To Finish

2010-06-17T22:29:00.004-04:00

I knew from the start of story boarding I wanted to feature environmentalportraiturein the recently completed six part “There’s A School For That” multimedia series. Uniqueportraits around school would introduce each featured student, book ending candid photography making up story center with final portraits shot along a locker lined hallway, each studentposed in that same location.

Leading each audio slide show with students looking at camera, I hoped to immediately establish a connection with the young eighth graders who might be considering Miami’s Archbishop Curley Notre Dame. Plus the environment and activities would say “high school is ~~interesting~~ sweet".

Environmental portraits are a lot of fun, as I have an opportunity to create one photograph that tellsthe whole story about my subject, show their personality, place them in their environment, each itemI include adds to their story. This lead portrait must grab you as the show opens, while variations changing every few seconds hold your attention.

With Michael, a junior who enjoys math, I was faced with two challenges: 1) come up with an interesting visual concept that says “math” and 2) find an environment that contributes to the story telling.

In his case the concept also became the environment, and a simple two light setup would pull it off.

After scratching my head for a few minutes, no really, after a week of weighing options, I decided to flat bed scan pages from Michael’s Pre-Calculus notebook, projecting the formulas complete with blue grid lines onto a classroom wall. I placed him in the beam of the LCD digital projector and added one flash head with a very tight 3 degree grid spot aimed at just his face. A short time exposure held the projection,
which became both fill and main light, with the gridded flash exposed about one andone-third stop over that drew attention to his face and darkened the environment.

I also used environmental portraiture to wrap each show and visually tie all six together.

Each interview ends with the student emphasizing why they enjoy ACND and/or who inspired them, and concluding “There’s A School For That”, while their lockers-and-hallway portrait holds on screen.The same slogan and hallway location form a common thread through all six shows.

At the end of Michael’s interview he says “ If you want a school where your friends push you to succeed just as much as your teachers, there’s a school for that, Archbishop Curley Notre Dame".Credit for the slogan must go to Public Relations Coordinator Katherine Doble and Principal Brother Sean Moffett.

Hopefully the use of environmental portraiture tells the school's unique story while holding viewers attention from beginning to end. If so, that would be really ~~cool~~ sweet.

Additional multimedia photography from Miami may be viewed at Miami Multimedia Photographer.

Film Or Digital, Panoramic Landscapes China Bound

2010-05-28T14:53:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I was preparing a collection of panoramic landscape photographs to be exhibited in July at the Qinghai Sanjiangyuan International Photo Festival in China, and while rescanning some of my favorite large format film images I compared them at pixel level to my recent panoramas stitched in software from multiple digital captures.

Rocky Mountains at Lake St. Mary, Glacier National Park, Montana, captured on 617 format film ( 2 inches tall by 7 inches wide ), large format view camera.

I had forgotten about film grain! Slow speed digital doesn't have any. Film horizons are straight lines! Rotating a digital sensor in a circle for a stitch curves the horizon and you need to hide the distortion. Light table viewing of film with 4X loupe misses seeing tiny cars parked a mile across mountain lake! Processing digital on a giant computer monitor you see all the flaws.

But I quickly stopped pixel peeping and was transported back to those outdoor locations to soak in the beauty I experienced when the shutter clicked, and realized it really didn’t matter if I was capturing my small slice of the world with a piece of film or a digital sensor.

Pretty obvious really, the story, emotion and sense of place in the photograph is what matters.

Hammock filled with and bald cypress and air plants, Everglades National Park, Florida, 220 degree digital assembly.

I can’t say which panorama making technique I like the best. With film, I have to slow down, think and be deliberate, as it requires setting up a heavy tripod, assembling the view camera rails and bellows, then attaching a lens. This makes me choose my subject carefully.

Under a dark cloth, I view the image upside down, so the scene becomes abstract, helping me balance my composition. I then remove the cloth, insert a preloaded magazine, and have four shots on one roll of film. Oh, exposing color transparency film is tricky. And nerve wracking, each frame costs the equivalent of a small cheese burger.

Spring mist rising on Roaring Fork, Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee, 617 format film.

With digital, I quickly set my Nikon vertically in a special rig that allows me to swing around the lens nodal point, and I can zoom to compose precisely. My “35mm” lenses allow me to get into tighter spaces and see higher and wider. Long time exposures are linear as opposed to film, so no reciprocity failure to calculate in, and the camera processes out the noise. And with digital capture being “free” ( not counting the massive investment in upgrading cameras, computers and software ), I save a lot of cheeseburgers. Yum.

Maybe creating panoramas with digital cameras is quicker and easier. Yet film is more contemplative and precise. So I’ll just pick the tool that works best for my subject and creative ends.

Sun setting in endangered pine woods, Everglades National Park, Florida, 170 degree digital assembly.

I'm looking forward to visiting Qinghai, one of China’s least populated provinces with not quite six million people ( out of 1.2 billion ), and it’s nestled up against Tibet to the West. I’ll be traveling with colleagues Nancy Brown of Boca Raton and Tania D’Avigon of Boston, both have also been to China multiple times, and we will drink a toast or two with our Chinese friends from previous trips.

The photo festival has invited many “foreign photographer friends” to attend and exhibit, including our American Society of Media Photographers South Florida chapter, which has sent their Light of Florida photography collection.

If you are interested in seeing the panoramic cameras used for these photos, I’ve posted a little more information on my Miami panoramic photography portfolio site.

Power of Ambient Sound: Sizzling Fries & School Bells

2010-05-07T15:52:00.005-04:00

Do you ever hear an old song on the radio that immediately takes you back to your past? Maybe that wonderful summer after graduating high school, driving the back country roads of rural Idaho with your arm around Gloria, the girlfriend soon to be left behind on the way to college in the fall ?

I’m not a psychologist and can’t explain why music imprints into our brains, but I do know that sounds tap a deep emotional response in me. Just like that summer song triggering an old story, when I hear croaking frogs, I feel a rain forest in my head. When I hear wailing sirens, I’m surrounded by oppressive big city traffic. The Tibetan monk’s cymbal reverberating in my headphones, I smell yak butter tea.

Recording ambient sound is one of my favorite parts of multimedia, and for the second audio slide show I produced for Archbishop Curley Notre Dame High School’s “There’s A School For That” campaign, I had a lot of fun with sound.

What better way to trigger those high school emotions than recording the clanging class change bell and hallway voices. I lead the show with about seven seconds of only ambient hallway sound, then duck under her interview, leaving levels high enough to still hear the banging lockers and squeaking sneakers.

Here the ambient sound first catches your attention and draws you into the story, and before Silvia’s interview begins, hopefully you’re hooked. Then the sound bed drives the narrative along. Between Silvia’s thoughts, ambient sound levels rise, taking over the story telling, like at the basketball game where you hear the coach and players huddle, and the referee’s whistle.

Just like real life, our brains don’t concentrate on that sound bed, but we feel the sound, we see the the sweaty players, we know we’re in the high school gym.

As the show winds up, the sound of frying french fries comes in strong before Silvia beings her story of her older sister asking if Curley still serves the fries she loved. The bubbling of the cafeteria deep fryer catches and holds your attention, and as the sound bed ducks under, I can taste those same fries that she is talking about. ( Good fries, BTW, I tried and liked them, though maybe the accompanying cheese burger clouded my judgment ...)

I love the complex layers of interview voice blending and threading around and over and behind the background sounds of life in a vibrant high school. I decided to run a sound bed under the entire length of each of the “There’s A School For That” multimedia shows because, well, I love ambient sound. It tells me stories, triggers my emotions and just like that old song on the radio, makes my life a whole lot richer.

Here's a link to more ambient sound blended with multimedia photography.

Talking Picture Postcard - Mangrove Creek Songs

2010-04-28T10:15:00.007-04:00

My favorite kayaking destination here in South Florida is any waterway that takes me though a tunnel formed by mangrove trees, a path that almost blocks out the sky above and forces me to inch along a glassy smooth tidal creek deep in the back country.

Earlier this month I spent four days paddling the 10,000 Islands area off Florida’s South West coast, putting in either at Everglades National Park’s Chokoloskee Bay ranger station in Everglades City, or off the Tamiami Trail in the Big Cypress National Preserve.

On a Monday I quickly paddled past the off shore mangrove islands dotting the bay and entered Half Way Creek with a rising tide, utilizing the powerful tidal flows to my advantage. In about an hour I was wrapped in a mangrove canopy completely encompassing the narrow creek, all sound reduced to my splashing paddles.

Then I heard them, two different song birds, one hidden just out of sight in the thick red mangroves, it sounded like it was right on top of me, and the second, I guessed a different species, off at a distance. They seemed to be playing a duet, one trilling upward, and a moment later the closest one singing a six note refrain.

Water dripping from my paddle was the only sound between the songs. Using my recorder's built in stereo microphones I could hear in my headphones the notes echo back and forth through the mangrove tunnel and off the water. (If you’re a real sound geek, try ‘phones to hear the separation, water drip and mosquito buzz.) Then the birds flew off, leaving me in complete silence.

Halfway Creek flowed into the Left-Hand Turner River, and finally the mangrove cover opened up to small shallow ponds where sunlight rippled through tannin colored water, and when I entered Turner Lake, I paddled blue back country waters.

Turning South onto the Turner River I rode the outgoing tide back into Chokoloskee Bay, already missing my intimate mangrove tunnels and their hidden singers

Here's a link to more multimedia photography Talking Picture Postcards.

Multimedia Drives “There’s A School For That” Campaign

2010-04-20T19:15:00.008-04:00

Designed to catch the attention of teenagers in the internet age, a series of multimedia audio slide shows I’ve just completed relates a Miami high school’s unique educational philosophy through compelling student profiles featuring custom created still photographs, combined with audio interviews and field recorded natural sounds.

Hopefully by watching you will see how Senior Melissa’s words and passion personalize the entire high school. The show is 2:14 long, and a larger version may be viewed here.

Archbishop Curley Notre Dame, a Christian Brothers’ college preparatory high school here in Miami, is making these shows the centerpiece of their “There’s A School For That” recruitment and marketing campaign.

With school and parent’s finding the economic downturn impacting their budgets, and educational alternatives competing for their prospective middle school applicants, ACND hopes to raise their current 302 enrollment closer to 400, a number that can be educated at the same cost, thus alleviating some of the financial pressure.

ACND, in Miami’s Buena Vista neighborhood alongside Little Haiti, offers students in grades nine through 12 a college preparatory curriculum in a Catholic environment, and for decades has been a leader in inclusiveness. In 1960 they admitted their first African-American students, the first Florida school to do so, while surrounding Miami-Dade County public schools were not integrated until ten years later, and then only by federal court order.

I’ve written here before that I’m really excited about how multimedia that combine journalistic photography and interview styles give audiences a fuller, more compelling experience than any one of these elements could by themselves, either on line or in print.

By attending ACND Melissa found she really loved to sing, and music director Daphne Dominique’s personal attention nurtured her talent. In four additional shows that I will post here in the coming weeks, a quarterback relates how his coach taps each student’s best, a student tells how friends help him academically, a student leader blossoms and a brand new freshman is just plain happy to come to school every day.

Principal Brother Patrick Sean Moffett, CFC, challenged me to capture one key aspect of each selected student’s excitement about the school. I needed to tell each story with a handful of sentences and a couple of dozen photos, plus a bed of ambient sound for depth and realism.

With running times between 2:04 and 2:24, each show required five to six days of work ... about a half day of interviewing, a day and a half for photography and ambient sound recording, and then at least three more days in post production computer time editing the audio and photos, assembling into the slide shows and processing for output.

These shows will reach ACND's prospective students, their parents and supporters when featured on the school’s web site, distributed on flash drives as pod casts, shared as videos via social media sites and played on TV screens at events.

I must thank Brother Moffett and his staff for their help producing these projects, including Public Relations Coordinator Katherine Doble and her Barry University intern Homma Rafi, Vice Principal of Student Services Douglas Romanik, and Secretary to the Principal Daphne Dominque.

More multimedia work can be viewed on my new Miami Multimedia Photographer portfolio web site.

When In A Jam, Bread & Butter Portrait Light

2010-03-29T12:58:00.049-04:00

When I started learning to light environmental portraits, a more experienced photographer friend gave me some advice that has served me well ever since. Perfect one or two “looks” that you can whip out of your equipment cases in a hurry, when you are in a jam and up against the wall with little time to set up or stuck in a horrible location.

For an assignment last month for Paul DiMattia, Art Director for Business Miami,the University of Miami School of Business Administration’s alumnimagazine, I utilized one of my bread and butter looks. I wasn’t in ajam, but I needed to work in a hurry, adapt quickly to changingconditions and work without an assistant.

I was to meet three students at three separate times, each about a half an hour apart and in the same general outdoor campus location, creating portraits that would relate to each other and be run as a triptych.

My first light was the overall ambient coming from the late afternoon sun slicing through the heavy tree cover. By placing the students with their backs to the sun, I let God light the overall background and project a nice back light onto their head and shoulders. I underexposed the ambient a stop or so with my shutter speed, just enough to save the sparkly highlights in the leaves, but dark enough to allow my subjects to pop off the background.

The bread and butter formula called for my second light to be a medium soft box at arm’s length off to camera right just a touch and adjusted to give me nice skin tones and details in their clothing. (You need to use at least a moderate wide angle, like 35 mm, or the box will be in your way.) The box had enough angle to give me some definition by cross lighting their faces, but not to much to be unflattering. If I’m using a lower camera angle looking up, I will lower the box to keep a catch light in their eyes. I will never use the soft box from a high angle.

I will place the main light either left or right,depending on how they part their hair, where the sun is or physicallimitations on placing light stands in a crowded spot ... or in this case, all on the same side to work in the triptych. This light couldbe from two thirds to a stop and a half over the ambient, first setwith a flash meter, then adjusted to taste by viewing the camera’shistogram. If the soup needs more salt, I adjust to taste.

The third light was a subtle touch but a vital part of making the formula light a great light. I set it up on the side opposite of the main, higher and behind. It skimmed the hair, side of face and shoulder, helping to separate my subject from the background. A bare head with gobo made of tape and cardboard or whatever is handy helps control flair, and as it is usually a lot hotter than the soft box. I pull the stand way back to adjust it to about a stop over, depending on clothing, hair or skin color.

When I received the bread and butter light advice, I was still a staff photographer with United Press International shooting news and sports almost always on the run. What ever light and circumstances thrown at me I would work with, making the best photograph I could while never breaking the journalistic barrier of influencing the subject in any way that would not depict the truth. Sure, the very acts of deciding on a particular moment to trip the shutter or selecting what to put in or exclude from our photographs would influence the “truth” we put on the wire for newspapers around the world .

But we didn’t debate those philosophical questions very often ... we just didn’t set up a news photos or ask someone to do something they didn’t normally do.

When I went freelance I found that portraiture for business and feature magazines was a very different beast.  

Firstly, a portrait by definition is having a subject pose for the viewer and is not “truth. Yet viewers accept the fact that people normally don’t freeze with hands on hips or arms crossed in every day life, with just the perfect bit of authority, warmth or attitude on their face. And secondly, most business portraits have to be set up in order to choose an environment that not only helps tell the subject’s story, but also is artistically pleasing.

Oh, and set it up all fast because Mr. or Ms. Executive is Very Important and only has a few minutes to allow you to capture that perfect fleeting moment that distills their essence in a photograph!

Pun warning: over the years I’ve saved my bacon by pulling out the bread and butter when I’m in an environmental portrait jam.

Here's a link to more Miami corporate photography.

Multimedia By Saying Hello In Chinese, Mongolian & Tibetan

2010-03-17T14:37:00.166-04:00

I've been developing a web site to show case my multimedia work, and in the process of reviewing all my projects, I've decided to premier "Chinese Breezes" here. I produced it last Fall and it's never been posted for public viewing.

Breezes showcases 53 photographs created during my first four trips to China ( 2004 through 2008 ), and reflects my candid street photographic style plus the compromises inherent in traveling while partially on someone else's agenda. I wrote about those compromises and upsides earlier on this blog.

It's 3' 30" long. A larger version can be viewed here.

The photographic technique I use to capture the relaxed and candid side of people from a culture other than my own is pretty basic. I show respect, smile, indicate an interest in them with body language ... the Golden Rule I guess.

My Chinese vocabulary is limited to a handful of badly mispronounced words. I can say "beer", "bottoms up", "spicy", "ice". Oh, and "ni hao" for "hello", the most important.

While in China's Inner Mongolia in 2008, I learned one word in Mongolian, sain baina uu, sorta pronounced "say ba nooh". We went 10 days without seeing a single other Western face, and often when approaching ethnic Mongolians were greeted with blank stares and open mouths. A smile plus "sain baina uu" immediately broke the ice.

And last year in the ethnic Tibetan regions of far Western Sichuan province, "tashi dele" for "hello", pronounced by me as "sa shea daleah" worked just as well.

I really mean it, instant smiles in return.

I like to imagine my self walking down Ocean Drive on South Beach when a tall, green alien approaches me with a camera around it's triple neck ... a friendly "hello" in English would work as a terrific ice breaker. Would I sign a model release with one of those "for any use throughout the universe" clauses, well ....

Unlike some photographers I don't automatically offer to show my candid subjects their image on the back of the camera, as I feel that breaks the flow of the moment. If they are unsure of my intentions after one shot, and I can read that on their face, then the LCD may help. Or if I've shot a lot of my new found friend, I have images in the can, then sharing may cement our relationship.

I guess stopping to show the LCD after one or two frames feels to much like the concentration breaking practice of Chimping, looking down at the screen after each and every shot. Nothing brands the scarlet C on an amateur faster.

What is Chimping, those non photographers may be asking ? The story goes that in the early days of digital, like all of 10 years ago, news photographers gathered at large events were amazed by the ability to actually see their photos instantly on the back of their cameras' tiny one-inch screens.

They would point and say, " Look, cool ! Ooh, ooh, ooh ooh ooh !", sounding like chimpanzees.

The sound track on "Chinese Breezes" is the first multimedia program for which I have not recorded the sound bed. The upbeat Chinese themed sound track is called "Scarf Dance", composed by Jonathan Geer of Pot Of Earth Publishing.

Here's a link to more multimedia photography from China.

Talking Picture Postcard - Sichuan Opera

2010-03-11T08:44:00.008-05:00

At the end of my November trip to China's Sichuan Province, we spent several days in Chengdu, a city of about 10 million people who pride them selves not only being modern and relaxed, but also the center of the distinct art form called Sichuan Opera.

"Dear Kathy, in Chengdu tonight very funny henpecked husband character at Sichuan Opera a hoot, and secretive face changers amazing. Traditional musical instruments great, beer even better. Tom "

I was expecting the stiff and formal opera style often associated with Beijing Opera, notably a lot of loud screeching. I was quite surprised with the program at the Shufen Ya Yun Tea House, which in addition to the opera performance featured amazing musicians and shadow puppeteers.

Wikipedia describes it much better than I - "...Overall the art form is well known for its singing, which is less constrained than that of the more popular Beijing opera form. Sichuan opera is more like a play than other forms of Chinese opera, and the acting is highly polished..."

The show wrapped with two secretive face-changing artists, who whipped multiple masks off their faces in a blink of the eye. We were told the skill is a highly guarded secret.

I can't say I did any fancy audio engineering to capture the sound bed for my second Talking Picture Postcard ... I simply left my recorder near the orchestra pit and let it run, leaving both hands free for either a camera or a cold beer.

Here's a link to more multimedia photography Talking Picture Postcards.

Talking Picture Postcards Personal Challenge

2010-02-28T20:43:00.014-05:00

Today I’m launching what I hope will become a challenging personal project, telling short stories from my experiences and travels by assembling just a handful of photographs and a few sound clips to tell short stories.

I’m calling them Talking Picture Postcards, and hope to write them fairly often and mail the multimedia shows on this blog.

“ Dear Mom, went camping in Everglades NP, found great Osprey nest with two chicks ... kayaking on Florida Bay at sunset another family squawked at me. Otherwise very quiet and peaceful weekend. Promise to find real job soon. Tom”

I’m trying to think of each as a couple of lines on the back of a picture postcard, like those I’ve discovered while rummaging through dusty boxes in antique stores over the years. I love those hand colored black and white photos of some some obscure vacation spot from the 1930s or 40s, or even the sepia toned ones from the early teens.

After gleaning what I can from the photos, I turn the cards over to read the hand written lines, often family news, weather reports and plans about the future. I wonder how the parties to the correspondence lived their lives and what happened to them. Those few lines can be the best part, ease dropping on people who’ve long since passed away.

But here I am 50 or 100 years later, reading about how they enjoyed their visit last weekend or how they are sending money to their sister.

With a postcard you only have room for the briefest of reports, so my challenge will be to use 20 to 30 seconds to scribble my couple of lines on the back of these digital postcards.

If you're reading this 50 years from now after discovering a dust covered box of antique blogs, I hope it was a bargain.

Here's a link to more Miami multimedia photography Talking Picture Postcards.

Wide & Skinny Panoramic Photographs

2010-02-11T14:13:00.010-05:00

Even though I’ve been distracted in recent years photographing with digital cameras and their traditional format, I always enjoy returning to view the world in the wide and skinny panoramic format.

I’m forced to see in different terms when my picture telling canvas is three times as wide as it is tall. Sure the rule of thirds aids my composition, but mostly I lead the viewer’s eye from left to right or vice versa, allowing them to roam along and discover the exciting corners of my narrow frame.

In China last Fall I used my Hasselblad XPan II for both street photography and landscapes. Here a morning commuter reads his morning newspaper outside the subway stop at the end of busy Nanjing Road in Shanghai.

The X-Pan is a 35 mm film camera that is small and portable and focuses with a traditional range finder. You look through the clear view finder, not the actual picture taking lens as a single lens reflex, and frame your photo with brightly outlined frame lines. With no auto focus motor you actually turn your fingers to focus, lining up two frosted rectangles. I gotta admit, sometimes in switching from my SLR to the X-Pan and seeing everything sharp, I forget to focus.

Continuing to walk the chaotic streets of Shanghai, I selected thisnature-landscape-within-urban-jungle combo. Click photo to enlarge.

Generations of street photographers have utilized rangefinder cameras in their work. The cameras are quiet and stealthy, and being unencumbered with all the latest auto everything, micro processors and super telephoto lens, your mind is clear to really make photographs. I do utilize the XPan center weighted aperture priority auto exposure, and the motorized film transport frees up my thumb for hanging onto the camera.

This November landscape shot was captured at sunset in Sichuan, China, as we crested a 14 500 foot pass.

Often one thinks of panoramic photography when they need a wide angle view to encompass a dramatic landscape ( Here are examples of large format panoramic photography. ), like the Grand Canyon at sunset, but use of a pan camera need not be limited to landscapes. I use the format to extract bits from my confusing surroundings, some times very tightly, and to hand hold during people photography.

In panoramic the aspect ratio of width to height is at least 2 to 1, with 3 to 1 being my favorite. The XPan is 2.6 to 1. Any wider than three times the height, you have difficulty viewing in traditional display prints or in print publications, however on the web very wide aspect ratios work well in virtual reality applications.

On an earlier China trip several years ago the XPan street credentials help me capture this brick yard worker

and these People’s Liberation Army soldier flag bearers at a festival opening ceremony.

The XPan is no longer manufactured, a victim of the decline of film photography, and prices on E Bay continue to be very strong.

Having E-6 color transparency film processed is a challenge now, with not one single South Florida lab reliably running it. I now express ship film to BWC Photo Imaging in Dallas, much more complicated and expensive than just a few years ago when two hour turn around at more than a dozen Miami labs was routine.

I love the advantages of digital and have never looked back since switching from film for assignments in 2006, yet for quietly capturing those wide and skinny photos of people, I’ll stick with old fashioned film and my Hasselblad XPan.

Sichuan Audio Slide Show Plays To Strengths

2010-01-25T11:12:00.049-05:00

When I put together a multimedia presentation my goal isto combine still photographs with audio interviews and natural soundthat give the viewer a fuller, more compelling experience than any oneof those elements alone could do by themselves.

Storytelling photographs can stand on their own quite well, say in a dailynewspaper, as can an audio interview of the subject broadcast on theradio, yet the marriage of the two through multimedia on your computerscreen or even as a podcast on your tiny iPod screen seems to presentmore information in a lot more exciting way. (If mentioning newspapersand radios in the same sentence dates me, well, so be it.)

Hearing the story subject speak in their own voice lends more legitimacy to the photographs, and photograph of the speaker places the voice in context ... the viewer can trust as real what they both see and hear.

And in my opinion adding a bed of natural sounds underneath the photos and interview adds a fourth dimension of spice, texture and realism to the presentation. Ambient sounds makes the entire dish sizzle with reality, like smelling the aroma of the chef’s creation as final proof the food is real.

I’m very excited about my latest multimedia project from my November trip to China’s Sichuan Province, 72 photographs with two dozen field recorded sound clips combined into an audio slide show. Relying on only natural sounds and no interviews, here is the three minute 20 second show.

You may ask, why not just shoot video ? The best answer is that I play to my strengths of being an experienced still photographer and a good listener. I know how to capture story telling moments in time as a photojournalist and portrait photographer, and understand how to blend photo selection, point of view and sequencing to linear story telling in multimedia.

And I’m finding recording audio in the field very fulfilling, as I’ve blogged about before here and here.

Both of these skills I can be good at on my own, a one man band in the field. Please note that good photography and good audio are two separate and equally important jobs. To do each one well requires close attention to creative and technical skills, so balancing both in the field is a dance of compromise.

At the Tagong Temple I was recording a monk playing drum and cymbal, and through the window could see more monks outside in the courtyard playing shell horns, a great photo. Grrrrr. But I had to remind myself to be happy with the moment, and I did record some great sound.

But with video, life becomes a lot more complicated. There is a reason they have “video crews”, with producer, director, director of photography, sound tech, camera operator, gaffer, caterer and on and on. And once it’s shot you need narration, music and full scale production services. Should a client need video, I partner with those who specialize in these areas.

On my own in China, I’ll keep it simple and keep listening for photos and looking for sounds.

Here's a link to more multimedia photography from China.

Lighting Cover Photo In Warehouse

2010-01-08T11:55:00.007-05:00

A recent conversation with my teen aged daughter got me thinking about the bulk of the photography I do, shooting environmental portraits for magazines and corporations. I guess I’m really a problem solver, creating interesting photographs of people in usually very uninteresting surroundings - making something from nothing - and it’s a lot of fun.

I’ve been working on a multimedia project my daughter’s high school, which I will report about here soon, and some of her friends saw me on campus and asked her at lunch what I did for a living. When she answered that her dad was a photographer, they all said “Cool !”, implying an understanding that in our society photography is glamorous.

But I don’t shoot celebrities, professional athletes or rap stars, nor do big name travel magazines assign me to photograph tropical islands. My work is not glamorous, as a case history of an executive portrait shoot in a dingy warehouse will demonstrate.

My assignment was to create a compelling cover photograph of Rob Brant, owner of Miami’s City Medical Services, for Ascend Media’s HME Today, a small trade magazine covering the Home Medical Equipment supply industry. Rob had been very active in the trade’s effort to stay above the Medicare national billing fraud scandals plaguing a tiny portion of the industry, with Miami-Dade County being ground zero for hundreds of millions of dollars of government losses.

My photographic challenge began as soon as Rob showed me around his small warehouse situated in an industrial district. At first brush there were nothing interesting visually to work an environmental portrait around, with shelves and tiny passages jammed to the concrete ceiling with jumbles of wheel chairs, medical beds and breathing machines. There were no clean backgrounds, no sexy piece of medical machinery to set my composition around.

Poking around and scratching my head on my own for half an hour, I finally discovered two heavy racks of green oxygen bottles almost hidden in the corner by a garage door. At that point I was grateful for any color, and green caught my eye, as did the repetitive pattern offered by the storage racks. And the oxygen related to Rob’s business.

With warehouse staff help we dug the racks free and filled in the empty spaces with bottles from around the building. Now I had a background with potential visual interest, stuck in a dark corner.

I placed my first flash, a bare tube on a short stand behind the racks and against the cream colored wall, a space of only a few inches. A bare tube is simple flash unit about an inch in diameter and six inches long without modeling light, reflector or cooling fan, with a long cord attached. They are a lot of fun to hide and insert light in difficult spots. The flash bounced off the wall and all around to back light the racks and opened up the dark corner.

Now I needed to place my subject in front of the background, and turned an empty bucket upside down for a short stool. To hide the bucket, give Rob something to place his hands upon ( I think hands are very expressive in portraits ) and add more medical equipment clues to the photo, we rolled over two large tanks that take oxygen from the air. First we had to dig them out of the mess, unwrap them and clean them off.

My second flash was a three degree honey comb grid from camera left, a spot light that at this distance, four feet, lit just a six inch circle, to open Rob’s face with light and not throw extra light all over the set, destroying the mood I was creating.

Light number three was a narrow strip soft box high above Rob at camera left to throw straight down a rim light on his hair, shoulder and hands on the tank tops. The strip was about 14 inches wide and 40 inches long, and also kept stray light from being thrown all over.

At that point I thought the front of the oxygen generators were to dark, so I added light number four, pointed straight down from six inches above the gray concrete floor. Turned to very low power, it added just enough fill light at a cool upward angle to complete the shot.

With a warehouse worker sitting in, I adjusted the lights with flash meter and camera histogram, and about two hours after arriving I was photographing Rob for his first magazine cover.

I love it when I successfully create an environmental portrait that my client is happy with and was a challenge of logistics, aesthetics and photographic lighting. It’s fun, and to me, even a bit cool. But glamorous, sorry kids, I would have to say no.

Here's a link to more Miami corporate photography.

Open Mind Discovers Florida Keys Photos

2009-12-31T13:22:00.010-05:00

This month I spent a windy, overcast and for us Floridians a chilly week in the Florida Keys enjoying the out of doors and taking a break from pushing pixels around on a computer screen.

No long philosophical essay here on the renewal of creative juices for those in the visual communications business. Nor will I evoke Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond to describe the spiritual benefits derived from being out-of-doors.

Just a short note to say I love the outdoors and being alone for a few days with nothing I have to do, and lots of optional creative outlets - photography and sound recording - available should I be moved to leave my campsite reading chair or find ocean kayaking in 30 mile per hour wind no longer relaxing.

You may click on any of these photos to enlarge them.

Without the pressure of having to produce a photograph to a client’s specifications I wandered about Bahia Honda State Park - one of the most beautiful state parks in the country and which has a beach once voted the best in America - struggling to abandon any previous techniques that would box me in to capturing the same old same old photo.

I arrived late in the afternoon and set up my tent in the wind and rain, and it was after “sunset” that I was walking along Sand Spur Beach on a very gray day when I noticed lightening bolts opening up the inside of storm clouds off shore in the Atlantic Ocean. “Thats cool”, I thought, all lit up from inside.

I threw my camera on a tripod, guessed a 30 second time exposure at F 11 might blur the water and if I was lucky I might catch a lightening flash. I was lucky, on the first frame only and created a photo I had not anticipated.

During the day I was looking for a way to make the drab, flat, overcastlight interesting and was poking around the dry, sandy scrub land thatmakes up the interior of the island. I noticed some new bright greenSea Grape leaves, about five inches across, and wondered what theywould look like if I lit them with just a light from behind. I placed aflash underneath, blew the light through a white diffusion cloth, andexposed to see the veins and detail thingies inside the leaf. Sorry I’mnot a botanist, but I loved finding a new way to discover thecomplexities of a leaf.

The next evening there was a five minute window at sunset as the sun sliced under the heavy cloud cover and skimmed from the West right along Sand Spur Beach, highlighting the wave ripples as they quietly created patterns that changed several times a second. Here a telephoto lens and fast shutter speed gave me a new insight.

Here's a link to more editorial photography from Florida.

Still Photos Tell Time With Time-Lapse Photography

2009-12-14T14:35:00.114-05:00

With some basic experiments in time-lapse photography I’ve been tackling one of the conundrums of multimedia audio slide shows, how do you depict the passage of time with still photographs that do not move.

You may click on photo to see larger.

Below is a 12 second Quick Time movie depicting stars rotating aroundPolaris - the North Star - in Everglades National Park earlier thisyear. Or click here for a full size version. A photograph was made everyfour minutes over 72 minutes, from 12:38 Am to 1: 50 AM, andwhen assembled to play over 12 seconds, the rotation is really cool.

Slide shows posted to the web have to grab the viewer’s attention and keep it or they will click onto something more interesting, like kittens clapping their paws in time to music on You Tube. Keeping the story’s pace moving and varied is important and can be done in several ways;

limit the time each still photo is on screen to under six seconds or so
vary the screen time from image to image
utilize close up detail photos to balance wide scene setters
make sequences of the same portrait setup varying subject size & placement in frame
pan across a photo with a “Ken Burns” effect
and lastly, utilize time-lapse sequences of still photographs

In the above 22 second Quick Time movie shot on South Beach this Fall atsunrise, 55 photos were captured at five second intervals over justfive minutes. A full size version can be seen here. By the way, all three movies attached here are accompanied with natural sound recorded on scene.

Cinematographers have been using time-lapse photography since the early days of movies by capturing each frame of film at a rate much slower than will be played back. A regular feature film is shot at 24 frames a second, and when projected at the same frame rate the motion seems normal to us. Filmed at a much slower rate but played back at 24 fps, the action is sped up. (If shot at a faster frame rate, but played back at 24 fps, we perceive slow motion. ) We’ve all seen time-lapse sequences of flowers blooming, where oneframe is shot every hour or so and petals slowly unfold, or a glacier receding from year to year, with one frameper day captured.

Changes across time too subtle for the human eye to detect, such as stars moving in the sky or the sun rising, are slowed down for our study and enjoyment by a slower replay frame rate

From the 47th floor penthouse looking South in August down Miami Beach’s Collins Avenue, the Atlantic Ocean on the left and downtown Miami at upper right, shots were made every 30 seconds or so over 37 minutes for this 21 second Quick Time movie. Full size version available here. I enjoy seeing the clouds slide by, a boat zip up the intra-coastal and post sunset glow settle onto the city.
This sequence with fewer frames included opened the multimedia show I wrote about here.

Time-lapse photography is adding a fun dimension to my multimedia projects by allowing me to show the passage of time. And I'm combining the outdoor and skyline photography I love with my photojournalism and environmental portraiture.

Here's a link to more Miami multimedia photography.

Audio Recording Leads To Pelican Rescue

2009-12-09T07:11:00.011-05:00

Sunday I decided a peaceful kayak paddle on Biscayne Bay was a terrific way to enjoy the mild Florida weather and a great opportunity to record quiet ambient sounds, so I grabbed my sound recording gear and Nikon digital point n’ shoot camera and launched just five minutes away from my home. As I left I had no idea I was going to rescue a pelican from certain death nor be cursing the noisy skies above.

You may click on any photo to view larger.

Enjoying the sensation of floating freedom the first few paddle strokes, when my body realized I was not rushing through a metropolis of 2.2 million people, I threaded between a half dozen low mangrove covered islands. In this part of Biscayne Bay, which runs North 35 miles from the Florida Keys and is sandwiched between the Miami Beach barrier island and mainland Miami, I felt as if I was in the wild, yet I was surrounded by urban skyline all around. Sunday I could understood artist Christo’s fascination with these islands which in 1983 he wrapped in miles of hot pink plastic for his Surrounded Islands art project.

One island is a popular rookery for water birds, allowing osprey, brown pelicans, white ibis, cormorants and even magnificent frigatebirds , which have impressive air filled red pouches and long forked tails, an isolated haven for safe nesting sites. Floating off at a reasonable distance as not to disturb them, I powered up my recorder and shotgun mic to record their raucous clamoring.

I’m not a birder, but I could distinguish the throaty clack-clack-clak of the cormorants and the angry screeching of a great blue heron. And with headphones it sounded like I was deep into a far off wilderness. Well, for about 60 seconds ... off in the distance I heard an airplane, a jet coming closer and louder, finally a roar in my ears. I waited for it to go away, and started recording again. Less than a minute later, another jet.

I quickly realized Miami International Airport was sending flights almost exactly every minute off over Biscayne Bay, and on top of me and the rookery, as the wind was coming inland from the Atlantic Ocean. And soon I picked up the mile off go fast boats, roaring up and down the Intracoastal Waterway , and then a propeller plane pulling a sign that read “I luv u Amy, will you marry me? Omar.”

What the heck, I decided to incorporate the jets into a sound clip, plus some peaceful wind blowing through island palm trees and water lapping on shore, recorded in the 30 seconds of relative silence between jets. It's 1:30 long.

By the time I left the rookery, the wind was blowing with light chop and rain squalls were passing over the bay. I headed for a more southern island, and hugging the shore, I turned a bend and was startled by a pelican less than a paddle length away. He was sitting just above the water on a mangrove branch. I said “hello”, and moved off not wanting to disturb it. But about 100 yards down the island, it struck me that something did not seem right. Pelicans always fly away from large orange kayaks.

I turned around and paddled back, approaching the pelican again and looking closely I could see it was thoroughly tied down with fishing line. I could even see a lead sinker half an inch across. Carelessly discarded fishing tackle is a major threat to pelicans in Florida, as they can swallow baited hooks or be caught during a cast. In May I photographed Wendy Fox, the Executive Director of the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and I had seen dozens of injured and recuperating pelicans at their facility just a couple of miles up the bay from this poor fellow.

I knew from watching Wendy teach an intern how to handle pelicans that I did not have the special skills to catch a wild bird with a 10 foot wing span, and I certainly had no veterinary expertise. But this spot was in water about two feet deep so little small boat traffic passed by, and I had to do something. No telling how long it had been trapped, it could be starving to death for all I knew. I paddled over to the mangrove in the choppy water, and the pelican flapped and spun around on it’s fishing line tether.

I cursed not carrying a knife with me, but I was wearing paddling gloves, so I figured I could at least break the line. With the bird squawking and throwing it’s beak about, I noticed a brass clip holing an 18 inch leader to a large hook caught deep into the center of his back. Bad luck for the bird, good luck for me as it was an easy fix, and the moment the bird felt the tension release, it flapped off into the water under thick mangroves.

I really didn’t want to capture the bird and paddle it to the Seabird Station, but I had to make sure it wasn’t half dead. I beached the kayak, crawled under the mangroves, shooing the bird into open water, where it flew off. I was relieved to see it seemed vigorous, and hopefully the hook could remain in it’s back without harming him for the rest of his life.

I gladly joined the large club of Florida boaters who have rescued sea birds, and paddled off looking for more sounds to record, wondering if Amy took Omar up on his proposal.

Here's a link to more Miami multimedia photography.

Photographing Details and Grasshopper Buzz

2009-11-23T20:05:00.012-05:00

Earlier this month I had fun searching for detail photographs, those very selective views extracted with a telephoto lens, while visiting Chengdu in China’s Sichuan province, a bustling and visually chaotic city of 11 million. From past experience I knew that discovering details often reveals small insightful stories about the country I'm traveling in, which I feel is one of the best rewards of travel.

While walking through the park-like Kuanzhai Xiangzi shopping area in the central Chengdu, I heard the melodic sounds of metal tuning forks. Men and women dressed in medical style white coats were sounding them to solicit business from shoppers and tea house customers.

They were the city’s unique ear-cleaners, who carried pockets full of what looked like miniature chimney sweep tools, long wooden and wire handles with knives, scoops and brushes on the end, some tipped with tiny delicate feathers.

I didn’t really want my ears cleaned, especially not in full view of the public, but there was no shortage of others getting comfortable in chairs under shade trees, closing their eyes and slowing displaying the most relaxed expressions on their faces.

I was told the procedure is less a hygienic exercise and more a massage-like experience, with the tools and feathers stimulating acupuncture points within the ear. When the vibrating tuning fork is placed against a brush, the gentle sound deep within the ear has been described as the soft relaxing buzz of a grasshopper.

I encountered another visual detail while visiting the Wenshu Buddhist Temple where visitors were touching, patting and caressing two large brass lions guarding the main hall’s entrance. These mythical male and female lions symbolize defense and protection and guard many building and gateway entrances throughout China.

I knew touching the lions is thought to bring good luck, but these worshipers were also touching the corresponding spot on themselves. A pat on the lion’s worn head, a pat on their head. A brush down the lion’s back, a touch to their own.

A visitor explained to me that it is believed their own physical ailments at those locations would be healed or at least improved with the tactile help of these lions.

Just outside the Wenshu Temple were incense and candle shops and rows of outdoor souvenir stands lining the busy commercial street, a perfect example of the new China. One tiny detail caught my eye, a rack of plastic medallions with bright red braided cord. In the USA they could pass for either Christmas ornaments or decorations to hang from your car’s rear view mirror.

I loved the juxtaposition - and irony - of Mao Zedong’s familiar and reassuring portrait being sold next to Buddhist religious icons. China certainly has come a long way since the chaotic Cultural Revolution of the 1960s where no religion or independent thought was tolerated, nor were entrepreneurs allowed to flourish selling anything.

Such a small detail I might have overlooked in the past

When earlier in my career I was shooting news for daily newspapers and later United Press International, I was always looking for that one moment in time that would tell the reader the journalistic touch points of who, what, where and why. Often the best way to do that was with an all encompassing wide angle lens, placing the action in the foreground while maintaining the context of the surroundings. The optics of a wide angle emphasizes what is closest to it, yet it can fit in a lot of real estate left to right, especially if your in tight quarters. A photographer can also create a wonderful three dimensional feeling with a wide angle with graphic lines leading your eye within the image.

I still have that news photographer point of view, a wide angle is my “normal” lens, 24 mm or so, rather than what text books describe as the preferred angle of view, a 50 mm..

But as my client base and photographic interests have broadened, so has my need to capture detail views to be published in print complementing the scene setter, or utilized in multimedia shows depicting movement and time.

And I’m learning more about the world around me ... maybe when I next visit Chengdu I’ll understand the wisdom of having my ears cleaned.

Here's a link to more editorial photography from Sichuan.

Personalizing A Small Business With Multimedia

2009-11-13T17:12:00.017-05:00

When Jana Armstrong came to me in September she had a definite goal for her title insurance company, Miami based Continental Title Services; grow her business and thrive in spite of our current world wide economic slump that has hammered the real estate industry.

She had thought through and articulately put on paper what her small business was all about and why her services were unique, and had distilled the information onto her redesigned web site.

She challenged me to help her differentiate her company's site from the crowd of title insurance company sites competing for attention in South Florida.

I suggested that a multimedia slide show - combining still photographs with recorded interviews - would present her as a real person, warm and approachable, professional and knowledgeable. By utilizing journalistic interview techniques and photographic styles we would place a unique voice and face to all the written material.

We all know from when we were kids with noses buried in the National Geographic that everybody looks at the photos first, then maybe, reads the story. And with the YouTube generation well reasoned sales copy may be skipped over, but two minutes of multimedia may just make the connection.

Here is the finished show, live this week, and link to a larger version.

To create the multimedia slide show we first discussed what handful of key points she wanted to make in a brief 2 minutes 46 seconds, and I interviewed her from a list of questions prepared from those points.

Next was recording ambient sound of their document scanner, keyboards and conversations, and then street traffic and the ocean, to lay a bed of colorful sound under her voice.

I created environmental portraits of her overlooking the financial district’s Brickell Avenue and on Biscayne Bay to place her in the midst of Miami, the vibrant crossroads city.

I shot journalistic photos of her conducting a closing with clients, and then detail shots of hands, papers and CDs to vary the show’s timing and pace.

Capturing a time lapse sequence of Miami Beach skyline from daylight to after dark, and photographing a condominium project described in the interview, added additional visual layers to the narrative, emphasizing her stature in her market area.

And lastly, screen shots grabbed from her web site would mark specific points touched in the audio story.

I loved working with Jana on this project, she being an equal partner in planning the interview, sketching out the story board and shaping the program's pace and tone. And I was able to combine my photographic favorites of environmental portraiture and city skylines with the newfound magic of audio.

Ah, then the really hard part began, post production, editing and mixing the audio, selecting and processing the digital photos, placing the ingredients into more software to set and adjust the time line. For every day in the field, several more are required on the computer to complete a multimedia project.

The results, I feel, humanize the rows of type on a screen in telling Jana Armstrong’s story to the world.

Here's a link to more Miami multimedia photography.

Listening For Photographs and Looking For Sounds

2009-11-06T14:58:00.022-05:00

I’ve just returned from more than two weeks traveling in the ethnic Tibetan regions of
Western Sichuan province, the mountainous areas abutting the Tibetan Autonomous Region, as the People’s Republic of China describes what we call the country of Tibet.

This fifth trip to China was my first where I started listening for photographs, and looking for sounds.

When we first drove up a steep hill to the Huiyuan Temple in Bamei, looking down onto a temple carved from the earth, dozens of spinning prayer wheels and hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims marching clockwise, I was overwhelmed and unable to pick up a camera. Just too many sensations to absorb at once. Heck, there were even dozens of young monks swarming all over painting the decorative roof.

I put on my headphones, turned on my tape recorder, attached a microphone and started listening. I heard the shuffling feet, and spin of the wheels. I followed a tinkling bell to the far side, recorded the low chants, creak of the prayer wheel. I noticed the steady thump of walking sticks. I started to see photographs and got to work.

Play the 30 second clip under the photo and experience how the ambient sounds inform the photograph, and how the photo amplifies on the recordings.

After dedicating my entire photographic career to photojournalism and commercial photography by capturing a single image distilling an entire story into a single frame, Henri Cartier-Breasson’s famous “Decisive Moment”, I’ve begun working in multimedia production. I’ve become fascinated with the expanded dimensions of story telling that capturing on scene ambient sounds and interviews with photo subjects add to my still photographs.

Ultimately I will combine the sounds and still photos from Sichuan into a multimediaslide show that will tell a story over time, linear story telling, butthat will be a topic of a future post.

At a Tibetan cultural dance festival in Danba I loved photographing these men wearing hats made from wild cat skins ( and hoping they were not endangered species ), yet when I recorded their call and answer singing with their female partners, and their skin boots stomping, the entire experience came alive.

Back in Chengdu, a very laid back and friendly city of 10 million, I was walking through the quiet gardens attached to the Wenshu Temple, one of the largest Buddhist temples in China. It was overcast, air yellow with pollution. Bad light, my photographer side said. While listening to the monks chanting during their mid-day meal, I heard a bird at a distance, and followed the sound. Then more birds, playing off each other, rising and flowing through the trees. I did not recognize them as wild, they were so melodic.

Under the low hanging bamboo trees were six song birds in cages, enjoying the “fresh air”, with their six elderly male owners sitting on stools and animatedly discussing the affairs of the day and the relative skills of their birds. Another combination of photographs with sound.

It all started last summer. For years I’ve spent a lot of timecapturing landscapes and photographing the wildlife in Everglades National Park, using the subtleties of sunrise light or catching theglint in an alligator’s eye to tell my stories. Of course I was awareof the sounds around me, buzz of the insects and calls of the birds.But they were just part of the enjoyment of being out doors, not beingin an office cubicle to make a living. But this summer when I venturedinto the same familiar wetlands with a tape recorder and shotgun mic,suddenly my visual world really came alive with the sounds thatsurrounded me. A thunder storm, rain drops and running water said“Everglades” in a way none of my photos ever had.

Be warned, it's three minutes long.

I was unable to post to this blog while in China, as the government has blocked practically all access to social media from within the country, including Blogger, Face Book and Twitter. An internet search from within China yielded complicated articles on how to use proxy servers to read and post to overseas blogs, but I decided that was way too complicated while I was working up to 14 hour days and sleeping poorly at 10, 000 feet.

Heck, the PRC has even blocked access to the iTunes store, making it impossible to catch up on the National Public Radio shows such as “Car Talk” that I missed!

Here's a link to more editorial photography from Sichuan China.

Lessons From Chinese Breezes

2009-10-09T16:20:00.009-04:00

I have two sides to my working personality, and I think most people do too. One side rational, the other side emotional. Organized and disorganized. Hard working and lazy.

Two photographs that I've taken in China illustrate my different sides and have taught me two lessons about capturing great photos while traveling. First, work really hard, do your homework and be persistent. Secondly, don't worry about outside forces and be flexible.

Shanghai is an amazing city to say the least, a perfect example of China's new "Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics", and nothing exemplifies that better than along The Bund, the promenade above the western bank of the Huangpu River facing the towering skyscrapers of the Pudong District.

The Bund is within the former Shanghai International Settlement and is fronted with colonial era buildings that before 1948 housed Western Banks, trading offices and foreign consulates, embracing centuries of Chinese history. Today, thousands every morning keep Chinese traditions alive by performing tai chi, exercising and strolling. The skyscrapers, some the tallest in the world, across the river represent the booming economy of China.

Planning before my trip dictated the obvious photo opportunity, and I returned to The Bund early every morning for four days running. I noticed older men flying elaborate kites each day, their dancing toys way to high to make a picture. Finally, on the last day, just as the sun was rising, I made the image I felt captured both the traditional and booming China.

On the same trip, my friend Nancy Brown and I were invited by the Huaguang Photography Art College in Fujian Province to share our photography and be liaisons with the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale.

The college is located in the city of Quanzhou, a city of over seven million, and is not exactly a hot tourism destination. The one place we found in a guide book with picture potential was a puppet making industry, so we asked our hosts to set up a visit. They promised for four days that it would be no problem.

On our last day, we were told we were finally off to thepuppets, but first a few stops that the city fathers and schoolofficials, who were financing our trip within China, wanted to showoff. First, the electrical cord factory. Second, a rustyship yard. Third, a mosque that consisted of mounds of rubble. Then, a decorative paper cutting workshop. Don'tworry, the reassured us, the puppets are awaiting.

Then, off to see a monument. At that point Nancy and I protestedand complained, as politely as we could that we were tired of the dogand pony show. No, the monument we must see !

When we approach the monument, reportedly the largest in China, of Zheng Chenggong, a 17th century Chinese national hero, we were amazed by the scene. And this complainer caught the perfect moment of a woman flying a tiny kite under the giant horseman.

As for the puppets, the factory was closed when we finally arrived, but by then it didn't matter as I had already let go of my agenda and captured the unplanned.

Here's a link to see more editorial photography from China.

Garbage Dump Challenge and an Old Promise

2009-10-09T14:37:00.013-04:00

Last week I was tasked with creating interesting environmental portraits and progress photographs at a garbage dump for new client Brenda Westhorp, owner of Westhorp & Associates , a firm of civil and environmental engineers and scientists.

My challenge was to place Brenda in the context of the landfill, make it graphically pleasing, avoid

any messy details entailing garbage, and have her look great and in charge. We picked a quiet spot on

the far Eastern edge up against a filtering wetland near Biscayne Bay, she climbed up on a manhole covering a leaching water sump, leaving in the weeds and wildflowers to say the facility is "green".

I then cued the turkey buzzards, asking them to fly around in the background as local color.

Letting the existing sunlight back light her and popping in flash from the front to balance, I laid on my back in the dirt while Brenda posed patiently in the 95 degree sun. Many thanks to the Department of Solid Waste garbage truck drivers who patiently maneuvered around us on the narrow access dike.

Her company is completing a complex multimillion dollar project to cap off a section of the Miami-Dade County Land Fill that is full to the brim with our garbage, and to keep all the leaching water and escaping gasses away from us for eternity. They are laying plastic liner, then sand and a permeable fabric to hold topsoil, and a new grassy field will crown the 150 foot structure.

Around South Florida the land fill near Homestead has been called" Mount Trashmore ",
and folk lore designates it as the the tallest point in Florida south of Tallahassee.

Creative people such as photographers hope they are chosen for their jobs because of some special insight they may impart, good people skills or specialized training. Like possibly I was hired for this shoot by an engineering firm because I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering ?

Sorry, but no, that degree is my secret and the promises I made to earn it I keep to this day. I was in my Senior year at Gonzaga University back in the 1970s, and was failing a required mechanical engineering course called Dynamics. Fulcrums and levers, forces and counter forces. So I went to my professor, told him how I did not want to be an engineer but a photographer, though I still needed
to earn my degree. What could he do ?

He thought a minute, opened his desk drawer and pulled out a Bible ( it being a Catholic school ), and told me that if I swore on that Bible that I would never practice as an engineer, he would give me a barely passing grade.

So there I was 30 years later, standing on top of the tallest mountain south of Tallahassee, practicing as a photographer and not as an engineer.

Here's a link to more Miami corporate photography and portraits.