The Durga Puja is the most important Hindu Festival of West Bengal in India. This audio slideshow features the three main aspects of the festival. The making of the Idols, the adoration and the eventual destruction, known as “Immersion” just four days after the festival starts. Currently being redirected from YouTube you may need to drop the quality if you experience a slow broadband. I will correct this shortly.
In May every year the Roma (Gypsy) people, mainly from France, travel to the Carmargue coast of France to honour their patron Saint Sarah the Black or Sarah e Kali as she in known in the Roma language.
The Capela Dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones) in Evora, Portugal was built in the 16th century alongside the church of St Francis by a Franciscan Monk . The bones are those of approximately 5000 monks collected from the cemeteries around Evora and brought to this chapel. He wanted to prod his fellow Brothers to reflect on the fact that life is transitory. Over the entrance is the famous warning “We the bones that are here await yours”. A chilling thought?
The Cadiz Museum on Plaza de Mina is well worth a visit. It is a veritable treasure trove of Roman and Cartheginium objects, Phoenician Sarchophogi and art – and I enjoyed all of that. But what I really enjoyed was a display of old string puppets, several with original backcloths. Displayed in dimly lit glass cases they left few options for photographing. I used my Nikon D700 set at 800 ISO and itted with a Nikon 50mm lens with the exposure set at 1/80 sec at 1.4mm. The shallow depth of field achieved has given them a surreal quality I am very happy with.
It was a bitingly cold winters day in 2008 when we visited Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration and extermination camps. I had a pretty good idea of what to expect but not how the ensuing visit would make me feel or the memories that would stay with me.
We entered Auschwitz 1 under the infamous arch and were greeted with the words “ARBEIT MACHT FREI”, (work sets you free). As foreboding as Auschwitz 1 is with it’s fences and barbed wire, sentry towers and blocks of brick built prison buildings it did not prepare me for my visit to Auschwitz 2 – Birkenau.
© 2012 Tony Smith’s Festival and Travel Photography
