Interview Day

I met my fixer RP 99 this morning at 7:00am and we went to a "mud house" which is a temporary home. Apparently this person used to work at Biratnagar Jute Mills but is going to tough times with it being closed. During the interview I found out that the mill may be connected to another mill (another branch?) and he is actually still working. I based the entire story so far on the fact that this place made people jobless...may have to rethink the story depending on further research. It's ridiculously hot here...luckily I still have quite a few people helping me.

Info on the Mills from Wikipedia

In 1936 Nepal's first large scale industry, the Biratnagar Jute Mills, was set up in Biratnagar at cost of 160,000 Indian rupees[2], it is the largest jute mill in the country.[3] Today, the city has some of the largest industrial undertakings in the country. While taking a bus travel to Biratnagar from any other places, one can see a large number of industries on both sides of highway. Hundreds of small and medium sized industries operates freely including chemical, edible oil, steel, rice mill, liquor, soaps factories, among others, covering large portion of area that links Biratnagar with Itahari, a central transit point of eastern Nepal.
Lately, these medium and large sized factories are facing a hard time as a result of constant political upheaval in the country. Also it has been affected by "Madhesi movement", an uprising that the minority ethnic people in the Tarai have started against the regression and humiliation that they claim to have suffered for a long time, from the state, and " Pahades", people belonging to majority ethnic group.

Articles about closing:

http://www.peoplesreview.com.np/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=468:jute-mill-to-close-forever&catid=1:daily-update&Itemid=50

http://www.worldjute.com/jute_napal/news.html

A different strike in January:

http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/jute-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=68111

http://www.labornepal.org/resources/news_clippings/displayone.asp?id=116

Biratnagar

First Interiew today with ___________. He was a supervisor at Biratnagar Jute Mills which is the first factory ever built in Nepal. This guy has been working there for 18 years but because of the political instability, financial crisis, load shedding, and lack of raw materials the factory was finally forced to shut down.

Many of the people live in quarters in the proximaty of the factory. There are approximately 1,100 workers just waiting to be paid (7 months overdue). For now they sit and wait, some of them are starving and some have started driving rickshaws.

For now I'll follow _______throughout the day tomorrow for the Strikes which happen a few times each week.

The BJM's strikes close the border to India some days and other days shut down parts of Biratnagar. It's going to be from 10:00am -2:00pm and it's going to be hot! I don't mean like "awesome" hot but i mean like "bright sun, ridiculous humidity hot". I plan on using a series of upward angles to get people's sillhouettes against the bright background and also record the sound.

I'm meetin ______ at his house to photograph him preparing for the Strike and then actually go and document the event. Wasn't sure how this project was going to pan out...i'm off to a good start, not wasting any time.

My plan is to follow someone, a laborer, who is facing hard times because of the shutdown.

Chungking Videos

Kind of rough and long...but informative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owf7mHiTS4Q

guesthouse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDSRF2qrHpM&feature=related

one with music only

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzRRzRXws7E

Fear and Loathing in Hong Kong

Spending the night in Hong Kong...ended up staying at the Mirador Mansions which closely resembles the Chongking Mansions. I was thinking about including it in my project: it has a lot of similarities but it's currently under construction (might be a good thing) and doesn't have even close as much traffic.

I noticed that the Chongking Mansions were even pretty slow (inside) during the day. The night time is the right time.

2nd floor: A lot more organization but the same type of stores. A cell phone store...next to that... a cell phone store.... and next to that another cell phone store.

Also in terms of my budget I'll keep track of the vegetarian meals I eat... quality and price. The first place in which I ate was on the first floor. No seats -- take out only. Samosas = 3 HKD, "Death" Bread: 5 HKD. It was good, authentic... watching a bollywood film was their main priority and not helping customers...I watched as well.

Death Bread: it's deep fried apparently and really thick...inside are potatoes and spices like the filling of a samosa.

Pitch to Southern Metropolitan Daily

Tomorrow pitch to the editor - Wen Cui Yen

This may be a bit much but since it's my first pitch I'd like to get some feedback:

1. Previous Nepal Story -> Multimedia and Photos + my "chosen" layout for the magazine
2. Pitch my new idea that i'm going to write this month -> using powerpoint
3. Show her my most current multimedia -> to show her the quality level I want

Meeting: 10:00am at the Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou....

Publications that may be interested in my project

Chungking Mansions (these specifically or similar ones):

http://www.lensculture.com/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/multimedia/
http://www.newsfinder.org/
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.AgencyHome_VPage&pid=2K7O3R1VX08V


Load Shedding:
http://seedmagazine.com/
http://www.newsfinder.org/

Chungking Mansion Websites

This one has a couple photos and gives advice about dining in the mansions:
http://gohongkong.about.com/od/whattoseeinhk/ss/Chunkingtour_3.htm


"Luckily, one place still exists that symbolizes this grit: the Chungking Mansions. This leprous rat-infested slum is an institution. It was raised to legendary status as the scene of shady drug deals in the movie Chungking Express. Anyone who spends time there walks off with a certain filthy stigma."

haha

http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2007/03/21/chungking-mansions/


A good one with Gordon Mathews:
http://www.bcmagazine.net/hk.bcmagazine.issues/bcmagazine_webissue245/03-chungking.html

People's opinions about the Chungking Mansions:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/budget-travel/479060-chungking-mansions-hong-kong-ever-stayed-there.html

"20% of the mobile phones now in use in sub-Saharan Africa have passed through this high-rise souk"
http://www.time.com/time/travel/cityguide/article/0,31489,1850110_1850124_1852107,00.html

Nepal Article - Power outage problems

Many of the factories have closed down in the area surrounding Biratnagar. While the load shedding hours have reduced in Kathmandu, they remain there.

http://www.nepalnews.com/contents/2008/englishmonthly/businessage/sep/regional.php

Panorama Calculator

http://www.frankvanderpol.nl/fov_pan_calc.htm

Spherical Views

http://www.ptgui.com/features.html

This is the best stitching software for creating 360 deg. panorama views and spherical views. I used flashden.net to download a template. I managed to find one that enables swf files which means I can combine spherical views of a place with sound or whatever flash I want!

Flash Templates

Instead of writing everything else from scratch - use this:

http://flashden.net/

I may have to pay a couple dollars but that's faster than working on things hours and hours.

More Research

Documentary on the Chungking Mansions

http://www.asianfirstfilms.com/pdf/Docu_Chungking.pdf

Chungking Dream : New Movie coming out on the Chungking Mansions

NGO based inside the Chungking Mansions http://bit.ly/rPi6s

Nepal Visa Information

http://www.visitnepal.com/travelers_guide/legal_information.php

I can extend my tourist visa in Nepal for 50$ for 30 days (I will need a 30 day visa).

I'm back on Blogger!

Thank god I found a way to use this site again (Chinese government had it blocked). I'd rather not say what program I used in order to slow them down from finding it.

Anyways cool...that's that for now.

Good Nepal News Site

http://www.zimbio.com/company/about

This site has news/photos/blogs related to Nepal. It would be a good idea to get in touch with these guys about my project in Nepal.

Back to Load Shedding

As I get ready for candlelight and low light photos..maybe I should do a bit of research about the areas. Here is an area that might have better stories than Kathmandu:

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200603/16/eng20060316_251144.html

"The industries in Biratnager city, the largest industrial city of the country located some 400 km east of Kathmand, has been hit hard after the five-hour-long load shedding imposed by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) daily," Jivan Nepal, chairman of MBU, a non-government organization, said here in a press conference.

*Might want to tell the story from the perspectives of the workers there. A specific person trying to work for his family that's getting hit hard.

More from NGO forum/ water and sanitation project:
http://www.ngoforum.net/index.php?option=com_sbg_newsman&task=view&Itemid=3&id=99

Worldwide energy shortages:
http://www.energyshortage.org/taxonomy/term/22

Biratnagar (बिराटनगर), Nepal's second largest city, is more famous for giving more superior political leaders to the country than any other part of Nepal. It equally is known for being industry power-house of the counry. It is located in Koshi Zone on the southern Terai belt of Nepal, near the south-eastern border with India. The population of the municipality according to the 2001 census was 166,674. Biratnagar is located at 26°28'60"N 87°16'60"E. It is the administrative centre of Morang district.

Fortunate to boast immense fertile land mass, Biratnagar is also reputed for being agro-and -commerce hub. Being located on southern part, the city actually borders Indian town, called Jogbani, where lot of locals go for shopping, or to travel some other parts of India.

Biratnagar is linked with Kathmandu by road and air. Biratnagar Airport is the regional hub for vital air services serving the remote Eastern Hills, and there are regular flights to Kathmandu

Skate Rats

This has nothing to do with any of my projects, I just thought it was a great photo-story:

http://blueeyesmagazine.com/index.php?/essay/indiv/skate_rats/

Techniques for candlelight - #2

The first setup is the obvious one: fast of lens as possible: 50mm 1.4 and a tripod. I can then shoot at about 1/30 of a second.

Here is Number 2:

I've now created a flash to use with one of my zoomm lenses. Basically what I did:

1. Put flash on A setting
2. Put the flash on the lowest f stop and iso (which is 25) - - the flash will think that I'm shooting in really high lighting situations
3. Tape on some paper over the diffuser: I used pink papers that I had laying around but left the sides open to add a little reflective light in the room. The sides are still covered by the diffuser and one piece of paper while the top, face, and bottom are covered by approx 5 piece of pink paper.

This will add just a little bit of light to the subject but I have to custom white balance obviously:

1. Put it on Tungsten and then customize further
2. Blue all the way and green about halfway

With this setup I don't have to use my tripod and/or 50mm fixed lens. I will use both setups when I shoot though.

Candlelight Photography and other interesting sites

Basically everything is set up now and I'll start shooting today. Havn't been able to get to this blog today either since China has recently blocked blogger. I was able to get in using vtunnel.com.

My technique for this shooting assignment will be to try and get them at 400 iso and a slow enough shutter speed for the subjects to be in focus if they stand still. I'll be using a tripod for camera shake so I can probably get away with 1/30 of a second if I tell them to hold still. In the field I'll probably be able to replicate this quite easily. A couple useful tips but nothing I didn't already know:

http://www.dphotojournal.com/candlelight-photography-tips/

Also a good workflow:

http://thomashawk.com/2009/05/my-photography-workflow-2009.html

And a good site for photographers starting out:

http://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/05/rodrigo-cruz-the-promised-land/