Random Photo: Guatemalan Sloth

Everyone should study Spanish. Everyone. And the place to go is Guatemala, where you can spend about $125 for room/board AND 20 hours of private instruction.

About a decade ago, I went to Quetzaltenango (Xela) and studied Spanish two weeks at Juan Sisay School. Better place for it than the more popular Antigua in my opinion -- Spanish-colonial town surrounded by volcanoes, witch villages, rum-drinking saints and hot springs. A far fewer gringos to tempt you back into English. The school, like many there, organizes volunteer programs to help local Mayan kids learn English. One night we put on a play for them, with the mixed-bag of foreigners playing the animals of the jungle. I was the sloth.

Fendi Shoes Spring 2011

I brought these Fendi wedges home from my last trip in Paris. I really love the structure and the colors, and especially the buckles are so cute.

Thank you everyone for visiting! Have a wonderful day ahead!!!xoxo...Hanh :)

Jetsetter reports 176,000 room nights since launch

We know that the flash and private sale models are working well and growing fast. But how well and how fast? In an article from SF Gate Jetsetter CEO Drew Patterson spills some interesting performance metrics on the company (and by implication the sector). Highlights from the interview include:

• Member number: 2 million members. Two thirds from parent company Gilt group. One third acquired independently;
• Turnover: 176,000 room nights since launch "via 800 partners in over 70 countries". That's the quote from the interview. Let's try a bit of back of the envelope maths and see what this means for the overall size of the business. Jetsetter launched in Sept 2009 so that is 176000 room nights in eighteen months of operation. Let's guess an average daily rate well above industry average of $250. That is $44 million in gross bookings for Jetsetter over 18 months. If you guess that the second year is 100% bigger than the first then that puts year 1 gross booking at $22mm and year 2 on track for $40-50 million in gross bookings.
  
• Customer care: they have a team of 12 in-house to answer customer and supplier emails. Is committed to answering all emails in 2 hours (something Patterson says he learnt from working at Kayak)
• International expansion: Currently 10% of customers outside the US
  

Read the full story here

Thanks to JPhilipson via flickr for the great flash kid photo

My Work: The Sayid & The Banni

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Although I'm more inclined to photograph in a "photojournalistic" style during my photo~expeditions and/or assignments, with the aim to merge travel photography with reportage, I also do work in travel portraiture. Not to be confused with environmental portraits, travel portraiture is a simpler style and obviously can be used for stock, travel brochures and the like.

From my just completed In Search of Sufis of Gujarat photo~expedition, I feature a couple of portraits. The one on top is of a Banni woman at the doorway of her circular mud hut in the Kutch area of Gujarat. Her expression belies her capricious attitude while being photographed. She see-sawed between being flattered that I was photographing her (she's cute, after all) and asking me for money then turning away or shooing me off. She might've had success in getting paid by tourists, who walk in her village to buy handicrafts and the like. Despite her reluctance to cooperate, I managed to position her so that one half of the frame would have a black background, and the other half would be of a mud wall...but that didn't last long.

In short...a tiresome model.

The lower photograph is of a buffalo herder (or grazer). A proud man, with a regal bearing, he was herding the buffaloes back to the owners' farm. In my eagerness to photograph him with his animals against the setting sun, I tripped and went diving down on the ground...belly and chest first. I have no idea how I managed to protect my camera which, in contrast to my knees, escaped unscathed.

A Muslim, who introduced himself as a Sayid, he works for a Hindu community of farmers. He was welcoming, extremely cooperative, and patient with us. However, he was very serious during the whole of the photo shoot, only relaxing when we had finished. Those of us who've photographed in India (as an example) know the drill...the subjects are relaxed when the camera is not aimed at them, but the second the lens is directed at them, they freeze and become super-serious.

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Cristina Mittermeier: River People of the Amazon

Photo © Cristina Mittermeier-All Rights Reserved

Cristina Mittermeier grew up just outside of Mexico City, and is a photographer, a marine biologist, a writer, a world traveler, has a 20 year-long career in conservation and raised children. She is also Executive Director of the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP). Her passion in life is to use her photography to protect the planet's resources.

Cristina is also a SONY Artisan of Imagery Photographer.

My favorite gallery out of Cristina's many galleries is that of the River People of the Amazon with photographs of the Kayapo people of the Amazon basin. However, before exploring Cristina's galleries, stay a moment on the main page of her website, click on Hide Menu at its bottom, and revel in her handful of glorious large photographs of the Amazon...these alone are worth the visit!

The Kayapo people are the native people of the plain lands of the Mato Grosso and Pará in Brazil, south of the Amazon Basin and along Rio Xingu and its tributaries. Their population was just over 7000 in the latest census. Interesting, they extract medicine from 650 different plants that they find in the rainforest, and have a trade agreement with Body Shop!

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{look book: whistles spring 2011}

. . . has been so lovely to step out in a light trench again, and with spring's near arrival, soon there will be lacy white dresses with scalloped hems, high-waisted skirts and pretty t-shirts, bare legs and kitten heels, and the promises of warm, breezy afternoons . . .


{whistles spring 2011 collection via honey kennedy}

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copyright © 2007-2011 {this is glamorous} all rights reserved

Kongkrit Sukying: The Sufis of Gujarat

Photo ©Kongkrit Sukying-All Rights Reserved

Photo ©Kongkrit Sukying-All Rights Reserved

Photo ©Kongkrit Sukying-All Rights Reserved

A first time participant in my photo-expeditions, and in my just completed In Search of Sufis of Gujarat, Kongrit Sukying is a photographer from Bangkok, who was a marketing executive in the beverage business for over 10 years, but changed careers in 2009. He currently is a freelance commercial photographer who also specializes in wedding photography, as well as for books and magazines.

He's the fourth participant to send me samples of his work during the photo expedition.

The top photograph of the girl running down the stairs was made at one of the Islamic sites in Ahmedabad, while the second is of a pilgrim at one of the Sufi shrines who is supplicating the saint for a favor. The strings attached to the shrine's windows are left there by women as reminders of their prayers.

The lower photograph is of a Muslim woman at one of the Muslim mosques, probably in Ahmedabad.

Similar to Teerayut, the other participant from Thailand, most of Kongkrit's photographs in his external portfolio are post-processed, and while some may find these over-worked, it's a style which finds favor amongst many in Asia. In fact, Kungkrit emphasized the fact that he attended workshop at Digital Darkroom.  

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