Photo Of The Day: Papua New Guinea Sing-Sing Preparation

The tribes of Papua New Guinea are renowned for their intricate and colorful Sing-sing rituals: gatherings of neighboring villages for the exchange of traditional dances and music. In today’s photo, by Flickr user Susani2008, we have an intimate look at the elaborate preparation that goes into these unique events. The man pictured above is getting ready for his Sing-sing by applying wildly colorful face paint and an intricate feather headress. The colors and designs are intended to mimic the appearance and patterns of the visually stunning local bird population.

Taken any great photos from your own trip to Papua New Guinea? Or perhaps just from your last stop in Pasadena? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

[Photo credit: Flickr user Susani2008]

Last Kodachrome photos to be shown in Istanbul

Photography lovers might want to make a trip to Istanbul this summer to be the first in the world to see the last roll of Kodachrome photos on exhibit at the Istanbul Modern museum. As we reported in December, the film was discontinued in 2009 by Kodak due to the rise of digital photography, and the very last roll of film was processed in Kansas at the end of 2010. The last 36-exposure roll was given to National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry in July 2010, who used it to photograph subjects including Robert de Niro, Bollywood stars, Turkish photojournalist Ara Güler and the Rabari tribe of India. McCurry is best known for his iconic portrait “Afghan Girl” which appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985, shot on Kodachrome.

The Last Kodachrome Film will run August 2 to September 4 at the Istanbul Modern, located on Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait. The museum also features a collection of modern and contemporary Turkish artists, and will show another photography exhibition from Turkish artist Lale Tara in August along with the work of Steve McCurry.

Photograph by Steve McCurry, courtesy of National Geographic.

Top five sights of Ethiopia: traditional tribes, rock-hewn churches, and medieval castles


As I mentioned on Monday, I’m moving to Harar, Ethiopia, for two months to explore the ancient and unique culture in that medieval walled city. Before settling in, I thought I’d share some of the most popular places to visit in the country. Many of them were covered in my travel series about Ethiopia during my visit last year. All but the Southern Tribes are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Southern Tribes
Perhaps the best known images of Ethiopia come from its sparsely populated southern region. Here there are tribes living much the way they always have, herding and hunting animals and living off the lush hills and open savannah. The most famous tribe is the Mursi, known for their giant lip plugs like you see here in this photo by user MauritsV courtesy Wikimedia Commons. There are many more tribes, and each day will introduce you to a very different culture and set of traditions. The drive is hard going but everyone says it’s worth it.

Lalibela
Lalibela is another famous spot in Ethiopia. Starting in the 12th century the people dug out a series of churches from the bedrock, making fantastic buildings that will keep your jaw dropped for your entire visit. Not only are the stone structures impressive in their construction (or should I say, excavation) but there are rich frescoes and carvings in the interiors. The priests will show you gold and silver crosses dating back hundreds of years. If you’re lucky, you can witness an religious ceremony in which white-robed worshipers chant verses from the Bible and Kebre Negast, a holy book of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

%Gallery-90277%Gondar
Often called Ethiopia’s Camelot, the medieval capital of Gondar offers some of the country’s best architecture. It’s also on some of the best land, a high valley that’s green and soothing, completely the opposite of the parched desert many people imagine Ethiopia to be. Several palace/castles stand here, looking vaguely familiar thanks to the influence of Portuguese mercenaries hired to help the Ethiopians fight off the Somali conqueror Gragn The Left-Handed. I’ll be searching for his capital later in this series. Nobody is exactly sure where that is, so it should be a bit of an adventure.

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Axum
In the dry uplands of the northern Tigray province stand the remains of Axum, one of the greatest civilizations of the ancient world and Ethiopia’s oldest city. In the fourth century BC a civilization sprang up here that even the ancient Greeks admired. It reached across the entire region and colonized what is now Yemen. It traded as far as India and China and probably Europe too. It also converted Ethiopia to Christianity in the fourth century AD, making it the second oldest Christian nation after Armenia. While the civilization is long gone, you can still admire its huge palaces and lofty obelisks.

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Lake Tana
For several different but amazing experiences all in one day, head to Lake Tana, Ethiopia’s largest. A boat takes you out to where the Blue Nile flows into the lake and you can see hippos wallowing in the water as locals in traditional reed boats steer carefully around them. On several islands are monasteries where monks have lived and prayed for centuries. They’ll show you illuminated manuscripts colorfully illustrated with holy scenes. After a long overland trip, there’s nothing better than sitting on one of these islands, free of electricity and cars, and gazing out at the placid waters of the lake.

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For more on Ethiopia, check out this video below. I know nothing about the tour company that sponsored it and this isn’t an endorsement. They do make informative travel videos, though.

And don’t miss the rest of my Ethiopia travel series: Harar, Ethiopia: Two months in Africa’s City of Saints.

Coming up next: Returning to Harar, Ethiopia’s medieval city!

Sole survivor of Amazon tribe is most isolated man on Earth

He’s the last of his kind.

Nobody knows his name, nobody knows his tribe’s name, and nobody knows what happened to the rest of his people. The last man of an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon is now being protected from the outside world by the Brazilian government.

Officials have created a 31 square-mile exclusion zone in his patch of rain forest to keep out loggers, something local logging companies aren’t too happy about. In fact, nobody is allowed inside.

Isolated tribes have always fascinated outsiders. Early explorers tracked them down to photograph them, like this Amazonian tribesman photographed in the 1922 publication People of all Nations. Anthropologists have tried to contact the sole survivor of the unknown tribe for 15 years now, but he’s always shied away. Once an agent got too close and received an arrow in his chest.

A report by Slate says he’s the most isolated man on Earth. His patch of rain forest is now an island amid ranching and logging areas, a potent symbol of what’s happening to isolated tribes all around the world. Tribes that have little or no contact with outsiders are highly susceptible to disease and exploitation and there’s a growing movement to help them. For example, there’s an ongoing controversy in the Andaman Islands over a resort built near the Jarawa tribe. The government wants to close it in order to take pressure off this tribe of only 320 people.

Grim evidence suggests what may have happened to the unknown Amazonian’s people. He is known to build a distinctive style of hut, and a village of identical huts was found in the rain forest–run over by a bulldozer.

A flyover of another uncontacted tribe two years ago resulted in some dramatic photos showing the startled tribesmen shooting arrows at the airplane. While the media made a big hype about how they had probably never seen planes before, that seems unlikely. They’re simply protecting their territory from an outside world they perceive as dangerous and hostile. In other words, they want to be left alone.

One for the Road: Tribe – Adventures in a Changing World

Last month in the UK, Penguin released Tribe: Adventures in a Changing World, by Bruce Parry, a companion to his documentary series of the same name. Tribe, the TV show, has been around for a few years now (known as Going Tribal on Discovery), documenting Parry’s courageous and sometimes controversial encounters with remote tribal groups around the world.

Some of the groups he lived with for a month at a time include the Anuta (Solomon Islands), Kombai (Indonesian Papua), Babongo (Gabon) and Adi (India). The book shares stories from his experiences, and also raises challenging questions about whether or not these tribal groups should be protected.

There are separate DVDs available for all three BBC seasons of the show, with a compilation DVD coming soon. But if you prefer to read firsthand about Parry’s experiences with these fifteen tribal groups, than hunt down a copy of this recently released hardcover book.