New photography Images by Photographer Adam Monk

I’ve been wanting to put this image up for a few months now, but there was a little reticence on the part of the model, the Blackwood River Nymph.  It’s a landscape image with a difference for me, it has a person in it Read the rest of this entry »

When i was in Bahia, in the North East of Brasil, a few years ago i was lucky enough to attend a Candomblé ceremony in one of the local Terreiros (Religious centres, pronounced Te-he-ro) just outside the city of Salvadore de Bahia.

Candomblé is one of the major forms of Afro Brasilian religion found in Brasil. It originated in the city of Salvadore de Bahia, and the surrounding areas in the North East of Brasil, where the African Slaves would cloak their African Animist Religion in a thin veneer of Christianity to fool the Portuguese Slave owners.   The practising of the African religions was strictly forbidden and the Christianisation of the Slaves strictly enforced, so the Slaves adapted. Out of this versatility and will to survive Candomblé was formed.

Candomblé, sometimes called Macumba, holds many similarities to the Afro-Cuban Religion of Santería and the Afro-Haitian Religion of Voodoun (Voodoo) as their origens are from the same regions in Africa, being largely the Yoruba Tribes of West Africa.  

In each of these forms of worship the Christian Saints take on the persona of the African ancestor spirits called Oríshas in Cuba or Orixás (pronounced Ori-shaas)  in Brasil, and these spirits will possess the bodies of their worshipers and thus communicate with the living and experience life again.  It’s a religion that requires a lot of participation and involves many hours of ritual and dance with hypnotic african rhythms played on drums throughout the ceremony.

For a few dollars to help supplement income, the ceremony participants are happy to let visitors come to observe and even take a few unobtrusive pictures (no flash of course).  These ceremonies are not done for tourism and there is nothing vaguely commercial about them, they are the real thing.  On the night i attended there were a few of us from a small hostel in Salvadore there, along with many locals and initiates.

It’s a very surreal experience, with the drumming and the ritualised dancing around the circle, this was made even more so when the girl who had been standing next to me – who had come on the same bus as me and was staying in the same hostel – suddenly started to shake and then leapt into the middle of the circling dancers.  She then proceeded to dance wildly around within the circle, not crazy western person dancing, but precise steps to the rhythm in the same African style of the ceremony participants, she had her eyes closed the whole time.  None of the locals even flinched, we had already seen this happen a couple of times during the course of the evening, but it had previously happened to Candomblé initiates, this was certainly a new twist for me.

She danced this way for several minutes before some of the senior women gently lead her away out the back. This happened once more that evening, the next time to a young Spanish or Italian guy, i don’t remember which, who was also staying at my hostel and had come on the same bus as me.   When they re-joined us for the bus trip back they both looked dazed and had no recollection of anything that had happened after arriving at the Terreiro.

These images were shot with the permission of the participants on a Leica RE with a 90mm f2 lens and Kodak Tri-X Pan 400 black and white film pushed to ISO800.  There was of course no flash used.

I shot this image of the Pinnacles near Cervantes North of Perth in WA a few months ago, and basically forgot about it…  That seems to happen a lot.  I needed a couple of shots of the Pinnacles a few days back, so i opened the folder and had a play around and got this Read the rest of this entry »

A Garota de Ipanema in its new home

Just a quick one to show the final result of the 2.5m canvas print of “A Garota de Ipanema” (the Girl from Ipanema) from previous posts.  I rented a truck and delivered this image and the 4m vertical (next post) to their final destinations on Saturday, and Rob, from Master Art Displays installed them both.

Click HERE>> To read the story of how this photograph was taken.

I got curious last night after writing the last post on the Brasilian town of Tiradentes, seemed like i should know why it was thus named, and it seemed like i would have asked at the time.  Sometimes my memory is a little unreliable about stuff like that, so its lucky we have Wikipedia!

So, the town of Tiradentes is named after Joaquim José da Silva Xavier,  also known as Tiradentes (tooth puller) due to his one time profession as an impromptu dentist.  He was also a leading member of the Inconfidência Mineira, a revolutionary group formed in 1788 dedicated to the political independence of Brasil from Portuguese colonial rule.

The group, including Tiradentes was betrayed by one of their own members, and he was captured and eventually hanged in 1792 for treason, after a trial lasting nearly 3 years.  Imagine 3 years in a Brasilian/Portuguese prison in the 18th Century, i think the eventual hanging would have been a relief.

The Human irony  is that a man can be considered a villain by society one day, and for the very same reasons a hero the next.  The place in Rio de Janeiro where Tiradentes was hanged (and quartered…) is named in his honour (Praça Tiradentes), there is a town in the inland state of Mina Gereis that bears his name, while his likeness is on the Brasilian 5 cent coin.  He has been considered a revolutionary hero of the people of Brasil since the late 19th Century.

Another irony is that the town of Tiradentes, along with most of the state of Minas Gereis (which translates literally to General Mines), was built entirely by slaves (see previous post), and while the Inconfidência Mineira was agitating to lift the colonial yoke of Portuguese oppression from Brasil, they were still happy for the disenfranchised African slaves to be worked to death pulling the gold they so desired out of the ground.  In fact the driving force for the proposed rebellion was to stop the gold  that was being dug by the African slaves from the Brasilian soil being sent as tribute to the King of Portugal.

So really what it all came down to was greed, thus the coin is flipped again, was Tiradentes hero or villain?.  Very little changes in the world it seems.

Both these images were taken on the Hasselblad XPan at dusk, and shot with Fuji Velvia 100.

Another one from Brasil shot on the Hasselblad XPan.  This time from a small town in Inland Brasil called Tiradentes, literally “pulling teeth”… can’t say i know why the town is called that, seems like an odd name for a beautiful place.  Perhaps it describes the difficulty in building it, its all built on hills of stone, and of course the whole town is made of stone, including the window lintels and the door frames.

The title of the image is Os Amigos Velhos, the old friends, and thats exactly as they appeared to me.  I had seen these two wander across to this spot and sit watching the sunset the night before, they hardly said a word to each other just sat in that comfortable silence that you only see with people who really know each other well.  It seemed like a regular ritual, so the next night i was there  photographing the street when they arrived.

This is not a posed shot, i’m afraid i didn’t ask permission, i just went about shooting the paving stones of the street as i had been doing when they arrived.  The thing i find profound about this image  is perhaps not immediately obvious.  We have two old men of very different heritage, one being European probably Portuguese and the other obviously African, living in a 15th Century Slave built town where one man’s ancestors would have been wielding the whip and the others would have been the back it was striking.  Now, 500 years later they are friends watching the sunset together.  I wonder if they ever talk about these very different yet entwined beginnings?

Another image from Brasil shot on the Hasselblad XPan (which i didn’t sell on the weekend), This is Santos Beach, the same beach as this previous post of the soccer players.  I lived in Santos for about 3 months back in 2003, as you can see from the buildings on the waterfront, its quite a big city, certainly by Australian standards.  Big and densely populated, with a big wide flat beach that is always packed with people running, playing football (soccer), swimming surfing reading or walking.  Brasilians love their beaches.

This shot was taken just after sunset after a long hot day of tropical humidity.  Up the other end of the beach is a popular surf break and these guys had probably spent most of the afternoon catching a few waves before walking back along the shore to home.  The sky shows the typical colours of the classic tropical sunset with lots of moisture in the air really bring out the colours.

The city of Santos is built on an island in the middle of the river mouth of the busiest harbour in the southern Hemisphere, one of the 2 or 3 busiest harbours in the world, Santos is an island that is actually a sandbar… it’s made of sand.  What you can’t see in this image is that most of the high rise buildings along the waterfront are leaning at crazy and precarious angles.  They weren’t  built that way, they have sagged over time, like the famous tower of Pizza, as the foundations sank into the soft shifting sand they were built on.

Most all of them have been stabilised now, but fixed on the crazy angles they were leaning at, as it’s very difficult to straighten a high rise building.  So if you go up into some of the apartments, especially the upper ones, you can spend your day walking up and down hills.  A pen dropped onto the floor will roll all the way across the room, and falling out of bed becomes an everyday occurrence.  I think with time it would do some strange things to your sense of balance and perspective or perhaps your neck… as every time you gaze out the window the horizon is a diagonal line across your outlook.

I’m sure i have some images in the vast 5000 strong catalogue i shot in Brasil of those building from the waters edge where the angles are visible, i’ll have to make a concerted effort to find them, in the mean time enjoy the tropical sunset.

This shot was taken on the Hasselblad XPan with the 45mm f4 lens, i wish it had been shot on Fuji velvia, or even Provia 400, but it was taken on Fuji reporter pro, an ISO 800 neg film.  This film is great at what it was designed for, quick press work, but it’s not ideal for landscape, Negative colour film is not much fun to scan and requires a lot of dusting.  Still, it works, and i won a silver at the APPAs a couple of years back for this image.

Literally the girl from Ipanema, which is of course the title of the famous song by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes of Brasil.  It was the song that really created the whole musical genre of Bosa Nova, a mellow mix of Brasilian samba and jazz that embodied the  the feel and emotion of the Brasilian culture.

That song was written about this beach in Rio de Janeiro, or rather about a girl walking along this beach, rather like the girl in this image, which is why this image, that i shot in Brasil a few years back, shares the same name.  It could well have been a scene like this that inspired Tom Jobim to write that famous song as he sat on the bench overlooking Ipanema beach all those years ago.

This image was shot on fuji Velvia 50 with the Hasselblad XPan camera, and i’ve just recieved an order for a 2.5m print of it!  I can’t wait to see this one really big.  I did a 1.8m print of it a couple of years back and it looked great, i think 2.5m will look stunning.  See this image as a 2.5m wall print.

The 4m print i mentioned a couple of entries back is now stretched.  It was quite an exercise, that i of course photographed and will put up here in the next entry.

The Kimberley Marine Parks the  West Australian Government have proposed in the far North Kimberley region of Camden Sound are part of   the worlds largest Humpback Whale nurseries.  They are doing this as an attempt to distract the Australian people from the real issue of industrialising the Kimberley, beginning with the enormous James Price Point Kimberley gas project. They are trying to buy us off.  How the two are connected beats me, instead of saying the Kimberley is unique and we will protect it all (as should be the case)  they have said, the Kimberley is unique, so we’ll put aside a bit of it before we set about ruining the rest.  Obviously these words are mine, but if you read the documents you’ll see that my paraphrasing is correct.

The Far North Kimberley Coast, Western Australia

The Marine Sanctuaries as they are proposed are woefully inadequate with only 13% of it offering any real protection from commercial fishing and other industrial activities, which of course defeats its own purpose.  It becomes a Sanctuary in name only until our pro multinational government decides to sell it off to the highest bidder.

Until the 1st of February you get to have a say on what you think of the  proposal, so go to this link, have a read of the letter, do some research, look at some maps and if you agree, submit it.

Low tide at Dawn on the Kimberley Coast

I have been up to the Kimberley many times, and 2 years ago i had the opportunity to go on a boat trip through the Far north and see a lot of this isolated and beautiful coast that you can only get to from a boat.  It really is like nowhere else on Earth,  a unique place that should  be preserved.  The only reason this government  can get away with selling off the Kimberley is that few people have seen it and so most don’t know how special it is and  what we would be giving up.

I want to be able to show my Grandchildren the Kimberley, the wild untamed Kimberley, not a barren industrial dump that it will become if these greedy and unthinking men get their way.  Do yourself a favour, if you’ve not been to the Kimberley, go.  it will get into your blood and touch your soul the way few places can, and then you too  will know why this is one place we cant let the greedy bastards ruin.

Early morning light reflected off the King Leopold sandstone cliffs

This magical little spot was just a short walk from the room we rented just outside of Nas on the Greek Island of Ikaria.  It is a small pool in the Chalares Gorge which cut right through the landscape below the balcony of the room and ended at the beach shown in the previous post. This spot is cool, shady and tranquil, perfect spot to lean on a tree and read a book or just do nothing…

Tranquil Reflecting Pool. Chalares Canyon, Ikaria

Shot on the Canon 5D Mk2 with the 16-35mm f2.8L lens at 16mm.  10 images stitched with PT Gui on a Mac (of course!)