Cedric Arnold | Phuket Vegetarian Festival

Photo © Cedric Arnold-All Rights Reserved

Here's a festival with religious connotations that I ought to add to my list of to do events.

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is an annual event held in Thailand during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, and was held  from 24 September - 02 October 2014. It celebrated the Chinese community's belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health, peace of mind, and will also offer spiritual cleansing. Its accompanying sacred rituals grant good fortune on those who observe this rite.

It is thought that the festival was introduced to Phuket by a wandering Chinese opera group who fell ill with malaria while performing on the island.

One of the most exciting aspects of the festival are the ceremonies held to invoke the gods. Firewalking, body piercing and other acts of self mortification undertaken by participants acting as mediums of the gods, have become more spectacular and daring as each year goes by. Men and women puncture their cheeks with various items including knives, skewers and other household items. It is believed that the Chinese gods will protect such persons from harm, and little blood or scarring results from such mutilation acts.

Cedric Arnold's Phuket Vegetarian Festival brings us spectacular monochromatic photographs of this event. Very reminiscent of Thaipusam, the festival includes acts of self mortification that are shocking and gruesome.

Cedric Arnold is a photographer specializing in portraiture, travel, documentary & corporate photography, as well as movie stills. In his personal work, he is often drawn towards exploring the markings of time, this can be in the subject matter itself or expressed with the medium he uses: out of date film, old instant film, or even through chemically altering prints and emulsion.

This is the fourth time that I feature Cedric Arnold's work on this blog. Previous posts can be found here.

Anthony Pappone | Ethiopia's Omo Valley

Photo © Anthony Pappone-All Rights Reserved

"If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things." - Sebastiao Salgado 

Readers and followers of my blog know of my distaste for the current spate of photographs that depict indigenous people who are encouraged (monetarily or otherwise) to wear decorative accessories that are not natural to them. Photographers who travel to the Omo Valley are particular susceptible to this 'disease', and are insensitive (but rarely unaware) to the impact transforming members of the various Omo Valley tribes into fashion models with outlandish headgear and accessories.

The exploitation of these tribes by some photographers, travelers and tourists, who view them as nothing but beautiful displays, continues despite the effort of well-intentioned travel companies.

Anthony Pappone's Portraits in The Omo Valley is certainly not one of these insensitive exploitative photographs. His photographs of Omo Valley tribal members are beautiful and simple. There is no artificiality in his portraits, nor is there accessories intended to dupe the viewers. The Omo Valley people are beautiful in their simplicity, and Anthony's photographs prove to us that there is no need for deceit in the representation of these people.

Anthony Pappone is an Italian photographer specializing in travel, festival, portrait, tribes and ceremony photography around the world. Just a traveler before becoming a photographer, he caught the bug during a festival in Ladakh, and he started on a career of following festivals and religious ceremonies wherever these occurred. From Ethiopia to Nagaland, from West Africa's Benin, Ghana, Mali to Yemen...he documented festivals and everyday life with his wide angle lenses.

A Great escape - the East Sea in Vietnam.

The composite inn incorporates a bluff side Central Pavilion which houses a restaurant, bar, swimming pool and patio with incredible perspectives of the encompassing field. Adrift level down underneath, the Beach Club offers relaxing and feasting regions, a cooling edge stream pool and the pack to set out for some snorkeling or kayaking.

Related post: Vietnam travel

Inside the properties, visitor can expect extra large bunks, a consolidated living and dozing region with wifi, LCD TV and a sound docking framework - in addition to timber sundecks with comfortable sunloungers. Estates incorporate a live-in maid.

Somewhere else, set adjacent to a lotus-filled lake, Amano'i's spa has five twofold treatment rooms with twofold bathtubs, two hydrotherapy suites, various unwinding parlors with serene perspectives, and an extensive variety of medications utilizing Aman's concoction free items. Adjacent is a lakeside yoga structure, two outside tennis courts, in addition to various strolling, running and trekking courses around the property.