Portraits

This is a cross post. I just like the pic. I ran across this fellow in our harbor. He is a fisherman from a fishing family and down from Alaska. We had a short conversation as I was taking pics of his boat and I asked if I could take a pic of him. He happily agreed and here he is, boat and all.

B0002253 by West Phalia, on Flickr
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p.giannakis said:
I associated it with prostitution.
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I too feel a bit saddened too seeing this picture. However, as a frequent traveler to TW, I can assure you Pan, that these girls are NOT into prostitution generally. It’s very common that these young girls are dressed in a sexy outfit to attract their customers (as I understand, most of their customers are truck drivers who just stop by to grab their betel nuts in a few minutes and go off).

Per Google Ai:
“Betel nut chewing is a widespread habit in Taiwan, often referred to as "Taiwanese chewing gum" and associated with the colloquial term "binlan". It's a significant part of the island's culture, though its popularity has also raised concerns about public health. Over a hundred billion New Taiwan dollars are spent annually on betel nut, making it a major economic crop in Taiwan..”
 
yossi said:
I too feel a bit saddened too seeing this picture. However, as a frequent traveler to TW, I can assure you Pan, that these girls are NOT into prostitution generally. It’s very common that these young girls are dressed in a sexy outfit to attract their customers (as I understand, most of their customers are truck drivers who just stop by to grab their betel nuts in a few minutes and go off).

Per Google Ai:
“Betel nut chewing is a widespread habit in Taiwan, often referred to as "Taiwanese chewing gum" and associated with the colloquial term "binlan". It's a significant part of the island's culture, though its popularity has also raised concerns about public health. Over a hundred billion New Taiwan dollars are spent annually on betel nut, making it a major economic crop in Taiwan..”
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Thank you Yossi, I wasn't aware 👍
 
boojum said:
Had lunch with this old dear for years. We were all that was left of a group of five Wednesday lunch crowd. And now she is off in elder care.

M240 + SBS, probably at a dreaded f/5.6 which accounts for it being slightly out of focus. But the skin tones are good whoch is what I like about the lens, good color and accurate skin tones.


M2419617 by West Phalia, on Flickr
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Please note that this was shot with an M240 fitted with Leica's first attempt at CMOS. The M240 is sort of the red-headed stepchild of the Leica world. And I kind of like the color it gives. It is honest and true which is important to me. And it is a good enough platform to let the Skyllaney Bertele Sonnar shine. This lens has its qualities and it does well on the M9 and does well on the M240. My own bias is that the M240 is better than its press. And you know the rest of the litany, it has that honkin' big battery, will shoot as an SLR with the Visioflex attachment and will shoot movies. Rather than buy the overpriced Leica one get the Olympus VF-2 instead. It's the same device with a different label. Pretty good in my book.
 
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Freakscene said:
The Kayan are in a difficult position; many want to modernise and many Kayan women want to move on from traditional expectations, but tourists want to visit and see women with neck rings. In Myanmar the number of Kayan women who wear the neck rings is decreasing, while in Thailand it is increasing.
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I know a lot of American who have expressed their disappointment how certain foreign 3rd world cities have become “soulless” because they modernized thus ruining their photo ops. Where are the rickshaws? 😱
 
Rayt said:
I know a lot of American who have expressed their disappointment how certain foreign 3rd world cities have become “soulless” because they modernized thus ruining their photo ops. Where are the rickshaws? 😱
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Indeed. It is possible to modernise without losing authenticity or Pragueification. It is just done so rarely. It is also absurd to be from a developed place and to think that less developed places should stay how they are for your touristic convenience.
 
Freakscene said:
Indeed. It is possible to modernise without losing authenticity or Pragueification. It is just done so rarely. It is also absurd to be from a developed place and to think that less developed places should stay how they are for your touristic convenience.
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Yes, I don't know that it necessarily follows that less developed places absolutely must lose their soul completely as they modernize. In Australia for example it's quite common for there to be laws on the books in various cities that seek to preserve the heritage and character of certain areas even in cases where there may be nothing especially of architectural merit etc. but rather because it is recognized that there can still be a certain heritage value in certain streetscapes being retained because it contributes to the character of the place. In central Adelaide's CBD for example the old "East End" was reimagined as a cultural, nightlife and dining district about 30 years ago, and many of the old buildings (which used to be part of a commercial / wholesale food and produce market have been retained - though redeveloped internally to other usages.) I would have hated the idea of these being bulldozed for yet more non-descript and characterless glass and steel monstrosities containing apartments and high-rise hotels. Indeed, some Asian countries have made similar efforts - Singapore for example is known for being a high exemplar of a glitzy modern Asian city. But it has many areas where character and heritage has been preserved - Chinatown, "Little India, the Arab Quarter, Clarke Quay Wharf etc.................. Another example that comes to mind is Budapest which seems to retain much of its essential character.

In short I do think melding of old and new can be done in a sympathetic way but picking up on your point it seems to me that it is too easy when mass tourism becomes the driving force for the economy, for "Pragueification" to hold sway in cheap theme park way.
 
These 35 years I have traveled to Asia often and witnessed first hand the rise of the Tigers. When domestic migrants flock to cities for work they will transform the city very quickly. And if the country was poor in the first place then building miles of housing by sacrificing parks and forests would be a perfectly acceptable trade off. I have been to Budapest and Prague and they didn’t grow at that pace. And with tourism as a major draw by the 80’s these cities knew what to do.
 
Rayt said:
These 35 years I have traveled to Asia often and witnessed first hand the rise of the Tigers. When domestic migrants flock to cities for work they will transform the city very quickly. And if the country was poor in the first place then building miles of housing by sacrificing parks and forests would be a perfectly acceptable trade off. I have been to Budapest and Prague and they didn’t grow at that pace. And with tourism as a major draw by the 80’s these cities knew what to do.
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Irrespective of modernisation, Prague has been totally ruined by tourism. It is not joke when @Jonathan R said in the Prague thread that the best time to visit to avoid crowds of tourists is 1985.

The effects of mass over tourism and over development from domestic sources are different, and can only be managed by different civic approaches to development. Hong Kong and Bangkok receive the most visitors of any cities worldwide, but still have a lot of authentic elements, even if they have changed a lot (the first time I went to HK I stayed in the Kowloon Walled City, gone since 1994). But a majority of people in the city at any one time are still locals, and the local government and many companies and other real entities operate out of central HK or Bangkok. In Prague the combination of over tourism and a lack of preservation of use and purpose has made the ratio of tourists to locals, particularly in Prague 1, extremely skewed. Apart from Barcelona no large city absorbs so many visitors in such a small area, visitors outnumbering residents more than 10:1. Smaller cities like Dubrovnik, Rhodes, and Venice have it even worse, ratio-wise. On a relatively recent occasion when I was in Prague, the newly re-opened Hotel Grand Europa had staff who did not speak Czech and the food they sell as 'Czech' is made up and did not exist in the 1990s. Those, as a start, are reflective of astounding failures on the part of the city and Czech governments to manage the influx of tourists. The government has even moved out of the centre, and a vast majority of real businesses have moved out. Prague 1 is a sort of fake Disneyland for tourists.
 
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