From Cambodia to Japan

An Email from Stuart Isett:

THE ANGKOR PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL

The inaugural Angkor Photography Festival was held in October, 2005 in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and was the first of its kind organized in Southeast Asia. The goals of this international annual gathering are both artistic and humanitarian.

With this principle in mind, in addition to the fourteen major exhibitions and seven photo-projection evenings, a group of artists and reporters also volunteered to organize a free workshop for young photographers from the region as well as a photo-dance workshop for a group of underprivileged street children from the town of Siem Reap.

We're really hoping Flickr.com will also be a way to make the Angkor Photography Festival a global event that helps build a vibrant and open photography community. If you have time, we have our first set of images up on our page taken by street children from the town of Siem Reap. The work was produced in a workshop run by Magnum photographer Antoine d'Agata, and is part of the festival's outreach program to the Siem Reap community:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/angkorphotographyfestival/sets/

We will be adding more work in the weeks to come, from the workshops and exhibits from the 2005 festival. I hope you can come take a look and post some comments.

We will also be having a contest for Flickr members starting in May and winners' work will be shown at a slide presentation at Angkor during the festival from November 25th until December 1st, 2006. All photographs will remain copyrighted to photographers so I hope you'll be interested in entering an image.

If you have any questions or want to be on our mailing list for contest, festival or work shop info, please email me at:angkorphotofestival@yahoo.comI also encourage you to pass on our contact to any Flickr friends you have who might be interested.

Thanks again and best wishes,

Stuart Isett

http://www.angkorphotofestival.com

Slamma & Lemon(275 mL, 5.0% ALC/VOL): my favorite drink.

According to many researchs most poets die young. Maybe I should never choose this career. Here's another article I've just read:

Dr Kaufman, an assistant professor of psychology at California State University, studied the deaths of 1987 writers from across the world and through the centuries.

"On average, poets lived 62 years, playwrights 63 years, novelists 66 years, and non-fiction writers lived 68 years," Dr Kaufman said in his report.

"Among American, Chinese and Turkish writers, poets died significantly younger than non-fiction writers... among the entire sample, poets died younger than both fiction writers and non-fiction writers."

And it's worse for female poets, according to Dr Kaufman. "Female poets were much more likely to suffer from mental illness (for example, be hospitalised, commit suicide, attempt suicide) than any other kind of writer, and more likely than other eminent women," he told Reuters. "I've dubbed this the 'Sylvia Plath effect'."

The complete article is here: Write fast, die young

Thanks Bong Thea for giving me the link.

Beth Kanter has just posted and interview with me on Global Voices. She's been profiling Cambodian bloggers both in the country and other places.

Read the interview at this link : Asia Blogger Profile: Cambodia’s Seserak