In this video, you will see a couple of those items.

What are you preferred accessories for traveling?

East of California’s Sierra Nevada, north of Mono Lake lies the abandoned mining town of Bodie, California. Bodie boomed after the discovery of gold ore in the 1870s, by 1920 the town was in a steep and never-reversed decline. In 1962 the area was designated a California state historic park and remains that today. Several aspects make Bodie a particularly interesting target for photographers intrigued by the Gold Rush era ghost towns.

First and foremost Bodie is maintained in a state of arrested decay, that is, the park attempts to maintain Bodie the way it was in 1962, repairing what’s necessary to maintain that state but no more so. Interiors of many of the town’s buildings buildings still contain original furniture and such. And because Bodie hasn’t been commercially developed, it’s easy to find many places to take unique, “timeless” photographs without anachronisms.

Photographing Bodie does come with a few logistical challenges, however. The first is that the park is generally not open at sunrise and sunset, and in general it’s impossible to get inside most of the buildings to photograph. Don’t let this deter you. With nearly 200 buildings in the town one could spend months working exteriors. But if you want to photograph more (and you will want to), there are solutions to both of these problems,   through organized photographic events.

The Friends of Bodie and Bodie SHP have each summer a Photographer’s Day event each month on the third Saturday, May through October. For $50 (at least in 2009) this will get you access to the  park from a half-hour before sunrise to a half-hour after sunset. This can provide hours of quieter access to the park, which is great for working wider views of the town.

Photographing inside the buildings seems to require taking a photographic workshop that’s made arrangements with the park. The Friends of Bodie organize some of these workshops, you might also check out Jill Lachman, and the Fall Mono Basin Photography workshops given by Richard Knepp through the Mono Lake Committee (which some years includes time in Bodie).

A few quick tips for folks photographing Bodie for the first time:

First, Bodie is at over 8,000′ elevation. The dark sky there shows polarization artifacts easily. If you’re including the sky in your shot, leave off the polarizer (or use it very, very judiciously.)

Second, take advantage of windows. Reflections of the landscape and/or other buildings in a window can be very effective particularly in good light, views through multiple windows can also create pleasing compositions.

Third, don’t forget to look for details. It’s great to get wider shots of whole buildings or sections of town, but sometimes the smaller scenes (a table set for lunch covered in dust, a globe sitting in a window) can evoke feelings more powerfully than something on a larger scale.

Finally, if you’re trying to create a “timeless image of the past”, take a careful look at the scene you’re photographing. While anachronisms (building number posts, padlocks) are small and  infrequent, the fact that you don’t see much that isn’t “timeless” in Bodie can keep you from remembering to take a closer look.

Many of the ghost towns I’ve visited in the past have left me photographically uninspired. Usually either the ravages of time have left little trace, or commercialization has turned the ruins into an amusement park. Bodie is something different, an outdoor museum in the middle of nowhere, and a time machine into the past. Check it out!

Gnaoua (sometimes also spelled Gnawa) music is a mixture of sub-Saharan African, Berber, and Arabic Islamic religious songs and rhythms, and it combines music and acrobatic dancing. Aurally and historically, its main influence is traced back to sub-Saharan Africa, but its current practice is concentrated in north Africa, mainly Morocco and Algeria. However, I have discerned similarities between Gnaoua music and folk songs from Sudan, so perhaps its influence extends even further.

The most “personal and up-close” performances were held at small Islamic monasteries that were rather difficult to find in the labyrinthine alleys of the medina, but it was worth the effort and the price of the admission ticket. The Islamic monasteries in Morocco are called “zaouias“, and most of my photography was done during these performances at one of the most attractive and well-preserved monasteries which, in deference to the Gnaoua’s patron saint, is known locally as Zaouia Sidi Bilal. Bilal was the first muezzin in Islam, and it is said was chosen to call for prayers by Prophet Muhammad on account of his beautiful voice. He was also a freed slave from Ethiopia, and had his birth roots in Africa.

The performances called “lilas” started around midnight, and went on for hours. These started off with leaders of the troupes known as maalems or chiefs, usually playing soulful tunes on the gimbri, a three -string lute-type of instrument, essentially to tune them

However, this was short-lived. The Gnaoua troupes (usually 6 or 7 members) join in by reciting the opening verses of the Qur’an, and the performances really start in earnest after this blessing. It is then that the large heavy iron hand-held cymbals (almost like castanets) known as querqab are played, and the percussive quality of the Gnaoua music is really in full swing. These castanets provide the repetitive and almost furious percussive accompaniment to the muted lute music, and is also joined by ecstatic hand-clapping by the band and audience alike. There are no chairs so the audience sits on cushions thrown in a half-circle on the tiled floor. The temperature of the performances slowly rise, until the audience’s participation is is virtually mandatory, which eventually leads to local women joining in the furious hand-clapping, then a special stone is added to the incense burner and eventually they go into trances.

The trances are the culmination of these sessions: since the maalems by playing the gimbri, along with the feverish beat of the castanets, the burning of the incense, and the repetitive singing supposedly call on the supernatural entities (known as jinns) to take possession of some of the followers, who lose themselves in ecstatic dancing.

The best known and most highly respected maalems have exotic sounding names which denote their provenance and birth places. For instance, Maalem Allal Soudani (originally from Sudan), the Tunisian Sidi Ali Lasmar Stambali, and the fabulous Ganga de Zagora (a town south of Ouarzazate, at the gate of the Sahara.

The other highlight of the festival is its inaugural procession, during which the various Gnawa bands are all represented, It starts in the square just outside the Doukala Gate, in the northern part of the Essaouira medina, and winds its way through its narrow streets and alleys of Essaouira, and end at Mohammed El Qorry near Bab Marrakesh. The procession this year was started off by a leading Gnawa carrying a tray of incense, and followed by the troupes, possibly in a certain order of hierarchy. There was quite a presence of administrators and police, but I wasn’t prevented from photographing as I wished. I suppose they took me for an accredited photojournalist. The most prominent Gnawa troupes were the Houara de Taroudant, Ganga de Zagora, Ganga de Tamanar, and Gnaoua Agadir. Each of the troupes wore distinctive costumes, ranging from a blinding flamingo pink to a sedate black, while others such as the Ganga de Zagora only wear the traditional white.

As for photographic equipment , I used my 5D Mark II fitted with the Canon 28-70mm f2.8 about 70% of the time, the 70-200 f2.8 about 20% of the time and the 17-40mm f4.0 the balance. The 24mm f1.4 never left the bag this time. Wherever I went, I felt I needed the flexibility of zooms, and a prime wouldn’t be useful in the situations where I photographed. I experienced initial difficulty in focusing on moving subjects, and blamed my 70-200 lens until I realized that I hadn’t turned on my camera’s AI Servo AF mode!

I have to say that my beloved 70-200 f2.8 is on its last legs. I guess it dropped too many times in Orissa, on Angkor Wat’s stone slabs, in Bali’s rice paddies and elsewhere. It now wobbles and rattles and, while it still works, it also earned a well deserved retirement… maybe as door stop.

My experience with the G10 was an unhappy one, and I left it aside after a few tries. I had high hopes that it would be a perfect street camera for the alleys of the medinas, but it frustrated me and I gave up after a while. I have no doubt that in the right hands and used in the appropriate conditions, it’s a fine little point & shoot. However, in my case I expected something more… but I didn’t have the time nor patience to work at it.

On the other hand, I thought the PMD 620 recorder performed quite well in the rather extreme situations I put it through. Since most of the Gnawa performances were held in small zaouias, the din of the iron querqab (castanets) used by the Gnawa caused significant distortion in the recordings. Moving around to better positions was impractical, so I had to choose a spot where to stand or sit, record and photograph… not exactly an easy thing to do. I tried using Audacity’s filters, but the distortion on some of the sound tracks is still too harsh. As one expert told me when I complained, distortion happens and we have to live with it (or not) sometimes.

This is the second episode recounting my pursuit of authentic Zeqr, the Egyptian Sufi ceremony, after my first experience in a neighborhood of Old Cairo was somewhat diluted by a competing soccer match. This time, the Zeqr ceremony was supposed to be even more authentic because it was to take place on a Thursday night in a small rural village on the western banks of the Nile River called Matawat.

I am ready by the agreed-upon time of 10:30 pm, and wait for the hoarse honk of Abdel-Fattah’s (aka Kojak) rickety taxi. It sounds right on the dot; an extraordinary feat in Egypt where time-keeping is rarely part of the national DNA, and we are on our way, amidst gas fumes and an exhaust pipe ominously rattling against the Peugeot’s floorboards. My gear is primed and ready, and I am really excited at the prospect. I knew this was to be the real thing; especially since it was Badawi’s father who had arranged it for me to photograph and record the ceremony.

Halfway to our destination, Badawi’s cellphone rings with the news that the Zeqr ceremony by Sufi women had just ended, which is immensely disappointing, as it’s been infrequently documented. It’s not difficult to persuade Kojak to increase his already diabolical driving by a couple of notches, but he has to be careful as we’re entering areas that are not only heavily populated with bad roads, but where there are very few working street lamps. Most of the weak illumination is from small stores and houses. I see tuk-tuks (or rickshaws) in these streets, something I’ve never seen before in Egypt. Piloted by teenagers, they’re unlicensed and are banned from the large cities by the authorities that fear more traffic accidents. However, they are cheap and villagers use them for their local transport needs.

Now guided by Abu-Badawi, an elder in the local Sufi movement, we are getting close to the area where the Zeqr is being held. I ought to pause the narrative here, and explain that Egypt’s rural Sufi ceremonies and rituals, which is what we are about to witness, also include a mixture of local lore, and superstition. However, in common with Sufi traditions, it relies on repetitive chanting which often leads to trances. It’s frowned upon by the mainstream Islamic orthodoxy, but Egyptian Sufis are essentially left alone by the authorities because as a sect, they’re largely apolitical, and base their belief system on age-old traditions. This provides them sufficient freedom to hold rituals and ceremonies, provided they keep these free of political opinions. It’s no accident that these rituals are held at night in small villages, away from the glare of publicity and are therefore ignored by the governmental authorities. On the other hand, the government carefully monitors the large annual festivals held by the Egyptian Sufi movements in Cairo and in Tanta, which are attended by thousands of adherents.

The car stops at a dimly lit intersection of narrow streets, and we slowly troop out, one by one. I can hear the infectious music now that Kojak’s engine is turned off. I curse the few fluorescent street lamps that bathe some of the area with a greenish haze. This is not going to be an easy photo-shoot by any stretch of the imagination.

Following the sound of the rhythmic Sufi song booming out of loudspeakers, we turn into a narrow alley, crowded with people; some are standing but many more are sitting on simple straw mats, lighting the small pieces of charcoal that burns the tobacco on their water-pipes. The barely illuminated alley seems to be inhabited by ghosts, particularly as I now can see a row of elderly men slowly swaying to the rhythm of the song, as if they’re sheets hung up to dry in the wind. Curious eyes follow me as I make my way to the front; some noticing my camera and wondering what to make of me.

There’s no way for me to blend in such an environment, so I do what I always do in similar situations, I act as if I’m entitled to be there. I’m also comforted with the knowledge that Abu-Badawi’s intercession must be worth a lot here. Now in the midst of the swaying devotees, I photograph as best I can, almost without thinking. I know that I can’t use flash, as it would intrude on what is essentially a religious ritual, so I have to jack up the ISO to 3200 or 6400. The Canon 5D Mark II has impressive high-speed capabilities with a very usable ISO 3200, and an acceptable ISO 6400, which is what I end using while photographing the scenes that unfold in front of me.

The devotees are mostly middle-aged and elderly, wearing the traditional galabeya of Egyptian villagers and white turbans. Apart from a flash of a red t-shirt worn by a youngster, there are no bright colors in this crowd. Conservative black and brown are the colors of choice, both for men and women. As I’m photographing in a narrow alley surrounded by swaying bodies, I find it very difficult to focus on a single person, and prefer to use my 17-40mm Canon L 4.0 lens, and use it at it widest aperture to include as much of the scene as I can.

The tempo of the singing is progressively increasing, and I start to hear the devotees repeating the words Allah Hai (God is alive) under their breath, while slowly throwing their bodies left and right. With each turn of their heads, they utter the phrase over and over “¦ almost like a mantra of sorts. It’s hypnotic and I catch myself repeating the words myself. I’m glad that I’m holding my camera firmly in my hands, which anchors me to reality and to the purpose for which I am here. I try to catch the eyes of the man closest to me, but his eyes are vacant, glazed over while his lips whispers the mantra.

Sensing I’m too much in the way of the devotees’ swaying, I move to the side of the alley and find a vantage point where the rather surreal scene continues to unfold a foot or two below me. A bystander asks me if I worked for a local newspaper, but before I can answer, Abu-Badawi has sidled up to him to tell him to mind his own business. I am Abu-Badawi’s guest and he takes that very seriously.

Through my viewfinder, the faces I see are those of hardworking men, eking a meager living, and having to deal with innumerable daily tribulations. Faces prematurely lined because of hardship, are now suffused with an aura of ecstasy and rapture. The singer has grown hoarse, and the drummer’s fingers are less precise now but the music goes on, relentlessly. I believe it is this that provides solace to these men; a temporary relief from their everyday life. It is such scenes that I find the most rewarding and challenging to me as a photographer; when people are devoid of artifices and pretence, and are immersed in authenticity of emotions and feelings.

I’ve given my Marantz PMD620 audio recorder to Badawi, with the instructions to keep it recording for a few minutes at al time, and I’m glad to see he’s moved away from the blaring loudspeakers to minimize the distortion.

On my way towards the car, I’m invited to share a sheesha, the ubiquitous Egyptian water pipe, with the spectators. A gesture of genuine hospitality and acceptance for which I thank them, giving the excuse that it’s already late. Behind me, the rows of Sufis are still swaying, and will continue to do well into the wee hours of the morning until utter exhaustion. This time there’s no soccer game to distract the Sufis.

Next assignment? That’ll be in Essaouira, on the coast of Morocco, to document the famed Gnaoua musicians.

On my way to Cairo I developed a plan to photograph and document the zekr; a form of ritual performed by Sufis, a sect of Islam frequently considered as too liberal and too progressive by the more orthodox theological authorities in Egypt and the Islamic world. It was a tall order since I was after the authentic zekr, not some version diluted or prettified for the tourists and tour groups. It was therefore by pure luck that I discovered someone with strong connections to one of the Sufi tariqahs or sub-sects, and who promised me full access to a number of these rituals. The devotions of many Sufis center on the zekr, a ceremony at which music, body movements, and chants induce a state of ecstatic trance in the disciples.

The first ceremony was scheduled for late afternoon in an area of Old Cairo that I had only heard of. A somewhat rough neighborhood originally known for drug dealers, it seldom extended a welcome mat to outsiders (and certainly never to foreigners), but it seemed to have recently cleaned up its act. Riding a battered local taxi masterfully but maniacally driven over innumerable potholes by Abdel Fattah (or Kojak, as he prefers to be known) and accompanied by Badawi and Haj Zakaria who are connected to the Sufis, I arrive near the area where the performance is scheduled, carrying a small Domke bag with my Canon 5D Mark II and a 28-70mm f2.8, a 17-40mm f4.0 and my new Marantz PMD 620 audio recorder.

The area is dilapidated, with small buildings having seen better days a hundred years ago. Electrical connections and telephone wires are limply stretched from one building to the other, quite possibly illegally, reminding me of nests of pasta. Men seated at small coffee shops, sipping tea or coffee and sucking on water pipes, stare at me quizzically. They don’t seem to notice they’re sitting on wobbly chairs, precariously perched on ground strewn with litter and worse. All that matters is the soccer game playing on the grimy television sets. Seeing that my guides are walking briskly ahead of me, I choose -wisely, I think, not to ask permission to photograph the coffeehouse patrons. It’s a pity, since a number of these coffee houses are owned and managed by women. Women tougher and physically stronger than many men who boast a vocabulary that would put many a hardened criminal to shame. These women are called “awalem” and are best avoided if one is in not the best of moods.

The performance is to take place near the mosque of Sayyidah Fatimah Al Nabawiyya, a great grand-daughter of the Prophet Muhammad who is said to have been instrumental in bringing Islam to Egypt. My efforts to photograph inside the mosque are thwarted by the guardians who claim that photography is prohibited. I suppose they were made nervous by the sight of my large camera and lenses, since they don’t bat an eyelid when devotees use their camera phones to snap pictures of the saint’s mausoleum. Just as we make our way out of the mosque, I hear the sudden screech of an amplifier, signaling that the musicians are ready to start. The enterprising coffee shop owners provide chairs, anticipating a brisk business supplying tea and water-pipes to spectators and participants. There are a number of them already there. One of them is an elderly feisty looking woman who’s dragging on the mouthpiece of her water-pipe, and who laughs raucously when I start photographing her. Another woman taps me on the shoulder and asks me not to photograph her. Later, she changes her mind and literally begs me to do so since she’s sitting with a man who is not her husband. Another Muslim stereotype bites the dust!

The musicians have started their performance, led by a chain-smoking “muallem“, or teacher. The singer clears his voice and sings the repetitive songs that laud the Prophet Muhammad, his descendants and the various Sufi saints, including the founder of the sect, Sayed Al Badawi. The music is rhythmic, played with well-rehearsed ease by the musical troupe. Only a lute, tambourines, a flute and an Egyptian drum are used. So far, it’s a sedate performance, no different from a small neighborhood party in any big city in the United States.

Slowly, people emerge from the neighboring small hovels and gather around the musicians. A demented man starts to sway to the music, while the elderly matrons clap and cheer him on. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a heavyset woman starts to dance to the music. Wearing the obligatory scarf (and even gloves!), she swings left and right with no apparent rhythm. I’m slack-jawed because I never expected to see a seemingly conservative and religious woman dancing in front of an audience in Egypt. Sufis indeed have a different approach to Islam, and engaging in such ceremonies, which include singing, instrumental music, dance, incense, ecstasy, and trance, is part of their belief system. The woman, who laughed so raucously when I photographed her, has now weaned herself from her hubbly-bubbly water-pipe and is taking tentative steps to the beat of the music. She slowly, but surely, gets herself all worked up, and enters a trance-like appearance with glazed eyes and foams at the mouth. On seeing this, the other woman eases her gently to her seat, where she is eventually reunited with her water pipe.

The leader of the music band is now in charge, as the singer takes a break. Only the leader can recite the “madh“ or the paying of homage to Sufi saints, and can honor those in the audience who donate money. One of my companions must have given him money because I hear my name called along various deceased saints. Apart from the half-hearted trances, it’s not what I originally hoped for, but I enjoyed the authenticity of my surroundings and of the performance. It is what it is, and what it will always be.

The performance has ended for now, and will resume after the final prayers later at night. I’m thrilled to have witnessed and photographed an authentic Egyptian Sufi ceremony, but disappointed that the audience wasn’t large and participatory. I realize that the televised soccer match that evening was to Egyptians the equivalent of what the Super Bowl is to Americans. Soccer trumps religion, even in the Arab world.

The PMD620 is attractively designed, with a grey metal front covering a black casing. In terms of size, it’s about the size of an older generation iPod, or about 4 inches by 2 inches and 3/4 inch in thickness. It sports two built-in mics into the top two sides of its body, and two 1/8-inch jacks are available for an external mic and headphones. A neat little trick is to use the Line-Out jack for your headphones instead of the one on top. This is more convenient, and avoids the headphones coming near the mics whilst recording.

In contrast to the M-Audio Micro-Track that has built-in batteries, the Marantz PMD620 is powered by two AA batteries (easily found everywhere”¦always a plus). The recorder is light, weighing about 4 oz. without the batteries. It uses SD/SDHC Cards for recording uncompressed WAV or MP3 files, and I bought a 2gb SD card which is more than enough for my use.

I used the recorder in Kerala at the many outdoor Theyyam rituals I attended (in fact, I found it easier to turn it on, and give it to a small boy to hold for me, while I was photographing), as well during an indoor Kathakali session. I used it for the first time at a Sufi shrine in Delhi and recorded a Qawwali performance”¦.also outdoors, where I was just feet away from the lead singer and the percussionists. There was some distortion because of my proximity to these sources, and in retrospect I should’ve moved back a few feet. I wore headphones while recording, but in this instance I didn’t notice that anything was amiss. I guess this comes with experience.

I found it very easy to use, and its controls reasonably intuitive and simple. It is designed for a one-handed operation, requiring just a single push of a large button to start recording. The display is OLED which was presumably chosen because it draws far less power and does not need a backlight, however it’s small and while it’s easy to read in the shade, it’s virtually unreadable in the sunlight.

Its operations are simple: one slide of the power switch and it’s ready to record in 2-3 seconds. Push the large Record button and the recording starts instantaneously.

I found PMD620 was small enough to be carried in my pocket, and I never used its belt clip. Its canvas case is sturdy and well made, with an inner zippered pocket that kept my headphones. While traveling, it was carried around in my day bag from where I fished it out whenever I needed it.

I’m not an audio engineer, so my take on the quality of my various recordings should be viewed as that of a photographer who records ambient sound to accompany slideshows”¦no more and no less. There’s no question in my mind that the PMD620 is an excellent “point and shoot” audio recorder, small enough to be carried as an accessory, and well capable of capturing sounds in sufficient quality to provide lovely sound tracks for my multimedia productions.

From my recordings, I deemed the built-in mics to be more than adequate but I had to be careful not to move my hand or fingers while recording since that sound would be captured. Naturally, I would avoid this issue with an external mic, but that’s not in my immediate plans. To avoid handling noise, I looked for places where I could place the recorder, turn it on, press the record button and leave it there for the duration of the performance or whatever else I was recording. Sure, I had to keep an eye on it, but never had any cause to worry about it. I even noticed that people took pains as to not walk too closely to it, giving it a wide berth.

I suspect all the currently available audio recorders in the same price range will provide more or less the same quality, and as in the case of DSLRS, it really boils down as to which has a better fit with the user.