Next year I am trying something a little different. I will be riding a motorcycle from Bali to the Flores - a region rich in tribal cultures and traditions. I will shoot a couple of stories there and I plan to take one photo enthusiast along with me.
This opportunity is ideal for an individual who is interested in working as a travel/documentary photographer.
The trip will not be a workshop. The opportunities to shoot your own stuff will be limited (but you will have them). Above all this will not a packaged tour. Expect the unexpected - surprises, obstacles, very basic accommodation in hotels and in villages, and there is no guarantee that the shots we are looking for will be found.
What this is - is a real adventure, you will truly experience incredible cultures face to face, not from behind a bus window. This is also a great chance to learn about travel/documentary photography from a professional, through observing, assisting and asking questions. When I am not shooting it’ll be question time. Ask anything that relates to travel photography, we can even touch on post-processing in Photoshop (I will have a laptop) and using artificial light i.e. off camera flash and a reflector. How much you ask and in turn, how much you learn is up to you. We will not have any formal lessons - the entire trip will be a lesson in itself.
The date of commencement is flexible, within the months of May, June, July. We will work towards something that is suitable for the participant and me. The duration is up to 30 days. That is the time you will spend with me. It will take us approximately a week to ride from Bali to Flores and you will have to make your own way back (without me), which could either take you a week or a couple of hours by plane (airfare is cheap in Indonesia). The cost of this trip - $US 1100 - will not include lodging, food or public transport. Essentially what you get for that price is a teacher, motorcycle with a rider, translator and guide - me:). For living expenses, plan on US$20-30 a day, depending on the level of comfort you want, while we are in bigger towns.
This trip is priced and structured differently to the workshop because it is aimed at a different type of individual with a different goal. The workshop is about having the holiday of your life. This journey is more like an exciting work trip.
I am only going to take one person and I will only do this one time, at least in this part of the world. An ideal person will have an interest in a career in travel/documentary photography and will be reasonably proficient with a digital SLR, very passionate, curious, adaptable, adventurous, respectful of other cultures and will have a positive attitude.
As there is only one spot, there will be a kind of selection process. On the learn page click “APPLY” you will be taken to your e-mail client and the subject “Indonesia: Bali to the tribal villages of Flores” will be automatically entered into the subject field, do not change this. In the body field, state your age and experience and write a few lines about why you want to go on this trip, provide a link to your work online, if you don’t have work online, just create a Flickr account (it’s free) and upload it there.
Depending on the amount of applications, I will likely make the selection in the first couple of months of next year.
In our time, travel rarely leads to ground-breaking new findings, most of the places on our planet have already been discovered and much of the population has been subjected to global, visual uniformity. My generation of world wanderers will likely be the last to experience the pleasure of encountering something entirely unfamiliar, chancing upon the forgotten and the unspoilt, enclaves where human inhabitants have remained essentially unchanged, since the beginning of time.
I wander around the world through dusty roads of small villages, winding mountain paths and narrow lanes of ancient towns. I search for people whose faces, bodies, clothes, adornments, beliefs and occupations say as much about who they were as who they presently are. But one day a child, wearing a baseball cap and a unisex made in China t-shirt questions his or her parents way of life and this signals the change of an era. Generations will pass, cultures will die out and an identity of a people will transform beyond recognition. The photographic image will become a testament, a reminder of the way things were and the way they will never be again. To me this is the essence of photography. I want to embrace the beauty of that which is disappearing and in a sense immortalize it in my photographs.
My name is Mitchell Kanashkevich. This website is a showcase of my selected works and a place where people can obtain my photographic prints. Be sure to check out the high-quality ".PDF" Catalogs under "Fine Art Prints Section". In the not-too-distant future it will also be a source of information about exhibitions of my work and my newest photographic projects.
