These photo’s were shot on Ilford 3200 B+W film with my Nikon FM2 and Nikkor 400mm prime lense. Featuring Santosh and Sangeet Misha (sarangi players) and master tabla player Bobby Singh. Classical Indian traditional music at its finest. Photography_Blake Copland
Whilst shooting for Antes como Antes, Ahora como Ahora we travelled down to Tijuana for the Fandango Fronterizo with Maestro Cesar Castro. This is a sequence of the actual wall on the border shot from a overcrowded taxi. photography Blake Copland
Voyage of Sound has been documenting Bukhu’s performances and collaborations for the past year, developing our next thread and journey for the series. Bukhchuluun Ganburged (Bukhu) is a master student of the Music and Dance Conservatory of Ulaanbaatar. Bukhu performs the folk musics of Mongolia, while exploring the aural dimensions of sounds generated by traditional instruments and harmonic overtone vocal techniques. His music brings a contemporary take on the tradition of Mongolian bards of the middle ages and those of ancient times, acting as a national memory bank by working mythologies, historic figures and events into traditional verse form. Bukhu is a must see if you get the chance. Photography_Blake Copland
As Mexican-American rock star Ritchie Valens’ performed his classic 1958 hit ‘La Bamba’ for hordes of adoring fans worldwide, many were unaware of the songs old and unique history: the song could be traced back to the 19th century in the southern coastal region of Veracruz, Mexico. La Bamba was one of an array of various sonecitos regionales - literally, regional songs - that emerged out of the Spanish colony there as part of the unique hybrid culture of Son Jarocho.
Son Jarocho is a unique hybrid genre of song and dance, which combines Spanish, Indigenous and African elements. During the days of the colony, European instruments, such as the guitar and harp, were appropriated and modified by the mestizos, indigenous and blacks, as were Spanish poetic forms, such as the decima. Many of the songs were banned at the time, but they continued to emerge throughout the masses until eventually coming to form a proud and vibrant culture in the southeastern coastal plains of Veracruz, Mexico – otherwise known as sotavento.
In the contemporary context, Son Jarocho culture has come to be not only proudly affiliated with the geo-cultural area of southern Veracruz, but also many other parts of Mexico and the United States, particularly Los Angeles, which has become a hotbed for the culture. As such, Son Jarocho is a vast, multi-faceted phenomenon within which great arrays of stylistic variations exist.
As Son Jarocho’s popularity increases worldwide, some are calling for a re-evaluation of the culture in which, on the one hand, tradition has been so vitally important, and yet on other, it has also evolved through appropriation, adaptation and hybridization.
Antes como Antes, Ahora como Ahora (Before like Before, Today like Today) speaks to a vast and colourful array of characters from all spectrums of the Son Jarocho community, capturing a moment in time where an old traditional culture attempts to redefine itself at the crossroads of globalization.
We are still in production and are scheduled to finish in December 2013. This is the first thread of the Voyage of Sound series, with a number of other threads in production and in development.
