Some pictures of the exhibition: "An Ethereal World" - up until June 19th.

Here it is before I fly off to Djibouti until June 15th. As South China Morning Post suggested, we had about 300 people that came through during the opening, on May 18th.

I just held 2 private viewing on May 25th, and we will have an open day at the gallery on Saturday June 19th, where I will be present all day. If anyone wants to have a chat and listen to more stories, please come!

Today's South China Morning Post, about my ongoing exhibition...

Exhibition's opening was a great success, with over 200 people that came through on May 18th - a great birthday gift! But more about this later, with pictures etc...

Here is an article that just came out today in South China Morning post, before the day is gone...:
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Exhibition: An Ethereal World: Journeys to the Edges of Asia - Picture This Gallery, Until Jun 12th 2010

© Yvonne Teh
May 20, 2010

Matthieu Paley has literally come a long way since working in a provincial town in the north of France "where, if you were a photographer, you'd be working on the main street doing portraits for ID cards". He spent some years in Jakarta and New York before moving to Hong Kong in 2002.

Currently based in Shek O, the Frenchman - who celebrated his 37th birthday two days ago, the same day his exhibition at Picture This Gallery opened - has travelled to, and worked in, several parts of Asia, including remote regions such as the Pamir Knot, the name given to a mountainous area where Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and China meet.

An Ethereal World: Journeys to the Edges of Asia, which is part of this year's Le French May, consists of 17 photographs taken in a part of the world Paley first visited in 1999 after a conversation with a Pakistani man in New York.

"I was so ignorant then," Paley recalls, adding he wasn't even aware there were mountains in the country. But after his first visit to the region,  "I got hooked. I have been back there every year ever since."

Paley and his German wife Mareile spent time in a secluded lake village in the Baltistan region of northern Pakistan. "One day we went there and the water was low and my wife was just walking there and I took a picture and that's it, you know? It's a great memory for me when I look at it," the photographer-explorer says of Kachura (picture below).

Another, more famous body of water, Siberia's Lake Baikal, is the setting for other works in the exhibition. The dark blue water in Ice Rider hints at how deep the voluminous freshwater lake is (more than 1,600 metres) and how clear it is. That the ice on the lake is up to 1.5 metres thick and able to support a horse and rider is a sign of how cold and long the winters are. While most people stay away from Siberia in winter, that's when Paley prefers to visit.

"In winter, things slow down and I think that, as a photographer, when things slow down, it gives me more time to see things, to capture them," he says. For another, "I love wintry conditions because it brings [out] something special in people to be able to live in these harsh conditions".

One of them is Marbet, a young Afghan Kyrgyz girl, who thinks nothing of being out in temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius. Paley photographed the red-cheeked girl soon after she came in from the cold, where she had been tending her father's goats. "[Marbet] dropped one of the tiny goats by the fire. And I said, 'Just sit there,' and she sat there, and she looked like this and I took her picture."

Mon-Sat, PictureThis Gallery, 11am-6pm, Suite 1308, 13/F Office Tower, 9 Queen's Road Central. Inquiries: 2525 2820

Taste of Mongolia (that would be mutton...) in this month's Travel & Leisure

Travel & Leisure features a portfolio of some of my Mongolia images in this month's edition. See it below. Voila!

Exhibition opening on Tuesday May 18th, 6-9pm, PictureThis Gallery

Almost there! My exhibition will open up next Tuesday May 18th. Here you can see the invitation to the opening of my exhibition.  This is supported by the French May, see it here.
And below, extracts from the invitation.

Hope to see you there!
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MATTHIEU PALEY

An Ethereal World - Journeys to the edges of Asia

Opening reception with the photographer  -  Tuesday 18th May, 6 - 9pm
Picture This Gallery, 13th Floor, 9 Queen's Road Central, HK
At 7pm, Matthieu Paley will make a short presentation about his works
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The Exhibition continues until Saturday, 12th June 2010
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Biography:

Living in Hong Kong since 2002, but spending much of his time in the most remote and often highest altitude corners of Asia, Matthieu Paley is an intrepid explorer and award winning photographer. This exhibition comprises 17 photographs taken since 1999 in Afghanistan,Tajikistan, Pakistan and Siberia, shot with a mix of medium format and 35mm film. Paley's work is not easily or simply acquired. Most of these photographs are taken in the depths of winter when the environment is at its most harsh and inhospitable and temperatures drop to 30 below zero, providing the best light and working conditions for Paley's ethereal and inspiring photographs.

Paley's work has been exhibited at galleries in France, New York and Munich as well as at the Perpignan Photojournalism Festival, Visa Pour L'Image and the Banff Mountain Festival, where he won the 2009 Mountain Culture Photography Competition.

Mongolia revisited, Royal Geographical Society, Ulysses, monsters and wonder-woman

Over the last 5 days, I prepared over 130 images for print in my upcoming book on Mongolia, which will come out at the Editions de la Martinière in France, at the end of September. The color proofs are done in France but the actual book print will be done here in Hong Kong, allowing us to supervise it, which is a treat..
I have attached a few new image scans from Mongolia, including (last image) a picture of a TV screen of a movie that played in a yurt once.

After some YouTube research, I am sure it was Ulysses, from 1954, by italian movie director Mario Camerini. Just the stuff of dream I think. I had to put the link too. In the same lineage, Sindbad The Sailor from 1958, is just fantastic. The beginning of animation, and I think incredibly haunting. I am a big fan!




 Text and design of the Mongolia book is by Mareile, my wife, who is a multi-talented wonder-woman, mother, company owner, financial adviser, web designer and... passionate Pilates instructor! As some of you might know, she will be hosting a retreat in Bali from June 19th until June 26th. Have a look here.
I won't be able to join her as I will be hosting a lecture/movie screening of our Pamir movie at the Royal Geographical Society in Hong Kong around this time. Details will soon come on the venue and exact date.

Follow this link for an intrepid travel with Sindbad and the fast moving island monsters.

In exhibition mode...

If you decide not to just throw some pretty pictures on a wall, there is a lot of work behind an exhibition... I have been at it for a couple of weeks now and it's seriously picking up in this last week. After an initial large selection, we edited down to 17 images, keeping to a theme - in that case, as the title of the exhibition explains clearly "An ethereal world". We did a lay out with small prints, spreading them on a table to get a visual feel. Then we need to discuss sizes, keeping in mind the gallery space, already running editions etc. We created maquette of the gallery space with the images on the walls, to get a better feel.

Parallel to this, we are working on an exhibition catalog, with artist's statement, interesting captions, titles etc. Meanwhile I have drum scanned all the images, got myself an SSD drive to allow my computer to handle 1.5 GB files, brought them to my fine art printer. We looked at the files and started working on them. Today I will visit him to apply the final crops and resizing them for the catalog. We will also decide which paper we finally use.

In between, I have been interviewed by various magazine on this exhibition: it already did get quite a lot of press via the French May. The media release is due out next week. We will do an A0 contact sheet next week with the images and, no doubt, there will be some more retouching involved after that. Then comes the first final prints and then start of mounting and framing.

The team at PictureThis Gallery have been very efficient and productive, so the whole process has been a real pleasure. Looks good and I am indeed very excited! Official opening will be on May 18th, detail to follow!

Planning an exhibition...

My computer is fuming. It has been handling 2 GB files as I am scanning and retouching for my upcoming solo exhibition here in Hong Kong. It is supported by the French May, who joined in at the last minute following a impromptu meeting with the people at the Alliance Francaise.

The venue will be the PictureThis Gallery, on 9 Queen's road. This gallery recently exhibited Michael Yamashita's work. Here it is, up on the French May website. In due time, I will let you all know about the opening's date etc as it has changed (it will be up on PictureThis website early next month).

And for the German speakers, something else on the web that I just found that's quite interesting, talking about how Geo Magazine and I eventually came about to do that winter Kyrgyz story in Afghanistan. Article translates to  "How we came about to do "The Forgotten". There is a picture of me holding 10 Kg of opium. We were at a Afghan dealer's house up in the High Pamir. I promise, I did not consume, too terrible of a drug. There is my buddy Ted Callahan also, the anthropologist who lived up there. For those of you who did not see the 5mn trailer of the movie (using stills...) that resulted from this assignment, here it is.

I am off to Philippines for 2 days, a worldwide book project where some 100 photographers will contribute. More when I am back!

A Portfolio of horses

Equestrio magazine just featured me in their portfolio section and on their covers, with an interview from yours truly. Click on the first image to read the flattering text...

Horses are probably my favorite in the animal realm, and I have indeed shot lots of them over the years. My first horse story was on the Polo Shandur festival, in Pakistan. More soon followed. Last summer I shot a Kyrgyz horse game on the Pamir plateau, in Tajikistan. I jumped in the  scrum (this means "mêlée" for the french speaking... I just found that one out!) ate some dust and here it is, some more horses...

Thank you e-mail...

An e-mail received yesterday, copied here with the permission of the author.
I do receive e-mails like this now and then, but this one especially warmed my heart because of its spontaneity. Here it is... thanks Ikumi, this gets me going!
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Dear Mr Paley.

This is my first E-mail for you . Please forgive me sending  a mail suddenly .
 I'm Ikumi Morooka lived in TOKYO , JAPAN. 27 years old. I'm working as editorial designer.

When I found your site today , I  was  fascinated by your fabulous Photos. Espesially frozen Baikal lake.  the Ice Rider very beautiful nature.

Unfortunatelly I'm not good at English so It's difficult to express my feeling from your Photos.
Asia's photos may catch me or severe nature may catch my heart. I'm not sure but I love your works.

Now I live in material civillization , more and more sience thechnology are developing ,
human is losing animal intuition at the same time. Tokyo is very big city  so sometimes I think I might be crazy.

I would like to spend a simple life materially  and mentally.

These days I would like to have been thinking climbing mountain. No cell phone No internet and Nothing rely on but myself. I hope I see your works directly in my eyes.

please take care of your health. I  am looking forward to see your  new work in website .

Thank you for reading.

Respectfully yours,

IKUMI Morooka

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Otherwise, I will be uploading a new story on my website within the next few days and I have news about an upcoming exhibition. More soon!

Equipment please??.....

Back from the Gobi in Mongolia. More about that later. Here below is my dear friend John Bonaccolta, who came along, in one of his many solemn vodka-imbued moments, thinking on how the rising Moon is so magnetically attracted to the Earth... mmmmm....



Ok Tech Geeks... I get asked often: what material do you use? Frankly I don't think it's that important. Some of my favorite images were shot with a small Nikon F3. I get much more excited talking about the psychological approach necessary for taking a good picture. But here we go: I will go from latest to earliest (10 years ) gear I used:
- Contax 645 with 2 lens, 35mm and 85. With this, I like to shoot negative film (160 + 400 ASA). It's easy to use, has a waist viewfinder which can be usefull, feels heavy, I like!
- I used slide film for a couple of years at the beginning, but I can't stand the look of it these days (that deep blue skies drives me nuts...). I love the feel and look of negative, and so far haven't been able to achieve this with digital. Maybe one day, I can't wait.
- In general, if I have done some nice pictures (on negative or slide), I scan them on an Imacon 646 virtual drum-scan.  These are the latest versions of that scanner. Great big beast, it looks like Darth Vador sitting on my desk. I love it. I got it in 2004, it was damn expensive... Imacon has been bought out by Hasselblad it seems.
- I have 2 digital cameras, both Canon: the famed 1D MarkII and the famed 5D MarkII. I have 24-70mm lens (2.8), 24mm 2.8 prime lens, longer 105mm lens and a lovely 35mm 1.4. These days, it is my favorite. I am definitely part of the school that says "You are the Zoom!". If you see something you like, get close to it. If you can avoid using one of these big white lenses, much the better...

- I have a bunch of ND filters that I like and a couple of polarizer filter that I don't use anymore these days.
- In the past, and still sometimes today, I use panoramic cameras such as the Hasselblad X-Pan and a funny Russian camera, the Horizon: a swing-lens panoramic camera.
- I also used the Nikon F100 for a while (and the F3 before that), took it on some long lonesome adventures in the Hindukush with the panoramic, was always faithful to me :) . I switched to Canon when it was time to buy digital, because at this time (2005), it was the talk of the town...

What else?
mmmmm, I don't like flash, although I did experiment with ring falsh and it was fun, but the novelty quickly wore off. I usually have a couple of fold-able reflectors with me that I will use occasionally.
I also have a Manfrotto tripod, and I also use it sometimes, but rarely... In general, I always travel very small.
Bags? Well, a good camera bag I think is essential. I have always use the now discontinued Tamrac half moon bag. I even contacted Tamrac to scream at them to keep producing it. In response, they gave me 2 free bags. Thanks Tamrac people.

If going on an expedition, I will take along my mountain Hardwear tent + 800 down sleeping bag, a Therm-A-Rest foam pad, couple of super small Petzl headlights, an MSR stove, Asolo shoes etc. All this fits nicely in my now severally beaten 100 Liters Gregory pack.The Tamrac half moon rests nicely on my belly while I walk up that mountain, my camera easily in reach...

Voila, there would be more to talk about (I should do a section of my good luck charms that I carry around..), but I got scanning to do!

Off to cold things again...

I first went to Mongolia in 1998, my first big Asia trip. We didn't see any tourist for 3 months, during an epic trip to the west, walking, hitchhiking on coal trucks, camel riding over deserts, anything that could help us go forward. We flew back in a russian airplane, standing and drinking vodka at take off, dodging the luggage falling off the open compartiment. Then, of course, I really fell in love with Mongolia.

I have been back on assignments a few times since then. Once to do a horse story for a german magazine, once for an eagle story for another German magazine, and once for now defunct National Geographic Adventure magazine. That particular assignment revolved around a gigantic salmon called Taimen. You can see some images here, on the National Geographic website. We met a bunch of scientist a few hours drive from the quirky named Moron town. I was teamed up with some "big fish", writer David Quammen. We met over a nice red wine and quickly became friend, a great easy going guy to work with.

But all this time, I was never in Mongolia in the middle of winter. So, I recently got myself a nice full body fleece and I am off tomorrow, to the Gobi desert. I will be back in 2 weeks, hopefully with all my extremities. In fact, Mongolia just got its coldest winter in 30 years, with -50 temperatures.

"Forgotten on the roof of the world" ©Matthieu Paley, trailer is up!

Back from a month travel. It took, on and off, approximately 1 year in the making but the web-documentary on the Afghan Kyrgyz is done! I recently put up the 5mn trailer. You can also see it right here, better if you have a fast connection.



Here is a brief synopsis: "This multimedia documentary "Forgotten on the Roof of the World" tells the story of a little-known tribe of Kyrgyz nomads in one of earth’s most remote regions - Afghanistan’s High Pamirs mountains. Leading the viewer through this people's stories of struggle and survival, of opium addiction and infant mortality, French photographer Matthieu Paley and American anthropologist Ted Callahan narrate the film in word and image. Their documentation covers the tribe’s unique barter trade with a small community in Pakistan as well as their routines and traditions ‘at home’ in Afghanistan. Beneath the surface, the documentary addresses one of humanities most elementary themes - Homeland - giving a global context to the story of a seemingly insignificant forgotten tribe."

A couple of screen shots below:

It will be aired at various Film Festivals worldwide, I will keep you posted. Back to work here in Hong Kong. I will be in Mongolia from Feb 11th until the 24th. Last I checked, it was -42C in the Gobi desert, where we are heading! This is it, I am buying a full body fleece suit!

The tram-way: going slow while dreaming in Hong Kong.

A test on a classic picture theme that I love, and that I practiced yesterday while waiting to pick up iluka from school. In a city were everyone always rushes, a slow tram a day shall keep the dream alive!