Featured here is a selection of my favourite photographs of the Ma Song – Spirit Horses from the Vegetarian Festival in Phuket. I’ve reproduced them in black and white which is my preferred medium.
To understand the history of the festival and its ritual practices please visit an older post documenting the Festival in Phuket – Thailand
I was invited to cover the inaugural International Guitar Festival, held in July 2008 in New Plymouth – New Zealand. The festival was founded by Garry Sharpe-Young – Venture Taranaki Trust.
The line-up was impressive with rockstars Gilby Clarke (USA), Glenn Hughes (UK), Vernon Reid (USA), Alex Skolnic Trio (USA), Uli Jon Roth (Germany), and Joe Satriani performing.
The New Zealand line-up included Kara Gordon Trio, Gray Barlett, Mathew Marshall Quartet, and Nick Granvill.
It was a week long festival and included performances to educate and inspire guitarists. Jam sessions, guitar clinics, discussion forums and midnight sessions were held throughout Taranaki. Subsequent Festivals were held through to 2010.
Please see here a few of my favourite photographs. I’m a Canon girl and was using an 85 mm f1.2L and a 14 mm f2.8 lens for this occasion, and mostly with an ISO rating at 800.
In 2008 I covered the WOMAD World of Music, Art and Dance Festival for the Taranaki Arts Festival Trust in New Plymouth. New Zealand.
WOMAD an internationally established festival, brings together artists from all over the globe. The central aim of the festival is to celebrate the world’s many forms of music, arts and dance.
In 2008 over 300 performers from 14 countries performed at the ‘open air’ stages at the picturesque TSB Bowl Of Brooklands in New Plymouth.
This is a sample of the artists I enjoyed:
Cara Dillion (Ireland)
Beirut (USA)
The Monks from Tasha Lhunpo Monastery (Tibet/India)
Dengue Fever (USA/Cambodia)
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba (Mali)
Kora (New Zealand)
The Vegetarian Festival in Phuket – Thailand helps prevent illness and death according to popular legend. In 1825 a traveling Chinese opera company, ngiu in Thai orpua-hee in Hokkien dialect, came to perform in Naithu Village, Kathu.
Unfortunately, after a time many of the performers became terribly sick, and they decided that the cure was to eat only vegetables as they had done in China, in an act of contrition or expurgation for the sins incurred by the killing and consumption of animals.
Miraculously the ill members of the group were healed, and so the Chinese immigrants arranged for a Festival to be held again the next year, and every year since.
Thus, many believe holding the Festival helps prevent illness, death and the loss of innocent lives in the community by promoting physical and spiritual recovery through ritual practices that cleanse the body and mind while strengthening the faith.