Tenganan Hipstamatic

Fight: Two Tenganan boys battle each other in the ritualistic Mekare-kare.

Stand alone applications that capture pictures and manipulate them with various vintage effects to create images resembling the ones produced by cameras of 30 years ago are the hottest fever among today’s photographers and wanna-be photographers.

Instagram and Hipstamatic lead the pack of these photo-sharing applications and, as of April, Instagram had been installed on more than 50 million smartphones worldwide.

It was no surprise then when one of Bali’s promising photojournalists and the Bali Daily’s own Agung Parameswara had the desire to create a photo essay captured and processed through Hipstamatic.

Pride: A Tenganan youth proudly shows his scars inflicted by the thorns ofthe pandanus leaves used in the Mekare-kare and a tattoo of those leaves, aninsignia of pride for being a member of the ancient village.So, armed with a brand new iPhone, a recently purchased Hipstamatic application, plus its Rock BW 11 films and John S lens, he drove to Tenganan at dawn on Friday to capture the Mekare-kare, the ritualistic battle held as part of the major Ngusaba Sambah festival.

The results are a fitting blackand- white homage to the Tenganan people, who for centuries have faithfully preserved not only their cultural heritage but also their environmental legacy. It really is true that there is nothing like black-andwhite to capture the bare essence of reality.

— Photos by agung parameswara