Sunday Break: Chinatown's Columbus Park

понедельник, 30 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I thought New York City's weather on Sunday was just perfect for a few hours of street photography on Chinatown's Mulberry Street, but ended up spending an interesting time at Columbus Park (Mulberry and Bayard). This is the only park in Chinatown, and is built on what was in the 19th century the most dangerous slum area of immigrant New York.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Now, it's the venue of choice for hundreds of Chinese residents, a few of whom I saw were practicing tai chi, while others (mostly women) were playing mahjong and card games, and groups of men were engaged in numerous games of xiangqi. Many more occupy the benches, socializing with their neighbors or with strangers, listening to the songs of birds in their cages.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

At the corner of Mulberry & Bayard, there was a large band of traditional musicians accompanying a handful of elderly Chinese opera singers, surrounded by an appreciative audience. I had come prepared...and brought my audio recorder to capture its unmistakable sounds. The musicians used a panoply of Chinese traditional musical instruments, such as the yangqin, a sort of dulcimer with a near-squared soundboard, and played with two bamboo sticks, as well as the jinghu, a small two string fiddle, a circular bodied plucked lute called the yueqin and the recognizable gu and ban, a drum and clapper.

I was racking my brains all evening trying to remember the title of the movie that featured Beijing opera characters, and which won the Cannes Palme d'Or. It's Farewell My Concubine, the 1993 Chinese film directed by Chen Kaige, and adapted from the novel by Lilian Lee.

Praful Rao: Of Monasteries & Men

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Photograph © Praful Rao-All Rights Reserved

I had the pleasure of meeting Praful Rao in Thimpu, Bhutan which he was visiting at the same time I was there. Praful is a self taught photographer whose passion for photography spans his lifetime. He describes himself as a generalist, choosing to capture whatever catches his eye or creating photographs from impromptu themes conjured in his mind. While most of his photography is of people and nature, he has also gotten involved in minimalism, still life and still enjoys doing B&W work.

Here's a lovely multimedia slideshow: Of Monasteries & Men produced by Praful. Some of the photographs are of the enthronement ceremony of the third reincarnation of Domo Geshe Rimpoche, in Tharpacholing Gompa in Kalimpong (a part of the district of Darjeeling in West Bengal). Following the ceremony, the young lama was whisked away to Mysore for further theological studies. Some photographs were also made at the Tongsa Gompa, the oldest Buddhist monastery in Kalimpong, and others are of Bhutan. I particularly liked the above image for its shadows and saturated color...a compelling composition by Praful.

Praful tells me that the background music is by a young Nepali flautist, called Manose Singh. The track was traded for a photograph by Praful that'll be featured on the artist's forthcoming album.

An earlier post on Praful Rao and his photography was published by TTP here (link).

A Tale of Two Bags

воскресенье, 29 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

A month ago, as I was retrieving my checked-in bag at Heathrow (I've stopped over in London from New York, en route to Bangkok then on to Paro, Bhutan), I thought something wasn't quite right but in a hurry to get a cab, it's only later that I saw that my TSA-approved lock was missing.

I unzipped my bag and saw that someone had opened all my zipped-up pouches holding chargers, batteries, cables, a sound recorder and a couple of hard drives. Nothing was missing so it wasn't a thief...but it was someone who checked every electronic item in the pouches, to the extent that the tiny SONY microphone I use with the audio recorder was removed from its little bag, and was found on top of my socks...just like that. There was no note from the TSA...nothing to indicate that it was the TSA which had done that. Since nothing was taken, I assume it was their staff that opened the lock, failed to return it, and thoroughly rifled through my electronic stuff.

Ralph Childs, a participant in my Bhutan photo expedition, had the same experience on his flight from Chicago. The TSA-approved lock was also missing, with no note from the TSA. In his case nothing was taken and his belongings weren't rifled through.

While it gives me comfort that the TSA seems to be really screening bags, and appreciating that its staff is under-trained and overworked, I am still taken aback that Ralph and I (flying from different US airports) lost our combination locks, and there was no note indicating that the TSA had been through our bags. In my case, I'm just annoyed that electronic items were strewn around in the bag...losing an item would've been a nuisance, although I could've replaced it in London or Bangkok.

Moral of the story: Keep every item you depend on for your work in your carry-on luggage...and remember that TSA locks are great if and when the TSA staff have the ways to open them (or take the trouble to)...if not, you can kiss them goodbye.

POV: The Old Boys Club Crumbled

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Paul Melcher is his blog Thoughts of A Bohemian has penned an interesting and provocative post on the Black Star Rising blog, and one that I am in full agreement with.

Paul Melcher's premise is best summarized by this quote from the post:
"Once upon a time, cameras, processing, access and distribution were the privilege of the few in photography. The business was an Old Boys Club with high barriers to entry. But now, anyone can join."

Actually, the walls surrounding the Old Boys club have crumbled like the Berlin Wall in 1989.

I've taught at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshops in Mexico City and in Manali (India) in 2008 and 2009, and I was struck at how few "Old Boys" there were. The preponderance of attendees and instructors were outside of the so-called "inner circle". Young talented photographers from Latin and Central America, and more from South Asia and South Eastern Asia that I ever thought existed, joined these workshops and demonstrated fresh outlooks to photography and the creativity to break rules, taboos and barriers.

And as Melcher says, it's all about your Point Of View. So forget infantile tribalism masquerading as networking...stop wasting time on Tweeter and Facebook...forget trying to cannibalize other photographers' ideas, projects (and yes, even photo itineraries)...and develop your own vision...your own POV...your own sphere of creativity...ignore the dying throes of the old and go take some photographs instead.

With The Travel Photographer blog, along with many others, introducing the work of talented emerging photographers to tangible new opportunities as it has, and will continue to do, the walls of the "Old Boys" club have indeed crumbled to dust. Good riddance!

Shiho Fukada: E&P Winner

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Photograph © Shiho Fukada-All Rights Reserved

Editor & Publisher has just announced its 9th Annual Photos of the Year winners. Shiho Fukada, won the grand prize for her work in The New York Times covering the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province, China. The Travel Photographer offers its congratulations to Ms Fukada for the well-deserved award.

An outstanding photographer, Shiho Fukada has been featured many times on The Travel Photographer. Here are some of the links:

Kashgar Photo Essay

PDN Photo Annual 2008

Digital Photo Pro Magazine

TTP's Photo of the Year 2007

Haj & Eid El-Adha

суббота, 28 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © AP Photo/Hassan Ammar-All Rights Reserved

I wish Eid Mubarak to my Muslim readers, and I refer them to The Boston Globe's The Big Picture for great photographs of the event.

Friday, November 27th, was the start of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim "Festival of Sacrifice", which is based on the tradition that Ibrahim was willing to sacrifice his son Ismail to God.

As I posted in a POV a couple of days ago, Muslims celebrate it by slaughtering animals to commemorate God's gift of a ram to substitute for Ibrahim's son, distributing the meat amongst family, friends and the poor.

Speaking of Islam. I frequently read Asim Rafiqui's blog, The Spinning Head, and one of his latest posts will certainly resonate with all fair-minded persons.

Lourdes Segade: Bhutan & Nepal

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Photograph © Lourdes Segade/All Rights Reserved

Lourdes Segade is a Spanish photojournalist, based in Barcelona. Her work is often seen in Spain, where she publishes in Sunday newspaper supplements such as La Vanguardia Magazine or El Semanal, and in other magazines such as Yo Dona or Revista, of La Vanguardia newspaper or other publications, like DAMn, The New York Times and the IHT.

She has shown her work in screenings at several festivals, including the International Meeting of Photojournalism in Gijón and also the Albarracín Photo and Journalism Seminar, both in Spain. She's a member of the French collective, PictureTank, and is a co-founder of the EVE Photographers, a collective of emerging women photographers.

I feature Lourdes' portfolio titled Nepal & Bhutan: A Glimpse, as I'm already experiencing serious withdrawal pangs from my Bhutan photo expedition. I particularly liked the photograph of the dancer's skirt at the Punakha dzong during Losar...a wide angle shot, with just a touch of blur.

Foto Week DC: Nov 11-22, 2008

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A week long celebration of photography is scheduled for November 15-22, and will mark the launch of FotoWeek DC, the first annual gathering of a diverse and wide-ranging photography community in the nation’s capital, including photographers, museums, universities and all those involved in the profession across the metro D.C. area, including Virginia and Maryland.

FotoWeek DC seeks to bring together all photographers and imaging professionals from every discipline to join with the public in celebration of the medium.

More information is available on FotoWeek's blog, which I'm glad to see is using the same color scheme as The Travel photographer.

Bhutan Photo Expedition: Novice & Dahlias

пятница, 27 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy/All Rights Reserved

Here's a photograph made at the Dechen Phadrang monastic school in Thimpu. We had the necessary permit to visit the school, and spent a number of hours photographing and interacting with the novitiates. The photograph is obviously posed, and I chose a spot at the school's lakhang where the light was just right.

The novitiates involved in the photo shoot had a bunch of dahlias, and were glad to pose for us. I usually much prefer spontaneity and movement in my travel portraits, but posed portraits are often useful for stock purposes.

NGM: Martin Schoeller: The Hadza

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The National Geographic brings us The Hadza, a collection of photographs by Martin Schoeller. He is a German photographer who assisted Annie Leibovitz in New York in the early nineties. He continued on his own and worked for The New Yorker under contract since 1999 and also for Rolling Stone and GQ.

According to Wikipedia, the Hadza people, or Hadzabe'e, are an ethnic group in central Tanzania, living around Lake Eyasi in the central Rift Valley and in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau. The Hadza number just under 1000, and they are the last functioning hunter-gatherers in Africa.

The New York Times LENS blog also features Schoeller's work, which was based on an assignment for Travel and Leisure magazine. The Hadza were not re-enacting a lifestyle for tourists, but living in a way that had basically not changed for thousands of years.

David Lang: Street Photographers

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Photograph © David Lang/All Rights Reserved

David Lang worked in New York City for a well-known photographer specializing in portraits and celebrity shoots, but moved on to work for the International Organization for Migration. He documented the organization's relief efforts following the tsunami in Sri Lanka. He also worked with UNICEF in the Maldives, and Internews in Pakistan.

David has an interesting collection of galleries of his work in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Morocco...for TTP, I chose to highlight his work on Street Photographers in Kabul. In many countries of the world, street photographers perform their craft in cities' streets, on corners and in "holes-in-the-wall", and they provide a public service by producing passport-sized photos for IDs etc.

Afghanistan is one of these countries, as well as India, and a myriad of others. The technique in processing the prints is -by our digital standards- prehistoric, and may well be considered as a dying art.

My thanks to Emmanuelle Rey for the link to David's work.

Bhutan Photo Expedition: Taktshang

четверг, 26 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy/All Rights Reserved

Yech! Britain has now switched to Winter Time, and it'll get darker earlier from now on. The weather forecast calls for rain...so it'll be a miserable Sunday. Perhaps it's a message from the gods that I ought to stay in and start reviewing my thousands of images from Bhutan, process them and put Lightroom 2.1 through its paces.

Here's a photograph (a postcard view) of Taktshang Goemba, also known as Tiger's Nest, near Paro. Taktshang is probably the most famous of monasteries in Bhutan. It literally hangs on a cliff at over 10,000 feet. The legend behind the monastery is that Padmasambhava (or Guru Rinpoche) flew there on the back of a tiger. The only way to the monastery is by foot (or on mule-back), and the trek takes about 2 hours depending on one's fitness, and on the condition of the trail.

On nearby cliffs, I noticed other smaller structures and buildings, and was told that these were meditation abodes, where lamas and high-ranking monks come to meditate for varying lengths of time. It seems that some remain in meditative seclusion for 3 years, 3 months and 3 days.

We trekked up the trail, and were rewarded with this incredible view of the monastery. The trek was arduous, especially on the way down as it was raining and the going was very slippery in some areas. At the start of the trek, an enterprising elderly Bhutanese was selling poles he had hand-fashioned from branches, and they sold like hotcakes. Mine came in very handy on more than one occasion, and a member of my photo-expedition liked his so much that he took it home to the US. I've bemoaned the appearance of souvenir vendors at the foot (and beyond) of the trail, but the pole seller was really offering a useful service.

John Stanmeyer on Malaria Project

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John Stanmeyer is a co-founding member of VII, and works regularly on assignment with National Geographic magazine. Here's is a recent interview (via Canon Professional Network) of him discussing his latest long-term assignment with the magazine, involving the global scope of malaria.

A thoughtful interview with one of my favorite photographers...John Stanmeyer's Malaria .

This blog has previously featured John Stanmeyer's Malaria work (link)

POV: Nepal's Gadhimai Mela: Atrocity?

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Photo © Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP/Courtesy WSJ-All Rights Reserved

Here's a thought to coincide with Thanksgiving, one of our most hallowed of celebrations.

The Bariyapur festival (also known as the Gadhimai Mela) has been in full swing in Nepal for the past few days. As you can read in the following excerpt, the age-old festival involves slaughtering of thousands of animals as sacrifice to a Hindu goddess of power.
The ceremony began with prayers in a temple by tens of thousands of Hindus before dawn Tuesday. Then it shifted to a nearby corral, where in the cold morning mist, scores of butchers wielding curved swords began slaughtering buffalo calves by hacking off their heads. Over two days, 200,000 buffaloes, goats, chickens and pigeons are killed as part of a blood-soaked festival held every five years to honor Gadhimai, a Hindu goddess of power.
Animal sacrifice has had a long history in Nepal, an overwhelmingly Hindu country and, until recently, even in parts of India. Notwithstanding, animal-rights protesters from all over the world have decried and criticized this religious tradition as barbaric and atrocious.

My knee-jerk reaction when I saw this photograph on the Wall Street Journal's Photo Journal was one of revulsion, but then I remembered that we, in the United States, will consume 45 million turkeys for Thanksgiving alone...and while the slaughtering methodology may be slightly different, it's still an uncomfortable parallel, isn't it?. If you need to be reminded, you can always look for the clip of ever-hilarious Sarah Palin giving a press conference while a couple of turkeys were being "prepared" in the background.

And for the religious-minded, let's not forget The Binding of Isaac, in Genesis 22:1-24, which is the story from the Hebrew Bible in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah, but an angel intercedes at the very last minute, and Abraham then sacrifices a ram (who, as luck would have it, was placidly munching grass around the corner) instead.

Similarly, Islam requires Muslims to offer a sacrifice by slaughtering a sheep, cow, or goat during the Festival of Sacrifice or Eid el-Adha. It similarly commemorates Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son Ishmael (not Isaac as in the Hebrew Bible) in the name of God, who sent a ram instead, thus sparing Ishmael's life. To this day, thousands upon thousands of bleating sheep are slaughtered in Muslim countries because of a religious tradition originating from the Hebrew Bible. Interesting, huh?

As I said, just a thought on this Thanksgiving day. Have a nice one.

NYT: Roots Of Faith & Strife

среда, 25 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


Photograph © Rina Castelnuovo/The New York Times

The New York Times featured a slideshow of Rina Castelnuovo's photographs of Joseph’s Tomb, a stone compound in the heart of Nablus that "many Jews believe is the final burial place of the son of Jacob, the biblical patriarch." The accompanying article is by Isabel Kershner.

The article reports that ardent and devout Jewish pilgrims, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, arrive throughout mornings' early hours to pray and worship at the site. Their goal is to make such visits weekly, and to re-establish a permanent presence that existed before 2000 so that Jewish pilgrims will able to come as they wish.

Some Palestinians declared the tomb an Islamic holy site and painted the dome green, justifying the declaration since Joseph is considered a prophet in Islam, and his story is related extensively in the Qur'an. Amazingly, after the city of Nablus was handed over to the Palestinians, a mob ransacked the structure, smashing the dome with pickaxes and setting the compound on fire. Naturally, this was probably done to prevent Jewish orthodox settlers to lay claim on the tomb...in other words, "we'll destroy a religious site so that no one can claim it as their own". There are always two sides to each story but the religious xenophobia from both Jews and Muslims is just staggering.

Anyway, back to photography: Ms Castelnuovo's photograph above of Orthodox Jews throwing themselves on the grave of Joseph is in my view the most powerful in the slideshow.

Photo Plus Expo in New York City

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Although I'm still in London, I ought to acknowledge the self-proclaimed "Most Important Event in Photography: October 23-25, 2008" in New York City's Javits Center. Frankly, I wouldn't attend it even if I were there, since it's a sort of convention-like event that showcases new products that I'll eventually read of on the internet. Unless I were to specifically meet other similarly-minded photographers, or get some promotional freebies (never happened in my case), I give Photo Plus Expo a pass.

Don't get me wrong. I think that such events are terrific for the industry, but they're just not for me. I'm not a tech head, and my interest in what I call "hard gear" is essentially limited to Canon products. If I want to tantalize my permanent lust for computers,, monitors and hard drives, I drop by the Apple store...for Canon cameras, ah well...B&H is a handful of streets north of me...that's the extent of my interest in that kind of stuff.

Having said that, I read PDN's reports on some of the event's seminars, and here are some interesting nuggets:

From a photographer called Blake Discher:

* Start a blog (separate from your web site), and make sure the first words on the blog are your keyword phrase.

* Get the URL that’s your keywording phrase, if you can. (in my case, I got thetravelphotographer.net)

From Louisa Curtis:

* Client expectations are that they prefer web sites to show large images showing quality work; they expect photographers' sites to load quickly and operate intuitively; they don’t want to wade through clutter; and they want to be able to contact photographers easily (ie, put your phone number on your web site, not just your e-mail address).

From Kat Dalager:

* Web site design should support the photographer's brand so that it’s easier for clients to remember you. It’s all about functionality, and convenience of getting in and out.

From Amy Salzman:

Forget the moving pictures, forget the music, leave out the bells and whistles. (I disagree, but I guess she's referring to commercial photographers rather than photojournalists or travel photographers).

For the whole reporting, drop by the very informative PDN Pulse.

Graham Ware: Bhutan

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Graham Ware joined The Travel Photographer's Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition, and has produced an audio slideshow in QuickTime format of some of his various images made during the trip, coupled with live audio recordings gleaned during the tsechu festivals, religious pujas, the Sangha debates of the monks and a Bhutanese folk song.

A medical technologist based in Chandler, Arizona, his interest in photography started in 2000, with most of his focus at that time on wildlife and landscapes. However, he admits to have discovered photojournalism in 2004, and it is then he joined the "dark side". Last January he joined Gary Knight and Philip Blenkinsop on a photojournalism workshop in India, and professes to have been totally hooked. Some of his photographs from this India workshop are on his website.

Graham's panoply consists of a Canon 5D mark II, a Canon 1D Mark III, a 24-70 L 2.8, a 35 L 1.4 prime, and a 70-200 IS L 2.8 lens as well as a Sony PCM-D50 recorder.

An extremely agreeable travel companion, with a keen sense of cultural curiosity, Graham is hoping to help schools and hospitals in Bhutan.

BURN: Michael Loyd Young: Blues

вторник, 24 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Michael Loyd Young/Courtesy BURN-All Rights Reserved


Those of us who love the blues will really appreciate Michael Loyd Young's Blues, Booze & BBQ audio slideshow. It appeared on BURN magazine which is an online feature for emerging photographers, and is curated by Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey.

A foot-thumpin' piece...highly recommended viewing with your loudspeakers turned on really high!!!

The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music in the United States. It's called that because it originated in the Mississippi Delta, famous for its fertile soil and pockets of dire poverty.

Historically, with its history of slavery, racial oppression and discrimination, plus baking heat, rampant illiteracy and poverty, the Delta was a cruel place for many African Americans well into the middle of the 20th century. The blues documented the experience of southern blacks better than any other form of cultural expression.

To this day, the Delta is still the emotional heart of the blues for musicians, fans, travelers, and historians.

For another post on Delta Blues, you'll find the American Diversity Project equally interesting, as it featured the work of 12 young documentary photographers and photography students in and around that Mississippi area.

The sharp-eyed of you will notice that T-Model Ford is featured in both multimedia pieces. He's an 80+ old blues singer, who only took up guitar playing when he was in his fifties. It's his voice and guitar that you hear in Blues, Booze & BBQ.

Jehad Nga: Master of Chiaroscuro

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Photograph © Jehad Nga/All Rights Reserved

One of my favorite photographers, Jehad Nga, has just launched his website...in my estimation a master of the chiaroscuro (the contrast between light and dark), Jehad Nga was born in Kansas, but moved when young to Libya and then to London, where he was raised. In his early 20s and living in Los Angeles, he discovered a book by photographer Natasha Merritt. The book convinced him that he could use his own digital compact during a backpacking trip to southeast Asia. By 2002 he was traveling through the Middle East, and by the following year, Jehad made his way to Baghdad photographing for the New York Times.

Over the recent years, Jehad covered Somalia, Kenya, Iraq, Liberia, Libya, Darfur, Ethiopia and Iran, providing stories for major publications such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Time, Fortune and Forbes magazines. He also won several honors, including American Photo magazine's Emerging Artists 2007 issue and for World Press Master Class 2008.

His website showcases his talent in the shadow and light play, and while all of his galleries have wonderful images that simply befuddles the mind as how he managed to capture them, my favorite is titled Shadowed By The Sun...a visual treat.

Jehad's work has appeared on many occasions on The Travel Photographer. Here are some of the links:

Somalia Through A Lens
Somalia On The Brink
Ethiopia's Stone Churches

Viewbook: Francesco Giusti: SAPE

понедельник, 23 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Francesco Giusti/Courtesy Viewbook-All Rights Reserved

Francesco Giusti lives and works as a photographer in Rome, Italy. He recently won First Prize in the Viewbook Photostory competition for his documentary series, SAPE.

SAPE is the acronym for Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, which loosely translated from the French means "the society of persons who are elegant and have an 'ambiance' about them"...in other words, dandies. Most of the SAPE members are found in The Republic of Congo.

I won't repeat what is already explained in the blurb accompanying Francesco's gallery, but in essence a member of the SAPE considers himself as an artist, and dresses up in his personal style with the appropriate accessories, for the sake of being unique and original. A real SAPE, or sapeur, is not only elegant but has to be a gentleman and a pacifist. They carry amusing and eccentric nicknames (one of them in the series is named Christian Dior), parade in the streets and congregate in bars.

My thanks to Kate Wilhem of Peripheral Vision who reminded me of Hector Mediavilla, another photographer whose work on the Sapeurs was published in Zone Zero magazine. I had forgotten that I had posted Hector's work here.

Tangentially, this post is also about Viewbook, an interesting and easy to use online portfolio service. It has three options for creating online portfolios and galleries, which can be tried free for 30 days.

I tried the cheapest version "Basic" which only costs $4 a month, and allows one to upload up to 250 images. I tested its Image Manager which works very well, and uploaded about 16 large (1000x667 pixels at 72dpi) images in no time at all. Most of my images are about 0.75 mb, but it seems the maximum file size is 10mb per image, and can be resized if necessary. The maximum length is 1024 pixels. Not bad.

I haven't yet tried the two other options: Standard and the Pro.

For an attractive, simple and quick website for photographers, I found this to be one of the better alternatives available. I was pleasantly surprised at how simple setting it up was. Here's my trial gallery The Dancers of Tamshing Goemba on Viewbook. It took me less than 5 minutes to put it all together. However, my photographs were already prepared and ready to upload.

You can compare that version to the original gallery of my website.

(I am not at all connected to Viewbook, and this should not to be construed as a commercial endorsement.)

Paul Nicklen & The Leopard Seal

воскресенье, 22 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.



I normally don't post about wildlife photography, but this has become so viral on the internet that I had to mention it here. It's an incredible slideshow of National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen's encounter with a leopard seal. Leopard seals are carnivores and munch on penguins like we do on popcorn. On average, females are generally slightly larger than the males, and can weigh between 500 and 1,300 lb, while males are between 440 and 1,000 lb.

This leopard seal "adopts" Nicklen, and tries to feed him penguins for 4 days. I haven't a clue as to how the photographer and his crew have had the fortitude to remain photographing and filming this.

More clips here on NGS' blog.

LENS: Tyler Hicks & The Tabligh

суббота, 21 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Tyler Hicks/NYT-All Rights Reserved

It's been a while since I featured a war-related photojournalism piece, so I thought The New York Times LENS blog brought us a couple of days ago an interesting On Assignment gallery from Tyler Hicks on the Tabligh Jamaat.

I like the clever way the photographer framed the above image, as he had to photograph surreptitiously and very quickly because photography was banned from the Tabligh gathering for religious reasons.

Wikipedia describes the Tabligh (which means "conveying of message") movement as an apolitical religious movement, whose principal aim is reformation of Muslims, and was founded in India by Muhammad Ilyas as a voluntary, pacifist and independent movement.

The New York Times reports that it's "a missionary movement that spreads revivalist Islam through its followers, who travel the world on preaching missions. The movement convenes in Raiwind, Pakistan, once a year. Attended by as many as 1.5 million people, it is the largest gathering of Muslims outside the annual pilgrimage to Mecca."

American authorities believe the movement incubates "jihadists".

For further reading, The New York Times has a 2007 article here.

Note: For stereotype busting, have a look at Matthieu Paley's fascinating coverage of the annual Lal Shabaz festival when over one million Sufis, devotees and onlookers, join this chaotic pilgrimage which cannot be more different than the austere Tablighi gathering.

Yes, folks...one person's Islam is not another's, even within neighboring countries.

WTF Department: Do I Look Stupid To You?

пятница, 20 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


I recently got this rather terse but pseudo friendly email the other day (it'll remain anonymous because I'm a nice guy) from presumably a very busy person who cannot find the time to type full sentences:
wd apprec. recg detailed itinerary info (hotels, meals, transportation, etc.) on your India tour.
excellent website.
thanks
What's wrong with this request, you ask? Nothing...except here's the deal. The person who emailed me this is married to a well-known photographer, and they both periodically lead photo tours themselves...and have been to India (and to that specific area) a number of times. That's what Google is for, isn't it?

So this is a rather lame (and arguably unethical) attempt to get the full itinerary I spend a long time researching, so they could either set one just like it (and charge double or triple what I do), or compare it to their own...refine theirs, re-price their costs, etc. A sort of industrial espionage!!!!

Note that the fellow is not asking for just the itinerary...oh no, it's an in-my-face request for details on hotels, meals, transportation and even the etc (just in case he forgot something). In other words, the whole friggin' enchilada.

He doesn't even mention that he's interested in joining my trip, which is what people on the level normally do.

I savored the drafting of my response, and then emailed it to him saying that (1) the Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat Photo~Expedition™ had been sold out for over 4 months (with a long waiting list), and (2) I screen who joins my Photo~Expeditions™, and finally that his request didn't pass the stench test.

I am disinclined to withhold information from peers and friends if and when they ask for it frontally and honestly...and I try to help whenever I can. There's a number of photographers in the photo tour business who can attest to that.

However, that doesn't mean that I will share the one-of-a-kind itineraries and other stuff that I worked very hard to research and develop. Get that, Mr. Husband-Of-Well-Known-Photographer?

WSJ Photo Journal: Street Barber

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Photo © Manish Swarup/AP/Getty-All Rights Reserved

The WSJ Photo Journal brings us a daily collection of fine photographs from photojournalists spread all over the globe, and this one caught my attention. It's by Manish Swarup of a man getting a shave at a roadside barbershop, decorated with portraits of Hindu gods and goddesses, in New Delhi...and the poster of the Swiss lodge in the upper left hand corner!

Street (or roadside) barbers are an important profession in India and elsewhere, and they can set up shop virtually anywhere they please. Naturally, many of them have to pay a form of "contribution" to sundry forms of authority, if you know what I mean. Typically, it's almost a hand to mouth existence despite the daily stream of clients needing a shave or a cut.

For more photographs of this profession, you can check my recent The Street Barbers which I made in Manali (Himachal Pradesh).

Twitter & Google: Lots of Followers

четверг, 19 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


I am chuffed (a British colloquialism meaning delighted) that The Travel Photographer blog now has over 300 Google Followers, over 500 Twitter Followers and is listed in 80+ lists ....and that's not counting close to the thousand subscribers to my newsletter mailing list.

Thank you! It's another a milestone on this blog's (almost) three years' life.

Global Post: Finbarr O'Reilly: Senegal

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GlobalPost brings us a feature by photographer Finbarr O'Reilly. The photographer came across performers of the Dseu Renaissance de Pikine theater group, and was smitten by the intense colors he saw when the female artists put their traditional headscarves and applied black makeup and markings worn by the Toucouleur people of West Africa.

The "Toucouleur" possibly originates from the French (slightly misspelled) meaning "all-colors", and are Muslims who live mostly in the Senegal River Valley in Northern Senegal and Southern Mauritania.

The theater group seeks to keep alive West Africa's superstitions, oral storytelling, and narrative skills of the griots.

Finbarr O’Reilly joined Reuters in 2001 as a freelance text correspondent in Kinshasa, Congo and spent two years covering Central Africa’s Great Lakes region from Kinshasa and from Kigali, Rwanda. He took up photography full-time in 2005 and covers West and Central Africa for Reuters, based in Dakar, Senegal. In 2006, he was awarded the World Press Photo of the Year.

NYT: Lynsey Addario : India's Coconuts

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Photo © Lynsey Addario/NYT-All Rights Reserved

The New York Times has featured a photo gallery by photojournalist Lynsey Addario documenting coconut pluckers in Kerala, India.

Having visited and photographed in Kerala a number of times, I saw many of these coconut pluckers (as well as palm toddy tappers) climbing the trees with an incredible agility...and yet, it never crossed my mind to document them and their occupation.

It appears there's a scarcity of coconut pluckers in Kerala which threatens to undermine the production of coconuts. The captions of the gallery informs us that India produces 15 billion coconuts a year, and just about every one is plucked by hand!

As visitors to India know, every part of the coconut tree and it fruit is used for food, moisturizers, furniture, and religious offerings.

Dan Bannister: Bhutan

среда, 18 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Dan Bannister-All Rights Reserved

Dan Bannister is a commercial, industrial and editorial photographer based in Calgary, Canada, who joined my recent Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition™, and I'm pleased to feature a selection of his fabulous work that he is showcasing in his Bhutan slideshow.

Photo © Dan Bannister-All Rights Reserved

A consummate professional, Dan's work spans the world from travel stock and magazine features to oil and gas annual reports, advertising imagery and environmental portraiture. He regularly travels the world capturing interesting, high quality travel photography to add to his travel stock photos portfolio. He has a wide selection of royalty free and rights managed travel pictures in his travel stock photos portfolio from destinations in Canada, the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, China, the Caribbean and other destinations.

Photo © Dan Bannister-All Rights Reserved

Dan's travel work has appeared in The New York Times, Canadian Geographic, Our Canada, Connecticut Magazine, Rough Guides travel guides and numerous airline in flight magazines. His commercial client list includes some of the biggest oil and gas and industrial companies in Canada.

One of the important benefits of photographic trips is the informational synergy that accrues to its participants from rubbing shoulders with each other during photo-shoots. We all learned quite a lot from Dan during the Bhutan trip, especially as to his lighting techniques and stylistic approaches...while debating our occasional divergent points of views on photography was always useful and interesting.

WTF Department: Leica M7 Hermès

вторник, 17 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


From the British Journal of Photography comes the news that Leica M7 Hermès edition has just been announced representing a collaboration between Leica and Hermès Paris. My readers may be interested to know that only 200 units will be available...and to make it even more exclusive, only 100 will be in orange and 100 in a green.

The Leica M7 Edition Hermès will be available in the UK from December 2009 from authorized Leica dealers at the suggested retail price of £8550 (or $14,000).

I really (I mean really as in seriously) hope to come face to face with whoever has such a camera dangling around his or her neck. It's not about the jaw-dropping price (although that's a stunner), but about the crass ostentation that it exudes. I'm reasonably certain that Leica has done some market research, and knows that there is a minuscule number of people who may be attracted to the Leica M7 Edition Hermès.

I have some ideas as to what demographics these people may belong to...but I still would like to see one, and then roll on the floor laughing.

On a more sober note, I suppose that this is more of a collector's item, like a great vintage wine or whatever it is that people collect these days. It's not really a camera that'll be used much. After all, the leather cover might get scratched!

Denver Post: The Last Tribes

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Photo © Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images-All Rights Reserved

The Denver Post is another newspaper website that brings us large photo galleries from varied sources, including parts of the world that are less well known.

This particular gallery documents the Penan; a tribe found mostly in the northern parts of Sarawak near Miri, Baram and Limbang. The nomadic hunter-gatherers Penan are one of the last in South East Asia. Out of the 10,000 Penan living in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, Borneo, only 200 nomadic people are left. They are a gentle and softly spoken people with a highly egalitarian society and little gender division.

Nomadic Penan move in groups of up to 40 people, but groups form and split regularly as sago palm flour and game is sought from different areas in their territory (roughly 100 sq miles on average).

For further information of the Penan, go here.

Tom Van Cakenberghe: The Living Goddess

понедельник, 16 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.



Tom Van Cakenberghe is originally from Antwerp, Belgium and lives in Kathmandu, Nepal since 2004 and works as a press photographer.

His website brings us a number of galleries on Nepal, but most interesting to me is The Living Goddess photo gallery...where he captured luminous (and candid) images of the Kumari. He must have been granted special access to be able to make these images. There's no further information on his gallery, but the best known is the Royal Kumari of Kathmandu, who lives in the Kumari Ghar, a palace in the center of the city.

Worshiping a pre-pubescent girl, who is not a born goddess, as the source of supreme power is an old Hindu-Buddhist tradition in Nepal.

The traditions of the Vajrayana sect of Mahayana Buddhism, girls 4-7 years old, who belong to the Nepali Sakya community, and have an auspicious horoscope, are chosen on the basis of 32 attributes of perfection. Among these are the color of eyes, shape of teeth and voice quality.

There are further Hindu-Buddhist rituals that follow which finally determine the real Kumari.

POV: Twitter This Twitter That

воскресенье, 15 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


I've been on Twitter for a while now, and I must say that I haven't gotten it yet. I follow a handful of talented photographers and other professionals, and I am extremely happy to be followed by many more...I must be doing something right... but here's what I find rather puzzling:

1. I only "tweet" my blog posts, and on occasions some stuff that I find interesting in the realm of photography and photojournalism. I do not "tweet" about trivialities that occur in my daily life, since I suspect that no one is (nor should they be, frankly) interested in those. Others do "tweet" about such stuff, and I don't understand why they think that anyone is remotely interested if they suddenly sprout a pimple, or whether Grandma Ida's apple pie tasted like cardboard last night. Isn't that what is diagnosed as narcissism ??

2. There's the phenomenon of "re-tweeting" which I also find puzzling, especially when a group of photographers "re-tweet" each others tweets as a matter of course. Now, I understand the concept of tribalism, and how 're-tweets' are useful for marketing purposes, and that it's to show membership in the good ol'boy network kind of thing, but why re-tweet virtually everything???

3. There are tweeters who follow thousands of other tweeters...when do they find the time and focus to read/scan/parse/skim all these tweets? As I said, I follow a handful of talented people, and I still don't have time to do their tweets full justice.

All this was triggered by an article appearing in The New York Time titled The Value of Twitter Data which in essence, tells us that a start-up company is selling very large sets of data harvested from 500 million Twitter messages, which also include the senders and recipients of 1 billion @ messages, re-tweets and favorites.

Since it is probable that I have no say in that data mining activity, I'd rather my tweets to have a little substantive content than being about nothing...but perhaps that's only me.

Seriously, I believe that Twitter can be a useful marketing and networking tool, but will quickly loses its efficacy if not properly harnessed and used.

La Santa Muerte: Lorne Matalan

суббота, 14 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Photograph Lorne Matalon-All Rights Reserved


Here's an audio slideshow of photographs by Lorne Matalon of La Santa Muerte, which is a saint-like figure worshiped and venerated in Mexico, probably as spiritual fusion of Mesoamerican and Catholic beliefs. Its cult attracts those who are inclined to seek the non-traditional ways for spiritual solace, and many of its followers live outside of the law.

Lorne Matalon has been reporting from Mexico for The World since November 2007. He covered the Mexican 'war on drugs' from the front lines, going on patrol with the Mexican armed forces. He also covered immigration and economic stories from south of the border. He worked at NPR Member Stations WUNC and WBUR, also filing for NPR from Haiti, Panama and Mongolia. Lorne is a contributor to National Geographic's Ethnosphere Project and a National Fellow at the Explorers Club of New York.

While in Mexico City, I visited Tepito, the infamous barrio where many of Santa Muerte sanctuaries are found, and produced my gallery: La Santa Muerte.

More posts on La Santa Muerte appeared here.

Kirsten Luce: Kashmiri Family Portrait

пятница, 13 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


Here's a new portfolio by the talented Kirsten Luce titled A Kashmiri Family Portrait; a family living with the ghosts of their loved ones.

Kirsten is a freelance photojournalist working in New York City. Her work was published in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Time, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald (International Edition), AP, Bloomberg News and CARE International.

Apart from gleaning various awards, she was a key staff member of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali last summer, which is when she continued on to Srinagar to produce these soulful and sensitive Kashmiri images. Many of those images are beautiful with lovely light, but my favorite image is that of the young girl combing her hair.

An interview with Kirsten was published on TTP here.

OP: Mystical Adventures Photo Contest

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Outdoor Photographer magazine has announced a Mystical Adventures Photo Contest, with a sponsorship of India's Ministry of Tourism.

According to the rules, submissions must be in keeping with the general theme of the Mystical Adventures Photo Contest, including, but not limited to photos of historical locations, landscape and travel, but I'm not sure if the submissions are restricted to a Indian theme or not.

The prizes are mostly of photographic gear, and there's no entry fees that I noticed.

As in all and every photography contests, I strongly encourage all interested photographers to make sure they carefully read the contests' terms and conditions, especially since misunderstandings between organizers and contestants over terms, prizes and other issues sometimes occur.

My Work: The Dancers of Tamshing Goemba

четверг, 12 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


Here's a gallery of new photographs made during my recent Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition™.

The gallery is a collection of photographs of various performers at the tsechu at Tamshing Goemba near Chamkar town, in the religious heartland of Bhutan.

The performers range from the jovial jokers who wave wooden penises around, and whose principal role is to distract spectators, to the more austere Black Hat dancers who are defenders of the "dharma" and who battle enemies of Buddhism.

Tamshing Goemba was established by Pema Lingpa in 1501, and is the most important Nyingma temple in the country. Its external murals (as seen in the photographs) are badly damaged by the elements, but those inside the Goemba are magnificent.

Sumit Dayal: The Sundarbans

среда, 11 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Sumit Dayal-All Rights Reserved

Sumit Dayal is a freelance photographer, traveling extensively to cover stories in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. While of Kashmiri origin, he spent his childhood in Kathmandu and was educated in Delhi. He graduated from the Documentary and Photojournalism Program at the ICP in New York.

His work documents the plight of marginalized people, disappearing cultural traditions and changing landscapes in South Asia. Some of his clients include Time, Glamour, Vrij Nederland, Shell UK, Soros Foundation and Nepali Times.

His diverse galleries range from fine art photography to editorial photojournalism, and from documenting his memories of Kashmir to the urgent environmental issues faced by the Sundarbans in India.

The Sundarbans is the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world, and lie at the mouth of Ganges, and spread across areas of Bangladesh and West Bengal. Rising sea levels have swamped many islands of the Sundarbans, and thousands of families have lost their homes.

Rant: Email Newsletters

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I use Campaign Monitor to send my (almost) monthly newsletter, which informs my subscribers of my new photo galleries and forthcoming The Travel Photographer's Photo~Expeditions™. Although these newsletters are only sent to those who subscribe through my sign-in box on this blog, I still get a spam notice, or even two, once in a while.

So here's the rant:

1. The mailing list for my newsletter is by subscription only. In other words, the person wanting to subscribe has to fill in his/her email address and his/her name in the sign-in box.

2. Upon doing so, each subscriber gets an auto-rely from me thanking them for subscribing, and saying that they can unsubscribe at any time by clicking a clearly marked link on the newsletters.

3. So why report my newsletter as spam? Even though I have a minuscule spam rate, it's annoying. Sending a newsletter costs me money, and if subscribers change their minds, the unsubscribe option is there! So use it, for heaven's sake!

The definition of spam from Wikipedia is this: "Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately."

Obviously, my newsletters are neither unsolicited or indiscriminate.

So is it illiteracy? Confusion? I'm mystified.

Penelope Gan: Malay-Chinese Opera

вторник, 10 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Penelope Gan-All Rights Reserved

Although Penelope Gan works in the financial industry in Kuala Lumpur, she's also passionate about photography, and particularly about photojournalism. She recently embarked on documenting various social issues that concern her, and produced a number of audio-visual photo essays to assist a number of local NGOs and government organizations that are involved in resolving these issues. An alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali this summer, she attended Ami Vitale's class (and mine).

She recently worked on what I deem to be an captivating project, documenting a special brand of traditional Chinese opera performing in Kuala Lumpur. According to Penelope's blog, the Chinese operas initially made their appearance in the mid-19th century when large numbers of Chinese migrated to Malaysia (or Malaya then) in search of employment and economic opportunities. Having settled in their new country, the Chinese brought in opera troupes from China, performing their art and mirroring the cultural developments in China.

The Malaysian Chinese opera may soon be a relic of the past, as it unsuccessfully competes with changing cultural tastes, and against the current of technological advancement and globalization. This makes Penelope's project timely, and I hope she is able to finalize it soon. The merging of what I imagine will be stunning visuals and the audio is something that I am certain will be awaited by many people.

So go for it, Penelope!

DPReview: Canon 7D Review

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From DPReview's just published write-up on the new Canon EOS 7D has this interesting paragraph:
"In some respects the 7D is even a better camera than the EOS 5D Mark II and a viable alternative for all those who do not want or need a camera with a full-frame sensor. Its 8 fps continuous shooting speed and highly flexible AF system might even make it a consideration for credit-crunch battered sports photographers on a budget."

The full comprehensive review runs to 30 pages, and is worth to read very carefully if this camera is of interest. I am interested in the $1,700 Canon EOS 7D as a second camera to my current full-frame low-light capable 5D Mark II, and for its 8 fps capability, so I will parse every word before I make any decisions.

Update (11.21.09): For another review of the 7D, check Bob Atkins' here.

I've handled the 7D for a few moments at B&H (oblivious of the theatrical throat-clearings and discreet shoves from other gawkers), and can vouch that it's solidly built and that it's frames-per-second sounds really fast. I read somewhere that it's more like 7 fps than 8, but that's being pedantic.

I'm not a sports photographer, but in my line of work I do need fast continuous shooting speed, so this camera (and at this price) may come in handy. The other option is the expensive ($5,000) full frame EOS-1D Mark IV with its 1.3 crop factor, 10 fps and 16 effective megapixels APS-H CMOS sensor.

Tim Chong: Hemis Festival

понедельник, 9 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

Hemis Tsechu 2008 from Tim Chong on Vimeo.


Hemis Tsechu is a festival commemorating the birth of Guru Rimpoche, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. It's observed and celebrated on the 10th day of the fifth Tibetan lunar month, which usually falls between the end of June and the beginning of July.

The festival is a two-day event held at the Hemis monastery, almost 30 miles south of Leh in Ladakh, India. During the festival, resident Lamas and monks perform a series of masked dances (Cham) which are re-enactments of the magical feats of Guru Rimpoche. Similar to the Cham dances of Bhutan, these dances depict the eternal struggle of good versus evil. When these dances come to an end, an idol made of dough is destroyed by the leader of Black Hat dancers. The destroyed pieces of the figure are then spread in four directions.

This is the well-done documentary work of Tim Chong, a senior photo sub-editor/photographer for the Reuters Global Pictures Desk based in Singapore.

Note: For more of the tsechu dances, visit Cham!, a multimedia gallery of my own photographs made during last year's Bhutan Photo~Expedition.

Hard Gear: Iomega's eGo Helium

воскресенье, 8 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.


I plead guilty to the sin of impulse buying. It's not often that I do that, but the Apple store in the West Village has such a cornucopia of irresistible temptations. So a sleek and elegant 500GB Iomega's eGo Helium Hard Drive is now part of my external hard drive panoply.

While its design (and its intent) makes it a natural for the MacBook Air, I'll be using this baby with my Acer netbook, in tandem with my other portable hard drive, G-Drive Mini. I deemed the eGo Helium's weight of 7oz to be an important factor in the decision. It only offers one USB 2.0 port, but that doesn't bother me as I only intend to use it with the said Acer. In contrast, my G-Drive Mini has two FireWire 800 and one USB 2.0.

Naturally for a product that really looks like a baby MacBook Air, the device is formatted with Apple's HFS+ file system, which meant I had to reformat it for my Acer's Windows XP OS. A minor pain in the neck, but nevertheless a pain. Since XP pretended that the drive didn't exist, I had to refer to Iomega's website and read (imagine that!!!) the instructions as the "short-on-details" manual included with the device didn't address that issue properly.

It now works nicely, and for my forthcoming photo~expedition to India I will have storage capacity of the eGo Helium's 500gb, the G-Drive's 320gb and the Acer's 160gb (well, almost 160gb). Not bad.

Now, all that's left to do is to paint the Acer in a shiny silver aluminum color and paste the Apple decal on it!

Update: It was annoying that the device wasn't recognized by my MacBook free USB port, but the solution was to plug it in the USB ports of my Cinema display.

Ami Vitale: Updated Website

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As TTP readers know, Ami Vitale is one of my favorite documentary photographers, and has been featured on many occasions on this blog. Ami worked on contract for National Geographic for many years, been published in all or most of the top-name media outlets, and won a ton of awards for her impressive work. She lived in India for almost 6 years out of which nearly 4 of those were spent in Kashmir.

Currently based in Miami, Ami believes in spending time on a story, and in living with the people she photographs. This, she says, has helped her to get beneath the surface of a story. During the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali, Ami and I shared some of the students in our respective classes, and I know she stressed that particular ethic during her instructions.

In any event, there are many posts on TTP on Ami, but she has recently updated her website which I encourage you to visit if you haven't done so already.

China's Tibet: Desmond Kavanaugh

суббота, 7 ноября 2009 г. 0 коммент.

China's Tibet from Desmond Kavanagh on Vimeo.


This is hardly a travel feature, but is more of a statement against the encroaching Sinification of Tibet. Desmond Kavanaugh is an a Dublin-based photographer, who produced a documentary made of still images titled China's Tibet.

The collection of photographs is an exploration of the effects of Chinese occupation and development on the ancient culture and land of Tibet as it is pulled into the 21st century by one of the worlds fastest growing economies.

As Desmond writes: "This new Tibet is powered and connected, and is a haven for Han Chinese migrants attracted by Government subsidies. The documentary focuses on the issues of militarization, immigration, construction, propaganda and and repression of culture all set against the backdrop of the stunning plateau."

 
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