Sandra Chandler: Moroccan Impressions

суббота, 15 января 2011 г. 0 коммент.


Following her return from our Gnawa Photo Expedition in late June, whose principal objective was to photograph the legendary Gnawa musicians during the 12th Essaouira Music Festival, Sandra immersed herself in working on her Moroccan Impressions, a collection of photographs that are to be shown at Tufenkian on September 3, 2009.

The venue's address is:

Tufenkian Artisan Carpets
515 NW 10th Avenue (in the Pearl District)
Portland, Oregon
503.222.3428 Ext: 105

Sandra is a photographer and interior designer based in San Francisco. She tells us that color, smells and sounds drew her to world travel. Her city's Asian culture first enticed her to China in 1978 when the People’s Republic first opened. She then continued her exploration of Asia by traveling to Bhutan, India, Japan, Singapore, Nepal, Thailand, Tibet, and on to South America and Europe. Her website is here (LINK).

The Travel Photographer blog had a previous post on Sandra here. (LINK)

8 Photographers : Access To Life

пятница, 14 января 2011 г. 0 коммент.


Photograph © Paolo Pellegrin-All Rights Reserved

The Global Fund is a unique global public-private partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

Here's a truly magnificent multimedia production for The Global Fund, and featuring work by Magnum Photos photographers such as Paolo Pellegrin, Alex Majoli, Larry Towell, Jim Goldberg, Gilles Peress, Jonas Bendiksen, Steve McCurry, and Eli Reed.

In Access to Life, these 8 Magnum photographers traveled to 9 countries, photographing people before and 4 months after they began antiretroviral treatment for AIDS.

This multimedia production must be one of the best I've seen, and ought to be studied by photographers wishing to learn about multimedia, and how to excel at producing them.

Foundry Photo Workshop-Manali

четверг, 13 января 2011 г. 0 коммент.



Well, after approximately 20 hours of driving from Delhi to Manali, we've reached our destination: the Foundry Photojournalism Workshp (Manali) which is to be held at the Green Cottages Hotel. The view above is from my room's balcony.

Manali is at an altitude of 6,398 ft in the Vyas River valley, and is an important hill station in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh, providing an idyllic scenery and temperate climate even in the months of July and August. I can actually hear the roar of the Vyas river from my balcony from where I'm typing this post.

As for the question as to why it took us 20 hours for a journey that normally should take about 12-13? Ah, well...perhaps the second photograph will explain it better than I can. Our bus had an unfortunate accident (rather minor) with a truck coming down an incline. No one was hurt on our bus, so we were extremely lucky. However, it meant that the bus' dashboard was somewhat bent out of shape making it difficult to steer. So we boarded 5 4x4s ordered by the Foundry team, and we were on our way. Having lost a lot of time, we were hoping to make it up, but the gods of the Kullu valley were not letting enter that easily. Flat tires and over-enthusiastic policemen conspired to impede our progress, but the team of instructors and administrators, tired and bedraggled perhaps, finally made it.

Dede Pickering: World Photographer

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Photo © Dede Pickering-All Rights Reserved

Dede Pickering retired from the corporate world and became a world traveler and photographer...it's just that simple and that complex. She has traveled to Antarctica, Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, China, Cambodia, Peru, Patagonia, Kosovo, Albania, Rwanda, New Zealand, Guatemala, South East Asia and has made multiple trips to Africa and India, but her passion is the Himalayan Region.

Dede is involved with CARE, a global private humanitarian organization, and started the Women’s Initiative, aimed at connecting American women professionals with women in the developing world. She is also a member of the Explorers Club in New York.

Exploring her website with its remarkable photographs of different cultures, I stopped by her statement, of which this is excerpted:

"The lens of my camera allowed me to look inside the lives of others and blur the differences."
Dede's galleries are a delight for those of us who love travel photography at its best. You'll know what I mean when you do.

Jashim Salam: Celestial Devotion

пятница, 7 января 2011 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Jashim Salam-All Rights Reserved
Jashim Salam is a Bangladeshi photographer, who's currently working for Driknews international photo agency. He was recognized with a Jury Special Award in the 6th Humanity Photo Awards 2009 Contest, sponsored by the China Folklore Photographic Association, the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee and UNESCO. He also received awards in the 69th International Photographic Salon of Japan (Asahi Shimbun) in 2008, a honorable mention in the USA Legatum Center Photo Contest in 2009, a special award in the People & Planet photo contest 2009 in Australia, and otjers.

Jashim's atmospheric photo essay Celestial Devotion is featured by the website SocialDocumentary.net, and is about an an orphanage and Islamic school in Chittagong. The orphanage/school claims to have mentored thousands of youngsters to memorize the Qu'ran since it was established in 1970. It currently hosts some 200 orphans who share very basic facilities. According to UN statistics, 6 million students are enrolled in the madrasa system in Bangladesh.

Madrasas have received (some deservedly) a bad reputation in the West, and being synonymous with fundamentalist teachings. Some are just that, but the larger majority seem to be nothing more than institutions providing social assistance to orphans and the poor. This is not a novel concept, but one that is shared by many other religious traditions such as Buddhism, and Hindu Vedic schools as an example.

Frederic Lemalet: Tibet

четверг, 6 января 2011 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Frederic Lemalet-All Rights Reserved
Frederic Lemalet is a French travel photographer who, evidenced by his focus on Tibet, is in love with that region. He traveled to Alaska, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, China, and Nepal...but it's Tibet that seduced him

Between 2003 and 2009, Frederic spent 3 years in Tibet, documenting its culture which may soon disappear. Distributing his time between his native France and Tibet, he's currently working on publishing books, and displaying his images in exhibitions. The last exhibition was "Himalaya" and held in Montier-en-Der (north-eastern France).

His Tibet gallery has 44 photographs, with a number of lovely portraits like the one I chose above...but don't miss those of the famous Tibetan wide open spaces, and of the Tibetan pilgrim praying in a sort of crude shelter made of stones. The photographs span the four seasons; a testament to Frederic's dedication to the region.

BBC's Human Planet

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The BBC's Human Planet is a landmark series that marvels at mankind's incredible relationship with nature in the world today. Each episode takes you to the extremes of the planet: the arctic, mountains, oceans, jungles, grasslands, deserts, rivers and even the urban jungle.

A word of caution...exploring the Human Planet website will take you a while. I've barely scratched its surface so far.


Human Planet crews have filmed in around 80 locations, bringing us stories that have never been told on television before. The team has trekked with HD cameras and state of the art gear to film from the air, from the ground and underwater.

For more on Human Planet offerings, check Human Planet Explorer Collections

One of the forces behind Human Planet is Timothy Allen. Timothy's work focus is on the remaining indigenous societies, and he devotes his time to documenting the diversity of humanity’s cultural heritage. He writes a blog for the BBC documenting his photographic work around the world for Human Planet.

In case you're interested to see what the cameras used by Timothy look like, here they are:

Photo Courtesy Timothy Allen

Voice-Over Artist

среда, 5 января 2011 г. 0 коммент.



Photographers who produce multimedia photo essays are notoriously voice-over calamities...flat, unfunny...you name it. I ought to know...I break into a cold sweat whenever I have to do a voice-over (which is rare).

Audio will make or break a multimedia photo essay, so a lifeless or unattractive voice-over (when needed) will doom one's product.

But here's a natural talent who ought to be employed as a voice-over artist by photographers, in radio or even on television. So here's a chance to do good and employ this man!

Via Duckrabbit.

Nagore Sessions: Sufi Song

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A recent article appearing in The New York Times on music used in some of the city's yoga centers led me to the Nagore Sessions. These are Sufi chants accompanied by percussion from the Middle East and contemporary Western instruments.

While the musicians are from many different nationalities, faiths and backgrounds and came together to produce the Nagore Sessions, the singers (Abdul Ghani, Ajah Maideen and Sabur Maideen Babha Sabeer) are Sufis from India. They usually perform at religious and social ceremonies at the Sufi shrine of Nagore Dargah in coastal Tamil Nadu.

This song follows the qawwali style as it includes verses praising God, but I'm also told that it's sung in Tamil. Traditional Qawwali songs are mostly sung in Urdu and Punjabi, and a few in Persian.

Finding this is timely, as one of the highlights of my forthcoming In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™ is to document the Gujarati Siddis who have retained their Sufi heritage.

One of my long-term projects involves the various Sufi traditions in the Middle East and South Asia, and the Nagore Sessions reminds me of my work with the Gnawa (aka Gnaoua) of Morocco. These are also traditional Sufi music performers, albeit with African roots. During the Essaouira Gnawa festival, a number of international performers played fusion music alongside the Gnawa musicians....incredible mind-blowing stuff!!

I've produced a multimedia photomovie Gnawa: The Sufis of Africa of some of the performers at the 2009 festival.

Elizabeth Herman: Durga Puja

вторник, 4 января 2011 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Elizabeth Herman-All Rights Reserved
Elizabeth Herman is a photographer and a recent graduate of Tufts University. She's currently residing in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where she is a Fulbright Fellow. At Tufts, Elizabeth intertwined her studies with her passion for photography through "Exposure", the Tufts’ student-led documentary studies group.

Whilst in Dhaka, Elizabeth documented the annual Durga Puja. The annual event is an Hindu festival in South Asia that celebrates worship of the Hindu goddess Durga. As far as Bangladesh is concerned, Durga Puja is its largest religious festival for Bengali Hindus.

As an aside, Durga Puja will be the objective of my Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo-Expedition/Workshop in early October 2011.It's sold out but a standby/waiting list is available.

While logged on to Elizabeth's website, be sure not to miss her Women Warriors, a visual project focusing on Vietnamese women who fought in the war with the United States.

Sophie Gerrard: The Coal Cycle Wallahs

понедельник, 3 января 2011 г. 0 коммент.




"I load the bike then push it for 50 kilometers. It takes me 2 days."
Here's The Coal Cycle Wallahs story; the work of Sophie Gerrard, a British freelance documentary photographer in the UK and India who specializes in environmental and social issues.

The Coal Cycle Wallahs documents the impoverished men who haul coal along Jharkhand's steep and twisting forest roads. As the Indian Government owns all the resources under the land, these coal-wallahs are technically stealing the coal from mines...but the authorities turn a blind eye.

Jharkhand is a state in eastern India, carved out of the south Bihar in 2000. It shares its border with Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal. It's home to the largest coal belt in Asia, but is been plagued by poverty, lawlessness, bad governance and corruption for over 50 years. It has experienced Naxalite-Maoist insurgency.

Sophie holds a Masters degree in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication. Her work was recognized with a Jerwood Photography Award and selected as a UK winner by The Magenta Foundation.

Her clients include The Guardian, Greenpeace International, Geographical Magazine, Foto8 Magazine, The Big Issue, and The Independent on Sunday Magazine. Her photographs are held in private collections including Coutts & Co and The Sir Elton John Collection.

January? Must Be TTP's 4th Year!!!

воскресенье, 2 января 2011 г. 0 коммент.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

As I'll be traveling on January 24 when it's officially The Travel Photographer blog's fourth birthday, I thought why not observe it today...?

I started this blog on January 24, 2007 with a post on the Ardh Kumbh Mela, which was being held in Allahabad in that year.  Since then, I've posted over 2116 posts, posted about no less than 900 photographers and ranted, pontificated, expressed considered and unconsidered opinions on issues, important and trivial....gleefully aroused the ire of a dogmatic few and provoked the generous compliments of many.

I learned of new and interesting things about photography, world history, geopolitics, culture, religious and non religious traditions...I was influenced by the work of those I featured here...I was taught a few life lessons that I would never would have known otherwise....my name became synonymous in some circles with The Travel Photographer; what a case study in real-life marketing and branding this is!...and, because of the reach and popularity of this blog, my photo~expeditions got such that I had to reduce the number of allowable participants.

I made friends in the photography industry...many new acquaintances and a number of good friends across the globe...through my photo~expeditions, during my involvement in the Foundry Photojournalism Workshops, and elsewhere... I am glad to have more than 1000 "followers" on this blog, thousands of newsletter subscribers, and a thousand or so more on the social networking sites such as Facebook plus Twitter. My two self-published books have sold more copies than I expected...so life's good.

What else is there to say? I could go on and on...but I 'll summarize it by saying I look forward to the continuation of this blog's delightful journey into 2011...and I'll continue to encourage emerging photographers and photojournalists, especially those from the non-Western world...and hope to see more of them on The Travel Photographer's blog!

Next Week On The Travel Photographer

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What's on tap for the week starting Monday, January 3? Take a look:

1. The work of a French photographer/photojournalist featuring  Tibet and Kilimanjaro.
2. A photomovie by a Scottish photographer...on the Coal Wallahs of India.
3. The work of an emerging photographer on the Durga Puja.
4. An interview with an award-winning photojournalist, along with his tips and techniques.

Plus potential "shooting from the hip" posts....who knows what the first week of 2011 may bring!

As a footnote: a reader wrote me the other day complaining that the Next Week On The Travel Photographer posts were a waste...saying that he would much prefer if I was to post daily, including Sundays!!!

Tough crowd my readers!

 
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