Rabari Dancing "Girls" (or Gopis)

Photo © Tewfic-El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

This is my first post since arriving in India on January 27 to lead my In Search of Sufis of Gujarat Photo-Expedition. As my internet connection is somewhat tenuous (even though we're staying at the sumptuous Imperial Palace in Rajkot), this post will be brief. The photo-expedition has progressed quite smoothly in the quest of Sufi centers in the southern part of the Gujarati peninsula. We were welcomed, and treated with the utmost courtesy by the guardians of the various shrines we visited; some were very popular with devotees whilst others were almost deserted...but more will be explained when I do my end of photo expedition verdict in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, the above photograph is of a small group of Rabari women whom we chanced on on the road to Junagadh. They belong to small sect of Rabari pastorals who believe they are descended from Krishna's dancing girls known as gopis. On their way to a temple (or mandir), they performed one of their dances for our lenses. I have many more of these, but I'm pressed for time so this will do for now.

We are on our way to the tribal lands of Gujarat, and we should be in Bhuj tomorrow for the start of the Kacchh section of the photo-expedition.

A New Dawn In Egypt?

Photo © Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

It's surreal to be at the cusp of starting on a photo~expedition while my country of origin is experiencing an unprecedented massive popular uprising to get rid of the current regime of Mubarak, the Egyptian president....who announced that he would remain as its leader but sack its government.

There are a number of thoughts that come to mind. This is a real organic grassroots popular uprising in Egypt against an extremely unpopular and corrupt regime. The Egyptians participating in the uprising are secular, young, educated and less so, and are technological-savvy. There are no signs of religious ideology, of Islamist influence, in these demonstrations.

I sensed that many of the Western pundits are shocked (and possibly disappointed) that there is no whiff of Islamic extremism in the demonstrations...this pulls the rug from under the Western (and the current Egyptian leadership) interests who would like to characterize the uprising as another Iran.

While Mubarak signaled his decision to stay in power, it's not up to him any longer. It's the Egyptian youth who will decide the course of the nation...as it should be.

It's an unparalleled opportunity for the United States to support the Egyptian people in its quest for democracy, and eliminate all anti-Americanism feelings in the whole region by doing so. Imagine if the US administration unequivocally declares its support for the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt!

Incha' Allah there will be a new dawn for Egypt and its people.

(Posted from Delhi)

An Essay On Photojournalists' Scarves....Or Not

This essay on scarves was written and sent to me by a photographer-photojournalist who wants to remain anonymous. Complaints, thoughts and remarks can be sent to him/her. I've edited, reworded and excised parts to keep it shorter.

"The first reason for photojournalists wearing scarves is that these instantly and with certainty identifies you as a PHOTOJOURNALIST, and removes you from the pool of suckers known simply as "photographers", especially "art" photographers.

The second reason photojournalists love scarves (especially those of ethnic origin) is that it tells non-photojournalists know that we are exotic, and that we do exotic, non 9 to 5, non traditional type things.

The third reason is that wearing the ethnic scarf will make other people instantly assume the photojournalist has a deep connection with, has spent time living with, has created a powerful but yet unseen photographic essay about, the ethnic group that wears that particular scarf.

The most popular, but lacking in credibility is the Keffiyeh. It has become stylish, fashionable, and carries with it a strong hint of activism. It's out of favor except for newbies. It's one thing to wear it around the neck...which is barely passable, and quite another having your picture wearing it as a turban (think Yasir Arafat) on your website bio or Facebook page...this signals the world you're a miserable ass...and that you're prematurely bald.

The second type of scarf is the Cambodian Krama. This particular scarf shows you have worked in the conflict ridden regions of Cambodia (also known as Angkor Wat), and most probably Thailand's southern beach wars as well, and that you suffered from malaria and bouts of sunburn, and dangerous girls on the battlefields of Koh Samui.

The third is the African scarf- the Tagelmust. Worn by Tuareg nomads in the Sahara, these scarves are worn by the old school of photojournalists- those who have covered the north African conflicts, tragedies like Darfur, the Western Sahara, the Polisario, Algeria, even Southern Sudan! This is the Ferrari of scarves."

By the way, if you haven't seen and bookmarked Shit Photojournalists Like, you ought to. I don't think it has mentioned scarves, yet...but it will have to sooner or later. You'll see.

Jackie Alpers: Food Photographer

Photo © Jackie Alpers-All Rights Reserved

What is a food photographer doing on the blog of The Travel Photographer, you ask?

Well, it's a case of mistaken identity from Jackie's side. You see, I saw a message yesterday in my tweet feed from Jackie Alpers saying that she was thrilled to have been featured on The Travel Photographer's blog. Since I was flying over the Atlantic at the time, and unaware that I had posted any new posts since leaving New York City earlier that day, I was puzzled.

Not for long though. I clicked on the link on her tweet and saw that it led to a "travel photographer"...a generic kind of blog giving no photographer name, no personal identity and seemingly just a sort of website to sell stuff....or something.

I was initially excited to see that someone may have had the silly idea to ape my blog and risk legal headaches...but it soon waned when I realized what it was.

Jackie sounded so thrilled in her tweet that I decided to feature her work on the REAL The Travel Photographer blog. May it bring her luck and exposure.

Jackie Alpers is a food, culture & cuisine photographer based in Tucson, Arizona who specializes in photography for cookbooks and magazines, among others. Her biography is quite interestingly illustrated, and I recommend you drop her website.

Geoffrey Hiller: India

Photo © Geoffrey Hiller-All Rights Reserved

I've recently received an email from Geoffrey Hiller with the link to his dedicated India website with photo galleries of its various cities and areas. The one that caught my particular attention, since I've announced a photo expedition to Kolkata during the Durga Puja, was his work in Kolkata . The rest of his galleries are of Mumbai, Bangalore, Mysore and Chennai.

You'll see that Geoff's photographs of this quintessential Indian city is a mix of environmental portraits and classic street photography, including a few shots made during the Durga Puja too.

To my knowledge, Geoffrey Hiller is one of the first photographers who embraced multimedia, and I recall his work on Burma which introduced me (and certainly others) to this medium. His photography has been published in the United States, Europe, and Japan in such publications as Geo, Newsweek, Mother Jones, and The New York Times Magazine. His photo-essays have covered Asia, Latin America, Europe, and West Africa, and his multimedia projects about Vietnam, eastern Europe, Ghana, Burma, and Brazil have earned recognition from Adobe, the Soros Foundation, Apple, The Christian Science Monitor, and USA Today.

(Posted From London)

On My Way: Some Thoughts And My Gear

I'm poised for next week's In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™, and have now readied/cleaned my cameras and lenses, reformatted all the CF cards, and recharged all batteries. I find this task to be one of the most tedious (but pleasurable at the same time) things I have to do before traveling on a photo expedition or assignment. It's a comfort kind of thing, a kind of reassuring thing to do, a ritual of sorts if you will, but it's still tedious...I don't know how else to describe it....and I don't know how all my stuff finally fit in my bags (not those in the above picture!).

On the other hand, one of the pre-departure tasks I don't mind doing at all is to review the itinerary I've developed, while trying to anticipate what may go wrong during the trip...my 10 years of leading photo-expeditions have prepared me for snafus, but each photo-expedition and itinerary can bring its own set of challenges.

I always look forward to a new photo-expedition, but this is also accompanied by a smidgen of anxiety. After all, I'll be meeting new photographers who've joined it, and while we've developed an online relationship with emails and links of mutual interest for the past months, a "face to face" is different. Neither of us knows what to really expect from each other.

As for those of you who are interested in gear-talk, here's the list:

Photo Equipment:

Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 7D (which replaces my trusty old friend the Canon 1D Mark II)
Canon 70-200mm f2.8
Canon 24-70mm f2.8
Canon 17-40mm f4.0
Canon 24mm f1.4
Canon 580EX II Strobe
Lumix GF1 with 20mm


Audio Equipment:

Marantz PMD620
ATR6250 Stereo Microphone
SONY Headphones

A F-3X Domke shoulder bag

13" MacBook Pro

2 Iomega hard drives (500mb and 1TB).

And my krama scarf. The most important item!

As I wrote a few times, I can't wait for the time when cameras such as the Lumix GF1 (the so-called EVIL cameras) perform as well as the current crop of digital SLRs...and reduce the enormous load factor that I'm obliged to carry on these trips.

I will try to post as much as I can...no problem from London of course, and perhaps none from Delhi except for availability of time. Once I'm in Gujarat though, it'll be silence from The Travel Photographer.

Leslie Mazoch: Escaramuzas

"We're not just pretty things anymore".

Charreria is Mexico's most traditional equestrian sport, and was dominated by males for many years. However, the presence of skilled female equestrians performing dangerous and synchronized exercises while riding sidesaddle led to the creation of escaramuzas (the Spanish word for scuffle) charras. These women train tirelessly for the chance to show off their equestrian choreography.

Escaramuzas is a "photo-movie" produced by Leslie Mazoch of her black & white stills and ambient audio, which includes a beautiful poem in Spanish (with English sub-titles). It could have been titled Mexican Amazons, since it documents Mexican women who take up this noble sport, and who ride their horses sidesaddle. From what I gathered from the slideshow, the escaramuzas was an accidental tradition that started in 1953, and was influenced by the gypsies of Spain.

Leslie Mazoch is a photographer and photo editor for the Associated Press in Mexico for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mitchell Kanashkevich: Ati Atihan Festival

Photo © Mitchell Kanashkevich-All Rights Reserved

Mitchell Kanashkevich has just posted to his blog a reportage on the Ati Atihan festival in Kalibo, which is the capital of the province of Aklan, in the northwest of Panay Island, Philippines; about 45 minutes flight from Manila.

This festival is, as Mitchell describes it, a convergence of Catholic and tribal traditions, and dates back more than 700 years. It was originally a pagan festival observed by local tribes who were practicing animism, and Spanish Catholic missionaries gradually added to it Christian elements, culminating into what it now a frenzied religious festivity observed in January honoring the Santo Niño (Infant Jesus), and concludes concluding on the third Sunday of the month.

Ati Atihan was caught in my radar a few weeks ago, and I am putting it (or perhaps another one like it in the Philippines) on the list of possible photo~expeditions for 2012. I'll do some homework to explore the logistics involved, and if all works out, will announce it in due course to my newsletter subscribers, and eventually here on this blog.

Mitchell Kanashkevich is a travel/documentary photographer, and is represented by Getty Images. He's been featured on this blog a number of times.

MSNBC's Does Thaipusam

Photo © Stephen Morrison/EPA-All Rights Reserved

MSNBC's Photo blog featured Thaipusam, which was observed a few days ago by thousands of Hindus in both Malaysia and Singapore, and who subjected themselves to painful rituals. These included rituals involving self-piercing with hooks, skewers and small blades. Some devotees pull chariots and heavy objects using hooks attached to their bodies. Others pierce their tongues and cheek to impede speech, while others enter into a trance during the self-mortification as a result of the incessant drumming and chanting.

The Asia Society in New York is also featuring Thaipusam on its Photo of the Day page on its website. I wonder what's keeping The Asia Society from bringing us the very best photojournalism of the continent...it's taking baby steps, and yet seems to have the resources to really make a splash in visually fulfilling its mission. Maybe I expect too much?

Thaipusam is an important festival observed by the Hindus of southern India during the Tamil month of Thai (January - February). Outside of India, it is celebrated mainly by the Tamil speaking community settled in Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka and elsewhere.

I seldom follow MSNBC's Photo blog....perhaps I should make it a habit to check it every now and then.

Marty Aim: The Zabaleen of Cairo

Photo © Marty Aim-All Rights Reserved

I found Marty Aim's The Zabaleen photo essay to be timely in view of the New Year’s attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, that killed more than 20 people.  I saw it mentioned on Facebook, and decided it would jump the weekly queue in being featured.

Marty Aim is a New Zealand-born documentary photographer, currently based in South East Asia. He holds degrees in Visual and Social Anthropology. His clients include the British Museum, Time and the Discovery Channel. He's also an alum of The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop.

The Zabaleen are an occupational community of Christian Copts who have functioned as Cairo's informal garbage collectors for at least 80 years.  In colloquial Egyptian, Zabaleen means "garbage people" or pig-pen operators. The community is spread over half a dozen settlements in greater Cairo, and are estimated to be close to 80,000 people. The largest settlement is Mokattam Village, better known as "Garbage City," which is situated at the foot of the Mokattam Mountains, east of Cairo.

Many sources agree that the Zabaleen have created one of the most efficient recycling systems in the world, which is estimated at recycling up to 80% of all the collected waste. These are good people...the salt of the earth kind of people...hard working and largely self sufficient, but discriminated against in many ways because of their religion and their occupation.

It's funny...I still recall the daily sound of the Zabal's donkey-cart stopping outside my childhood home in a Cairo suburb, collecting the garbage and the trash. Efforts by the Egyptian government to replace the garbage collectors with modern local and foreign companies have essentially failed.

By all means, explore Marty's galleries. I did and was rewarded with the terrific photograph of girls in a Muslim school in Thailand's Narathiwat province. You'll know which one I mean the second you lay your eyes on it....really terrific.

POV: Omid And Why We Will Never Win

Photo © Michael Kamber- Courtesy The New York Times

Michael Kamber is a well known New York City-based freelance writer and photographer for The New York Times. He worked in West Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean, covering conflicts in the Ivory Coast, Congo, Liberia, Haiti, Afghanistan and Iraq. Apart from frequently-published photo essays in The New York Times, he also authors a journal of his Afghanistan experiences. Its entries began in December 2010 and appear on the newspaper's LENS blog.

His latest entry -along with over a dozen of his excellent photographs- is on yesterday's LENS blog under the title of Deeper Into Fathomless Afghanistan, and reading Michael's journal entries, I was compelled to leave a comment on the blog.

Here's one of the entries in Michael's journal that prompted my comment:

He writes:

Beside me, an Afghan, clearly an interpreter, introduces himself in accented English as Bob.

“What’s your real name?” I ask him.

“My name’s Omid. But on the first day at this job, the sergeant asked me my ‘terp’ name. I told him: ‘I don’t have a terp name. My name is Omid.’

”Omid is too complicated for us to remember,’ he told me. ‘From now on, your name is Bob.”

My comment on the LENS blog:

"It's too bad that the guy who uttered this insulting and ignorant nonsense to the interpreter hasn't realized that he's insulting Omid by his stupidity and arrogance. What if the roles were reversed, and the Afghan was to tell a Robert that this name didn't roll off his tongue easily, and he'd be called Mohammed from now on? How would Robert feel?

Omid's is entitled to be proud of his name...it probably has a long lineage...and since we are occupying his country, we ought to show immense respect to those who risk their lives for a few dollars a day and work with the US army. Learning how to pronounce their names is the civil and respectful thing to do. Omid is not a stray pet adopted by the sergeant.

My hat's off to Mr Kamber for quoting this and other statements in this piece...i'm sure he's as dismayed as I am by them."

Reading the other entries added to my long standing pessimism; we will never win. When we are unable (or unwilling) to respect people who help us by risking their lives, we will gain no allies unless we abet their corruption. They, in turn, view our presence in Afghanistan as a cow to be milked, and eventually will stab us in the back.

Another thing. Just look at the expression of the Afghan in Kamber's photograph above this post. He's holding a copy of a Chicken Soup For The Soul given to him by a well-meaning US charity. Who dreamed of sending a collection of "inspirational" platitudes (and in English) to Afghanistan? I obviously can't speak for this Afghan, but I bet he looked at the book with amusement, and eventually guffawed with his friends at the naivete of the Americans.

Chicken Soup For The Soul to change Afghanistan? The mind boggles.

Addendum:  I've received a few emailed comments on this post.

One from a frequent reader of this blog who suggests that my post came across as anti-military. That's incorrect. I am anti-war...especially wars that are unnecessary like the Iraq war, and those wars that devolved into aimless havoc and propping an unsupportable government, like the war in Afghanistan...and the least we -and our military- can do is respect those Afghans or Iraqis who work for us, at the risk of their lives.  I'm hopeful the individuals depicted in Mr Kamber's journal are the exception.

The other email comments from a handful of readers agreed with my point of view.

WTF?! The Entitlement (or The Me Me) Syndrome

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Perhaps fearing I had mellowed, I was prompted by a number of readers to write an acerbic rant, a pontificating diatribe, a raging soliloquy about something and/or stuff that irritated me. I really had an embarrassment of choices...I could've ranted about the tourists who abruptly stop and just gawk on the narrow sidewalks of the West Village...I could've raged about the mindless people who walk while texting on their Blackberries and bump into me...or I could've complained about the combative mothers/nannies who propel their prams/strollers into my shins because I hadn't promptly jumped out of the way when we meet on the same sidewalks....or of course, about the dog owners who encourage their best friends to take gargantuan dumps near my building but don't clean after them; perhaps hoping that the unobservant step on it.

But these are small annoyances that are part and parcel with living in New York city, and are undeserving of a monumental rant...and also have nothing to do with photography.

No, my plump and juicy rant is on a misplaced sense of entitlement that some established photographers seem to have.

Let me begin with this preamble....I've started The Travel Photographer's blog four years ago, and since then, it attracted a healthy number of readers and visitors. It established itself as a blog to read amongst a certain segment of the photography industry, and earned me the attention of many photographers (pros, semi-pros and non pros),  photo retailers and industry experts.

It's no secret that I use this blog to publicize my photography and my photo~expeditions, however I mainly use it to give exposure to emerging photographers. Like me when I started some 10-12 years ago, these emerging photographers, especially if they're not Westerners, have a difficult time getting recognition for their work, especially in the environment we find ourselves in.

I knew no one in the photo industry when I started my photography...I knew very few photographers when I started The Travel Photographer's blog...and I started The Travel Photographer's Photo~Expeditions on a whim, not really knowing what I was getting myself into. To this day, I never asked a photographer or photojournalist for help in promoting my business....I never asked any of the hundreds of the participants who joined my photo~expeditions to refer my trips to their friends, family members, etc. I never uttered/wrote the words "if you know a friend or two who's interested in my trips or my photos, pass my name/website along". All I've done is slowly build the brand brick by brick.

I have no sense of entitlement...I am not entitled to anything...I do my own thing without burdening people with requests for introductions, for referrals, for links to my website/blog on others', for freebies, etc. With the exception of being part of the terrific Foundry Photojournalism Workshop "family", I haven't joined collectives...I haven't joined pseudo-clubs. I could have...but didn't. I am perfectly content with what I am doing and achieved so far.

It's perhaps because of this that I find the attitude of a few photojournalists-photographers to be really puzzling. They ask me to feature their work on The Travel Photographer blog...which I gladly do. Then they ask again...and again. And I do and do again. But then it hit me...why do they think it's okay to ask me to feature their work, to spread the word about their photo workshops and their inflated resumes...but have no intention of ever reciprocating that courtesy in any fashion? Is it because they have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, a narcissistic personality disorder? Is it because they think they're doing me a favor? Is that what they think 'networking' is? I just don't get it.

Let me be very clear...the likes of John Stanmeyer, Gary Knight, Ron Haviv, Phil Borges, Maggie Steber, etc are the most gracious photographers I've come across (and none of them asked me for anything)....and I've had immense pleasure to showcase their incredible work whenever I come across it, and to learn from it....and I'm happy to continue doing so.  Many photographers (Chico Sanchez is one of those) are equally generous with links and coverage of my work on their own websites and blogs, and many others are appreciative of being featured on my blog. No, this is about a few others...some I met personally and others I didn't...who seem to think that I am somehow obliged to show their work, expected to praise it, and publicize their workshops/activities. This sense of obtuse entitlement drives me bonkers.

I repeat: I Am Not Obliged To Feature Your Work And Your Photo Workshops Because You Think I Ought To.

What I mostly do on this blog is publicize and give exposure to the work of emerging photographers...some of whom are in Bangladesh, India, Egypt, Indonesia, Palestine, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc....it's the work of those photographers that I care about, and what my readers appear to be interested in. And if I do feature the work of established and renowned photographers and/or photojournalists, once, twice or a million times, it's because I'm impressed by it.

Capice? Good...now let's move on.

End of rant.

FinePix X100 Shutter Demo & Pre-Order Price

The FinePix X100 with its cool retro look from Fuji is listed for pre-order from Adorama for the higher than expected price of $1,199. And according to BJP, Fujifilm has said that the camera will be on show at the Focus On Imaging in Edinburgh from March 6, thus allowing UK photographers to get their hands on the new model, ahead of its expected launch. It's expected that that the UK price will be  up to £1200 in the UK. No shipping date has been announced.

As per PetaPixel's post, Fuji also released the above video showing the camera’s aperture and shutter systems in action. The aperture looks quite round at all f-stops, which should lead to some pretty nice looking bokeh.

I sense the price point for the FinePix X100 is at least $200 too high, and that it ought to have been just under the $1000 mark. Although this camera is exciting, I shall wait for a few months to decide and have others more courageous than I am be the guinea pigs.

Gaël Turine: Voodoo

Photo © Gael Turine-All Rights Reserved

This is not for the fainthearted.

Gaël Turine is a Belgian photojournalist with the Agence VU, who studied photography in Brussels. He was a staff photographer for l'Express magazine, and a frequent contributor to Libération, Le Monde and The New York Times. Since 1998, he has been frequently recognized with awards and grants, and his photographs shown in most of Europe's cultural capital cities.

Between the years 2005 and 2010, Gaël Turine documented several Voodoo ceremonies, pilgrimages and rituals in various locations, such as in Haiti, Benin and the United States.

Voodoo was created by African slaves brought to Haiti in the 16th century who, when forced by their enslavers to adopt the Christian religion, still followed their traditional beliefs by merging them with the beliefs and practices associated with Roman Catholic Christianity. It was declared the official religion of Haiti in 2003.

Not only are Gael's black & white photographs gripping in their intensity, but they are shown large sized on his Flash-based website, which adds to their impact. One can also view the images as they appear on Gael's book Voodoo.

These are amongst the best photographs of voodoo rituals I've seen.

Next Week On The Travel Photographer

What's on tap for the week starting Monday, January 17 (which happens to be Martin Luther King Day) here in the US? Take a look:

1. The work of a French photojournalist featuring  Cuba and Chilean coffee bars.
2. A humanitarian photographer's work with loads of color photographs of India...Delhi in particular.
3. The work of a photojournalist on Haiti's Voodoo...large black & white photographs.
4. A photographer's work on Tunisia, and Kenya...also black & white.
5. A juicy rant on the sense of entitlement exhibited by some photographers! Hot button topic!

I'm about to travel to London then to India during the coming week...so there may not be much "shooting from the hip" posts.

The Travel Photographer's B&H Photo's VIP Tour

B&H's Isaac Buchinger with Tewfic El-Sawy

B&H's Yechiel Orgel with Tewfic El-Sawy

I'll preface this post by saying this:...despite my spending over an hour at B&H SuperStore on a VIP tour, I managed to reach deep in my inner reserves of self-discipline and will power, and emerged without buying a single item from one of my favorite retailers! It took a super-human effort, and a high degree of self-negation. A note to Santa:  Write this down in my plus column.

My hosts on this exhaustive tour on Thursday were Isaac Buchinger and Yechiel Orgel of the company's Affiliate Marketing Department. I visited every nook and cranny of the SuperStore, and even though I'd like to think I'm a frequent visitor, I was shown areas I didn't know existed.

Nothing was left out; Isaac must've guessed I had a flashlight fetish and showed me one that doubles up as a weapon and that sells for many many dollars...he showed me headphones that cost almost as much as my car, and ushered me into B&H's TV studio...a jaw-dropping environment which made me feel I was at one of the networks.

All that, and we were still in the ground floor of B&H's 70,000+ square feet building. The second floor is, of course, where the photography stuff is...and where I frequently spend more than what I can afford.

Nothing new on the second floor that I hadn't seen before, except for two areas of interest to me. The first is that B&H has a new (at least to me) section for DSLR video rigs, and that it produces and offers a full line of affordable line of photo/video support gear under the name Pearstone.

For instance, I noticed a Pearstone intervalometer or shutter release for a very reasonable $50 instead of the pricier Canon. I recently bought mine from an eBay vendor in Hong Kong, and while it's perfectly fine, I would've chosen to buy it from B&H had I known about this product line.

Following the tour, we returned to B&H's corporate offices for a meeting.

Oh, and another thing...I still don't know what B&H stands for.  Now I know...see below.

Addendum: A number of readers informed me that Wikipedia lists B&H's ownership and history.

Palani Mohan: Kolkata's Rickshaw Pullers

Courtesy Getty Images' Reportage

Palani Mohan describes the rickshaw pullers of Kolkata as "human horses" who work for 18 hours a day, hand pulling/carrying people and goods for a pittance. There are over 18,000 rickshaw wallahs in Kolkata, and although the state government declared this "inhuman" and "barbaric", and tried to ban rickshaws from the city's streets. This was rejected by the pullers themselves, and huge protests ensued.

Most of the rickshaw pullers are impoverished Biharis, who come to Kolkata to earn money to feed their families back in Bihar. Some describe their lives as "cursed". with most of their earnings going to rent the rickshaw itself, leaving almost nothing for their families.

I love these black & white environmental portraits, and as documenting rickshaw pullers will be one of the aims of my Kolkata Photo~Expedition/Workshop, I'll be providing this post's link to its participants.

Palani Mohan was born in Chennai, India, and moved to Australia as a child. His photographic career started at the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, and since then he has been based in London, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and now Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia.

His work has been published by many of the world's leading magazines and newspapers including National Geographic, Stern, Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times. He also published three photographic books. His work has been recognized with awards from World Press Photo, Picture of the Year, National Press Photographers Association, American Photo and Communication Arts. He is represented by Getty Images' Reportage Group in New York.

Books: Robert Van Koesveld's Bhutan Heartland

Robert Van Koesveld has published a wonderful book on Bhutan, and entitled it Bhutan Heartland. The details of the book are available on a sub-section of Robert's website.

When I got it, I experienced a twinge of envy at Robert's talents as a photographer, and how well produced this book was. Joining Robert in the task of putting this book together is his wife Libby Lloyd.

Bhutan Heartland explores the culture, history, beliefs and dazzling Himalayan landscapes of this wonderful country, known as Druk Yul...and where smoking in public places is against the law!

Nine chapters make up this hardback book of 210 pages. Robert and Libby have taken their readers from Paro in the west of the country to its east, traveling through the high passes of Dochu La and others, meeting monks, nuns, lamas...stopping at Ogyen Choling and documenting the various exuberant tsechu festivals...and end up with silk weavers and yak herders.

If you decide to visit Bhutan (and you must!!!), this is the book you ought to read. It's not a guidebook, but the amount of informed research in it was new to me, informative and interesting...and I've already been to Bhutan about 4 times!!!

Well recommended. You can buy it from Robert's website or order it from major booksellers such as B&N.

Cropping...What's That?

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Photographers who've accompanied me on my photo~expeditions, have photographed alongside me and perhaps those who've seen my galleries, know that I don't crop my images except in-camera. I don't know if that qualifies me as a purist or not, but in general terms, I'm loath to remove what is already in the frames I've captured.

Naturally, if there's an offending finger creeping in the side of a frame, I'd crop a few pixels out of the frame to remove it (or very very rarely use the clone tool instead)...however depending on the subject/scene and its intended purpose, if it's a whole hand, arm or face that intrude, I'd still leave the frame intact. In a moving situation, there's always the possibility that I can't (or if I'm not quick enough) alter my position to exclude what I don't want from my frames. If I have the luxury of a few seconds, then I crop in-camera.

I also photograph what I call "pretty pictures"...the smiling posed faces...the like you see in stock libraries and on covers of travel/geographical magazines. In those, an extraneous object would be certainly be...well, extraneous. However, as I take as many photographs of the same person as I can, I rarely resort to cropping unless the expression/body posture in a particular frame is one of a kind.

Having said all that, I thought the photograph above of the three Balinese rice farmers was perfect for a panoramic crop, which works much better than the original frame. (I've added my copyright symbol in its center since it occurred to me that it'd look very nice as a blog header for some travel blog). Click it to enlarge.

So do I crop outside of the camera? Sure, although 99.9% of the time I don't.

Eirini Vourloumis: Latino Muslims

Photo © Eirini Vourloumis-All Rights Reserved

Eirini Vourloumis is a freelance photographer who has recently been featured on The New York Times' LENS blog for her photo essay on Islamic communities in the United States. She is a graduate of Parsons and the Columbia Journalism School, and her work has been published on Lens and in The New York Times, New York Magazine, FT magazine and The Village Voice. She also attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul where I met her this past summer.

There are an estimated 200,000 Latinos in the United States who have converted to Islam. Most of them live and work in New Jersey and in New York City. They represent a unique fusion of religious and cultural identity, as they're attracted by Islam's simplicity and the absence of a clergy...in direct contrast to Catholicism.

Eirini has a couple of photo essays on her website featuring Muslim communities in the United States; the Great Muslim Adventure Day and the Indonesian Community Mosque in NYC. She managed to present an insight in a small community, but part of a larger community which has been -and still is- unfairly maligned in this country.

As Eirini says in her interview with James Estrin:

"It is challenging to live in the U.S as a Muslim. There is a heightened sense of Islamophobia, which can be aggravated by the general portrayal of Muslims in the media. Negative images of Islam — drawn from associations with fundamentalism and terrorism — have begun to marginalize Islamic communities, accentuating the prejudice that many Muslims face in their daily lives."

Good work!