NY Times: What's A Great Travel Picture?

Thomas Munita for The New York Times-All Rights Reserved
Michele McNally, assistant managing editor for photography at The Times, describes what she thinks makes a great travel picture, in a slideshow of photographs from the Travel section archives.

The above luminous photograph is by Thoma Munita of the cenotaphs in Orchha, India.

Here's What Makes A Great Travel Picture (Registration may be required)

Jehad Nga: Silk Road

Jehad Nga for The New York Times-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times features an audio slideshow by Jehad Nga, one of my favorite photographers. However, I found his photographs of Tajikistan, Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan in this feature did not have his wonderful characteristic style; his use of shadows and dark spaces (as in his masterful work out of Ethiopia, for example) is not in evidence here.

As we know, the Silk Road is the popular name for a system of caravan trade routes that dates back more than 2,000 years, an important economic artery that stretched roughly 7,000 miles, from the Mediterranean to China’s Yellow River Valley. Earlier this year, Jehad Nga, on assignment for the New York Times' Travel section, spent three weeks retracing part of the historic route in central Asia, driving from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

I expected Nga's photographic mastery in this slideshow, so I was rather disappointed by the photographs in the Silk Road: Ancient Road, Timeless Trip feature as they are shot in a basic photojournalistic style. Notwithstanding, I enjoyed it because of Nga's calm and sensitive narration....but after it was done, I admit I had to go back to my earlier posts here and here to re-savor his images of Ethiopia and Africa.

The New York Times' Silk Road slideshow. (Registration may be required by New York Times).

Hogan's Compact Camera!

Image Copyright Thom Hogan-All Rights Reserved
Thom Hogan is a well known and respected figure among the photographic community, and a virtual legend to Nikon owners all over the world for his knowledge, and extensive reviews of anything and everything Nikon.

Here's a gem of an article he just wrote bemoaning the absence of decent compact digital cameras, and putting forth specifications needed in such cameras. I hope camera companies listen!

I've been studying every compact digital camera there is....tempted by the Leica models (too expensive), confused by Panasonic (is it a Leica or not?), repulsed by the latest Canon offering (no RAW),...etc. so what Thom says resonates with me, and will resonate with anyone with the same predicament: what compact digital camera can be a decent backup to a pro SLR system?

Here's the article on compact cameras from Thom Hogan's website.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III: Shock & Awe

The Canon-1D Mark III's burst mode is nothing short of phenomenal. What you are about to see (courtesy of TheDigitalPicture.com) is a series of Canon EOS 1D Mark III Digital SLR 10 frame-per-second shot bursts used to animate a JPG image. There are 86 images (3.24 MB) that must load before the playback becomes smooth. So wait for it to load.

Just phenomenal!

Here's the link.

Sara Heinrich: Myanmar

Image Copyright © Sara Heinrich - All Rights Reserved
Sara Heinrich's website is a commercial one through which, not only showcases her work, but also sells her photographic services (wedding, etc) and her photographs of Myanmar, or Burma.

She doesn't divulge much of her background on the website's biography section, and although she might not describe herself as being a travel photographer, her photographs of Myanmar are certainly worth featuring on TTP.

While many of the photographs are of Burmese children with thanaka on their tiny faces, there are others of landscapes, of Buddhist monks and of Bagan temples. The clarity of Sara's photographs is such that it's almost as if I am seeing the real thing rather than a photograph.

I don't really like galleries with both black & white and color photographs, but that's a personal view and some of Sara's B&W photographs are really good. I chose this color photograph of novices in Bagan. It must have been posed because of all the candles, but the contrasting expressions of the two novices are wonderfully natural and spontaneous. A talented and very capable photographer, perhaps Sara will continue her travel photography work. I certainly hope so.

Sara's gallery of Myanmar is here.

NY Times: John McDermott

Image Copyright © John McDermott-Courtesy New York Times
The New York Times' Cultured Traveller will publish an article on June 10 on John McDermott's photographic artistry. McDermott is known as the Angkor Wat photographer, because his iconic photographs have now become the definitive images of the temples.

While I already posted about McDermott's infrared artistry and his remarkable photographs on TTP (post), the NYT article provides more information and also predicts that, in a few years, we will be able to admire McDermott's photographs of Myanmar, as he has turned his camera to this enigmatic country's temples and tribal areas.

New York Times' article (registration may be required)

One Shot: Penni Webb

Image Copyright © Penni Webb - All Rights Reserved
Penni is a photographer, photo stylist, photography teacher, and finds the time to run a business as an interior designer and as an organizer for businesses in San Francisco. She received Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree from the University of Arizona and worked on my Master’s degree in Photography at the city's Art Institute. She created etchings and monotypes at the Kala Institute in Berkeley, and her work traveled to several museums and art centers in Colorado and Arizona. She was the artist in residence at Magnolia Editions (Oakland) where she worked on lithographs from her own photographs.

Her Beauty of Aging series were taken on her travels. The collection is a look at old building, walls, cottages, windows, gates, and other structures from the past that still carry a sense of elegance from the effects of time and weather. She hand paints her photographs like the artists of the early 19th century. Describing her work, she says "Painting creates another dimension for the photograph, and the final result is a unique fusion of fact and fantasy, the world as it is and as it is imagined. I have worked on this series for a number of years, and it is a reflection of my own feelings about aging, a transition that can be beautiful."

Penni also worked as a mentor for “Bridges to Understanding” on the Navajo Reservation (Northern Arizona), in Ollantaytambo (Peru), and in Dharmasala (India) teaching children digital photography, a project for the Smithsonian and other American museums. In fall 2006, she joined me on my Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon photo expedition, photographing the culture and people.

Her hand painted image of a novice monk darting into his monastery was photographed at Wangdichholing Palace (converted to a monastery) near the town of Jakar. It was built in 1857 as the principal residence of Bhutan's first king and was used by the second and third, but it is now used a Buddhist school.

Here are Penni Webb's: The Beauty of Aging and Penni Webb Design websites.

Operation Azra

Photojournalists from prestigious organizations such as National Geographic, German GEO, the photo agency VII, TIME, Newsweek, The New York Times and more, are donating iconic works in an Exhibition and Online Print Auction to benefit victims of acid burning in Pakistan.

Stephanie Sinclair, a photojournalist, is behind the effort and says "Azra Latif, a Pakistani girl I met who was severely disfigured when her brother-in-law threw acid on her face during an argument. We are trying to raise money to pay for her and her husband’s transportation costs and three months of housing and living expenses in France, where she will receive several surgeries to help repair her significant injuries."

When Stephanie first asked to photograph her, Azra agreed but also said, “Everyone photographs me but no one helps.” Here is your chance to literally change a woman’s life while also owning some of the most compelling photojournalism of the modern era, so click on the photo to visit the Operation Azra website, and please donate what you can.

Smithsonian Photo Contest: Results

Image Copyright © Joelle Linhoff- Courtesy Smithsonian.com
The Smithsonian Magazine announced the winners in its 4th Annual Photo Contest. It had solicited entries in five categories:The Natural World, Americana, People, Travel and Altered Images.

This year's grand-prize winner is a Natural World entry of the Tukituki River Valley in New Zealand. The photographer is 18-year-old Joelle Linhoff, of Minnetonka, Minnesota.

You may agree with me that the winning submissions are largely nothing to write home about (with one or two exceptions), but that may well have been due to the photo editors' choices. The photograph of a Buddhist monk photographing a group of monks is pedestrian at best...but it's humorous, I guess.

In September, Smithsonian.com will announce details of its 5th Annual Photo Contest.

Here's the link

Soul of Athens

The award-winning School of Visual Communications at Ohio University, led by Zach Wise and Brian Storm, has produced a truly creative and inventive multimedia opus on the city of Athens in Ohio.

Extremely well-done, this multimedia presentation is truly a must-see...and is to be savored over time.

Here's the link

Warren Clarke: Bali

Image Copyright © Warren Clarke - All Rights Reserved
I usually don't post about photography collectives, but I'll make an exception in Oculi's case because of Warren Clarke. Warren is a co-founder of the Australian collective, and is known for his wonderful photographs of Bali and its festivals, as well as for his commercial photography.

However, let me first tackle Oculi's background. In 2001, nine award-winning photojournalists, united by their commitment to documentary-storytelling, formed Oculi.com.au. The collective's website asserts that its "members'central conviction is to reveal the beauty, wonder and struggle of everyday life without contrived photo-shoots or art-directed aesthetics, just honesty with their subjects and an unflinching gaze".

Oculi's website is well worth exploring in its entirety but as I am about to lead a photo expedition to Bali next month, I spent some time admiring Warren's photo essays in Indonesia, especially the one on Ngteng Linggih (similar to a beatification of a temple). You'll find it on the second page of his gallery.

I chose the above photograph from this series. How many times have I struggled to find a 'new' angle when I photograph people, and yet I have not thought of composing a portrait such as this one...just the upper face of the Balinese dancer, with a blurry full figure of another dancer behind her. The only bit that bothers me is the white 'blob thing' on the left of her face...but no matter, I really like this photograph.

So readers of TTP and my newsletters, brace yourself...I will return from Bali with quite a lot of photographs inspired by Warren's work.

In the meantime, here Oculi's website, and Warren's gallery.

Face Alignment: Pop Photo

Guatemala- Image © Tewfic El-Sawy - All Rights Reserved
I didn't think I'd find an interesting article in the Popular Photography magazine but to me, this one is. It's about how to align a face in a close-up portrait. Perhaps it's more about seeing in print what I instinctively do, but nevertheless I thought it worthwhile to post on TTP, and share it.

Here's the article.

Dennis Cordell: Ladakh

Image Copyright © Dennis Cordell - All Rights Reserved
I found Dennis Cordell's remarkable portraits of Buddhist novices at the Gyudzin Tantric Monastery School in Ladakh on Flickr, the popular online photo management and sharing application. However, I haven't found much information on Dennis apart from a few words indicating that he's a Tibetan translator. I hope he reads TTP and provides me his biography and background.

I did find the Gyudzin Tantric Monastery School's website, where I learnt that there are no major centers of Buddhist teaching in Ladakh, and that this monastery fulfills that role. Students receive instruction in general subjects up to 8th grade and are trained in Tantric ritual tradition along with learning of tantric texts. After completing this course the monastery provides instruction in five major branches of Buddhist teaching. Those are Paramana, Vinaya, Madhyamika, Abhidharma and Prajnyaparmita texts. Students shall then have the options to persue a further five years study in tantric teachings to receive a Geshe Nagrampa Degree.

Dennis's Flickr page has many more of these portraits of novices, along with portraits of Indian sadhus. Well worth a visit!