Natalie Behring: Shanghai Portraits

Shanghai Portraits - Image Copyright Natalie Behring
As The Travel Photographer blog has a significant number of readers hailing from China, I thought it's time for Natalie Behring to make an appearance here. She is a freelance photographer/photojournalist based in Beijing, and covered major stories across Asia, Mideast and Africa for major international magazines and newspapers. She has also worked for numerous NGOs.

Natalie's portfolio is comprehensive, ranging from China to Papua New Guinea. However, it's her B&W gallery Portraits of Shanghai which I chose for this post.

Look for Portraits of Shanghai on Natalie Behring

Michael Yamashita

Image Copyright Michael Yamashita
For over 25 years, Michael Yamashita has combined his passions for photography and travel by documenting the Asian continent for National Geographic. He has covered such diverse subjects as the Mekong River, the journeys of Marco Polo, The Great Wall of China, and much of Japan.

Yamashita decided that he wanted to become a professional photographer in the mid-70's, and started submitting images and pitching ideas to travel magazines in Japan, as well as in Hong Kong and Singapore. His images were bought by Singapore Airlines, for their brochures and calendars.

Returning to the United States a few years later, he started his career of with the National Geographic where he worked as a free-lancer for over 25 years. His recent Geographic stories have been long-term assignments, many of which have evolved into books.

A thorough professional, and a classic travel photographer. Here's a gallery of his images, courtesy of Double Exposure magazine.

Michael Yamashita

Canon Reviews

For Canon users: We all need a quick source of information and simple hands-on reviews on Canon cameras and lenses. The Digital Picture provides recommendations in simple non-technical (well, almost) language, and reviews on most Canon cameras and lenses.

It's a great first (and for some, the last) step when we are considering to either upgrade or supplement our Canon equipment.

The Digital Picture

Beyond The Frame At TTP

A weekly feature titled Beyond The Frame will appear on The Travel Photographer each Sunday. Beyond The Frame will give the background story on images I photographed during my travels. Cultural, historical and religious background, as well as information, anecdotes and EXIF data (if digital) will be part of Beyond The Frame, to give you the 'whole picture'

Travel: The Year In Pictures 2006

Image from Sacred Faces of Angkor Wat-Copyright 2006 Tewfic El-Sawy
Lonnie Schlein is the picture editor of the Travel section of the New York Times, and in this interactive feature he shares how he personally chose the best photographs for the newspaper's Travel: The Year In Pictures 2006.

While I agree with some of his choices (such as Jehad Nga's photograph of an Ethiopian woman coming out of church), I still don't understand how picture editors narrow down images. It must be a talent acquired after years of experience, a sort of gut feel...but this multimedia presentation did little to shed light on the thinking process.

Travel Pictures 2006

Jobo Giga-Vu

Rob Galbraith's website reports that JOBO just announced that an upcoming firmware revision for the Giga Vu Pro Evolution will add an on-screen loupe to the photo storage device for working photographers. The loupe will provide users of this mobile image storage device with a button in the unit’s zoom menu that makes a rectangular loupe appear on the LCD screen so photographers can closely examine important details of their pictures.

This model has a bright 3.7-inch screen (640 x 480 pixels) and is available in capacities of up to 120GB. It can also play movies and music files and has support for RAW files too. The street prices are about $500 for 40gb to $900 for 120gb.

In contrast, the new Epson p3000 (40gb) has a 4.0-inch screen (640-480 pixels) and is retailed at $490. I wouldn't be surprised if Epson didn't follow through with a firmware of its own.

The jury's out.

Jobo Giga Vu

Latitudes Magazine

Not only does this monthly web-only Italian (also in English) magazine contain wonderful travel imagery of countries ranging from Bhutan to Sudan, but it presents it in a cutting edge multimedia format, adopting a book -or magazine- format, with effective sound and visual effects embedded in some of the photographs. Naturally, as in most magazines, you'll find some advertisement, but I just flip on.

In a future post, I'll introduce you to the software used to build the book-like Flash presentations such as this stylistic and imaginative Latitudes magazine.

Take a Sight-Seeing Tour to Australia

If you haven’t been to Australia or are planning to visit it a second time, then you must have all the information about the places to visit so that you can fully experience the wonderful land that is Australia.

Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world and is divided into 6 states and several territories. The 6 states are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. The two major territories are the Northern Territory (NT) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

The largest part of Australia is desert or semi-arid, but the south-east and south-west corners have temperate climate and moderately fertile soil. The northern part has tropical climate, which is part tropical rainforest, part grassland and part desert.

When you go to Australia, you just cannot miss seeing The Great Barrier Reef. It is the world’s largest coral reef and extends for over 1,200 kms! It lies a short distance from the north-east coast.

Another spectacular place to visit is Uluru. It is the second largest monolith in the world and is located in central Australia. You can also visit the Great Artesian Basin, which is the world’s largest and deepest fresh water basin. Along with its beauty, it also serves as an important source of water in the parched outback.

You sure can’t miss going to Sydney if you visit Australia. Sydney is located in a coastal basin situated between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Blue Mountains to the west. You can enjoy all the activities associated with beaches because there are more than 70 beaches in Sydney! If you have limited time, then you can only go to the famous Bondi Beach of Australia.

Sydney has more amazing landmarks for you like Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. Both are located in Sydney Harbour. If you are interested in rowing, boating, recreational fishing, racing small yachts and Dragon Boat racing, then you can get all that in Sydney Harbour.

The city also boasts of musical, theatrical and artistic activities which come under one roof in the Sydney Festival which happens every January. More information can be found here - Sydney Australia.

Melbourne is another major city of Australia which is situated in the south-east corner of the mainland Australia. It has a large and vibrant cultural life along with a chain of pubs, bars and nightclubs. Fashionable nightclubs, ubiquitous faux-Irish pubs, serious jazz venues on Bennetts Lane, massive pickup joints like The Metro on Bourke Street are all part of the city’s magic.

If shopping is what tempts you the most, then there are many reasonably priced shopping places where you can go and shop till you drop. Melbourne has innumerable clothing shops for every budget and various outlet stores in Bridge Road, Richmond for bargain hunters too!

Perth is a city known for the pristine quality of its beaches. Unbroken stretches of golden sands run through the entire length of the city’s coastal suburbs. If you are a nature lover, then you got to see this place.

Adelaide or the ‘City of Churches’, as it is often referred as, is a coastal city situated on the Fleurieu Peninsula. The name City of Churches is a reflection of Adelaide’s past rather than its present. The city has many wine growing districts such as the Baroosa valley.

Food lovers can taste traditional Australian cuisine which consists of grilled chops, Sunday roasts etc. Some English trends are still evident in domestic cuisine like hot roast turkey, chicken or ham with all the trimmings followed by Christmas pudding. Australia’s two most traditional takeaway dishes are the meat pie and sausage roll.

Amanda Jones

Image Copyright Amanda Jones
Amanda Jones is a prolific writer and photographer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work appears in travel magazines, and her short stories have been published in several travel anthologies. She has also done story development for National Geographic television, and her photography series Timeless, black and white photographs of African tribal peoples, was exhibited at a United Nations film festival.

Her photography is essentially aimed at travel magazines and travel catalogs/stock libraries. She photographs 'nice' portraits, mostly verticals and double-spreads for magazines, and to accompany her travel writings. If you thumb through travel magazines, you'll notice the verticals, the wide space to the left or right of images to accomodate text or titles, etc. It's a style of travel photography that generally doesn't appeal to me, but it does sell and I do it as well.

I've chosen her work in the Ethiopian south, namely in the Omo Valley, for inclusion in TTP. She has also written a short article for the London Sunday Times on her adventures with the tribes of the Omo Valley which is funny and informative. Her introduction to the Mursi tribe echoes my own essay Brief Encounters; The Mursi published in Outdoor Photography last year.

Amanda's Omo Valley gallery is here

Her accompanying article is here

Amanda Jones Travel Photography

Flickr In Stock Photography?

A recent post on Dan Heller's (a talented and versatile professional photographer) blog has added his voice to the rumor that sites such as Flickr and Shutterfly may be considering entering the stock photography business. He asserts that the world of photography will surely get involved in user-generated content, and predicts that sooner or later, these sites will recognize the enormous potential of monetizing user-generated content, similar to what YouTube has done.

Here's a couple of Dan Heller's views:

"As I've been arguing since I got into the photography business, Truism #1 states that more people have photography as a hobby than as a profession. Therefore, the basic fundamental principles of economics make it inevitable that photo businesses will have to expand into a hybrid of consumer/pro-photo sharing/licensing models. Not doing so will be career suicide."

"It is inevitable that someone--whether it's Flickr or other photo-sharing sites--will eventually figure this out and engage in some form of business that monetizes user-generated photography."

I have so far not used Flickr despite its many advantges. The reason is that Flickr (or Yahoo, which is its parent company) requires that those who submit photographs etc agree to granting it worldwide royalty-free non-exclusive license to use these photographs...always a stumbling block for self-respecting photographers.

I expect if Heller's predictions are indeed realizable, that separate terms will have to cover the business monetization model of photo sharing. Notwithstanding, his post prompted me to visit Flickr and I must tell you that the quality of some of the photographs are just spectacular, whether travel or photojournalistic. Incredible quality...and I'm now considering joining, and to keep an eye of future developments.

Hellers' excellent article/post is here

To check out Flickr

Books: Frontline by David Loyn

I'm currently reading Frontline, which is the true story of the British mavericks who changed the face of war reporting. So far, it's mostly on how a handful of British eccentric public school graduates (is that tautological?) decided to report on the conflict in Afghanistan, bending all rules and conventions.

A fascinating read, not well written by any means...a bit anecdotal but a must for anyone interested in war reporting and conflict photojournalism.

It's found in hardback here in the US, but was available in paperback in the UK.

PDF Slideshow

Photoshop has a frequently overlooked but very useful – and super simple- feature which generates PDF slideshows of images in a matter of seconds. These PDF slideshows can be emailed (or burnt on CD) to photo editors, clients and friends to view your work. Since Adobe Reader is on virtually all computers, there's no difficulty in viewing the PDF slideshows.

Here’s how simple it is:

1. Open File Browser in Photoshop.
2. Click on File>Automate>PDF Presentation
3. The PDF Presentation Dialog Box>Browse>Select Images
4. When images are selected, select Output Options>Presentations
5. Select Presentations Options: Advance after 3-4 seconds
6. Select Transition type
7. Save
8. The PDF Options dialog box opens: Click OK
9. The PDF Presentation Saved on Desktop
10. Right Click (on Mac) to create Archive of PDF for an email-able zip file.

For ways to send large files, look at my earlier post: Send It!!

Radhika Chalasani: Widow City

Ms Chalasani is a New York-based photojournalist, and covered Vietnam's emergence from isolation, the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide, and the famine in Sudan; coverage for which she received many coveted awards.

Her most recent work on Indian widows in Vrindavan is the principal reason for her appearance on TTP. Her gender may have granted her easier access to the widows, but that takes nothing away from her talented compositions. See for example, her choice of viewpoint in the image of the widow getting a haircut, in the one of the broken sink in a widow's hovel and the final image of a cow sharing a narrow alley with an elderly widow.

Again, her website is Flash-based, so no shortcuts are available. Her gallery on the widows is titled Widow City

Pascal Meunier: The Baths of Cairo

Cairo hammam - Image Copyright Pascal Meunier
The featured photographs introduced in this post are a revelation for me, as I had no idea that public baths still existed at all in Cairo, the city of my birth. It appears that during the 12th century, the Egyptian baths were the most beautiful of the East, the most convenient and best laid out. Today, excluded from the government's restoration plans , the hammams of Cairo are decaying.

Pascal Meunier is a documentary photographer based in Paris, whose latest photographic works focus on Arab-Muslim culture. A culture which endlessly talked of and criticized these days, but seldom understood nor appreciated.

For the past eight years, Pascal has reported on cultural traditions from Mauritania to Malaysia, passing through Iran, Libya, Yemen and Egypt on the way. The objective of his photography is to capture the cultural heritage and traditions that are swiftly vanishing. He also shows a Muslim world in change, overtaken by modernity, but increasingly anxious to preserve its values. He photographs with a Leica MP.

I found his images of the Cairene public baths to be brooding, saturated and atmospheric. As I said, a revelation and certainly a potential personal project when I next visit.

Pascal Meunier's Les Derniers Bains Du Caire

Birth of A Canon Lens

Here's a virtual tour of the Canon lens plant. The tour takes us through the entire process of producing a Canon EF 500mm f4 IS USM telephoto lens, starting from the raw materials used to make the glass to its final hand assembly. Thanks for the link Ralph!

Canon Virtual Tour

Kalpesh Lathigra: Brides of Krishna

As promised in my post of yesterday, I bring you Kalpesh Lathigra a London-based freelance photographer, working for most of the United Kingdom's newspaper magazines, including the Sunday Times Magazine, and The Independent Magazine. His work ranges from photographic essays of the American Midwest to the aftermath of the Asian tsunami. However, the reason for his being included on this blog is his insightful photographic essay on the Indian widows, aptly entitled Brides of Krishna. His work in Vrindavan predates mine, and I wish I had seen it before I set out on my trip.

Paraphrased from Kalpesh's Brides of Krishna: " To be a poor widow in India in the 21st century is to still suffer social death. It (Vrindavan) has become a place of sanctuary, yet a more sinister tale of corruption and greed lies below the surface. In many ways the widows have become slaves to the ashrams without which they have no real way to survive."

An enormously talented and sensitive photographer, Kalpesh's Brides of Krishna is well worth visiting.

There are no shortcut links to Brides of Krishna since the website is Flash-based. Here's the link to his main website and you can navigate to his galleries.

Vodka Cleaner?

During my recent photo-expedition in Bhutan, while immersed in photographing the festival of Prakhar, totally focused on the whirling dancing monks of the monastery, and crouching to capture their movements, disaster struck one of the expedition’s participants. Her Canon 20D wouldn’t work...it just froze. Nothing worked. Removing and replacing the battery didn’t work. Replacing the CF card with another one didn’t work. Nothing.

Suddenly an epiphany! I removed the lens from the camera, and with a corner from my t-shirt carefully wiped the contacts on the lens mount and those on the camera. Presto! The camera worked again. Gunk had prevented the electronics to connect properly….but I knew that my wiping would not be sufficient if we were to prevent that problem from happening again during our coming many photo shoots. None of us had alcohol-based cleaner, so we wiped down the connections on our lenses and cameras, and hoped for the best.

Back at our hotel in Bumthang, I noticed that one of us had a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka (just for medicinal use of course). Another epiphany! A few drops of the liquid on a lint-free cloth proved to be an excellent cleaner of electronic connections on our cameras’ mounts. Needless to say, our cameras worked perfectly for the remainder of the expedition. James Bond may disapprove, but you can try this at home if you like…just don’t get vodka on the camera’s sensor!

Islamic Numerology & Panoramas

Image Copyright 2006 Travis Fox/Washington Post
The Washington Post has a really interesting article today for people like me who are interested in uncommon cultures, religious rituals and photography. The article is about Islam and numerology, and is by Travis Fox reporting from N'djamena in Chad, who writes of a fascinating practice that mixes Islamic theology, African folklore, and shamanism. A ‘feki’ (an Islamic scholar of sorts) is called upon to cure illnesses, to predict the future and to resolve crimes.

The ‘feki’ uses Muslim prayer beads, mysterious numbers and various diagrams to resolve a multitude of social issues. It made me think of kabalistic practices, and other similar rituals. The link to this article is below.

Notwithstanding this interesting practice, it must be said that mainstream Islamic theology ridicules numerology and fortune-telling. More orthodox Islamic scholars condemn these as being in conflict with the teachings of the Qu'ran.

Back to temporal matters: one of the photographs in the article is made with a panoramic camera, and I found that it really offers a wonderfully realistic view of the room in which the ‘feki’ works along with his clients. Since I wondered whether a panoramic camera would be a worthwhile investment, I discovered that professional panoramic cameras do not come cheap. The cheapest Horseman panoramic camera retails for about $1900, while the Linhof goes for $2900. These come with no lenses. However, I suspect that the photograph in the article is made with a consumer-type digital camera set in panoramic mode. I will research this further.

The article is here

The panoramic image is here

Widows of Vrindavan

Trailer from White Shadows - Copyright 2006-2007 Tewfic El-Sawy

One of my photographic projects which left me with an indelible sense of compassion is the one I did of the widows of Vrindavan in India. As I write in White Shadows, my multimedia project on the subject:

"I am not a polemicist, nor an activist nor am I sufficiently knowledgeable of Indian social issues and culture, but I sense that religious tradition (in this case, Hinduism) is used to justify the dreadful treatment of widows, and that it is really poverty that lies behind the decision to force them out from their families."

There are many talented photographers who have also documented the widows of Vrindavan. I intend to introduce you to them in the coming few days.

My multimedia gallery 'White Shadows' can be seen here

World Press Photo 2007

Image Copyright 2006 Spencer Platt (Getty Images)

The World Press Photo in Holland announced its 2007 winners, and Spencer Platt deservedly takes first place with his picture of a group of young Lebanese driving through a South Beirut neighborhood devastated by Israeli bombings. The picture was taken on 15 August 2006, the first day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah when thousands of Lebanese started returning to their homes.

To me, this picture is the epitome of what photojournalism ought to be. A single picture says it all. The image of wealthy privileged Lebanese cruising a devastated neighborhood in South Beirut (aka a poor Shia neighborhood) says it all about the 'two' Lebanons. There's the privileged, moneyed, Western-leaning and (usually Maronite Christian) minority on one side and the downtrodden, poor, disinfranchised Shia majority which bore the brunt of the Israeli destruction last summer on the other. It's the classic tale of a divided nation where the minority elitist class govern, while the majority have little say in their country's future and their own economic advancement.

Just look at the picture: The women are in revealing dresses; one is holding a handkerchief to her nose (to protect her from the stench of death and destruction, or was she just blowing her nose?) and the other is blithely taking pictures on her cell phone. Are these young people going to volunteer to help fellow Lebanese who've been wounded and killed in the bombings? Are they going to donate blood? Are they going to donate funds to help those who are homeless? I just don't think so. To me, these people are on a sightseeing drive through devastated neighborhoods, and will return with their stories and cell phone images to show their friends while wasting their nights away in Beirut's nightspots. If I'm right, then what a despicable behavior!

To me, this picture foretells the future of the Lebanon.

World Press Photo's website

Bolivia: The Tinku Ritual

Image from The People of Pachamama-Copyright 2002 Tewfic El-Sawy
The New York Times and its sister company, the International Herald Tribune report today from Bolivia on the unusual ritual of Tinku, a word that means “encounter” in both the Aymara and Quechua languages, which was once widespread throughout the Andean world, predating the arrival of the conquistadors. Anthropologists say it now tenuously exists just in an isolated pocket of Bolivia, seven hours southeast of La Paz by bus on a dirt road.

The ritual involves dance, drinking chicha, a fermented beverage made here from rye, and then fighting breaks out until blood stains the dirt alleyways. It's a combination of harvest or fertility ritual and a chance for young men to show off in front of women from other communities.

I recall a festival on the Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca when I visited Bolivia in 2002. The locals were celebrating a harvest festival, and although there was no violence, I thought that chicha did flow rather too freely.

The slideshow is of photographs by Evan Abramson of the NY Times: The Tinku Ritual

Kloie Picot: One Shot More

Bushkashi in Afghanistan - Image Copyright 2006 Kloie Picot
Kloie Picot is a Canadian photojournalist and filmmaker specializing in documenting conflicts, critical social issues, cultural events and religious rituals from around the world. She is also pursuing the multimedia field by combining her photography, video and sound.

Now based in Taiwan, she travels and works extensively in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Far East. She spent 8 months in Israel and Occupied Palestine filming 'Shots That Bind' on the lives and work of Palestinian photojournalists in Nablus. It is there where Kloie became enthralled with the split-second capture of moments which conflict photography exemplifies.

Kloie was kind enough to send me a DVD of 'Shots That Bind', and I was mesmerized by the remarkable hard hitting documentary.

Her website is fresh off the press, and I take great pleasure to introduce it here.

Kloie's One Shot More

Cleansed of Sin By The Ganges

Image from Pilgrims of the Kumbh Mela-Copyright 2001 Tewfic El-Sawy
The Washington Post has published a gallery of images from Allahabad, where the Ardh Kumbh Mela is winding down. This is one of the holiest Hindu festivals, when millions of Hindus bathe in the confluence of the rivers Ganges and Yamuna. I've posted earlier about this festival. The images are by Indian photographers working for AP and Getty. The first image is of Western Hindus bathing in the Ganges, a rather incongruous choice for an opening photograph.

The gallery is:here

VII Agency: Podcasts

Some members of the photo Agency VII have video podcasts of their lectures at the Pasadena VII Seminar last April. James Nachtwey and Ron Haviv's video podcasts were my favorites.

Here are VII Video Podcasts

Mark Seager: The Palestinian Taxi

Mark Seager is a talented freelance photojournalist who spent a number of years in Palestine and Israel, documenting the real story behind the events afflicting this part of the world. I recently met him in London’s Soho district where we had coffee and exchanged views on photography, multimedia etc.

He just produced a slideshow using Soundslides called “Palestinian Taxi”; a documentary slideshow grouping his photographs, his narration and ambient sound. A must-see documentary for its feel of reality, and for its message. A big hand for Mark.

Mark Seager's updated Palestinian Taxi

Have you heard?

Pushkar Fair-Copyright 2002 Tewfic El-Sawy
A celebrity photographer is offering a 14 days photo 'workshop' in India in November 2007. The itinerary is expected to include a few days at the Pushkar Fair. I say 'expected' because the itinerary isn't ready yet. However, the cost of the workshop is ready at $7100 per person, and the workshop will accommodate 14 photographers. Yes, fourteen. The deposit to secure a berth on the workshop is $2000.

Being a compulsive number cruncher, here’s my back of envelope analysis. I’ve set up and led a similar itinerary before, and I know that current land costs for such a tour can be arranged for no more than $2500. If what I claim is true (and it is), this means that the celebrity photographer’s margin on the workshop is easily $4500 a head. Assuming (and it’s a fairly reasonable assumption) that the workshop will sell out, the celebrity photographer is looking at $63,000 for 14 days work. That's $4500 a day, folks. Nice work if you can get it.

There are enthusiastic people willing to pay a $4500 premium to attend such an event with a celebrity photographer, and I hope they get their money’s worth. Mind you, with 14 participants in the workshop, I'm not sure how much time each participant will get with the -hopefully accessible- celebrity, but having sharp elbows will help. As for me, “I just report and you decide”, as they say.