Ethiopia's Nomad Warriors: Salgado

Photograph © Sebastião Salgado-All Rights Reserved
Rolling Stone magazine published black & white photographs of Ethiopia's Nomad Warriors by Sebastião Salgado. The tribes of the Omo Valley such as Hamer, Mursi and the Sumer are featured in this essay of images by a master photographer. In my view, the images are too small to appropriately convey these people's beauty and charisma, and I look forward to perhaps seeing them elsewhere.

A Sebastião Salgado quote that always stays with me:

"If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things."

For a sample of my own images of the Omo Valley tribes, go here.

Kumari: Nepal's Living Goddess

Photograph © Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
I read on the National Geographic’s website that Nepal has just chosen a new Kumari, the living goddess, a few days ago. The Kumari is essentially Nepal’s virgin goddess, whose body houses the spirit of Taleju (an incarnation of Goddess Durga).

There are stringent rules for a girl to be chosen as a Kumari. She must belong to the Shakya clan (a community of goldsmiths), her family must be extremely pious Hindus, she must have 32 characteristics of physical perfection (including a set of 40 teeth), and she has to prove her fearlessness by spending a night in a dark room with decapitated carcasses.

The chosen Kumari will be taken away from her family (it’s a huge honor), declared a living goddess, and installed in her royal chambers. She will not talk to ordinary mortals, her feet won’t touch the ground and she won’t venture out of her palace more than a handful of times a year. She loses her status with the onset of puberty, and returns to her family.

To me, taking a child away from his or her parents is cruel, but I can't judge whether the Kumari tradition constitutes child abuse or not. With many traditions that are not ours, Western sensibilities frequently over-react, and we view such practices through our own set of prisms. However, there are also a number of Nepali organizations that criticize the Kumari tradition, and I feel these are the best suited to do so and are the most qualified to establish a dialogue between traditionalists and modernists.

A National Geographic video can be seen here

PDN + Canon?

I received my PDN November issue yesterday, and was surprised to see its cover was a Canon advertisement for the EOS 50D. Now, I'm all for magazines to make money from advertisers, but to have PDN's cover taken over by an ad is annoying, and a turn-off.

To be clear, PDN still has a regular cover, but it's covered by another cover: the Canon ad, and ripping it off damages the issue.

A note to PDN people: I like PDN (not always, but most of the time) and Canon is my brand of choice, but this is not a good idea and certainly not one that I'd like to see again. I have to thumb through enough pages of ads as it stands to get to articles and features...so another ad layer is not welcome. I don't know if this gimmick is only for subscribed issues or for all issues in circulation.

This is worse than the ads that appear before multimedia presentations because I paid for the magazine and this ad doesn't go away after 15 seconds. Since I really don't want to have a Canon ad in my face whenever I reach for this PDN magazine, I tore it off.

In Harm's Way

Here's In Harm's Way, a film produced by CBS/Warner Brothers following war photographer Zorial Miller and photojournalist Alissa Everett through Gaza and the West Bank.

However, while the above link can only be seen in the United States, the film can now be seen on You Tube.

Zoriah Miller is the freelance photographer who published pictures of dead U.S. Marines on his blog, which led him to be ejected from his U.S. military embed in Iraq. He was featured on The Travel Photographer here (Link) and here (Link).

Bhutan's Coronation

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
The Himalayan nation of Bhutan crowned its fifth king Thursday after a two-year wait for the precise moment deemed most auspicious by court astrologers. At precisely 8:31 a.m. local time King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, 52, placed the Raven Crown on the head of his son, 28-year old Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, giving him the title of Druk Gyalpo, or Dragon King.

The ceremony was held in Thimpu's Tashichho Dzong, a 17th century white-walled fortress that serves both as administrative headquarters and a monastic center. Bhutanese came from all over the country for the ceremony, including nomadic yak herders who trekked for days from the icy Himalayan mountains of northern Bhutan, as well as members of the country's Hindu minority.

While traveling in Bhutan earlier last month on my Land of the Druk Yul photo-expedition, we saw frenetic activities for this coronation. Unfortunately, I don't know its Dzongkha equivalent, but I extend my congratulations to Bhutan.

The above image is of a Black Hat dancer practicing on a ceremonial trumpet at the Tamshing tsechu last month.

Update: For photographs of the coronation, including some by Paula Bronstein of Getty Images, visit The Boston Globe's The Big Picture.

David Rochkind: Kenya

Photograph © David Rochkind-All Rights Reserved
David Rochkind is based in Caracas, Venezuela and covers news and produces feature stories all over Latin America and elsewhere. His images and stories have been published by The New York Times, Time magazine, Glamour, Stern, The Observer's Sunday Magazine and CARE.

He was chosen as one of Photo District News' 2008 New & Emerging Photographers To Watch.

Although most of David's portfolios are of Latin or Central America, I chose his powerful portfolio of images made in the urban slums of Mathare, Kenya to highlight on this blog. Has the fact that our President-elect has Kenyan parentage influenced me? Perhaps.

Chobi Mela V: Photo Festival

The dates of Chobi Mela V: The International Festival Of Photography in Bangladesh have been delayed to 29th January 2009 - 20th February 2009.

Among other reasons, the organizers have had to delay Chobi Mela V due to the overwhelming response and the large number of high quality entries. They also claim that Chobi Mela V will be bigger, better and more diverse than any of the previous festivals.

For further information, visit Chobi Mela V

Yes We Can

Photograph © Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune-All Rights Reserved

"This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can."
-Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

And we did...and we shall...and the United States and the world rejoices.

My New G10: First Shot

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
I bought a Canon G10 two days ago, and haven't had the time to really put it through its paces yet...however, I've formed a bunch of initial impressions from a couple of shots made in the streets of New York. I will follow up with further thoughts as I use it, and will post these on TTP. I suspect that many of my eventual thoughts, if not all, will mirror other comments made about the G10.

First and foremost, a no-brainer: this is not a DSLR...it's a point and shoot. This fact was reaffirmed to me when I walked over to the DSLR counter at B&H, and was directed by the guy to walk to the other side of the store...to the point & shoot department. So if you expect DSLR quality from the G10, think again. It may come close, but that's about it. Will it replace your DSLR? No. Will it be a back-up for your DSLR? Again, probably not...but that depends on what your definition of back-up is. For me, it won't be.

Secondly, the shutter lag is noticeable. In the above photograph taken while crossing an avenue in New York, you'll notice the tip of a vehicle in the bottom left corner of the frame. This appears because of the shutter lag...the vehicle wouldn't appear had I used a DSLR. I shot this frame at 25mm, f4.5, 1/200th, and an iso of 80.

The quality of the image and color rendition are fine, although still not as good as from a large-sensor DSLR....okay, since you got the message by now, let's drop the comparison to DSLRs since it's really comparing apples to oranges.

The size of the G10 is ideal for street photography (which is the reason I bought it in the first place), it's easily portable in a coat jacket and it's easy to use out of the box. I don't think the G10 will be great for active people photography for instance. I'm quite sure it wouldn't do well at the dance festivals in Bhutan...but it could be very useful in posed environmental portraits.

To be continued....

My Show Off: Gangtey Couple

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Here's a photograph of an elderly farming couple at the Gangtey Goempa monastery, who were quite excited to attend the festival's rehearsals. It was rumored that the King of Bhutan would be attending the actual festival the following morning. The valley of Gangtey is one of the most beautiful in Bhutan, and the Gangtey Goempa monastery is the only Nyingmapa monastery on the western side of the country's Black mountains.

While I like this photograph for its humanity, I wish I had the presence of mind to move to the right of the couple to avoid having the wisp coming out of her head. In the heat of photographing, one frequently misses seeing extraneous background stuff. I don't think it spoils the photograph, but just one step to the side would've made it better.

In any event, I photographed the husband and wife for a few minutes and they were stiff as boards. However, once I relayed to them that they had to look at each other as if they were still both in their twenties, this is the result. It didn't take much to persuade them...the affection that these two Bhutanese farmers have for each other was immediately obvious.

For the techies: 50mm, f5.6, 1/250th, 100iso. Click to enlarge.

POV: Birds of A Feather...

Picking up the thread from various postings in the past week or so, here's a list of travel photographers, who seem to be "birds of a feather" in terms of overall style, visual and geographical interests, compositional affinity, and passion for cultural experiences.

So here are (alphabetically-listed) four blogs/websites I encourage you to visit often and bookmark to satisfy your thirst (or hunger) for travel photography:


Matt Brandon of The Digital Trekker





David duChemin of The Pixelated Image


Gavin Gough of Gavin Gough Photography



Mitchell Kanashkevich of Mitchell Kanashkevich Photography

I've had the experience of photographing along Gavin Gough (who joined me in Bhutan on my Land of Druk Yul photo-expedition), and thought it very interesting that I, from the first day, could instinctively (well, almost) tell what and where Gavin would be photographing. As I said, birds of a feather...