Palani Mohan: VIVID

Palani Mohan: VIVID

Here's VIVID, a blast of colors that will surely jolt your senses into overdrive! It's a collection of "color-caffeinated" photographs by Palani Mohan of various (mostly of the Indian Holi festival) scenes of tremendous color.

Palani 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. Palani's 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.

The Travel Photographer blog previously featured Palani Mohan's work here.

Jeroens Toirkens: Nomads

Jeroens Toirkens: Nomads

Photo © Jeroens Toirlens-All Rights Reserved

 Jeroen Toirkens is a Dutch freelance photographer who studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague. His work mainly consists documentary photography for various clients like NGO’s and governmental institutions in health care and infrastructure. but he also initiated a project called Nomadslife, in which he documents the life of nomadic peoples on the Northern Hemisphere.

His website features a number of galleries of nomads in Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Finland, Russia, Mongolia, Morocco and Greenland. These small nomadic cultures have unfamiliar names such as the Dukha,  Khalkh, Yoruk, Altai and Nenets while others such as the Inuits, Berbers, Kazakh and Sami are better known.

I liked the photographs of the Dukha, a small culture of reindeer herders living in northern Mongolia. Only 44 Dukha families remain, totaling somewhere between 200 and 400 people. They ride, breed, milk, and live off reindeer. Their way of life is endangered and they survive largely by selling their crafts to tourists and riding their domesticated reindeer.

Paul Kowlow: Japan (and Geishas)

Paul Kowlow: Japan (and Geishas)

Photo © Paul Kowalow-All Rights Reserved

Paul Kowalow's website on Zenfolio is sparse with his biographical details, but I thought I'd nevertheless feature his work of Japan here.

You'll see that his gallery of Japan has a large number of portraits of not only geishas but also of young women adopting the punk style of fashion, which I thought is a jarring stark contrast between these two cultures; the traditional and the modern. I wish the gallery was arranged in such a way that the portraits of geisha and punks would alternate. Most of these portraits appear to be candid shots, and the colors are just great.

Take a look at his other galleries as well. He's got some nice photographs of Venice.

Thomas Cristofoletti: Day of the Dead

Thomas Cristofoletti: Day of the Dead

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Here's a movie made of still photographs by Thomas Cristofoletti on the singular tradition in the Philippines which occurs on the Day of the Dead. The stills were made in Tandag, Surigao del Sur and document the tradition of caring for the tombs on November 1.

Tombs are cleaned up, repainted and spruced up by relatives. Candles are lit and flowers placed. Many families spend a night or two near their loved ones' tombs in remembrance. Card games, eating, drinking, singing and dancing are common activities at the cemeteries during the holiday.

In the Philippines, the day of the dead is known as Araw ng mga Patay; one of the traditions imported from Spain during the country' colonization. Of course, El Dia De los Muertos is a well known tradition in Mexico, as well as in other countries where the Catholic faith is practiced. The observance coincides with All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

Thomas Cristofoletti is a freelance photographer and art director currently based in Madrid, who is a proponent of the decisive moment and of candid photography.

Angkor Photo Festival 2010

Angkor Photo Festival 2010

The 2010 Angkor Photo Festival is to be held between November 20 to November 27 in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The event is a unique photo festival in South East Asia,  and it's now in its 6th iteration, having had its inaugural gathering in 2005.

In 2010, 110 photographers including 50 Asian photographers are showcasing their work, in keeping with festival’s mission of highlighting emerging Southeast Asian photographers. These works are curated by  well-known figures in photography, Yumi Goto, Antoine d’Agata, and Françoise Callier .

This promises to be a real cornucopia of established and emerging photographic talent, with the participation of Olivia Arthur, Munem Wasif, Paolo Pellegrin, Shiho Fukada, Sohrab Hura, Rony Zakaria, Palani Mohan, Agnes Dherbeys and John Stanmeyer, amongst many others.

To keep up with developments, you can also drop by Angkor Photo Festival's Facebook Page

Hamid Sardar: Mongolia

Hamid Sardar: Mongolia

Hamid Sardar-Afkhami is a photographer and a scholar of Tibetan and Mongol languages with a Ph.D. from Harvard University. After moving to Nepal in the late 1980’s and exploring Tibet and the Himalayas for more than a decade, he traveled to Outer Mongolia, and determined to document its nomadic culture by setting a mobile studio ger camp in Mongolia. With his arsenal of cameras and different formats, he mounts yearly expeditions into the Mongolian outback to document her nomadic traditions.

Apart from the two movie documentaries (these are not short, and run for almost an hour), take a look at Hamid's photographic gallery titled Dark Heavens, which has color and platinum portfolios.

Photo © Hamid Sardar-All Rights Reserved

Impressive, huh? Especially since Hamid is able to combine the two imagery disciplines so well.

I was introduced to Hamid Sardar's work and website through The Empty Quarter Gallery newsletter.

Julie Aucoin: Redux

Julie Aucoin: Redux

Photo © Julie Aucoin -All Rights Reserved
I've already mentioned Julie Aucoin on this blog, but I've thought of re-posting her recent work which includes a number of South East Asian countries to include Vietnam, and this image of a Bac Ha woman.

Julie who's based in Nevada, describes herself as a passionate photographer, an adventurous traveler and experienced stage manager. She's one of those photographers who, as a child, perused the pages of the National Geographic magazine and this implanted peripatetic seeds in her.

The earlier post on Julie is here.

Nicky Loh: Tattoo Girls of Taiwan

Nicky Loh: Tattoo Girls of Taiwan

Photo © Nicky Loh-All Rights Reserved


Nicky Loh is a photographer with Reuters working in Taiwan, whose specialty is news, sports and feature photography, who's interested in documenting traditional art forms such as Chinese opera.

On his employer's blog, he writes of having had an assignment to cover the 2010 Taiwan International Tattoo Convention in Taipei which, while not newsworthy per se, offered him a good opportunity to produce colorful photographs.

He describes how he decided to set up an impromptu studio in one of the empty booths of the convention, and do portraits of women with fully tattooed backs.

Not only beautiful artwork, but also very attractive women...so a "twofer" as they say.

Matt Allard Captures Geishas

Matt Allard Captures Geishas

Matt Allard is a Team Leader- Cameras for Aljazeera International based out of Kuala Lumpur covering Asia/Pacific and the sub continent, and has produced a movie documenting the changing culture of geishas. Due to the world financial crisis, even well-entrenched traditions have had to adapt in Japan, as elsewhere, and geishas in Kyoto have had to follow suit.

Matt used a Canon 7D, 5Dmk2 and 7 lenses to shoot this assignment. The lenses used were a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS II, 50mm f1.2, 135mm f2, 24-70mm f2.8, 100mm Macro f2.8, 16-35mm f2.8 and a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. All interviews were shot on the 70-200mm. All the audio was recorded on a Zoom H4N using either Seinnheiser radio or shotgun mics. It was edited using FCP and ran on Aljazeera English on the 19th August 2010 around the world.



Also from Matt Allard is this movie depicting the same modern day girl transforming into a Geisha in Kyoto, Japan. It was made using a Canon 7D and a 5D Mark 2 using a Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro and a Canon 16-35mm f2.8. The ambient light and the angles used by Matt are just perfect...the colors are beautiful.

Via DSLRrnewsshooter.com

Photojournalism From SE Asia

Photojournalism From SE Asia

For those who are hard-core fans of South East Asian photojournalism, OPEN-i hosted a live webinar a few months ago which featured work from photographers living and working in South East Asia, and who discussed the challenges and rewards of working in that region.

The webinar (moderated by Paul Lowe) is unusually long (about 105 minutes), and the acoustics are not great, but it offers insight into the work and working conditions of 4 photographers/photojournalists.

Jack Picone - Thailand
Justin Mott - Vietnam
Veejay Villafranca - Philippines
Rony Zakaria - Indonesia

OPEN-i is a global online community of practice for the professional photojournalism industry where members can discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the industry in live webinars and online forums.

Kate Baumgartner: Religious Asia

Kate Baumgartner: Religious Asia

Photo © Kate Baumgartner-All Rights Reserved
Kate Baumgartner describes herself as an avid photographer, and that may well be an understatement.

Based in Hong Kong, she photographed to Cambodia, Burma, India, China, Namibia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Vietnam...returning with splendid photographs, like the one above of the Cao Dai monks. Cao Dai is the relatively new, syncretist, monotheistic religion established in 1926 in Vietnam.

Take a look at Kate's gallery of photographs under the Religion category, and you'll find many of the different faiths and traditions of Asia, including the unusual rituals during the Thaipusam festival in Singapore, which is celebrated mostly by the Tamil community. On the day of the festival, devotees will shave their heads and undertake a pilgrimage during which some will engage in self-mortification by piercing their skin, tongue or cheeks with skewers.

MSF's Starved For Attention

MSF's Starved For Attention

"this year 195,000,000 children will suffer from malnutrition"

and so starts “Starved for Attention” the extremely well produced multimedia campaign by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and VII Photo which exposes the neglected and largely invisible crisis of childhood malnutrition.

The campaign aims to present a series of multimedia documentaries of still photography and video from the well-known photojournalists at the VII Agency, such as Marcus Bleasdale, Jessica Dimmock, Ron Haviv, Antonin Kratochvil, Franco Pagetti, Stephanie Sinclair, and John Stanmeyer.

The first multimedia reportage is titled Frustration and is by Marcus Bleasdale, who narrates it out of Djibouti.

Bookmark this website, since the remaining reportages will be featured over the course of the coming months.

For more background on the project, JournalismNow features an interview with Ron Haviv, which touches on his work in Bangladesh for Starved For Attention.

Ian Lloyd: Asia

Ian Lloyd: Asia

Ian Lloyd is an Australian photographer who has undertaken commissions for magazines such as National Geographic, Time, Fortune, Gourmet and Conde Nast Traveler and multinational companies as diverse as ExxonMobil, Pepsi, Motorola and Singapore Airlines have commissioned Ian for commercial photography assignments. He has photographed 36 books on countries and regions around Asia including large format books on Kathmandu, Bali and Singapore and a four volume series on Australian wine regions.

You'll see from the Spirit of Asia video that it's a retrospective look at 20 years of his photography in Asia. Perhaps somewhat different from most of the travel photography I have featured here on The Travel Photographer blog, but certainly of high quality that we expect from photographers who work with the National Geographic.

Matjaž Krivic: Earth Temples

Matjaž Krivic: Earth Temples

Photo © Matjaž Krivic-All Rights Reserved
Matjaž Krivic describes his whereabouts as traveling with his camera somewhere between the Sahara and the Himalayas...and having seen his portfolio of photographs, I believe him. He just returned from an overland road trip from Slovenia to Nepal via Senegal (Dakar to Katmandu), which took him 13 months of living and photographing out of a 4x4 Nissan Patrol.

For 20 years, he globe-trotted the world capturing the personality and grandeur of indigenous people and places, and found the time to be awarded many prizes, and recognized in various venues and exhibitions. He traveled in Yemen, Mali, Tibet, North and West Africa, Iran, Mongolia, China, Nepal and India.

I particularly liked his lovely Earth Temples portfolio, which consists of over 60 photographs of various temples, places of worship and still (or silent) places in India, Tibet, Morocco, Bolivia, Nepal and Kenya...to name but a few. These are so beautiful that I wish they were twice the size to appreciate them even better.

A Journey Through Asia: Canon 5D II

A Journey Through Asia: Canon 5D II

a journey through asia from ivan vania on Vimeo.

Here's a short movie shot with a Canon 5D Mark II titled "A journey through Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The photography/videography (and editing) is by Ivan Vania, a filmmaker from Italy. The lens was a 24 mm-70mm 2.8, while the software was Final Cut Pro.

Simple and effective...and an increasingly important component of travel photography. I think that ambient audio (instead of the current soundtrack) would have strengthened it considerably. And better titling would have been nice too.

My thanks to Ralph Childs for sending me this.

Grenville Charles: Tribes of West Papua

Grenville Charles: Tribes of West Papua

Grenville Charles is a freelance photographer, whose main body of work is in TV and film stills for the BBC and Granada Television amongst others. Passionate about tribal cultures led him to travel to Asia where he photographed the Vietnam Hill Tribes of the central highlands, and to the remote jungles of West Papua to document the Dani, Korowai, Mek, Kombai and Asmat tribes. His portfolio of the Tribes of West Papua is featured on ZoneZero.

He was shortlisted in 2004 and was the runner up in 2008 for the Wanderlust Travel Photographer of the Year Award. In 2008, he was one of only 22 photographers selected from international applications to participate in a 5 day Magnum Workshop led by Magnum photographers Carl De Keyzer, Mark Power and David Hurn.

West Papua is the former Irian Jaya, and is home to more than 300 tribes. They have inhabited the island for more than 40,000 years. The Dani tribe are by far the most populous and probably the best known ethnic group in Papua. Another of the highland tribes are the Mek who live in the area surrounding Kosarek, despite there being an airstrip, the area is still very remote and very little visited by tourists.

The lowland jungles are home to the Korowai, since the mid 1980's some of the Korowai have moved to the missionary villages such as Yaniruma and Yafufla, but the majority of them live as they always have, in their treetop homes in the jungle swamps.

NPR: The Mekong, A River

NPR: The Mekong, A River

Here's a wonderful multimedia piece The Mekong: A River And A Region Transformed, which is produced by NPR, as only a sterling institution such NPR would know how.

It documents the Mekong through a 3,000-mile journey from the river’s source on the Tibetan plateau to its mouth at the South China Sea, relying on Michael Sullivan and photographer Christopher Brown examine the turbulent history and uncertain future along the Mekong.

The Mekong is one of the world’s major rivers, and is its 12th-longest, and the 7th-longest in Asia. According to Wikipedia, its estimated length is 4,350 km or 2,703 miles, running from the Tibetan Plateau through China's Yunnan province, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

I've traveled to most countries through which the Mekong runs, and it was at its most spectacular at Khone Phapheng, in southern Laos with its borders with Cambodia, during monsoon season.

NYTimes: 31 Places To Go In 2010

NYTimes: 31 Places To Go In 2010

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved
The New York Times published a feature on the 31 places to go in 2010, as well as an interactive world map listing its readers' (and its own) top recommendations.

I suppose the results, which so far list Istanbul as the readers' first choice, will provide the editors with assignment ideas for its photographers and writers to work on this year. It follows that interested travel photographers may want to look at these results which could predict eventual gigs, or photo editors' interests.

I'm not at all surprised that Istanbul is the top readers' recommended destination, but I slightly puzzled by the following choice of Colombia. I've been to Istanbul a few times, and I can understand the choice...and as I haven't visited Colombia or any of the northern South American nations, I must profess ignorance as to its attractions.

As for Sri Lanka, which is one of the top 31 places to go to, I must say that I'm of two minds. In March 2004, I found Sri Lanka a little bland. Let me be quick to qualify this by saying that I'm referring to its visual blandness relative to the sensory overload that is India. This is patently unfair as few countries can compete with the colors of India. The country has also been in the throes of a nasty civil war between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority, as well as being badly hit by the tsunami, both events which have had a negative impact on tourists who visit.

Notwithstanding, the New York Times article on the island nation mentions a number of singularly attractive boutique hotels such as the Sun House in Galle. I can vouch that this small property is incredible, and seemed to be extremely well managed by a British expatriate. Its sister venture is The Dutch House, which is equally lovely.

Asian Geo: Photo Contest 2009 Results

Asian Geo: Photo Contest 2009 Results

This is a belated post on the results of the Asian Geo magazine Photo Contest 2009 results. Some exceptional photographs have been compiled by the magazine in a flash-based flip viewer which is mildly irritating to use, but the quality of the photographs more than compensate for this. Sometimes simplicity is best, but the desire for innovative presentation techniques trumps reason.

Graham Crouch has won the Grand Prize in the Faces of Asia Category with his photograph of a malnourished infant being weighed in Mahdya Pradesh, India. However, don't stop at his compelling photograph...and continue to the remaining submissions, which are all of very high quality.

The main Asian Geographic magazine website is here.

Michael Bednar: Eagle Hunters of Mongolia

Michael Bednar: Eagle Hunters of Mongolia

Photo © Michael Bednar -All Rights Reserved
I like big pictures, and Michael Bednar's website galleries have such large photographs, that viewing them is a virtual immersion into his imagery. His photo story about the Eagle Hunters of Mongolia is a visual treat...especially since it features not only environmental portraits of the hunters and their eagles, but also breathtaking imagery of the stunning Mongolian landscape.

For Kazakhs, hunting with eagles is ingrained in their cultural heritage, and historians believe hunting with birds of prey was practiced by nomadic tribes in Central Asia almost 6000 years ago.

Michael Bednar is a travel and documentary photographer based in Vancouver. He started by discovering the diversity of life and cultures in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. After some years of globetrotting, Michael returned to Canada to attend the Western Academy of Photography and secured a diploma in Professional Photography.

He worked at daily newspapers in Southern Alberta, and eventually turned freelance, with his photographs published internationally.