Rant: My Blog My Rules

I know. I haven't been ranting for a while, and some of my readers tell me they miss my acerbic diatribes. I haven't mellowed at all, it's just that I didn't have much to rant (at least of relevance to this blog) about...however, before I lose my so-called acerbic trademark, here's my position about what gets on my blog and what doesn't.By the way, at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico...

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Tewfic El-Sawy: Los Migrantes

Here's a multimedia photo essay I produced about the migrants from Central America and beyond, who pass through Mexico City by hitching rides on freight trains. Their ultimate destinations are the southern states of the United States, where they hope to find jobs. Similar to the hobos of the past in our own country, the migrants have support from generous people along the way. The last frames of...

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Tom Wool: ONE

Photograph © Tom Wool-All Rights ReservedTom Wool is a British photographer currently living in NYC. I'd describe his work as "ethnographic photography" since the work he presents on his website ONE is of 160 portraits made during his travels to Bolivia, Irian Jaya, Kenya, Morocco, PNG, Suriname, Tanzania, Tibet and Venezuela. His biography tells us that he worked in a number of fashion publications...

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Amanda Koster: Salaam Garage

Photograph © Amanda Koster-All Rights ReservedAmanda Koster is the force behind Salaam Garage Adventures, which connects travelers and enthusiasts with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Travelers commit to creating and sharing unique, independent social media that raises awareness and causes positive change. The rest of the adventure is spent touring around the region, experiencing and exploring...

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Eric de Vries: Thailand

Photograph © Eric de Vries-All Rights ReservedEric de Vries lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he's been travelling since 2000. He's working on a long-term project titled 'Still Life in Khmer Style' that covers landscapes, temple scenes and Buddha statues. He has already produced several series, most of them in black and white, and published 3 books so far. The new series Breaking The Clouds (Over...

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Brent Stirton: Omo Valley/Bull Jumping

© Brent Stirton/Courtesy Discovery ChannelI've featured Brent Stirton's fabulous work on the Omo Valley a few months ago, and now bring him back with a Quicktime movie of the bull-jumping ceremony (click the small arrow above to start it).The bull-jumping ceremony is an important ritual performed by some of the tribes of the Omo Valley region of southern Ethiopia, and is considered a sort of a rite of passage in a tribal man’s life. Bull jumping...

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Aditya Kapoor: Goa

Photograph © Aditya Kapoor-All Rights ReservedAditya Kapoor tells us in his biography that his two great passions are travel and photography, and that living in a heritage country such as India provided him a wealth of "diverse communities, architectural marvels, nature and different traditions waiting to be explored".His photography has been published in various publications such as Tehelka magazine,...

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Lyle Owerko: The Samburu

Photographs © Lyle Owerko-All Rights ReservedRaised in Canada, Lyle Owerko is a photographer, a film maker and, in my opinion, a first class ethnographer. His current projects seek to bridge ethnic borders by documenting cultural groups, such as the Samburu, for the improvement of the human condition.According to Wikipedia, the Samburu are ethnically related to the Maasai. The name 'Samburu' is also...

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World In Focus: Travel Photo Contest

The sponsors of the World In Focus: The Ultimate Travel Photography Contest are the National Geographic Society, and Photo District News.The categories are:Travel PortraitsOutdoor ScenesSense of PlaceSpontaneous MomentsPhoto EssayIf you have any interest in participating in the contest, click here: World In Focus. however caveat emptor and read the rules and regulations very carefully before committing...

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New York Times: Virgins of Albania

Photograph © Johan Spanner for The New York Times-All Rights ReservedI'm a real sucker for this kind of reportage, but read on! The New York Times featured a so-called multimedia piece titled The Sworn Virgins of Albania and an accompanying article, which tells us that in the isolated and conservative northern Albania, gender swapping was the norm for families that had a shortage of males...either...

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Pop Photo's Batteries' Test

Popular Photography magazine's website has published a useful comparison of AA batteries, shopping around for the best prices, by spending $200 that bought seven sets of rechargeable and seven sets of single-use batteries -- 84 batteries in total. The results for the rechargeable batteries were somewhat ambiguous, but Pop Photo chose the Energizer 15 Minute Charger as the best buy, while the Energizer...

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Ricoh Caplio GX-200

Whilst attending the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City, I heard many positive things about the Ricoh Caplio GX-100, and that many of the photojournalists use it in situations that do not lend themselves to the large DSLRs. So I was interested in today's announcement by Ricoh launching the GX200 digital compact camera. The new model is replacing the GX100 and inherits the old model's...

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Eric Lafforgue : Travel Photography

Photograph © Eric Lafforgue-All Rights ReservedEric Lafforgue lives in Toulouse, France, and produces content for television, radio, the music industry and travel photography as a freelance photographer and multimedia producer.His website is truly excellent, and enhances his photographic talents. If you like ethnography combined with pure travel photography, this is the website to visit and spend...

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INSIGHT Guides: Travel Photo Competition

Insight Guides in conjunction with the Independent are offering travel photographers the chance to win a commission to shoot one of its travel books. All the entrants have to do is offer three images on the theme of 'water'. The first prize is a commission, worth £3,000, to photograph a travel destination for a future Insight Guide. Second and third prizes will be £1,000 and £500 worth of photographic...

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Marvi Lacar: Maasai Ritual

Photograph © Marvi Lacar-All Rights Reserved For the Maasai of Kenya, Femal Genital Mutilation (FGM) is considered a rite of passage. Although practiced in some Islamic countries, the tradition originated in Africa. Particularly practiced amongst the poor pastoral Kenyan families, the marriage of a daughter brings in a significant enhancement of status, and an infusion of cash and livestock as dowry....

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Ron Haviv: Asia Society

Photograph © Ron Haviv/Courtesy Asia SocietyBill Swersey has recently joined the Asia Society and, as as a long-time photojournalist, is leading the revamp of the global non-profit's website. He plans to expand the use of photography on the website, which has already published several photo projects on Asia-related themes. Also in the works is PictureAsia, a section of the site dedicated to showcasing...

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Matt Wright-Steel: Migrantes

Photograph © Matt Wright-Steel-All Rights Reserved Here's one of the many excellent multimedia photo essays presented at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW). "Migrantes" is produced by Matt Wright-Steel, a photojournalist based in Texas who participated in FPW. "Migrantes" was photographed in an area nicknamed El Lecheria of Mexico City, where migrants from Central America and beyond slip...

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Foundry Workshop: Verdict

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved Well, I'm back home in New York City after participating as an instructor at the phenomenally successful Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City. The event was initiated by Eric Beecroft who, along with brilliant staff members, managed the Herculean task of putting together the workshop attended by over 140 emerging and established photojournalists/photographers.The...

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My Show-Off: Indian Widow

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved Here's one of my weekly Show-Off features of my personal photography on The Travel Photographer's blog. Click on the photograph to view it larger size. This is probably one of my very favorite photographs. It's of an elderly widow in the Indian city of Vrindavan, walking painfully to her ashram. Afflicted with osteoporosis, she uses her cane to assist...

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On The Road: FPW

I'll be flying to Mexico City for the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop early Saturday morning. I'll try to post as frequently as possible on the going-ons on The Travel Photography blog...including photographs and even video snippets.The workshop has just started its very own blog which is foundryphoto.blogspot....

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New York Times: Mexican Rodeos

Photograph © Jim Wilson/The New York Times-All Rights Reserved In time to highlight the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop starting in Mexico City this coming Monday, here's a multimedia slideshow from the New York Times of the charreada. These are rodeos and fiestas rolled together, and are one of Mexico’s most popular sporting events, dating to the 17th century.Similar to the US rodeos, the charreadas...

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Chico Sanchez: Lady of Guadalupe

Photograph © Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved With the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop starting in Mexico City this coming Monday, I had the good fortune of stumbling on the work of Chico Sanchez, a photojournalist based in Mexico City. He produced a slideshow on the pilgrims visiting the church of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which is one of the projects I intend to work on with some of the students...

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Michael Kamber: Leica M8

Photograph © Michael Kamber-All Rights Reserved Michael Kamber is a well-known photojournalist currently attached to the Baghdad Bureau of the New York times. He has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer prize. He has covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, Cote D'Ivoire, Sudan, Somalia, Haiti, Israel, the Congo and various others.He has written an comprehensive review on the Leica...

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Kate Orne: Pakistan Brothels

Photograph © Kate Orne-All Rights Reserved To highlight the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop starting in Mexico City this coming Monday, I will focus this week's The Travel Photographer blog posts on various photojournalists and their work. This is the second in the series.Kate Orne is a New York-based photographer who worked amongst the neediest people in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past seven...

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New Canon XS

Canon has announced a new entry-level DSLR. The XS offers 10.1-megapixel resolution, a 2.5 inches rear screen, 7 autofocus points, it will offer Live View on the rear LCD, and supports an unlimited burst rate of 3 frames per second until the memory card is full.It is estimated that the XS will be priced in the US at approximately $580 for the body only, and $630 with a 35-70mm kit lens. The launch...

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Frederic Courbet: Lamu (Kenya)

Photograph © Frederic Courbet-All Rights Reserved To highlight the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop starting in Mexico City this coming Monday, I will focus this week's The Travel Photographer blog posts on various photojournalists and their work.I start off with the work of Frederic Courbet, a Belgian freelance photographer currently based in Nairobi, Kenya. His biography tells us that he started...

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Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

As readers of this blog know, the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop is six intensive days of classes, fieldwork, panel discussions, slideshows, portfolio reviews, multimedia creation, parties, networking and more, aimed especially at emerging and student photojournalists.The workshop runs from June 16-21, 2008 at the AAVI (Academia de Artes Visuales) inMexico City, and is the brainchild of Eric Beecroft.As...

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POV: David Roberts Weeps

One of my very favorite artists is David Roberts. He was a Scottish painter, and was born at Stockbridge, Edinburgh in 1796. He is especially known for a prolific series of detailed prints of Egypt and the Near East produced during the 1840s from sketches made during long tours of the region (1838-1840). This work, and his large oil paintings of similar subjects, made him a prominent Orientalist painter....

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Travel Photography Scholarship

The online travel insurance provider, WorldNomads.com, together with National Geographic Channel, has announced its 2008 photography scholarship, which will award one exceptional student the chance of a lifetime’ assignment.The winner will get to accompany renowned wildlife on-assignment National Geographic photographer, Jason Edwards, to photograph the Arid Lands Festival and The Great Hughenden...

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Petrut Calinescu: Egypt

Photograph © Petrut Calinescu-All Rights Reserved Petrut Calinescu is a freelance photojournalist member of Panos Pictures, and is working from Bucharest in Romania. His photographs appeared in AP, AFP, Reuters, New York Times, Der Spiegel, National Geographic and a host of other international publications.Take a look at Petrut's work in Egypt, and specifically his photo essay on the camel market...

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Foto 8: Jane Hahn: Stilt Life

Photograph © Jane Hahn-All Rights Reserved Here's a multimedia feature published by Foto 8 magazine and produced by Jane Hahn. The feature is on one of the more unusual slums in the world: a floating slum called Makoko in Nigeria. The feature is titled Stilt Life.Jane Hahn is a photojournalist based in Accra, Ghana and specializes in documenting post-conflict and developing societies, as well as...

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Boston Globe's The Big Picture

Photograph © Andre Penner/AP-All Rights Reserved PDN's The Photo Feed reports that the Boston Globe has launched a photo blog called “The Big Picture”. The blog is compiled by Alan Taylor, who credits the old Life magazine, National Geographic, Mediastorm and MSNBC for his inspiration. The Big Picture aims to host high-quality, amazing imagery of current events and lesser-known stories.The above...

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My Show Off: Indian Renunciate

Here's one of my weekly Show-Off features of my personal photography on The Travel Photographer's blog. Click on the photograph to view it larger size. I took this photograph of a renunciate at the Sufi shrine of Nizzam-Uddin in Delhi. This is the mausoleum of Delhi's most famous Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, and is visited by thousands of Muslims, and sees a large share of Hindus and Christians,...

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Mark Tuschman: Bhutan

Photograph © Mark Tuschman-All Rights Reserved Here's the website of Mark Tuschman, a photographer with a strong affinity to social responsibility and a powerful desire to bridge the gap between affluent societies and those which are poor through his photographic talent.Mark quotes the words of Sebatiao Salgado: "If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to...

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History!

Photograph © T.C. Worley/The New York Times-All Rights Reserved "America...This is our moment"This momentous event spells the end of the cancerous political dynastic nepotism and cronyism, and the rebirth of our nation's democratic ideal: meritocra...

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Ben Lowy: Storylines

Photograph © Ben Lowy-All Rights Reserved I've posted Ben Lowy's work on a number of occasions here on TTP; one of which was on his work in Ethiopia titled Wandering In Ethiopia. I bring back Ben's work on TTP because of a new project on his website he calls Storylines. He writes that he was getting frustrated and tired of working with digital camera, and started working with a toy camera that would...

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David Gray: South West China

Photograph © David Gray/Reuters-All Rights Reserved David Gray is a photographer with Reuters, and has published his audio slideshow of South West China on its blog. These are photographs of rarely frequented regions of China. I'm not a fan of the Ken Burns effect, and although I found it somewhat overused in this slideshow...it doesn't take anything away from the quality of the photography.David...

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GEO Germany: Jonas Bendiksen

Jonas Bendiksen began his photography career as a 19-year-old intern in the London office of Magnum Photos. He eventually left office life to travel through Russia and pursue his own work as a photojournalist. Since then, Jonas has worked on numerous articles throughout the world, including his ongoing project about the world's slums. His coverage on "Dharavi: Mumbai's Shadow City," is featured in...

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Shervorn Monaghan : Crossing The Limpopo

Photograph © Shervorn Monaghan-All Rights Reserved Foto 8 magazine features a slideshow Crossing The Limpopo showcasing the work by Shervorn Monaghan who, earlier this year, was in Musina, the point of entry into South Africa for most Zimbabweans. Thousands of Zimbabweans have migrated to cities like Johannesburg, trying to escape their country, forced to look elsewhere to make a life for themselves....

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