Travel Online Guide

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Couscous: The Movie

I don't normally mention movies on TTP, but I recently watched an outstanding French film called Couscous (or La Graine et le Mulet) directed by the talented Abdellatif Kechiche, and produced by Claude Berri. It's the story of Slimane Beiji, an ageing North African immigrant in the southern port French city of Sète, who opens a restaurant on a discarded boat. Hafsia Herzi acts the part of Slimane's step-daughter, and steals every scene she's in...an...

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedAlissa Quart has penned a topical and interesting article in the Columbia Journalism Review titled Flickring Out, which ponders as to what becomes of photojournalism in a digital age and "amateurs"?So far, I haven't seen it mentioned in the photo-blogosphere, so here are a few excerpts:Photographers have "been struggling with downsizing, the rise of...

BlackRapid R Straps

Over at David DuChemin's excellent Pixelated Image blog, there's an interesting review of BlackRapid R Straps. These are innovative camera straps which are adjustable, and that are worn diagonally across the torso from shoulder to hip. A locking fastener connects the strap to the tripod socket on either the camera body or the lens. The camera then hangs upside down, "resting securely at your side...

Photograph © David Lehman-All Rights ReservedA graduate of Columbia University, New Yorker David Lehman was on his way of becoming an attorney until photography interfered with his progression, and called him over. As one can see from his galleries, David has traveled the world and developed a specialty in candid travel portraiture.His galleries are all of interesting faces, and he occasionally contrasts...

Royal Cremation In Ubud

Ubud Royal Cremation from Daniel Sato on Vi...

Photograph © Susetta Bozzi-All Rights ReservedSusetta Bozzi is a freelance photographer based in Beijing. Following a career in graphic design, she turned to photography full-time. Her photographs have appeared in Vanity Fair, Capital, Io Donna, Corriere Della Sera, Gente Viaggi and L'Express.Most of her portfolios are China-centric, but she also has a few galleries of India, the Phillipines and...

Adobe announced that Lightroom 2.0 was officially available from its website. The photo management software costs $299 and the upgrade is $99.The improvements in Lightroom 2.0 over its beta version can be found hereThomas Hawk lists 10 best things he likes about Lightroom 2.0 (via Imaging Insid...

This year's Wanderlust Travel Photo of the Year competition has just opened for entries - offering trips to Mexico for the four amateur category winners.The competition features four amateur categories: People, Wildlife, Landscape and Travel Icons. The winner of each will be awarded a 'photo commission' for two to Mexico, including accommodation.The closing date is 1 December 2008.There will also...

Steve Razzetti: Myths & Heroes

Photograph © Steve Razzetti-All Rights ReservedSteve Razzetti is a British photographer who, between 1984 and 2003, spent an average of 9 months each year in the Himalayas. His photographs and articles have appeared in various outdoor, travel and geographical magazines. He spent a year working with Michael Wood on the BBC's In Search of Myths & Heroes, the acclaimed four-part series titled The...

POV: Respect And Engage

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedI've said this many times, and it's fundamental to my photography workflow...to get a really good photograph of someone you need to spend the time befriending them. I don't mean spending hours making conversation, but be genuinely friendly, ask permission and engage your subjects before shoving your lens in their face. There are many benefits to this...

Censoring War Photographers

Photograph © Zoriah Miller-All Rights ReservedThe New York Times features a slideshow and accompanying article on the increasing control (aka censorship) by the American military on graphic images from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both slideshow and article make reference to Zoriah Miller, the photographer who posted images of marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack in Iraq on his Web site....

Photograph © Richard Vogel-All Rights ReservedRichard Vogel is chief photographer and photo editor for the Associated Press (AP) in Vietnam for the past 8 years. He's responsible for covering news events, developing feature stories, and providing assignments to photographers, and editing their work. He also photographs, edits, scans, and transmits final images to AP for worldwide distribution. He...

POV: Model Releases

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedI mentioned in my earlier post on Olivia Gay's environmental portraits that I would add my point of view regarding two issues that frequently crop up whenever I photograph people in Asia or elsewhere. The first question/issue relates to model releases, and is often asked of me during my photo expeditions by participants who are worried as to whether...

Olivia Gay: Les Africaines

Photograph © Olivia Gay-All Rights ReservedOlivia Gay is a French photographer, whose documentary work is centered on female issues. She's well known for her series "The Prostitutes" (1998-2002), "The Models" (2004-2005), "The Waitresses"(2000), "The Cashiers" (2006), and "The Workers" (2007-2008). I chose her new work Les Africaines to show off her exceptional talents in environmental portraiture....

David Pogue of the New York Times reviews the Sigma DP1 in simple and easy terms, and avoids the incomprehensible jargon that we photographers get turned on by. Here are some of David's key statements:"The camera is slow, too. Slow to turn on, slow to focus. Action shots? Forget it. It’s even slow between shots; it takes two seconds to record each JPEG-format photo, and a ghastly seven seconds for...

World Nomads & NGA-Film Scholarship

World Nomads, in conjunction with National Geographic Adventure, is announcing a scholarship for budding video documentary makers. World Nomads will fly the recipient of the scholarship to India between October 11th and October 25th 2008, and under the mentorship of documentary film-maker Trent O'Donnell, to shoot a "video documentary on the theme of community project travel and the impact it has...

Photograph © Brent Stirton -All Rights ReservedPortraits of Adventure is sponsored by Land Rover, and is at the Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, London SW7 from July 22 2008 to August 3 2008, 10am – 8pm daily. The exhibition consists of 60 images that "captures the true spirit of adventur...

Photograph © David Levene/The Guardian -All Rights ReservedEvery year, thousands of Haitian pilgrims converge into the basin of Saut D'Eau's sacred waterfall to pray. They throw their clothes into the cascading waterfall where the faithful believe the Virgin Mary (known as Erzulie in Haitian Voodoo), appeared in the 1800s. Haitian Voodoo was created by African slaves merged their ancestral religious...

Jeffrey A. Davis: Lumen Production

Photograph © Jeffrey A. Davis -All Rights ReservedJeff Davis works through the Lumen Production Company as documentary photographer, filmmaker, producer and advocate. His imagery has appeared in newspapers, magazines, websites, calendars, museums, festivals and galleries. He also works as executive producer for "Art Wolfe's Travels To The Edge", a 26-part TV series for Public Television. He works...

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedI'll be blogging from London, England for about two weeks.Here's a post by travel & outdoor photographer Michael Clark for the O'Reilly Digital Media blog which I can't agree with more.The gist of the article is that with photojournalism rapidly evolving, and the growing necessity of integrating still photography into multimedia, and since Lightroom...

Zalmaï: Afghanistan

Photograph © Zalmaï Ahad -All Rights ReservedAs a consequence of the the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Zalmaï Ahad was forced into exile in 1980, and eventually became a Swiss citizen.In 1989, he started as a freelance photographer, traveling the world to cover photojournalism projects as well as social documentaries. His photographs were published in several magazines and newspapers including...

Big Picture: A Royal Farewell In Bali

© Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images-All Rights ReservedAnother pictorial coverage of the royal cremation on the island of Bali is featured by the Boston Globe's Big Picture blog. The head of the royal family of Ubud was laid to rest in a rare, spectacular Royal Funeral - the largest in decades. The head of the family, two other members of the royal family, and 68 commoners were cremated in the ceremony...

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedChris Orwig of Layers magazine has written an article on how to create stunning black & white images in Lightroom.I sometimes test tutorials, whether for Lightroom or Photoshop (the latter less and less frequently), but usually find them too complicated...and frankly, not worth the time to learn them. As I often mention, I'm far from being a pixel...

Zoriah: Disembedded

Photo District News (PDN) features an article on Zoriah Miller, a freelance photographer who published pictures of dead U.S. Marines on his blog, which he claims has led him to be ejected from his U.S. military embed in Iraq. Click above to view an audio slideshow of Zoriah's photographs.Zoriah told PDN: "They embedded a war photographer, and when I took a photo of war, they disembedded me. It's as if it's okay to take pictures of them handing lollipops...

Justin Mott: Royal Plebon Ceremony

© Justin Mott for The New York Times-All Rights ReservedThe New York Times features a well produced multimedia piece on a royal cremation ceremony in Ubud, Bali with photographs by the talented Justin Mott, and produced by Michael Kolomatsky and Patrick Witty. The accompanying audio of the royal cremation is nicely woven in the sequence of Justin's photographs. You'll hear the lighting of the fire...

The valuable and informative Transom website has a comparative portable digital recorder review which lists most of the more available and popular brands here.The recorder of choice used by the photographers attending my Multimedia Storytelling class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (Mexico City) was the Zoom H2, an easy-to-use and inexpensive model. The feedback I got was that it performs...

Adrianne Koteen: Burma

Photograph © Adrianne Koteen-All Rights ReservedAdrianne Koteen attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City, and it's there that I had the good fortune of reviewing her portfolio. She's a freelance photographer, educator and arts consultant based in San Francisco, and her biography reveals that she works internationally with a variety of non-profits, museums, and individual clients....

Advance Peek: To Cambodia With Love

To Cambodia With Love: A Travel Guide for the Connoisseur is a one-of-a-kind guide for the passionate traveler published by Things Asian Press in San Francisco.The photographs are by Tewfic El-Sawy (aka The Travel Photographer) and is edited and with contributions by Andy Brouwer. I'm pleased with the choice of the photograph of the Royal Apsaras on the cover; it was made in Angkor Wat and this one...

The New Yorker magazine has stirred a hornet's nest for what it calls a satirical cartoonish cover that shows Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama dressed in a Taliban-like garment, and his wife Michelle — dressed in camouflage, combat boots and an assault rifle strapped over her shoulder — standing in the Oval Office. To add insult to injury, artist Barry Blitt added a portrait of Osama...

POV: Lightroom Or...?

Image © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedThe photographer Georges Mann has written an article tackling the "Can Lightroom 2 replace Photoshop CS3?" question on the O'Reilly Digital Media blog. This of course is a question that triggers endless debates, Byzantine arguments and lots of harumphs from both sides of the aisle..sort of like the Canon vs Nikon debate.I believe that Lightroom 2 does all...

Photograph © Max Becherer-All Rights ReservedHere's an interesting photo essay by photographer Max Becherer on the Mandaeans in Iraq. The Mandaeans are a small religious sect in Southern Iraq and Iran, who espouse an ancient belief resembling that of Gnosticism and that of the Parsis. They are also known as Christians of St. John, among other names. The customs of Mandaeans indicate early Christian,...

Beyond The Frame: Coney Island's Barkers

Photograph © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedOn the corner of West 12th Street and Surf Avenue is the eye-catching Coney Island Museum and the Side-Show by The Sea. Its facade is decorated with colorful artwork depicting the Side-Show's features, such as Donny Vomit the death defying performer, Angelica the fire dancer, Heather Holliday, the sword swallower and Serpentina the Snake Charmer. This...

Frans Lanting: LIFE

Here's a seamless, smooth and utterly professional multimedia production entitled LIFE: A Journey Through Time with the gorgeous photography of Frans Lanting. Lanting is hailed as one of the great nature photographers of our time, and his photographs appear in books, magazines, and exhibitions around the world. He documented wildlife and nature from the Amazon to Antarctica. This is museum-quality...

Photograph © Rick Sammon-All Rights ReservedRick Sammon is a prolific travel photographer, author and instructor who has just written an interesting article in Layers magazine titled The Art of the On-Location Portraits.This sentence caught my eye: "For me, the key to getting a good on-location portrait is to fall in love—photographically—with the subject. That’s exactly what I did when I saw this...

IHT: The Virgins of Albania

© Johan Spanner for The New York Times-All Rights ReservedSome two weeks ago on the pages of TTP, I was critical of a New York Times slideshow on the Virgins of Albania, and how I was disappointed that the 6 photographs photo essay -erroneously described as multimedia- had no audio, and could not do justice in telling the life stories of these interesting women.So I was excited to find the International...

Microsoft ProPhoto Summit

PDN Pulse reports on the 3rd annual Microsoft Pro Photo Summit held July 9-10, 2008. This is a two-day event that brings together renowned professional photographers and industry leaders on the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, Washington, to discuss the top issues affecting the industry.Microsoft Pro Photo Sum...

Image © Claudia Wiens-All Rights ReservedClaudia Wiens has been based in Cairo, Egypt as a freelance photographer since 2000, and immersed herself in this populous Arab and Islamic nation, getting as close as possible to its people. She's represented by Getty ImagesClaudia attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) in Mexico City, and I initially met her while lunching over a few tacos...

Lumix Festival : Steve McCurry & Others

Image © Steve McCurry-All Rights ReservedOn the 18th – 22nd of June 2008, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover organized the first Lumix Festival for Young Photojournalism in cooperation with the German photojournalist union FreeLens. Universities, photo and journalism schools as well as professional photo reporters up to the age of 35 from all over the world were invited to participate...

© Holly Wilmeth-All Rights ReservedBorn and raised in Guatemala, Holly Wilmeth was slated to teach at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico, however she had a last minute conflicting photo assignment preventing her from joining the faculty. She's a freelance photographer based in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and traveled to over 45 countries.Her work has been published in National Geographic...

POV: Multimedia: Words of Wisdom

© Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedThe first words I uttered to my students at my Multimedia Storytelling class for the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City a couple of weeks ago were these: "Learn how to become a visual storyteller because being a still photographer will no longer get you a job or a gig."Vincent Laforet, a freelance photographer based in New York, and formerly a staff...

Here's a rant that has nothing to do with photography, but has everything to do with lack of decency and disgraceful behavior.As we know, the leaders of the so-called G8 nations are having a summit on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. While the G8 summits are usually conspicuous by their meaningless proclamations, this one was touted as an important meeting to discuss the world's current food shortages.So...

Olivier Boëls: Holy Ashes

© Olivier Boëls/Zone Zero-All Rights ReservedHoly Ashes is a photo essay by photographer Olivier Boëls, with the cooperation of anthropologist Lena Tosta’s and of their joint experiences with Hindu ascetics or sadhus.Sadhus are ascetics who have renounced on the pursuit of the three main Hindu goals of life: kama (enjoyment), artha (practical objectives) and even dharma (duty). Sadhus are only dedicated...

© Wang-Fu Chun/Zone Zero-All Rights ReservedWang-Fu Chun is a freelance photographer, who moved to Beijing from Harbin in 2002. He has photographed the following topics, "Chinese On The Train" , "People of Northeastern China", "Northeast Tiger" and "Chinese Stream Locomotive", and was a winner at the 17th China Photographic Art Exhibition and a winner of the 3rd Gold Statue for Chinese photography.Via...

Tyler Hicks: Kabul, Afghanistan

© Tyler Hicks/New York Times-All Rights ReservedThe New York Times brings us a nicely done (and very well edited, I thought) slideshow narrated by its accomplished photographer, Tyler Hicks.Tyler Hicks' first trip to Kabul was in 2001, as Northern Alliance soldiers were fighting Taliban gunmen in and around the Afghan capital. There was a power vacuum at that time, and no restrictions on what could...

Happy Fourth of July

A Happy Fourth of Ju...

Michael Robinson Chavez: Senegal

© Michael Robinson Chavez/Washington Post-All Rights ReservedMichael Robinson Chavez's work has often appeared on TTP, and for good reason; he's a consummate professional, and his work is not only consistently excellent, but is also varied...from conflict reportage to religious ritual, Michael has done it, and has done it well. Now that I met him at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW), it's...

FOTOWEEK DC seeks to establish itself as the nation’s premiere photography festival, and to recognize the most talented photographers in the DC, MD and VA area. The achievements of area professional photographers will be recognized by their peers through submissions of work in six categories.A panel of judges will select images to be awarded on Saturday, November 22 at the FotoWeek DC awards ceremony...

Foundry Photo Workshop: Group Photo

Here's an out-take from a bunch of photographs taken of the instructors at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) held in Mexico City. This is of the instructors asked to horse around at AAVI, where all of the panel discussions and presentations were held.(L to R,back row): Eric Beecroft (FPW's founder), Guy Calaf, Tewfic El-Sawy, David Griffin (National Geographic).(L to R, middle Row): Rodrigo...

Photograph © Conrad Louis-Charles-All Rights ReservedI met Conrad Louis-Charles at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City, he briefly described his background, but it wasn't until I returned that I discovered his work, and that the adage that still waters run deep is certainly true in his case.Conrad is an independent photographer and cameraman currently based in Philadelphia and Sao...

Photograph © Anthony Karen-All Rights ReservedI came across Anthony Karen's work through NPR's website, on which he's described as having made a career out of breaking into secret circles from Voodoo rituals in Haiti to white-robed Ku Klux Klan initiations in the South of the US.Indeed the work on his website centers around what he calls "intimate images of taboo people doing taboo things". His images...

The Travel Photographer on Photoshop TV

I'm thrilled to see that The Travel Photographer blog was featured on PhotoshopUser TV, which is brought by NAPP (the National Association of Photoshop Professionals). Both Matt and Dave are industry icons, and present their weekly informative television episodes to an appreciative public.My thanks to both Matt and Dave, the hosts of the program.The episode is PhotoshopUser TV Episode 140 (June 30,...

Categories

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Monday, July 28, 2008

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Friday, July 25, 2008

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Friday, July 18, 2008

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Monday, July 14, 2008

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Friday, July 11, 2008

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Monday, July 7, 2008

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Friday, July 4, 2008

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Popular posts

Blog Archive