Sunday Break: Chinatown's Columbus Park

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedI thought New York City's weather on Sunday was just perfect for a few hours of street photography on Chinatown's Mulberry Street, but ended up spending an interesting time at Columbus Park (Mulberry and Bayard). This is the only park in Chinatown, and is built on what was in the 19th century the most dangerous slum area of immigrant New York.Photo © Tewfic...

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Haj & Eid El-Adha

Photo © AP Photo/Hassan Ammar-All Rights ReservedI wish Eid Mubarak to my Muslim readers, and I refer them to The Boston Globe's The Big Picture for great photographs of the event.Friday, November 27th, was the start of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim "Festival of Sacrifice", which is based on the tradition that Ibrahim was willing to sacrifice his son Ismail to God. As I posted in a POV a couple of days...

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NGM: Martin Schoeller: The Hadza

The National Geographic brings us The Hadza, a collection of photographs by Martin Schoeller. He is a German photographer who assisted Annie Leibovitz in New York in the early nineties. He continued on his own and worked for The New Yorker under contract since 1999 and also for Rolling Stone and GQ. According to Wikipedia, the Hadza people, or Hadzabe'e, are an ethnic group in central Tanzania, living...

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POV: Nepal's Gadhimai Mela: Atrocity?

Photo © Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP/Courtesy WSJ-All Rights ReservedHere's a thought to coincide with Thanksgiving, one of our most hallowed of celebrations.The Bariyapur festival (also known as the Gadhimai Mela) has been in full swing in Nepal for the past few days. As you can read in the following excerpt, the age-old festival involves slaughtering of thousands of animals as sacrifice to a Hindu goddess...

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Graham Ware: Bhutan

Graham Ware joined The Travel Photographer's Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition, and has produced an audio slideshow in QuickTime format of some of his various images made during the trip, coupled with live audio recordings gleaned during the tsechu festivals, religious pujas, the Sangha debates of the monks and a Bhutanese folk song. A medical technologist based in Chandler, Arizona, his...

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BURN: Michael Loyd Young: Blues

Photo © Michael Loyd Young/Courtesy BURN-All Rights ReservedThose of us who love the blues will really appreciate Michael Loyd Young's Blues, Booze & BBQ audio slideshow. It appeared on BURN magazine which is an online feature for emerging photographers, and is curated by Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey. A foot-thumpin' piece...highly recommended viewing with your loudspeakers turned on...

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Paul Nicklen & The Leopard Seal

I normally don't post about wildlife photography, but this has become so viral on the internet that I had to mention it here. It's an incredible slideshow of National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen's encounter with a leopard seal. Leopard seals are carnivores and munch on penguins like we do on popcorn. On average, females are generally slightly larger than the males, and can weigh between 500 and 1,300 lb, while males are between 440 and 1,000...

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LENS: Tyler Hicks & The Tabligh

Photo © Tyler Hicks/NYT-All Rights ReservedIt's been a while since I featured a war-related photojournalism piece, so I thought The New York Times LENS blog brought us a couple of days ago an interesting On Assignment gallery from Tyler Hicks on the Tabligh Jamaat. I like the clever way the photographer framed the above image, as he had to photograph surreptitiously and very quickly because photography...

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WTF Department: Do I Look Stupid To You?

I recently got this rather terse but pseudo friendly email the other day (it'll remain anonymous because I'm a nice guy) from presumably a very busy person who cannot find the time to type full sentences:wd apprec. recg detailed itinerary info (hotels, meals, transportation, etc.) on your India tour.excellent website.thanksWhat's wrong with this request, you ask? Nothing...except here's the deal....

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WSJ Photo Journal: Street Barber

Photo © Manish Swarup/AP/Getty-All Rights ReservedThe WSJ Photo Journal brings us a daily collection of fine photographs from photojournalists spread all over the globe, and this one caught my attention. It's by Manish Swarup of a man getting a shave at a roadside barbershop, decorated with portraits of Hindu gods and goddesses, in New Delhi...and the poster of the Swiss lodge in the upper left hand...

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Twitter & Google: Lots of Followers

I am chuffed (a British colloquialism meaning delighted) that The Travel Photographer blog now has over 300 Google Followers, over 500 Twitter Followers and is listed in 80+ lists ....and that's not counting close to the thousand subscribers to my newsletter mailing list. Thank you! It's another a milestone on this blog's (almost) three years' li...

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Global Post: Finbarr O'Reilly: Senegal

GlobalPost brings us a feature by photographer Finbarr O'Reilly. The photographer came across performers of the Dseu Renaissance de Pikine theater group, and was smitten by the intense colors he saw when the female artists put their traditional headscarves and applied black makeup and markings worn by the Toucouleur people of West Africa.The "Toucouleur" possibly originates from the French (slightly...

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NYT: Lynsey Addario : India's Coconuts

Photo © Lynsey Addario/NYT-All Rights ReservedThe New York Times has featured a photo gallery by photojournalist Lynsey Addario documenting coconut pluckers in Kerala, India. Having visited and photographed in Kerala a number of times, I saw many of these coconut pluckers (as well as palm toddy tappers) climbing the trees with an incredible agility...and yet, it never crossed my mind to document them...

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Dan Bannister: Bhutan

Photo © Dan Bannister-All Rights ReservedDan Bannister is a commercial, industrial and editorial photographer based in Calgary, Canada, who joined my recent Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition™, and I'm pleased to feature a selection of his fabulous work that he is showcasing in his Bhutan slideshow.Photo © Dan Bannister-All Rights ReservedA consummate professional, Dan's work spans the...

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WTF Department: Leica M7 Hermès

From the British Journal of Photography comes the news that Leica M7 Hermès edition has just been announced representing a collaboration between Leica and Hermès Paris. My readers may be interested to know that only 200 units will be available...and to make it even more exclusive, only 100 will be in orange and 100 in a green. The Leica M7 Edition Hermès will be available in the UK from December 2009...

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Tom Van Cakenberghe: The Living Goddess

Tom Van Cakenberghe is originally from Antwerp, Belgium and lives in Kathmandu, Nepal since 2004 and works as a press photographer. His website brings us a number of galleries on Nepal, but most interesting to me is The Living Goddess photo gallery...where he captured luminous (and candid) images of the Kumari. He must have been granted special access to be able to make these images. There's no further...

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POV: Twitter This Twitter That

I've been on Twitter for a while now, and I must say that I haven't gotten it yet. I follow a handful of talented photographers and other professionals, and I am extremely happy to be followed by many more...I must be doing something right... but here's what I find rather puzzling:1. I only "tweet" my blog posts, and on occasions some stuff that I find interesting in the realm of photography and photojournalism....

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La Santa Muerte: Lorne Matalan

Photograph Lorne Matalon-All Rights ReservedHere's an audio slideshow of photographs by Lorne Matalon of La Santa Muerte, which is a saint-like figure worshiped and venerated in Mexico, probably as spiritual fusion of Mesoamerican and Catholic beliefs. Its cult attracts those who are inclined to seek the non-traditional ways for spiritual solace, and many of its followers live outside of the law.Lorne...

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Kirsten Luce: Kashmiri Family Portrait

Here's a new portfolio by the talented Kirsten Luce titled A Kashmiri Family Portrait; a family living with the ghosts of their loved ones.Kirsten is a freelance photojournalist working in New York City. Her work was published in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Time, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald (International Edition), AP, Bloomberg News and CARE International.Apart...

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OP: Mystical Adventures Photo Contest

Outdoor Photographer magazine has announced a Mystical Adventures Photo Contest, with a sponsorship of India's Ministry of Tourism. According to the rules, submissions must be in keeping with the general theme of the Mystical Adventures Photo Contest, including, but not limited to photos of historical locations, landscape and travel, but I'm not sure if the submissions are restricted to a Indian theme...

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My Work: The Dancers of Tamshing Goemba

Here's a gallery of new photographs made during my recent Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition™. The gallery is a collection of photographs of various performers at the tsechu at Tamshing Goemba near Chamkar town, in the religious heartland of Bhutan. The performers range from the jovial jokers who wave wooden penises around, and whose principal role is to distract spectators, to the more...

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Sumit Dayal: The Sundarbans

Photo © Sumit Dayal-All Rights ReservedSumit Dayal is a freelance photographer, traveling extensively to cover stories in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. While of Kashmiri origin, he spent his childhood in Kathmandu and was educated in Delhi. He graduated from the Documentary and Photojournalism Program at the ICP in New York. His work documents the plight of marginalized people,...

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Rant: Email Newsletters

I use Campaign Monitor to send my (almost) monthly newsletter, which informs my subscribers of my new photo galleries and forthcoming The Travel Photographer's Photo~Expeditions™. Although these newsletters are only sent to those who subscribe through my sign-in box on this blog, I still get a spam notice, or even two, once in a while.So here's the rant:1. The mailing list for my newsletter is by...

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Penelope Gan: Malay-Chinese Opera

Photo © Penelope Gan-All Rights ReservedAlthough Penelope Gan works in the financial industry in Kuala Lumpur, she's also passionate about photography, and particularly about photojournalism. She recently embarked on documenting various social issues that concern her, and produced a number of audio-visual photo essays to assist a number of local NGOs and government organizations that are involved...

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DPReview: Canon 7D Review

From DPReview's just published write-up on the new Canon EOS 7D has this interesting paragraph:"In some respects the 7D is even a better camera than the EOS 5D Mark II and a viable alternative for all those who do not want or need a camera with a full-frame sensor. Its 8 fps continuous shooting speed and highly flexible AF system might even make it a consideration for credit-crunch battered sports...

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Tim Chong: Hemis Festival

Hemis Tsechu 2008 from Tim Chong on Vimeo.Hemis Tsechu is a festival commemorating the birth of Guru Rimpoche, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. It's observed and celebrated on the 10th day of the fifth Tibetan lunar month, which usually falls between the end of June and the beginning of July.The festival is a two-day event held at the Hemis monastery, almost 30 miles south of Leh in Ladakh, India. During the festival, resident Lamas and monks perform...

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Hard Gear: Iomega's eGo Helium

I plead guilty to the sin of impulse buying. It's not often that I do that, but the Apple store in the West Village has such a cornucopia of irresistible temptations. So a sleek and elegant 500GB Iomega's eGo Helium Hard Drive is now part of my external hard drive panoply. While its design (and its intent) makes it a natural for the MacBook Air, I'll be using this baby with my Acer netbook, in tandem...

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Ami Vitale: Updated Website

As TTP readers know, Ami Vitale is one of my favorite documentary photographers, and has been featured on many occasions on this blog. Ami worked on contract for National Geographic for many years, been published in all or most of the top-name media outlets, and won a ton of awards for her impressive work. She lived in India for almost 6 years out of which nearly 4 of those were spent in Kashmir....

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China's Tibet: Desmond Kavanaugh

China's Tibet from Desmond Kavanagh on Vimeo.This is hardly a travel feature, but is more of a statement against the encroaching Sinification of Tibet. Desmond Kavanaugh is an a Dublin-based photographer, who produced a documentary made of still images titled China's Tibet. The collection of photographs is an exploration of the effects of Chinese occupation and development on the ancient culture and land of Tibet as it is pulled into the 21st century...

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Diego Vergés: Sadhus

Photo © Diego Vergés-All Rights ReservedHere's the interesting work of an emerging photographer from Spain. Diego Vergés obtained an Communication Degree and worked in a studio until deciding that he wanted to spend his life doing something other than that. To visit a friend, he traveled to Gabon where he photographed hospitals and clinics. He submitted his photographs to various competitions in which...

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My Work: A Bhutanese Nun

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedHere's one of my favorite portraits made last month during my Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo~Expedition. I met this nun while she was circumambulating the Jambhey Lhakhang goemba in Jakar, spinning the many prayer wheels in its walls.Circumambulation of temples or deity images is an integral part of Hindu ritual. It is also practiced in Buddhism, as in...

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Sarah Elliott: Rajasthan

Photo © Sarah Eliott-All Rights ReservedSarah Elliott's Rajasthan gallery is a collection of photographs showing life in this magnificent Indian state. Some of the photographs are captured by Sarah, presumably with her tongue firmly in her cheek, while others are posed portraits, and I think give you a feel for the quotidian life in the small towns (and even large cities) of the state.Sarah is a freelance...

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Eugene Kuo: Labrang Monastery

Photo © Eugene Kuo-All Rights ReservedEugene Kuo is a graphic designer and photographer living in New York. He is interested in documenting changing landscapes, whether physical or psychological. His recent projects have taken him from Moscow to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian railroad, through the ancient cities and khanates of Uzbekistan, and along the Silk Road in western China. It was...

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Britt Sloan: The Rose of Ajmer

Photo © Britt Sloan-All Rights ReservedFirst, a bit of background. One of my very favorite blogs is The Idea of India authored by photojournalist Asim Rafiqui, who along with The Aftermath Project founder and photographer Sara Terry, taught a two week workshop in Ajmer, India to students from Tuft University’s Institute for Global Leadership.The 2-weeks workshop involved nine students exploring stories...

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The Big Picture: Day of the Dead

Photo © AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa-All Rights ReservedThe Boston Globe's The Big Picture blog brings us a collection of photographs from all over the world on the occasion of the various festivals observing the Day of the Dead. Starting with Halloween (although now secular), All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day, the Day of the Dead and other festivals trace their origins back to Celtic, Aztec, Roman and Christian...

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Nacho Hernandez: Children of the Clouds

Nacho Hernandez is a Spanish photographer who takes assignments worldwide, and has easy access to the Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific regions from his current base in Manila. Nacho graduated from the Washington School of Photography and also holds a MA in International Relations and Development from Georgetown University.His interest is in international documentary, travel photography and photography...

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GEO Magazine Closes NY Office

Photo © GEO. Courtesy PDNIt's a real shame that the German GEO Magazine has closed its New York office effective yesterday. Nadja Masri, GEO's New York bureau chief, and Tina Ahrens, a photo editor in the New York office, both well-known in the photo circles here in NYC, will leave the magazine. Its office was a regular venue for documentary photographers to show their portfolios, especially as the...

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Multimedia Work: Debates At The Sangha

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedI'm pleased to share a multimedia gallery of new photographs made during my recent Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo Expedition. The "Debates At The Sangha" slideshow is of photographs (and audio) of the weekly Buddhist debates at the sangha of the Kharchhu Monastery near Chamkar town, in the very heartland of Bhutan.The Lhodrak Kharchhu Monastery is a recent...

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