Jean Claude Louis: Asia Polaroids

Jean Claude Louis was born in France, and moved to Southern California in 1990. He's a physician and scientist, and had a life-long career in biomedical research. He now is pursuing his passions: travel and photography.

I've featured Jean-Claude Louis' work through the many photographic contests he won in 2007 and 2008. He participated and won (in specific categories) awards in National Geographic International competition, the Travel Photographer of the Year competition (two categories), and the B&W Magazine Portfolio Competition.

He returns to TTP with his Polaroid images of Asia...countries such as Myanmar, India, Viet Nam and China.

In Jean Claude's own words:In the Shadow of Time "is homage to the natural environment of these places and the people who live in it. The physical beauty and harmony of the places is accentuated by my use of the unique texture and light rendition of Polaroid Time Zero film to create a timeless, painterly effect."

I think Jean Claude succeeded in his quest...the images are ethereal. I chose the above image of a fisherman at dawn on Li River, China, because of its beautiful colors.

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Damon Winter: The Kamayurá

Photo © Damon Winter/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved
Damon Winter and The New York Times bring us An Ancient Society, a multimedia essay (narrated by Elisabeth Rosenthal) on the Kamayurá, an Amazonian tribe living in the middle of Xingu National Park in Brazil. This area was a huge swathe of land originally in the depths of the Amazon, but which is is now surrounded by farms and ranches.

The article reports that around 5,000 square miles of Amazon forest are being cut down annually in recent years, affecting the environment and depriving the Kamayurá of their way of life.

Nicely photographed by Damon, the audio slideshow's narration is somewhat stilted, and, for my taste, there isn't enough ambient sound to add what I call "aural texture" to the essay...but it's interesting nevertheless.

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Moise Saman: Lost Boys of Afghanistan

Photo © Moise Saman/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved

“Afghanistan is hemorrhaging its youth into Europe” said Pierre Henry, director of France Terre d’Asile, an organization that works with the European Union, the United Nations refugee agency and the French government on asylum affairs.

As per The New York Times' The Lost Boys of Afghanistan, one of the consequences of the war in Afghanistan are the young (some as young as 12) refugees who seek an education and a safe future currently impossible in their own country. It appears that the European nations where these youngsters seek refuge are obliged under national and international law to provide for them; adding a few thousands to the many more of illegal migrants.

The photographs are by Moise Saman, and the accompanying article is by Caroline Brothers.

I'm mildly encouraged in reading that Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has recently written a critique "of government efforts at “strategic communication” with the Muslim world, saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting."

Perhaps similar and concerted efforts by our current administration will slowly redress the blight caused by the previous administration's actions on the Muslim world....it will take a lot of time and effort, but it's a step in the right direction.

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Outside Magazine: Antonin Kratochvil

Photo © Clay Enos-All Rights Reserved

"Antonin detests the notion of self-aggrandizement that photographers make a living off of," says Gary Knight, a colleague of Kratochvil's and co-founder of VII.

That's a statement that made me pay close attention to the interview with Antonin Kratochvil published by Outside magazine. I've been gnashing my teeth and rolling my eyes at this very attitude which is exhibited by so many photographers these days; especially those who are deemed to be "conflict" or "war" photographers. And here's a interview which tells us that Antonin rejects the "war photographer" label outright and hates the self-promotional concept of bearing witness that's in vogue among some photojournalists....a feeling just up my alley.

A very unusual man, with an interesting history. I won't repeat the details here, but encourage you to set enough time to read and savor the interview. You'll enjoy it.

Antonin Kratochvil's website.

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Google & Twitter Followers

I see that The Travel Photographer blog now has 200 Google Followers and 386 Twitter Followers....so I thought I'd thank them all with this post. Thank you! It's quite a milestone on this blog's trajectory.

I'm always bemused that this blog attracts thousands of loyal readers on a daily basis, who arrived from disparate sources such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other search engines etc.

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Dhiraj Singh: LENS

It is with considerable gratification that I learned this morning that Dhiraj Singh's work has appeared on The New York Times' LENS blog. A few of of us had known that this was in the works while we were at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, and it materialized as we hoped it would.

Yes, good things happen to good people.

Dhiraj, as readers of this blog now know, attended my class "Introduction To Multimedia Storytelling" at the workshop, and produced an absolutely stunning photo essay, for which he was deservedly honored for by winning the workshop’s top honors for student work.

His beautiful black & white work on Kashmir is now featured on the LENS blog, in which seeks to document a Kashmir that is defined by more than the decades-long dispute between India and Pakistan over the area. It's worth your time to read Dhiraj's interview as well, which tells us this, among other information:

Mr. Singh, 32, was born and raised in Mumbai. He was a storyboard artist for an ad agency until 2007, when he took a job shooting for Daily News & Analysis (DNA), a national daily. “I was always fascinated with photography,” he said, “and felt that if I did not take the risk and give myself a chance, I would’ve surely lived to regret it.” His work has since appeared in Newsweek, Vanity Fair and The Wall Street Journal.

May good things continue to happen to Dhiraj.

Dhiraj Singh's website is here.

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Professional Photographer Contest

Professional Photographer magazine is one of the many excellent photography magazines in the United Kingdom. It now has launched a photography contest, and asks if its readers (and others) have what it takes to be the Professional Photographer of the Year 2009?

The Professional Photographer awards will be judged by a panel of judges along with the editor of Professional Photographer magazine, Grant Scott. Travel is one of the many categories that are available for interested photographers to compete in.

The closing date for 2009 submissions will be November 27, 2009.

As in all and every photography contests, I strongly encourage all interested photographers to make sure they carefully read the contests' terms and conditions, especially since misunderstandings between organizers and contestants over terms, prizes and other issues sometimes occur.

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Marc Silber Interviews Deanne Fitzmaurice

In this video interview, Marc Silber discusses photography techniques with Deanne Fitzmaurice, a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist.

Deanne talks about how to approach your subject, and how to “layer” (a perceptive term) one's photographs and of multimedia, among other things. While not really new, there is sensible advice in this video, and it's given in an attractive low-key non patronizing conversational tone. Highly recommended interview for its content and for its style.

Via The Click

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Boston Globe's Ramadan

Photo © Fareed Khan/AP Photo-All Rights Reserved
The Boston Globe's Big Picture is featuring Ramadan 2009, a collection of 39 photos celebrating the advent of the month of Ramadan in the Muslim world.

"In Muslim nations and regions around the globe, this is the first week of the holy month of Ramadan, a time for followers to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual activity during the day, breaking their fast each sunset, with traditional meals and sweets. During this time, Muslims are also encouraged to read the entire Quran, to give freely to those in need, and strengthen their ties to God through prayer. The goal of the fast is to teach humility, patience and sacrifice, and to ask forgiveness, practice self-restraint, and pray for guidance in the future.

While I have chosen the above photograph as the one that, to my mind, exemplifies the spirit of Ramadan the best amongst the collection, I was amused to see one (#27 by Ben Curtis) of Egyptian women walking past paper lanterns (presumably made in China since they have Chinese calligraphy on them) that are used as decorations during Ramadan. Globalization indeed!

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RESOLVE blog Features FPW's Multimedia

My Name is Dechen - Foundry Workshop Multimedia By Dhiraj Singh from liveBooks on Vimeo.

Miki Johnson, Editor of the RESOLVE blog, interviewed two photographers who participated in this year's Foundry Photojournalism, and posted their multimedia projects as well.

One of the two participants, Dhiraj Singh, attended my class Introduction To Multimedia Storytelling, and produced an absolutely stunning tour de force photo essay, which can now be seen in the above embedded video. Dhiraj was deservedly honored for this work by winning the workshop’s top honors for student work.

The other participant was Tristan Wheelock, who attended the Intermediate Multimedia class by Henrik Kastenskov of Bombay Flying Club.

The interviews and multimedia work produced by Dhiraj and Tristan can be seen on RESOLVE.

Dhiraj Singh's work was featured on TTP, and his website is here.

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