Ninth Angkor Photo Festival 2013

The 9th Angkor Photo Festival is scheduled for November 23-30, in Siem Reap, Cambodia.It's longest-running international photography festival in Southeast Asia, will showcase the work of over 130 photographers, half of which are from Asia.

The week-long event will feature daily evening outdoor slideshow projections as well as 8 indoor and outdoor print exhibitions.

The 2013 Program is curated by the festival's program coordinator, Françoise Callier. In addition, Shahidul Alam (Director of Chobi Mela - Bangladesh) and Jean François Leroy (Director of Visa pour l’Image – France) will be its guest curators.

Some of the photographers who will showcase their work are Edwin Koo, Marylise Vigneau, John Vink, Patrick Aventurier, Kumi Takahashi, Gali Tibbon, Sankar Sarkar, Dina Oganova, Binh Dang, Abir Abdulla, Subrata Biswas, Antoine Raab and many others.

I was privileged to attend the Angkor Photo Festival in November 2011 and one of my photo essays The Possessed of Mira Datar was featured at the festival. It was an absolute delightful experience to be part of such an event, and the gracious hospitality of Francoise Callier and Jean-Yves Navel (the Festival Director) was instrumental in making it such success. I have no doubt that the festival in November 2013 will equally be as wonderful.

Tom Parker | Departures Magazine

Photo © Tom Parker-Courtesy Departures Magazine

I occasionally leaf through Departures; a luxury magazine for American Express card members, and enjoy seeing the photographs by various travel-commercial/editorial photographers, whose work is clearly aimed at high-end magazine publishing. It's somewhat different from mine, since many of the photographs are carefully staged, involve styling, set up, reflectors, etc.

The latest Departures issue features a spread of photographs by Tom Parker, and it showcases the beauty of Ethiopia. The issue is only in print for the time being, but take my word for it, the photographs are beautiful. In fact, most of the issue deals with Africa and the photographs that are featured were well worth my taking the time to enjoy and learn from them.

I constantly learn not only from the work of travel-commercial/editorial photographers, but (as I previously wrote on this blog) from fashion photographers as well. If you browse through Tom's work, you'll note a preponderance of vertical (aka portrait) photographs, which are favored by magazine publishers. Landscape (or horizontal) formats are more suited to story telling photo journalism (whether travel photojournalism or otherwise.

Tom Parker is an English photographer who relocated to Nepal to write for an independent newspaper. Working as a reporter for BBC Radio 4, he photographed for London newspapers. In 2004 he based himself in Sri Lanka for 3 years and covered the tsunami as a photographer, BBC radio journalist and writer.

He then moved to Mumbai and travelled worldwide as a photographer, and later was appointed photo editor of Condé Nast Traveller India, launching Asia’s first edition of the magazine. He recently returning to the UK and is currently a contributing photographer for Condé Nast Traveller India and Architectural Digest India.

His work appears regularly in international publications including Condé Nast Traveller, Condé Nast Traveler, Departures Magazine, Vogue, GQ, GEO, House and Garden, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, WIRED, Guardian, Independent, Marie Claire and others.

Jessica Antola | Ethiopia

Photo © Jessica Antola-All Rights Reserved

"...what consumed me were the people - strong 

and loud in dazzling technicolor..." -Jessica Antola

Ah, Ethiopia! The country which added so much to many travel photographers' portfolios with its myriad photo opportunities, its handsome people with varying physiognomies and ways of life.

Here's the Ethiopian portfolio of Jessica Antola. Born in Los Angeles, she currently lives in New York City after living and working in Paris, Portland and Rome. In her decade long photography career, she has photographed advertising campaigns for globally recognized brands, features for international magazines and three books. She also produced images portraying people, cultures and landscapes from locations including: West Papua, Antarctica, Tibet, and Myanmar.

She was featured in AFAR magazine, and if you drop by her interesting Tumblr blog, you'll see a delightful photograph of a Yali man in his traditional koteka or penis gourd in West Papua, Indonesia.

Constantine Manos | Leica & Magnum

Here's a Leica Camera documentary on Constantine ("Costa") Manos, the Magnum photographer known for his photographs of Boston and Greece.

Let me share a story about Costa Manos.

In 2000, I joined a street photography workshop in Old Havana with Costa Manos as instructor. It was one of the foreign destination workshops by the Maine Photographic Workshops, and probably the only workshop I ever attended. It was just after the Elian Gonzales custodial battle, which made authorized travel to the island more difficult than usual...but the workshop went ahead, and a small group of hard-core photographers made it (somewhat circuitously because of our US passports) to Havana.

It was still pre-digital world at the time, and for Costa to edit our photographs, we had to use color film and have it processed at local photo processing stores. Naturally, the quality left much to be desired, but the processing was fast and cheap. I had just returned from Nepal and India, and was quite full of myself...and super proud of the portraits of sadhus and Nepali women that I displayed to the group and for Costa's critique.

He took his time looking at my photographs, and probably seeing I was getting a little anxious, he told me something I have never forgotten:

"Your pictures are technically fine, but they're too simple...I want you to bring me complicated pictures; pictures that tell stories; pictures that I can look at for a long time..."

If there's only one piece of advice that guided my photographs since 2000, it was this. And it was then I began trying to complicate my photographs, to complicate my compositions. and to try to insert and build layers upon layers in them. Sometimes I succeed...and sometimes I fail. Most of the time, it falls somewhere in the middle....but I never forgot Costa's advice.

Photo © Constantine Manos-All Rights Reserved

The above photograph is hanging in my office, and I bought it from Costa during the Havana workshop.

Street Photography | NYC's San Gennaro's Feast

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I chanced on Little Italy's San Gennaro Feast last weekend, and despite the incredibly packed crowds, I managed to make a few photographs here and there. It was lunchtime which explained the crowds moving at a snail's pace, ogling the menus of the full to capacity Italian restaurants with tables overflowing on Mulberry Street in Little Italy/Chinatown. The whole of Little Italy was blocked to traffic, so pedestrians were packed like sardines with little room to compose interesting frames.

I felt I had been transported to a filming shoot for The Sopranos, hearing exaggerated Italian American accents all around me; some inviting tourists into restaurants and others hawking mozzarella (pronounced something like 'muzarel') and cannoli, the famous Sicilian dessert. Many of those were actually waiters and restaurant staff from Mexico who occasionally whispered in Spanish to each other.

Absolutely no one cares about these details. It's here in the heart of what is left of Little Italy that the feast of San Gennaro is held every year, and which was expected to attract more than one million people from all over the world to participate in the annual Salute to the Patron Saint of Naples. Perhaps hyperbole, perhaps an overly optimistic forecast...but who knows?

A little away from the main bustle, on Mott Street, a restaurant singer was pleasing the crowd with old favorites, ranging from Domenico Modugno's Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (aka Volare) to Dean Martin's Everybody Loves Somebody. I waited for a song by the one and only Louis Prima...Just A Gigolo would've been just perfect...but I waited in vain, and anyway a woman singing anything by Louis would sound weird.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

On Hester Street, there was a crowd gathering in front of a stall, listening to the patter of a man dressed as a boxing or wrestling referee. From what I gathered, the attraction was the presence of Bruno Sammartino, who would be performing mock matches with anyone who dared. It appears that Mr Sammartino is an Italian-born American retired professional wrestler, best known for being the longest-running champion of the World Wide Wrestling Federation. I saw no one volunteering.

Unfortunately, I won't be in NYC this weekend for the grand finale of San Gennaro's Feast. It'll be packed if last week end is any guide...I'll have to wait for next year.

For more of my New York City street photography and more, drop by The Leica File.

Foundry Photojournalism Workshop 2014 | Guatemala!

Mexico City, Manali (India), Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Chang Mai, Sarajevo and now...Guatemala!!! So if your dream is to be coached by some of the best photographers and photojournalists available, act now!

Eric Beecroft of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop just announced the pre-registration for the Guatemala workshop. A non refundable pre-registration fee of $100 must be paid before January 15, 2014, and it guarantees a spot on the workshop, and the higher on the list you become to choose your instructor. It’s on a first come first served basis, from past experience some popular instructors classes fill up quickly.

The pre-registration deposit of $100 is applied to the full price/general tuition of the workshop which is $1000, or is applied towards the regional tuition ($500) for students from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Regional students must be from and currently living in the following countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela. It also includes students of the Foundry 2013 regional country list: Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Moldavia, Romania, Macedonia, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Cyprus, and Greece.

The workshops consist of unique classes, extensive fieldwork shooting stories, one on one portfolio reviews, nightly slideshows by our instructors, panel discussions, working dinners, and a final night’s projection of the best student and instructor work from the workshop.  However, the tuition does not include travel, lodging, food, gear, etc.  

The instructors for the Guatemala workshop are Kael Alford, Andrea Bruce, Tewfic El-Sawy, Ron Haviv, Neal Jackson, Robert King, Claire Rosen, Maggie Steber, Dave Storey, Adriana Zehbrauskas, and many more, especially Latin American photographers, to be announced soon.

So pre-register now on the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop!

Shuchi Kapoor | The Unreasonables

"Why would someone inflict pain on themselves?"

On the white eight-foot walls of a private building on the corner of Goubert Avenue, close to the statue of Dupleix, in the city of Chennai (India), Shuchi Kapoor is currently exhibiting a collection of super-sized photographs, titled ‘The Unreasonables’. These photographs question the sin cleansing rituals by those who are often labelled as ‘possessed’’ in various parts of India.

The initiative was taken by Pondy A.RT. and intends to fill a section of the sea-facing walls with insightful art which will focus on a theme or issue every month through the medium of photography. It follows the model of movie posters, which are often displayed to the public on walls.

Photo © Gayatri Nair-All Rights Reserved

Shuchi is a photographer currently based in Chennai; quite a distance from her native Gujarat, and who describes herself as a storyteller minus the frills. She worked for a decade in advertising until she found her calling in photography as well as in writing. Some of her stories have been published by Femina, The Sunday Guardian, Marie Claire, The Lonely Planet, Spiceroute, and TAXI.

She also assisted me in Ajmer last May during my Sufi Saints of Rajasthan & Kashmir Photo Expedition-Workshop, which aimed at documenting the Urs of the Sufi saint Moin'Uddin Chisti.

Rasha Yousif | Heaven's Gate

Rasha Yousif was on my Sufi Saints of Rajasthan & Kashmir Photo Expedition-Workshop, and documented the Urs of the Sufi saint Moin'Uddin Chisti which attracts thousands of devotees and pilgrims from the four corners of South Asia, including Pakistan and Bangladesh. She produced an audio-slideshow of the event, and titled it Jannati Darwaza; Urdu for Heaven's Gate.

There's the story, perhaps apocryphal, that whoever crosses the threshold of Jannati Darwaza seven times to circumambulate the saint's tomb, will secure a place in heaven...hence its name.

While most attending the event are of the Muslim faith, there are significant numbers of Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and members of other religious traditions who visit the shrine during this annual observance. 

Moinuddin Chishti is the more famous and revered Sufi saint of the Chisti order of the Indian Subcontinent. He was born in 1141 and died in 1230 CE, and is believed to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammed. He interpreted religion in terms of human service and exhorted his disciples "to develop river-like generosity, sun-like affection and earth-like hospitality."

Rasha is from Bahrain, where she works in the finance industry. She graduated from the University of Bahrain, and obtained her Masters in Finance from DePaul University.

She's a passionate and prolific photographer, and her work can viewed on her website, and on her Vimeo page.

Heidi Laughton | Spirit Hawk Eye

Photo © Heidi Laughton-All Rights Reserved

Just a few days after returning to New York from Los Angeles, I got an email from Heidi Laughton announcing the opening of her "Spirit Hawk Eye" exhibition at the Talisman gallery...in Los Angeles! I had originally met Heidi a few years ago in London where we attended a travel photography show in Earl's Court.

So it's with pleasure that I feature Heidi's Ways of the World photographic galleries, which include images from her “Spirit Hawk Eye: A Tribute to American Native Culture” photographs. These celebrate American Indian culture andreveal aspects of present-day cultural practices and lifestyles, remarkable individual stories and colorful, spiritual and artistic elements of Native American communities.

For this particular series of photographs, Heidi embedded herself within the Native American culture, and photographed a "mix of modern and traditional regalia, with the traditional regalia not necessarily being a true representation of the wearer’s tribe, but often an amalgamation of different tribal influences as is often the case today".

Originally from London, Heidi is now a Los Angeles-based fine art, portrait photographer who always had a fascination for world cultures and has worked on projects that took her as far as Kenya and China.

The photographs now exhibited at the Talisman Gallery were made usingmedium and large format film and are available as archival pigment prints on fine art paper. Alongside each portrait, a text panel further explains facets of Native life and anecdotal information relating to the portrait.

I missed it by a few days, but my readers who are in Los Angeles can view the exhibition at Talisman Fine Art Gallery, Bergamot Arts Center, Unit A6, 2535 Michigan Avenue in Santa Monica.

The Nihon-Jin of Rodeo Drive

Having some time off on Los Angeles' Rodeo Drive, I decided to test whether the city of angels's legendary shopping mecca was as conducive to street photography as is New York City. I only had a brief window of opportunity and it opened between 2-3 pm; a period of time not surprisingly accompanied by a dazzling sunshine...but with hordes of Japanese tourists.
Rodeo Drive of Beverly Hills, California is a 4 block stretch of road north of Wilshire Boulevard and south of S. Santa Monica Boulevard, known for its luxury-goods stores. The street is home to some of the most sought-after stores including Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès, Burberry, and Coach....and others that I don't know. These stores must spend serious money for rent, and their air conditioning bills must be astronomical.

The Nihon-Jin of Rodeo Drive is a gallery of photographs all made with the Fuji X Pro-1 and a Fujinon 18mm, and all were shot from the hip (except one). I wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible, and shooting from the hip allowed me to capture candid expressions I may not have been able to otherwise. As women engaged in shopping for luxury goods are normally extraordinarily focused, I could've photographed them at point-blank range, and they wouldn't have noticed me. 

However, as I learned many years ago not to interfere with, or distract, a woman on a shopping spree, I thought the shooting from the hip option to be the safest for my well-being.

A Japanese guide told me that these buses carrying these shoppers are a daily occurrence, who are greeted by the Rodeo Drive merchants with open arms. I was also told that 92% of the shoppers on these buses were women, and the rest were men...presumably the very patient kind.

The photographs are not listed in any particular order, but most of them show the intensity of this activity reflected in the expressions of these women. The Japanese shoppers must've a specific window of time to do their shopping and to enter as many luxury stores as possible...and it's serious business.

Chris Sorensen | Sri Lanka

Photo © Chris Sorensen-All Rights Reserved

I've seldom featured work of Sri Lanka on The Travel Photographer Blog, and I wonder whether it's because professional travel photographers are not interested/active in this magnificent country, or if it's eclipsed by India.

So I'm glad to have found the work of Chris Sorensen whose website has a nice gallery of Sri Lanka. I've traveled more or less through all its western coast for about 2 weeks, and the gallery reminded my of its beauty. It also reminded me of photo shoot with the traditional stilt fishermen in the southern tip of the island. This is an ancient method of catching fish, quite primitive and one which give poor results, but it's a virtual icon of Sri Lanka...and the fishermen, although probably unable to make a living from it, do earn money from tourists and photographers.

A long pole is stuck in the seabed, not too far from the shore, and another shorter pole is tied to it in order to create a perch for the fisherman, who can stay there for hours catching fish during the incoming surf. I recall wading in the surf, waiting for the sunset to provide the right background to these fishermen.

Chris Sorensen is a portrait & travel photographer based in Hong Kong (another escapee from the corporate world!), and took up photography full time. He was the Grand Prize winner of the 2013 PDN Faces photo competition and a Finalist in the 2013 Kuala Lumpur International Photo Awards. His work was also awarded Honorable Mentions in the Portraiture and Fine Art categories of the 2011 International Photography Awards, as well as Honorable Mentions in the Portraiture, Lifestyle, and Fine Art categories of the 2010 International Photography Awards. His photographs appeared in

Condé Nast Traveller (UK), Monocle, AFAR, Hemispheres, Hong Kong Tatler, The Financial Times, Australian Art Collector, SILKROAD, Belle,PDN, Die Weltwoche, Veckans Aff ärer, The Phoenix, Hospitality Design, Philips, Eurosport Asia, and Gansevoort Hotels.

Sivan Askayo | Viet Nam & Other Travels

Photos © Sivan Askayo- All Rights Reserved

There is a variety of talented travel photographers; some describe themselves as storytellers and documentarians (like I do, for example) and there are others who are more attracted to editorial travel photography which involves photographing for magazines.

Sivan Askayo's lovely work, whether of Viet Nam or Florence, is more of the latter type. She's a New York based freelance travel photographer and writer, whose work was featured in Travel +Leisure, Hemisphere, AFAR, Marie Claire Italia, and Resource Magazine. I particulalry liked her work from Viet Nam and Buenos Aires; places that I recently photographed.

Sivan earned a Master degree in Advertising and Marketing and was involved with the ICP, International Center of Photography, both as a student and a teacher assistant. She photographs what she loves; children, food, travel, street art and she seeks to capture the dynamics of the places she is in. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and she has been involved with emerging artists groups both in New York and in Tel Aviv.