Rich-Joseph Facun: Darshana Ganga

There are a couple of images captioned "moksha" on Rich-Joseph Facun's Darashana Ganga gallery that are certainly disturbing, but the remainder of his gallery show us Varanasi and its streets at its grittiest, and being one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, it is a gritty city. This is a work in progress, and I suspect that more...

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WSJ Photo Journal: Pushkar Mela

Photo © Kevin Frayer/Associated Press-All Rights ReservedThe WSJ Photo Journal with a photograph by Kevin Frayer has reminded me that the Pushkar fair (or mela) is taking place from October 30 to November 2 this year. It is one of the world's largest camel fairs, and is held in the quaint town of Pushkar. At that time, hotel rooms and other accommodations...

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Coming Soon: Bhutan Galleries!

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedPhoto © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedI'll be soon posting two galleries of some of my work made during my Bhutan Photo~Expedition a few weeks ago. One is a multimedia photo gallery of Monks' Debates at the Kharchhu Sangha in Bumthang (which has already been seen by subscribers to my newsletter), while...

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My Work: Bhutan Monks, A Cat & TV

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedThis photograph (click it for a larger version) was made at the Wangdichoeling Palace in Jakar, Bhutan. Built in 1857, it served as the principal summer residence of the first and second kings of Bhutan; Gongsa Ugyen Wangchuck (1862-1926) and Jigme Wangchuk 1905-1952). Virtually dilapidated, it is now occupied...

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April Maciborka: India

Every now and then I stumble on a website that, to my mind, reaffirms the essence of what a travel photographer is, or should be, all about. So I hope you will agree that April Maciborka is one of those who carry that particular torch.Her style, as evidenced by her various portfolios, matches my own visual philosophy: "travel photography meets photojournalism"....

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Mariela Furrer: Timket, Ethiopia

I'm often asked to lead a photo-expedition to Ethiopia and I always demur, citing the infrastructural difficulties (mostly in the South) of setting up such a trip, and the concomitant high costs. However, as can be seen in Mariella Furrer's Timket gallery, Ethiopia is one of the most visually and culturally magnetic countries in the world. These images...

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NYT: Ariana Lindquist: Heshun (China)

Photo © Ariana Lindquist/NY Times. All Rights ReservedThe New York Times featured a short slideshow of Ariana Lindquist's photographs of Heshun, in Yunnan province, China. With beautiful scenery and abundant cultural traditions, Heshun is one of China's earliest border trade town, and is a perennial favorite of film directors, photographers, and painters.Heshun...

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The Frame: Chhath Festival

Photo © Dar Yasin/AP. All Rights ReservedThe Frame, the photography blog of The Sacramento Bee, is one the main three large sized picture blogs, along with the Boston Globe's The Big Picture and the Wall Street Journal's Photo Journal.It brings us 19 photographs of the Chhath festival where Indian Hindu devotees offers prayers to the sun. The festival...

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Field Report: B&H & Adorama

Well, I succumbed to the "bigger is better" axiom and decided to add a 16gb SanDisk Compact Flash card to my inventory.In arriving to this decision, I was guided by two facts: the first is that the images files from Canon 5D Mark II are monstrously large and that, although my 8gb CF cards are quite adequate, I filled them up a number of times in the...

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Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak: India

Photo © Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak-All Rights ReservedThe face on Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak's website's cover is haunting...I can't tell if she's smiling or not. Have a look, and then explore his galleries which include photographs of East and West Africa, Maghreb countries, the Middle East and India, among others.Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak is from Pozanan in Poland,...

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POV: Antiquities & Colonialism

© Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters. Courtesy The New York TimesAntiquities and its politics are hardly topics that stay for long on my radar screen, but this time it involves Egypt, my birth country so I'll take a stab at the recent news which involves the bust of Nefertiti, currently displayed in a Berlin museum. What does this have to do with travel photography,...

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Zhou Mi: Where The Ganges Flows...

Here's a black & white photo essay Where The Ganges Flows... by Zhou Mi, documenting his traveling down the Ganges from its source in Gangotri to Kolkata, passing through Rishikesh, Haridwar and Varanasi.It brought to mind the classic book Slowly Down the Ganges by Eric Newby, which may have been the photographer's inspiration.Zhou Mi was born...

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Robert Caplin: Cuban Life

© 2009 Robert Caplin-All Rights ReservedI came across Robert Caplin's work through a recent interview published in The New York Times' Frugal Traveler. Moving from this interview to his website, I immediately saw that much of his work was typically that of a quintessential travel photographer.Caplin started out in Athens, Ohio, with a Nikon N50 film...

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Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta

Adobe just announced its Lightroom 3 as a public beta version, which means anyone with an Internet connection can download it and start putting it to the test. You do not need to own (or have tried) a previous version of Lightroom. The version of Lightroom 3 beta software available for download is offered in English only. You can download the beta...

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Magnum: In Silence: Susan Meiselas

© 2009 Susan Meiselas/Magnum-All Rights ReservedIn Silence is the beautiful and powerful work (a combination of still photography and video) by Susan Meiselas as featured by Magnum In Motion which deals with the tens of thousands of Indian women and girls who die during pregnancy, while in childbirth, and in the weeks after giving birth, despite the...

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My Work: Debate At The Sangha

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedJust a short post today to share the above image (still undecided as to the placement of the title) from a project I'm currently working on. Debate At The Sangha will be a gallery of photographs made during two of the weekly debates at the Kharchhu monastery in Chamkar (Bhutan). I've also recorded the animated...

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New! EOS-1D Mark IV

Canon has just announced the EOS-1D Mark IV, a 16.1 megapixel digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR) camera body, and the successor to the Canon EOS-1D Mark III. It is the first Canon APS-H format DSLR to feature HD video recording at 1080p resolution.I've been waiting for a worthy successor to my beloved Canon 1D-Mark II and this may just be the...

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POV: WTF! This Is My Photo Shoot!

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedI don't know if it's the bottled water in Bhutan, the crisp Himalayan air, the scent of the pine trees or the excitement of the festivals...but some tourists lose their sense of civility when faced with opportunities to photograph. And I mean tourists, not serious and experienced photographers. Having arrived...

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Alia Refaat: Vedic School

Photo © Alia Refaat-All Rights ReservedI'm pleased to feature an audio slideshow by photographer Alia Refaat showcasing her work at a Vedic school in Thrissur, Kerala. The photographs and audio were made during my Theyyams of Malabar Photo Expedition at an ancient Vedic 'gurukul' (or training/boarding school (very similar to the Buddhist monasteries...

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"Toothpick" Photo Expeditions

Photo © Tewfic "Toothpick" El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedOne (or possibly two) of the sharp wits on the Bhutan Photo-Expedition decided to rename (or name) it as in the above photograph. In Bhutan, each tour group has to have a paper nameplate on dining tables, and these are carefully and dutifully written by the tour guide.Unhappy with the formality...

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Rafaela Persson: Afghan Women

Rafaela Persson graduated from the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism program at the International Center of Photography in New York in 2008. She holds an MA in sociology with studies in human rights, international migration and ethnic relations from university of Lund, Sweden.Her photographs were exhibited in Copenhagen, the International...

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Book: 100 New York Photographers

As previously announced on TTP, I am chuffed in being featured in Cynthia Dantzig's new book: 100 New York Photographers, which is a 442-page review of contemporary New York photographers and their diverse and divergent images. So here I am in the august company of well-known photographers such as Annie Liebovitz, Jay Maisel, Amy Arbus, Hugh Bell,...

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My Work: Tsechu Drummer In Bhutan

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedHere's what is largely a grab shot of a Bhutanese tsechu drummer on his way to join the rest of the musical group that accompanies the traditional dancers in Tamshingphala Lakhang in Bumthang. I've been to Bhutan 4 times so far to photograph during the tsechus season, and I can only recall one overcast day....

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Zackary Canepari: Kathputli

As my many posts on TTP show, one of my favorite photographers is Zackary Canepari who has recently shown off his talent with Kathputli Is My Home on 100Eyes, an excellent photo e-magazine published and edited by Andy Levin.Kathputli Colony slum in North Delhi is an illegal settlement or shantytown, which is both home and a mecca for the thousands...

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Bhutan: Pow (Shamanism)

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedMy recent field reports on the Bhutan photo-expedition generated much interest as to our shaman (known as "pow" in Bhutan) photo shoot, and since it will take me quite a while to edit my photographs, here's one of the images while he pow performed his exorcism.In Bhutan, traditional households will frequently...

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Tyler Hicks: Kandahar

The New York Times features Tyler Hicks' photography on its LENS blog with a gallery titled Under The Radar In Kandahar.While I've seen much better from Tyler Hicks, these black & white photographs are nevertheless gritty and raw, and certainly worth a look. More interesting to me is the article which accompanies these images, in which Mr. Hicks...

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Bhutan Photo Expedition: The Verdict

(Gangtey Goempa). Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedOn completion of every photo expedition I undertake, I publish a verdict on what worked and what didn't. I'm probably the only travel photographer and photo expedition leader who does that so publicly, but it's a transparency ritual in which I believe very strongly. It's designed to assist...

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Hakka Dwellings: Ryan Pyle

Photo © Ryan Pyle/GlobalPost-All Rights ReservedThe GlobalPost website features Ryan Pyle's Chinese Hakka Houses, which are also known as Hakka Tulou "apartments" in Yongding county, Fujian province. These structures are indigenous to the Hakka minority group and other people in the mountainous areas in southwestern Fujian.In 2008, UNESCO granted the...

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William Darlymple's Nine Lives

Despite Thai Airways' efficient service and the knowledge that I would have a row all to myself as the flight was only half full, spending 12 hours on the flight from Bangkok to London wasn't something I looked forward to. However I bought William Dalrymple's new book Nine Lives to keep me company during the long haul flight. I had high expectations...

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Bhutan Field Report: Group Photograph

Photo © Ugen Dorji-All Rights ReservedWell, all good things have to have an end and the Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul photo-expedition came to its end a couple of days ago. Our stay was extended for 24 hours due to heavy rain in Paro which meant that our scheduled Druk Air flight was unable to take off to Bangkok, but we made it out the following day...

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Bhutan Field Report: Ura Goempa

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedBesides the tsechus festivals in Wangdue and Tamshing, we were privileged in attending a funerary ritual at the Ura monastery. It appears that a prominent judge in the Ura valley region had died, and funerary rites were being held at the ancient monastery and goempa, as we arrived. Having secured the permission...

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