Teru Kuwayama: How To Not Get Shot

Photo © Teru Kuwayama-All Rights ReservedA veteran documentary photographer, Teru Kuwayama has made more than 15 trips to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir, traveling both independently, and as an embedded reporter with US and NATO military forces, as well as Afghan, Pakistani, and Indian armed forces. In 2009 he received the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor award for his...

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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...

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Damon Winter: The Kamayurá

Photo © Damon Winter/NYTimes-All Rights ReservedDamon 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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Boston Globe's Ramadan

Photo © Fareed Khan/AP Photo-All Rights ReservedThe 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...

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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...

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Landon Nordeman: The Sugar Train (Cuba)

The Atlantic magazine recently featured this slideshow (they call it video) of photographs by Landon Nordeman during a train journey in Cuba. It's accompanied by an evocatively written article by Michael Scott Moore titled The 12:39 To Matanzas, which I enjoyed. However, I can't say the same of the slideshow. Clearly cobbled together by someone with an inordinate affection for panning and camera movements, I don't think I've seen a single frame in the slideshow (or video) that doesn't have the annoying pan from one side to the other, or going from...

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WSJ Photo Journal: Onam

Photo © Sivaram V./Reuters-All Rights ReservedThe Wall Street Journal's Photo Journal has this striking photograph of a dancer about to perform during festivities marking the start of the annual harvest festival of Onam in Kochi, India. The festival symbolizes the return of mythical King Mahabali to meet his beloved subjects. Readers and followers of this blog and my work...

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Book: Dalrymple's Nine Lives

One of my favorite haunts when I'm in London is Stanfords, the travel bookstore close to Covent Gardens...and one of my favorite authors is William Dalrymple. So when both come together in an event to be held at the Royal Geographical Society, I am ready with my credit card to buy a ticket. However, as I will still be in Bhutan on October 7, I will miss the event, but look...

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At War: Tyler Hicks

Photo © Tyler Hicks-All Rights ReservedWell, the headlines this morning on Afghanistan are not encouraging, what with the rigged elections and with American military commanders in the country telling Richard Holbrooke (President Obama’s chief envoy to the region) that they did not have enough troops to do their job, pushed past their limit by "Taliban" rebels who operate across...

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POV: Reuters Blog: f8 & Be There

Photo © Zainal AbdHalim/Reuters-All Rights ReservedReuters Photographers Blog has a post on a Muslim woman who is scheduled to be caned next week in Malaysia for committing the offence of drinking beer in public. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno will be the first Malaysian (other news outlets report that she's from Singapore) woman to be caned under Islamic laws (Sharia') applicable...

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Book: 100 New York Photographers

I am featured in Cynthia Dantzig's new book: 100 New York Photographers. I haven't seen the book yet, but I expect to have a double-spread page, and perhaps even two full double pages. A number of my photographs of Bali, Ethiopia, Bhutan, Burma and India were chosen, and I'm impatient to see which made it to the book's pages.Cynthia, a professor at Long Island University,...

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Live Hope Love

Here's a brilliantly done multimedia reporting project HOPE: Living & Loving With HIV in Jamaica, which was commissioned by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. It's an expansive project by poet and writer Kwame Dawes who travels to Jamaica and explores the experience of people living with HIV/AIDS, and examines how the disease has shaped their lives. In this feature,...

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Afghanistan: Choices

Photo © Raheb Homavandi/Reuters-Courtesy WSJ Photo JournalOur media is publishing reams of articles on the elections in Afghanistan, so I thought I'd highlight excerpts of articles written by a US commentator and another from the UK.In his In Afghanistan, the Choice Is Ours in The New York Times, Richard N. Haass writes this:Making this assessment in Afghanistan is difficult....

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Rahman Roslan: Dark Secrets

Photo © Rahman Roslan-All Rights ReservedRahman Roslan is a freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer based in Kuala Lumpur, whose specialty is in news and documentary photography. A self-taught photographer, he started his craft a few years ago, and quickly gained recognition for his talents. His work was published in E9 magazine, The National UAE, Sutra Magazine,...

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The Black Snapper

As my readers know, one of The Travel Photographer blog's objectives is to assist emerging photographers in getting better known, and contribute in introducing their work to a wider audience.Many other blogs and web magazines do this as well. Burn, 100Eyes, Verve Photo and others are showcasing the work of emerging and creative photographers extremely well, and have done much...

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Ralph Childs: Bhutan

Photo © Ralph N. Childs-All Rights ReservedPhoto © Ralph N. Childs-All Rights ReservedI will be leading the Bhutan: Land Of Druk Yul photo expedition in the coming few weeks, and thought it would be appropriate to usher in its final preparation phase by featuring some of the work by the talented participants who joined the 2008 expedition.Here are two photographs by Chicago-based...

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New Canon G11 Announced

The photography enthusiasts and blogosphere are buzzing with the news that Canon has announced the flagship 10.0-megapixel PowerShot G11 with a retail price of $499. Yes, the new model features a lower resolution in order to create larger individual pixels on the imaging chip that absorb more light. According to Canon, the system combines the new 10MP chip; optical image stabilization;...

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Bas Uterwijk: Kushti Wrestling

Photo © Bas Uterwijk-All Rights ReservedBas Uterwijk is a Dutch photojournalist, is an alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshops in Mexico City and Manali (India) and, while in Delhi, photographed Kushti wrestling. He is now a full time photojournalist, having been a computer graphics artist for a video game company.Kushti is one of India's indigenous forms of wrestling,...

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Wink Willett: Bhutan

Photo © Wink Willett-All Rights ReservedPhoto © Wink Willett-All Rights ReservedI will be leading the Bhutan: Land Of Druk Yul photo expedition in the coming few weeks, and thought it would be appropriate to usher in its final preparation phase by featuring some of the work by the talented participants who joined the 2008 expedition.To kick us off, here are two brilliant portraits...

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Geoffrey Hiller: The Bangladesh Project

Geoffrey Hiller is an award winning multimedia artist, a teacher of interactive media, a photographer and the editor of Verve Photo, which he describes as having showcased the work of close to 300 photographers. However, he returns to this blog's pages for his The Bangladesh Project.Geoffrey has lived and taught in Dhaka from August 2008 to May 2009 on a Fulbright Scholarship,...

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Global Post: The Taliban

With so much in the news about Afghanistan, I thought I'd join the fray and feature this collaboration between GlobalPost and MediaStorm.According to its producers, Life, Death and the Taliban seeks to "enhance America’s understanding of Taliban history in Afghanistan and Pakistan". Charles Sennott of GlobalPost reviews the group’s rise to power and looks at current political...

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Comment: Complex vs Simple Multimedia

Chandni Chowk - Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedI received an email from a friend and veteran photojournalist, who participated in one of my earlier Introduction To Multimedia Storytelling classes. His comments are in response to my earlier post POV: Complex vs Simple Multimedia. While I don't usually publish or publicly react to the frequent comments I get, I decided...

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David Hagerman: Food & Travel

Photo © David Hagerman-All Rights ReservedDavid Hagerman attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali, but I only met him during the final evening during which all participants showcased their projects. Most participants were extremely busy working on their projects and, apart from a chance encounter on the streets, they found it difficult to meet other participants...

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Nikon Photo Contest International 2009

Photo © Maung Maung Gyi-All Rights ReservedPhoto © Danny Ghitis-All Rights ReservedThe Nikon Corporation recently announced winners of the Nikon Photo Contest International 2008-2009. This year's theme, "At The Heart of the Image," drew over 51,000 entries by over 18,000 entrants from 153 countries and regions. The judges were professionals working internationally in various...

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TIME: Paula Bronstein's Gitmo Detainees

Photo © Paula Bronstein/Courtesy TIME-All Rights ReservedTIME magazine recently featured a series of portraits of released Gitmo detainees by Paula Bronstein. The stories of how these men were captured and eventually detained in Guantanamo are chilling, and underscore how impervious the American government and military were to the articles of Geneva Convention and international...

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Emilio Morenatti: Injured In Afghanistan

Photo © Associated Press/Emilio Morenatti-All Rights ReservedThe New York Times's LENS blog reported that Emilio Morenatti, a 40-year-old photographer for The Associated Press was badly wounded Tuesday in southern Afghanistan when the vehicle in which he was riding was struck by a roadside bomb. Morenatti's work from the Middle East has been likened to artwork. He currently...

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Larry Larsen: Gnawa Photo Expedition

Photo © Larry Larsen -All Rights ReservedI organized the Gnawa (or Ganoua) Photo Expedition in late June, which was joined by a number of talented full-time and part time photographers, whose principal objective was to photograph the legendary Gnawa musicians during the 12th Essaouira Music Festival.Photo © Larry Larsen -All Rights ReservedThis is the fourth of a series of...

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100Eyes: Bangladesh x Bangladesh

I'm surprised that it seems I haven't yet mentioned 100Eyes ...along with one or two other similarly oriented photography magazines, it's one of the best on the internet. This issue is all about Bangladesh and Bangladeshi photographers. 100Eyes is Andy Levin's brainchild. Andy was a contributing photographer with the original Life Magazine, and started his career as a staff...

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POV: Simple vs Complex Multimedia

Chandni Chowk - Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedHaving now gotten rid of flu symptoms and of my jet lag, I think I settled a lingering thought that made its presence felt during the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop earlier this month. The class I taught was Introduction To Multimedia Storytelling, and its whole premise was based on encouraging its participants to...

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Pop Photo: My Interview

What is it Like to be a...Travel Photographer? That's the question I was asked by Carolina Hidalgo of Popular Photography, who talked to me a few weeks ago, part of an ongoing project in which she interviews several professional photographers about how they landed their dream jobs. I often remember Costa Manos' admonishment that I needed to 'complicate' my photographs...to...

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AFAR Magazine

Candace Feit emailed me saying that her photograph made in the Moroccan Atlas mountains was published as the cover of the premiere issue of AFAR magazine.Coincidentally, The New York Times (and other newspapers) published articles announcing AFAR's "birth", hailing the courage of the two entrepreneurs who started the venture in the current economic climate, despite their lack...

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Functionality & Style

Readers of this blog will perhaps recall my pre departure post in which I agonized over which camera bag I would take with me to the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in distant Manali. I eventually chose to take my delightfully small (but capacious) Domke F-8 and an IDF Messenger Bag, which I combined into a single (sort of) carry-on by using a couple of carabiners.In fact,...

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NY Times: One in 8 Million

Photo © Todd Heisler/NYTimes-All Rights ReservedOne of the "props" I used very effectively during my Intro To Multimedia Storytelling class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop is the stunning work done by The New York Times photographer Todd Heisler (along with others) with the One In 8 Million series. The class participants watched The Medical Tourist, and realized how...

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Matt Brandon: Bangla Sahib Gurudwara

Photo © Matt Brandon-All Rights ReservedMatt Brandon of The Digital Trekker blog has produced Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, a SoundSlides photo essay on the most prominent Sikh gurudwara (or Sikh house of worship) in Delhi. The gurudwara is known for its association with the eighth Sikh Guru, Guru Har Krishan, and for the pond inside its complex, known as the "Sarovar", whose water...

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Tyler Hicks: Afghanistan's Elections

Photo © Tyler Hicks/NYTimes-All Rights ReservedThe New York Times is featuring Tyler Hicks' photographs of the currently under way Afghan elections in a slide show titled A Precarious Election. The accompanying article is by Carlotta Gall, and this caught my eye:"With Taliban insurgents active in half the country, many Afghans remain doubtful that the Aug. 20 election will...

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National Geographic Photo Contest 2009

The National Geographic Society has announced its international photography contest 2009, for which English-language-edition readers in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom are eligible to enter up to a total of six photographs across three categories: People, Places and Nature.The contest began...

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Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Here are the photographers/photojournalists who volunteered to teach at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali.From left to right: (instructors in bold) Tewfic El-Sawy, Jerry Mossy, Kael Alford, Michael Robinson-Chavez, Mansi Midha, Guy Calaf, Eric Beecroft (FPW founder), Andrea Bruce, Adrian Fisk, Neal Jackson, Kirsten Luce, Adriana Zehbrauskas, Ron Haviv. Missing...

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Ami Vitale Does The New Nikon D300s

While I was in the wilderness of Manali last week, the buzz amongst the workshop's participants was about Nikon's new D300S, an updated version of its successful mid-level DSLR. The D300S offers full 720p HD video recording at 24 fps, a 7 fps (see that, Canon?) continuous shooting and Dual CF and SD card slots, and its selling price is $1799.As it happens, Ami Vitale was one...

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