Marco di Lauro: Italian Traditions

Photo © Marco Di Lauro-All Rights Reserved

I did feature Marco Di Lauro's work previously on this blog, but he recently updated his website, and boy...what a website it is!!! It's a great way to start off the week.

For a long time, I felt no urge to click on any of his galleries...the website's multimedia introduction of large sized powerful photographs and audio clips kept me mesmerized for quite a while...and it will do that to you too. There's a lot of Ken Burns effect: not my favorite at all but very effective here.

I perused Marco's galleries, and particularly liked his compelling Italian Traditions feature which documents the various medieval festivals and practices still celebrated in Italy today.

For instance, the Carnival of Venice was originally devised as a social equalizer, allowing the poor, under the safety of elaborate masks, to belittle the rich at least once a year...and the Palio di Siena, an exciting horse race which is held and governed by rules since 1644...and the intriguing annual Procession of the Snakes held in Cocullo when the statue of the patron saint, San Domenico, is paraded covered with live snakes.

An engrossing collection of documentary photographs which I encourage you to visit and admire.

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Next Week On The Travel Photographer

For the week starting Monday December 6,  the following posts are in the blog's pipeline:

1. The work of a photographer/photojournalist, whose website is a delight. I chose his work on Italian traditions...I seldom showcase European subject matters, so this one will partially make up for this.
2. The work of another photographer with an interesting reportage on the Sea Nomads.
3. The diverse portfolio of a travel photographer...large images!
4. Interesting photographs by an Indian photographer of Mexico..
5. An interview with a Bangladeshi photographer will be featured.

Will another hint as to my forthcoming photo~expedition be disclosed? Maybe. And I should be receiving the first copy of another book of my photographs...all black & white...made during my long love affair with India...I'll keep you posted. Oh, its title is Darshan.

Plus other posts "shot from the hip" as the week goes on.

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Paul Patrick: African Witches

Photo © Paul Patrick-All Rights Reserved

People in eastern, southern, and western Africa generally believe in witches, both male and female, and Paul Patrick, a Norwegian photojournalist, was able to document them in Ghana. He started traveling at the age of 16 in search of stories from Europe, India, Nepal, China, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Morocco.

Frenzy and hysteria about witches still grip the African mind, and witchcraft evokes fear, hatred and suspicion among Africans. Africans believe that any misfortune, whether accidents, deaths, diseases, infertility or child-birth difficulties, business failures to the male and female witches. Those accused of witchcraft are expelled from their homes, and forced to survive in the streets, in the bush, or in makeshift camps...and even killed.

You'll find the captions under each of Patrick's photographs in his gallery Witch Village are descriptive and informative...and provide background on the circumstances that caused for these women to be considered witches.

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Gali Tibbon: Jerusalem

Photo © Gali Tibbon-All Rights Reserved

I like Gali Tibbon's work a lot, and her focus on faith-related reportage resonates with me. I found her interview (below) to showcase her images much better than on her website. She's an independent photographer based in Jerusalem, with over a decade of experience in photojournalism in the Middle East. Her work has taken her on assignments in Turkey, Cuba, Egypt, Jordan, Ethiopia, China, Spain and Ukraine.

Her work documents religion, focusing on faith through pilgrimage and rituals, and documenting the various Christian denominations in Jerusalem's Holy Sepulcher, baptism in the Jordan River, the ancient Samaritans, Ethiopian Christianity and pilgrimages across Europe.

It's with pleasure that I watched this interview with Gali on the Canon Professional Network during which she discusses her work.


A must-see!!

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Charles Pertwee: The Khumbu

Photo © Charles Pertwee-All Rights Reserved

Charles Pertwee is a photojournalist, known for his reportage in crisis stricken locations such as Banda Aceh and Afghanistan. He graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London with a degree in the History of East Asia, and took up photography soon after graduation. He has since worked for such diverse clients as The New York Times, Wired, CNN Traveller, Marie Claire, Universal Music and Nike. He's currently based in Nantes, France after living in Singapore. 

His galleries are all worthy of praise, but the two that appealed to me the most are of his work of The Khumbu (in black & white) and of Myanmar (Burma).

The Khumbu is located in northeastern Nepal, and the famous Tengboche Buddhist monastery is there. Tengboche is the largest gompa of the region.

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Teaser

Yep...we're on a roll. All this will be announced soon on this blog, and via newsletter. Hold your breaths!

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Dennis Cordell: Buddhist Monks

Photo © Dennis Cordell-All Rights Reserved

383...that's the number of square format black & white portraits of Buddhist monks (and a few sadhus) that Dennis Cordell is exhibiting on his website; all made with a film Hasselblad which he prefers to the 35mm format. These are not photographs made because the subjects are handsome or beautiful...they're are ethnographic in nature. I believe he uses and pushes Tri-X film, then scans the negatives and prints digitally. I've featured Dennis' portraits of Buddhist novices at the Gyudzin Tantric Monastery School in Ladakh before. These were published on Flickr, but he has now acquired a standalone website.

I'm not certain where all these impressive portraits were made, but I did notice that some had background information that indicated Bodh Gaya. A religious site and place of pilgrimage in the Indian state of Bihar, Bodh Gaya is famous for being the place of the Buddha's attainment of enlightenment. It is one of the most important of the main four pilgrimage sites related to the life of the Buddha. The other three are Kushinagar, Sarnath (both in India) and Lumbini (Nepal).

Dennis trained as a painter, and his favorite subject matter, either in painting or in photography, has always been portraiture...especially of Buddhist monks and similar. He prefers black & white because, in his own voice: "The greater the range of tonality between black and white, the greater, for me, is the image. A photo can never have too many shades of grey. Greys are the midtones that create the designs and textures woven into the photo."

I agree. This is the case, perhaps not always...but often. As I mentioned in an earlier post about my own photographs of Bali, I got too much color while there...and I found black & white more calming...more soothing and more, in a strange way, realistic.

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