Terri Gold: World Imagery

Photo © Terri Gold -All Rights Reserved

“I believe images that share our stories can have a positive impact on our world.” - Terri Gold

Terri Gold is an award-winning photographer and artist based in New York City, and has built an impressive reputation for her rituals, rites of passage, festivals, celebrations and portraits from all over the world. Her ongoing personal project “Still Points in a Turning World” focuses on Asia’s vanishing tribal heritage, and has been widely exhibited.

In January 2009, she was chosen as the Lightroom Featured Photographer in Photoshop User Magazine. She has won numerous awards and has been published on book covers for Random House, Penguin Putnam and Henry Holt. She is represented by Picture Arts and Archangel Images and has taught at the Cape Cod Photo Workshops and is a member of ASMP and National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

On her assignments, Terri tells us that she wears up to four cameras around her neck; a digital camera, a digital camera converted to infrared, a XPan with cross-processed film (or B&W), and a Mamiya 7. She also uses a Zero image pinhole camera and a Diana. As can be seen from her websites, she's an expert infrared photographer, worked with polaroid transfers, hand-painting and is a lith printer as well. Terri digitally recreates these techniques.

To see more from this highly accomplished and impressive artist-photographer, Terri's commercial work can be found on Terri Gold Imagery and her travel portfolios on Terri Gold World Imagery.

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Phil Borges: Women Empowered

Here's an immensely worthwhile project that I'm very glad to share with you.

Phil Borges, the acclaimed documentary photographer and CARE, the humanitarian organization that fights global poverty by empowering women and girls, are continuing a successful multi-year collaboration with the launch of the Women Empowered Project.

Using Phil Borges’ photography and video, The Women Empowered Project spotlights some of the issues that women and girls in the developing world face while demonstrating practical, proven solutions to fighting global poverty.

The new website, which was created in conjunction with liveBooks includes three mini-documentary films: Learning to Lead portrays the transformative power of education and leadership for girls and women; Vigilantes de la Vida shows how childbirth can lead to heartbreak rather than happiness when adequate maternal health care is not available, and Strength in Numbers illustrates how African women can turn tiny amounts of money into sustaining capital through village savings and loan programs.

A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of meeting Phil Borges in his Seattle home, and had the pleasure of traveling with him to Dharmasala, and photographing in this Tibetan-In-Exile Nothern Indian enclave.

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Pablo Corral Vega: Andes

Pablo Corral Vega is a photojournalist from Ecuador whose work is published in National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, the Smithsonian Magazine, the New York Times Sunday magazine, Audubon, the French, German, Spanish, and Russian editions of Geo, and other international magazines.

His work has been exhibited in Perpignan, Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca, Tokyo, Seville, Washington, D.C., and Houston, and he has published six books of photography: Tierra Desnuda, Paisajes del Silencio, Ecuador: De la Magia al Espanto, Ecuador, Andes and Twenty Five. For the book Andes, published by the National Geographic Society, famed Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa wrote twenty short stories inspired by the photos.

It is Andes that I choose to feature today on the pages of TTP.

Kent Kobersteen, former Director of Photography for the National Geographic Magazine wrote the following text about Corral for his book "Twenty Five":

"Pablo Corral Vega brings to his photography great passion, an unparalleled aesthetic, and a high degree of concern for both his work and his subjects. (He) is a world-class photojournalist, and in my opinion one of the finest Latin American photographers working today." "

There's no question that Pablo Corral Vega's work is incredibly beautiful, and his imagery of the various cultures depicted in Andes is passionate, emphatic and in many cases, superb. The photograph of the man and the shadows is certainly one of those.

I also greatly enjoyed Pablo's video work showing the same places he photographed for the National Geographic. Yes, I recommend viewing Pablo's personal view of this musical genre and its associated sensuous dance form. But be careful...after viewing the video, you will want to book your flight to Buenos Aires, and spend the rest of your life in these cafes and restaurants, immersed in tango atmosphere.

My thanks to Eric Beecroft for the heads-up.

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Snobbism & The Photography Industry

Kochi (Kerala)-Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved

"Photography has its social classes, almost like a feudal society. It has its kings and knights ( in shinning armor, no less), its jesters and courtesans, and of course, a huge amounts of peasants. If you want to play in the court of the respected and approved, you have to follow some well established rules."

And so writes Paul Melcher in his inimitable Thoughts of A Bohemian blog.

As way of background, Paul Melcher brings more than 17 years of experience in technology breakthrough and leadership roles for world-renowned photography agencies and was named by American Photo as one of the "50 most influential individuals in American photography."

Firstly, I'm pleased that this post seems to be spreading quickly in photo industry circles, and is extremely popular. It probably will deservedly ruffle some feathers, and, through humor, make the self-appointed industry luminaries look at themselves, and perhaps laugh.

Secondly, I'm rather miffed that travel photographers are not mentioned on the list. It appears that the top photo "royalty" are conflict photographers, and the bigger the scarf, the higher they are in the hierarchy, while the "low lifers" are amateurs and microstock photographers.

I really don't want to be royalty nor do I want to be a low-lifer...so what about a knight? Yes, that's a good place to be.

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Dhiraj Singh: Nagas

Dhiraj Singh is a photojournalist and editorial photographer in Mumbai, whose work has appeared in various international publications including Newsweek, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC among others.

He recently won the third place in the ‘war and disaster’ category at the China International Press Photo Award-2009 and third place in Spot News at “The Asia Media Award” which was held in conjunction with IFRA’s Publish Asia 2008. His pictures of the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 were also part of a group exhibition titled, ‘Bearing Witness’ held in that city in 2009.

One of Dhiraj's non-audio SoundSlides photo essay is on the Nagas. The Naga Sadhus are part of a mysterious society, and are worshipers of Shiva. The term Naga means ‘naked’, and they're also known as Naga Babas. They mainly appear in public during the annual Kumbh Mela.

Dhiraj Sigh and his work were also profiled on Verve Photo.

My own work on the Sadhus of the Kumbh Mela is featured here.

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Lens Culture Photo Contest

Lens Culture International Exposure Awards seeks to discover, recognize, reward and promote talented, new and emerging photographers from around the world, so it's looking for exciting images from every continent, and from diverse points of view: documentary, fine art, photojournalism, street photography, poetic, personal, abstract and human.

An international jury of photography experts will review and judge every photo submitted. Four winning photographers will each earn cash prizes — plus photo features in Lens Culture, giving them access and broad exposure to an enthusiastic, influential worldwide audience.

Additionally, 25 photographers will win Honorable Mentions, including the display of one single image each in the Winners' Gallery in Lens Culture, and a link to their personal or professional web pages.

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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Andrew Sullivan; Samba da Bahia

Photo © Andrew Sullivan/Courtesy Burn Magazine
Sometimes I stumble on a photograph that just stops me in my tracks. I can't really explain the reason, but all I know is that it has that effect on me...and Andrew Sullivan's sublime photograph made me stop. The caption reads that a delivery man called the waitress on the right "belleza pura", and he's right, but it's not only her that makes the photograph. All of its elements work...the positioning of the people, the shadows, the look, the colors...it all works just so perfectly.

Andrew Sullivan's photo essay Samba da Bahia is on the wonderful Burn magazine, which is amongst of the best photo websites I've seen in a while. Burn is curated by the legendary David Alan Harvey, one of the heroes of photography for his superlative work, and for his unstinting generosity in mentoring emerging photographers.

Andrew describes himself as a reformed newspaper photographer, but it's best to read his biography in his own words, as well as about his essay on the Samba da Bahia link above.

As a multimedia and samba aficionado, I must confess I literally ached to hear the sound that could have accompanied this photo essay. If only...but I can always look at them and play Jobim at the same time.

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