Akhtar Soomro: Pakistan

Photo © Akhtar Soomro/Reuters-All Rights Reserved

Full Focus, Reuters photo blog, seems to be regaining its footing amongst the remaining other large image photo blogs, and has recently featured the work of Pakistani photojournalist Akhtar Soomro.

Born in the Lyari neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan, Akhtar graduated from the Government College of Science and Technology with a degree in engineering but photography beckoned, and he started working for a studio covering fashion, industrial and interior design, and subsequently for an advertising agency.

He has since shot assignments for local and international newspapers, magazines and stock agencies around the world. In 2009, he was part of a New York Times' team that won a Pulitzer for its reporting from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Most of Akhtar's impressive photographs in the Reuters feature are of refugees of the floods, and of displaced people from the Swat Valley...but it's the one above that caught my eye. Its caption informs us that a flood victim baby sleeps in a hammock as a man reads the Koran during Eid-al-Fitr celebrations while taking refuge in a relief camp for flood victims in Sukkur in Pakistan's Sindh province on September 11, 2010.

Read More

POV: Weeding The Subscribers: It's Time Again

It's the time of year when I have to start weeding (a more delicate term than 'purge') inactive subscribers from my newsletter mailing list. I have to do this about twice a year now.

Campaign Monitor tracks the number of newsletters opens for each subscriber, so it's easy to determine the rate of open of each. If that rate is less than a certain percentage, the subscriber is dumped. As I use a pay-as-you-go option to send out my newsletters, each subscriber costs me...and if there's no reasonable open activity during a 12 months period, then it's to the dumping grounds we go.

It's more efficient for all concerned, saves me money and un-clutters the disinterested subscribers' mailboxes. Last year, I weeded out about 300 subscribers. The total amount of weeded subscribers over the past 3 years is now about 900. Nothing to sneeze at!

Read More

Raphael Nguyen: Vietnam

Photo © Raphael Nguyen-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Raphael Nguyen-All Rights Reserved

Raphael Nguyen is a French-Vietnamese photographer, who moved to Vietnam in 1999. He lived Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and finally in Hoi An in the very center of the country. He travels within the country, uses either film or digital cameras; Nikon FM2, Nikon F3 and Nikon D70, Canon EOS 5 D and Canon EOS 5 D Mark II.

I was drawn to his gallery of Daily Life in Vietnam with over 100 intensely saturated color photographs of various areas of Vietnam. These range from simple portraits, lifestyle shots, culinary images, environmental portraits etc. The ones I liked most and feature here are of Hoi An, and these two underscore Raphael's photographic style...which gives his images an overly golden saturated look.

Hoi An's old town was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as a well-preserved example of a Southeast Asian trading port of the 15th to 19th centuries, with a unique building with local and foreign influences. I was in Hoi An for a couple of days while photographing for a NGO in 2003, and had little time to photograph for myself. I sense it's time to return and redress this shortcoming.

Read More

Next Week on The Travel Photographer

For the week starting Monday November 21,  the following posts are in the pipeline:

1. The work of a part-time Indian photographer with multi galleries, including one on Varanasi.
2. A Vietnamese photographer's gallery of Vietnam's daily life. I didn't manage to post it last week as planned.
3. The work of a photojournalist on Pakistan's Swat Valley and the floods.
4. An interesting edgy documentary on illegal emigrants from Central America. A post I had planned for last week.
5. The work of a photographer with a ton of images of India, including one of the wrestlers of Benares.
6. Another photographer will be featured with a lot of images of Buddhism.

Read More

The Big Picture: National Geo Contest 2010

Photo © Ario Wibisono-All Rights Reserved

The Boston Globe's photo blog The Big Picture is showing off some of the submissions to The National Geographic annual  photo contest. The deadline for the submissions is November 30. The Big Picture editor chose 47 images from the three categories of People, Places and Nature.

No one asked me for my opinion, but I'll give it anyway. My favorite of those shown is the one of the two Indonesian boys playing with roosters in the village of Suradita, near Serpong in West Java. The photographer is Ario Wibisono who's based in Jakarta.

Ario's caption informs us that this was not a real cockfight. I'm confused by their dress as I took them to be Balinese children, but they're not...they're Javanese.

I also liked another one (#5) also by Ario Wibisono of the musician in Tenganan Village in Bali, playing the bamboo flute to a disabled child. I spent a couple of hours with this man during my Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition ™, photographing him playing his various instruments (including a sort of didgeridoo) and recording some of the pieces he played.

Read More

Olivier Laban-Mattei: Award Winner Paris Match

Photo © Olivier Laban-Mattei- All Rights Reserved

 Olivier Laban-Mattei was awarded the 2010 Grand Prix Paris Match for his recent coverage of Haiti. This prize was created in 1980 and all French professional photographers can compete. Every two years, the prize is decided by an international jury, with the winner receiving 8,000 euros.The prize recognizes photojournalists who cover current events.

Olivier Laban-Mattei is a photojournalist who worked with AFP for 10 years, and left it a few months ago to start a career as an independent photographer. For the past decade, Olivier criss-crossed the world reporting on the Iraq war, the Haitian earthquake or the Gaza Strip humanitarian disaster.

Olivier's Haiti gallery contains a number of graphic photographs that relay the horror of Haiti's earthquake. I have naturally not seen all of the coverage of the Haiti earthquake, but this is one of the most hard-hitting of those I did see.

Read More

Paul Kowlow: Japan (and Geishas)

Photo © Paul Kowalow-All Rights Reserved

Paul Kowalow's website on Zenfolio is sparse with his biographical details, but I thought I'd nevertheless feature his work of Japan here.

You'll see that his gallery of Japan has a large number of portraits of not only geishas but also of young women adopting the punk style of fashion, which I thought is a jarring stark contrast between these two cultures; the traditional and the modern. I wish the gallery was arranged in such a way that the portraits of geisha and punks would alternate. Most of these portraits appear to be candid shots, and the colors are just great.

Take a look at his other galleries as well. He's got some nice photographs of Venice.

Read More