Stephen JB Kelly: Qi Lihe

Photo © Stephen JB Kelly-All Rights Reserved
Stephen JB Kelly is an English photographer, currently based in Hong Kong. He obtained a diploma in Photography from the London College of Communication, which was followed by a degree in Documentary Photography from the University of Wales, Newport.

Aside from winning a number of awards for his photography, Stephen has been published in various magazines including The Independent Magazine, The Observer Magazine, D La Repubblica delle Donne, IL Magazine and The FADER Magazine.

One of his portfolios is of Qi Lihe, on the outskirts of Lanzhou which is the most destitute area of this heavily polluted industrial city in northwest China. During the recent years, there has been an influx of migrant Hui and Dongxiang Muslim minorities into these urban centers. The main cause of the influx is the desertification of their land, forcing these farmers and families to seek a better existence in Lanzhou.

The Hui’s ancestors were Silk Road traders, largely of Arab and Persian descent, who first came to China in the 7th Century. The Dongxiang are closely related to the Mongolians and as an independent ethnic group they arose through contact with Central Asians who converted them to Sunni Islam in the 13th century.

Francesco Lastrucci: Kashgar

Photo © Francesco Lastrucci-All Rights Reserved
Here's the work of Francesco Lastrucci, an Italian freelance photographer who specializes in editorial stories. He's currently based between Italy, New York and Hong Kong from where he works on projects involving Europe, Latin America and East Asia.

From Francesco's diverse editorial stories, including a story of the ubiquitous areca nut and betel leaf chewing in Taiwan (as indeed it is in many other Asian countries), and its marketing by beautiful young women, I chose his excellent work on Kashgar, the capital city of the Uyghur.

The Uyghur live in modern Xinjiang, the westernmost province of China, but the name Xinjiang is considered offensive by many Uyghur who prefer to use Uyghurstan or Eastern Turkestan. Kashgar is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 inhabitants, and its old city has been deemed overcrowded and unsafe for its residents, and will have at least 85% of its structures demolished. Demolitions have already begun, with many of its former denizens forced to move.

Kashgar’s old city has been called “the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in Central Asia, but it is now being razed by the Chinese government which plans to replace the old buildings with new.

Julie Jacobson: Afghans' Opium Addiction

Photo © Julie Jacobson/AP-All Rights Reserved
It is estimated that Afghanistan supplies nearly all the world's opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin, and while most of the deadly crop is exported, enough remains in it to feed a cycle of addiction among its population. It's also estimated there are at least 200,000 opium and heroin addicts in Afghanistan.

It's a fact of life that many rural areas in Afghanistan have no access to basic medicine such as aspirin, so whenever a villager needs a painkiller for a minor ailment, they are given opium instead.

Julie Jacobson is an Associated Press Writer and Photojournalist, who produced a video on opium addiction amongst a family in Afghanistan. In many of Afghanistan's remote mountain villages, opium addiction has infected toddlers to old men.

Julie has also written an interesting article published by Nieman Reports titled Crossing The Line: From Still To Video, which includes these four main guidelines:

"Some moments should be captured in photographs only. With those, be true to your photography and don’t worry about video."

"Remain as true to your photography while capturing video imagery. Make good “pictures” in your video".

"Some moments and events clearly call for video. But it isn’t possible to be everywhere and to get everything, so don’t try".

"When shooting stills and video, anticipate moments carefully. If they’re not there or time doesn’t permit, then make sure to be complete in shooting only one or both will suffer."

A worthwhile read to photographers and photojournalists facing this transition.

Michael Nye: About Hunger

Photo © Michael Nye-All Rights Reserved
I've briefly touched upon the issue of hunger in a POV a few days ago, and coincidentally found Michael Nye's compassionate work at the same time.

Michael Nye’s exhibition About Hunger & Resilience, consists of fifty portraits and accompanying audio stories of individuals who experienced hunger in the United States.

Michael Nye has been listening, photographing and recording hunger for the past 4.5 years. He lives in downtown San Antonio, and practiced law for 10 years before pursuing photography full time. He's the recipient of a Mid-America National Endowment for the Arts grant in photography, and a Kronkosky Foundation grant. He also participated in two Arts America tours in the Middle East and Asia, and has exhibited and lectured widely in museums and universities, including Morocco, India and Mexico.

"About Hunger & Resilience" opened at the Witte Museum,San Antonio, Texas in January of 2010 and is currently traveling around the United States.

Aaron Vincent Elkaim: Jewish Morocco

Photo © Aaron Vincent Elkaim-All Rights Reserved
On the occasion of Passover, I thought of posting an interesting visual-historical-religious photo essay relating to the long Judeo-Muslim history of Morocco by Aaron Vincent Elkaim.

Jewish history in Morocco dates back to over 2000 years, and Jews have lived in the country as a protected minority. Prior to the arrival of the French in 1912, the currency and flag of Morocco carried the star of David, a recognition that it represented a prophet revered by Jew and Muslim (as Dawood) alike. During the Second World War, the king of Morocco famously declared to the Nazis (who wanted a list of Jews) that there were no Jews in Morocco, only Moroccan citizens.

Following the establishment of Israel, most of the Moroccan Jews have left their country of birth for the USA, France, Canada and Israel itself.

Aaron is an emerging documentary photography who initially studied Film and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Manitoba. His work was awarded on numerous occasions and published in newspapers and magazines across Canada.

His photographs in the mellahs of Marrakesh and Essaouira remind me of my own at the synagogues in these two cities last summer, during the Essaouira Gnawa festival.

Paulette Waltz: Tibetans In Exile

Photo © Paulette Waltz-All Rights Reserved
Here's an audio slideshow of black & white photographs of the Tibetan community in Manali by Paulette Waltz.

There are 3 Tibetan monasteries in Manali; two of which are located in the main downtown area of Manali, while the third monastery is on the opposite bank of the Beas river. In common with other Tibetan communities, there are a number of handicraft stores and restaurants. The two I frequented -while teaching at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop- was Chopsticks (not much imagination in the name, but decent and cheap food) and the delightful Peace Cafe which served a wonderful granola and yogurt breakfast, as well as noodle soup and other staples.

Paulette Waltz lives and works in Tokyo, but was born and raised near Washington, DC. She pursued Psychology at Emory University, studying in Europe and Africa. Post-graduation, she traveled Asia and lived in northeast China as well as Japan. She developed her interest in photography in Namibia, where coming across photogenic Himba women.

Jan Sochor: Nukak-Maku

Photo © Jan Sochor-All Rights Reserved
Jan Sochor has documented the Nukak Maku people, a nomadic indian tribe from the Amazon, who were driven out of the jungle by the Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary squads. More than half of the Nukak population have died of western diseases like flu. In refugee camps, the Nukak are taught from (mainly Christian) aid workers concepts and habits that were never part of their tradition.

Jan is a freelance photographer, working between South America and Europe. He lived and worked in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain and the Czech Republic during the past five years. His photographs and stories have appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers and websites, including Sunday Times, National Geographic, Reuters, Burn magazine, Foto8, 100Eyes, UNESCO, Boston Review, PDN online,and others.

I've always considered proselytizing by any religious group to be an abhorrent practice...hand in hand with racism and bigotry.

Found via The Click

Best Of Photojournalism: Dhiraj Singh

It gives me singular pleasure to learn that Dhiraj Singh was awarded Honorable Mention (Feature Audio Slideshow) in the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism 2010 for his My Name Is Dechen.

Dhiraj attended my MultiMedia class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali last summer, and not only received a standing ovation on showing his audio slideshow (Soundslides), but was also awarded Top Award For Photography by the workshop's instructors.

A well-deserved honor to this immensely talented photographer and photojournalist...and he's a very nice guy as well.

I don't think Dhiraj will mind me plugging the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in this post...so if you are still on the fence about your participation in the Istanbul workshop, you may want to take into account that if you do attend it, you may produce a similarly powerful project or photo essay that could earn you prestigious awards!

The Foundry offers the best instructors there is...real working professionals who will show you the ropes, and either change or reinforce your mindset. All you have to do is to leave your ego at the door...that's all.

Ashley Gilbertson: Bedrooms of the Fallen

The New York Times Sunday Magazine has featured The Shrine Down The Hall: Bedrooms of America's Young War Dead, a powerful photo essay in slideshow format by photographer Ashey Gilbertson (VII Network), which looks at some of the empty bedrooms of the over 5000 U.S. military personnel killed in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dexter Filkins starts his accompanying article with the words "Just kids". The ages of these military fallen range from 19 to 25...indeed, just kids.

George McGovern in 1969 speaking about Vietnam said:

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in".

Now of course, it's also women who die in combat, as indeed Karina Lau did. Her bedroom still has a stuffed teddy bear and floppy-eared rabbit on top of her floral bedspread. She was killed seven years ago when insurgents shot down her helicopter in Falluja, Iraq. She was 20 years old.

In my view, this slideshow should be mandatory viewing by every politician who supported our senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I just read that George W. Bush is visiting Haiti. How about visiting these bedrooms first?

Peter Turnley Does Rio's Carnaval

Photo © Peter Turnley -All Rights Reserved

..."I became aware of the value of turning my attention away from the main event. So often, the temptation is to look where everyone else is looking. But, time after time, I have chosen to observe what’s going on by looking in the other direction—before, or after, or at the edges of the main attraction." - Peter Turnley

And that he did. Turnley's just featured On the Fringe of the Rio Carnaval photo essay on The Online Photographer is unusual because it doesn't concentrate on the scantily-clad gorgeous women of the Rio's Carnaval as many other photojournalists do, but it rather takes us away from the glitz of the main event to the less glamorous side show...to the fringe as he calls it.

The photographs represent moments that occurred away from the main event. It is this amazing spirit which, in Turnley's mind, exemplifies the Carnaval, and inspires him to return to Brazil year after year.

The complete photo essay is on The Online Photographer.

Chico Sanchez: The Way North

Photo © Chico Sanchez -All Rights Reserved
One of the most recent slideshows by Chico Sanchez is The Way North, which documents the plight of the hundreds of people from South and Central America as well as Mexico's poorest regions who pass through La Lecheria, a small factory town just outside Mexico City, on their way to the borders of the United States.

Chico Sanchez is a freelance photographer based in Mexico City. Chico worked in Venezuela, collaborating with Reuters, European Pressphoto Agency, Agencia EFE, and freelances for various newspapers and magazines.

Many of Chico Sanchez's documentary/travel photography slideshows have been featured on The Travel Photographer blog and can be found here.

A number of photographers, some of whom attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City in 2008, have documented La Lecheria. In fact, a project produced by one of the participants in my Multimedia class was on the same subject.

You can see my own slideshow Los Migrantes about the migrants who pass through La Lecheria.

Tiana Markova-Gold: Haiti

Photo © Tiana Markova-Gold -All Rights Reserved
Here's another post on Haiti.

Tiana Markova-Gold is a documentary photographer based in Brooklyn, and graduated from the full-time Photojournalism Program at the ICP, where she was the recipient of a New York Times Scholarship. She traveled extensively in Latin America, Asia and Africa working on social documentary projects.

Her work was recognized by New York Photo Awards, PDN Photo Annual, American Photography and International Photography Awards. She also traveled throughout nine Asian countries on a photography fellowship from Johnson & Johnson, documenting various social issues.

Here, I feature Tiana's work on Haiti which depicts scenes from Souvenance and Saut d'Eau. In Souvenance, Holy Week is marked by colorful parades and traditional music played on bamboo trumpets, maracas, drums, and even coffee cans. Voodoo believers make this annual pilgrimage to Souvenance, carrying offerings to the spirits.

Saut-d'Eau is the home of Haiti's most celebrated patron saint, Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Vierge Miracle) whose anniversary is celebrated on July 16th. Saut-d'Eau is said to be the most important pilgrimage site in Haiti, with thousands of pilgrims participating in the festivities. Its waterfall is said to have healing powers, and song and music are part of the bathing ritual where pilgrims wash themselves covering their bodies with aromatic basil, dandelions, and perfumed soaps.

Foreign Policy Magazine: Photo Essays

Photo © Antonin Kratochvil/VII -All Rights Reserved
I didn't realize that the website of the venerable Foreign Policy Magazine was following in the footsteps of other media by featuring large sized photographs. These photo essays generally follow FP's international focus, such as The Shooting War, an exclusive collection of work by well-known conflict photographers who explain how they captured the photographs.

While I'm getting tired of repetitive and predictable war photographs, whether from Iraq or Afghanistan, I thought this collection did a good job in featuring a handful of photographers who've been published in various publications over the past few years. The captions add some meat to the bones...inasmuch as they give some insight into what was in the photographer's mind at the time.

The Shooting War

Agnes Dherbeys: Street With No Name

Agnes Dherbeys is a freelance photographer based in Bangkok since 2001. She decided to take up photography as a career after graduating from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and Sciences of Communication at the Sorbonne.

Since then, she mostly worked in Thailand, Cambodia, East Timor, Aceh), Nepal and the Palestinian Territories. She was recognized with numerous awards, and is member of the photo collective Eve Photographers

Her galleries generally depict social and humanitarian issues in South East Asia, such as Tibetans in exile (Nepal), 5 years after the tsunami (Aceh), the temple of doom (Thailand), and I chose her work in Cambodia titled The Street With No Name. This is a photo essay on the Karaoke girls in Siem Reap, and was photographed when Agnes attended Gary Knight's workshop in July 2009.

Ed Ou: Journey To The Promised Land

Ed Ou is a Canadian-Taiwanese photojournalist living and working in the Middle East, who covered his first big story during the Israel – Hezbollah conflict from southern Lebanon in 2006, when he was studying Arabic and International Relations in the Middle East.

Since then, he has worked with Reuters and the Associated Press covering diverse stories such as the ongoing conflict in Somalia, child soldiers in Uganda, California wildfires, faith and conflict in the Holy Land, and even fashion in New York City. He is also a featured contributor to Reportage by Getty Images.

Ed was selected by Photo District News as one of the 30 Emerging Photographers of 2008. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, Guardian UK, and many other publications. He speaks English, French, Chinese, and Arabic.

I chose to feature Ed's portfolio titled Journey To The Promised Land, in which he documents some of the Falash Mura, and the surrounding controversy in allowing 40,000 Ethiopian Christians, with claims to Jewish ancestry, to immigrate to Israel.

Rajibul Islam: The Rohingya

Photo © Sheikh Rajibul Islam-All Rights Reserved
The Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group of the Northern Arakan State of Western Burma, are denied citizenship and suffer persecution and discrimination in Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands have fled to Bangladesh. An estimated 25,000 unregistered Rohingya refugees are living in the Kutupalong makeshift camp in Bangladesh, and are being forcibly displaced from their homes, in an act of intimidation and abuse by the local authorities. Few have been granted refugee status. The majority struggle to survive, unrecognized and unassisted in Bangladesh.

Precious little on Sheikh Rajibul Islam's background is available on the internet, although he is listed on Lightstalkers as a Bangladeshi documentary photographer and film maker. Rajibul has also worked with Benjamin Chesterton of duckrabbit in Dhaka, where they have been working on a documentary about the effects of climate change on Bangladesh.

In my view, Rajibul and his powerful work belong to what I call the Bangladeshi "school" of photography...the dark and brooding style, which showcases social issues which need to be addressed. He's in good company: G.M.B. Akash, Sumit Dayal, Munem Wasif, Andrew Biraj, Tanvir Ahmed, Abir Abdullah, Monirul Alam, Shehzad Noorani, Saiful Huq Omi, Khaled Hasan, Murtada Bulbul, Mohammad Kibria Palash and Azizur Rahim Peu...and so many other talented photographers.

The Rohingya photo essay is showcased by the excellent Social Documentary. Social Documentary is a website for photographers, NGOs, editors, journalists, lovers of photography and anyone else who believes that photography plays an important role in educating people about our world.

Thanks to Benjamin Chesterton of the incomparable duckrabbit for bringing Rajibul Islam to our attention.

Peter Turnley: Haiti

Photo © Peter Turnley-All Rights Reserved
Much as been said and written about the horrific earthquake which befell Haiti and its aftermath, ranging from the compassionate to the cynical, with disparate opinions as to whether Zoriah Miller and Andy Levin are right to conduct photo workshops on the island at this time or not, including thoughtful entreaties from photojournalists like Asim Rafiqui not to consider Haiti a zoo.

Ignoring this debate for the time being, I choose to showcase Peter Turnley's powerful 50 picture photo essay on Haiti which was made three weeks after the event, when the Haitian people are restarting their lives as best they can.

Haiti: Between Life & Death is exclusively shown on The Online Photographer.

Quinn Ryan Mattingly: Puja

Puja from Quinn Ryan Mattingly on Vimeo.

Quinn attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Manali last summer, and photographed (and videographed) one of the rituals occuring right at the heart of this northern Indian town. Rajasthani families descend on Manali during the summer season looking for work and to escape the torrid heat of their state. Naturally, they bring their own rituals, which include daily prayers when some the devotees enter into trances, transported by the music and the chants. His multimedia essay merges stills and video, and brings you to the scene extremely well. I have seen the ritual first hand, and I must say that it's almost as if I was there again.

Quinn Ryan Mattingly is a documentary photographer currently based in Saigon, and most of his work aims at giving voices to those who are unable to be heard, and is working with former and current street children in Saigon.

Some of his other documentary stories are from Vietnam, and Nepal (as well as a book on Blurb). His photography essays can be seen here, and he also has a blog that chronicles some of his photography as well.

Kevin German: Mount Everest

Not many people have their 30th birthday at a base camp of Mount Everest, but Kevin German is one of them, and Luceo Images showcases his photo essay here.

Kevin German studied photography and journalism at Washington State University, and worked for newspapers from California to Florida. In 2008, he moved to Vietnam to focus on humanitarian documentaries, where co-founded the collective Luceo Images. He has won numerous awards, and his clients include Bloomberg News, CNN Traveller, Forbes, International Trucking, Monocle Magazine, National Geographic, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal Asia, Time, Vanity Fair, and others.

His photo essays on Vietnam such as In The Footsteps of Ghosts and Forgotten are particularly compelling. Also have a look at the short video Voice of Hope about the undocumented Vietnamese living in Cambodia.

Massimo Berutti: Afghan Vaccination

Photo © Massimo Berutti-All Rights Reserved
The Wall Street Photo Journal has featured a photojournalistic gem on its Photo Journal titled Vaccination Diplomacy of black & white photographs by Massimo Berutti.

In my view, it's a singular gem because it's not an Afghanistan reportage of foaming-at-the-mouth wild-eyed hirsute mujahideen aka jihadists aka Taliban (or whatever the mainstream media's stereotype flavor of the day is), isn't about a bloody military offensive or counter-offensive, and isn't about showing dead and maimed people we don't identify with and frequently demonize. No, it's about how the Taliban, Karzai's central government (corrupt as it it may be), Unicef and the World Health Organization are partnering in trying to eradicate polio through a wide ranging campaign.

This uneasy arrangement recognizes the Taliban stranglehold over large areas of Afghanistan, and the anti-polio campaigners are only welcomed in the villages if and when they show a letter signed by Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban, which requests the people to cooperate. It seems that Mullah Omar promptly issues a new letter for every vaccination round, and the World Health Organization staff print thousands of copies, distributing them to the anti-polio volunteers.

So the power of reason and dialogue works, and the trite cliche of winning hearts and minds is effective after all!