The Travel Photographer Is On Cowbird!

I've just uploaded my first Cowbird story titled The Sufi Itinerant of Qutb Uddin.

While working on the photograph of Miskine, the Sufi in my post of yesterday, I realized I had a recording of him briefly telling me his life story. Coincidentally, I was invited to join Cowbird, which describes itself as "...a small community of storytellers, focused on a deeper, longer-lasting, more personal kind of storytelling than youre likely to find anywhere else on the Web."

Cowbird seeks to feature incredible stories by some of the world's finest storytellers, and present them in the most beautiful storytelling environment on the Web. Its community consists of journalists, photographers, writers, artists, filmmakers, designers, explorers, and many others.

"incredible stories by some of the world's finest storytellers"

It allows members of its community to produce multimedia stories, incorporating text, photos, sound, subtitles, roles, relationships, maps, tags, timelines, dedications, and characters, thus mixing elements of traditional storytelling with elements of technology.

I'm excited to have joined Cowbird, and will upload new single image stories as time permits. I've seen that Aaron Huey, a fantastic photographer has also joined Cowbird, and already has a number of stories on it. This one of Zahoor is especially wonderful!

Readers of this blog who feel, as I do, that this is an exciting venue to display their storytelling talents, request an invite from Cowbird...as I did.

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Raw File: Wired: Assignments

RAW FILE, Wired magazine's blog, has started a new series of posts called Assignment Wired, where the magazine will hand out photo assignments to its readers, and then eventually choose some submissions to publish and critique. I thought it was a brilliant idea, and said so in an earlier post....ignoring the naysayers and the skeptics who commented on RAW FILE.

Its first assignment was The Corner-Store...the goal was to document the place where you buy your Gatorade and clove cigarettes and introduce us to the people who work and hang there. And the first round of submissions for that project have be in, and a few were selected to be shown on RAW FILE, and critiqued.

The three essays chosen to be shown in their entirety are far from being professional, but they clearly show an intent to learn and grow....and for that, they are to be commended. The critiques are light-weight, and are just cursory observations...and should've been deeper, giving tips on storytelling and sequencing as an example.

The next assignment is The Family, which requires participants to profile a family member by following them around on their daily routine, and dig into their history to report the most interesting and relevant info from their background.

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Once Magazine: Photojournalism For The Mobile Age?

As I'll be on my way to Buenos Aires this evening for the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, I thought of posting this potential photojournalism opportunity about Once Magazine.

Once Magazine claims that it will publish three stories of about twenty-five full-screen photographs with captions, an introductory text essay, and interactive features. The magazine will allow photographers to tell their stories by using the iPad as one of the mobile platforms.

The magazine will split all subscription revenue directly with photographers, and its stories will be chosen for their "narrative appeal, journalistic insight, and photographic quality."

For further information and to submit stories and projects, take a look at the magazine's About page.

I wish Once Magazine's team success. I can't foretell its future but I'm sure many photographers/photojournalists ought to be rooting for it to succeed.

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Erica McDonald: DEVELOPphoto

Erica McDonald is an institution. Yes, you read that correctly. She's an institution for a number of reasons; primarily because she's a damn good photographer/photojournalist, and also because she recently and single handedly initiated DEVELOP Tube, an educational resource on photojournalism.

If you need proof of her photographic talents, just drop by her website, and take a good look at her New York City Portraits, amongst her many galleries. You'll immediately agree with me.

And when you finish doing that...drop by DEVELOP Tube on YouTube and on VIMEO.

DEVELOP Tube features interviews, profiles, lectures, films about photojournalism, fine art, documentary photography, photographers, including multimedia productions which effectively incorporate the still photograph, and slideshows created to showcase powerful photographs, especially those concerning humanitarian issues: human rights, environmental sustainability and global health.

It's a veritable compendium of photography, and Erica must be commended for making all this trove easily available to the public. Bookmark it or follow it on Twitter @DEVELOPphoto

Erica has chosen two of my audio slideshows to add to DEVELOPphoto. White Shadows and Cham.

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POV: Photo Assignment RAW FILE

Photo  Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Through Twitter, I've noticed a post by RAW FILE, Wired magazine's blog, which is starting a new series of posts called Assignment Wired, where the magazine will hand out photo assignments to its readers, and then eventually choose some submissions to publish and critique.

WIRED's expertise and interest is in reportage and photojournalism, and it expects its participating readers to get quotes, do some writing, do some research and take emotive photos.

"We want gritty, real and human stories. We want to throw you into new situations and give you a chance to sink or swim."

It actually just launched its first assignment, and it's to feature the corner store where the participating photographer buys his/her daily Coke, milk, doughnuts...whatever. It wants the story of this local corner store through photos and reporting. The assignment "sheet" lists the skills required for such a project, and there's a deadline of July 7th.

I think the experiment (as they call it) is a damn good idea! It will provide an impetus to budding photojournalists (and others) to go out there and actually work on a local project. As it says, it's hardly sexy or glamorous, but it's an interesting project that will teach basic photojournalism skills to those interested. I only wish they included audio recordings, and even expand it to short audio-slideshows...but perhaps that will come in time.

As always, comments from naysayers, cynics and skeptics have come in fast and furious....some accusing WIRED magazine of using this experiment to get work for free. To those, I say you don't have to participate...or participate and don't send in your material. Just take the time to learn something new...or refresh your skills, and if you do a good job, you might get a critique from the magazine. It will surely be worth it.

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Reuters Does Big: Full Focus

Photo  REUTERS/Carlos Barria -All Rights Reserved
Reuters has joined the other news media in featuring large photographs on a blog.

Full Focus, a large format showcase of Reuters award-winning photography, tells global stories. The agency seeks to use this imagery to foster a deeper understanding of current events and social issues, and Full Focus provides an opportunity for its readers/viewers to offer perspectives on the photographs and the topics they address.

The lovely photograph by Carlos Barria and is part of the Haiti Revisited photo essay, and is of expecting women waiting for tent distribution near the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince on February 19, 2010 during the aftermath of the earthquake.

I ought to add separate links (to the right of this page) for all the large-sized photo blogs of major news media...Boston Globe's The Big Picture, Sacbee's The Frame, WSJ Photo Journal, The LA Time's Framework, etc.

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Udaan School of Photography

Dhiraj Singh and Arko Datta have just announced the launching of Udaan, an independent photography school in Mumbai.

Udaan's students will be tutored by leading working professionals such as Singh, Datta, Ritam Banerjee and Yogesh Bhandary. The courses in Udaan have been designed to meet the needs of photography-enthusiasts at different levels of learning and expertise. The school will cater to both photojournalists and commercial photographers, and will encourage and cultivate individualistic thinking and a creative vision.

Award winning independent photographer Dhiraj Singh has focused on human stories evolving in India and regularly works for Polaris and his photographs have been published in various international publications.

Pulitzer award nominee and winner of the 'Picture of the Year' at the World Press Photo 2004, Arko Datta has extensively covered news and sports across the world for the last two decades, which includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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A Wonderful Concept: PhotoPhilanthropy

PhotoPhilanthropy's stated mission is to promote, support and connect photographers to non-profit organizations around the world. It has created a community for photographers, photo enthusiasts and non-profit organizations to network, to tell their stories, show their work, exchange ideas, find opportunities and financial support for their efforts.

It also encourages student, amateur and professional photographers to publish photo essays designed to educate and engage people in a wide variety of social campaigns.

Interestingly, it has also created The PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Award; an annual endorsement of excellence for professional, amateurs, and student photographers.

For the award, it received 219 essays from 187 photographers residing in over 30 different countries. Of these entries, 150 were from professionals, 49 from amateurs and 20 from students.

The 2009 Grand Prize winner was photographer Zoriah Miller on behalf of the International Rescue Committee.

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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 to introduce new talent into the limelight.

A newly formed web magazine The Black Snapper has joined in this commendable task on August 1st 2009. The Black Snapper daily presents a photographer selected by one of its guest curators, and the expectation is to present a new series of 8-20 photos each day.

According to its About blurb:

The Black Snapper aims to create an online community that will inspire professionals and photography lovers worldwide and expose new talent. In addition, the online magazine emphatically supports the emancipation and promotion of photographers from Asia, Africa and South America.

Coincidentally with the latest features on both 100Eyes and Verve, The Black Snapper has been showcasing the work of Bangladeshi photographers for 6 days already. Today's feature is called The Pavement Dwellers Amrao Manush; a Bangla phrase that means We are humans too. The featured photo essay is by Shehab Uddin.

I will add The Black Snapper to TTP's blogroll. I imagine you'll bookmark it as well.

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GAIA Photos

Gaia Photos is a platform and an opportunity for photographers to showcase their work to a broad audience, and it seeks to be a place to explore and discover the issues facing the diverse population and locations of the world. It also seeks to be where professional photo buyers will find international, in-depth, quality reporting from a vast pool of professional photojournalists who can also be contacted directly for commissioned work.

One of its declared objectives is to promote quality and diversity in documentary photography, especially in a time of dwindling editorial budgets.

Some of the photographers working with Gaia are Lisa Hogben, GMB Akash, M. Scott Brauer, Brent Foster, Alex Espinosa, Alex Masi and many others. Unfortunately, I haven't seen Middle Eastern (Arab) or African photographers on the list, and hope that this anomaly will be soon redressed.

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Justin Jin: 100Eyes Magazine

Justin Jin worked for more than than a decade as an independent photojournalist with leading magazines and newspapers, specializing in documenting people in hidden, harsh and sensitive situations, such as authoritarianism in Russia, exploitation in China or illegal immigration in Europe.

Based for the last four years in Moscow, Justin is doing reportage and
corporate assignments in Russia, China and beyond. While some of his projects are commissioned, others are self-initiated.

The beautifully produced 100Eyes Magazine features Justin Jin's edgy photo essay Made In China-Blues After Midnight which documents how workers in Chinese factories toil through the night scrubbing, spraying and tearing trousers to create the rugged look of blue jeans so favored by consumers all over the world.

Justin Jin's website is here.

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Robin Hammond: Street Children of Delhi

Here's Namaste Delhi, a photo essay on the street children of Delhi, India's capital city, by Robin Hammond, who presents his work in a flip book format. He has also written an essay on these children, so his photographs are arranged in magazine format, which is very attractive.

He tells us that most of the street children in Delhi are originally from Bihar (one of the poorest states in India), and that they're running from poverty, abuse and neglect. One of his photographs is of 12-year old Husina, who makes around 500 rupees a day from selling herself, is haunting. She wears earrings and a ring, probably bought with her earnings, but it's her expression that stays with me...a mask of indifference and resignation to her fate.

Robin Hammond is originally from New Zealand, moved to Britain in 2002, and now lives in London. He currently works for a number of national magazines and newspapers, NGOs and corporate clients. A number of his photo essays on his websites deal with street children, and other social issues such as AIDS and prostitution.

Take the time to explore Robin's other features, where you'll find his work on Addis Sex Workers, Mexico's City Children, and Zimbabwe.

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7dot7 Magazine

Photo  Alfonso Moral-All Rights Reserved
7dot7 is an online photo magazine, and a project of the collective of photographers called RUIDO Photo in Barcelona. Its objective is to become a a repository for an independent, social, critic and committed photojournalism.

One of its interesting features in its initial publication is the work of photographer Alfonso Moral with his photo essay on the heroin addicts in Afghanistan. Alfonso studied journalism in Valladolid, and photography in Barcelona. He har worked in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Palestine and Afghanistan. His photographs has been published in Newsweek, The Sunday Times, El Pas Semanal, Magazine de La Vanguardia and Foto Magazine, among others. He is a member of the collective Pandora Foto.

His Addicts: A Lost Generation In Afghanistan is the third reportage on 7dot7 magazine, and consists of large images (almost as large as my monitor) of heroin addicts in Kabul.

Once again, being an advocate for showing large images on the web, I'm pleased to see such large imagery and appreciate its impact when compared to similar work such as Lynsey Addario's for the New York Times titled Drowning In Opium. Which one give the viewer a better visual experience, and which one stands to affect a photo editor more? I'm not too keen on 7dot7's navigation, and hope it'll be worked on soon.

I don't know what the future of this online publication will be, but any effort to widen the exposure of photojournalists in this era of shrinking budgets, and disappearing newspapers is more than welcome.

Alfonso Moral's website.

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Aurora Novus

Aurora Photos has launched a new company, Aurora Novus, to cater to the needs of clients' demand for video, motion picture and interactive content, and for storytelling.

The new company seeks to offer a "one-stop visual solution" to such clients. It's not a new approach, with Media Storm being a well-known industry leader in this particular field.

Another reason to check out Aurora Novus' website is to watch Ivan Kashinsky's photographs of the lives of Bolivia's women wrestlers. The story is based on the September 2008 National Geographic story.

Here are more of Ivan's photographs of Las Cholitas.

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Burn Magazine

burn was launched as an online magazine/journal on December 21, 2008 by the legendary David Alan Harvey and a team of emerging photographers. Its intent is to provide a platform for such photographers both online and in print.

In my view (and in the view of many), David Alan Harvey is a role model for all established photographers...he gives, he teaches and he mentors...he relates to younger photographers who benefit from his experience, from his expertise and his knowledge. If there's such a thing as a Nobel prize for photography, David Alan Harvey would be on my short list of candidates.

I encourage you to bookmark burn, to visit it often and see some remarkable talented work from emerging photographers, and to join its community and submit your work.

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Lunatic Magazine #3

Here's issue #3 of Lunatic Magazine, a bi-annual online photo magazine which seeks to give photographers the opportunity to promote original stories and images. It also aims to provide space for creative work within photojournalism. The magazine presents new work from known and unknown talented photographers from all around the world. The magazine is very nicely presented, and very well edited by Karl Blanchet and Eric Hilaire.

One of the eye-catching features is Take Me Home by the talented and award winning GMB Akash of Bangladeshi free-riders on the trains that criss-cross this vast and impoverished nation.

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Does Size Matter? Yes It Does.

Photograph Joseph Rodriguez-All Rights Reserved
Realizing that viewers/readers are enamored with large photographs, two national newspapers have recently featured large photographs of current events. The size of these photographs are in the range of 1000 x 650 pixels (which is the favored size for displaying my own images on my web galleries, and certainly for my multimedia slideshows). The response to the Boston Globe's The Big Picture is phenomenal, and if you haven't visited it yet, you should.

Interestingly, the staid Wall Street Journal has followed suit with its equally attractive Photo Journal which features a photo essay on Katrina stories by photographer Joseph Rodriguez.

For anyone interested in photojournalism, these two websites ought to be bookmarked. The Big Picture's photographs from the Olympics are just extraordinary.

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Vewd: A Documentary Photography Mag

According to its website, Vewd is a "documentary photography magazine aiming to continue the tradition of storytelling through a visual medium. We bring these important essays from up and coming, but largely unknown, photographers."

Vewd was started by Matt Blalock, seeking to provide a venue for new photographers to share their documentary essays.

Two of the latest essays caught my eye, and although I encourage you to explore the rest as well, there two are very good. Platform 22 is an essay by Nathan Golden documenting the street children who roam Howrath rail station near Kolkata, and the other is Why Go Home by Morgan Haggar, a photo essay on the ethnic Karen in Burma who are fighting to preserve what is left of their land, and in many cases their lives.

Vewd is interested in publishing documentary photo essays by emerging documentary photographers, and is seeking (largely) unpublished, in-depth story-telling, documentary photography.

Its terms and conditions are on its website, so you can read them before you submit your work. Payment for the submissions is based on the number of views (or hits) a gallery gets, so click away!

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The Travel Photographer on Photoshop TV

I'm thrilled to see that The Travel Photographer blog was featured on PhotoshopUser TV, which is brought by NAPP (the National Association of Photoshop Professionals). Both Matt and Dave are industry icons, and present their weekly informative television episodes to an appreciative public.

My thanks to both Matt and Dave, the hosts of the program.

The episode is PhotoshopUser TV Episode 140 (June 30, 2008)

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VUVOX

I'm always on the lookout for easy and innovative ways to showcase my photography on the web, and recently stumbled on VUVOX.

This is an easy to use production and instant sharing service that allows you to mix, create and blend video, photos and music into a visual display, be it on a website or a blog. Provided you're a Flickr (or other similar photo-sharing sites) user, you can create a simple slideshow in under 5 minutes. The nice thing about VUVOX slideshow is that it allows for full screen view, although one has to use higher resolution photographs so as to have them display properly.

There are some other neat examples of very interesting visual displays on VUVOX's website, including collages made into slideshows.

I've done some ferreting around, and found that VUVOX is used by the multimedia savvy MercuryNewsPhoto.com (San Jose Mercury News Photography Department) for some innovative multimedia presentations.

VUVOX

Mercury News Photo Blog

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