Shooting From The Hip On LK Road

Photo Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved Whilst teaching at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop the past week or so, I've also managed to set aside some time to fit some of my favorite style of photography, and shooting from the hip with the Fuji X Pro-1 has been high on my list to do, especially at night. Here's LK Road, a collection of street photography scenes made in one of the grittiest mainstream streets in Chiang Mai; Loi Kroh Road. The photographs are grouped under the title page of Katoey Or Not?, but I chose not to title this post with that particular name to avoid having visitors being referred to it by search engines for purposes...

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Maika Elan: Ain't Talkin', Just Lovin'

Photo  Maika Elan-All Rights Reserved Here's the work of Maika Elan titled Ain't Talkin', Just Lovin', which -in my view- is one of the three photo projects that attracted me the most during the final evening of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Chiang Mai. Maika attended Maggie Steber's (known as "the incomparable Maggie") class The Power of Images in Todays Media, and presented a photo essay depicting individuals living in Chiang Mai with close bonds to their animal friends. Whether these were cats and dogs, or exotic snakes, the mutual relationship and dependency between the two were brilliantly captured by Maika's lens. While...

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Ulises Baque: Oui Nan, 93 Years Riding

As per my latest blog post, the presentation evening ending the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop showcased all of the students' work, and I highlighted three projects which I thought were the best. Two of the three were multimedia, and here's one of these. Extremely well made and edited, this short multimedia piece elicited much praise from the audience.The project was made and edited by Ulises Baque, a videographer based in Thailand. It was made for Henrik Kastenskov's multimedia class, and is about the oldest samlaw cyclist in Chiang Mai.I intend to write a bit further about this, but the dichotomy of the multimedia and the non-multimedia projects during the Foundry's evening presentation could not have been more stark. Although some of the non-multimedia were interesting and compelling,...

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POV: The 5th Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Photo  Mervyn Leong-All Rights Reserved During the long flight from Bangkok to London, I thought I'd write up a personal POV on the Fifth Annual Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) which was held in Chiang Mai from July 29 to August 4, 2012. This will be the closing post on the Workshop. As my readers know,  FPW is an annual photo event held in various international locations, bringing well regarded photojournalists together to teach to emerging photographers and students who normally would not be able to afford workshops. Firstly, as I always do, I tip my hat to Eric Beecroft, the...

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Presentation Night: Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Well, the Saturday evening presentations of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop were held at the Chiang Mai University, and I can confirm that the evening was a total success.My Multimedia For Photographers class presentations started with Near Sky, a monochromatic photo essay documenting the production of the Chaw Fah (symbols atop the spires of temples) by Alycia Down,  followed by Close Encounters of the Foundry Kind by Amean J...consisting of clips of Foundry students expressing their expectations from the Workshop, then followed by Loun Steve, a personal insight into the life of an American expatriate living in Chiang Mai, afflicted...

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Almost Finished....Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

Photo Ahmed Shajee Aijazi Well, the week passed by like a flash! The hard work during my Multimedia For Photographers class (yesterday -Friday-, my students and I spent around 12 hours non-stop in class putting the finishing touches to the multimedia projects) paid off, and the projects are very well done, imaginative and personal. Tonight is the night when all the students attending the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop will be presenting their individual work...and I bet some haggard-looking people will be walking around like zombies by the end of the day. Despite spending long hours in class, I find that reviewing portfolios...

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POV: Finally! A Minimalist Gear....

I'll be in Chiang Mai in a few days for the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop which formally starts in a week from today. I wasn't keen to haul my usual gear with me, especially with my stops in London and Bangkok, so I have just what you see in the picture.Depending on whether I have the time or not, I intend to shoot a couple of personal projects in Chiang Mai so I chose to take a Leica M9 with an Elmarit f2.4 28mm and a Voigtlander f1.4 40mm, a Fujifilm X Pro-1 with a Fujinon 18mm and the Tascam DR-40 to record audio. All of this fit in my small Domke F-3X (with room to spare); a small and tough shoulder bag I've been using almost incessantly...

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Multimedia For Photographers: Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

I am soon to travel to Chiang Mai for the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop which is to be held from July 29 to August 4, 2012 and where I am to teach photojournalists how to produce audio slideshows that rival in quality and content more elaborate multimedia productions, using their own images and audio generated in the field, and to produce cogent photo stories under the simulation of publishing deadlines.In reality, it's a little more than that, since through class discussions, I also share my views on typography, aesthetics, titling, marketing, blogging, web design and branding...with a little business savvy thrown into the mix. This my fifth...

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Fuji X Pro-1: LGTB Hip Hop

Photo  Tewfic El-Sawy- All Rights Reserved I am so taken by the capabilities of the Fuji X Pro-1 that I created a new 'page' on my street photography website The Leica File (And X Pro-1) for my most recent project involving the LGTB Hip Hop gathering during the Gay Pride of 2012 in New York City. Most of the images I've chosen were made by shooting from the hip, and by pre-visualizing the composition in my mind's eye...not quite a Hail Mary per se, but a sort of "eyeless" photography as I call it in my Is Shooting From The Hip...Photography? post of over a year ago. I'm quite impressed by the quality...

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Travelling Lens Workshop To Ladakh...

What would you get if you mixed a troika of world-class women photographers with the visionary founder of a photojournalism workshop with an expert on Ladakh...and asked them to lead a 15 days photography workshop in a remote corner of the Indian Himalayas?You'd get the Travelling Lens Master Class...that's what!The Masterclass Workshop is led by Eric Beecroft (the founder of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop) and by Varun Gupta, a photographer with first hand knowledge of Ladkah and an alum of the Foundry), with the  extraordinary talents of Andrea Bruce, Maggie Steber, and Ami Vitale as workshop instructors (they are also instructors...

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POV: My Take On The World Press Photo Of 2012

Photo  Samuel Aranda-Courtesy World Press Photo Well, the results were in from the World Press Photo 2012 contest, and it was Samuel Aranda who won the coveted title of World Press Photo of the Year 2012 award with his photograph of a veiled woman holding a wounded relative inside a mosque used as a field hospital by demonstrators against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, during clashes in Sanaa, Yemen. Much has been said and written about whether this photograph deserved the award or didn't, and various opinions from respected photographers, editors and the like, literally flooded newspapers, websites...

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Asia Society: Princes And Painters In Muhgal India

The Asia Society Museum in New York City is to show Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857, an exhibition showcasing Delhi's rich rich history of art, artists and patrons who flourished during this critical period. The exhibition will focus on the reigns of the last four Mughal emperors  Muhammad Shah, Shah Alam II, Akbar Shah II and Bahadur Shah II Zafar. The latter emperor is the subject of William Dalrymple "The Last Mughal"...a captivating biography of Bahadur Shah Zafar, a descendant of both Genghis Khan and Timur the Great, and of the city of Delhi around the time of the Sepoy Rebellion. The Sepoy Rebellion was eventually...

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POV: 5th Anniversary...Yes, 5th!!!

I always write a post at this time of year to observe the annual anniversary/birthday of The Travel Photographer's blog. I've started the blog five years ago (in London actually, and probably only because I was stuck at home as it was raining) and since then, it attracted an astonishing number of readers and visitors. On the poster above, I haven't added my 5400 followers on Lightbox, an Android app (and soon to be on iPhone too as well). Over two million unique visitors! Two million!!!It established itself as a blog to read amongst a certain segment of the photography industry, and earned me the attention of many photographers (pros, semi-pros...

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The Hajj via PlanetPic

Photo  Fayez Nureldine - AFP/Getty Images PlanetPic, the photography blog of Global Post, is the first of the main photo blogs to feature over two dozen photographs of the Hajj...and it appears it'll be updated as the religious pilgrimage progresses. The Hajj (Arabic for pilgrimage) to Mecca, Saudi Arabia is the largest pilgrimage in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. More than 2.5 million Muslims are expected to perform the Hajj; a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim...

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Human Currents At The Rubin Museum

Photo Courtesy The Rubin Museum of Art The Rubin Museum of Art is featuring an exhibition of images of the 2001 Maha Kumbh Mela by Swiss photographer Hannes Schmid. The exhibit appears (according to the pictures, as I have yet to drop by the RMA) to be extraordinarily well installed.  It's also an unusual set of photographs, as they're all closeups of crowds or groups of pilgrims...instead of the more exotic Nagas, sadhus, charlatans and mendicants that I vividly recall populated the Maha Kumbh Mela. I'm not sure what the intention of showing snapshots of crowds is, but it got Schmid an exhibit at...

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Delhi Photo Festival: October 15-28, 2011

As I mentioned in earlier posts, Delhi Photo Festival is progressing steadily, and now includes an  array of workshops, lectures, portfolio reviews, gallery walks and seminars.I am very pleased to be participating in the festival, where I will teach a short multimedia module on October 15 aimed at photographers and photojournalists to produce audio-slideshows that rivals in quality and content then the more elaborate multimedia productions. On the morning of the same day, I will be reviewing portfolios of non-working photographers at the same venue, the Habitat Learning Centre.The above image is the official poster for the 'Delhi Photo...

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John Kenny: Kenyan Portraits

Photo  John Kenny-All Rights Reserved The Guardian newspaper in London alerted me of an exhibition opening next week of John Kenny's new portraits from Kenya. John Kenny started a journey in 2006 that took him though many of Sub-Saharan Africas remotest communities. He spent hours walking, hitch-hiking and driving across African countries making photographs of people, ancient cultures and traditions. The Guardian and the exhibition venue (3 Bedfordbury Gallery) has a selected number of these portraits, but the collection can be best seen on John Kenny's website. He tells us that the images were taken during his second trip to the...

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Reminders Project Asian Photographers Grant

The five finalists of the inaugural Reminders Project Asian Photographers Grant were announced on September 12th. These accomplished photographers were selected by a jury panel from submissions received from all over Asia, and will have their work showcased at this years 7th Angkor Photo Festival, which is held from November 19 to 26, 2011, in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The winner of the grant will be announced during the festival, and will receive financial support of US$3,000 for his/her winning project. The project will also be shown next year at the 8th Angkor Photo Festival. 2011 FINALISTS AGNES DHERBEYS South Korea / France ANDRI TAMBUNAN Indonesia GMB...

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September 11, 2001: The Fringe

All Photos  2011 Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved For those who have no press passes, access to Ground Zero was prohibited yesterday. Nonetheless, the areas around it did provide opportunities for good street photography.  Naturally, any event of such a magnitude brings along the fringe...the conspiracy theorists,  the government haters, the religious minded...and the Obama supporter...

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Stephane Sednaoui: September 11, 2001

Photo  Stephane Sednaoui-All Rights Reserved Out of the many images of the aftermath of September 11, 2001 that were published in the past few weeks, I thought the most compelling were by Stephane Sednaoui featured by TIME's LightBox, which is one of the best photo blogs.. Perhaps it's because I hadn't heard of him nor seen these images before,  and were in many ways different from those I had seen before. Stephane Sednaoui is a photographer and a movie director, and has also worked as a documentary photographer covering the Romanian Revolution of 1989. He has photographed many music album covers, and directed more than...

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