Peter Gasser: African Tribes

Photo ©Peter Gasser-All Rights Reserved
Every now and then, I'm confronted with photographic work of such superlative quality that my jaw literally drops. Peter Gasser's photography is such work.

Peter Gasser is a Swiss photographer, and his biography as penned by Professor Helmut Gernsheim on his website reveals his affinity for precision work. While Professor Gernsheim commends Gasser's landscape work, comparing it to that of Ansel Adams, Brett Weston and Paul Caponigro, it is his ethno-photography that left me speechless.

Peter Gasser has exhibited his work in European and United States galleries, and is the recipient of a number of awards including the official recognition from the Swiss Confederation. His photographs are at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Art institute of Chicago, International Museum of Photography, Rochester; Center for Creative Photography, Arizona and others.

While all of his galleries are collectors' items, it's his images of the African Tribes that I liked the most...even more than his work from Ladakh. The black & white portraits of the Karo and Hamer tribes people of Ethiopia's Omo Valley, of the Himba of Namibia and of the Samburu of Kenya leap out of the pages...as if lifelike.

No question about it in my mind...this is jaw-dropping work.

My thanks to Alia Refaat, a freelance photographer from Egypt, for directing me to Peter Gasser's website.

Simon Norfolk: Future of Photography

My apologies for spoiling your Sunday, but here's a sobering interview by Simon Norfolk on the World Press Photo website.

I would say that two of his predictions for the future are ones that forward-looking photographers have certainly realized for a while, and have acted upon already. There are quite a number of "masterclasses" that have sprung up recently, such as Gary Knight and Philip Blenkinsop Master Classes for instance. I have no idea if these are aimed at "wealthy orthodontists" or not, but that's the general idea.

Simon Norfolk:

"So my predictions for the future? More "name" photographers will be cashing in their reputations to teach "masterclasses" to wealthy orthodontists.

None of us will be saying "no" to wedding photography or lucrative teaching posts which sell to young students the rarely-realized dream that they’ll one day have jobs as photographers."

Some of us will perhaps deem Simon Norfolk's view as being too pessimistic or cynical. I, for one, see it as realistic.

However, let me also point out there are some of us who accept short-term teaching posts for no pay...such as those who have lined up to teach at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop.

Some Canon 5D II's Fail in Antartica: Luminous Landscape

Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape has written a detailed report on his 2-week long photo expedition to Antarctica, and what has worked and hasn't. He writes this about the Canon 5D Mark II cameras used by some of the participants on the expedition:

"The largest group of failures though were among the Canon 5D MKIIs. Of the 26 samples of this camera onboard, one quarter (six) failed at one time or another, and while three recovered, the other three never did. In all cases it appeared to be water or humidity damage. Of particular concern were two cameras which stopped working while completely protected within Kata rain covers during a light rain ashore. They came back to life the following day though and were mostly fine for the rest of the trip, but one died permanently just before the end of our voyage."

For more of the article, go to Luminous Landscape.

Jason Larkin: Cairo's Souq El Gomma

Photo ©Jason Larkin-All Rights Reserved
Jason Larkin is a British photographer currently based in Cairo, and works extensively throughout the Middle East region. Recent commissions include Monocle, FT Magazine, L’Espresso, New York Times, Der Spiegiel, and The Guardian.

Jason chose the unusual subject of Souq El Gomma (Market of the Friday) to feature on his website, which he describes as "an exploration of the myriad people, objects and spaces that make up Cairo’s Souq El-Gomma, the Middle East’s largest informal market gathering."

According to my research, this market is nestled in a dusty patch beneath a flyover in the southern cemeteries of City of the Dead just beyond Cairo's Citadel. It's a repository of both cheap goods, discarded items found by Cairo's trash collectors, "antiques" and stolen goods. The hand gesture by the fellow in Jason's photograph is the typical Egyptian "what do you want? why are you taking my picture?".

All major cities have similar markets and while I haven't been to Souq El Gomma, Jason's photographs remind me of Bangkok's huge Chatuchak Weekend Market.

Chico Sanchez: Island of the Dolls

Photo © Chico Sanchez -All Rights Reserved
Here's an audio slideshow on the SoundSlides' platform by photographer Chico Sanchez with the audio production by Leslie Mazoch titled The Island of the Dolls.

The island of the dolls is in the heart of the Xochimilco's canals, and has an unusual history. It is said that since the early 1950's, Julián Santana Barrera began collecting discarded dolls. He lived on this tiny island amongst the canals of Xochimilco and according to his family, these dolls kept evil spirits away.

The 1990s saw a program to clean up the canals, and Mexican style boats called trajineras vied its canals.

I posted quite a number of Chico's slideshows on this blog. One of the lastest was The Virgin of Guadalupe found here.

Canon 5D Mark II: CPN Video

The Canon Professional Network has put together an informative series of videos on the Canon 5D Mark II. These are presented by CPN's Technical Editor David Newton, who is also a professional photographer and photography tutor for Canon users.

Zackary Canepari: The Raika of India

Photo © Zackary Canepari-All Rights Reserved
Zackary Canepari is an freelance editorial photographer based in New Delhi, India and whose self-description on his website is "I am a photographer". That's the extent of his biography. His photographs have appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, IHT, The San Francisco Chronicle and others.

He recently was awarded first place in the Travel Portraits of PDN's World In Focus (The Ultimate Travel Photography Contest); results which were published in PDN's February 2009 issue.

His winning image was the one above of Raika camel breeders Madharam Raika and Bawerlal Raika in the Kumbhhalgarh sanctuary in Rajasthan waiting for their herd to finish grazing. This image is part of a larger photo essay by this talented (but publicity-shy) photographer, and can be found on his website.

The Raikas are also known as Rabaris and Dewasi, and are migratory herders who keep camels, sheep, and goats. They are the largest pastoral group of Rajasthan and Gujarat.