Thomas Smallwood: Journey to the Himba

Image © Thomas Smallwood-All Rights Reserved
Thomas Smallwood is a creative director for some of the top advertising agencies and major retail chains throughout the country, and attended college at the Fashion Institute (F.I.T.) and the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he majored in advertising, and discovered that he liked taking pictures.

His portfolio comes through Double Exposure the web magazine of Photoworkshop.com, a photography interactive community, founded by Robert Farber.

Thomas Smallwood's sensitive and evocative photographs of the Himba are supplemented by his Namibia travelogue, which he ends by saying :"We reflect on all we have seen, our moments with the proud Himba, and this incredibly colorful country. I also think about all the shots I missed. How soon can I return?."

Thomas Smallwood's gorgeous Journey To The Himba

iPod touch

I splurged recently and got an iPod touch; principally to show off my portfolio to whoever is polite enough to ask to see it. Seriously though, I think it's really a nifty idea to have one's portfolio in one's pocket. As we all know, the iPod touch is lightweight and lends itself superbly in terms of coolness and screen resolution to show off photographs in their best light.

Naturally, it has many other uses as well...and in the range of a Wi-Fi signal, I can also show off my portfolio and websites. I found I had to use the two-fingered scroll to do that...but the iPod touch is really worth it. It's really a 'portfolio-in-your-pocket', and is useful in many field situations for travel photographers.

National Geographic: Annie Griffiths Belt

Image © Annie Griffiths Belt-All Rights Reserved
The National Geographic's website is featuring photographer Annie Griffiths Belt's biography and a short slideshow of her photographs along with her narration. She started her career after graduating in 1976 and began assignment work for the National Geographic Society two years later.

Her work has also appeared in Life, GEO, Smithsonian, Fortune, American Photo, Merian, Stern, and many other publications including dozens of books.

Amongst her many wonderful photographs, I chose this one of Muslim women praying at the mosque of the Dome of the Rock (Mosque of Omar) in Jerusalem. Look for the shadows on the robes of the women in the back!

However further on in the slideshow, at a photograph showing her and Himba tribeswomen in Namibia, Annie Griffiths Belt tells us that she handed them a Polaroid she had made of them. It was received with curiosity, not only because they had never seen a Polaroid image (this I easily believe) before but that they had not seen themselves having never used reflective surfaces! Hard to believe.

Annie Griffiths Belt's A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel

Anamitra Chakladar: Kolkata's Chinatown

Image © Anamitra Chakladar-All Rights Reserved
So far this week, my posts are of photographers using black & white pictures, and this suits Anamitra's work on Kolkata. Born in this city, Anamitra was expected by his parents to be a teacher or an executive, but he chose to be a photographer instead.

He joined an established newspaper as a trainee photographer, then moved on to television joining NDTV, and saw more than his share of world conflicts including the first Gulf War, the ongoing conflict over Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the coups in Nepal and Bangladesh...and getting shot at in the process.

Anamitra says that he's equally comfortable in both moving and still photography, but finds the latter therapeutic. From his website, I gather he's enamored not only by the city of his birth, but by the Taj Mahal and Delhi's Jama Masjid.

I had no idea that Kolkata has a Chinatown...its streets so well depicted by Anamitra's lens. I chose his well composed photograph of a rickshaw puller as the most illustrative of a Chinatown, although the government of West Bengal banned them in 2006. All this brings to mind the movie City of Joy and the brilliant performance by Om Puri, who acted the role of the impoverished rickshaw puller.

Anamitra Chakladar's Kolkata's Chinatown

Rania Matar: Women of Islam

Image © Rania Matar-All Rights Reserved
Rania Matar was born and raised in Lebanon, and studied at the AUB and Cornell University. She studied photography at the New England School of Photography and at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Mexico with Magnum photographer Constantine Manos.

She travels widely in the Middle East photographs street scenes in Lebanon, Syria and Turkey, and focuses mainly on women and children in the Middle East, and her recent projects give a voice to people who have been forgotten or misunderstood. Her work has won several awards, and has been published and exhibited widely in the United States and internationally.

I was particularly moved by her Women of Islam photographs because, as she writes in her biography, it gives a voice to those who are misunderstood.

Rania Mattar's Women of Islam

Asia Society: Vanishing Giants

Image © Palani Mohan-All Rights Reserved
On Tuesday, March 11, 2008 the Asia Society is holding a discussion & book signing: Vanishing Giants: Elephants of Asia, a look at man's relationship with Asian Elephants, with photographer Palani Mohan. (Details follow).

From the invitation, we gather that Vanishing Giants - Elephants of Asia "is a collection of extraordinary images that will provoke, intrigue and enthrall. Palani Mohan devoted 6 years and traveled to 11 Asian countries to create this intimate glimpse into the world of the Asian elephant, a creature which – even as its African cousin flourishes – is threatened as never before.

But this is far more than simply a book of elephant photographs. Rather, it’s a tale of two species; that of the elephant, and the humans with which it shares its abodes. It’s a love story, and a war story, a history of animosity and attraction, a study of shattered symbiosis. For all through Asia , it seems, a love-hate relationship thrives where elephants and humans co-exist."

Asia Society
725 Park Avenue at 70th Street, New York City
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
6:00–6:30pm: Registration
6:30–7:30pm: Photo Slide Show, Discussion and Audience Q & A
7:30–8:30pm: Meet the Author & Book Signing Reception

For full details: Asia Society: Vanishing Giants

Alan Soon: Viet Nam

Image © Alan Soon-All Rights Reserved
Alan Soon is a photographer from Singapore with an affinity for "vintage" rangefinders and for traditional film processing. A producer for a global financial TV news network, he has been in journalism for 13 years; a career that has taken him to television, radio and magazine newsrooms in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

He started photographing in his early teens with a Minolta X-300, and now uses compact rangefinders, most of them older than he. He shares his apartment with some 30 antique cameras, the eldest a 1949 Canon IIb, engraved "Made in Occupied Japan" which still works.

Alan traveled widely across Asia, North America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, which, along with his interesting cameras, makes him an obvious candidate for the pages of TTP.

I feature his work of Hoi An in Viet Nam which Alan describes as "In its heyday, as a major port in East Asia, it stood as a contemporary of Melaka and Macau. The architecture reflects that heritage: the town is home to building designs left behind by the Japanese, early Chinese settlers, and Dutch, French and Portuguese traders. Many of the homes and stores are well preserved, with some over three hundred years old.

Apart from using black & white film, Alan's photographic style has an edge to it...part travel and part documentary. Explore his various galleries, and you'll know what I mean.

Alan Soon's Monsoon Photo