I organized the Gnawa (or Ganoua) Photo Expedition in late June, which was joined by a number of talented full-time and part time photographers, whose principal objective was to photograph the legendary Gnawa musicians during the 12th Essaouira Music Festival.
This is the first of a series of posts which showcase a sample of the participating photographers' work, and is by Sandra Chandler, a photographer and interior designer from San Francisco. Sandy uses a Nikon D300 usually fitted with a 24-70mm 2.8 lens.
Despite the difficulty of street photography in Morocco, I'm glad that Sandy managed to capture wonderful human expressions in one of the above photograph. She is drawn to world travel because of the the cornucopia of colors, smells and sounds, and I think these requirements were more than met in Morocco.
Sandy recently published a wonderful book ‘Carnevale, Fantasy of Venice' of her beautiful photographs of Venice and its magical Carnevale, and I sense she may well follow suit with a book on Morocco. We'll have to wait and see.
GlobalPost's mission statment is to redefine redefine international news for the digital age and states that it is relying on the enduring values of great journalism: integrity, accuracy, independence and powerful storytelling.
Here's one of its many international articles, which features a movie on the Festival du Desert held every year in Essakane, two hours from Timbuktu in Mali.
Peter DiCampo takes us there with his filming and his article, in which he writes:
"The Desert Festival is billed as one of West Africa’s greatest cultural events, featuring the haunting chants of Tuareg music wafting across the dunes in a remote spot near Timbuktu."
The grand prize winner gets $1,000, and other prizes include one-year subscriptions to PhotoServe.com, an $800 value. Winning entries appear in E&P's November issue and/or a special online gallery.
The deadline for entries is Sept. 14, 2009.
Lat year's Grand Prize winner was Shiho Fukada, a personal favorite photographer of mine, for her coverage of the Juyuan Middle School that collapsed during the earthquake in Sichuan province.
As in all and every photography contests, I strongly encourage all interested photographers to make sure they carefully read the contests' terms and conditions, especially since misunderstandings between organizers and contestants over terms, prizes and other issues sometimes occur.
Another photograph from the must-see WSJ Photo Journal, in which performers wearing traditional ornaments waited to greet the Dalai Lama at a meeting held to celebrate his birthday in New Delhi earlier this week.
The Dalai Lama turned 74, remarking lightheartedly that the prayers being said for him by his followers might help him live at least 100 year. The photograph is by Saurabh Das.
I "meet" Wendy Connett daily through her interesting and entertaining Escape From New York blog which is on my Google Reader whatsit. Although she lives in New York City, her website also tells us that she considers the UK and India as her second homes....and I thought I was the only one who felt that way!
Wendy is a journalist and photographer, who travels the world to photograph its people, its places and its unique celebrations. Her photographs are licensed around the globe for commercial and editorial use, and are published in over 25 countries. Her work appears on a regular basis in magazines, newspapers, brochures, textbooks and travel guidebooks. Travel & Leisure, The Guardian, The Times, Rough Guides, Fodor's, Frommers are some of the publications where to see her work.
She has just announced a major redesign of her website Wendy Connett Travel Photography, which I urge you to visit. Her opening images of her Morocco portfolio are of Essaouira famous blue fishing boats. This a favorite spot for photographers to capture the very essence of Essaouira which, despite its recent fame as a tourist destination, is still a fishing village. In fact, for fans of grilled sardines, drop by Chez Sam, a lovely restaurant a few steps further into the harbor area.
Munem Wasif is a Bangladeshi documentary photographer, who started his photographic career as a feature photographer for the Daily Star, a leading English daily of Bangladesh. In 2007, he was selected for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in the Netherlands, and subsequently won International Award "F25" of the Fabrica and "City of Perpignan Young Reporter’s Award". His work is exhibited at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, at the International Photography Biennial of the Islamic World in Iran, at Fotofreo, the festival of photography in Australia and at Visa Pour l’Image in Perpignan. He is represented through Agency VU in Paris.
The superb Lens Culture blog brings us exclusive audio interviews with Munem, who spoke of the ecological and personal disasters in Bangladesh caused by a vast influx of shrimp farming.
Another interview with Munem appeared on TTP here.
One of the highlights of the Gnawa Festival was to be able to photograph three of the famed Afoxé Loni dance troupe during their rehearsal at the Lalla Riad in the medina of Essaouira. Afoxé Loni is considered to be one of the most beautiful and musically sophisticated Blocos of Berlin’s “Carnival of World Cultures”, and its history is closely tied to that of the carnival’s.
Amongst the three dancers was one of Afoxé Loni's founder, Murah Soares who is considered to be one of the greatest talents of Afro-Brazilian dance in Germany. Unfortunately, I didn't get the names of the remaining two phenomenal female dancers.
What I didn't know is that in Bahia, Afoxé processions are closely tied to the Candomblé religion; their purpose is to ritually purify the streets and calm down latent violence before the actual carnival parade. Here in Essaouira, the trio rehearsed with the virtuoso Gnawa Maalem Mahmoud Guinea, and produced a fusion of frenetic Brazilian and Gnawa music.
