Books: The Complete Photographer

My work will appear in The Complete Photographer by Tom Ang, which is being published by Dorling Kindersley Limited. According to Amazon, the book will be released on July 19, 2010.

I"ll be featured as a Master of Travel Photography, with a profile and work resume.

The Complete Photographer encourages photographers to explore every discipline and experiment with different approaches, and is based around tutorials on ten different genres-Portraits, Landscape and Nature, Fashion, Wildlife, Sport, Documentary, Events, Travel, Architecture, and Fine Art.

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NPR: Sebastian Junger On 'War'

The arm-chair warriors amongst us will like this post on NPR:

"Five times between June 2007 and June 2008 the writer Sebastian Junger traveled to a remote Army outpost in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. Junger, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, made the trip to embed with a company of soldiers from the Army's 173rd Airborne brigade as they fought to keep the Taliban from controlling a small, treacherous plot of land."

I have yet to read all of the article and listen to the excerpts, but I can easily predict that a book such as this one, and its supporting hoopla, glorifies war.

On my flight back to NYC, I tried to watch "The Hurt Locker"...5 minutes into the movie, I turned it off. Is it eyeball fatigue from all the war coverage since 2001 or is it moral disgust...or is it both?

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Book: Charlotte Rush-Bailey: Soul Survivors

I've just received the book Soul Survivors from its author Charlotte Rush-Bailey, who was a participant in The Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat Photo~Expedition, and it's certainly a wonderful addition to anyone's travel book collection.

It's essentially a tribute to the people of the Sahel, and focuses on Niger which Charlotte visited in the fall of 2005, amidst a food crisis that had enveloped that nation. Despite the food shortages, Charlotte marvels at how she was welcomed with generous hospitality everywhere she went. The book is full of lovely photographs; many of which are portraits, processed in the photographer-author's signature style.

Published and available through Blurb, the link above provides a preview of some of the book's pages. My favorite photograph of the book is the 5th on the preview strip, which is of a camel caravan. Just a perfect composition.

Charlotte Rush-Bailey's website has more of her photography.

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Book: To Cambodia With Love

Having not read the fine print and that Amazon and Barnes & Noble were promoting the publication date of 1 March 2010 for the new guidebook To Cambodia With Love - A Travel Guide for the Connoisseur, I was on the verge of getting my credit card out to order it on Amazon , only to realize that it's still unavailable, and listed as a pre-order only. Nonetheless, I am hugely chuffed that a book with my photographs of Cambodia is on major booksellers' websites, even if my name is misspelled on the Amazon website.

Ah...my name! I'm always amused how many on my photo~expeditions struggle to pronounce my name and, eventually defeated, call me 'T' (making me feel a bit like Tony Soprano...which is a gigantic compliment in my way of thinking), while the local tribals we visited in Gujarat last week had no difficulty at all. On all my photo~expeditions and individual travels to pretty much "out of the beaten path" places, I have yet to meet a local who struggles with my name or mispronounces it...only Americans find it to be a tongue twister.

But I digress, so back to the important matter in hand. I was referred to the Amazon web page for the To Cambodia With Love via a post on Andy Brouwer's blog. Andy is the editor and contributor of the book, and is a recognized expert of all matters related to Cambodia, where he lives and works. Andy has only finished the final manuscript last weekend, so he predicts that the book will be available in 3-4 months. By the way, this book was in the works since a couple of years. I got paid for my photographs when I submitted them, so I'm sort of relaxed about the final publication date.

I hope readers of The Travel Photographer blog who have an interest in Cambodia will buy this book. If I get free copies, I will come up with a contest of some sort and give away copies to winners.

If I do and as long as the free supply lasts, perhaps I will give a free copy to American readers who pronounce my name correctly.

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Book Event: 100 New York Photographers

The 100 New York Photographer book, in which my biography and four of my travel photographs of Ethiopia, Bhutan, and Burma are prominently featured, will be the subject of a book signing event at Rizzoli Bookstore at 57th Street in New York City on January 22, 2010.

The book's author Cynthia Maris Dantzic and special guests (presumably some of the photographers in the book) will be at the event. Unfortunately, I will be in India at that time, so I had to convey my regrets to the publishers.

The book groups the work of 100 New York celebrated photographers to include Vincent Laforet, Jay Maisel, Mary Ellen Mark, Joel Meyerowitz, Annie Leibowitz, Jenny Jozwiak and Pete Turner.

If you are in New York City and have the time, I'm certain that it'll be a worthwhile event. Click the above picture for a larger version.

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Book: Ronald Lake: Madagascar

I was very glad to receive Ronald Lake's beautifully designed book titled "Glimpses of Madagascar" as I knew next to nothing of this intriguing island. All I knew was that it's an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa, and there was an entertaining animated movie with the same name (I exaggerate, but you get the drift...it's just not a country in the news).

I also visited Ronald Lake's website, where one can sample some of the pages of his Madagascar book, and order it directly, as well as view his other galleries.

It's also called the Red Island, The Eighth Continent, Eden on Earth, and a World Out of Time, and is like no other place on earth. One of the world’s poorest nations, it is one of the planet’s richest stores of biodiversity, which was the main reason behind Ronald Lake's decision to join a trip to Madagascar with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

In Ronald's own words:

"Madagascar is one of the poorest countries on earth. It also is one of the richest homes of biodiversity on the planet. The juxtaposition of these two facts is what makes Madagascar so beautiful, so tragic, so compelling and so promising. But very few people in modern consumer societies are aware of Madagascar's unique story - few even know where it is.

I enjoyed shooting pictures in Madagascar because the place and the people were so special. It certainly got the creative juices flowing. But I felt that just taking pictures wasn't good enough. I had to give some meaningful expression to what I saw. Thus the book, which is meant to convey more than images. For me, this is the purpose of photography, or at least the kind of photography that I am interested in pursuing."

An investment adviser in Greenwich, Connecticut with photography as his passion, it's immediately obvious from this book that Ronald Lake fell in love with the island of Madagascar.

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Books: Claudia Wiens: Burma

Claudia Wiens was based in Cairo, and is now in Istanbul working as a freelance photographer, and is represented by Getty Images. She has now published a book of her photographs of Burma and titled "Of Dung-Beetle Messengers And Infamous Crickets" which, although I haven't seen yet, does provide Claudia's interesting visual narrative of this lovely country and its people. Have a good look at the section involving Nats.

I'm glad that Claudia chose this blurry image for her book's cover since, as regular readers of this blog know, I'm enormously partial to motion blurred images myself. Good choice, Claudia! For further images of Burma and other galleries, visit Claudia's website.

I met Claudia at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) in Mexico City, where she worked on a project involving female Lucha Libre wrestlers.

A previous post of Claudia Wiens on TTP is here.

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Book: 100 New York Photographers

As previously announced on TTP, I am chuffed in being featured in Cynthia Dantzig's new book: 100 New York Photographers, which is a 442-page review of contemporary New York photographers and their diverse and divergent images.

So here I am in the august company of well-known photographers such as Annie Liebovitz, Jay Maisel, Amy Arbus, Hugh Bell, Arnold Crane, Bruce Davidson, Carrie Mae Weems, Elliott Erwitt, Lee Friedlander, Joel Meyerowitz, Mary Ellen Mark, Pete Turner and others (including Jenny Jozwiak, who joined my Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo-Expedition).

Four of my photographs were chosen. One from the Omo Valley, two from Bhutan and one from Lake Inle in Burma.





This handsome book is available from major bookstores such as B&N and Amazon. Despite the considerable technological advances in displaying photographs on the web, the thrill of seeing one's work the old fashioned way...on a printed page...is still something else!

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William Darlymple's Nine Lives

Despite Thai Airways' efficient service and the knowledge that I would have a row all to myself as the flight was only half full, spending 12 hours on the flight from Bangkok to London wasn't something I looked forward to. However I bought William Dalrymple's new book Nine Lives to keep me company during the long haul flight.

I had high expectations that this book would be highly enjoyable and informative, and was glad to have found it in paperback version at the airport's bookstore. I'm almost 2/3 through it and have to say that, whilst it's not as well written as the author's previous books, it is nevertheless extremely educational.

Nine Lives is described as an Indian Canterbury Tales, and introduces us to 9 characters with varied and different lives. I thought The Nun's Tale (a poignant portrait of a Jain nun), The Dancer of Kannur (a Theyyam performer) and The Red Fairy (a Sufi female ascetic) to be the most magnetic of the characters, and provide an extraordinary insight in their worlds that most of us can't imagine.

I wish I had read The Dancer of Kannur before my Theyyam of Malabar photo expedition, and will re-read The Red Fairy before my periodic visits to the Sufi shrines in Delhi.illiam

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Mitchell Kanashkevich: Seeing The Light

Photo © Mitchell Kanashkevich-All Rights Reserved
Mitchell Kanashkevich is an oft-published travel/documentary photographer, whose main passion resonates with those of us who are described as "ethno-photographers". Much of his work is in capturing disappearing ancient cultures and the human condition in unique, challenging situations. Much of his travel/documentary photography is represented by Getty Images, while his cultural portraits, both color and black and white, are in private collections.

Mitchell has recently published a new eBook titled Seeing The Light. The premise of the eBook is to show how to create “believable” looking artificial light with a single off camera flash in a softbox or with a reflector, exploit natural light with and without the help of artificial light,and gain a deeper understanding of natural light and how it can be used creatively, even in challenging situations.

Via the above link, you can see sample screen grabs and even download a sample PDF.

As he says, the lessons in Seeing the Light is relevant to anyone who’s passionate about light, but wants to stay compact – that includes travel and documentary photographers, wedding photographers, portrait photographers and even low-budget commercial shooters.

For Mitchell's wonderful travel and ethno-photography, drop by his website...I guarantee you'll be inspired by his work.

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Book: Dalrymple's Nine Lives

One of my favorite haunts when I'm in London is Stanfords, the travel bookstore close to Covent Gardens...and one of my favorite authors is William Dalrymple. So when both come together in an event to be held at the Royal Geographical Society, I am ready with my credit card to buy a ticket.

However, as I will still be in Bhutan on October 7, I will miss the event, but look forward to buying the book when I am in London.

I posted about Nine Lives earlier on TTP.

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Book: 100 New York Photographers

I am featured in Cynthia Dantzig's new book: 100 New York Photographers. I haven't seen the book yet, but I expect to have a double-spread page, and perhaps even two full double pages. A number of my photographs of Bali, Ethiopia, Bhutan, Burma and India were chosen, and I'm impatient to see which made it to the book's pages.

Cynthia, a professor at Long Island University, just published 100 New York Photographers, a 442-page review of the great range of contemporary New York photographers and their diverse, surprisingly divergent, images. It presents their subject matter and their very definitions of photography, darkroom and digital. Their photographs have been seen in publications, galleries, and museums.

Included are such iconic figures as Annie Liebovitz, Jay Maisel, Amy Arbus, Hugh Bell, Arnold Crane, Bruce Davidson, Carrie Mae Weems, Elliott Erwitt, Helen Levitt, David Gahr, Lee Friedlander, Arthur Leipzig, Builder Levy, Duane Michals, Joel Meyerowitz, Jamel Shabazz, John Loengard, Tony Vaccaro, Mary Ellen Mark, Pete Turner, Burke Uzzle, Deborah Willis, and others, as well as many less familiar but no less brilliant photographers. I expect I'm one of those!

The book will be available in September 2009, and will have price tag of $60.00

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Book: Within The Frame: David duChemin

If there's one book on photography I must have with me if I'm ever marooned on a desert island, it'd be David duChemin's Within The Frame.

If there's one photography book I'd recommend to all the photographers of varying levels of proficiency who join my photo~expeditions, it's David du Chemin's Within The Frame.

If there's one photography manual I'd have with me when teaching my photography courses to emerging photographers and photojournalists, it'd be David's Within The frame.

Yes, it's that good.

Within The Frame is David's opus...a 'from the heart and soul' of a travel photographer who genuinely likes his craft and is justifiably proud of his work. It's a book of color, of light, of exotic locations, of people, of humanity and of valuable recommendations.

Here's David in his own voice:

"Anyone can take a picture of poverty; it's easy to focus on the dirt and hurt of the poor. It's much harder -and much more needful- to pry under that dirt and reveal the beauty and dignity of people that, but for their birth into a place and circumstance different from our own, are just like ourselves. I want my images to tell the story of those people and to move us beyond pity to justice and mercy".

Is there a better way to say what many photographers believe and live by?

Another brilliant photographer, Sebastião Salgado, said as much: "If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things."

Within The Frame is well worth adding to one's library of photography books; almost 250 pages of sound advice and suggestions as to how to improve your photographic vision, along with scores of David's lovely photographs. I recently heard that David wondered if creative vision can be taught. If it can, then this book is one of its manuals.

Within The Frame is available from Amazon or B&N. David duChemin's photographic vision can be seen on his website here.

posted from London en route to Morocco

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Books: The Photographer

From what I've seen online, The Photographer is an innovative book combining the photographs of the late Didier Lefèvre, and the drawings of Emmanuel Guibert, and tells the story of a small group of mostly French doctors and nurses who traveled into northern Afghanistan by horse and donkey in 1986, at the height of the Soviet occupation.

The fact that a woman, Dr. Juliette Fournot, led the medical mission whilst dressed as a man and managed to command the respect of the French and Afghans (including the war-hardened warlords and local chiefs, is not only a testament to her character, but shatters our stereotyping of Afghan culture and its Islamic orthodoxy.

Chris Hedges reviews the book in The New York Times, and he writes this insightful paragraph at its end:

The power of “The Photographer” is that it bridges this silence. There is no fighting in this book. No great warriors are exalted. The story is about those who live on the fringes of war and care for its human detritus. By the end of the book the image or picture of a weapon is distasteful. And if you can achieve this, you have gone a long way to imparting the truth about warfare.

For more info on Juliette Fournot, MSF has this page, and on Didier Lefèvre here.

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Sandra Chandler: Carnevale, Fantasy of Venice

Sandy Chandler has just published her new book ‘Carnevale, Fantasy of Venice' of her beautiful photographs of Venice and its magical Carnevale. One can preview the book here.

Her introduction in the book reads :

Venice is one of the world's most picturesque cities and as a backdrop, Carnevale is shown as a vivid, vibrant colorful dream. The excitement of this twelve day celebration is all part of a spectacular journey. It was my dream to photograph and capture the spirit of the magic and excitement of this real life fantasy - Carnevale.

Sandra is a photographer and interior designer based in San Francisco. She tells us that color, smells and sounds drew her to world travel. Her city's Asian culture first enticed her to China in 1978 when the People’s Republic first opened. She then continued her exploration of Asia by traveling to Bhutan, India, Japan, Singapore, Nepal, Thailand, Tibet, and on to South America and Europe. Her website is here (LINK).

The book will be celebrated on May 7th at:

Tufenkian Artisan Carpets
515 NW 10th Avenue (in the Pearl)
Portland, Oregon
5-8

The Travel Photographer blog had a previous post on Sandra here. (LINK)

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David DuChemin: Within The Frame

David DuChemin of The Pixelated Image is in the final phases of having his new book Within The Frame available at major bookstores everywhere. This a 260 page book in which David shares his experiences and knowledge acquired from years of working as a travel photographer.

Peachpit Press are publishing the book, and have posted a free down-loadable chapter of Within The Frame as a teaser.

I look forward to review David's opus soon, and expect that it'll be a must-have for all of us who are interested in travel and adventure photography. More to come soon!

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William Dalrymple: Nine Lives

By pure chance I landed on the website of one of my favorite authors, William Dalrymple, whose new book – Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India – will be published by Bloomsbury in October.

I've copied this excerpt of the accompanying blurb from the Amazon UK website:

"Nine people, nine lives. Each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. Exquisite and mesmerizing, and told with an almost biblical simplicity, William Dalrymple's first travel book in a decade explores how traditional forms of religious life in South Asia have been transformed in the vortex of the region's rapid change. Nine Lives is a distillation of twenty-five years of exploring India and writing about its religious traditions, taking you deep into worlds that you would never have imagined even existed."

This promises to be a cracker of a book, and if you want to get a taste for its contents, you can read this article on the devadasis in the New Yorker magazine.

These are the kind of books that ought to be read by all established and aspiring travel-documentary photographers, since they provide ideas for photo-documentary projects, and intellectual/historical texture to successfully develop such projects.

Just before traveling last month to India, I recently re-read parts of Dalrymple's City of Djinns; parts dealing with the Sufi dargahs in Delhi, and this enhanced my appreciation of these sites while I visited them.

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Around the World with TPN

Members of Travel Photographers Network (TPN) have collaborated to create a photo-book of juried travel images called "Around the World with TPN". The images in the book were selected by 6 judges (including Kah Kit Yoong, and David duChemin) and the books layout was created by professional graphic designed and photographer Sarah Clarehart.

Some of the 50 photographers with work presented in the book include Marsel van Oosten, Matt Brandon, Kah Kit Yoong, Chris Wilson, Paul Prince, Troy Feener and Nick Hall.

Proceeds from the book are going towards an overhaul of the TPN site which is owned and operated by Jim White out of London. This is a worthy effort to enhance the work of dedicated and quality travel photographers, many of whom have been featured on The Travel Photographer blog.

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Alessandra Meniconzi: Hidden China

I now have Alessandra Meniconzi's new book Hidden China, which I've enthusiastically perused all last week. As I previously posted, this book explores some of the most remote regions of China and brings to life a world far removed from the great metropolises, a world nearly forgotten, where the people continue to live their traditional lifestyles largely undisturbed.

If you are interested in minority ethnic and traditional cultures of Asia, this book ought to be on your bookshelves. It's available at all major bookstores, and on the on-line book retailers as well. You'll be glad you did.

Alessandra Meniconzi is a Swiss photographer fascinated by the lives and traditions of indigenous people in remote regions of the world. After many years of working in Asia, she traveled in Iceland and became interested in the Arctic. She is the sole photographer for the books Hidden China (2008), Mystic Iceland (2007), and The Silk Road (2004), and she is currently working on the new book about Tibet, Arctic and Himalaya.

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Alessandra Meniconzi: Hidden China & Artic

I previously posted on this blog on Alessandra Meniconzi's new book Hidden China, which has now been published, and is available at bookstores. The press release reads in part: "This illustrated book explores some of the most remote regions of China and brings to life a world far removed from the great metropolises, a world nearly forgotten, where the people continue to live their traditional lifestyles largely undisturbed."

Alessandra Meniconzi is a Swiss photographer fascinated by the lives and traditions of indigenous people in remote regions of the world. After many years of working in Asia, she traveled in Iceland and became interested in the Arctic. She is the sole photographer for the books Hidden China (2008), Mystic Iceland (2007), and The Silk Road (2004), and she is currently working on the new book about Tibet, Arctic and Himalaya.

Photo © Alessandra Meniconzi-All Rights Reserved
Alessandra tells me she's preparing herself to travel shortly to the Arctic, traveling with an Inuit hunter...quite a departure from her past work in Asia. I am certain her photographs of this icy region will soon be published in an equally wonderful book.

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