Chris Blade: Omo Valley Tribes

Photo © Chris Blade-All Rights Reserved
Yes, I know. I'm being repetitively Omo Valley-centric this week...but I recently discovered a handful of photographers who produced lovely work from this area, and decided to string Omo Valley galleries one after the other. Once again, tea leaves readers (ie followers of my photo~expeditions) should not see anything in this.

Today, I feature the work of Chris Blade from Omo Valley, although his website also has galleries of the beautiful Ethiopian Simien Mountains, Lalibela and Gondar, and Axum.

Christopher Blade is a graduate from the Royal College of Art in London, and has advanced degrees in glass making and design. He manages the National Glass Centre in Sunderland. He designs and makes bespoke art glass often inspired from his extensive travels as a travel photographer. His travels have taken him to Ethiopia, Israel, Africa (he was invited by a British adventure travel company to photograph from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe & through Botswana & the Okavango Delta, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho to Cape Town), China, Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia and others. I'm glad he included a gallery titled Palestine...as it ought to be.

I liked his horizontal images on the Ethiopian galleries I've visited (some very nice ones of Lalibela, including interiors).

»»  read more

Marco Paoluzzo: Omo Valley

Photo © Marco Paoluzzo-All Rights Reserved
Yes, it does seem that I'm on an Omo Valley streak...and why not? Here's another photographer who showcases his work in Ethiopia. His work doesn't stop at the Omo Valley, but explores many of the country's corners.

Marco Paoluzzo is a Swiss photographer who worked as a freelance photographer for advertising and industry, and then took up travel photography in 1996. His work appeared in the National Geographic Traveler, Geo, Altaïr, Traveller UK, Stern, Paris Match, Nikon News, Leica Fotografie International, and Die Zeit amongst others. He has also published a number of travel photography books.

I was tempted to feature Marco's work of Ethiopian Christianity instead, but I'm sure you'll explore his website on your own. He's been virtually everywhere, so give yourself time to explore his galleries.

As I frequently recommend, photographers ought to update their websites and showcase their work using large images! And to those of you who may be tempted to read tea leaves, the many Omo Valley postings on The Travel Photographer Blog do not suggest that I am planning a photo~expedition there in 2011. I'm just sayin'.

By the way, it just occurred to me that many of the Omo Valley galleries I've seen so far are of simple portraits, rather than environmental portraits (or tableaux, as I like to call them) with other subjects in the background, etc. The one above is one of the few in Marco's gallery. It's not criticism at all, but just a reflection of what is practical in such an environment. My own Omo Valley gallery is made of simple portraits as well.

»»  read more

Sarah Elliott: Women of Omo Valley

Photo © Sarah Elliott-All Rights Reserved
Sarah Elliott interned for James Nachtwey and assisted Stanley Greene, and traveled extensively around the world pursuing social issues. Her work was opublished by The New York Times, The LA Times, IHT, The Guardian, Monocle, The Observer, Financial Times and the Red Cross and many more.

Sarah's galleries include images and essays from Rwanda, Kenya, Somali Pirates, New Orleans, Rajasthan, The Mormons, Tibet, Tonle Sap Lake and portraits of the Women of the Omo Valley. These are 26 frontal portraits of the tribal women, ranging from the Mursi to Karo. These are simple black & white portraits, quite different from the work of other photographers like Brent Stirton, who used strobes for his environmental portraits of the Omo tribes.

The Omo Valley has considerable resonance amongst those who've either been to the south of Ethiopia and those who want to go. It is currently believed that the area has been a crossroads for thousands of years as various cultures and ethnic groups migrated around the region, and it's been said that “If Africa was the mother of all humanity, then the Omo River was its main artery”. Having been there in 2004, I believe that.

The area is home to eight different tribes whose population is about 200,000 and it's been reported that a hydro-electric dam is under construction on the Omo river. When completed, it will destroy a fragile environment and the livelihoods of these tribes, which are closely linked to the river and its annual flood.

(Via Photojournalism Links)

»»  read more

Hans Silvester: Omo Valley Fashion

The May-June issue of American Express' Departures magazine features the work of photographer Hans Silvester, a German photographer, who documents the extraordinary body painting of the Surma and Mursi peoples of the Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia.

The Surma and Mursi tribes are body painters. They paint their bodies with natural pigments made from the earth. They paint themselves and each other in a tradition that has remained unchanged for millenia. They use their bodies as canvases, painting their skin with pigments made from powdered volcanic rock and adorning themselves with materials obtained from flowers, leaves, grasses, shells and animal horns.

Hans Silvester was born in Lorrach, Germany, and is now based in southern France. He is recognized for a wide-ranging body of work and a protracted study of his subjects, most frequently nature, animals and the environment.

As the issue of Departures isn't yet on-line, many of the Omo Valley Fashion photographs can be found on The Daily Mail issue of February 2008.

»»  read more

Antonio Perez Rio: Omo Valley

Photo © Antonio Perez Rio-All Rights Reserved
Antonio Perez Rio is a Spanish emerging photographer with a special focus on documentary and travel photography. He has two degrees in Law and Social Work, as well as a specific training in creative writing. He has traveled to more than 20 countries, and speaks Spanish, English, French and is learning Arabic.

Antonio tells me that he plans to join the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul (June 2010) to broaden his already considerable skills.

His Omo Valley slideshow features many of the tribes found in southern Ethiopia, including the Hamer, Karo and the Arbore. Antonio's use of flash brings to my mind the photographs made by Brent Stirton in the Lower Omo Valley.

Antonio also documented the various religious traditions of Benin, and the photographs can be found here.

For those of us who keep tabs on upcoming travel photographers, I predict we will see much more of Antonio's work.

»»  read more

Ed Ou: Journey To The Promised Land

Ed Ou is a Canadian-Taiwanese photojournalist living and working in the Middle East, who covered his first big story during the Israel – Hezbollah conflict from southern Lebanon in 2006, when he was studying Arabic and International Relations in the Middle East.

Since then, he has worked with Reuters and the Associated Press covering diverse stories such as the ongoing conflict in Somalia, child soldiers in Uganda, California wildfires, faith and conflict in the Holy Land, and even fashion in New York City. He is also a featured contributor to Reportage by Getty Images.

Ed was selected by Photo District News as one of the 30 Emerging Photographers of 2008. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, Guardian UK, and many other publications. He speaks English, French, Chinese, and Arabic.

I chose to feature Ed's portfolio titled Journey To The Promised Land, in which he documents some of the Falash Mura, and the surrounding controversy in allowing 40,000 Ethiopian Christians, with claims to Jewish ancestry, to immigrate to Israel.

»»  read more

Mariela Furrer: Timket, Ethiopia

I'm often asked to lead a photo-expedition to Ethiopia and I always demur, citing the infrastructural difficulties (mostly in the South) of setting up such a trip, and the concomitant high costs. However, as can be seen in Mariella Furrer's Timket gallery, Ethiopia is one of the most visually and culturally magnetic countries in the world. These images bring back the emotions I felt when hearing the beautiful chants at dawn during the Timket festivities.

Mariella Furrer is a photographer and photojournalist who has lived in Africa her whole life. She attended the Documentary Photography & Photojournalism Program at the International Center of Photography in NYC, and has since been working as a freelance photojournalist based between Kenya and South Africa.

Mariella has been awarded grants from the 3P Foundation, France and the Hasseleblad Foundation, Sweden. She has received an Honorable Mention from UNICEF Photo of the Year 2005 and has been nominated for the Santa Fe Prize for Photography 2006.

Timket is the Ethiopian Orthodox celebration of Epiphany, and is celebrated on January 19 or 20.

For my own photographs of Northern Ethiopia, including those of my few days in Lalibela during Timket, drop by Footsteps in North Abyssinia.

»»  read more

Joey L. : Ethiopia

Once in a while, I come across work by a young photographer that is so interesting, so adventurous, so visually compelling, so extraordinarily edgy and so cerebral....that I spend many hours just staring at it. And yes, I'll admit it...it's so good that it's incredibly annoying. I'm a purist and certainly not a fan of photo manipulation, but the imagery I've seen by this photographer is really excellent.

Joey Lawrence is 19 years old (no, that's not a typo, he's really 19..or maybe 20 by now), and has been shooting commercial photography, photojournalism and music videos around the world by the age of 17. He already has a reputation of being a pioneer of new aged digital hyper-realistic photography, lighting and manipulation. All his techniques were self-taught or the result of trial and error with no formal educational training.

His website is replete with phenomenal photography: particularly his work in Ethiopia's Omo Valley of the Mursi and other tribal groups, as well as of Abyssinian Christian holy men, and in India amongst the Aghori sadhus (The Aghoris commune with the dead, live among the dead and practice rituals with corpses in order to make contact with the divine mother, Kali, to whom they pray). As a sideline, I wonder how Joey managed to get access to this secretive and reclusive sect!

I'm bookmarking Joey Lawrence's website for many repeated visits. What a talent by a young man who has his whole life ahead of him to produce incredible work both in terms of quality and content!

Here's a clip (about 11 minutes) of video of Joey Lawrence (he's on the left), his assistant and crew in Ethiopia...working and playing. You'll see how he photographs some of his subjects using strobes and lights. The clip was personally very entertaining because I recall being at some of the very same spots in and around the Omo Valley...Jinka has a special place in my memory because it's where I indulged in tej, the potent (make that very potent) home-made brew of fermented honey.

»»  read more

Sylvain Savolainen: The Afars

©Sylvain Savolainen-All Rights Reserved.
Sylvain Savolainen is a photographer and reporter based in Geneva, and is regularly published by international newspapers and magazines such as Geo, La Stampa, IHT, The New York Times and Le Figaro. In Paris, he worked with Sygma and Gamma agencies, and currently Cosmos and Grazia Neri partly distribute his work. He is also a contributor to the French and Swiss national radios. In 2007, he won the Swiss Press Photo award for the best foreign feature of the year.

Sylvain has documented many ethnic groups, including the Afars. The Afars, or Danakil, are an ethnic group in the Horn of Africa, residing principally in the Danakil Desert in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, as well as in Eritrea and Djibouti. They constitute over a third of the population of Djibouti, but the majority still remain nomadic pastoralists, raising goats, sheep, camels and cattle in the desert.

Here's Sylvain's Those Who Gaze Into The Horizon: The Afars

»»  read more

BBC: Lalibela's Bet Maryam

Photo ©Karoki Lewis-All Rights Reserved
I'm not too fond of the BBC these days as a result of its unconscionable decision not to air the Gaza appeal, however it has recently published an interesting audio slideshow with photographs and audio by Karoki Lewis, and produced by Phil Coomes

As part of a series looking at religious pilgrimages around the world, Karoki recorded the all night ceremony at Bet Maryam (Church of the Virgin Mary) in Lalibela, Ethiopia, as they celebrated Orthodox Christmas in early January.

I recall being in Lalibela during Epiphany in 2004, and being part of, and photographing the pre-dawn rituals of the ancient celebration was an unforgettable experience. Ethiopian Christianity dates back to the 4th century, and as the festival of Epiphany nears, Lalibela’s population swells with 60 thousand pilgrims.

I visited the beautiful cross-shaped Church of St. George, but the awning that is visible in the slideshow wasn't there...so it must be a new addition. It certainly preserves the stone church from the elements, but it's also hideous.

(Via duckrabbit multimedia)

»»  read more

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.

»»  read more

Ethiopia's Saint by Cyril le Tourneur d’Ison

© Cyril le Tourneur d’Ison/LightMediation-All Rights Reserved
From the Lightmediation Photo Agency comes this very interesting photo story by photographer Cyril le Tourneur d’Ison. It's this kind of photographic storytelling that merges ethnography and religious traditions which interest me the most in travel photography, and this subject matter is particularly captivating because it's virtually unknown...at least to me.

The sacred remote shrine of Sheikh Hussein is in the desert of Bale Province in south-eastern part Ethiopia. Similar to the marabouts of Morocco, or the Sufi saints in India and Pakistan, Sheikh Hussein was renowned for his miraculous powers. For the past 700 years, his shrine has become the site one of Ethiopia's most extraordinary pilgrimages where on a bi-annual basis, up to 50,000 pilgrims, most coming from Ethiopia's remote villages, make an arduous journey to pray at the shrine.

The more I come into contact (either directly myself or through the work of other photographers) with all kinds of religious traditions, the more I realize that all are similar. The above photograph shows pilgrims prostrating themselves on the way to the shrine, reminding me of the Tibetans doing the same around the Potala Palace, on the way to Mount Kailash or circumbulating the Swayambunath stupa in Kathmandu.

It's a real shame that the photographs are not displayed in higher resolution, but I suppose it is what it is because of Issuu's high compression. It's even a greater shame that this photo essay is not produced as an audio slideshow!

To open the document, click on the page below:

Get your own - Open publication

»»  read more

Ethiopia's Nomad Warriors: Salgado

Photograph © Sebastião Salgado-All Rights Reserved
Rolling Stone magazine published black & white photographs of Ethiopia's Nomad Warriors by Sebastião Salgado. The tribes of the Omo Valley such as Hamer, Mursi and the Sumer are featured in this essay of images by a master photographer. In my view, the images are too small to appropriately convey these people's beauty and charisma, and I look forward to perhaps seeing them elsewhere.

A Sebastião Salgado quote that always stays with me:

"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."

For a sample of my own images of the Omo Valley tribes, go here.

»»  read more

News: Art Collection

All Photographs © Tewfic El-Sawy
I've recently sold 10 of my photographs to a major international bank headquartered in London. The distinctive aspect to this transaction is that the photographs are part of the bank's permanent art collection, and are printed on 40" by 25" (approx) canvases. My sales of photographs are traditionally either for stock or to magazines.

Most of the photographs chosen are of adivasis from Central India, and the rest are from Ethiopa's Omo Valley, Rajasthan and Bhutan.

The bank's art collection include photographic works by Philip Lee Harvey, Desmond Burden, Steve Bloom, Remi Benali, William Chapman, Boaz Rottem, among others.

»»  read more

Brent Stirton: Omo Valley/Bull Jumping

© Brent Stirton/Courtesy Discovery Channel
I've featured Brent Stirton's fabulous work on the Omo Valley a few months ago, and now bring him back with a Quicktime movie of the bull-jumping ceremony (click the small arrow above to start it).

The bull-jumping ceremony is an important ritual performed by some of the tribes of the Omo Valley region of southern Ethiopia, and is considered a sort of a rite of passage in a tribal man’s life. Bull jumping is a prerequisite for a man to take a wife and have children, and it involves him undergoing a number of rituals before leaping onto and running over the backs of cattle.

I witnessed the bull-jumping ceremony not far from Turmi, a village in the Omo Valley, and was taken aback (an understatement) by a preceding ritual involving the women of the Hamar tribe tribe being whipped by the men in their families.

»»  read more

Brent Stirton: Omo Valley

Photograph © Brent Stirton-All Rights Reserved
Brent Stirton is a photojournalist based out of New York, where he's a senior staff photographer at Getty Images. He specializes in documentary work and travels an average of 9 months of the year on assignment in his work for Getty Images, working exclusively on commissioned assignment.

Brent holds a degree in Journalism from his native South Africa and often works in tandem with journalists from the world’s leading publications. He is a multiple award winning photographer, receiving 5 awards from the World Press Photo Foundation and 3 awards from the UN for his humanitarian work, including Awards from the Global fund for his work in the field of HIV. Brent’s work has appeared in Newsweek, National Geographic, CNN traveler/CNN.com, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, The Sunday Times magazine, Le Monde 2, GQ, Geo and many others.

Richard Holbrooke, President of Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC), said this: "No one can argue with a Brent Stirton photograph.

It was difficult to choose a photograph to feature here out of the many excellent available of Brent's website, but I ended up choosing one of an Omo Valley tribesman from his Travel gallery to showcase his lighting style, and use of flash/strobes.

»»  read more

Evelyn Hockstein: Ethiopia

Image © Evelyn Hockstein-All Rights Reserved
I'm in the "fermenting" phase for my upcoming 2009 photo expeditions (yes, it's starts that early with me), and one of the destinations I'm interested in is Ethiopia. I've been in 2004, and provided that its political situation remains stable, it'll be shortlisted.

In such a frame of mind, I thought that featuring Evelyn Hockstein's work on Ethiopia would be appropriate, and may fuel my enthusiasm for the possibility.

Evelyn Hockstein is a photojournalist based in Nairobi, from where she covers the continent as well as other international assignments. Her award winning photography work has been published in various international publications including The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, Stern, L'Express, and U.S. News and World Report.

This is the second time that TTP features Evelyn's work. An earlier post featured her photographs of Yemen.

Here's her recent work on Ethiopia courtesy of Budget Travel's blog. I particularly like the photograph of the Ethiopian girl holding an injera cover on her head on the street in Lalibela. By the way, and at the risk of offending many Ethiopians...I found injera to be unpalatable. I was told it's an acquired taste, so I'll give it another try if Ethiopia is indeed a 2009 destination for me.

Evelyn Hockstein's Ethiopia

»»  read more

Sunday Times Magazine: Mirella Ricciardi

Image © Mirella Ricciardi-All Rights Reserved
This week, The Sunday Times Magazine warmed this travel photographer's heart by featuring 10 magnificent black & white photographs of Africa by Mirella Ricciardi. The feature, Untouched Africa, showcases these photographs which are part of an exhibit of Ms Ricciardi's platinum prints at the Michael Hoppen gallery in London (February 22 to April 5, 2008).

It appears that the photographs had lain in a box in a family cellar for 40 years, and have now surfaced showing tribal life uncorrupted by the 20th century. Photographs of women of the Turkana tribe in Kenya, of Masai warriors, and women of the Rendille and Boran tribes will be shown at what promises to be a spectacular exhibit.

Having no idea who was this wonderful photographer, i discovered that Mirella Ricciardi is one of the giants of African tribal photography. Forty years ago, she traveled through Kenya and Sudan to photograph some of the unspoilt tribes of Africa and returned with a unique collection of instinctive photographs that appeared in her book Vanishing Africa in 1971, which eventually became an international bestseller.

She drove around Kenya in a second hand Toyota land cruiser, and spent two years instinctively capturing the simple rhythms of life and death, the joy, ceremony and beauty of African people.

A reviewer wrote that Mirella was "fuelled by an insatiable curiosity and by a hunter's thirst for images, she traversed the length and breadth of the African continent. She has traveled on foot and in canoes, on local buses and in Landrovers, in single-engine light aircraft, in hot air balloons and on the backs of camels and elephants in search of the images and the adventures that have shaped the life and work of this unique photographer.

The BBC website also informs us "that when she was in her 60s, photographer Mirella Ricciardi was dropped by light aircraft into the Amazon jungle armed only with her camera. Despite not speaking any local languages, she was able to gain the trust of three different Amazon tribes, the Kampa, the Maruba and the Yanomami and the photographs she took of them give an intimate insight into their daily life, ceremonial preparations and family duties."

This issue of The Sunday Times is certainly a keeper!

»»  read more

Phil Borges: Abay's Return

Image Copyright © Phil Borges-All Rights Reserved
Three years ago, Phil Borges partnered with the organization CARE to bring attention to the necessity of empowering women in the global campaign to alleviate poverty. He traveled to Africa, Asia and South America to gather the stories of extraordinary women in remote parts of the world who have empowered themselves and their communities.

Abay was born in the Afar region of eastern Ethiopia, into a culture in which young girls are circumcised. However, Abay refused despite being told that an uncircumcised woman would be ostracized and could never marry. She ran away, and returned to her village after 8 years later to work as a CARE station agent.

This is her story.

Abay's Return Video on Phil Borges' website

Abay's Return Video on CARE's website

»»  read more

Jake Warga: Lalibela

To lighten the mood of TTP's recent posts, here is independent producer Jake Warga who has always dreamed of taking the perfect photo. He tells this story from a recent trip to Lalibela in Ethiopia, where he tried -- in vain -- to duplicate a photograph he saw in National Geographic Magazine. The quality of the photographs is impaired by the video compression, but it's still enjoyable.

»»  read more