I've written about Alessandra Meniconzi over a year ago, and consider her one of the best travel photographers I've come across. She's a travel photographer in a classic sense, and her work is pure travel photography with no ambivalence.
Her biography reveals that she was born in Lugano and studied graphic design. She specializes in Asian countries, and prefers the wilderness as well as documenting the daily lives of ethnic minorities. Her exploration of the peoples of the ancient trade routes required her to make several trips to Asia over a 10-year period to document the people and cultures of the "Silk Road", the 2,000-year-old trade route linking the Orient and the Occident.
Her new book "Hidden China" will be published in Fall 2008, and will be available from Amazon and other bookstores.
Alessandra's website features her superb landscapes and portraits of ethnic minorities. Here are her images of China. Her website would benefit from a facelift, but I guarantee you'll be spending a lot of time exploring her galleries.