TRAVEL IDEAS

John Kenny: Africa

Photo ©John Kenny-All Rights Reserved.
Here's a treat for those who love Africa and black & white portraiture!

John Kenny is a British photographer whose work with remote African societies is recently receiving substantial press coverage. Imagery from the previous 2007 exhibition, 'Light, Land and Water: Beauty in Africa', has been published extensively throughout 2007 and 2008. The image "Omo Valley Girl" was chosen as the cover for "Professional Photographer" magazine (April 2007), as well as receiving "Image of the Week" in the Times, and was used extensively in promotional content for the "Affordable Art Fair" (2007), "Glasgow Art Fair" (2008) and Time Out (2008).

His new collection of images of remote tribal peoples from Niger, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali is being exhibited at Capital Culture, Covent Garden in London.

My thanks to Candace Feit for the heads-up.

PDNedu Student Photo Contest

PDN has announced the results of its Student Photo Contest which saw more than 1,350 submissions. The judges were Jen Bekman, David Laidler and Jill Waterman.

The Travel category was won by Alessandro Penso from Italy, The Fashion|Portraiture by Kimberly Halverson of Minnesota, the Documentary by Michael J. Mullady of California, Fine Art by Felicia Genevieve Bawolek Carpinella of Michigan, and Still Life by Chris New of Georgia.

Malfreemaps.com Mega GG (Gathering) at Gunung Ledang 2009

We drive from JB around 12:45hrs. Exit at Pagoh Toll and towards, Panchor....then Bukit Gambir, Sagil....reached the Gunung Ledang Resort (N2°20.902' E102°38.154') at 15:45hrs.
I thought we were late to check-in, unexpectedly....most of the members also arrived at the same moment.

We had a bad luck that, our room 13A Power Point was not working. Call up the maintenance guy to verify but he cannot figured out the problem too! Luckily, we changed the next room. The staff at the Reception was friendly.

After settle the room, my wife & daughter exploring around the resort and I join the Malfreemaps group at the restaurant area to kick start our GG (Geek Gathering)! There were total of 16 members and their family.

We started with our 'Talk-Cock' session and it last for 2 hours until we all went for our dinner at Jementah.....

The smile of everybody face started our Gunung Ledang GG 2009

Everybody was excited about the 'GG' T-shirt!

Members from Singapore (Left) : Redstorm, Silverbeauty and friend from North.

The 'peace' by Singawon

You can hear the GPS map discussion at any minute!

Our camera man decided to take a group photos with the MFM Jersey...

Look at their mouth?? What going wrong??

Malfreemaps actually is a group of GPS Enthusiasts who love GPS and Mapping very much. We do it as a hobby and hope to see more peoples who have the same interest that can join this community. If you wanna know more about it, please visit http://www.malfreemaps.com

Our chalets during night time.....

MY TRIPS - Home

NPAA: Best of Photojournalism

Photo ©Tomasz Gudzowaty/Courtesy NPAA-All Rights Reserved.
The National Press Photographers Association just announced the winners of ‘The Best of Photojournalism 2009’ award in eight categories: Natural Environment, Sports Picture Story, Olympics Feature, Olympics Action, Sports Feature, Sports Action, Conceptual Photographic Illustration and The Art of Entertainment.

I particularly liked Tomasz Gudzowaty's Naadam festival in Mongolia, which sees three sport disciplines, wrestling, archery and horse races. The photographs were taken in Baganuur and Erdenesant.

One Shot: Fabiano Busdraghi

Photo ©Fabiano Busdraghi-All Rights Reserved.
I haven't posted a One Shot feature in quite a while, and Fabiano's work in Antarctica seemed just right for it.

Fabiano Busdraghi is a Milan-born Italian photographer. He has a master in Physics at the University of Pisa, and another in Oceanography and Meteorology at the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris where he now lives and works. He recently took photography and writing as his full time occupation, traveling to various remore areas of the world including Antarctica.

Fabiano's photographic works range from travel, reportage and more artistic and personal work. He works in digital and traditional photography, and has been using alternative techniques, such as palladium and platinum, gum bichromate, cyanotype, Van Dyke Brown, and carbon prints.

His main website is here.

POV: Gulf Photo Plus

I'm pleased to see that Gulf Photo Plus is set for March 30 to April 4, 2009 in Dubai. This event promises to be an exciting venue for Middle Eastern photography in an area that, frankly, is not known for being in the forefront of visual arts and photojournalism.

However, what makes me really glad is to see that my friend Asim Rafiqui is scheduled to participate in the event by giving a workshop titled The Working Photographer-A Primer. The four and half days with Asim will concentrate on the production of a photo narrative by each student, the subject being agreed on by the instructor and the student on the first day of the workshop.

To my mind, there are few who could this as well as Asim. He's not only a remarkable photojournalist, but he holds well thought out opinions on the current status of photojournalism, and supplements these with a sharp intellect and incisive knowledge of international affairs. For those of you who haven't read Asim's thoughtful and frequently non-mainstream and courageous posts, do yourself a favor and drop by his The Spinning Head blog and by his brilliant opus-to-be The Idea of India.

There are about a dozen excellent photographers scheduled to participate in the Gulf Photo Plus by giving interesting workshops as well. These are top notch photo-professionals such as Vincent Laforet and Joe McNally among others.

It's a little disconcerting that there aren't any photographers-tutors (except for Asim) of Middle Eastern or Asian heritage...perhaps next year? I could name quite a few who'd more than qualify to the Gulf Photo Plus organizers.

Report: Nagas, Hidden Hill People of India

As promised in an earlier post, I dropped by the Rubin Museum of Art yesterday to see its new photographic exhibit: Nagas: Hidden Hill People of India by Pablo Bartholomew.

Pablo Bartholomew is an independent photographer based in New Delhi, who worked as a photojournalist recording societies in conflict and transition. His works have been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, Business Week, National Geographic and Geo amongst other magazines and journals.

The exhibition of about 20-25 prints is held on the lower floor of the beautiful Rubin Museum (I'm struck by its incredible aesthetics every time I visit). The exhibit is also sponsored by Air India.

The photographs are of the Nagas, erstwhile headhunters of India's easternmost state, and were mostly made during the early 90s, when presumably Pablo visited. In all candor, I wasn't overly impressed by the photographs, and while I don't regret seeing the exhibit, I was disappointed. I haven't learned much about the Nagas from the photographs either, although I now know that some of the elder headhunters wear a necklace with small carved wooden heads, for how many they allegedly hunted. It's naturally against the law now.

The photographs' sizes seemed to be in the range of 18x24 to 20x24 and were frameless, encased in a sort of thin Plexiglas. I think the product used is FotoFlot, which was mentioned on my blog here.