Frederic Courbet: Lamu (Kenya)

Photograph © Frederic Courbet-All Rights Reserved
To highlight the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop starting in Mexico City this coming Monday, I will focus this week's The Travel Photographer blog posts on various photojournalists and their work.

I start off with the work of Frederic Courbet, a Belgian freelance photographer currently based in Nairobi, Kenya. His biography tells us that he started work in Africa 4 years ago, and had had ihis images published in The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, Der Spiegel, The Observer and other international publications. He has also worked for various NGOs including CARE in Nairobi. Courbet is represented by the London-based Panos Pictures.

I liked Courbet's imagery...and his galleries are well worth spending time on. For instance, look out for the wonderful image in his Somalia gallery of a multi-colored tent and clothes hanging in the wind. However, my favorite are his photographs of Lamu in Kenya.

I didn't know that Lamu is Kenya's oldest living town and port, and was one of the original Swahili settlements along coastal East Africa. It has existed for at least a thousand years, and was an important center of the slave trade. The town's architecture is a mix of African and Islamic styles with inner courtyards, verandas, and elaborately carved wooden doors.

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Posted in: Africa,Photographers: Photojournalists,Photojournalism

Foundry Photojournalism Workshop

As readers of this blog know, the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop is six intensive days of classes, fieldwork, panel discussions, slideshows, portfolio reviews, multimedia creation, parties, networking and more, aimed especially at emerging and student photojournalists.

The workshop runs from June 16-21, 2008 at the AAVI (Academia de Artes Visuales) inMexico City, and is the brainchild of Eric Beecroft.

As one of the workshop's faculty members, I will be posting from the venue on The Travel Photographer blog as frequently as I can. A more comprehensive Foundry Photoworkshop blog is also in the plans. The diversity of the photo-projects and number of assignments being planned are just phenomenal, and the creativity of the student photojournalists is exciting.

The number of emerging and student photojournalists at the venue is about 140, with 20 faculty members. The faculty members are:

Eric Beecroft, Director
Kael Alford
Paula Bronstein
Andrea Bruce
Renée C. Byer
Guy Calaf
Tewfic El-Sawy
Stanley Greene
Ron Haviv
Eros Hoagland
Hugo Infante
Scott Mc Kiernan
Michael Robinson Chavez
Benjamin Rusnak
Shaul Schwarz
Stephanie Sinclair
Kadir Van Lohuizen
Adam Wiseman
Adriana Zehbrauskas

With special guest:
David Griffin, Director of Photography, National Geographic Society

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Posted in: Events

POV: David Roberts Weeps

One of my very favorite artists is David Roberts. He was a Scottish painter, and was born at Stockbridge, Edinburgh in 1796. He is especially known for a prolific series of detailed prints of Egypt and the Near East produced during the 1840s from sketches made during long tours of the region (1838-1840). This work, and his large oil paintings of similar subjects, made him a prominent Orientalist painter.

What made me think of him? Well, here's why. This an excerpt from Robert Fisk's "The West's Weapon of Self-delusion", his latest article in the Independent:

"The Tate has just sent me its magnificent book of orientalist paintings to coincide with its latest exhibition (The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting) and I am struck by the awesome beauty of this work. In the 19th century, our great painters wondered at the glories of the Orient.

No more painters today. Instead, we send our photographers and they return with pictures of car bombs and body parts and blood and destroyed homes and Palestinians pleading for food and fuel and hooded gunmen on the streets of Beirut, yes, and dead Israelis too. The orientalists looked at the majesty of this place and today we look at the wasteland which we have helped to create."

Robert Fisk is one of the few courageous journalists who tells it as it is.

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Posted in: POV

Travel Photography Scholarship

The online travel insurance provider, WorldNomads.com, together with National Geographic Channel, has announced its 2008 photography scholarship, which will award one exceptional student the chance of a lifetime’ assignment.

The winner will get to accompany renowned wildlife on-assignment National Geographic photographer, Jason Edwards, to photograph the Arid Lands Festival and The Great Hughenden Endurance Camel Race, a quirky 160km camel endurance race run in Australia from 22 - 24 August, 2008

For full judging criteria and to apply, go to WorldNomads.com

Via Imaging Insider.

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Posted in: Contests

Petrut Calinescu: Egypt

Photograph © Petrut Calinescu-All Rights Reserved
Petrut Calinescu is a freelance photojournalist member of Panos Pictures, and is working from Bucharest in Romania. His photographs appeared in AP, AFP, Reuters, New York Times, Der Spiegel, National Geographic and a host of other international publications.

Take a look at Petrut's work in Egypt, and specifically his photo essay on the camel market near Cairo. The market is called Birkas, and is the largest of its kind in Africa...it has been in existence for as long as camels have been used for transport. It's certainly not as colorful as the Pushkar Camel fair, and it's not a place for camera-wielding tourists.

The first time I became aware of camel traders was years ago in Khartoum...where I saw many dusty camel traders with some of their herd just ambling down the streets of the Sudanese capital. It was there that I was told of the ancient camel route that traverses Sudan into Egypt.

Again, a few years back, I was interested in joining an expedition which would travel a section of the darb al-arbaeen (translated as the route of 40 days) from the south of Egypt to its capital Cairo. This ancient route -used since antiquity- was an important trade and pilgrimage "highway", and was used by spice, slave, camel traders as well as pilgrims from West Africa on their way to Mecca, and kings and princes visiting Egypt. Its importance has dwindled, but I understand that traditional camel caravans still use it.

Here's the website of Petrut Calinescu.

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Posted in: Egypt,Photographers: Photojournalists

Foto 8: Jane Hahn: Stilt Life

Photograph © Jane Hahn-All Rights Reserved

Here's a multimedia feature published by Foto 8 magazine and produced by Jane Hahn. The feature is on one of the more unusual slums in the world: a floating slum called Makoko in Nigeria. The feature is titled Stilt Life.

Jane Hahn is a photojournalist based in Accra, Ghana and specializes in documenting post-conflict and developing societies, as well as marginalized communities. She's a contributor to Panos, EPA and Bloomberg.

For further exploration of other photo essays, visit and subscribe to Foto 8

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Posted in: Africa,Photographers: Photojournalists,Soundslides

Boston Globe's The Big Picture

Photograph © Andre Penner/AP-All Rights Reserved
PDN's The Photo Feed reports that the Boston Globe has launched a photo blog called “The Big Picture”. The blog is compiled by Alan Taylor, who credits the old Life magazine, National Geographic, Mediastorm and MSNBC for his inspiration.

The Big Picture aims to host high-quality, amazing imagery of current events and lesser-known stories.

The above photograph is of indigenous women bearing machetes, protesting against the construction of a dam in Altamira, Brazil. The photograph is by Andre Penner.

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Posted in: Photojournalism