TPA 2016

Alexander Khimushin | The World In Faces

Photo © Alexander Khimushin - All Rights Reserved

"While travel is my life, photography is my passion. 

And it’s never been about the money…"

It is said that, in photography, a portrait is a composed image of a person in a still position, and often shows the person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer.

Many photographers also use an optical illusion used by painters since time immemorial, by placing the person's dominant eye in the center of the frame, to give the impression that the eyes are following the viewers.

And with more than 7.3 billion people of countless cultures and traditions, portraiture is a wonderful way to demonstrate the diversity, ingenuity, and beauty of humans.

I wouldn't be wrong in assuming that most travel photographers have started their careers and craft by photographing simple portraits; perhaps setting up their subjects against attractive backgrounds, or against anything they found. I recall my own start when, a 70-200 lens on my camera, I'd roam the exotic places I traveled to in search of faces that 'spoke' to me.

My craft has evolved during the years, and I've become inclined to photograph perhaps more complex scenes, however travel portraiture is always the primary visual "magnet". And from my experience, it is always portraits that attracts the most attention amongst a wide swath of viewers.

Alexander Khimushin explored 84 nations with cameras in hand over the past two years in order to photograph portraits of people he met for “The World In Faces,” a photo project celebrating diverse cultures around the world.

There will always be critics for whom this project (and others like it) will not sit well, but insofar as I'm concerned, it's a project that brings us all together.

Alexander Khimushin is an Russian/Australian independent traveler. He tells us that 8 years ago he packed a backpack for a journey around the world. Since then he's been traveling the globe non-stop.

The Huffington Post also has an article with larger versions of his photographs.

Alessandra Meninconzi | Time For Holi!

Photo © Alessandra Meninconzi-All Rights Reserved

One of my favorite travel photographers is Alessandra Meninconzi who has recently uploaded her new work from India, which she titled It's Time For Holi. Her photographs were mostly made in Vrindavan, and its surrounding towns and villages, during the festival of Holi.

I remember Alessandra messaging me from Vrinadavan complaining that her new Canon Mark 3 was in danger of being permanently colored in pink. She is a Canon Professional, so I'm certain that Canon didn't mind. That said, by many recent accounts, in many areas Holi has devolved into a a color "slug fest" that goes beyond fun with colors, and is no longer a religious observance.

Alessandra's galleries range from the Arctic Siberia to Ethiopia, from Lapland to the Silk Road, and from Greenland to Tibet and the Himalayas. She worked extensively for more than a decade in the remote areas of Asia, documenting minority people and their traditional cultures. More recently, she focused on the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions that are threatened by climate change, development, and resource extraction.

Alessandra Meniconzi is a Swiss photographer fascinated by the lives and traditions of indigenous people in remote regions of the world.Her photographs have been published widely in magazines, as well as in four books: The Silk Road (2004), Mystic Iceland (2007), Hidden China (2008) and QTI -Alessandra Meniconzi, Il coraggio di esser paesaggio (2011). 

Travel Photographer Asia Invalidates 2016 Original Winner

Photo © Alex Varani - All Rights Reserved

Travel Photographer Asia and its judges have taken the difficult, but unavoidable, decision to revoke its 2016 winning photograph of Malaysian photographer Yen Sin Won, and replace it with the above photograph by Alex Varani of Italy.

The new winning photograph was originally first runner-up, and with the said elimination is now the overall winner of Travel Photographer 2016 contest. It is of Indonesian fishermen battling a shark near Cenderawasih Bay. 

The updated line-up of the winners is here.

Although Yen Sin Won's monochromatic photograph (see my previous post to view it) was compelling enough to garner the admiration of the jury, it came to the attention of the judges when asking for and viewing the RAW version that it violated the rules and spirit of the contest regarding post processing restrictions on submitted images. 

As I posted earlier, Travel Photographer Asia is much more than a photographic contest. It is also a travel photography festival consisting of photo talks, an exhibition and photography master class & workshops for the professional and amateur photographer.

I shall join photography luminaries Ms Huang Wen, Mr. Che' Ahmad Azhar, Dr. Shahidul Alam and Mr. Vignes Balasingam in giving photo talks during the festival. My photo talk will focus on travel photography, and I'll touch upon its challenges and rewards, how to approach people and build trust, how to take the right photos for an article, how to build up a story with photos, and how to brand yourself. I will share how I started as a travel photographer, how I built my travel photo workshops business from scratch and how I go about developing personal projects.