David Lazar: The Monks Of Burma

Photo © David Lazar-All Rights Reserved

After the 10 days or so I spent amidst photojournalism work, I thought I'd revert to pure travel photography through the work of David Lazar; a collection of absolutely gorgeous portraits of Burmese monks which are certain to thrill and impress the legions of photographers who traveled to this magnificent land, and who especially favor simple portraiture work. I know quite a number of those photographers, and also know of a few who will be traveling soon to see for themselves what Burma has to offer.

Not only are the portraits just spectacular, but the gallery's presentation is also superb. The gallery of large images is on the Visions of Indochina website.

David Lazar is a musician and photographer from Brisbane, and who loves traveling and capturing moments of life through photography. He has won a number of awards and recognitions for his photography which include Shutterbug Awards 2011, Kumuka Travel Photo Contest 2010, Lonely Planet Photo Competition 2010, Asian Geographic - Poetry in Motion Competition 2010, Intrepid Photography Competition 2009...and many more.

I'm not at all surprised. David's photographs are the type that win awards consistently.

Dede Pickering: Myanmar 2011

Photo © Dede Pickering-All Rights Reserved

Once again, Dede Pickering has just returned from her photographic travels and this time it's from Myanmar (Burma).  Having retired from the corporate world, she became a photographer, and traveled to Antarctica, Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, China, Cambodia, Peru, Patagonia, Kosovo, Albania, Rwanda, New Zealand, Guatemala, South East Asia and has made multiple trips to Africa and India, as well as Cuba.

From the many photographs in Dede's Myanmar gallery, I stopped at the lovely one above of young nuns. Girls, as boys more commonly do, take vows during ordination, and practice the same activities as do the boys for monkhood, with the only visual being that they wear pink instead of red robes.

Dede's Myanmar gallery has 34 images, out of which 18 are verticals...an almost perfect balance with her horizontals, If it had been my photographs, the gallery would have been all horizontals!! It's always interesting to appreciate and study other travel photographers' points of views and compositional styles.

Fotopedia & NatGeo Traveler: Dreams of Burma

Fotopedia, the publisher of popular apps for the iPhone and iPad, as well as the creator of a collaborative photographic encyclopedia, is working with National Geographic Traveler magazine to introduce a new, free app, “Dreams of Burma”, a spectacular digital exploration of the beauty of Burma.

“Dreams of Burma” is a visual journey packed with more than 1,000 stunning photographs, virtual excursions, trip-building capabilities, social tools for sharing photos, beautiful slideshows and wallpapers.

“If you have been to Burma, this app will transport you back there in an instant. And if you haven’t seen it yet, you may fall in love.” Jean Marie Hullot, CEO of Fotopedia.

I've downloaded the app, and I have started exploring it. I must say that the photography is gorgeous...work by photographers such as Bertrand Devimeux, Eric Lafforgue, Eric Daney, Jean-Marie Huliot, Giancarlo de Luca and many others grace the app that glides effortless and beautifully on the iPad screen.

I highly recommend it...it's free, it beautiful and it's informative. What's not to like?

If you seek more of images of Burma's people, drop by my own People of the Thanaka.

As a footnote: I have no relationship whatsoever with Fotopedia. It's just a gorgeous application.

Quinn Ryan Mattingly: Burma's Monasteries

Photo © Quinn Ryan Mattingly-All Rights Reserved

This is the second time that Quinn Ryan Mattingly's work appears on The Travel Photographer blog. He's a documentary photographer based in Saigon, and most of his work is related to documenting a wide range of subjects, including social issues, which can include documenting a Vietnamese leprosy center and a home for the aged, a behind the scenes Saigon circus, Burmese television commercial shoots, and street scenes of Yangon.

I liked one of Quinn's photo galleries in particular which he titled Burma IV: Life On The Path.  He tells us that a monk approached him in Yangon, and after a few friendly pleasantries, was invited to the monk's monastery. This provided him an insider look into Buddhist monastic life in Burma.

By all means, poke around Quinn's website, which has interesting still galleries and multimedia.

Incidentally, Quinn is one of the many photographers who uses PhotoShelter for his website and galleries, as well for selling his work.

If you want to learn how you can sell your prints, PhotoShelter has issued a free downloadable PDF guide to help you out.

Magdalena Sole: Burma

Photo © Magdalena Sole- All Rights Reserved

Magdalena Sole is a Spanish photographer based in New York City, with a MFA from Columbia University and a 20-year background in visual arts. Her work spans graphic design, film and photography, and a client base ranging from Fortune 500 corporates to private collectors.

Her biography tells us she prefers to work with a Leica, and works in color because it expresses culture best.

Her travel portfolio has galleries from Brazil, Kamagasaki, Japan, Mexico and Vencie, however I chose to feature her photographs from Burma. Her photographs are mostly street and urban scenes...tableaux as I prefer to call them.

Charles Pertwee: The Khumbu

Photo © Charles Pertwee-All Rights Reserved

Charles Pertwee is a photojournalist, known for his reportage in crisis stricken locations such as Banda Aceh and Afghanistan. He graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London with a degree in the History of East Asia, and took up photography soon after graduation. He has since worked for such diverse clients as The New York Times, Wired, CNN Traveller, Marie Claire, Universal Music and Nike. He's currently based in Nantes, France after living in Singapore. 

His galleries are all worthy of praise, but the two that appealed to me the most are of his work of The Khumbu (in black & white) and of Myanmar (Burma).

The Khumbu is located in northeastern Nepal, and the famous Tengboche Buddhist monastery is there. Tengboche is the largest gompa of the region.

Human Rights Watch: Burma Defenders

The Human Rights Watch feature Burma Defenders is timed to coincide with the first elections to be held in the repressed country in more than 20 years. Burma has been run by a junta of army generals who have silenced any opposition to their brutal regime with human rights abuses and by silencing any dissent.

Political observers are awaiting the elections and wondering if civil unrest flare up after what is widely perceived as a sham election on November 7, and whether Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, be released when her sentence ends on November 13.

Human Rights Watch and photographer Platon have teamed up to photograph opposition members, former political prisoners, and journalists who have sought political refuge in neighboring Thailand.

Platon is a photographer who attended London's St. Martin's School of Art, holds a BA in Graphic Design and a MA in Photography and Fine Art from the Royal College of Art. Now living in New York, he continues to shoot portrait, and documentary work for a range of international publications, including The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, and The Sunday Times Magazine.

Andrea Johnson: Burma

Andrea Johnson is a photojournalist specializing in documenting the wine and spirits, food, and travel industries. Her photographs regularly appear in related publications such as Wine Spectator, Food and Wine, VIA, Northwest Palate, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Additionally, Andrea has photographed three books: Passion for Pinot (Ten Speed Press, 2008), Essential Wines and Wineries of the Pacific Northwest, (Workman Press, 2010), and Luscious – 100 recipes and Insider Stories from Oregon Fruit Growers, Artisans, and Chefs (Arnica, 2011).

Take a look at her photographs of Burma in the above movie, which she made in February 2010. The fabulous Shwedagon Pagoda, the famed fishermen of Inle Lake, the monasteries with the Buddhist novices and nunneries with the pink-clad nuns, the Shin Laung initiates having their heads shaved, and the ageless U-Bein bridge are all captured by Andrea's lenses....and naturally, the Burmese smiling faces with thanaka paste.

I would have used a different transition between the photographs...I found the zoom-in too distractingly repetitive. The simple (and most common) cut transition is always the best, as it's the way we "see".

Jørgen Johanson: Kham & Amdo (Tibet)

Photo © Jørgen Johanson -All Rights Reserved
Jørgen Johanson went on his first trip to Asia in 1982, and completed the Annapurna circuit in Nepal. He was hooked from that moment on travel, photography and on Asian cultures.

He's a software development engineer for companies Norwegian companies, and recently took a 2-3 years sabbatical just to travel. Most of his travel has been trips to Asia, but also made some trips to Africa, where he photographed in Ethiopia and Niger. He's also enamored of India and China...but it's the Tibetan culture and the Himalayas that really fascinate him.

Take a look at Jørgen's Kham & Amdo photo galleries (he's got two on his website), and explore the other galleries which include Myanmar (some good shots of the fishermen of Lake Inle) and Bhutan (stop by the lovely photograph of Wangdi Phodrang Dzong in the mist).

Jørgen also self-published a book "Kham And Amdo" which is available on Blurb, which you can preview in its entirety.

Andrea Pistolesi: The Rohingya Refugees

Photo © Andrea Pistolesi-All Rights Reserved
Andrea Pistolesi is a pro in the full meaning of the word...a my kind of guy...a photographer who fuses travel and editorial imagery, and who's candid enough to say that professional travel photography as it existed is now extinct, and that travel publications and ancillary glossies are a dying breed. He espouses the view -like I do- that interesting visual stories are all around us, but that we need to broaden our scope by creating new ways of distribution (think of the new VII Magazine, as an example).

Andrea was born and lives in Florence, and studied geography at the local university, evolving in a travel photographer specializing in geographic and global social reportage. He published books on exotic destinations (Indonesia, New Zealand, Morocco, South Africa, The Land of Buddha, Hinduism, Eastern Christianity), and amongst others, has recently published a book on prayers of major religions.

He was widely published in CN Traveller (Italy), Delta Sky, Departures, Elle, l'Espresso, Figaro Mag, Gente Viaggi, Geo, Gulliver, Hemispheres, Islands, LATimes Mag, National Geographic, NYT Sophisticated Traveler, Photo, Rutas del Mundo, Smithsonian Mag, Time, Travel & Leisure, and many others.

Andrea's website is a cornucopia of travel and editorial photography, which is bound to give viewers hours of enjoyment, and provide photographers immense inspiration and ideas.

I spent a while on his website, trying to decide which of his galleries to feature on this blog. It was difficult, and I changed my mind often. Finally, I chose the brilliant reportage of the Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh.

As Andrea describes them, the Rohingya are the unwanted of southwestern Asia. An ethnic Muslim minority, they have no rights in Burma and try to flee across the borders with Bangladesh where only a few earn a refugee status. For others, it's a life of squalid illegal camps, an unending odyssey falling prey to human traffickers, to organ traffickers, to sex rings and to pedophiles.

Also read Andrea's blog post Requiem For Travel Photography. And don't miss his work on the Nats (spirits of Mynamar) and on the Bugis Seafarers.

Highly recommended as a photographer to follow.