POV: Egypt's Iconic Revolutionaries

Photos © Kim Badawi-Courtesy The Independent

The Independent newspaper has featured the photographs of some of the young Egyptian revolutionaries who, against all odds, overturned a despised regime in a matter of days. It is these young people who made history, not only their own country's, but of the world's.

These are the young men and women who led a populist uprising against Mubarak and his repulsive henchmen and sycophants...these are the young men and women who took the West's proclaimed democratic values as their own, and fought for them...not only paying lip service, not mouthing bromides...but with real action, risking their lives and futures. These are the young men and women who are the future of Egypt, and who'll take it to where it deserves to be...these are the young men and women who will accept no foreign influences...these are the young men and women who scoffed at the naysayers who described them as nothing more than errant juveniles, and who give the finger to the sclerotic and biased Western pundits who see Islamist bogeymen everywhere...these are the young men and women who have shown us that the people of the Middle East want democracy...their own democracy, not one imposed by others...these are the young people who must be immensely proud to be Egyptians.

I was also amazed by reading this, from The New York Times (March 6, 2011):

Egypt’s popular revolution was the work of men and women, bringing together housewives and fruit sellers, businesswomen and students. At its height, roughly one quarter of the million protesters who poured into the square each day were women. Veiled and unveiled women shouted, fought and slept in the streets alongside men, upending traditional expectations of their behavior.

Jonathan Owen's in his accompanying article calls these photographs "Portraits of Courage", and indeed they are.

Finally, about the photographer. Kim Badawi, a 30-year-old documentary photographer of French-Egyptian descent, endured beatings, bullets and tear gas to find out what these young revolutionaries went through, and these portraits are his work.

My Work: Chandrika, A Hijra of Becharaji

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy - All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy - All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy - All Rights Reserved

One of our photo-shoots on the itinerary of the In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™ involved the eunuchs of Becharaji. This required one of the longest pre-photo shoot negotiations of the trip, since eunuchs (or hijras, as they're known in the sub-continent) are usually reticent about being photographed.

The history of the hijras is rooted both in ancient Hinduism, where eunuchs are mentioned in a variety of texts, including the epic Mahabharata, and in Islam, where eunuchs served in the harems of the Mogul rulers. Hijra is considered a derogatory term, and I was told by Rehman, our fixer, that they preferred being addressed as 'masi'. Be it what it may, the word "hijra" is an Arabic word which found its way into Urdu, and it means "migrant"...for someone who has left his or her tribe.

I chose Becharaji as a photo shoot site because of its Hindu temple, devoted to the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata. Hijras are usually devotees of Bahuchara Mata. She is considered as a patroness of their community, and is devoutly worshiped. In fact, I witnessed many Hindu pilgrims arriving to the temple, and asking for the blessings of a group of hijras, almost as if they were recognized as being especially close to the goddess.

There are many books that deal with the culture of hijras, and apart from The Invisibles by Zia Jaffrey, I found many pages about them in City of Djinns by my favorite author William Dalrymple. He writes:

"Yet despite their frequent appearances in public, very little is actually known about the Indian eunuchs. They are fiercely secretive and of their own choice inhabit a dim world of ambiguity and half-truths. They trust no one, and hate being questioned about their lives."

We were allowed to visit Chandrika at her home (which she shares with other hijras), not far from the temple itself, and where the bottom two photographs were made (the top one was made at the temple), and the house was spotless, comfortable and well-tended to. An older transgender, introduced as her guru, was there, who gave permission before we could come in. Hearing and seeing the commotion, many neighbors eventually dropped by for some tea, and it ended up being a sort of a social event.

Chandrika is an extrovert, and she reveled in the attention from this handful of foreign photographers. It was difficult to photograph her in the setting of our choice, especially as she also wanted her friends and neighbors to be in the pictures. She also seemed to have a short attention span, and a mercurial temperament...so we had to make do with what we had.

Human Planet: Trailer

Photo © Tim Allen-All Rights Reserved

I've featured Tim Allen's Human Planet quite a number of times, but the BBC's latest trailer is a a treat and a must see. Narrated by Tim, it features a number of his phenomenal still photographs made during the production of the series.

As the BBC describes it: "From the icy Arctic to Africa's dense jungles - and the mountain tops of Mongolia to the deep waters of the Pacific - the BBC series Human Planet has explored mankind's incredible relationship with nature."

One photographer, 4 teams and 40 countries...and almost 2 years for Tim to shadow BBC film crews during the production of the landmark television series. This is what it took to produce this stunning series. Human Planet was featured on BBC One on Thursday 3 March and is viewable on its BBC iViewer, but this is not available in the United States.

I'm very pleased to be listed on Tim's favorite links. He describes my blog as "Not much from the culture of traveling photographers slips past the watchful eye of Tewfic El-Sawy in this, his highly informative blog for those of us who travel and photograph." Nice.

My thanks to readers Jonny of www.shimmerimages.co.uk and Jonas Bendik for letting me know of this trailer.

Amy Johansson: Transcending Pain Through Faith

Photo © Amy Helene Johansson- All Rights Reserved

This is the second post on The Travel Photographer blog for Amy Helene Johansson, who is a Dhaka-based photojournalist covering South Asia. Amy's work was published in leading broadsheets and magazines in the UK and Sweden, including the Sunday Times and Sydsvenska Dagbladet, Amelia and Omvärlden. Her work has been displayed in solo and collaborative exhibitions in Bangladesh, the Czech Republic, Sweden and the UAE.

She has recently joined Kontinent, a Swedish Photojournalist Agency working worldwide, and has featured Transcending Pain Through Faith on its website.

The accompanying text for the photo essay describes the Ashura observance amongst Shia Muslims quite well:

"The crowd is heavy with grief and pulsing with intensity. In the heat of night, the faithful mourn the death of Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, by flagellating themselves with swords and whips until blood runs down their bare backs. For these Shiite Muslims in Bangladesh, the Day of Ashura is a day of remembrance and self-sacrifice. The wounds epitomize the deep sorrow caused by a martyrdom that took place over 1300 years ago. By inflicting such pain, it is believed by some that all sins will be absolved. For others, it is a time to submit to their faith and show devotion to their brethren."

Ashura is held on on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar and marks the climax of the Remembrance of Muharram. This commemorates the death of Hussein Bin Ali in the battle of Karbala at the hands of Yazid I, the Ummayad Caliph of Syria.

Gul Chotrani: Leica Oskar Barnack 2011 Contest

Photo © Gul Chotrani-All Rights Reserved

Gul Chotrani lives in Singapore, and joined my recent recently completed In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™. Originally an international corporate banker for most of his career, Gul also set up his own business consultancy, providing corporate financial advisory services to European and Asian firms seeking to do business in South East Asia.

Notwithstanding these achievements, he relinquished the fast-paced corporate life for a faster-paced life in photography, becoming a full-time photographer, and traveling to the four corners of the world to nurture his passion.

He just completed his entries in the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2011 Contest which he titled "Faith Along The Way". His images wre made in Haridwar during the 2010 Kumbh Mela, in Ujjain, in Varanasi, and a couple from Gujarat made during the photo~expedition (as the one above of the woman in trance in one of the Sufi dargahs).

I know it sounds biased...but I hope he wins!!!

Roger Job: Turkanas, The Last First Men

Les Premiers Derniers Homme from Reporters Magazine on Vimeo.

Roger Job is a Belgian photographer, whose work in Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Congo, Ethiopia, Kosovo, South Africa, Rwanda, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Somalia, US, and Zaire frequently appear in the Belgian and international press. He has also published 5 books.

Roger's Turkanas: The Last First Men started in September 2008 and ended in July 2010, and documents the impact of climate change on the Turkana pastoralists in north Kenya. A group of people who have lived for ages tending to their livestock, remote from the modern world and with a way of life of freedom, pride and in perfect harmony with nature.

The Turkana have begun to face the difficulty of accessing water points and pastures for their cattle and their way of life that has largely been intact for some 6,000 years is likely to be destroyed. Roger's photographs aim to document a way of life that is likely to disappear within a span of a generation.

The Making of The Last First Men can also be seen here. I could only find it in French, but it's more or less self-explanatory.

Incidentally, Reporters Magazine is the brainchild of Reporters, a photo agency in northern Europe, founded in 1989.

My Work: In Search of Sufis In Gujarat Gallery

In Search of Sufis in Gujarat is a new gallery of 20 photographs made during my recently completed In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™. I think these photographs are reflective of my personal style, which is best described as "travel photography meets photojournalism". The gallery features traditional travel portraits, photojournalism-like photographs, and close-up/textures.

I've traveled to India about 20 times so far, and I've always been interested in, and drawn to, its multi-layered religious-cultural identities...which I now know is another term for its syncretism. As I write in one of the photo gallery's panels, Sufism "walked" into the sub-continent from Iran and Afghanistan, and wherever the Sufi acetic teachers lived and died, shrines were built to commemorate their teachings, deeds and legacy...and they eventually became saints, or pirs as they're called in the subcontinent. It is these shrines that were the intended destinations for my photo-expedition, and where we witnessed and photographed the manifestations of this religious fusion. I can't call these either extraordinary nor unusual, since they've been practiced here for millennia. It's just that I haven't been aware of this syncretism before visiting India.

Hinduism and Islam co-exist in India, despite what the politicians on both sides will have you believe. The fixer I hired for the photo~expedition was a living, breathing example of India's syncretism. Having converted to Islam from Hinduism, he exemplified this melding of religious traditions and practices by announcing that he firmly believed (as well as many others like him) that the Prophet Muhammad was a reincarnation of Vishnu, and that the Arabic word for Allah graphically originated from Shiva's trident. I can consider this to be lore and simplistic traditional belief as much as I want, but it's widely prevalent in the areas we traveled to.

I saw Hindus and Muslims at these shrines; Hindu women in colorful saris, and Muslims in either the traditional kurta and salwar kameez, or in shapeless black robes, as well as barefoot tribal women with gorgeous silver jewelry. Many of them supplicating the Sufi saint for favors; some reading the Qur'an and others in trances. I saw no constraints on these worshipers, based on religion, creed, race, ethnicity, caste or social status. However, no women were allowed in the chambers where the saints' tombs were. I thought I could tell the Hindu men from Muslims, but I wasn't always right. Older Muslim men usually sported beards, while Hindus didn't...however with the younger men, I was stumped unless they wore the Muslim cotton skullcap called "topee".

At the Sufi shrines, I met a woman politician with flawless English from Ajmer, a Hindu teacher from Mumbai whose daughter was afflicted with an undiagnosed mental ailment, articulate Muslim khadims (guardians of the shrine), a Portuguese-speaking elderly man who had emigrated to South Gujarat from Mozambique decades ago, and many others who were universally courteous and welcoming. At no time did I (nor any in my group) feel unwelcome or viewed with any suspicion....quite the opposite.

This is the first of many galleries I plan to feature following the photo- expedition.. Some will be of stills, while others will be in a multimedia format.

Finally, the motivational impulse behind this photo-expedition was the work by Asim Rafiqui, a US photographer and photojournalist based in Sweden, whose The Idea of India is a fascinating philosophical and visual project that documents religious and cultural pluralism as a prominent feature of Indian life.