Conrad Louis-Charles: Brazil

I met Conrad Louis-Charles at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City, he briefly described his background, but it wasn't until I returned that I discovered his work, and that the adage that still waters run deep is certainly true in his case. Conrad is an independent photographer and cameraman currently based in Philadelphia and Sao Paulo in Brazil. He worked with various corporate clients, and he specializes in travel, documentary and editorial photography...making him a perfect candidate for the pages of TTP. He's represented by Getty Images. His website showcases work from mainly Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Brazil. However, I was impressed by his Work-In-Progress gallery, which has a large number of his sensitive photograph of religious rituals and pilgrimages in northern Brazil. I'm not too fond of mixing color and black & white photographs, but Conrad kept the color photographs bunched together on his gallery, so it's not really mixing. Explore his other galleries as well, and compare his Haiti work to that of the earlier post.

Frederic Courbet: Lamu (Kenya)

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.

Kate Orne: Pakistan Brothels

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. This is the second in the series. Kate Orne is a New York-based photographer who worked amongst the neediest people in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past seven years. Her mission was to use her craft to fight against indentured slavery and to support the wellbeing of women, children and animals. She worked on several essays on indentured laborers in South East Asia, on victims of domestic abuse, on Kabul orphanages where children lack basic facilities, maternity wards without basic care and imprisoned women. Her website has a number of galleries, documenting the brothels in Pakistan, the maternity hospital and orphanage in Kabul, refugee camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the red light district in Mumbai. I thought her work on the brothels in Pakistan as her most powerful and thought-provoking, as it highlights the paradox that exists between the sex industry and Muslim fundamentalism in this part of the world.

Sarah Caron: Alliance Française-NYC

Image © Sarah Caron-All Rights Reserved The French Institute in New York City is hosting a couple of events for Sarah Caron's work. An exhibition of her photographs, a documentary film on her by Patrick Chauvel and a panel discussion. Sarah Caron is a French photographer, who travels the world, working both in journalism and on projects. Her assignments have taken her to Thailand, Cuba, Burma, and Mexico. In 2006, she received a Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography to complete The Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades– The Balata Sentinels, a series exploring the martyrdom culture in Palestine. Her work has been published in international publications, including Le Monde, Le Figaro, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, and Elle. Sarah Caron has also photographed the Indian widows in Vrindavan, titling her gallery "Les Veuves Blanches" or "The Widows In White". The gallery is of black & white photographs, and seems to have been photographed very recently. In fact, I believe I recognize a few faces amongst the widows which I photographed for my own work White Shadows. The French Institute's events on Sarah Caron Sarah Caron's Veuves Blanches UPDATE: I dropped by the French Institute/Alliance Française today (February 14), and I must say that the exhibit was disappointing. Three of Sarah Caron's photographs were large enough, but the remainder of the exhibit were of photographs not much larger than 8x10 at most. The three large photographs were intelligently chosen. Since there were no captions, I'll describe the photographs as best I can. One was of was I believe is of 3 men and a woman carrying rifles and handguns...probably belonging to some sort of militia in Arizona which patrols the border between the US and Mexico. The middle one was of Pakistani mustachioed bodyguards (possibly those of Benazir Bhutto) holding Kalashnikovs, and the third is of a masked Palestinian insurgent loading a RPG unto a rifle. The juxtaposition of these three photographs was obviously done on purpose.

NY Times: "A Genocide In Slow Motion"

Image ©Jan Grarup for NY Times-All Rights Reserved Jan Grarup is an award-winning Danish photographer who traveled the world documenting many historical events. From the fall of the communist regime in Romania to the current occupation of Iraq, he has covered numerous wars and conflicts, including the genocide in Rwanda. He's a member of the Noor agency-collective. Here's his latest work out of Africa, which The New York Times chose to title as "A Genocide In Slow Motion". The feature is in slideshow motion, with Jan Grarup narrating.