RAMAYANA TATTOOS

Here's the powerful, technically well-made and intelligent multimedia work by the talented Agata Pietron.  It's about teenagers who live in one of the most dangerous places in the world: in the two Kivus in East Democratic Republic of Congo, where war lasted for two decades. These young men and women experienced the influx of Rwandan refugees into their homeland of South and North Kivu, which caused political instability, genocide and eventually civil war.

These young people want to rebuild their lives by embracing hip-hop, rap and R&B as musicians, and take American monikers such as  Dangerous, Young Boys, B2K, Kashmal, Lille Cent, Peace Life, Victory etc. They speak in French, but the audio slideshow is subtitled in English. Excellent pacing, top notch audio...enviable resolution.

Agata Pietron is an independent photographer and journalist, currently based in Warsaw. She graduated from Cultural Studies at University of Warsaw, studied at European Academy of Photography and Academy of Film and Television. Now she works mainly on social projects. Her works has been exhibited in Poland and abroad. Her clients (among others) are: Orange, Unicef, RR Donnelley, Sotis, Lego, Natura, Lyreco, Fundacja Pomocy Dzieciom Niepełnosprawnym, Fundacja Synapsis.

She's also an alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop...which she attended a number of times; last of which was in Buenos Aires. She worked in the DRC; covering many social issues that put her safety at risk on more than one occasion.

A real pro. What else can I say?

Photo © John Kenny-All Rights Reserved

The Guardian newspaper in London alerted me of an exhibition opening next week of John Kenny's new portraits from Kenya.

John Kenny started a journey in 2006 that took him though many of Sub-Saharan Africa’s remotest communities. He spent hours walking, hitch-hiking and driving across African countries making photographs of people, ancient cultures and traditions.

The Guardian and the exhibition venue (3 Bedfordbury Gallery) has a selected number of these portraits, but the collection can be best seen on John Kenny's website.

He tells us that the images were taken during his second trip to the far North of Kenya in 2011. With major drought across the Samburu, Rendille and Turkana villages in the region, he wanted to to convey a little more on how climate changes are undermining traditional pastoral ways of live in East Africa.

I have featured John Kenny's work a number of times. You can the posts see here and here.

Should I go and see the exhibit at the Covent Garden gallery whilst I'm in London, I'll post my impressions.

I just noticed that John Kenny used a 10x8 format Chamonix camera for some of his work.

Photo © Dominic Nahr-Courtesy TIME

With good reason, I've become skeptical of mainstream Western magazines abilities or interest to present non-stereotypical (and non-judgmental) features dealing with Islam, but I found TIME International's Travel Through Islam five-part series in its Summer Journey issue, to be interesting and insightful.

In this first installment, photographer Dominic Nahr followed the footsteps of famed 14th century explorer and traveler Ibn Battuta into sub-Saharan Africa. In February 1352, Ibn Battuta set off from the city of Sijilmasa at the edge of the Sahara to journey with a camel caravan to lands far to the south.

A few years ago, I was fascinated by Ibn Battuta (whose full name is Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji Ibn Battuta), and read anything I could find about his life and his travels, to the point that I went to the New York Public Library to read some older manuscripts.

Ibn Battuta's journeys took almost thirty years and covered almost the entire known Islamic world and beyond, extending from North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, to the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the East, a distance far surpassing that of his predecessors and his near-contemporary Marco Polo.

For an interesting book on Ibn Battuta and his exploits, Tim Mackintosh-Smith followed the traveler's footsteps as well, and wrote Travels With A Tangerine. Not to be confused with the fruit, Tangerine is a resident of Tangiers...as Ibn Battuta was.

Photo © Tobin Jones-All Rights Reserved

Here is a powerful photo essay by Tobin Jones on the healers of Kibera. Kibera is a slum of the Kenyan capital, and is home to over one million people but a handful of clinics, most of which are run by charities. Religious healers associated to the Christian church claim to be healers and offer their services to solve problems from relationships to sickness to exorcising demons. While 80% of Kenya’s population is Christian, traditional beliefs and customs influence most of Kibera’s African churches, forming a quasi-Christian religion quite different from Western forms of Christianity.

The photo essay appears on the BBC News website, and I suggest you view it there as the images are larger than on Tobin's website.

"Kibera residents go to healers for a wide range of reasons that include family disputes, theft, unemployment and curses, as well as possession by the devil."

Tobin Jones is a photographer of English and American descent, and he lived much of his life on the African continent, where he was born and grew up. He graduated from McGill University, with a major in International Development, as well as minors in Economics and Political Science.

I've previously featured Paolo Evangelista's work of Zanzibar on The Travel Photographer, but he has just self-published a book of his photographs of Stone Town, the ancient city and cultural heart of Zanzibar, where little changed in the last 200 years, so I thought it would be of interest to my readers who are curious in that tiny but authentic part of Africa.

Stone Town is a 142 pages book, currently available on Blurb, and is very well designed. I think Paolo's best color photographs are those spread in a double truck, like the one of a young girl running in the rain or  the one with a women in red with a young girl in a frilly white dress. I also liked some of the quotes used by Paolo; "God made the country, and men made the town", and "God made women to be loved, not understood". You can have a preview of the book here.

The backdrop of these photographs are the narrow alleys of Stone Town, whose houses were built in the 19th century when Zanzibar was one of the most important trading centres in the Indian Ocean region. It is a place of meandering alleys, bustling bazaars, mosques and impressive Arab houses.

Photo © Nick Riley-All Rights Reserved

"For issues of love and business, property and health, people in Tanzania will visit a witch doctor. The job description appears to vary significantly between individuals. Some can help to find lost property, others specialise in healing the unwell, others still in raising curses on those that have wronged you."

My readers will immediately know that this photography essay is one that The Travel Photographer's blog relishes in featuring.

But first things first. Nick Riley is a UK photographer, currently working in Tanzania. His work has featured extensively in the press, including BBC Wildlife magazine, where he won photograph of the month. In June 2010 he was shortlisted for Photographer Of The Year. He worked on projects for clients across the public and corporate sectors, including the NHS and Diageo, but his passion is for documentary and wildlife photography.

The Witch Doctor is a multi-gallery photo essay, arranged in a blog format. Nick was allowed to photograph during the healing sessions conducted by a witch doctor in a poor suburb of Dar Es Salaam. In a tiny room filled with incense, and lined with various shells, leaves, carvings, coins, jars and packets of various powders. It was there that the witch doctor started her magic.

These are extremely atmospheric photographs, and are very well composed despite the difficult circumstances. Short of being there, I would have loved to hear the ambient sound from these sessions! Beautiful and rich colors...And do take the time to explore the other entries in Nick's blog. Well worth it.

It should be mentioned that although Islam orthodoxy frowns on witch doctors and other sorcery for exorcism, other sects less strict tolerate (and even encourage) such traditional ways to rid those afflicted with jinns and evil spirits.

Pete Muller is a photographer and multimedia reporter based in Juba, Sudan. He uses images, words, audio & video to tell under reported stories. He maintains an excellent blog which also features many of these portraits.

A really excellent photographer.

Photo © Liz Loh-Taylor-All Rights Reserved

If you haven't bookmarked the Invisible Ph t grapher Asia, I suggest you do. The Invisible Ph t grapher Asia (IPA) is not only a collective of photographers in Asia mostly involved in street photography and visual journalism, but is also a very clever brand name.

Kevin WY Lee founded the collective in early 2010, and although it's based in Singapore, it covers  Hong Kong, Japan, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, India, Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Pakistan, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka.

I've been following it for a while now, and I liked a recent interview IPA has had with Liz Loh-Taylor, a young full-time documentary photographer, based in Australia, who only entered the profession in late 2009, but who has already won awards, and important recognition.

Although Liz had joined the finance industry, she also worked with disadvantaged children and communities in Africa, and decided to document their stories through a camera. She gave up her corporate career late 2009, and committed to photography since then.

If you poke around The Invisible Ph t grapher Asia website, you'll find a section on street photography with a number of photo essays related to that style. There's also a street photography contest that is open and free to photographers of any level, and in any country of residence, but submissions must be in the street photography genre and photographed in Asia within the last 12 months.

The prize? It's a street photographer's classic. A black repainted LEICA M2 Rangefinder Camera, and a brand new Nokton 35mm F/1.4 lens.