RAMAYANA TATTOOS

Photo © Sam Phelps-All Rights Reserved

Let me venture a guess...we all love a long train journey in an exotic land.

If I'm right, you'll love Sam Phelps's wonderful portraits of Pakistanis sharing a train journey with him. If I'm not...you'll still love them.

The portraits were made on the Khyber Mail, a Pakistani mail and passenger train that travels from Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and ends in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city at the southern tip of the Sindh province on the Arabian Sea. The train journey involves 35 hours of travel.

My favorite portrait is of Joman, an 80 year-old Sufi. He is from Nowabshah, Sindh Province, and has two wives and twelve children. He has been a beggar all his life.

Sam Phelps has a background of fine arts study in Sydney, and is now increasingly working with NGOs including the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, as well as taking assignments for clients including Der Speigel, Time, Newsweek Pakistan and the Times UK. He is also a registered photographer with Getty Images Global Assignment.

He traveled the mountainous roads to Leh, the capital of Ladakh in northern India, and photographed the lives of people along the route. He undertook a four day trip on a train meeting and documenting pilgrims' experiences traveling from Tehran through northern Iran, across Turkey and south to the Syrian capital of Damascus to pray at the Umayyad, the Great Mosque of Damascus.

Photo © Khalil Shah-All Rights Reserved

I don't post much from Flickr unless it virtually hits me in the face...and this magnificent portrait of a Pakistani Sufi singer (or minstrel) by Khalil Shah did exactly that.

I was perusing Sobia Ali's article Voices of Pakistan in the Huffington Post, and one of the photographs included in the article was the one of this Sufi singer.

"...many so-called "non professional" photographers (some with little experience) can give well known photographers a run for their money."

There's no doubt in my mind that this portrait is as good, if not better, than those I've seen published so many times by well established photographers in the National Geographic or GEO, to name but two magazines. It also reinforces my long held opinion that many so-called "non professional" photographers (some with little experience) can give well known photographers a run for their money...and sometimes more. And let's not forget that many do not have the resources that the professionals have in terms of photographic tools, fixers and research assistance.

Khalil Shah is an art professional with experience in conventional and contemporary forms of art including web and graphic designing. He started photography in 2005 at a digital photography workshop at the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan.