Today I'm featuring the work of Darren Ornitz, who as a freelance photographer, traveled for 14 months in Africa and Asia including Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Yemen and Oman.
Quite a number of photographs in Darren's East Africa gallery are of Lalibela, one of Ethiopia's holiest cities, and a center of pilgrimage for much of the country. The population of Lalibela is almost completely Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, and having spent a few days there photographing during the Epiphany celebrations, I can only describe it as "Biblical".
Part of the East Africa portfolio are some photographs of Zanzibar, and more specifically Stone Town. A UNESCO listed old city, Stone Town was David Livingstone's base when preparing for his final expedition in 1866. The above photograph is of Stone Town.
Darren studied at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse until transferring to Fordham.
Yes, I know. I'm being repetitively Omo Valley-centric this week...but I recently discovered a handful of photographers who produced lovely work from this area, and decided to string Omo Valley galleries one after the other. Once again, tea leaves readers (ie followers of my photo~expeditions) should not see anything in this.
Today, I feature the work of Chris Blade from Omo Valley, although his website also has galleries of the beautiful Ethiopian Simien Mountains, Lalibela and Gondar, and Axum.
Christopher Blade is a graduate from the Royal College of Art in London, and has advanced degrees in glass making and design. He manages the National Glass Centre in Sunderland. He designs and makes bespoke art glass often inspired from his extensive travels as a travel photographer. His travels have taken him to Ethiopia, Israel, Africa (he was invited by a British adventure travel company to photograph from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe & through Botswana & the Okavango Delta, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho to Cape Town), China, Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia and others. I'm glad he included a gallery titled Palestine...as it ought to be.
I liked his horizontal images on the Ethiopian galleries I've visited (some very nice ones of Lalibela, including interiors).
Yes, it does seem that I'm on an Omo Valley streak...and why not? Here's another photographer who showcases his work in Ethiopia. His work doesn't stop at the Omo Valley, but explores many of the country's corners.
Marco Paoluzzo is a Swiss photographer who worked as a freelance photographer for advertising and industry, and then took up travel photography in 1996. His work appeared in the National Geographic Traveler, Geo, Altaïr, Traveller UK, Stern, Paris Match, Nikon News, Leica Fotografie International, and Die Zeit amongst others. He has also published a number of travel photography books.
I was tempted to feature Marco's work of Ethiopian Christianity instead, but I'm sure you'll explore his website on your own. He's been virtually everywhere, so give yourself time to explore his galleries.
As I frequently recommend, photographers ought to update their websites and showcase their work using large images! And to those of you who may be tempted to read tea leaves, the many Omo Valley postings on The Travel Photographer Blog do not suggest that I am planning a photo~expedition there in 2011. I'm just sayin'.
By the way, it just occurred to me that many of the Omo Valley galleries I've seen so far are of simple portraits, rather than environmental portraits (or tableaux, as I like to call them) with other subjects in the background, etc. The one above is one of the few in Marco's gallery. It's not criticism at all, but just a reflection of what is practical in such an environment. My own Omo Valley gallery is made of simple portraits as well.
Sarah Elliott interned for James Nachtwey and assisted Stanley Greene, and traveled extensively around the world pursuing social issues. Her work was opublished by The New York Times, The LA Times, IHT, The Guardian, Monocle, The Observer, Financial Times and the Red Cross and many more.
Sarah's galleries include images and essays from Rwanda, Kenya, Somali Pirates, New Orleans, Rajasthan, The Mormons, Tibet, Tonle Sap Lake and portraits of the Women of the Omo Valley. These are 26 frontal portraits of the tribal women, ranging from the Mursi to Karo. These are simple black & white portraits, quite different from the work of other photographers like Brent Stirton, who used strobes for his environmental portraits of the Omo tribes.
The Omo Valley has considerable resonance amongst those who've either been to the south of Ethiopia and those who want to go. It is currently believed that the area has been a crossroads for thousands of years as various cultures and ethnic groups migrated around the region, and it's been said that “If Africa was the mother of all humanity, then the Omo River was its main artery”. Having been there in 2004, I believe that.
The area is home to eight different tribes whose population is about 200,000 and it's been reported that a hydro-electric dam is under construction on the Omo river. When completed, it will destroy a fragile environment and the livelihoods of these tribes, which are closely linked to the river and its annual flood.
The May-June issue of American Express' Departures magazine features the work of photographer Hans Silvester, a German photographer, who documents the extraordinary body painting of the Surma and Mursi peoples of the Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia.
The Surma and Mursi tribes are body painters. They paint their bodies with natural pigments made from the earth. They paint themselves and each other in a tradition that has remained unchanged for millenia. They use their bodies as canvases, painting their skin with pigments made from powdered volcanic rock and adorning themselves with materials obtained from flowers, leaves, grasses, shells and animal horns.
Hans Silvester was born in Lorrach, Germany, and is now based in southern France. He is recognized for a wide-ranging body of work and a protracted study of his subjects, most frequently nature, animals and the environment.
As the issue of Departures isn't yet on-line, many of the Omo Valley Fashion photographs can be found on The Daily Mail issue of February 2008.
Antonio Perez Rio is a Spanish emerging photographer with a special focus on documentary and travel photography. He has two degrees in Law and Social Work, as well as a specific training in creative writing. He has traveled to more than 20 countries, and speaks Spanish, English, French and is learning Arabic.
Antonio tells me that he plans to join the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul (June 2010) to broaden his already considerable skills.
His Omo Valley slideshow features many of the tribes found in southern Ethiopia, including the Hamer, Karo and the Arbore. Antonio's use of flash brings to my mind the photographs made by Brent Stirton in the Lower Omo Valley.
Antonio also documented the various religious traditions of Benin, and the photographs can be found here.
For those of us who keep tabs on upcoming travel photographers, I predict we will see much more of Antonio's work.
Ed Ou is a Canadian-Taiwanese photojournalist living and working in the Middle East, who covered his first big story during the Israel – Hezbollah conflict from southern Lebanon in 2006, when he was studying Arabic and International Relations in the Middle East.
Since then, he has worked with Reuters and the Associated Press covering diverse stories such as the ongoing conflict in Somalia, child soldiers in Uganda, California wildfires, faith and conflict in the Holy Land, and even fashion in New York City. He is also a featured contributor to Reportage by Getty Images.
Ed was selected by Photo District News as one of the 30 Emerging Photographers of 2008. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, Guardian UK, and many other publications. He speaks English, French, Chinese, and Arabic.
I chose to feature Ed's portfolio titled Journey To The Promised Land, in which he documents some of the Falash Mura, and the surrounding controversy in allowing 40,000 Ethiopian Christians, with claims to Jewish ancestry, to immigrate to Israel.
I'm often asked to lead a photo-expedition to Ethiopia and I always demur, citing the infrastructural difficulties (mostly in the South) of setting up such a trip, and the concomitant high costs. However, as can be seen in Mariella Furrer's Timket gallery, Ethiopia is one of the most visually and culturally magnetic countries in the world. These images bring back the emotions I felt when hearing the beautiful chants at dawn during the Timket festivities.
Mariella Furrer is a photographer and photojournalist who has lived in Africa her whole life. She attended the Documentary Photography & Photojournalism Program at the International Center of Photography in NYC, and has since been working as a freelance photojournalist based between Kenya and South Africa.
Mariella has been awarded grants from the 3P Foundation, France and the Hasseleblad Foundation, Sweden. She has received an Honorable Mention from UNICEF Photo of the Year 2005 and has been nominated for the Santa Fe Prize for Photography 2006.
Timket is the Ethiopian Orthodox celebration of Epiphany, and is celebrated on January 19 or 20.
For my own photographs of Northern Ethiopia, including those of my few days in Lalibela during Timket, drop by Footsteps in North Abyssinia.
Once in a while, I come across work by a young photographer that is so interesting, so adventurous, so visually compelling, so extraordinarily edgy and so cerebral....that I spend many hours just staring at it. And yes, I'll admit it...it's so good that it's incredibly annoying. I'm a purist and certainly not a fan of photo manipulation, but the imagery I've seen by this photographer is really excellent.
Joey Lawrence is 19 years old (no, that's not a typo, he's really 19..or maybe 20 by now), and has been shooting commercial photography, photojournalism and music videos around the world by the age of 17. He already has a reputation of being a pioneer of new aged digital hyper-realistic photography, lighting and manipulation. All his techniques were self-taught or the result of trial and error with no formal educational training.
His website is replete with phenomenal photography: particularly his work in Ethiopia's Omo Valley of the Mursi and other tribal groups, as well as of Abyssinian Christian holy men, and in India amongst the Aghori sadhus (The Aghoris commune with the dead, live among the dead and practice rituals with corpses in order to make contact with the divine mother, Kali, to whom they pray). As a sideline, I wonder how Joey managed to get access to this secretive and reclusive sect!
I'm bookmarking Joey Lawrence's website for many repeated visits. What a talent by a young man who has his whole life ahead of him to produce incredible work both in terms of quality and content!
Here's a clip (about 11 minutes) of video of Joey Lawrence (he's on the left), his assistant and crew in Ethiopia...working and playing. You'll see how he photographs some of his subjects using strobes and lights. The clip was personally very entertaining because I recall being at some of the very same spots in and around the Omo Valley...Jinka has a special place in my memory because it's where I indulged in tej, the potent (make that very potent) home-made brew of fermented honey.
