Diego Vergés: Bali Wedding Ceremony

Photo © Diego Vergés-All Rights Reserved
I was glad that Diego Vergés has just sent me some of his work in Indonesia, which includes photographs from a typical Balinese wedding ceremony in his distinctive style. It's opportune as I just returned from Bali myself and also photographed a wedding.

According to Diego's diary, he was driving in Randang, not far from Ubud in the east of Bali, where he was invited to a wedding. The ceremony was to start at the groom's family house with a lunch offered to all guests. Subsequently, the guests went home, while the groom's friends and family started to slaughter pigs and ducks as offerings to the temple, and for the large dinner on the following day.

Many of the guests arrive early morning, with the religious rituals over by noon when food is offered to the guests. In the afternoon, the groom and his bride will visit her family's house when she bids them farewell, as she will live thereafter with her in-laws.

I experienced the same sequence in tradition when I attended a wedding in Ubud. In essence a wedding-crasher, I was nevertheless considered and treated as a valued guest, and offered food and water whenever I was seen with neither in my hand. Hindu priests (known as a pemangku) officiated the ceremony, which required the bride and groom to perform symbolic rites. It also required them to endure a couple of hours of make-up, and wear traditional wedding attire.

Book: The Complete Photographer

I've been advised that The Complete Photographer which is just published by Dorling Kindersley Publishers, and authored by Tom Ang, is now available in bookstores. I mention this, not only because it seems to be very interesting with tutorials on 10 different genres, covering both technical and creative aspects of photography, and helps to master 10 genres of photography, with 20 top international photographers, but I am also featured as a master of travel photography, with my image of a Guelaguetza dancer.

I believe that some biographical write-up is also included, so I'm eager to look at it at Waterstones on High Street Kensington as soon as I have the chance. Golly, being described as a master photographer is a huge boost to my ego...but before I start strutting around, I'll check it first. Hold your collective breaths!

Update: I walked to Waterstones but did not find the book. So it'll have to wait for my return to NYC in a few days.

Mongolian Racer

Reading and posting Stan Greene's excellent interview yesterday will probably satisfy my photojournalism interest for this week, so for a change in pace here's a lovely travel multimedia piece titled Mongolian Racer by The Guardian photographer Dan Chung, and narrated by Tania Branigan. (click the arrow).

The multimedia piece is on a horse trainer and his 10-year-old jockey who face the biggest day of their year at Mongolia's Naadam festival, which dates back to before Genghis Khan's time and celebrates the 'manly sports' of wrestling, archery and racing.

The Mongolian traditional festival of Naadam is also called in the local dialect as "the three games of men". These are Mongolian wrestling, horse racing and archery. The festival is held throughout the country during the midsummer holidays, however the largest is in Ulaanbaatar.

For the geeks, the piece was shot using Canon 1DmkIV, 5DMkII, 550D and GoPro HD camera, and a load of ancillary gear which is described in length in Dan Chung's blog DSLR News Shooter.

Apart from it being gorgeous videography, I noted the simple and clean font used for the title of the piece, and how it's placed against the dark cloud in a red sky...nice touch, that. And I also liked how the voice-over expertly blended with the ambient sound/voice.

Jacob Maentz: The Infanta Penitents

Photo © Jacob Maentz-All Rights Reserved
I've been terribly remiss in covering the Philippines on this blog, but Jacob Maentz's fine work on this Asian nation will go a long way to rectify this.

Originally from the United States, Jacob is based in the Philippines from where he does considerable amounts of travel, working on freelance assignments and shooting stock photography. His travels to Latin America whilst in college is where he discovered his passion for the camera. He was brought to the Philippines in 2003 when he joined the United States Peace Corps and has found himself repeatedly drawn back to this part of the world since then.

Most of his galleries are of the Philippines, and I chose to feature the very interesting Infanta Penitents here.

Jacob writes that "Self flagellation practices were adopted by Filipinos during their Spanish colonization almost 500 years ago. Flagellants are practitioners of an extreme form of mortification of their own flesh by whipping it with various instruments. Today, you can still see some Christians practicing flagellation in the Philippines as a form of devout worship and personal sacrifice, sometimes in addition to self-crucifixion. In the Philippine province of Quezon there are still a number of men who wear elaborate costumes while preforming their act of self flagellation."

When you've looked the Infanta Penitents, continue exploring Jacob's galleries. I did, and learned much about the cultural wealth of the Philippines.

Andrea Pistolesi: The Rohingya Refugees

Photo © Andrea Pistolesi-All Rights Reserved
Andrea Pistolesi is a pro in the full meaning of the word...a my kind of guy...a photographer who fuses travel and editorial imagery, and who's candid enough to say that professional travel photography as it existed is now extinct, and that travel publications and ancillary glossies are a dying breed. He espouses the view -like I do- that interesting visual stories are all around us, but that we need to broaden our scope by creating new ways of distribution (think of the new VII Magazine, as an example).

Andrea was born and lives in Florence, and studied geography at the local university, evolving in a travel photographer specializing in geographic and global social reportage. He published books on exotic destinations (Indonesia, New Zealand, Morocco, South Africa, The Land of Buddha, Hinduism, Eastern Christianity), and amongst others, has recently published a book on prayers of major religions.

He was widely published in CN Traveller (Italy), Delta Sky, Departures, Elle, l'Espresso, Figaro Mag, Gente Viaggi, Geo, Gulliver, Hemispheres, Islands, LATimes Mag, National Geographic, NYT Sophisticated Traveler, Photo, Rutas del Mundo, Smithsonian Mag, Time, Travel & Leisure, and many others.

Andrea's website is a cornucopia of travel and editorial photography, which is bound to give viewers hours of enjoyment, and provide photographers immense inspiration and ideas.

I spent a while on his website, trying to decide which of his galleries to feature on this blog. It was difficult, and I changed my mind often. Finally, I chose the brilliant reportage of the Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh.

As Andrea describes them, the Rohingya are the unwanted of southwestern Asia. An ethnic Muslim minority, they have no rights in Burma and try to flee across the borders with Bangladesh where only a few earn a refugee status. For others, it's a life of squalid illegal camps, an unending odyssey falling prey to human traffickers, to organ traffickers, to sex rings and to pedophiles.

Also read Andrea's blog post Requiem For Travel Photography. And don't miss his work on the Nats (spirits of Mynamar) and on the Bugis Seafarers.

Highly recommended as a photographer to follow.

Mervyn Leong: Hammams, Spreader of Warmth

Here's a lovely audio-slideshow by the gifted Mervyn Leong W.Y. which you can either view on Vimeo (click above) or via his website here. The quality of the latter is better.

Mervyn attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul (he also attended last year's in Manali), and participated in Rena Effendi's Telling A Human Story Through A Compelling Portrait class. I spent time with Mervyn as he prepared to photograph inside the less-than-hospitable-for-photography interiors of the hammams, and can vouch for his meticulous planning, and how he took pains to wrap his camera, lenses and audio gear in saran-wrap (to protect them against moisture and steam).

An engineer by profession, Mervyn took photography and photojournalism more seriously a couple of years ago, and has made impressive strides in his work. He's also endowed with an encyclopedic knowledge of gastronomy, cooking and food in general.

I think that Hammams: Spreader of Warmth is a very well made audio slideshow (I particularly like the opening image of the slideshow, which is almost a painting), and the audio tracks are well sync'ed. You'll find it a delight to watch...and like the patrons enjoying the turkish bath, you may feel equally relaxed and refreshed.

The hamams in the Ottoman culture started out as annexes to mosques, and quickly evolved into institutions and eventually into monumental structural complexes in the mid 1500s. Typical hamams consist of three interconnected rooms: the sıcaklık which is the hot room; the warm room which is the intermediate room; and the soğukluk, which is the cool room.

The Travel Photographer: Updated Website

I updated The Travel Photographer website with a new slideshow of more recent photographs made during my 2009-2010 trips, and added details of my planned In Search of Sufis Photo~Expedition™, which will be the first scheduled for 2011.

It's well on its way to being sold out, as I am restricting it to only 5 photographers.

The In Search of Sufis Photo~Expedition™ is not for first-timers to India, nor is it for photographers expecting choreographed photo-opportunities. This trip will be the quintessential fusion of travel photography and photojournalism, and aims to merge the visual with the intellectual.

It's structured for photographers interested in multimedia story-telling, interested in exploring the existing syncretism between Sufism and Hinduism, interested in documenting traditional ways of life of Gujarati tribal societies, and documenting Sufi rituals that include exorcisms and trances.

Dilla Djalil-Daniel: The Istanbuli Silversmith

Photo © Dilla Djalil-Daniel-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Dilla Djalil-Daniel-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Dilla Djalil-Daniel-All Rights Reserved

Dilla Djalil-Daniel is a photographer currently living in Jakarta, and attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul.

She participated in Andrea Bruce's class, and chose me to review one of her portfolios of the Cap Go Meh celebration in Singkawang, West Kalimantan. Naturally, this captured my undivided attention on account of her colorful images of the unusual rituals and trances.

Dilla traveled around the world for her photography, especially in Asia and has a large portfolio that ought to be shown on her own personal website, which I urged her to have.

Her project in Istanbul for Andrea's class was documenting a day in the life of a traditional silversmith in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar whose name, Kennedy, is definitely nontraditional. It seems his parents named him after the US president after he was shot in Dallas. Many of the silversmiths in Istanbul are ethnic Armenians.

Here is a selection of her images which were part of the students' projects shown during the last evening of the workshop. Somewhat of a departure for Dilla, as it was shot in a photojournalistic style and in B&W.

Dede Pickering: Bhutan

Photo © Dede Pickering-All Rights Reserved
Dede Pickering has just returned from Bhutan with a collection of new photographs, which she posted on her Bhutan Gallery. She traveled in that Himalayan country from its west to its east and trekked in the rarely visited Sakten Valley.

I chose Dede's lovely photograph of the unfurling of a thongdrel for this post. The thongdrel is a large tapestry typically depicting a seated Guru Rinpoche surrounded by holy beings, the mere viewing of which is said to cleanse the viewer of sin. During tsechus, it's unrolled before dawn and rolled up by morning.

Having retired from the corporate world, Dede became a world traveler and photographer. She has traveled to Antarctica, Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, China, Cambodia, Peru, Patagonia, Kosovo, Albania, Rwanda, New Zealand, Guatemala, South East Asia and has made multiple trips to Africa and India, but her passion is the Himalayan Region.

Saleem Ahmed: Kyoto

Photo © Saleem Ahmed-All Rights Reserved
Nirja Desai is a follower of my blog, and suggested that I take a look at Saleem Ahmed's photographs. I did and immediately agreed with her that his work would be shown on this blog which is one of the platforms for emerging photographers to get some additional exposure.

Saleem is an undergraduate student (photojournalism major) at Temple University, and has a passion to do something for the world and tell stories. He traveled to a number of countries to include the Bahamas, Egypt, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, UAE, Switzerland, Spain, Syria, the UK, Iraq and India.

There's a multitude of gallery choices on Saleem's website, and I was especially attracted to his Japanese travel work. Kyoto, Yokohama, Miyajima, and Hiroshima are all galleries of his travels in Japan that I recommend you look at. His photography is a combination of street, lifestyle, and environmental portraits.

I hope Saleem's work gets seen by magazine photo editors, and gets them published.

Dani Salva: Tibet's Kham

Photo © Dani Salva-All Rights Reserved
I can only guess that Dani Salva is a Spanish (possibly Catalan) photographer from his website, but there's no biography that I could find. It's a pity because I am sure that photo editors would like his work (they probably do already) but, except through his blog, he doesn't make it easy to know a little bit of him.

He has quite a few galleries and projects on his website, and while all of them are visually interesting, I can strongly recommend the one on Tibet's Kham, and the one in Bolivia...the Potosi Mines is also another gallery you want to drop by and see how the miners work in this nightmarish environment.

As is evident from the above image from Dani's Tibet's gallery, he's enamored with shadows, and likes contrast. I also liked his Tibetan vertical portraits...simple and effective.

Dani also features a number of photo essays and projects on his website, dealing with wines, olives, pork slaughtering, rice and shepherds.

Travis Dove: The Holy Mountain

Photo © National Geographic/Travis Dove -All Rights Reserved
Travis Dove interned on the photo staffs of several American newspapers including The Boston Globe and The Charlotte Observer, and was named the 2007 College Photographer of the Year by the Missouri School of Journalism. He also completed a prestigious photo internship at National Geographic Magazine.

His work has been awarded by World Press Photo, POYi, PDN, the NPPA, and the WHNPA, among others. In the fall of 2008, and appeared in the National Geographic, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, amongst many others.

I loved his photo essay The Holy Mountain made amongst the monks in Mount Athos, the spiritual center of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Mount Athos is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece. It was established more than 1,000 years ago. Though land-linked, it's only accessible by boat. It's also home to communities of Christian hermits who follow a monastic rule, allowing them to worship in comparative solitude, while also affording them a level of mutual practical support and security.

Excellent work by Travis Dove!

Stijin Pieters: Durga Puja

Stijn Pieters is a self taught freelance photographer based in Gent, Belgium whose work focuses on under-reported social, political and environmental issues. He completed projects in Nepal, Kashmir, Palestine, Northern Ireland, Swaziland, Yemen, Morocco, Iran, Vietnam, The Philippines, India and Bangladesh; most of which tackle diverse issues, from HIV/aids in Swaziland to the pervasive gun culture in Yemen, from Agent Orange victims in Vietnam to stateless people in Bangladesh.

For his projects in Yemen in 2006 and Morocco in 2007, Stijn received respectively grants from the Pascal Decroos Foundation and the King Baudouin Foundation. His work has been published in Belgian magazines like MO*, Vrede, Menzo, Tertio, Vacature, Varen and Isel Magazine.

The above slideshow is on the Durga Puja in Bangladesh, and is very nice work by Stijn. It's an annual Hindu festival in South Asia that celebrates worship of the Hindu goddess Durga. You can click on it for a full screen experience.

The most celebrated Durga Puja is in Calcutta where more than 2000 pandals (temporary structures...like thrones) are set up for the populace to venerate. Durga Puja in Calcutta is often referred to as the Rio Carnival of the Eastern Hemisphere.

FPW Istanbul: Intro To Multimedia Class

I was privileged to teach a class titled Introduction To Multimedia for the third straight year at this year's Foundry Photojournalism Workshop which was held in Istanbul June20-26.

As a couple of my class attendees are in the process of shopping their projects to publishers, I'm unable to publish them until they're made public by their creators. However, I am able to show an image from each project along with a description.

The attendees were Brenda Bravo, Pierre Claquin, Yagmar Dolkun, Pedro Gomes, David Hagerman, Jeroen de Kluiver, and Roubina Margossian.

1. Brenda Bravo: Kadikoy Underground Puppetry

Photo © Brenda Bravo -All Rights Reserved
Brenda's project documented an underground puppetry group in Kadikoy, from applying their make-up to walking in the streets performing to crowds. Apart from recording ambient sound of the performances, and of the street, Brenda also narrated the piece which was titled Kadikoy's Underground Puppetry. Her subjects attended the final show wearing the same make-up they use during their walk-abouts in Kadikoy.

2. Pierre Claquin: Leaves of Tolerance

Photo © Pierre Claquin -All Rights Reserved
Pierre's project was titled Leaves of Tolerance, and documented Nick Merdeyan (the self described Lord of the Leaves) who, from a small store in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, produced artistic masterpieces of Islamic calligraphy on leaves, dried according to a proprietary process, and sold all over the world. Merdeyan, an Armenian Turk, narrated the piece showing his Islamic, Christian and Judaic motifs using Qur'anic script, underlining the similarity of the three Abrahamic traditions.

3. Yagmar Dolkun: Live Broadcast

Photo © Yagmar Dolkun -All Rights Reserved
Yagmar's project was on CNN-Turk, which took us into the back room of the television station before going live with a sports program. Yagmar chose to produce the piece in black & white without any narration, leaving the images tell the story, and relying on a mesmerizing music loop. The project can be seen by clicking here.

4. Pedro Gomes: Esmeray

Photo © Pedro Gomes -All Rights Reserved
Pedro's project documented Esmeray, a transgendered actor, a sex worker, a feminist, a Kurd and a home-keeper. Inspired by the NY Times' series One In 8 Million, Pedro interviewed Esmeray, and followed her through the day. He photographed during her theater perfromances, at a feminist meeting and later on at her home. Pedro's wife, Asli Maci, provided the excellent voice-over narration.

5. David Hagerman: The Ferry Boats of Istanbul

Photo © David Hagerman -All Rights Reserved
David chose to document the ferry boats of Istanbul as a symbol of this city. The ferries are part of the daily life for many Istanbullu, and beyond providing a commute alternative, also provide an escape from the daily tribulations of the city. A travelogue of sorts, David used ambient sound recorded on the ferries, the sound of their motors, the din of the passengers and a couple of short interviews.... one with a young man who claimed that "girls are like grains of sand".

6. Jeroen de Kluiver: The Alevi

Photo © Jeroen de Kluiver -All Rights Reserved
Jeroen documented the Alevi in black & white project. The Alevi are a religious sub-ethnic and cultural community in Turkey. Its tradition is related to Shi'a Islam and Bektasi Sufism, and its worship takes place in assembly houses rather than mosques. Jeroen photographed and recorded a ceremony known as cem, which features music and dance and during which both women and men participate.


7. Roubina Margossian: Symbolism In Religious Tradition

Photo © Roubina Margossian -All Rights Reserved
Roubina is one of the recipients of a scholarship to attend the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop. She produced an audio slideshow titled Symbolism in Religious Tradition, focusing on a religious service in an Armenian church. Narrated by Father John of the church, Roubina's fondness for photographs of reflections is evident in the project!

Toby Morris: Animal Charmers

Photo © Toby Morris -All Rights Reserved
Toby Morris is a photographer based in Los Angeles and New York. Having attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin, he worked for various newspapers in Chicago, New York, New Hampshire and Connecticut.

I liked his environmental portraits of animal charmers in India. These are mostly of snake (cobra) handlers, as well as monkeys. Snake charming probably originated in India, especially that Hinduism holds snakes to be sacred. Indians also considered snake charmers to be holy men and traditional healers.

In India, the Kalbelia and Sapera are nomadic tribes nomadic that specialize in snake charming, and are clustered in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan.

As for monkeys, one of the most popular Hindu gods is Hanuman, who is said to be an incarnation of Shiva, and revered for his bravery, strength, loyalty, devotion, and dedication to justice. The monkey handlers are called "madaris", and are frequently seen at festivals and on the Indian roads.

I am repulsed by the exploitation of animals, but I also realize that snake charming and having monkeys perform silly tricks are activities that support many families in countries like India.

via Extrajection's Twitter page.

POV: From Afghan Girl To Martin Scorsese?

Photo Courtesy The Guardian -All Rights Reserved
I was saddened by reading an interview with Steve McCurry recently published in The Guardian in which he shares the news that he's preparing a project in which he would be taking portraits of 30 celebrities in their home cities: Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in New York, Amitabh Bachan in Mumbai. A sort of project that Annie Leibowitz would do...but Steve McCurry? C'mon!

I was also saddened to read that McCurry would be setting the shots, and choreographing the image-taking...the Leibowitz's style. While I'm told by various participants on his photo trips that he frequently stages scenes during his workshops, photographing celebrities requires a different type of discipline, and a different type of mind-set....and is not one hard core travel photographers would be stylistically and intellectually willing to do. Maybe I'm too idealistic?

Naturally, this project will be financially rewarding for McCurry and I wish him the best of luck with it....however, I can't help but feel a twinge of regret (and sadness, as I said twice already) that we are witnessing the dimming of a star.

After all, McCurry is one of the pioneers of travel photography and is an inspiration to many who follow his style....and to read of this new project is an uncomfortable reminder that things are changing in this industry, and that photographers (whether involved in travel, documentary and editorial) need to be sharp, varied and inventive. Resting on one's laurels is always a fatal mistake, and this is especially true in this tumultuous industry.

A photojournalist presented a body of work during the Foundry Workshop in Istanbul, but the consensus was that it was old and passe...and not relevant to the present day and age...photographers or photojournalists clinging to their past are like people breathlessly running after a Third World public bus on a pot-holed road, with young passengers hanging like a bunch of grapes from its doors and windows....and no available toe-holds in sight.

So let's be smart....let's learn multimedia, Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, Soundslides...audio techniques...learn DSLR videography....let's use Twitter & Facebook intelligently...do anything to find a toe-hold. If not, we'll be left inhaling exhaust fumes and waiting for celebrities to show up (if we're lucky).

First 2011 Photo Expedition

I'm on my way back to New York from teaching a multimedia class at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul, and thought it opportune to announce that my first photo~expedition in 2011 will be to Gujarat, India. I have yet to pinpoint the dates, but I am leaning towards January 23 to February 6, 2011.

The Travel Photographer's In Search of Sufis photo~expedition will focus on the visual exploration of the syncretism which exists between Islam (especially Sufism) and Hinduism. Syncretism is the combination of disparate or contrary beliefs, often fusing practices of various traditional philosophies.

This expedition will travel in the southern peninsula of Gujarat, and photograph at the various Sufi shrines/darghas as well as Hindu temples, where a multitude of pilgrims arrive to supplicate. It will also include a foray in the tribal belt of Kutch to document the unaltered ways of life of the area, to include religious rituals exclusive to Gujarat.

The maximum number of participants is 5 (excluding myself), and participation will be based on a brief portfolio review. This photo~expedition is not for first-timers to India, is for self-starters and requires an interest in Indian religious traditions. It will include coaching in multimedia techniques and story-telling.

The photo~expedition will commence and end in Ahmedabad, which is well served by flights from Delhi and Mumbai. Hotel accommodations will range from 4-star hotels in the larger cities/towns to whatever is available in the more remote areas.

Details of the photo~expedition and its itinerary will initially be announced to my newsletter recipients in a few days, and then to the general public via this blog.

This photo~expedition is inspired by the remarkable work of my friend Asim Rafiqui as per his The Idea of India project.

My Work: Belly Dancing In Istanbul

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Due to the distance between the historic Sultanahmet district and Kadikoy where the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop was based, I wasn't able to photograph much of Istanbul...except for some grab shots with my new GF1.

However, some of us did manage to take some time and attend a folkloric dance program in Sultanahmet, where we were allowed to photograph at will.

The above photograph was made at the Hocapasha Cultural Center in Eminönü during a wonderful performance. The dance was under black light or UV light...and was minimally color corrected.

I used my Canon 5D Mark II and a 70-200 2.8 Canon lens....and yes, my Foundry class attendees; it's a vertical!!!

Chico Sanchez: Andalucian Flamenco

Photo © Chico Sanchez-All Rights Reserved
Here's another lovely audio slideshow by Chico Sanchez, a freelance photographer based in Mexico City. Chico worked in Venezuela, collaborating with Reuters, European Pressphoto Agency, Agencia EFE, and freelances for various newspapers and magazines.

The title of this audio slideshow is The Angel.

This time, Chico documents the spiritual side of Flamenco, whose mystical, almost religious origins, are almost forgotten by the admirers of this genre of music and dance. Chico is well placed to do so...he's a native Andalucian, a musician and was involved in flamenco himself.

I would have loved to see a flip book effect in Chico's work...various shots of a dancer (or singer for that matter)...and arranged in such a way that playing the slideshow would have animated these almost-identical stills.

The well-known flamenco style of music and dance is emblematic to the culture of Spain, although it is actually native to only one region: Andalusia.

Gypsy, Sephardic, and especially Arabic musical influences are found in flamenco. For me, one of the best flamenco singers is Diego Ramón Jiménez Salazar, known as El Cigala, whose album Lagrima Negas fusing Cuban rhythms and flamenco vocals, made it an international success.

Matthieu Paley: The Pamir Mountains

Here's a 6 minutes trailer from a multimedia documentary "Forgotten on the Roof of the World" by photographer Matthieu Paley and anthropologist Ted Callahan that tells the story of a little-known tribe of Kirghiz nomads in one of earth’s most remote regions - Afghanistan’s High Pamirs mountains.

The full documentary will be screened by Matthieu at the Royal Geographical Society (Hong Kong) on Tuesday 22nd of June.

Matthieu Paley is an Asia-based (currently based in Hong Kong) photographer specializing in editorial and documentary photography. His work appeared in Geo, National Geographic, Newsweek, Time, Outside, Discovery and various others.