Nicky Loh: Tattoo Girls of Taiwan

Photo © Nicky Loh-All Rights Reserved


Nicky Loh is a photographer with Reuters working in Taiwan, whose specialty is news, sports and feature photography, who's interested in documenting traditional art forms such as Chinese opera.

On his employer's blog, he writes of having had an assignment to cover the 2010 Taiwan International Tattoo Convention in Taipei which, while not newsworthy per se, offered him a good opportunity to produce colorful photographs.

He describes how he decided to set up an impromptu studio in one of the empty booths of the convention, and do portraits of women with fully tattooed backs.

Not only beautiful artwork, but also very attractive women...so a "twofer" as they say.

Global Post: Turkish Brothels

Photo © Nicholas Dynan-All Rights Reserved
One of my favorite online news provider is Global Post, not only for its cutting edge news reporting and analysis, but also for its frequent "off-the-beaten-path" features such as the one of Turkish transsexual brothels by Nicholas Dynan.

It also periodically publishes Full Frame which features photo essays and conversations with photographers in the field (including myself).

The Turkish transsexual brothels which, we are told, can be located in the busiest streets of Istanbul, and are the work place of some of Istanbul's transgender and transsexual sex workers.

To the best of my recollection, only one attendee of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul last June presented work relating to transgender issues. Pedro Gomes, who attended my multimedia class, produced Esmeray, an audio slideshow about a transgender feminist-sex worker-actor.