Ian Lloyd: Asia

Ian Lloyd is an Australian photographer who has undertaken commissions for magazines such as National Geographic, Time, Fortune, Gourmet and Conde Nast Traveler and multinational companies as diverse as ExxonMobil, Pepsi, Motorola and Singapore Airlines have commissioned Ian for commercial photography assignments. He has photographed 36 books on countries and regions around Asia including large format books on Kathmandu, Bali and Singapore and a four volume series on Australian wine regions.

You'll see from the Spirit of Asia video that it's a retrospective look at 20 years of his photography in Asia. Perhaps somewhat different from most of the travel photography I have featured here on The Travel Photographer blog, but certainly of high quality that we expect from photographers who work with the National Geographic.

NGS: 2008 Photos of the Year

The National Geographic's Editor in Chief Chris Johns selects some of his favorite photographs published in the magazine in 2008.

The French believe, rather surprisingly, that tastes and colors are not issues to be discussed, and being certain that there were much more arresting photographs published in the 2008 NG magazines, I wholeheartedly agree in this case. To each his own.

If you expect detailed descriptions and explanations as to how each photographer captured the images shown in this clip, you'll be disappointed. It's aimed at readers of the National Geographic magazines who like photography, rather than serious or advanced photographers.

NGS: International Photo Contest 2008

The National Geographic announced the 2008 winners in its International Photography Contest. Frankly, the NGS lumped so many contests together that I lost track of what is what but in any event, here's another one.

The winner of the International Contest is Ilvy Njiokiktjien of the Netherlands for a photograph of elderly women in Mozambique. Quite a nice photograph with everything coming together, as one of the judges said.

NG's Traveler: 2008 Photo Contest Results

The National Geographic Traveler announced its annual photo contest winners. The photo contest received over 14,500 entries from 4000 "amateur shutterbugs" (The Traveler's terminology, not mine).

Traveler's Photo Contest Winners

Not to diminish the quality of the winning photographs, but had I been the judge, the above photograph would have won first prizes.



Separately, in the National Geographic International Photo Contest, the Viewers Choice (which is picked by viewers, not by judges) is the above photograph which seems to have been manipulated to add the clouds' reflections.

Update: NGM.com just posted a statement on the above photograph, which essentially says that it appeared altered, which is against the rules of the contest. It has now been taken down.


The Winners of the Viewers' Choice

National Geo's Photo Contest: Results

Photograph © Van Nguyen/Courtesy NG-All Rights Reserved
The National Geographic's website just featured the winners of its International Photography Contest. Its categories were People, Places and Nature. However, to see all the submissions, one needs to download some program called Silverlight from Microsoft...which is not compatible with Power PC Macs. Too bad...and sort of shortsighted from National Geographic's deciders.

The above photograph is my favorite amongst those I could see on my treasured Power PC Mac. It combines a compassionate and candid moment by photographer Van Nguyen of a Vietnamese girl during a journey to America for medical treatment....she's probably a burn victim.

National Geographic Assignment

liveBooks, Inc., a provider of customized portfolio websites and marketing software for professional photographers, announced the creation of a new website for National Geographic Assignment, a division of the publication that handles commercial representation for its photographers. The site was recently awarded the Gold Award at this year's 38th Annual Creativity Awards.

National Geographic Assignment features work from more than two dozen National Geographic Assignment photographers, and "is a resource for organizations looking to hire assignment photographers in fields like still life and travel to underwater and landscape."

Mike Hettwer: Lost Tribes Of The Sahara

© Mike Hettwer Photography-All Rights Reserved
In the last 10 years. Mike Hettwer's travels have taken him to 60 countries and on 6 expeditions. He's a documentary photographer who specializes in archaeology and dinosaur expeditions...in my view, a sort of an Indiana Jones holding a Canon instead of a whip. He has photographed on expeditions to the Sahara and Gobi Desert, as well as in Lake Turkana in Kenya.

His work has appeared in over 1500 magazines, websites, newspaper and books to include The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, Discover magazine and Science magazine to name but a few.

He also specializes in photographing unique cultures around the world, to include remote hill tribes in Myanmar (Burma), Wodaabbe festivals in Niger, voodoo ceremonies in Haiti, Hizbollah barbecues in Beirut, and the Shuar Indians of the Amazon (inventors of head-shrinking).

The National Geographic Society just announced today that the largest Stone Age graveyard found in the Sahara, which provides an unparalleled record of life when the region was green, has been discovered in Niger by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and University of Chicago Professor Paul Sereno, whose team first happened on the site during a dinosaur-hunting expedition. The accompanying photographer? Mike Hettwer.

The website of the National Geographic Society has now published Lost Tribes Of The Sahara, an article on the discovery which includes this:

"Mike Hettwer, a photographer accompanying the team, headed off by himself toward a trio of small dunes. He crested the first slope and stared in amazement. The dunes were spilling over with bones. He took a few shots with his digital camera and hurried back to the Land Rovers.

"I found some bones," Hettwer said, when the team had regrouped. "But they're not dinosaurs. They're human."

I recommend you not only set aside time for the Lost Tribes of The Sahara, but also explore Mike Hettwer's various galleries...his People & Places gallery has excellent photographs of his various travels.

National Geographic Assignment

As reported by PDN Online, the National Geographic Society launched a new photo assignments division to handle commercial representation for 27 photographers.

National Geographic Assignment will represent the following photographers: William Albert Allard, Stephen Alvarez, Ira Block, John Burcham, Jimmy Chin, Jodi Cobb, Pablo Corral Vega, Bruce Dale, David Doubilet, Annie Griffiths Belt, Justin Guariglia, Bill Hatcher, Beverly Joubert, Tim Laman, David Liittschwager, Michael Melford, Michael Nichols, Paul Nicklen, Michael O’Brien, Randy Olson, Jim Richardson, Joel Sartore, Brian Skerry, Steve Winter, Gordon Wiltsie, Alison Wright and Mike Yamashita.

The new division will be managed by Alice Keating, a 13-year veteran of Geographic's stock and syndication arm, the National Geographic Image Collection.

Via The Click