Claudia Wiens: Egypt

Image © Claudia Wiens-All Rights Reserved
Claudia Wiens has been based in Cairo, Egypt as a freelance photographer since 2000, and immersed herself in this populous Arab and Islamic nation, getting as close as possible to its people. She's represented by Getty Images

Claudia attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) in Mexico City, and I initially met her while lunching over a few tacos near the workshop's center. She was wearing a red t-shirt advertising "SAVO", an Egyptian detergent that I remembered being used years ago when I lived there. I asked her if she had visited Egypt, and she shocked my socks off by replying in flawless Egyptian that she actually lived there in a neighborhood I knew well, and this was said in as good a pronunciation as mine, and truth be told, it sounded less rusty! We continued most of our conversation in Egyptian...it was certainly fun to be speaking my native language with a German in Mexico City.

Her project in Mexico City for FPW was documenting the female professional wrestlers known as luchadoras, a project which earned her much attention and compliments.

She has recently published some of her work on the Luchadoras on the BBC website.

If I'm not mistaken, the above photograph by Claudia is of the famed Cairene coffeehouse known as "El-Feshawy" where I had my first (and probably last) sheesha or hubbly-bubbly water pipe. If any of my readers have nostalgic memories of Cairo, have a look at Claudia's photo essay on Groppi.

Lumix Festival : Steve McCurry & Others

Image © Steve McCurry-All Rights Reserved
On the 18th – 22nd of June 2008, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover organized the first Lumix Festival for Young Photojournalism in cooperation with the German photojournalist union FreeLens. Universities, photo and journalism schools as well as professional photo reporters up to the age of 35 from all over the world were invited to participate in the festival.

Streaming videos of lectures given by Steve McCurry, Antonin Kratochvil, Vanessa Winship and others, recorded live are availble on Lumix's website. I chose to watch Steve McCurry's lecture which runs for 122 minutes out of which, inexplicably, the initial 14 minutes are wasted in filming attendees entering the lecture hall...no editing, Herren Lumix?

The lecture by McCurry had nothing new...no new photographs, with an accompanying narrative that was monotonous, and which told us absolutely nothing about the whys and hows of each image. Nothing about techniques, nothing about the culture of South and South East Asia...in all, a trite presentation. Maybe I'm being uncharitable after wasting almost 15 minutes of nothing, so you be the judge.

Via Rob Galbraith: Lecture by Steve McCurry

Holly Wilmeth

© Holly Wilmeth-All Rights Reserved
Born and raised in Guatemala, Holly Wilmeth was slated to teach at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico, however she had a last minute conflicting photo assignment preventing her from joining the faculty. She's a freelance photographer based in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and traveled to over 45 countries.

Her work has been published in National Geographic Adventure, Houston Chronicle, CARE, USAID, PBX, Christian Science Monitor and Time Magazine.

I found her photographic style to be eclectic and diverse, and her work straddles both photojournalism and travel. Her above image of the elder smoking his pipe at the 99 houses village in China is a lovely environmental portrait, and there are many more like it on her website.