Bob Krist: The Kerala Project

Photograph © Bob Krist-All Rights Reserved
Here's an article in Digital Photo Pro magazine by the legendary and distinguished travel photographer Bob Krist who writes of his recent experiences photographing in Kerala. Bob tells us he had never been to Kerala, and decided to go to this wonderful part of India on a self-assignment. He describes how he planned his trip carefully, and chose to deal with an Indian travel agent rather than paying the extra commissions on dealing with a U.S.-based middleman. Also included in the article is a list of Bob's gear, and various tips as how he managed to photograph the Puram festival in Trissur.

For further photographs of Kerala (and elsewhere) by a master photographer, visit Bob Krist's website.

The article is timely as I've just concluded the planning for my photo-expedition to photograph the Theyyam dancers of Malabar this coming February, and I certainly echo Bob's decision to use a local agent to eliminate extra commissions. I've hired local travel operators on all my photo expeditions, for all self-assignments and solo travels...and by doing so, saved a bundle for myself and for the participants on my photo trips.

Peter Dench: Egypt's Zabaleen

Photograph © Peter Dench-All Rights Reserved
Peter Dench is a British photographer who works primarily in the fields of commercial and editorial photography. He was granted a World Press Photo award, and his work was chosen to participate in PDN's Photo Annual 2008.

His website offers many interesting galleries (his work on UK themes is thought-provoking), but I chose his work on the Egyptian Zabaleen to bring here on the pages of TTP.

A bit of background on this unusual community (excerpted from Wikipedia):

"The Zabbaleen are an Egyptian community of mainly Coptic Christians who are self-employed in Cairo to collect and dispose of much of the city's waste. They perform this service very cheaply or for free, making a living by sorting the waste materials for reuse or recycling. Waste food is fed to livestock (most often pigs) or poultry. Other materials, such as steel, glass and plastic bottles, are sorted by hand and sold as raw materials. Other items are repaired or reused. Some material is burnt as fuel. Traditionally, donkey driven carts are used by males to collect waste from homes, which is sorted by female members of the family in zabbaleen homes. It is claimed that zabbaleen reuse or recycle 80-90% of the waste they collect. "

An estimated 60,000 - 70,000 Zabbaleen live in an area known locally as Garbage City, and are mostly descendants of poor farmers from Upper Egypt who settled in the city in the 1950s. By virtue of their being Coptic Christians and of their occupation, the zabaleen are discriminated against, and face compounded hardships brought about by the pervasive corruption and kleptocracy of Egypt's governance. Since they're not Muslims, social services provided by Islamic organizations are not extended to them as well.

Faces of India: Vincent de Groot

Photograph © Vincent de Groot-All Rights Reserved
I previously featured Vincent de Groot's photographs of Mali on this blog, and now he returns with his newly uploaded Faces of India Soundslides feature. The photographs are in black & white, and are accompanied by a hip-hop style of music....it could well be modern Bhangra. This might be a little incongruous at first, but maybe this is precisely what the photographer intended.

Vincent de Groot took photography up in earnest in 2001, and progressively switched to digital photography since then. Born in the Netherlands, he worked and lived in Germany, then Switzerland and currently resides in France.

His previous slideshow on Malian portraits is here: (Link)