Kickstart Trunk Magazine!

Trunk Magazine is a travel magazine that has launched its first issue in November 2010. While its founders are pursuing the capital required to sustain Trunk indefinitely, it requires funding to publish its next issue, Fall 2011, and needs help help to do so, and maintain the momentum of the first issue which is available through Barnes & Noble..

Kickstarter has listed it to expand its funding reach as widely as possible. It has a funding goal of $85,000 to reach by May 14, 2011.

I thought of giving Trunk some space of The Travel Photographer blog as it's a travel magazine, and should it publish successfully, it will provide an additional avenue for travel photographers to sell their work....and boy, do we need it! So if the concept appeals to you, drop by Trunk's Kickstarter page, and make your pledge.

David Cicconi is the founder, publisher, and creative director of Trunk. Previously, he was the photo director at Travel + Leisure.

The Revolution Thru The Lens of Fady Ezzet, An Egyptian Photojournalist

I've featured the work of young Egyptian photojournalists working for the local newspapers, who not only documented the Tahrir uprisings, but who also participated in the revolution.

For why I'm doing this, you can read my earlier post The Revolution...This Time Through The Lenses Of Home-Grown Egyptian Photojournalists.

This is the fourth and last part in the series, and is the work of Fady Ezzet, an Egyptian photojournalist who also works for El Shorouk Newspaper. He graduated from Cairo University, and is a full time photojournalist.

Having followed the series, I noticed that Fady's images are more in the thick of violence than the others. I presume being a male allowed him to take more risks than the other three women.

For each slideshow in the series, I chose the popular "Enta Omri" or "You Are My Life" from the repertory of the legendary Um Kulthum, the Egyptian singer who was the incomparable voice of her country. I owe the idea to a wonderful multimedia essay titled Spring by Shirin Neshat in the New York Times, who also used it as a metaphor for the revolution.

My Work: The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar

The most powerful and challenging traditional rituals I've experienced in India are the exorcisms and trances that frequently occur in its Sufi shrines. This is by far the most emotionally draining project I've undertaken so far...photographing it, editing it and producing it.

The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar is an audio slideshow of stills, movie clips and audio made during my during my recently completed In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™ when I visited this Sufi saint's shrine near Unawa in Gujarat.

I've always been interested in, and drawn to, India's multi-layered religious-cultural identities. Sufism "walked" into the sub-continent from Iran and Afghanistan, and wherever the Sufi acetic teachers lived and died, shrines were built to commemorate their teachings, deeds and legacy. They eventually became saints, or pirs as they're called in the subcontinent. It is at one of these shrines that The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar was made.

For those who don't mind reading, a journal/blog accompanies the audio slideshow and has more photographs (in color this time). It was a difficult decision as to whether color or black & white would be more appropriate for this project, and in the end I decided to use both, but separately. I think I was right.