Olivier Boëls: Holy Ashes

© Olivier Boëls/Zone Zero-All Rights Reserved
Holy Ashes is a photo essay by photographer Olivier Boëls, with the cooperation of anthropologist Lena Tosta’s and of their joint experiences with Hindu ascetics or sadhus.

Sadhus are ascetics who have renounced on the pursuit of the three main Hindu goals of life: kama (enjoyment), artha (practical objectives) and even dharma (duty). Sadhus are only dedicated to achieve moksha (liberation) through meditation and contemplation of God. They often wear ocher-colored clothing, symbolizing renunciation.

Viua Zone Zero, here's Holy Ashes

Wang-Fu Chun: Natives of NE China

© Wang-Fu Chun/Zone Zero-All Rights Reserved

Wang-Fu Chun is a freelance photographer, who moved to Beijing from Harbin in 2002. He has photographed the following topics, "Chinese On The Train" , "People of Northeastern China", "Northeast Tiger" and "Chinese Stream Locomotive", and was a winner at the 17th China Photographic Art Exhibition and a winner of the 3rd Gold Statue for Chinese photography.

Via Zone Zero, here's Wang-Fu Chun's Natives of Northeast China, an ethnographic gallery beautifully embellished with Chinese calligraphy.

Tyler Hicks: Kabul, Afghanistan

© Tyler Hicks/New York Times-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times brings us a nicely done (and very well edited, I thought) slideshow narrated by its accomplished photographer, Tyler Hicks.

Tyler Hicks' first trip to Kabul was in 2001, as Northern Alliance soldiers were fighting Taliban gunmen in and around the Afghan capital. There was a power vacuum at that time, and no restrictions on what could and could not be photographed...something which Tyler found to be very liberating.

He has returned every year since, and found Kabul to be a city in transition.

In the print edition of the newspaper, the section Week In Review carries the feature, and I must say that the layout of Tyler's two black & white photographs (one of which is above) that lead the article is superb...overall, an excellent photojournalism layout and a throwback to the days of LIFE. I'm also told that Tyler used a film camera...with B&W film.

Tyler Hicks' The Other Front:Kabul