Charles Meacham: Hemkund Sahib

Image © Charles Meacham-All Rights Reserved
Charles Meacham was born just outside of Philadelphia, and his first major travel experience was a year trip touring the U.S. in a 1971 Volkswagen camper. Overheating and bursting into flames, the van died along a highway in Arizona, but his interest in travel did not.

He specializes in projects involving Sikhism, and he has recently documented the festival in Nanded, one of the biggest Sikh festival. The pilgrimage to Hemkund, whose site is a glacial lake surrounded by seven peaks located in the Himalayas at an elevation of over 15,000 ft (4,600 m), is in Uttarakhand state of India, and at a distance of 275 kilometers from Rishikesh. Charles tells me that he was the only professional photographer at the festival.

Meacham's photographs of the Sikh Nanded festival are nicely color-saturated and well editited, so that I could easily imagine what the trek felt, especially that the last section of 5 kilometers involves a steep climb from 10,000 feet to 15,000 feet.

Sikhism was founded in the 16th century Punjab district, and was founded by Guru Nanak and is based on his teachings, and those of the 9 Sikh gurus who followed him. It is a monotheistic religion which stresses the importance of doing good actions rather than merely carrying out rituals.

Charles Meacham website

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

Mustafah Abdulaziz: Patagonia Cowboys

Photograph © Mustafah Abdulaziz-All Rights Reserved
When you finish viewing his portfolio (especially his new Patagonia Cowboys series), you'll agree with me and many others...Mustafah Abdulaziz is a damn good photographer. Not only is he good, but he realizes the power of large images which populate his website, and it's quite an experience to be able to enjoy his craft through them.

Born in New York City, Mustafah is self-taught (always a huge plus for me), and worked as a freelancer for three years before moving to Philadelphia, his current base. He photographed for the Tribune newspapers, The Morning Call, Newsday, Baltimore Sun, and worked for a myriad corporate clients to include Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Olympus Cameras and others.

He attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City in June where I was teaching a multimedia class and, as I was flying back to NYC with some of the rest of the instructors, the consensus was that Mustafah would reach the pinnacle of his profession soon.