The Leica File: Strawberry Ice Cream

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved

Walking in the Meatpacking area of New York City, I saw the ice cream truck's technicolor paint job, along with the red shirt and white hat worn by the ice-cream eater, and all seemed a perfect juxtaposition of brilliant colors. I know I haven't nailed it from a compositional standpoint, and I'd be happier had I gone lower and a few inches to the left...but it is what it is, and that's what street photography is all about...the scene happens in a second and you either get it or you don't.

Because of the 28mm lens, I was about a foot away from the gentleman and he seemed unaware that he was in my frame, and the integral part of the composition.

I should have used different settings instead of the f2.8 and an iso of 400...it was a brilliant sun, and I could've had better results with an f8 and an iso of 160, but my camera had these settings on already, and I didn't have time to reset them since I was focusing as quickly as I could. I find that accurately focusing the M9 still requires very careful adjustment...even in brightly-lit scenes such as these.

Beyond being sharpened a little bit, the image wasn't post-processed nor cropped.

Li Wei: The Earth (Mongolia)

Photo © Li Wei-All Rights Reserved

Li Wei is a freelance photographer based in Beijing, who was born in Hohhot,Inner Mongolia, and who graduated from the Communication University of China.

His photographs of Inner Mongolia are those of an insider...no tourist stuff here, nor are the photographs the type one sees in glossy magazines advertising Mongolian lifestyle.

Inner Mongolia (distinct from the country of Mongolia) is an autonomous region of China, located in the northern region of the country. It shares an international border with the country of Mongolia and the Russian Federation. Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group, constituting about 80% of the population, followed by Mongols.

Matthieu Paley: Prisoners of the Himalaya

I've featured the extraordinary work of Matthieu Paley a number of times on The Travel Photographer blog already, and while my favorite is still his work on a Sufi festival honoring Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Pakistan, it's also this recent ongoing film project "Prisoners of the Himalaya" that is equally remarkable. It's a documentary film aimed at capturing the life of the last Kyrgyz nomads of Afghanistan.

Matthieu returned to the Afghanistan's Pamir mountains to cooperate in the production of his first movie, along with Louis Meunier (as Director of the project) and others.

When you finish viewing the above trailer, drop by the movie's main website The Roof of the World which gives you more background to the project, and lists the team members that were involved in its making. Also spend time exploring Matthieu's website, and his unique galleries. You certainly will not regret it.

Currently based in Istanbul, Matthieu photographs explore themes of remoteness and isolation in geopolitically sensitive areas, and his work has appeared in Géo, National Geographic Adventure, Newsweek, Time, Outside, Discovery, Vanity Fair and Figaro among others. He has collaborated on numerous books. Since 1999, he travels extensively throughout the mountainous regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern India and Central Asia.

His photographs have been exhibited in galleries in New York, Hong Kong and Munich, and his multimedia presentations were projected at festival such as the Perpignan Photojournalism festival, the Banff Mountain Festival, and MountainFilm in Colorado. He has lectured at the Royal Geographical Society and the Asia Society in Hong Kong, at the Grand Bivouac Festival in France as well as at the Vancouver Mountain Festival.