Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Malaysia: Transplanting Rice


Near Papar, in Sabah, a part of Borneo that belongs to Malaysia, a Kadazan girl is transplanting rice.
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Monday, December 29, 2014

Malaysia: Bajau Fisherman


In Kota Belud, in the  Malaysia’s territory of Sabah, in north Borneo, this ironic Bajau fisherman was smoking a cigarette rolled in a leaf. He seemed to wonder what I found so interesting about him. Few people know what is interesting about them, but every person is worth a portrait, and photographers can make such portraits read like books.
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Sunday, December 28, 2014

Malaysia: An Exuberant Little Girl

Little Bajau girl peeking out of her family’s hut window near Papar, in Sabah, a Malaysian part of Borneo.
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Canada : Acadian Historical Village


Girl drawing water at Caraquet’s Historical Village in Canada’s NewBrunswick Province.
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Saturday, December 27, 2014

Acadia: Bay Of Fundy

In Canada’s Acadia, the beautiful rock-studded Bay of Fundy boasts the world’s highest tides, averaging heights of 47 to 54 feet. I photographed it at low tide, when people were walking around the rocks, but at high tide I would have seen them kayaking around them. Unfortunately my schedule did not allow me this.

Though the sun still shone brightly on the surrounding park when I got there, the bay, at the bottom of steep cliffs, was already bathing in the purple light of dusk. The sea looked reddish from the sediments it was dragging back and forth.
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Friday, December 26, 2014

Bolivia: Another Example Of Stone Forest


Following my yesterday’s post, here is another example of standing eroded rocks,  among hundreds more in Bolivia’s southern Altiplano, that are known locally as the stone forest.
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Thursday, December 25, 2014

Bolivia: Altiplano Stone Forest


In Bolivia’s southern Altiplano, an often beautiful if bitter cold 10,000 feet-high plateau between two Andean cordilleras, hundreds of rocks sculptured like these by erosion form what the locals call bosque de piedras, or stone forest.
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Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Brazil: Two-Toed Sloth For Sale


Boy trying to sell me this two-toed sloth near Manaus, in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest.
The animal's inviting expression would make you think he was pushing the sale as well.
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Monday, December 22, 2014

Madagascar: Herding Zebus To Market



Along a puddle-strewn dirt road near Feonarivo, in Madagascar, a boy holding a sign warning drivers to stop is walking ahead of a herd of zebus on its way to a market several days march away. The boy and the men carry on their backs all their travel needs.
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Saturday, December 20, 2014

Madagascar: Traditional African Village


Evrata Village, reachable after a strenuous canoe trip from Taolagnaro, previously Fort Dauphin, Madagascar, on the Evrata River. Coconut trees and breadfruit trees shade it.  To view more Madagascar photos on this blog, write the word in the search box.
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Friday, December 19, 2014

Kenya: Lake Logipi




 Just south of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, Lake Logipi, stretching in the Suguta River Valley, itself part of the Great Rift Valley, is being visited by flamingoes, crowding the waters near and far.  
    Though this blog is about humanity's cultures, people everywhere are so defined by their environments that I must also, once in a while, show some of them. 
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Sahel:Tuareg Watering Flocks At Water Holes

Tuareg nomads water their flocks at several water holes dug out of a dry river bed in Niger’s Sahel region.
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Monday, December 15, 2014

Sahara: Unveiling A Tuareg Man's Face


In 1965, accepting me as a member of his family, a noble Kel Rela Tuareg took off his veil and let me photograph him without it under his tent. This surprised even his grandsons, who had never seen his full face. Their surprise made his younger sister behind them laugh. It surprised me too, of course. And the man may have been smiling over his audacity.
     Like Tuareg men often do, he had shaved the front part of his long hair to mitigate the heat generated by his tagilmust, or turban veil. His hands were blue from the heavy indigo dye of his robe, which comes off like that of carbon paper and has earned the Tuareg the name of Blue People.
     The Kel Rela are originally from the Sahara’s Ahaggar Mountains in southern Algeria. However, dwindling pastures there had pushed them south to txhe Sahara’s Tamesna region of Niger.
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Sunday, December 14, 2014

Benin: Somba Dinner Preparation


As the sun nears the horizon in Benin’s Atakora Mountains, two Somba siblings pound carob pods outside their adobe dwelling. Others behind are cooking the evening meal.
(c)1973
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Saturday, December 13, 2014

Benin: Indigo-Dyeing Men

In Kandi, North Benin, two men are dyeing fabric in two of several indigo vats spread around. The indigo dye, which comes off the cloth like carbon paper, is much appreciated by the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara and Sahel to the north. Because it colors the Tuareg’s skins, they are known as blue people. I wonder whether that indigo may not be more than an ancient fashion but also help protect white Tuareg skins against the scorching sun.
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Thursday, December 11, 2014

Ghana: Beach Scene Along The Gulf Of Guinea


In this picture taken on the beach of Ghana’s Atorkor village along the Gulf of Guinea, Ewe fishermen’s wives were waiting with basins and baskets for their individual shares of the morning catch. Some of the fish would be consumed by their families, the others would be sold at the nearby market of Keta. Copra, from the coconut trees in the background, added to the Ewe economy.
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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Peru: Cute Lima Street Boy


Sad to see such a beautiful little boy having to play in a street of Lima’s Cerro San Cristobal slum. But then, all the kids of Peru I photographed were beautiful.
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Peru: Boy And Monkey Pet


Boy with pet monkey at Iquitos, Peru, against the backdrop of the Amazon River. He wears a used cap bearing the logo of a maintenance company.
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Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Peru: Q'ero Girls Of The Cordillera Vilcanota


Q’ero sisters caught sitting quietly with the same expressions near their family’s windowless stone hut high in Peru’s Vilcanota Cordillera, east of Cusco.
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Monday, December 8, 2014

Peru: Green-Eyed Descendant of Spanish Conquistadors


Green-eyed Morochuco boy of Peru’s Pampa de Cangallo, near Ayacucho.

The Morochuco are a little-known Andean mestizo tribe that claims descent from the followers of Diego de Almagro, companion-in-arms of Francisco Pizarro. As Inca gold fueled the greed of the two conquistadors, they went to war against each other. When Almagro fell in the hands of Pizarro’s men and was decapitated, Almagro’s army went into hiding among Indians. Some of the men had Spanish wives. Others took Indian wives.
     Until 60 years ago or so, Morochuco men wore long beards to distinguish themselves from surrounding Indians. And to this day they ride horses and breed cattle, though lately they have dedicated themselves more seriously to agriculture as well. They fought valiantly the Shining Path's terrorists.
     I first photographed the Morochuco during a 1971 two-month horse ride in the Peruvian Andes. I visited them again in 2007.

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Sunday, December 7, 2014

Peru: Hiding Behind A Banana



It would take more than a camera-wielding stranger to disturb this banana-eating boy at the door of his house in Lima’s Cerro San Cristobal slum.
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Saturday, December 6, 2014

Peru: Little Boy Caught Eating At Market


Boy eating at Ollantaytambo’s market in Peru’s Cusco Province. His poncho and pants were woven with his family’s sheep and alpaca wool. Wool was also used to shape his felt hat.
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Friday, December 5, 2014

Peru: Befuddled Little Girl


Faced with a camera-wielding type of men she may not have seen before, this little Indian girl of Pisac, in the Andes Mountains of Peru’s Cusco Province, is using her eyes and a finger to express her befuddlement.
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Thursday, December 4, 2014

Peru: Lima Newspaper Boy


In this 1971 photograph of a street in Lima’s Cerro San Cristobal slum, a newspaper boy is showing me the latest news. It says, next to the picture of a military cap topping an iron fist, Low Blow to Workers. The military were in power then.
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Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Peru: Little Q'ero Boy Of The Andes Mountains


At the freezing heights of Peru’s Andes Mountains in Cusco Province, this little Q’ero boy is playing with a rope outside his family’s windowless stone house. All his clothes had been woven and knitted at home, using the wool of his family’s alpacas and sheep.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Sahara: Tuareg Woman Processing Goat Skin


In this 1970 picture taken in the Sahara’s AÏr Mountains of Niger, a Tuareg woman sitting in the shade of a thorn tree is processing a goat skin with vegetal tar to help it waterproof it. Her family will use it to hold its water and, every few days, to refill it and other goatskin bags at a distant well. Two water-filled goatskins hang from the tree   behind her.
   The processed skin will remain somewhat porous, allowing some water loss. At the same time, evaporation through the skin’s pores will maintain the water cool even in scorching heat.
   Though water is essential to the survival of the Tuareg, they camp far from wells. They camp where they find enough vegetation to feed their herds. So many herds are watered at wells that they don’t leave as much as a blade of grass standing over large surrounding areas.  Staying away from wells also protect the Tuareg’s privacy.
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Monday, December 1, 2014

Sahara: A Glimpse Into Tuareg Life


For ten years, between 1963 and 1973, I paid repeated visits to the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara and Sahel, nearly always for several weeks or months at a time. I did this once for a Venture and Argosy magazine article, three times for National Geographic articles and book chapters, and once for a children’s book. I developed friendships with the Tuareg of the Sahara’s Tamesna plain, Ahaggar Mountains, AÏr Mountains, and of the Sahel’s Azaouak Valley. To the point that I was everywhere invited into the intimacy of the tents.

In this 1965 picture taken inside a tent, the woman is being deloused by a niece. Living as close to nature as those people do makes lice inescapable. And they passed them on to me, though not to worry. Once in a while, in the middle of a conversation or shoot inside a tent, a woman would grab me by the hair, pull my head down in her lap, and start a search-and-destroy operation.

My fascination with the Tuareg started in 1957, when at 24 I rode a small Vespa scooter from Brussels to Cape Town across the length of Africa.
In the Sahara I had to ride inside truck tracks because the sand outside them was too deep for my small wheels. But veiled Tuareg, their wide robes inflated by the wind, appeared from nowhere riding white camels to disappear again beyond any point of the bleak horizon. They became to me the embodiment of freedom.

Already the father f two, it would take me six years to save enough for my next African journey and enjoy the first of two thousand-kilometer camel rides, the second one two years later, with a salt caravan. I owe the Tuareg my career as a documentary photographer and writer. But in 1973, watching the Tuareg world disintegrate with the first of two great droughts that would kill many of my friends and considerably more of their animals, I did not find the heart to return to their once wonderful world.


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