Eric Lafforgue: SoHo Loft Gallery Exhibition

I'm very pleased that Eric Lafforgue's photographs will be on exhibit at the Soho Loft Gallery in New York City with weekend events scheduled for May 7 and 8. I will try to drop by on either of these dates to see them by myself.

Eric Lafforgue is a French photographer who started photography in 2006.  Magazines and newspapers from all over the world began using his work for illustrations on North Korea, Papua New Guinea, the tribes of Ethiopia, etc. His work also appeared on multiple National Geographic covers and featured  in The Economist, CNN Traveler and many other travel magazines worldwide.

He is part of the European leading agency Rapho and works both digital and film using Hasselblad H4D-50, Canon 1Ds Mk III, 5D MK II, Leica M6.

I consider Eric Lafforgue to be one of the best ethnologist-photographers, and I posted on his work a few times here. Apart from his stunning website, he also posts much of his work on Flickr, and I never understood the reason since by uploading images to it, he is granting the site a non-exclusive, royalty free license.

Note: Eric just advised me that a significant portion of his sales of photographs originate from his Flickr account. For him the formula works perfectly!

Eric Lafforgue : Travel Photography

Photograph © Eric Lafforgue-All Rights Reserved
Eric Lafforgue lives in Toulouse, France, and produces content for television, radio, the music industry and travel photography as a freelance photographer and multimedia producer.

His website is truly excellent, and enhances his photographic talents. If you like ethnography combined with pure travel photography, this is the website to visit and spend time exploring and savoring. Eric seems to have been everywhere; from Indonesia, to the Sudan...from Malaysia to Danakil.

I recommend you open his Flash website Eric Lafforgue...and wait until you see all of his wonderful images on its cover page. The images are of exotic faces...and you'll soon notice that the eyes on each face remain level on every image. Don't miss the main photograph on the cover page of an elderly Chinese woman standing in front of a textured wall!

Professionally produced, this website and Eric's photographs will most certainly reinvigorate those who love travel photography. Highly recommended!!!

One Shot: Eric Lafforgue: Theyyam

Photo ©Eric Lafforgue -All Rights Reserved
This striking portrait is of a Theyyam performer in the Malabar region of Kerala, and is by Eric Lafforgue, a talented travel photographer who lives in Toulouse, France.

In anticipation of my forthcoming Theyyam of Malabar photo-expedition in the same region of India, I approached Eric a few days ago to ask for tips, and it is then I discovered he not only produces striking images but is also generous with his advice.

The Travel Photographer blog has already highlighted Eric's travel photography work here.

POV: Daily Mail & Captions

Photo © Eric Lafforgue-Screen Grab: Daily Mail

The work of the highly respected Eric Lafforgue has recently been featured by the Daily Mail, a British daily tabloid newspaper and the second biggest-selling daily newspaper after the infamous The Sun.

One of Eric's recent spreads has been his photo essay on last year's Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, and whose headline reads "Inside India's Kumbh Mela festival where holy men (and women) reach the gods with a little help from some marijuana and technicolour make-up".

Ah well, I say to myself...some acceptable poetic license to attract readers is not uncommon for newspapers, and The Daily Mail is certainly one of the more creative in that regard.

However, my scrolling down comes to a screeching halt when I come to the above photograph and its caption which is "A young 'black Sadhu' who takes care of cremations. They a (sic) rumoured to eat the human flesh of corpses".

I don't know for sure who the writer of the captions are, but I assume it's Katy Winter of The Daily Mail, and writer of the article itself who let her fertile imagination go wild.

After all, she's the author of intellectual gems like "Talk about tending to the flock! Female farmer juggles looking after 2000 acres and 1000 sheep with raising her SEVEN children in remote village".

Just because this young man has a broken tooth doesn't make him a member of the fearsome Aghoris...the sect whose members are described by Wikipedia as "... known to engage in post-mortem rituals. They often dwell in charnel grounds, have been witnessed smearing cremation ashes on their bodies, and have been known to use bones from human corpses for crafting skull bowls (which Shiva and other Hindu deities are often iconically depicted holding or using) and jewelry.

No self-respecting aghori would allow himself to be photographed by any photographer...even by the great Lafforgue. And sadhus do not perform cremations...the cremations are carried out by a certain caste, and there's no deviation from this tradition.

Of course, the only 'real" aghori I've ever seen is the one and only "Black Mamba Cobra Boom-Boom" who quoted me $80 for a picture in Varanasi.

UPDATE:  I've received an email from Eric, who having read this POV post, affirmed that he was told the two men he met were black sadhus, and that one of them had, a long time ago, consumed human flesh that remained after cremations.

Fotopedia & NatGeo Traveler: Dreams of Burma

Fotopedia, the publisher of popular apps for the iPhone and iPad, as well as the creator of a collaborative photographic encyclopedia, is working with National Geographic Traveler magazine to introduce a new, free app, “Dreams of Burma”, a spectacular digital exploration of the beauty of Burma.

“Dreams of Burma” is a visual journey packed with more than 1,000 stunning photographs, virtual excursions, trip-building capabilities, social tools for sharing photos, beautiful slideshows and wallpapers.

“If you have been to Burma, this app will transport you back there in an instant. And if you haven’t seen it yet, you may fall in love.” Jean Marie Hullot, CEO of Fotopedia.

I've downloaded the app, and I have started exploring it. I must say that the photography is gorgeous...work by photographers such as Bertrand Devimeux, Eric Lafforgue, Eric Daney, Jean-Marie Huliot, Giancarlo de Luca and many others grace the app that glides effortless and beautifully on the iPad screen.

I highly recommend it...it's free, it beautiful and it's informative. What's not to like?

If you seek more of images of Burma's people, drop by my own People of the Thanaka.

As a footnote: I have no relationship whatsoever with Fotopedia. It's just a gorgeous application.

POV: What Is Real At The Kumbh Mela?

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy

If you're thinking...two POVs from The Travel Photographer in as many days is unusual, you'd be right....but I chanced upon Eric Lafforgue's tweet that said "Story behind a portrait you saw everywhere, Kumbh Mela".

Naturally I went to the link it pointed me to, and I saw he had posted a lovely portrait of a young Indian girl wearing colorful makeup during the current Kumbh Mela. I guess one could call it "religious" make up for a lack of better description.

Eric writes that the girl is wearing the make up of a goddess, and that her face adorned the pages of many magazines as all pro photographers took pictures of her.

Well, the back story to this young girl is that she, and her sisters, were made up in that way to solicit tips and donations from Kumbh pilgrims and tourists, under the supervision of their father.

With disarming candor, Eric also writes this: "More and more i have to deal with those situations: we make nice stories with sometimes "fake" people."

And that's exactly why I view the Kumbh Melas of this world with (unfortunate) skepticism and cynicism. I visited the Maha Kumbh Mela of 2001, which was probably the largest of its kind, and was astounded by the number of charlatans and fake sadhus who were surrounded by photographers and tourists gaping at them.

That said, it's pictures such as the one of the young girl and fake sadhus that seem to capture the attention of photo editors in international newspapers and magazines...so what are the photographers to do?

If they try to focus on serious back stories with a human interest, they won't get the photo editors' attention and their stories in all likelihood won't get published.

So, as Eric says, they have continue to make nice stories with sometimes fake people.