Wednesday 12 August 2009

Larry Larsen: Gnawa Photo Expedition

Photo © Larry Larsen -All Rights Reserved

I organized the Gnawa (or Ganoua) Photo Expedition in late June, which was joined by a number of talented full-time and part time photographers, whose principal objective was to photograph the legendary Gnawa musicians during the 12th Essaouira Music Festival.

Photo © Larry Larsen -All Rights Reserved

This is the fourth of a series of posts which showcase a sample of the participating photographers' work, and it is by Larry Larsen, a Seattle-based artist and photographer. Larry's biography tells us that he was a boilermaker welder for 30 years, but now retired, he's following his true passion in fine art. He learned how to turn on a computer in 2000, began learning Photoshop, and acquired a digital camera and never looked back. He learned that digital photography is very liberating and wide open for experimentation. He has made Photoshop composites and he has played with HDR.

Photo © Larry Larsen -All Rights Reserved

Despite the difficulty of street photography in Morocco, Larry was able, in his unobtrusive way, to make a number of interesting spontaneous photographs, which are on his website. Have a look at his first image in the Morocco series; for those who read Arabic, you'll understand its tongue in cheek humor. For those who don't...ah, well, you'll have to ask Larry.

"Pyramid Fumes" Portraits

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