Australian archaeologists using high tech equipment have discovered a lost city in Cambodia that had been swallowed up by the jungle and forgotten for more than 1200 years. The city was found using a sophisticated airborne surveillance systems called Lidar – which stands for light detection and ranging data. Mounted on a helicopter, the device uses lasers to penetrate the dense jungle canopy below, giving researchers an opportunity to discover things they wouldn't have been able to find on their own.

The city, which was built during the European Middle Ages, is named Mahendraparvata and is said to pre-date the famous Angkor Wat ruins by as many as 350 years. It is believed to have been built by the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire between 800 and 1400 AD. Previously there had been a few scattered ruins and artifacts discovered, but through the use of Lidar, the team behind the discovery were able to see just how massive and sprawling the Mahendraparvata complex truly is.

It is believed that the city was once surrounded by a large, open space without vegetation. In fact, deforestation may have led to the decline and fall of the city more than 1000 years ago. But without anyone to keep the jungle at bay, it was able to reclaim its lost lands over time. The jungle was so efficient in fact that it completely covered the area and made it difficult for anyone to discover the site, let alone trek to the place.

After using their high tech arial mapping techniques to determine the scope of the city, an adventurous group of explorers actually went out to see it for themselves. They've only just started to uncover the vast amount of buildings that must make up the site, but so far they've found two temples that are nearly intact as well as a cave filled with strange inscriptions and carvings.

It will of course take years to uncover the entire place and begin to see what is underneath. But I thought that this story was cool for the mere fact that I would have loved to have been amongst the team that went and visited the city on foot. Talk about a true adventure, that is something right out of an Indiana Jones movie.

The video below captures some images and footage from Mahendraparvata. Interesting stuff.

Read more »

Photo © Christina Feldt-All Rights Reserved

"As far back as I can remember, I have been fascinated by other cultures, faces, customs and ways of living."

And this is in essence how Christina Feldt started her photographic career. She was not joking...she writes me that she's just back from a 9 months trip through Mongolia, Myanmar, SE Asia and Ethiopia; a trip that generated enough galleries to occupy its viewers for quite some time. She has also established a Photoshelter website which you can view here.

I've gone through most of them...starting with Ethiopia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia, Bangkok and Singapore, and when I got to Vietnam...I paused at Christina's lovely photographs made against the yellow walls of Hoi An.

That done, I read the compelling blog post she wrote about Mai, a 31-year old Hmong woman from Sapa, who told her that her dream was to see the ocean and to be able to read and write, so she could read the text messages on her cellphone.

It's no surprise that I stopped at her Vietnam gallery...after all, this is my forthcoming destination where I'm holding a 15-days photo-expedition/workshop, and her photographs serve to reinforce the 'visuality' of Vietnam and its people.

Angkor Photo Festival is calling for submissions with a deadline of May 31, 2012!!!

The festival's 2012 program will present works photographed throughout the world through exhibitions and slideshows in Siem Reap, with no imposed theme.

The submissions guidelines and form contain all the information needed on how to submit work for this year’s festival. 

The festival will be held from December 1– 8, 2012 in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The deadline to submit the application is May 31, 2012, and all photographers will receive an answer by the end of July 2012.

Since its inception in 2005, more than 180 young photographers from all over Asia have been selected to participate in the annual free Angkor Photo Workshops. Conducted by renowned international photographers who volunteer their time, the Angkor Photo Workshops provide participants with firsthand training, invaluable exposure and a chance to perfect their art.

Over the years, the workshop has highlighted emerging talent from the region, and many previous participants go on to embark on successful photography careers both regionally and internationally.


I attended the Angkor Photo Festival last November and one of my photo essays The Possessed of Mira Datar was featured at the festival. 


I was greatly impressed by the Angkor Photo Festival's evenings at the FCC, and by the quality of the curating. Francoise Callier and Jean-Yves Navel were not only paragons of hospitality, but were instrumental in making a success of the event, along with the assistance of Camille Plante and Jessica Lim.

This is a phenomenal opportunity for all photographers, emerging and established. Submit your work for inclusion in the Angkor Photo Festival. You'll never regret it.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

It's a  curious thing evolution. Not the kind of evolution that most Republican Presidential candidates unintelligently profess (or pretend to) not to believe in, but our own visual evolution...our visual maturation.

Last night, I was going through my photographs from the week I spent attending the Angkor Photo Festival in Siem Reap and, whilst I hadn't any plans to seriously photograph there, I nevertheless did manage to grab a few hundred of shots. I had no specific storyline or photo shoots in mind, played the tourist and just photographed whatever took my fancy.

I left my Canon 5D Mark II in my hotel room, and only used my M9 fitted with an Elmarit 28mm f2.8 during that week wherever I went, and it was liberating -but also challenging to some degree- to be using a rangefinder with only one lens.

Looking at my photographs, I isolated the four you see above this post that I believe illustrate the visual maturation I've been through since I started photography in earnest some 12 years ago. The top two are the shots I used to prefer almost exclusively during the first few years of my photographic trajectory...simple, uncomplicated, candid, pure travel photography....those I call perhaps undeservedly the "lazy" shots. Although these are made with a rangefinder and a wide-angle lens, I used to make similar photographs using a 70-200 lens, staying at some distance from my subjects. I no longer do this,  especially with the gear I now prefer to use. That being said, this type of photography is currently my least favored.  It's a milestone in my visual maturation.

The one of the caretaker monk at Wat Bo is a chiaroscuro portrait; the kind I like when making a simple "one-subject" photograph. It takes a little more planning and setting up, and is obviously much more dramatic than the "plain-vanilla" top two.

The bottom image is the type of photography that appeals to me the most at this stage. It's far from being a great photograph, but comparatively is more complex. It's not as multi-layered as a street photograph, and is just of dance performers dressing up for tourists at Angkor Wat...but is much more interesting than the above three; at least to my eyes.

A few years ago, when I definitely moved to digital photography,  I decided -for space reasons- to cull my slides, and must've thrown out thousands of what -to my eyes then- were crappy shots. I only kept the "good" ones which are largely similar to the top two photographs...simple and uncomplicated. Who knows? Perhaps I threw a few slides that would have now been "keepers".

It's why I no longer trash any of my image files....unless they're really bad, really really blurry or beyond any fix. With digital files, physical space (as in filing cabinets or whatever) is no longer an issue, so all images are saved and archived....one day, they may be keepers after all!!

While in Siem Reap, I dropped by the Old Market and stocked up on traditional Khmer scarves with the intention of having them embroidered with The Travel Photographer logo, and making a fortune selling them online.

While having lunch at The Soup Dragon, I showed the manager my The Travel Photographer's pouch that had that logo, and asked if he knew of a store that could duplicate it...and indeed he did! Scribbling the name and address of the place in Khmer on a scrap of paper, he said it wasn't too far from the restaurant, and that it was just opposite a secondary school which used it to embroider its tshirts etc. Perfect!

I hired a tuk-tuk driver (Chen, who was to remain as my driver for the duration of my stay) and we went looking for the embroidery shop. I expected to see a computer-driven embroidery machine, but all I saw was an electric sewing machine and a woman who assured me (through Chen) that she could duplicate the logo quite easily. I wrote it down in my best capitalized handwriting, gave her my old krama for a trial run and was told to return in 20 minutes. Perfect!

Spending these ensuing 20 minutes thinking of having all my stack of kramas embroidered with my logo, returning to the US and selling them online at a monumental profit, was very enjoyable. However, these dreams of untold riches came tumbling down when I was returned my old krama with the logo as you can see from the above photographs...the L in Travel was deemed superfluous by the semastress and I got The Trave Photographer instead.

The poor woman was mortified and tried to convince me she could fix the error...but I just laughed it off. Yes, my get-rich-quick scheme collapsed because of a dropped letter. The moral of the story is this: make sure your outsourcing contractor can write English.

That being said, the mistake on this scarf (especially as it has been worn for a number of years) could well make it very valuable. As an example, the mistakenly inverted Jenny stamp was auctioned for $1 million!

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

As readers of this blog know, I recently traveled to Siem Reap in order to attend the Angkor Photo Festival where one of my photo essays The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar was featured on its opening night.

I was greatly impressed by the Angkor Photo Festival's evenings at the FCC, and by the quality of the curating. As I mentioned in previous posts, both Francoise Callier and Jean-Yves Navel were instrumental in making a success of the event, while tireless Camille Plante and Jessica Lim made it tick. However, this is not the main purpose of this POV post.

It's been the third time I'd been in Siem Reap and to the temples of Angkor, and I am chagrined that, while Siem Reap itself still has traces of a bohemian feel to it, despite the high number of tourists invading its bars and restaurants, its temples have lost their mystique due to exuberant commercialization.

For example, both the Angkor Wat and the Bayon temple in particular are overwhelmed by hordes of tourists. The tour buses disgorge Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese tourists by the thousands each day. This not only mars the aesthetic of these temples, but also has long term negative effects on the integrity of these historic monuments. The lay nuns all clad in white robes who could be found in some areas of Angkor Wat and the Bayon are now gone, replaced by men in Western shirts and trousers who sell incense sticks to tourists. To add insult to injury, there are now groups of students who dress up in apsara costumes, and who clumsily pose for pictures with tourists (see above picture). I assume these changes are approved and "endorsed" by the Siem Reap police and tourist authorities.

In my view, the Angkor Wat temple complex experience has deteriorated over the past 5 years. Both the influx of tourists and the need to maximize revenues from this world heritage site by the Cambodian authorities are the causes for this deterioration. If any of my readers haven't visited the Angkor Wat temple complex, I advise you to go as soon as possible and perhaps choose to do so when it's off-season (monsoon season may be an intelligent choice).

If and when you do, forgo the many established restaurants for dinner and try an area where there are lots of outdoor restaurants specializing in Khmer barbecue (BBQ Lover is one), and sample the grilled squid, giant prawns and fried morning glory. The area is opposite The Red Piano  and is between Street 11 and Street 8. You won't regret it.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Well, all good things have to come to an end. The Angkor Photo Festival's closing night included an intriguing photo talk by Roger Ballen, and the results of the 2011 Angkor Photo Workshops.

The award for the best photo story produced during the workshop was given to Carrie Lam*, a Singaporean photographer, for Cure...an ethereal collection of images. Her workshop tutor was Magnum photographer Antoine d'Agata.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Francoise Callier and Jean-Yves Navel, who overwhelmed me (and many others) with their cordiality, and gracious hospitality during every night of the Festival, as well as the hard work of both Camille Plante and Jessica Lim which made a success of this Festival.

So thank you very much for a great event!

*I didn't find a website for Carrie Lam.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

The Angkor Photo Festival is continuing its momentum, with today's penultimate night including a slideshow of the 5 finalists and the result of the inaugural Reminders Project Asian Photographers Grant. One of my favorite photographers, Shiho Fukada, is one of these five.

Since it's Friday, I dropped by the Siem Reap solitary mosque to explore whether there's anything worthwhile to document. Each Muslim community in Cambodia has a hakem who leads the community and the mosque, an imam who leads the prayers, and a bilal (as in Bilal, the Prophet Muhammad's muezzin) who calls the faithful to the daily prayers.

I met a few of the community members, one of whom spoke a reasonably fluent Arabic. While some of the Cham go to study the Qur'an at Kelantan in Malaysia, he learned it in Phnom Penh.

The two children were running around in the mosque, and the boy in particular was a bundle of energy.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I've got a few things to talk about in this post, so here goes:

The opening of the Angkor Photo Festival was covered in yesterday's The Phnom Post which marveled that the front lawn of the Foreign Correspondent Club was packed with photographers, photojournalists and guests.

I was happy that Rahman Roslan, a photojournalist from Malaysia, who told the story of Nur, a young Indonesian woman returning home after suffering five years of abuse as a domestic worker in Malaysia, was quoted to say that Angkor workshops hadn’t just improved his style, but had changed his entire life.

I was also thrilled that Francoise Callier, the festival program director and curator, was quoted as saying “I wanted to focus on young photographers for this show, although there are some more established shooters in there too, like Tewfic El-Sawy."


I have also used my new iPhone to snap (and snap is the exact word for it) pictures of whatever takes my visual fancy, and I must say I find this to be very gratifying and entertaining, especially when using Instagram and Hipstamatic filters. That being said, I found it very useful when photographing people here. I can show these images to whoever I snapped, and it's an instant icebreaker. The iPhone is not threatening....everybody recognizes it's a phone, and the young and old take delight in choosing which filter to apply to their portrait, and in flipping from one image to the other.  At that point, they are ready to be photographed and photographed and re-photographed!

I'll be writing about this when I have more time.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I recently switched over from Blackberry to the iPhone 4s just for it's camera capabilities, and where else to put it through its paces than in Siem Reap?

Here are a few of photographs made on the iPhone using Instagram and Hipstamatic filters of young monks at the old temples of Roluos, Preah Ko and Lolei.

And one of Angkor Wat itself and the reflecting pond.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

It was a good move to arrive early at the opening of the Angkor Photo Festival last night. Held at the Foreign Correspondents Club (known locally by its acronym FCC), it quickly filled up with almost 400 people to watch the projected slideshows of some 21 photographers. The slideshows included The Mercy Project/Inochi by James Whitlow Delano, Nishant Ratnakar's Fistful of Dreams, Nur by Rahman Roslan, Kauser Haider's A Hall Full of Cinema and my own The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar.

I introduced myself to Francoise Callier, the indefatigable energy behind the festival and its curator. I also met Jean-Yves Navel, the co-founder and director of the festival, as well as Camille Plante and Jessica Lin, both indispensable to the success of the festival for a number of years. The photo slideshows were all highly impressive, and the large audience was held in rapt attention.

Tonight saw the second installment of the slideshow program of about 13 photographers which included Whale Hunting In Lamalera by Ardiles Rante, Wendy Marijnissen's Dr Musarat, and ended with the lengthy Exodus by Sebastiao Salgado.

The photograph above is of one of the caretakers at Wat Bo, and has nothing to do with Angkor Photo Festival...but I thought it would be appropriate to feature it for a post on Siem Reap.

Another bit of information: I have yet to use my Canon 5D2. All I carried and used since my arrival in Siem Reap is the M9 and a couple of lenses.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy- All Rights Reserved

I'm thrilled to be in Siem Reap to attend the 7th Angkor Photo Festival. Posters of the event can be seen in many places of the town, as this one in Pub Street. I duly bought kramas (the traditional Cambodian scarf) and already have a tuk-tuk driver who claims he's the 'best' in Siem Reap. We'll see about that in due course.

More news on the festival will be posted soon. Its opening night is tomorrow evening, when my own work will be shown.

By the time this post is published, I should be flying to Siem Reap (via Abu Dhabi then Bangkok) arriving on the 17th November around midday. So it appears timely to introduce a photo book on Cambodia by Dutch photographer Eric de Vries. Perhaps he'll be attending the Angkor Photo Festival as well.

STREET is all about street photography. All pictures were taken during Eric's courses, private tours and workshops in 2011. The photographs are mostly in black and white except for the complete series 'Darkness of the White Building'. This is Eric's fifth book (220 pages, landscape) and is part one of the trilogy THE WORKS OF ERIC DE VRIES.

Eric de Vries lives and works in Cambodia, the country he’s been travelling to since 2000. He is currently working on two long-term projects called ‘Still Life in Khmer Style’ that covers landscapes, temple scenes and buddha statues and ‘Hello Darling’, which is about the girlbars in the towns of Cambodia.

Interestingly, Eric's website lists Hanuman Tourism Cambodia, which is affiliated to the hotel I am staying at in Siem Reap. It also organized some of my photo shoots when I led a photo expedition to Siem Reap in February 2006.

I'll be traveling tomorrow to London for a brief stopover before flying off to Siem Reap via Abu Dhabi and Bangkok. I chose to fly Etihad, the Abu Dhabi airline, from London to Bangkok after hearing it offered an impressive flying experience in terms of comfort and service.

The festival itself is to take place in Siem Reap from November 19 to November 26, 2011. This well established event is the first photography festival held in Southeast Asia and for 2011, will exhibit the work of 110 photographers, out of whom 60 are from Asia.

The 2011 list of exhibiting photographers includes Andrew Biraj, Pep Bonet, Paula Bronstein, Marco Di Lauro, Tewfic El-Sawy, Siddharth Jain, Yuri Koryzev, Liz Loh-Taylor, Wendy Marijnissen, Erica McDonald, Palani Mohan, and many more.



On the subject of Cambodia and Siem Reap, I thought I'd re-mention To Cambodia With Love, a book published by Things Asian, illustrated with my photographs of Siem Reap.

It's described as "With its unique insights into dining, shopping, sightseeing, and culture, To Cambodia With Love is a one-of-a-kind guide for the passionate traveler."

It can be purchased from various online bookstores, and I believe the Siem Reap bookstores have it in stock.

I expect my posts might be irregular whilst traveling, but I'll try my best to update my readers with my gallivanting during the Angkor Photo Festival.

The Angkor Photo Festival website's just announced facelift is quite substantial, so have a look at the 2011 schedule of events and you may be tempted to drop by, if you aren't already planning to attend.

The festival is to take place in Siem Reap from November 19 to November 26, 2011. This well established event is the first photography festival held in Southeast Asia and for 2011, will exhibit the work of 110 photographers, out of whom 60 are from Asia. 

The 2011 list of exhibiting photographers includes Andrew Biraj, Pep Bonet, Paula Bronstein, Marco Di Lauro, Tewfic El-Sawy, Siddharth Jain, Yuri Koryzev, Liz Loh-Taylor, Wendy Marijnissen, Erica McDonald, Palani Mohan, and many more.

I take great pleasure in featuring the 7th Angkor Photo Festival Program Preview which is to take place in Siem Reap from November 19 to November 26, 2011. This well established event is the first photography festival held in Southeast Asia and for 2011, will exhibit the work of 110 photographers, out of whom 60 are from Asia.

The 2011 list of exhibiting photographers includes Andrew Biraj, Pep Bonet, Paula Bronstein, Marco Di Lauro, Tewfic El-Sawy, Siddharth Jain, Yuri Koryzev, Liz Loh-Taylor, Wendy Marijnissen, Erica McDonald, Palani Mohan, and many more.

My photographs from the photo essay The Possessed of Hazrat Mira Datar will be screened during the festival.

Angkor Photo Festival will hold 12 exhibitions, 7 evenings of slideshows, free workshops for 30 Asian photographers, and a lot more. It's curated by Francoise Callier in consultation with a 9-member international committee. The program is coordinated by Camille Plante and Jessica Lim.

For the PDF Press Release which also contains sample photographs of the exhibits and screenings, click here.

If you haven't considered attending the Angkor Photo Festival, I encourage you to do so. It's an unmissable photography event.

Now in its 7th year, the free 2011 Angkor Photo Workshops is now officially accepting applications from all young Asian photographers.

To get started, photographers can download and read through the application guidelines and the application form below:

• APWS 2011 Application Guidelines
• APWS 2011 Application Form

The guidelines and form contains all the information needed on how to apply for this year’s workshops. However for clarifications and or questions, the Angkor Photo Workshops can be contacted email at angkorworkshop [at] gmail.com .

The workshop will be held from November 17 – 23, 2011 in Siem Reap, Cambodia. As per the previous years’ workshops, 30 participants will be selected from amongst the applications received. The deadline to submit the application is July 15, 2011.

Since its inception in 2005, more than 180 young photographers from all over Asia have been selected to participate in the annual free Angkor Photo Workshops. Conducted by renowned international photographers who volunteer their time, the Angkor Photo Workshops provide participants with firsthand training, invaluable exposure and a chance to perfect their art.

Over the years, the workshop has highlighted emerging talent from the region, and many previous participants go on to embark on successful photography careers both regionally and internationally.

I'll be there!!