Travel Photography

National Geographic Photographer

Special assignment by Mark Seymour on Kolkata How the project came about Becoming a Nikon Ambassador has certainly opened many amazing doors for me but non greater than being given an opportunity to have my work published as a National Geographic Photographer in this iconic magazine that we all see in many receptions around the world. Three years ago Nikon approached me and asked as part of my street and travel photography courses could I do a presentation at the National Geographic Traveller show in London giving a talk on how to get into travel photography, how to prepare your trip and what to do once you are there along with talking about various techniques to make your images varied and more interesting. Lady Luck As they say luck always plays a huge part and today was one of those special days ! The co-ordinator from National Geographic that was going to be present during my talk turned out to be the key person within the organisation when I found out after asking ‘So who is responsible for the allocation of photographic projects within the magazine’  …. to which I received the reply… ‘Its me’ I was kinda knocked of my feet and immediately knew that this was one of those opportunities that when presented you grasp with both hands! The room was packed with over 150 paying photographers wanting to hear how I had managed to make this my career and to develop themselves into this genre of travel and documentary photography. The rest as they say is history with a meeting quickly set up at their London publication office to discuss shooting a furture project and for me to present my portfolio of street photography from around the world. My work was highly praised by the picture editor but […]

Nagaland Headhunters

Nagaland was always on my bucket list as a place to visit of the beaten track so I finally decided to go and recce the place and try and make contact with the tribal people as they are amongst the lat headhunters in the world today ( they abandoned this parctice in the mid 1970’s ) Nagaland is not the easist of places to get to with a limited road network and basic roads so I decided to firstly fly to Gurwhati airport in Assam and after spending a couple of days there photographing around the Kamakhya Temple which is very old Hindu temple where Godess Kamakhya is worshipped we started the journey through Kazingra park and into Nagaland with my guide and fixer. As we travelled thru Assam we stopped of spending time with the Maya tribe photographing most of the village people on a tobacco lastolite background. Once we entered Nagaland through an old checkpoint reminiscent of days gone by the roads were really quite bumpy and mainly without a tar surface . It took us two days to reach Mon where we spent the day with the Mon tribe both photographing them and just spending time in their huts with a large open fire drinking freashly brewed coffee. The following day we started or asscent up into the Nagahills to Longwa to spend time with the Longhwa tribal people staying overnight in the only hotel in the vicinity which I can safely say was the most basic accomodation I have ever enjoyed with no running water and no heating ! In the morning we made our way to visit the tribesman wher we spent a long day with them witnessing their opium ceremony , firing their muzzel loaded rifels and drinking home made coffee over an open […]