Wall Street Journal's Year in Photos

A photo of men stretching in Mumbai was featured in the Wall Street Journal's Year in Photos: http://graphics.wsj.com/Photos-of-the-Year/2012/#o=0&q=&x=&y=&p=312

Dharavi

These are a few shots I liked from a shoot I did in the Dharavi slum in Mumbai for Bloomberg. Dharavi is touted as the largest slum in the world (although I've also read there's one in Pakistan that holds that title) and the setting for most of the slum scenes from the film Slumdog Millionaire. It's a fascinating, congested labyrinth of humanity and industry home to a lot of Mumbai's informal recycling sector and clothing workshops. Reality Tours offers great slum tours with a portion of the money going to social outreach: http://realitytoursandtravel.com/

Camel Fair in Wall Street Journal

Some new work from Pushkar's camel fair featured in today's Wall Street Journal along with an online gallery here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324469304578142063074629832.html#slide/1

Each year at the time of the Kartik Purnima full moon, Rabari and up to 20,000 camels descend on the sand dunes surrounding Pushkar to take part in the world’s largest camel fair. The Rabari, a tribal group found in India's Rajasthan State, historically were guardians of the camel. An emblem of Rajasthan, the camel symbolizes love in folklore, and ownership once signaled status and wealth. The camel was used in warfare by the Maharajahs and played an important role in desert communication, transportation and trade. The Rabari way of life is becoming increasingly difficult as they are losing access to grazing lands which they used for centuries on seasonal migrations. Over the past decade the one humped camel has has experienced a decline in its population, estimated to be about 50%. Options for increasing economic returns are reduced partly due to discrimination against camel milk by the dairy cooperatives as well as an absence of an organized market for camel milk, wool and leather.

Putao in Travel + Leisure

A few pics from Putao, Myanmar featured in Dec issue of Travel + Leisure 

South China Morning Post Weekend Mag

Real nice spread/cover of some portraits from my Stealing Beauty series were published recently in South China Morning Post's weekend magazine. 

Profoto

Profoto just featured some of my work with a short interview on their blog highlighting portraits I took in Myanmar's Chin State using their gear:
http://www.profoto.com/blog/portrait-photography-2/brent-lewin-stealing-beauty/

New Quarterly Cover

One of my pictures from Yangon, Myanmar was just used on the cover of the new issue of Canadian magazine The New Quarterly.

Tea in Bangladesh

This was a story I wrote and shot for Fah Thai on the tea estates in Srimongol, Bangladesh. Interesting history of Hindus being brought over from India by the British to help set up the industry.

Alan Mahony for SEA Globe

This was a portrait I shot for SEA Globe in Bangkok recently of Alan Mahony, the managing director of Ramayana who are building Southeast Asia's largest water theme park in Pattaya opening mid-2013.

Chiang Mai for Bloomberg

Here's a few frames I like from a shoot I did up in Chiang Mai for Bloomberg a couple weeks back

India's Living Bridges for Readers Digest

In ‘the land of oranges’ in ‘the abode of clouds,’ a gentle people inhabiting one of the rainiest places on earth make use of living bridges fashioned from tree roots to cross surging rivers. If this sounds like something out of a fairy tale, think again, as truth is sometimes stranger than fiction in India.

Cherrapunjee, translating to ‘the land of oranges,’ is a sprawling, sparsely populated town in India’s North East state of Meghalaya (or ‘abode of clouds’) and home to over 10,000 Khasi people. The Khasi, a tribal Mon-Khmer group originating from Southeast Asia are one of the last true matrilineal and matrilocal societies where families inherit the wife’s surname and live with the female’s family. 

Inhabiting a lush green landscape of rolling hills, which the British aptly dubbed ‘the Scotland of the East,’ the Khasi of Cherrapunjee are no stranger to rain. As the rainiest place on earth, the local Khasi people saw their bamboo bridges destroyed each monsoon season. To create a permanent solution they began training the roots of rubber trees across rivers to create root bridges which took generations to complete. A very inspiring story about community coming together. As the owner of the guesthouse I stayed at put it: “These bioengineering wonders are eloquent testimonies of man living in harmony with nature.”

There are around a dozen of these bridges left, all found at the bottom of valleys involving demanding, steep and slippery return treks anywhere from 4-8 hours. (not so much when you're lugging a lunch of lighting gear!). A few more I liked from the shoot below.

Stealing Beauty Awarded at Graphis

Just found out the Chin Stealing Beauty portrait series I shot was awarded for the Graphis 100 Best in Photography: http://www.graphis.com/cfe/online/photography2013/?id=10561

Hong Kong

I was in Hong Kong for the first time this week mostly visiting with photo editors there. Also managed to pick up a day of work with Bloomberg wandering around shooting street stuff which was great cuz I don't think I would've had the motivation to get out an explore this much! These were a few of my favourites.

Chin State in SEA Globe

Nice spread just published in SEA Globe of some pictures I took in Chin State, Myanmar