Worldcrunch
Going through all my slides, I’ve noticed some recurring themes in the thousands of photos I’ve snapped. One of them is “women carrying things on their heads” — like in this Portugal street scene in 1958, when the country was still under the authoritarian rule of Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.
There are llamas and alpacas everywhere in Peru. Contrary to what people may think, they are very docile creatures and their infamous bouts of spitting are apparently quite rare. More to the point, both animals produce high-quality wool, which I can attest to: The bedspread I bought in Peru on this trip is still as […]
The central Portugese town of Batalha was built to celebrate the Kingdom of Portugal’s victory over King John I of Castile’s army at the Battle (Batalha) of Aljubarrota in 1385. Things had calmed down 578 years later, although a different kind of “invasion” was happening, as in many other places we’d visit. The town is […]
When we toured India almost exactly 20 years ago, we got to see some pretty desolate hamlets — especially near the Pakistan border, in Rajasthan’s Thar Desert. Despite the region’s ruthless aridity, the nomadic and sedentary tribes living there have a rich (and colorful!) culture.
Even in the middle of April, when Venice is consumed with its annual carnival stravaganza, priests remained dignified and serious. Unless these two were actually Venetians in disguise, walking past the Doge’s Palace on their way to the festival?
Saqqara, some 30 kilometers south of modern-day Cairo, served as the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. The burial ground features several pyramids, including the world-famous step pyramid of Djoser — the oldest stone building complex known in history, built during the 27th century BC for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser. We were lucky […]
In the 1950s, the Costa Brava — northeastern Spain’s coastal region — was identified by the Spanish government and local entrepreneurs as suitable for substantial development as a holiday destination. In the 1960s, though, we were still able to catch a glimpse of how peaceful life was, before they basically covered everything in concrete.
On the road from Batna to Laghouat, we overtook these Berbers with their camels slowly making their way through the Aurès — an eastern continuation of the Atlas Mountains — in northeastern Algeria. It was in this region that the Algerian War of Independence was started by Berber freedom fighters in 1954.
A bit of a mystery, this one: The pond, with its water lilies, looks nothing like a rice paddy field — which is what you would expect in southern China. So what are they all looking for, bent over like that? My back hurts just looking at this picture.
Lake Atitlan, in the Guatemalan highlands, is surrounded by villages in which Mayan culture is still prevalent, and traditional dress is still worn. This old woman, winding yarn on her doorstep, is wearing a hat made with a long band of embroidered textile rolled tighlty aound her head. The weavers in the villages nearby produce […]
In 1972, Germany was divided in two — between the Soviet-occupied German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the east and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the west. Being on the “good side” of the fence, we were able to drive there and see the ominous Iron Curtain with its barbed wire and threatening miradors. […]
These unfriendly marine iguanas, found only on Ecuador’s uninhabited Galapagos Islands, are actually quite harmless: They are vegetarian and dive into the water to feed on seaweed. But they don’t like to be disturbed, and should you go too close, you expose yourself to powerful bouts of spitting …
This picture made me smile when I rediscovered it — not so much for the image of these strolling Danish sailors, but for the slide that came up just before: two ducks, similarly side-by-side, heads in the water and bottoms up. (When your last name is Mallard, you see ducks wherever you go.)
I couldn’t necessarily see what this painter found so picturesque in that particular scene. But the light was nice, and it was considerably less crowded than the touristy Kremlin or Saint Basil’s Cathedral … As for my choice of when and what to shoot, I’ve always enjoyed taking photographs from both on and off the […]
The tiny estacion in Aguas Calientes was the closest you could get to the famous Machu Picchu site when you didn’t feel like walking the 80 kilometers from Cusco on the Camino Inca (the Inca Trail). With just a few trains per day, merchants would set up shop on the tracks, moving their wares temporarily […]
Pure happiness was radiating from this old man, whom we met during a trip in southern China. I don’t remember why he was so cheerful — but we learned a Chinese proverb somewhere in our travels: “If you are not a fish, how can you know if the fish are happy?”
A popular street food in the mountainous regions of Ecuador is hornado — a slice of roasted pig usually served with potatoes. If that doesn’t make your mouth water, you can still settle for a bottle of Coke. We’ve found the ubiquitous brand even in the most remote corners of the world.
The Moroccan sun was strong on the market place in Larache, a small harbor on the Atlantic coast between Tangier and Rabat. Unfazed by the heat, this vendor was selling herbs, spices and … a giant turtle shell, whose scales he also used to make trinkets and jewels.
I took this picture during the first of our 11 trips to Greece. We had driven our Simca Aronde down through Italy, then onto the ferry that had just been inaugurated between the southern Italian port city of Brindisi and Igoumenitsa in Greece’s northwestern Epirus region. Then up to the mountains we drove: on narrow, […]
Getting married is hard work. This Albanian couple was taking a break from their wedding photo shoot in the ancient Roman theater of Butrint. Located in the very southern tip of modern-day Albania, this archeological site was known as Bouthroton in Ancient Greece and later as the Roman city of Buthrotum. This is one of […]
Protests turn deadly in Thailand, a mesmerizing angle for beach sculpture, extreme jumping and more photos that capture our world the past seven days…
TEL AVIV — For 40 years Arnie Druck has been a collector. He has built one of Israel’s largest and most impressive caches of Israeli and Jewish art, local photography, wines, books, artifacts linked to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and El Al airline memorablia. His four-decade foray into collecting sprouted from his Bar Mitzvah […]
A quick trip around the world in six photographs, from London and Paris to Tokyo and Kabul…
Kenyan mall standoff, underwater concert, and a vigil in Pakistan are among this week’s featured photographs.
Sebastião Salgado’s blue eyes have seen a bit of everything in this world – and this might not even be an exaggeration. For the past eight years in particular, the 69-year-old Brazilian photographer has traveled to more than 30 isolated regions of the world, collecting images of dozens of remote tribes, endangered animals and unusual […]
BARCELONA – The couple looks in love and relaxed. The evening twilight gives the picture perfect lighting and the background is idyllic. But right next to them, in front of the Alpine range, there’s a herd of tourists with their horrible fluorescent bobble hats. You know them – the photo bombers, the people who just […]