The river “Wien” beneath the inner city of Vienna.
Vendor in Jaffna
A fish vendor outside of his shop in Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
30 pictures from Burma
The second dispatch from my travel section 30 pictures comes from Burma/Myanmar. I hope you enjoy the images. Click on the image below to enter the full gallery.
Pa-O women wearing a traditional black tunic and a brightly colored turban. The turbans are often simply scarves or towels bought at local markets and then are wrapped in a traditional style. According to an old legend the Pa-O are descendants of a father who was a supernatural being and a mother who was a dragon. The women’s trademark turban is a manifestation of the creation myth. The Pa-O, also known as Taungthu, are the second most numerous ethnic group in Burma’s Shan-State.
The Mechanic
An old man is opening his mechanic shop in Mandalay, Burma.
Young at Work
Although illegal in most countries, child labor still continues all over the world, especially in developing countries. It is estimated that more than 168 million kids worldwide are working long hours under harsh conditions. In countries affected by poverty and unemployment, child labor often seems the only way for families to survive. In other cases, like organized begging, children are forced to work. Since 2002 the global child labor force has decreased by a third.
Two boys working for a sub-contractor of a garment-factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
A young Roma boy is forced to beg in the streets of Bratislava, Slovakia. He was playing his accordion in several locations across the city, always only for a limited time to avoid being picked up by Slovakian police.
A young boy working in a shipyard in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
New roads are constructed in remote Chin-State, Burma, often with the use of low-paid child labor.
Two teenagers in Walbrzych, Poland, are searching for ‘black gold’ in an illegal coal mine. The boys work on their own and are selling the coal to friends and neighbors in order to earn some money.
A young boy working in a shipyard in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
A young girl is selling bells on the streets of Yangon, Burma.
Boys working for a sub-contractor of a garment-factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Abandoned Memory
An old wedding photo still hangs on the wall inside an abandoned house on Shetland Island.
Bird of Joy
The Atlantic Puffin is doubtless one of the most adored seabirds in the world. Clown-faced with a body of black and white the cute birds only spend time on land while breading, which is from late April to early August. After their chicks have learned to fly and how to catch fish on their own, puffins simply vanish for months into the North Atlantic just to return a year later, often to the same partner and burrow. What Puffins are doing during wintertime is a mystery.
A Puffin picks up blade of grass to line its burrow.
Puffins often wait nearby their burrows before returning back with sand-eels in their mouth to watch out for gulls and other seabirds that may steal their food.
Atlantic Puffins catch up to a dozen fish or more, mostly sand-eels, to bring a meal for their chicks.
Puffins rub their beaks to show other seabirds they are a brace.
Puffins burrow near cliffs for an easy access to the sea.
A puffin brace with their chick which has not yet the significant large orange beak.
An Atlantic Puffin exits its burrow near the open sea. Burrows are several feet deep to keep eggs or chicks safe.
More information on the Atlantic Puffin on National Geographic.
Victim of War
Zijad, an 8 year old boy from Syria’s Idlib region and another victim of war, recently fled with his family by crossing illegally the border into Turkish Hatay province. In this image he is seen being examined by an Austrian plastic surgeon inside the Emel hospital at the Syrian border prior to an operation necessary to engraft skin from other parts of his body.
Photographer Matthieu Paley: We are what we eat
French photographer Matthieu Paley has always been a great inspiration to me, both as a traveler and a photographer. Two years ago the acclaimed photographer did a huge story for National Geographic on The Evolution of Diet. Paley traveled through seven countries, reporting on communities like the Bajau (Borneo), the Inuit (Greenland) or the Hadza (Tanzania) and their ancestral diet. He also published a book from this assignment, which can be order through 180°C, Man & Food – The Origins. For National Geographic Live Paley sums up his adventures during this assignment, you can watch the seven episodes below.
Afghanistan:
Greenland:
Bolivia:
Pakistan:
Borneo:
Crete:
Tanzania:
30 pictures from Scotland
I have created a new page on my blog called 30 pictures which will be devoted to travel photography and will feature thirty single images of one country or destination.
The first dispatch comes from SCOTLAND. Click on the image below to enter the full gallery.
Searching for Poland’s (Black) Gold
About a year ago two private treasure hunters, Piotr Koper and Andreas Liechter, announced that they have found a secret tunnel in Poland’s Lower Silesia that may hide a train full of stolen gold and artwork from World War II. Since then hundreds of treasure hunters made their way to search the area around the former coal mining town Wałbrzych.
Recently Koper and Liechter have brought heavy equipment to Wałbrzych and began to remove earth on Monday to search for the hidden Nazi gold train. Although historians doubt such a train has ever existed, the treasure hunters are still optimistic that within the next days they will find what they are looking for.
Not so long ago I spend some time in Wałbrzych with illegal coal miners searching for Poland’s real treasure, the ‘Black Gold‘:
For centuries coal mining has been the most important industry in Walbrzych, Poland. However, in the 1980s many of the coal mines became unprofitable. With Poland’s transformation from a state-directed to a free-market economy in the 1990s, nearly all of the coal mines in Lower Silesia were shut down. Thousands of people became jobless.
The area still has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country despite new industry settling in the area. It didn’t take very long until the jobless miners in the area started to dig for coal on their own.
The business is dangerous and illegal. Tunnels leading as deep as ten or fifteen meters below the ground are only protected by wood and sandbags. Inside, people dig for coal the same way they did centuries ago, by hand. Police regularly arrest illegal coal miners and confiscate their equipment, so most people dig by night to avoid police control. Not only the well-educated former miners search for ‘black gold,’ but also young and unexperienced jobless men risk their freedom and their lives to make a couple of Euros a night by selling illegal coal to residents.
Welcome to the Blog
Dear friends,
after haven’t posted in a while I have decided to rearrange my photography blog. In the future I will post regularly about my travel & documentary photography, share my recent work as well as images from the archive, write about personal experiences and keep you updated on travels, adventures and interesting news in photojournalism and photography.
I will also open a new page called 30 pictures which will be devoted to travel photography and will feature thirty single images of one country or destination.
Chittagong, Bangladesh.
