Photographers Blog

By Carlos Barria

He Heping, who runs a factory that makes plastic Christmas trees in Yiwu, talks with one of his employees as they finish up a massive order destined for the Netherlands.

He started this business more than ten years ago after an uncle encouraged him to produce plastic Christmas trees. His company had been making knives, but the uncle had visited Serbia at the end of the Balkan War, and came home convinced that a product related to seasonal good cheer represented a better business prospect.

SLIDESHOW: CHINA’S CHRISTMAS FACTORIES

Christmas comes but once a year, but for Christmas decoration factories and retailers in China, it starts as early as July and ends in late September, when massive orders from around the world arrive in Yiwu, located 300 km (185 miles) south of Shanghai in the prosperous Zhejiang province. Yiwu is considered a bellwether for China’s low-cost exports, especially exports destined for emerging markets. Orders come from places as far away as Europe, the United States and South America.

This year, European demand for Christmas goods has dropped sharply, local vendors said. He estimated European orders were down 20 percent from last year, while Shi Kuan Hua, another vendor, said that his European orders had fallen by 40 percent.

At one shop, Peter Nazodze and his wife Natalia rushed to order the latest Christmas decorations for their clients back home in Georgia. “I will buy two containers,” he says. “We live in a little country with just 4 million people.” For Nazodze, Christmas is a good time for business. In Georgia, he says, tradition dictates that people buy new decorations every year, rather than unpack old ones.

By Paulo Whitaker

In Brazil we have a saying, “Soccer and religion are sacred.” Here, as with one’s choice of a favorite soccer team, one’s choice of religion is also not up for discussion. When I discovered here in Sao Paulo a church run by a missionary and a pastor who are lesbian partners, I thought it would be an interesting photo story.

In this megalopolis, there already are a few evangelical churches that are inclusive, accepting people regardless of race, color, economic situation and sexual preference, but the Cidade de Refugio (City Refuge) is the first in Brazil to cater almost exclusively to the gay community. This church, part of the network of the evangelical Assemblies of God, is led by Lanna Holder, a lesbian activist who uses the title of Missionary.

This story was particularly difficult because of the number of subjects involved, and the need to get their and the church’s trust. I confess it took me a while to reach a level of confidence with them so that my pictures were natural. There was also a lot of suspicion among the congregation due to recent financial scandals involving different churches.

By Andy Clark

Swatting away a swarm of pesky summertime mosquitoes, I walked down a quiet country road shaded by rows of elderly trees. You could say, it was any ordinary rural road except for one thing. Parked amongst the trees was a collection of battle-scared and brightly colored stock cars. All tethered onto trailers and pulled behind pickup trucks, the collection of road warriors and their owners waited patiently for the gates to open for another Saturday night at Agassiz Speedway.

SLIDESHOW: HIGH OCTANE RACING

Built in 1970 the speedway is a quarter mile oval track nestled into the side of Agassiz Mountain about 90 minutes drive east of Vancouver, British Columbia. Owned and operated by the non-profit Kent Raceway Society the track hosts about 12 races a season beginning in April and running through to late October.

I have always enjoyed car racing. I spent, though a few said mis-spent, some of my formative teenage youth on darkened summer highways north of Toronto in the late 1960s, riding in muscle cars and drag racing until either the wee hours of the morning or the cops chased us away. Though I witnessed a horrendous accident one night while racing I still look back on those times with fond memories.

By Kim Kyung-hoon

When you look at the mountain of toys in this picture, you might think that your childhood dream has come true and this is a toy lover’s paradise.

In fact, what seemed to be a child’s dream come true was not a magic spell but “recycling”.

Japan’s famous contemporary artist, Hiroshi Fuji, renowned for using the theme of recycling in his various artworks over the last decade, held his solo exhibition in Tokyo and surprisingly, his art creations were made from more than 100,000 unwanted toys. The numerous toys had been collected from across Japan over the last 13 years through community activities to recycle these unwanted toys by bartering among children.

By Jose Miguel Gomez

We reached the Enchanted Garden looking for the more than 24 species of hummingbird that lived there. What a surprise it was to actually find them concentrated in a small space where they drank sugary water put out in feeders to attract them.

The birds were so small that any one of them could easily fit into the palm of my hand. Their wings produced a unique sound, especially when they dipped downward and changed speed. I thought about doing a story on these birds that can’t walk but can hover in one spot like a helicopter, and then disappear in a flash behind a tree.

Leonor Pardo has been using nearly a ton of sugar each month since she created the Enchanted Garden. She first put out the sweet syrup and suddenly these hungry, swift creatures just appeared.

By Mario Anzuoni

I was invited to Sony studios to shoot a portrait of actor David Spade during a lunch break from the taping of his television series “Rules of Engagement”.

I anticipated this would be quite a quick opportunity, after being told to be ready promptly at 2 pm to catch David before his lunch. Once there I was told I would be able to set up in their green room, an office type of room (not the most exciting setting for a portrait). As my allotted time approached I kept thinking that it would have been ideal if I would have been able to photograph him on the actual set, placing him into the context of the tv series. As I watched from the sidelines, right before the break, I was introduced to the stage manager.

I couldn’t waste any time in emphasizing how much more relevant it would be to portray him on set rather than in a simple room. It was doable! But we still had to seek approval of the Union crew to keep the lights on for a couple of extra minutes. Thankfully everyone agreed and I was able to photograph David in the two iconic settings — his office and the diner — stealing only about 2 minutes and 30 seconds from his lunch break. Needless to say he was very pleased and said “finally someone who’s quick!”
Lights out.

By Carlos Garcia Rawlins

When I show him a photo I’ve just taken of a fellow tribe member, he smiles. He’s fascinated and can’t believe it. When I point the lens at him and then show him his own image on the screen, his body retracts. He frowns, confused.

In the depths of the Amazon jungle, just 19 km (12 miles) from the Brazilian border, is the village of Irotatheri of the Yanomami tribe, that still groups around a fire. They live barefoot, semi-naked, and free. Until last week they had not seen any humans that didn’t look like they do. Never had they seen any outsider, let alone a bearded one.

We had flown five hours from Caracas with the Venezuelan Army to accompany them as they investigated the alleged massacre of 80 members of the tribe by Brazilian miners. We landed at a small shapono, or Yanomami village, consisting of a ring of houses in a jungle clearing. I immediately recognized that nothing would be the same for them ever again. There was going to be something irreversible about this meeting.

By Jaime Saldarriaga

I first learned of exorcist Hermes Cifuentes, better known as “Brother Hermes,” through the local news media. His exorcisms fascinated me, so I decided to find out more. Many people are against what he does, but when I tracked down his phone number and called, he invited me to visit his retreat in La Cumbre, just north of Cali.

SLIDESHOW: MODERN-DAY EXORCISM

Brother Hermes is a very religious man. As we spoke he wore a white tunic and held a crucifix in his hand. His retreat is a farm with a small chapel filled with Catholic icons. The place is very peaceful, with hens, pigeons and rabbits roaming. He tells the people who look to him for help that they shouldn’t believe in him, but rather in the power of God.

It was only after I arrived that he told me he had two exorcisms to perform that same day, and that I could observe. We hiked up to the highest part of the farm, where there were two women dressed in white with their skin painted black, stretched out inside large rings drawn on the ground. The scene affected me deeply.

By Pilar Olivares

When I first reached Ballet Santa Teresa’s school for underprivileged girls and met the students, I didn’t take a single picture. I didn’t dare to. The girls, who are almost all from families living in some form of social risk, approached as if confronting me, dancing and yelling.

For a while I felt like an intruder. They were wearing jeans instead of ballet dresses, and were listening to Rio’s famous funk carioca music. At my home in a mountainous neighborhood of Rio, I hear funk floating towards us from the surrounding shantytowns known the world over as favelas.

So these girls, completely fascinated by this music that I find irritating, shut off their music players as soon as Vania arrived. Vania, a former professional ballerina and now director of the school, doesn’t like funk either, and doesn’t like them to listen to it. The girls, who can be as rude as they are angelic, hurriedly dressed and suddenly became purely feminine as they put on their makeup for an important rehearsal. Several of them didn’t know how to use makeup, so Vania came over to help.

By Andy Clark

Arriving outside the main gates I couldn’t help but notice there were no crowds of spectators milling around or scalpers shouting their prime seat tickets for sale, in fact all was very quiet. It was roughly 7:45am and besides a couple of birds singing in the trees and a dog barking somewhere out of sight it appeared I was completely alone. My sudden fears of the wrong day and or wrong place were soon quelled as I entered the gates and walked down a small path. There before me was the field of play and scattered across it were the players warming up and preparing for the first day of competition at the fifth annual Pacific Cup Croquet Tournament.

Yes that is correct folks, I said croquet. Several months ago I was searching for a website totally unrelated and for reasons only Google knows, up came a page with a detailed list of the 2012 croquet tournaments across North America. Before I could click the page away, I remembered seeing some interesting images from a tournament at least 25 years ago and thought, I wonder. Sure enough listed halfway down the page was the Vancouver Croquet Club’s fifth annual Pacific Cup.

Like many people, the only croquet I know is what one may have played in their backyard as a child, known as Golf Croquet. The croquet I was about to witness was nothing like that. The game played during the tournament was the full international version known as Association Croquet. I can report that even after it was explained to me on several occasions combined with watching it for three days, all I know is that it involves two players and each match runs just over two hours. In fact my ignorance of the sport became clear on the first day of competition. I had settled down on a bench along the sidelines to watch a couple of players warming up, hoping to get any idea of what to expect once play began. After about 40 minutes I thought this was an unusually long warm up. I approached an elderly fellow nearby and asked when the game might get underway. With a look of disbelief the gentleman replied “they have been playing for 30 minutes”.