All images © Christopher Auger-Domínguez

I met Mr. Toledano at a shi-shi event a couple of years ago. We wore similar outfits and shared an accent. I remember being embarrassed that I didn't know his work at the time, which I discovered to be bloody clever.

Since then, he put out the moving and beautiful "Days With My Father", an incredibly personal project to which we can all relate. Then came the quite brilliant 'Kim Jong Phil' "It occurred to me that being an artist is a great deal like being a dictator." and 'A New Kind of Beauty' "Beauty has always been a currency, and now that we finally have the technological means to mint our own, what choices do we make?" and now he's further along his glittery path to world domination. Toledano is a gift that keeps on giving, for want of an appropriately terrible cliché.

"I just went to Egypt to get in touch with the Arab Spring, the second part of the revolution and of course I didn't want to just photograph only protest. I want to photograph the people around Tahrir as well. It is interesting that so many young kids take part and during the day you see so many families on Tahrir.

Of course I was curious about the mood, one year after the first protests occurred there. I spent one week there, not enough time to go deep enough into the whole matter." Ole Elfenkämper

All images © Ole Elfenkämper

The ever-entertaining Dirk Anschütz has a new post on his Heavy Light blog about a shoot he did with his football mates (soccer buddies) 'Chinatown Ballers - The Miracle on Turf': "Some of the regular highlights of my New York existence are the amateur soccer games I play in Chinatown. Some fellow kickers and I started to get together quite a long time ago for a midweek pick-up game on a 7-a-side pitch at the edge of Barrio Chino. The game proved to be very robust and survived the cold winters, hot summers, stretches of low popularity, stretches of too much popularity, and many personnel changes for over a decade now. Even though soccer has its fair share of whiners, complainers, braggers, spoiled brats, bullies, people teetering dangerously close to sanity, as well as people that are all of the above, we managed to keep the game clean, competitive, friendly and fair." Read the back-story.
All images © Dirk Anschütz

Dragon's Blood Grove

Khamis Benisa'ad Farm Workers

Superb photographer Don Whitebread sent in a series of photographs he took in Yemen last year. When you're done here, head to his website. I am loving his Star Tracks series (one of which just won a Silver Award in the Black and White Magazine Single Image Issue.)


** Update: Exhibition opens at World Affairs Council where Don will be speaking on April 5th, 2012
 


Shibam Street Game



Khalilla Bokshan Palace Hotel

"In 2010, before the current protests, I was able to photograph throughout the surprisingly diverse and traditional country of Yemen with the help of a friend who lived there. Sana'a, Yemen's capital, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.

Despite some serious research, Yemen was unlike anything I imagined. The landscape that I came to photograph was much more visually diverse, and historically richer than I expected. The people and culture of Yemen are firmly but comfortably locked in centuries-old traditions. I found the Yemeni people to be hospitable, confident, and apparently unenvious of the lifestyle much of the rest of the world embraces.

I have chosen to include both color and black and white photography in this series. The natural and urban landscapes of Yemen lent themselves easily to my usual style of black and white work. This was the photography I had in mind when I went to Yemen. The precarious cliff-top towns of the Yemeni highlands are surrounded by hypnotic patterns of terraced farmland. The strangely shaped Dragon's Blood Trees, and the cliffs and dunes of Socotra Island rival anything photographed in the parks of America. After a few days in the cities and villages of Yemen, it was clear to me that the images capturing the lives of the Yemeni people had to be in color. We are familiar with the vintage appearance that attempts to enhance much photography of the Middle East, but the lifestyle of Yemen needs no enhancement."

Images from the series have been exhibited and published, and two are currently nominated for an international Photography Masters Cup award. Don is now working on a book with writing by his friend who lived in Sana'a, before he was arrested and deported during the height of the protests.