Together with Associació Demé there is an exhibition from December 12th till December 31st.

Read the announcement here!

Yesterday, I was browsing my RAW files and found this portrait from Mali which, I did not process.

This man is Hamadi Mama Cisse, Chef de Village of Sénossa close to Djenné. We were invited in his house had a chat and had an intensive look at his collection of post cards from all around the world. After a while time was right and I asked if I could make some photo's, Mr. Hamadi was more than pleased and was willing to move a bit to have a nice background and being lit by the light shining through the door.

More portraits from Mali can be seen in the slide shows:

• Faces of Mali, Part-I
• Faces of Mali, Part-II
• Desert Road Crossing

Some of the portraits from Mali will be part of an event in Brasilia in November 2008. The announcement slide-show:

The days of 2007 are counted, time to review the results.

Mali changed my attitude on photography a lot. It never came into my mind to do people photography, in Mali however I managed to be that close to people and it worked out well. I feel managed some nice portraits and combined the results in 3 slide shows which, can be found in the people section on the web site.

After Mali I learned that printing black and white is not an easy job, for that reason I invested in a good Epson printer and became more and more dedicated to black and white photography. In 2008 I plan to print out some of the portraits for an exposition.

Expectations where high for the trip to NYC, at home looking at the photographs I found the portraits made there with too much distance.

The good thing I took from NYC was a collection of photographic books that where hard to find in Europe. Reading about and looking at work from other photographers brought me lots of inspiration, I however spend few memory space on the hard disks for new work.

Early October by coincidence I took some portraits just in front of our house. There is nothing wrong with coincidence, it was reacting in the right moment. These are my best portraits from Europe, I plan more to do of European portraits in 2008.

At the moment I am with my wife in India, let's see what I bring home by the end of January 2008

Stay tuned,
Vinc

for sure... yesterday's photograph did not fit to everyone's taste. Maybe I convinced one or more visitors to consider to reduce consumption of meat. Today a more human photograph.

We met this boy in Niafunke at the Niger river, he did not speak French (neither do I) but wanted to be photographed. Mali people are extremely open and friendly.

Life in Mali is hard and sometimes direct, not every butcher has his closed shop where he prepares the meat. This butcher we met in Djenné and was happy to stand for a portrait.

My intention is not to shock you here, the intention here is to show you that there are also less smooth subjects in Mali.

This man we met during our trip in Pais Dogon, he was making strainers.

I slowly run out of photographs from Mali. We are in the planning phase of our next trip. By the end of December our next destination will be southern India.

I just uploaded a new slide show containing some more portraits from our trip to Mali earlier this year.

In San this man was our taxi driver who took us at a boat trip. We all had a good day, he was proud to show the area where he lives and make some money.

I have more photographs from Mali...

More to follow next days!

It took me some time to compile a slide show with portraits from our trip to Mali in January this year. The photographs have been published in this blog before and the slide show is a summary.

Besides the market we found these men (one of them with a sword) and some goats.

During our trip over the Niger river we stayed one night in our tent besides this wonderful tree. It was a nice place but we learned that cows and goats are noisy during the night.

In Mali each and every village has a mosque. This photograph was taken in Pais Dogon.

Last Sunday the blog database disappeared, I decided to install new version of the Blog scripts. After a long Sunday of installation and customization the database could be restored. Now I still have to make slight changes and I have to find a good backup concept.

Normally I am not a morning person, however when I have to wake up habits are not fix. One night in Pays Dogon (Mali) we slept outside on a roof. I woke up when first rays of sunlight stoke on my face, grabbed my camera and took these photographs and cached the morning atmosphere.

By the way, in Europe today the clocks have been adjusted for daylight saving. If you have a camera with a clock, don't forget to adjust it.

As far as I can see for the moment, these 2 photographs are the last portraits from the Mali trip worth to be published in the BLOG. Next days more from Mali but no more portraits.

I do hope you enjoyed the series of people from Mali, soon there will be a gallery here on this website with the best people photographs from Mali.

For me these portraits were an excursion into the area of portrait photography. I did like this a lot and most probably will continue in this direction.

This man in Tombouctou had a little shop on a table, selling tea, chewing gum, cigarettes and telephone cards.

In the streets of Tombouctou we met this schoolgirl with a backpack.

Light in Mali can be sometimes difficult and harsh, besides that there is a lot of dust in the air (probably in my camera as well now). I wanted to take this door, but the boy jumped into the scene. Without the boy a door in harsh light, with the boy some interesting photograph (I think).

In Pays Dogon we met these women and a girl, they were selling blue cloths.

We sold some and an other person in our group as well. Then after the successful sale they start to argue how to share the money and how to pay the manufacturers. We had bought an odd number of pieces from different manufacturers they just made a good but difficult to divide profit.

In most of the parts polio has disappeared since in the early fifties a polio vaccine has been developed. In Africa this still is not widely available.

I remember, when I was young in our school there was collected little money to help Africa to fight polio. This must not have been enough I found when visiting Mali. The wheelchairs still are there and polio still is present. Africa people still do need financial support to solve the problem of polio...

Positive is that people who had polio and now are disabled can live in Mali quite well (at least that was my interpretation), negative is that to get vaccine against polio unreachable for the majority of the people in Mali. This makes it difficult to understand why we not manage to give that little but effective help...

In the streets of Tombouctou this girl was sitting. She had a bucket besides the tap. The girl was just dreaming there and her face did not change even when she got a sweet. We do not know if the dreams were nice but she seemed to be a bit sad that day.

Everyday I think this is the last picture from the portraits from Mali. Today I found this girl. I still have RAW material to be considered, let's see what is tomorrow...

This man in Tombouctou was sitting each and everyday with his cans and bottles. Before taking a photograph I tried to communicate with him but it seems he could not speak. Pointing at the camera he smiled and was happy to get some attention and being in the picture.

In Tombouctou we met this dreaming boy.

We met this man at a morning in a bar, we talked with him and I shot some photo's. The result is a nice face but bad background. Not a real keeper, but good enough to show here and explain some background.

The portraits posted here last days are taken without asking the people to move into better position and better light or using flash I just took them as they were and did not use flash.

To start to show here compromises is a sign that I run out of portraits which are good enough to be published. Next days a few more, then I will make a gallery for the website Gallery selection.

When you are around in Mali all the time guides try to help you. In principle there is absolutely nothing wrong with people wanting to make some money. Being a guide in Mali however is a big business this makes guides being aggressive. There are only a few places where you need a guide in Mali, this guide has been around with us during one day and showed us some details in Djenné.

Yesterday I mentioned that the number of keepers from San where not too high. I had a look and found some other interesting photographs.

In the late afternoon this woman was putting sawdust of a timber shop in bags. Looking her working it could be imagined lightly that she had a job that makes one feeling thirsty.

At the last part of our trip to Mali we visited San. All locals before we asked about San were telling that it is not worth. We found it the best place, there are almost no tourists stopping there and the atmosphere is very authentically.

Even when I found people very open, just a few photographs from San are worth to be published. Probably I was more enjoying to look at people as to take photographs.

This is a photograph of a boy from San.

At the last day of our trip in Mali (there are more portraits from Mali in the queue) we visited Bamako. Bamako was not too attractive for us, we had to look for some bar which we found in the garden of the museum.

We ordered some beer and saw a man wearing a tie. That was the only tie we saw during our 28 days visit to Mali. I guessed the man was the director of the museum since from a distance he just looked most representative person around.

After a while the man came to us and we started to chat.

When we saw him closer we realized that this probably was not the director of the museum. He told us he was living on the country side and was visiting Bamako.

He explained us that he was 40 and just got married with his 4th wife. To make things clear, he still was married with the other 3. For us a strange thing but in West Africa this is not too strange, after all there is just a few support from the state and before getting old it is important to have a lot of children who can take care when being old.

We shared some beer, I took these portraits and we had an interesting conversation that afternoon.

On the street in Mali you see boys and girls. The boys most of the time are playing in groups while girls are working. Today some working girls.

The girl above is working, bellow they were working and just are having some fun to be on the photograph.

Our trip to Mali definitively has been a photographic success, I discovered portrait photography and managed to ask strangers to take a photograph. Adults were easy to convince but children just seem to stand in a row. Today two portraits of girls.

Soon I will have enough for a gallery, for the next days I however will continue to post results here.

My wife was taking a photo of these two girls. They were focused on my wife who was taking a portrait of them, a great opportunity for me to take a candid portrait.

On the boat trip to Tombouctou we visited Niafunke, the home town of the late Ali Farka Toure. In Niafunke people (old and young) just wanted to be photographed.

This boy exactly knew how he wanted to be taken...

... as a strong man, with authority!

I am weak, I can't stop to work on those portraits from Mali.