Female Imams; Islam In China

After moving to Taiwan from the UK at eighteen, Sharron Lovell developed a soft spot for the east - picking up Mandarin Chinese, a green tea habit and terrible driving skills. It’s stories rather than single images that interest her the most, and she has covered a number of issues in China from HIV/Aids, Islam and internal migration. 

Precarious Survival On The Lower East Side

Memories of the sounds and smells of the synagogues of Julio Mitchel’s childhood in Havana led him to document the dwindling Jewish presence on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1980s. While his upbringing influenced his decision to photograph the neighborhood’s Jews, he believes that the images are about more than a single culture.

Naisi Zhao: The Mormon Missionary

A convert, Ms. Zhao, 21, has spent eight months proselytizing in Chinatown for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  An audio slideshow by Miki Meek and Todd Heisler.

Prayers Of The Disinherited

While depictions of conventional middle-class religion are widely visible, rarely seen are the sacred worlds of society’s marginalized: the outcasts, the fallen, those that have been labeled “other” - ironically, those for whom religion was first formed. “Golden States of Grace” aims to give image and voice to some of those whom are active parts of our nation’s diverse religious landscape, but who because of the world, society, or their own actions, may have been silenced, and now worship as a means of finding refuge, family or of forging community.

Using California as the lens, “Golden States of Grace”, posted on the socialdocumentary.net website, highlights eleven marginalized communities at prayer in eight different faith traditions. Through photographs, oral histories, and actual prayer, this work represents groups who are reinventing time-honored modes of worship, pushing their respective traditions into the 21st century. 

Kumb Mela Sadhus

Ken Hermann is a freelance photographer from Denmark who posted a gallery of sadhu portraits on the Behance Network.  I remember photographing similar Hindu holy men during my trips to Nepal and being mesmerized by their captivating stare.

Circumambulation

Circumambulation of temples or deity images is an integral part of Hindu ritual. It is also practiced in Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity.  Watch the following video by Robert van Koesveld, a high school art teacher living in Perth, Australia. 

Bali: The Trilogy

The new book by the Travel Photographer, Tewifc El-Sawy can be purchased here.

The Mennonites Of Manitoba

These images by Lisa Wiltse, capture the Mennonites of Manitoba in their everyday lives, now struggling to erase a recent painful past and continue to live their lives separate from the outside world. Lisa futher explains:

I aim to produce photo essays that are intimate yet strong in narrative, and that gives voice to those previously overlooked. The remote colonies seen down dusty roads are off the beaten track, and, once there, difficult to enter and fully understand. I hope to bring a greater understanding and awareness to these communities.

Daughters Of The King

Three months of work, digging into the tradition of such Jewish women, spending time with them in their homes, praying with them, and getting closer to their spiritual beauty, led Frederica Valabrega to understand that there is nothing inferior about being a woman in the Jewish faith.

City Of The Dead

The following video was produced by David Myers, a photographer who lives in Maryland.  The City of the Dead is a four mile long cemetery that extends from the northern to southern part of Cairo and is an area of tombs and mausoleums where people live and works amongst the dead. Its foundation dates back to the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 AD, and has grown with time until it reached the equivalent of a fully functioning residential suburb of Cairo.

The Exorcised of Bahadur Shahid

Another excellent video from The Travel Photographer, Tewfic El-Sawy, a photo-expeditions leader, multimedia teacher, and self-ascribed pontificator.

30 Days In Muslim America

30 Days In Muslim America, a photo essay published in the well-known Boing Boing blog, by Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq. 

In The Name Of God

The Ramnamis are a group of untouchables from central India.  Banned from entering temples along with other Hindus, they decided to tattoo God's name (Ram) all over their faces and bodies.  A message to say the they "could have God with them too", and it angered the upper castes who felt that they were polluting God's name with their untouchable bodies.

Access Olivia Arthur's compelling gallery here.

Dancing With The Dead

Winter in Madagascar is a season that sees two traditional rites of passage, famadihana (the turning of the bones) and circumcision.  View Ed Ou's Dancing With The Dead.

A Day In Varanasi

The allure of the whole city of Varanasi - the age-old temples and rituals of life and death being played out in a never-ending rhythm - has driven it to become a significant tourist attraction. Scores of visitors continuously direct their lenses towards the praying, rinsing, dead and religiously awakened. But in the midst of this ceremonial stage there is also daily life.

Palo: African Ritual In Cuba

The Palo religion is a syncretic religion which developed amongst the black slaves brought to Cuba from the Congo during the colonial period. Palo, having its roots in spiritual concepts of the indigenous people in Africa, worships the spirits (of humans, plants, etc) and the natural powers (thunder, ocean, etc).  Due to the forced evangelization, Palo often give them faces and names known from the Christian dogma.  Read the rest of  Jan Sochor's story here.

In The Courtyard Of The Beloved

In the Courtyard of the Beloved is a visual and aural portrait by Andrea Burgess of Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah, a Sufi shrine in New Delhi, India. Each day, hundreds of pilgrims travel by airplane, train, car, rickshaw and foot to reach this shrine, which honors a 12th century Sufi mystic who believed in drawing close to God through renunciation of the world and service to humanity. Beginning with imagery from these journeys, the film then enters the physical space of the shrine; a unique nexus of marketplace, social space and spiritual haven, where  devotees come to offer their prayers and find a moment of reflection away from the din of Delhi traffic. As the sun sets behind the dome, musicians begin the qawwali, a style of Sufi devotional music that ranges from contemplative religious elegy to raucous crescendo.

Kathmandu Sadhus

Here's a collection of sadhus' portraits by Ian Winstanley, a commercial photographer based in the UK.  Ian spent time on the banks of the Bagmati river in Kathmandu's holy site known as Pashupathi. The site is considered as one of the oldest and most holy of temples dedicated to Shiva, and sadhus and other Hindu faithful have been drawn to it since the 5th century.

In Hinduism, sadhus are mystics, ascetics, practitioners of yoga and wandering monks. However, many of sadhus are nothing more (or less) than wandering homeless individuals, relying on charity of others to survive.  I've been to Nepal twice and have always enjoyed photographing the sadhus wrapped in their bright saffron robes.

Last Letter Documentary

The Last Letter Documentary is a narrative film that takes you around the world to explore the tradition of how Jesus' followers are becoming His hands and feet in places both far and near. From the streets of Nairobi, to a Memphis, TN ghetto, to the war-torn jungles of Burma, discover what three individuals are willing to die for, and what the Last Letter lifestyle is all about. 

American Muslim Teens

Immigrants from all nations face battles fitting into the cultures and social environments of their adopted countries.  Since the September, 2001 bombings, families and children from Muslim countries and backgrounds confront the rigors of a new life in the US under different social and legal constraints and much closer scrutiny.  Click here to view a photo essay on American Muslim Teens by Robert Nikelsberg.