Asia's 50 best travel photos on display

On the sunny shores of Cenderawasih Bay in Indonesia, local squid fishermen spend months on rickety wooden platforms, hoping to land as many large catches as possible. These platforms often attract an abundance of marine life, which in turn draws the attention of whale sharks, considered good luck by the local people.

A whale shark's visit also proved to be good luck for Italian photographer Alex Varani, who managed to photograph an encounter with one of these gentle giants in Cenderawasih Bay. This striking image, illustrating a unique meeting of the worlds of man and nature, took the top prize in Travel Photographer Asia's 2016 Photo Contest, winning Varani over RM20,000 worth of prizes.

Varani's prize-winning picture, along with many others of the landscapes, cultures and peoples of Asia, will be on display during Travel Photographer Asia's exhibition of the Best 50 Photographs of Asia, which will be showing at White Box, Publika in Kuala Lumpur, on May 26.

"It's a good place to go to open your mind, and take in the beauty of Asia. There are a lot of interesting places here, and it is a great chance for you to see them in ways most people have not seen," says Ahsan Qureshi, the founder of Travel Photographer Asia (TPA).

Founded in 2014, TPA is a unique travel photography festival consisting of photo contest, photography masterclass, talks and workshops for the professional and amateur photographer.

According to Ahsan, the exhibition is a showcase of the best entries received for TPA's 2016 photo contest, which ran earlier this year.

Six out of the 50 photographs on display are from Malaysian photographers. It will be curated by Australian travel photographer Drew Hopper, who is one of the exhibition's nine-person jury of international photography experts.

Every photograph (taken in Asia, the Middle East or Australia) was judged for its creativity, originality, composition, artistic merit and content.

This is the second year of the TPA contest, which is organised by TPA in association with FujiFilm X.

"I have been living in Malaysia for seven years," says Ahsan, a photographer, who originally hails from Pakistan.

"We had a lot of interesting entries this year. Some were from established names, but there were also many amateurs which made it into the top 50," he adds.

For the record, the Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards, which focuses mainly on portraiture, has been around for nearly 10 years. The TPA, according to Ahsan, seeks to broaden the scope of a photography festival in Kuala Lumpur.

"There is only the Obscura Festival - for a broadly programme-med photography fest - and that's in Penang," he mentions.

Looking through the TPA exhibition, it is easy to have your breath taken away. The images are a wonderful display of the beauty and diversity of Asia, many of them telling rich stories through visual splendour.

The Tsataan Women With Reindeer, taken by Madoka Ikegami from Japan, for example, captures an ethnic Mongolian woman with her companion, a full-grown snow-white reindeer.

Hands, taken by Sanjay Ramani from India, boggles the mind as it showcases Gujarati female brickworkers and their strength of spirit. This image, with its use of lighting, impressed the judges enough to win second runner up in the TPA photo contest.

The first runner up prize went to Celebrating Victory by Bangladeshi photographer Md Khalid Rayhan Shawon, which shows children playing on a half-finished building while a plane flew nearby.

According to Ahsan, that image needed thorough checking, due to a recent controversy at a Singaporean photograp hy contest, which also involved a photo of an aeroplane.

"We asked for the raw files of the photo, and we found it was a real image. The photographer did not add anything in it. He may have planned for it, but this really happened. It's beautiful," says Ahsan.

Myanmarese photographer Zarni Myo Win's Fisherman Family, shows a Myanmarese family returning from a trip to a fish market, their figures standing out against the sharp contours of the Irawaddy River. Malaysian photographer Hong Hey Moh's Go Home is a magical wonder as it showcases a traditional Bajau house on stilts in the azure waters of Semporna in Sabah.

Ahsan adds that this year's TPA contest saw 3,445 entries from photographers of 90 nationalities, with 30 per cent of the entries coming from Malaysian shutterbugs. This is an increase of about 800 entries from the previous year.

Many of the entries, however, had to be rejected at the early stages of judging.

"We did not allow for HDR (high dy namic range) or heavy post manipulation images. It was very clear in the contest rules, but people still submitted them. I think people should read the rules and regulations in the future," he says.

For the entries that had qualified, however, Ahsan said he has been very impressed with the creativity and diversity on display.

He also shares his tips on how to be a good travel photographer.

"You have to do your research. You should plan everything before you go a place. Nowadays, everything is available online so it is easy. If you're going to a river to shoot a fisherman, for example, you need to find out the right timing for your photo. You must make sure it is the right season, that they will be there, and so on," he explains.

The TPA exhibition will also host photography talks on May 28, which will be panelled by Dr Shahidul Alam (award-winning Bangladeshi photographer/ activist), New York-based travel photographer Tewfic El-Sawy, lecturer/photographer Che Ahmed Azhar, Vignes Balasingam (Obscura Festival director) and Huang Wen (from China's news agency Xinhua).

Admission is free, but only open to the first 200 people who register at phototalks@travelphotographer-asia.com.

There will also be photography masterclasses from May 26-29, conducted by Shahidul, Tewfic and Humans Of Karachi project coordinator Khaula Jamil.

Ahsan reveals bigger plans for next year's TPA exhibition, which includes opening more categories for the photo competition and conducting photography residencies in Malaysia. For this year, however, he hopes that the TPA exhibition will expand minds and broaden horizons.

"I hope it will inspire people to go to the places in the show, and maybe take even better photographs!" he says with a smile.

Travel Photographer Asia's exhibition of the Best 50 Photographs of Asia will have its opening ceremony at the White Box, Publika in Kuala Lumpur on May 26 at 6.30pm. The exhibition will run at the same venue from May 27-29. Admission is free. For more info, visit travelphotographerasia.com.

Source: Asia's 50 best travel photos on display