Tewfic El-Sawy is a freelance photographer who specializes in documenting endangered cultures and traditional life ways of Asia, Latin America and Africa, and has worked in over 50 countries. His images, articles and photo features have been published in various magazines including Outdoor Photography, and Digital Photographer.
His stock images have been featured by Prentice Hall, Peter Owen Publishers, Overseas Adventure Travel, Wilderness Travel, Rotary International, Things Asian, PSA, Asia Society of New York, Kumuka Worldwide Expeditions, Grand Circle Tours, and Guatours, Emory University & the University of Arizona. He also co-juried Diversity of Devotion, a photo-documentary project and competition, which explored the varied and unique religious and spiritual beliefs of NYC.
His interest in photographing cultural ceremonies and tribal ritualshas resulted in documentary coverage of the Maha Kumbh Mela & Pushkar Camel Fair of India; the 2,000-year-old performance-ritual of Theyyam in Kerala; Timket & Hamer Bullah (Jumping of the Bulls) ceremony of Ethiopia; Holy Week & Easter Processions of Guatemala; the Entrada Universitaria Folkloric Festival of Bolivia, the ritualistic dances of the Advisasis of Chhattisgarh, the Tantric-based dances of Bhutan and the violent exorcisms practiced in various Sufi shrines of India.
He presented “Path of the Novices: A photo journey in the Buddhist monasteries of India, Laos, Burma and Bhutan” at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in NewYork City. This audio-visual presentation of over 125 photographs focused on the daily lives of novices in the Buddhist monasteries of Dharmasala, Sikkim, Burma (Myanmar), the Kingdom of Bhutan and Laos.
His photographic interest is expanding into producing multimedia stories, merging still photography and ambient sound (generally recorded live while I am photographing), and musical soundtracks. The most recent are White Shadows and Supplicants of Bahadur Shaheed, which were produced in Vrindavan and Varanasi (India). These multimedia stories are found on his main website.
He also leads by invitation-only photography tours to India and to the Himalayan Kingdoms of Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim, and Indochina.
Blog: www.tesimages.com (thetravelphotographer.blogspot.com)