White on white
Six days in Namibia in July, and the frames I kept are the ones where I stopped fighting the light. Zebras against almost nothing, a giraffe on a blank ground, and one leopard in full colour to show it was a decision.
Journal
Travel
Writing from the road — what a place was actually like to photograph, and what the pictures left out. Travel photography notes by Alvin Chan.
The kite makers
Four days in Kelantan with two crafts running side by side: wau kites built over weeks to be let go of, and wayang kulit puppets that only exist properly as a shadow on a lit screen.
Three kinds of cold
Six days in Hokkaido in February, photographing cranes, foxes, swans and sea eagles. Four subjects, four kinds of waiting, and only one of them rewards standing still.
The horses on the ice
At Chagan Lake in Jilin the winter net is still brought in by horses walking a beam in circles on the ice. On the same surface, a crowd stands watching. I was there at the end of December.
Autumn at the end of the road
A week photographing in Xinjiang in September: street portraits in hard light, larch valleys turning, a river bend everybody shoots, and what a week alongside a stronger photographer actually changes.
Light through smoke
Fifteen frames from a charcoal works: shafts of light through the roof, men loading wood, and smoke thick enough to make the light look solid. Most of us only meet the product as a bag at a barbecue.
The hour before the sun
Everyone climbs to the Bromo viewpoint for sunrise over the caldera. The frames I kept were made the evening before, in an arranged session, by light a man carried in his hand.
A square full of wings
Almost the whole Nepal set is cropped to a wide cinema frame. This is about that decision — what it does to a square full of pigeons, and what it costs.
The pilgrims, not the cathedrals
Eighteen days in December 2024 on a Franciscan pilgrimage through Spain, France and Portugal, led by Fr John-Paul Tan OFM. The discipline was to photograph the people rather than the buildings, and I did not always keep to it.
The day after the festival
The Golden Eagle Festival in western Mongolia is a performance, photographed by hundreds of people at once. Two days later, with one family on a ridge, the same thing was just work. The second day made the better pictures.
Close enough to be looked at
In September 2023 the CICM priests in Mongolia asked me to come and help document a papal visit — the first any pope had made to that country. I went with a media pass and a job to do. I came home and asked to be baptised.
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Something in mind?
If a picture here is close to what you are after, say so and say what for. Alvin will tell you plainly whether it is work he can do well.