Traveling Gal Photography: Recently Added Galleries and Collections

Recently Added

info@travelinggalphotography.com (Traveling Gal Photography) — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

]]>All photographs 2011-2013 © Traveling Gal Photography. Original photographs have been aged through digital processing to achieve a vintage look and feel.

Winter Church Series

info@travelinggalphotography.com (Traveling Gal Photography) — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

]]>Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? This is a photo shoot I have been wanting to undertake for several years. I've been waiting patiently (well, sort of!) for snow to fall on my day off when the Christmas decorations were still hanging. Everything finally fell into place this weekend! There is something about a gorgeous old church lit from the inside on a snowy night that makes my fingers tingle for a camera. These images were shot across south central Massachusetts in Warren, Brimfield, New Braintree, North Brookfield and West Brookfield. Also, a great big thanks is owed to my dear friend Ashley for playing photo assistant and driving my very demanding butt all over the place in a blizzard while I barked instructions - sometimes from the back seat - all in the name of art. "Slow down! Turn here! Can you back up a few feet? No, wait, drive forward a few feet. A few more... a few more... STOP!!! Can you back up on the OTHER side of the road now? Can't you get any higher?! Right... right... THERE!!"

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

info@travelinggalphotography.com (Traveling Gal Photography) — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

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Dog Photography

info@travelinggalphotography.com (Traveling Gal Photography) — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

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Portfolio

info@travelinggalphotography.com (Traveling Gal Photography) — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

]]>All photographs 2011-2013 © Traveling Gal Photography. Original photographs have been aged through digital processing to achieve a vintage look and feel.

Disappearing Tribes

info@travelinggalphotography.com (Traveling Gal Photography) — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

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The photography series “Disappearing Tribes” was shot in the Omo River Valley of southwestern Ethiopia. Culturally rich and singularly unique, the Omo Valley is the only place in the world that is home to so many genetically and linguistically diverse people on such a small plot of land. For this reason, UNESCO declared the region a World Heritage Site in 1980. In this part of Ethiopia, so remote and undeveloped that there are no detailed maps available to accurately populate a GPS device, semi-nomadic agro-pastoralist tribes numbering some 200,000 people still live a completely pre-industrial existence that is being threatened on almost every front. The enormous Gibe III dam - scheduled to begin producing hydro-electricity in July 2013 - is currently being constructed on the Omo River, north of this tribal land. All of these tribes rely on the Omo River below the dam site for their survival, either through flood recession agriculture or to provide food and water for livestock. Once complete, the dam will interrupt seasonal flows of the Omo River, effectively threatening the only two options for survival in the region.

Additionally, the government of Ethiopia has contracted several international corporations to run giant industrial sugarcane and cotton plantations that will be irrigated with water from the Omo River. Conservation and human rights groups allege that the government intends to make these changes without consulting the tribes who live here about whether they want to be removed from their land or become industrialized farm laborers. Indeed, at the present time, only minorities with populations between 10,000 and 100,000 qualify for direct representation in Ethiopia’s parliament. Most of the tribal populations of the Lower Omo Valley, including the Mursi, Karo, and Kwegu, are too small to meet that requirement, leaving them largely without a voice.

With nearly 300,000 hectares of land in the Omo and Mago National Parks (which encompasses much of the Lower Omo Valley) set aside for the Kuraz Sugar Development Program, the Ethiopian government has begun dispatching soldiers to the region to systematically and forcibly resettle tribes. Despite inhabitants being given one year to relocate, bulldozers are already flattening land and destroying villages. The government is reportedly also ordering people to sell their cattle. According to Survival International, an NGO working in the region, human rights violations are being committed daily and fear is growing due to continuous reports of beatings, systematic rape, and unjustified arrests throughout the area. Human Rights Watch stated in a recent report that the Ethiopian government’s failure to provide food assistance for relocated people has already caused endemic hunger and cases of starvation.

Meanwhile, even mundane, everyday events are threatening the tribal way of life in the Omo Valley as change flows down from the north like the lazy, chocolate colored river of the same name. Construction crews are paving roads linking major towns like Jinka and Omorate for the first time. Cell phone towers are being built. The television signal arrived two years ago, allowing the Omo peoples to watch the World Cup taking place in South Africa. In Dimeka, traders are offering radios, batteries, bras, and pop culture t-shirts. Tribal culture and identity – not the external façade that could remain a tourist attraction, but the very fabric of identity that makes up these unique cultures – is being threatened as much as the land they occupy. In this unique and extraordinary little corner of the globe, Ethiopia may very well be trading an eye for an ear – a surplus of hydroelectric power and an increase in cash crops for its own irreplaceable peoples. One day in the not too distant future, likely all that will remain of these colorful tribes will be photographs.

Doors Around the World

info@travelinggalphotography.com (Traveling Gal Photography) — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

]]>I have always had a fascination with doors and doorways. I think it has something to do with the infinite possibilities they represent. Open a door and launch a new beginning down a path you never imagined, or leave it closed and wonder about the mysteries that lie beyond. These are some of my favorite doors from around the world...