“Real Pictures for Real People”

Antero de Alda, my Portuguese friend who runs a beautiful site/blog of photographs and photographers that strike his fancy, just sent me his most recent find. Alice Smeets is a young Belgian photographer who is by no means new to documentary work or photojournalism. Her Haiti series throws some punches, but I’m showing you the G rated material.

Alice Smeets in Haiti

She shoots for the New York Times and others, and won the Unicef photo of the year in 2008 for her picture below.

Unicef 2008 Picture of the Year by Alice Smeets

She has a great blog where she talks about finding Landa, the girl in the picture above, and helps her and her family move to a better area of Haiti.

Her blog introduced me to the photography of Andy Spyra, another amazing documentarian who recently won the Getty Images grant for his work in Kashmir.

Andy Spyra in Kashmir, India

Check out his Womenboxing in India, too.

Andy’s blog is loaded with personal pictures which are every bit as dynamic as his project work.

Andy Spyra

And these artists lead me back to Antero de Alda who also is a documentarian of note. Check out his portfolio at SocialDocumentary.Net, which, btw, currently has an offer for free posting.

Antero de Alda from Portraits and Transfigurations

Antero’s site features several great photographers like Vinessa Winship and Ed Kashi. I’m even on there if you take a look in his photographer’s index.