By Tessa Bunney on 18 August 2014
In some remote areas of Phongsaly province, Loma women still grow, gin and spin cotton into thread and set up their looms outdoors for weaving cotton.
Lao PDR is home to around 6.5 million people and is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in SE Asia with 49 officially recognised ethnic groups, although there are many more self-identified and sub groups.
Phongsaly province is inhabited by more than 25 different ethnic groups, each distinguished by their own culture, traditions, clothing and languages. Details down…
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 11 August 2014
For my first Picture of the Week from my new and ongoing series The Corridor of Opportunity – a banana plantation in Luang Namtha Province – taken in 2011, the year before we moved to Laos. One of my first images, it was one of those defining moments in the project which gave the work some direction and showed me something about Laos I knew nothing about. There have been quite a few of those moments over the last couple of years.
Banana plantation,…
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 6 August 2014
I am busy working on a brand new website which will include new galleries of my recent work from Laos. But in the meantime, every Monday I will be posting a Picture of the Week from my new and ongoing project The Corridor of Opportunity. More about that next week.
Meanwhile to celebrate World Breastfeeding Week here’s portrait of a young Hmong woman and her baby in a village near Luang Prabang.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 11 July 2014
Marta Layaog (77), fish saleswoman, Pooc, Bantayan Island, The Philippines © Tessa Bunney/Oxfam
Every morning at 7 am fisherwomen meet fishermen as they return from the sea with their catch. Women sort the fish by size and type, then weigh and distribute the fish between saleswomen to be sold on to local customers. On November 6 2013 Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines and was one of the most…
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 11 June 2014
Thank you to MAG Lao PDR for the lovely mention in their latest newsletter about the work Rebecca Harley and I did about the women’s UXO clearance team in Xieng Khouang province.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 1 April 2014
I’m delighted to announce that I have two images shortlisted for the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year Award, a gallery of the 400 shortlisted images can be viewed on their website.
Here are my two shortlisted images:
The award ceremony and exhibition opening will take place on the 23rd April at The Mall Galleries, London and then the exhibition will open to the public from the 24th-27th April.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 27 March 2014
Two prints from my recent ‘Open Water Swimming’ exhibition at Photofusion are now available as limited edition prints for the bargain price of £50.00! You can buy them directly from Photofusion’s website – please click here for more information.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 22 February 2014
Whilst I am not one generally to head off to disaster zones, I still can’t quite believe that tomorrow I’ll be heading off to the Philippines on my first assignment for Oxfam GB – working on two amazing projects, be back in a couple of weeks or so…
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 18 January 2014
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 20 November 2013
Many of the villages I have been visiting have already been relocated near to a road – it might be a motorbike road, or a road only accessible in the dry season but it’s more than a footpath. Proponents argue these movements and consolidations also increase the access of rural populations to health and education services. Others might say it is to keep an eye on what they are doing and to foster or impel their incorporation into the emerging market economy.
Anyhow, limited access to land near their new village location means the villagers often have to travel back…
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 8 October 2013
Travelling in Phongsaly during the end of the rainy season meant there was always the risk that we might not be able to drive around that easily – but I can’t document the landscape of the province without including at least some element of the most beautiful time of the year – known as the ‘green season’.
I have to confess that this whole journey was about me wanting to go back to the exact same upland rice field that I photographed in April during the burning season… After two failed…
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 18 September 2013
Yesterday’s talk went well – the exhibition is being officially opened tomorrow evening by the British Ambassador to Laos! Thank you to MAG (Mines Advisory Group) and British Embassy Vientiane for sponsoring the exhibition and organising the event. Come along if you are in Vientiane!
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 10 September 2013
One of the lovely things about being in Laos for a while is that you have time to share your work with the people in it. At the end of August MAG and the British Embassy Vientiane organised a lovely evening in Phonsavan to show the To Serve a Nation photofilm to the UXO clearance teams followed in true Lao style some food and plenty of Beer Lao! I think the team liked it:
The new extended…
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 4 September 2013
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 2 September 2013
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 6 August 2013
Stuart Pilkington’s new project Book Film Painting has just gone live and I am delighted to be amongst over a hundred international photographers who submitted photographs inspired by a book, film or painting. My image is inspired by Colin Cotterill’s book Slash and Burn and (rather predictably!) is of a landscape in Laos during burning season.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 8 July 2013
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 28 May 2013
As the year goes on I have been able to gradually add pieces to the puzzle of the seasonal agricultural cycle. Planting hill rice is completely different to paddy rice and began last month with the burning of the cleared fields on the mountainside. Swidden cultivation or ‘hai’ in Laos consists of cutting the natural vegetation, leaving it to dry and then burning it for temporary cropping of the land, the ash acting as a natural fertiliser.
There’s been enough rain…
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 21 May 2013
So today I will be heading back up to the north of Laos – via Luang Prabang, to Oudomxay and venturing into Phongsaly from the south just for a few days. Due to a complex mosaic of reasons primarily extremely long school holidays Noah and I will be back in the UK for almost two months so this will be my last photographic trip for a while. I feel less excited about this trip than I might have done a while back – I know it is the right thing to do – to go back, to consolidate and to…
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response
By Tessa Bunney on 6 April 2013
After many months of planning, fund-raising and anticipation; not to mention a bit of photography I am extremely excited to let you know that my first feature from Laos is published in the Financial Times Magazine (UK) and online today, Saturday 6th April.
The Vietnam war left Laos, per capita, the most heavily bombed country in history and 40 years on, the unexploded ordnance (UXO) is still killing and injuring its people including two year old Kayeng who was blinded by a UXO exploding whilst he was playing near his home in Xieng Khouang Province.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a response