Innovative Individuals

Innovative Individuals: Tewfic El-Sawy

This post is also available in Spanish

Personally, the best thing about our Innovative Individuals series is that I also get to learn about many talented multimedia professionals, some for the first time. This week’s “Innovative Individual” is one of them. Tewfic El-Sawy, also known as “The Travel Photographer,” is a traveling documentarian, multimedia instructor at The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, and blogger. Over the last ten years, he has led numerous international expeditions to visually document the people, culture, and practices of some of the most remote areas around the world. For Tewfic’s continual passion, dedication, and talent for multimedia storytelling, we are happy to feature him as this week’s “Innovative Individual.”

Q) How do you drive innovation in your work?

A) Since working on a project with Tibetan refugees in India using an early Adobe Premiere iteration a few years ago, I’ve been a strong advocate for photographers to use multimedia. Witnessing and marveling at its evolution from its rather primitive start to what it is now, I also try to keep my multimedia objectives within the framework of my technological capabilities, and keeping it simple and navigational-friendly. From my knowledge of the photo industry, and my cursory observations of the publishing industry in the United States, simple linear or thematic stories easily embedded in newspaper or magazine websites are what seem to be what is the most prevalent, and it is this very notion that I try to impart to my students at the annual Foundry Photojournalism Workshop.

I am excited at the advent of new devices such as the Apple iPad. I believe such devices will mushroom in the marketplace, thereby encouraging more interest in visual-aural storytelling, whether for news or more complex projects. I therefore believe that it’s imperative for photographers to not only to be comfortable with multimedia, but also to think in multimedia terms at the outset of their assignments and projects.

Multimedia is the future, and it can be made either simple or complex. I prefer simple plain-vanilla multimedia projects, and avoid unnecessary complexities. My goal is to tell a story in the simplest way possible. One of my inspirations is the NYTimes series One in 8 million.

Q) What piece in your portfolio are you most proud of and why?

A) I created a multimedia piece titled White Shadows, which may seem outdated now, but it still resonates with me because of its subject matter. I spent a week virtually immersed in an ashram in the holy city of Vrindavan on India, to document the widows who spend their entire lives there after the loss of their husbands. I came to know these unfortunate women on first name basis, and felt their suppressed despair at their condition.

The other piece I’m proud of is another simple thematic story, which I made in Varanasi in India. The Exorcised of Bahadur Shaheed documents Hindu and Muslim supplicants who go into uncontrollable trances at the shrine of a Sufi saint. This piece didn’t take as long to capture as the shrine is quite small, but it’s my first project, which I mix my own narration with the ambient sound.

Q) Please provide a brief educational and professional history.

A) Photography is my second career, so my educational and professional history is more related to international banking. Largely self-taught, I nevertheless attended various photography workshops with a number of well-known photographers over the course of the past 10 years.

Q) Where do you believe multimedia fits into today’s society and how will that role change over time?

A) I think multimedia is the future of journalism, story-telling and cultural projects. New technology such as the Apple iPad and others will change the way multimedia is delivered and viewed. Mobility and transportability will be what essentially drives multimedia, and we will have to adapt out products to fit this new reality. The availability of video on the new DSLRs portends to an increasing fusion of still and motion photography, and this technology will force photographers to become videographers and vice-versa, if they want to survive in this ever changing environment.

Q) What is one thing on your “To-Do” list?

A) I’ve always been attracted to stories that have an exotic ring to them. The latest project I hope to work on is to document the eunuchs of India (the hijras) during one of their most colorful festivals in India. I am scheduled to take classes in Final Cut, so perhaps I will slowly move away from the simple to the more complex.

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Want to nominate a deserving colleague, friend or inspirational figure to be highlighted in this series? Confidential nominations can be emailed to innovativeinteractivity@gmail.com on an ongoing basis. Self nominations are also welcome. A person will be featured every Friday, so look for the next “innovative individual” Friday, February 26th!

Other posts that might interest you:

• Innovative Individuals: Ehrin Macksey
• Innovative Individuals: Brent Foster
• Innovative Individuals: Poul Madsen

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