Reviews

Shutterbug Magazine's Joe Farace gave me an AWESOME review in their June 2009 print issue! Mr. Farace writes: "This month's Reader's Homepage belongs to Irene Abdou, a world-traveling photographer and Shutterbug reader whose base is Germantown, Maryland. The first thing you'll notice about Abdou's images are the eyes of the people she photographs. Most of the time, especially with children, they are full of warmth and trust. This says a lot about Abdou as a photographer and as a person. These people who she's photographed in the most Third World of countries look at her with affection and maybe hope; hope that her images will alert the world to their situation and maybe, just maybe, make us care enough to do something. Her images in the "Asia" portfolio will surprise many people who when they think "Asia" also think "Japan," but here she shows there is more to Asia than sophisticated economies such as Japan's. Her best images are not the traditional travel photographs that she occasionally attempts but potographs of people, especially children, who are captured with not only supreme technical skill but with extraordinary passion. This can be most strongly seen in Abdou's portfolios that feature topic-based, not geographic subjects. The wide-ranging images found in "Spirit of Humanity" represent a latter-day Family of Man collection of images of old and young people showing how the world outside our borders lives day-to-day. I'm guessing that for some readers this will come as a surprise. All of these images are captured with a surprising use of bright colors and occasionally seasoned with sepia-toned monochrome photographs that enter the portfolio as counterpoint. Before leaving the site, be sure to read "24 Hours in Dakar" for an illuminating mixture of text and photographs demonstrating what the life of a travel photography is really like. And nope, it's not about sipping martinis in a luxury lounge in the Sydney airport." Thank you, Joe!